Barbarossa

How Hitler Lost the War

By Jonathan Dimbleby

Published by Viking/Penguin
RRP $35.00 in paperback | ISBN 9780241979181

This work by the renowned writer Jonathan Dimbleby has been variously described as ‘the best single-volume account of the Barbarossa campaign to date’ (Andrew Roberts) and a ‘fast-paced gripping read’ (Julia Boyd).

Barbarossa is the code name for Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, which Dimbleby describes as the ‘biggest, bloodiest and most barbarous military enterprise in the history of warfare’.

With this plan, Hitler hoped to annihilate the Soviet Union and become master of Europe’s destiny, his ultimate aim to establish the Thousand Year Reich.

This fatal overreach saw him postpone plans to invade England while he concentrated on taking the Soviet Union first.

Using a vast array of sources, Dimbleby delivers a detailed yet highly readable account of the geopolitical environment which led ultimately to Hitler’s disastrous decision to invade the Soviet Union and the subsequent military engagements that ended in defeat for the German army.

VERDICT: He has skilfully used eyewitness accounts to bring the story of this brutal campaign to life.