375 pp. "Stalin had three armies of shock troops advance and directed them precisely into the backbone of Army Group Center, which appeared to have been driven out of it positions after a few days. This brilliant plan was opposed by a few fixed positions and resistance groups. One of them was Cholm (then still in Army Group North's position), which held out under Generalmajor Scherer for 104 days. Velish and Toropez, Demidov and Vitebsk, Novosokolniki and Vilikiye Luki also held out against a vastly superior war machine and brought the waves of Soviet tanks to a standstill. In Deadlock Before Moscow, renowned military historian Franz Kurowski uses eyewitness accounts and war diaries to explain for the first time these mighty, often unbelievable deeds, that unfold before the reader with all their gripping drama. In the bitter cold of winter, fighting took place at fixed positions that many who experience the war in Russia will agree was the bitterest, hardest, most merciless of all. Without sufficient winter clothing, with truck and tank engines freezing again and again, with their bread glistening with frost, not knowing whether they would survive another night in the open, often surrounded by partisans, encircled, breaking loose again--this was the fate of the battle groups and units when the Red Army tried to destroy them." Includes black-and-white photographs. KEYWORDS: SECOND WORLD WAR TWO WWII WW2 MILITARY HISTORY GERMAN GERMANY RUSSIA RUSSIAN ARMY GROUP CENTRE CENTER DEADLOCK BEFORE MOSCOW 1942 1943 FRANZ KUROWSKI
