Marshal Zhukov: The Man Who Beat Hitler (review)

The author/editor has provided the reader with a useful compilation of quotations arranged more or less in chronological order concerning Marshal Zhukov. Many come from Zhukov's publications. Others come from a wide variety of "experts." There is little formal documentation. Internal documentation is frequent, "x says" and often "x admits," which brought forth memories of Progress Publisher translations of Soviet works in the Cold War era. The Russian equivalent of "admit" has numerous shades of meaning and the Russian translators hopefully meant corroborated rather then admitted. The author has relied almost exclusively on secondary sources. One of the dangers is that the works are often unreliable. For example, Hitler is quoted as saying that Kursk would be a torch, a statement that makes no sense. In fact, the German word used is more adequately translated as fiery message.

The author suffers from the belief in the infallibility of his subject. Zhukov never made a mistake, according to the author, but this belief is derived from Zhukov's publications, which were heavily censored. Zhukov was well aware of his shortcomings if one reads carefully, but the Communist Party would never permit him to describe them openly. The early editions of his memoirs faithfully follow the party line.

On the basis of an interview with a Russian military historian, the author accuses Colonel David Glantz of falsifying data in his book, Zhukov's Greatest Defeat, on the Mars operation. I have studied the Glantz book carefully and found no details that were not in agreement with official Soviet data and orders of battle.

One or two failures would not destroy Zhukov's reputation, to the contrary, they probably provided lessons which led to greater victories. Perhaps the lessons learned of the efficiency of the German defense in depth in the Mars operation provided Zhukov with the skill to construct the elaborate defense in depth at Kursk the following year that frustrated the German attackers.

To fully appreciate this book one must have a very solid knowledge of the war on the Eastern front. The author jumps from one time to another with very little in the way of explanation or transition. Evidently the copy editor in desperation added blank lines between some paragraphs. For example, on page 106 the author quotes from the diary of a Rumanian soldier in late November 1942, then moves to summer 1942 with a quotation from Adolf Hitler, and then jumps forward to planning in early November 1942 in a short paragraph which ends with a false statement that the German Army was running out of food and killing its horses. The latter statement referred to the Sixth Army in late December 1942, not November before the battle of Stalingrad commenced. All of this is petty detail but a reader without background could misinterpret the facts.

The book does provide some additional insight into Zhukov's character. The material on Zhukov's personal life and the photos were new to me. His role as a loving husband to two wives and a father does emerge. The description of his difficulties after the war are the strongest part of the narrative.

The book makes interesting reading for the World War II buff but does not qualify as serious scholarship.