For anyone interested in the German method of warfare, or for those that just enjoy a good operational history, Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942 (Modern War Studies)ranks among the best of today's scholarship. Conventional wisdom has long posited Hitler played the crucial role in turning Germany's stupendous victories during the spring and summer of 1942, in the Soviet Union and North African Desert, into catastrophic defeat in the fall and winter of that same year.
Few would argue with the assertion Erich von Manstein ranked among the best operational level military commanders of the Second World War, if not the best. Nevertheless, because of Manstein's decisions during and after the War, he also ranks among the War's most controversial figures. In spite of Manstein's central role in the War however, there has been no official biography written about him. In Field Marshal von Manstein: The Janus Head / A Portrait noted military historian Marcel Stein tackles this void in the scholarship on the War.
