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Rating: 
Summary: the best!
Review: do you enjoy reading about the german army and WWII? because if you do then you'd LOVE this book. It talks about how the germans manuvered and routed several russian armies. It is constantly maving and very hair raising.
Rating: 
Summary: A Revealing Example, A Gem
Review: Mr. Newton's compilation translation of Ost Front tactics was quite good. Descriptions of tactics in a wide varity of situations and locations , both on offense and increasingly on defense, are included. These are not broad, sweeping action reports,but rather on the divisional level and below by largely unsung "heroes" of the eventually defeated forces of the Wehrmacht. The resourcefulness and determination of these leaders gives a birds' eye view as to why Germany nearly won the war with Russia and, perhaps more importantly, why it took Russia over two years after Stalingrad to defeat them. Along with General Raus' narrative recently published, one can now grasp the desperate but brilliantly organized actions prosecuted by the Wehrmacht on the Ost Front. I highly reccommend this work to focused students of military history, but only to them. It is far too dry for casual reading.
Rating:
Summary: Good book marred by bad copy editing
Review: This book provides valuable insights into German corps and divisional command decisions on the Eastern Front. Each chapter was written by a different general, as part of the US Army's efforts to tap this resource for information shortly after the war.Newton has retranslated these, offers corrections to the orignal translations (that apparently were done by Army officers with only a very basic command of the German language), and gets these manuscripts out of dusty archives and into publication. Simply making these available to a wide audience is valuable. Newton goes further, however, by providing useful footnotes throughout the chapters. I rate the book 4 stars instead of 5 because of the very large number of typos in the book. Most of these are quite jarring. For example, in one instance the word "be" is rendered as "e". I do not fault Newton necessarily (although he is ultimately responsible for these sorts of errors), but rather Schiffer Press which I do not think offers much, if any, support for authors in terms of editing and copy editing. I have several other books from Schiffer by other authors and there are similar problems. Schiffer has interesting books in its catalog, but it clearly is a "crank-em-out-and-they'll-buy-'em" press.
Rating:
Summary: Good book marred by bad copy editing
Review: This book provides valuable insights into German corps and divisional command decisions on the Eastern Front. Each chapter was written by a different general, as part of the US Army's efforts to tap this resource for information shortly after the war. Newton has retranslated these, offers corrections to the orignal translations (that apparently were done by Army officers with only a very basic command of the German language), and gets these manuscripts out of dusty archives and into publication. Simply making these available to a wide audience is valuable. Newton goes further, however, by providing useful footnotes throughout the chapters. I rate the book 4 stars instead of 5 because of the very large number of typos in the book. Most of these are quite jarring. For example, in one instance the word "be" is rendered as "e". I do not fault Newton necessarily (although he is ultimately responsible for these sorts of errors), but rather Schiffer Press which I do not think offers much, if any, support for authors in terms of editing and copy editing. I have several other books from Schiffer by other authors and there are similar problems. Schiffer has interesting books in its catalog, but it clearly is a "crank-em-out-and-they'll-buy-'em" press.
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