This is the third in the comprehensive ten-volume Germany and the Second World War. The five volumes so far published in German take the story to the end of 1941, and have achieved international acclaim as a major contribution to historical study. Under the auspices of the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Research Institute for Military History), a team of renowned historians has combined a full synthesis of existing material with the latest research to produce what will be the definitive history of the Second World War.
Volume 3 explores the conduct of the war in the Mediterranean region and examines the dramatic military events of this period. It shows how German policy in this area was largely determined by the attitude of the German leadership, especially Hitler, towards Mussolini's Italy, and the volume thus sheds important new light on the alliance policy of theThird Reich. The comprehensive analysis, based on detailed scholarly research, is underpinned by a full apparatus of maps, diagrams, and tables.
Intensively researched and documented, Germany and the Second World War is an undertaking of unparalleled scope and authority. It will prove indispensable to all historians of the twentieth century.
Part 1 Political and military developments inthe mediterranean area, 1939-1941, Gerhard Schreiber: Mussolini's "non-belligerence; Italy's entry into the war; the strategic dilemma of the summer and autumn of 1940 - an alternativr or interim strategy?; ideas of German ruling circles concerning a colonial empire. Part 2 Germany, Italy and South-East Europe - from political and economic hegemony to military aggression, Gerhard Schreiber: unequal heirs of World War I; German and Italian policy towards the states of South-East Europe; Mussolini's invasion of Greece - the beginning of the end of Italy's great-power status. Part 3 German intervention in the Balkans, Detlef Vogel: Germany's Balkan policy in the autumn of 1940 and the spring of 1941; from the coup in Yugoslavia to the outbreak of war on 6 April 1941; the German attack on Yugoslavia and Greece; the capture of Crete. Part 4 Politics and warfare in 1941, Gerhard Schreiber: the Anglo-American association and its consequences for British strategy; Hitler's strategic deliberations in connection with the attack on the Soviet Union. Part 5 The Italo-German conduct of the war in the Mediterranean and North Africa, Bernd Stegemann: the British take the offensive in North and East Africa; German intervention and its effects on the naval and air war in the Mediterranean; the reconquest of Cyrenaica and the failure of the attacks on Tobruk; the fighting on the Sollum front; the naval and air war in the Mediterranean and supplies for the North African theatre; Operation Crusader.
