Erich von Manstein

Sturgeon Catch 1942: The Siege of Sevastopol

by Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

By late October 1941, the armies of the Third Reich had swept deep into western Soviet Russia. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Breaching the Blue Line: The Soviet Army at the Taman Peninsula

By Victor Kamenir

The charred remains of men and machines scattered through the Kursk salient in July 1943 signified the death knell of the last attempt by the German Wehrmacht to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front. Read more

Erich von Manstein

The Thunder of Operation Gallop

By Pat McTaggart

As Adolf Hitler’s vaunted Sixth Army lay in its death throes in the ruins of Stalingrad, German forces to the west of the city faced their own kind of hell. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Leningrad & Tikhvin: Nazi Winter Repulse During Operation Barbarossa

By Pat Mc Taggart

The men of Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb’s Heeresgruppe Nord (Army Group North) had little sleep during the night of June 21, 1941. Read more

Erich von Manstein

World War I Doughboys’ Bloody Baptism

As the fateful day drew to a close, the exhausted World War I soldiers of the German 25th and 82nd Reserve Divisions huddled in their trenches. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Escape from Kirovograd

By Pat Mactaggart

The waning months of 1943 were a bleak time for the German forces in southern Russia. Since the massive battle at Kursk in July, the Red Army had pushed the armies of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South hundreds of kilometers to the west. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Operation Winter Storm: Manstein’s Attempted Relief of Stalingrad

By R. Jeff Chrisman

It was November 24, 1942. Speeding across the snow-covered landscape of eastern Ukraine, the personal command train of German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein was on its way to the southern Russian city of Novocherkassk, where he would take up his new assignment as commander of Army Group Don. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Otto von Knobelsdorff: Panzer Commander

By Harry Yeide

While many in the English-speaking world have heard of Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian, few today know the name of Otto von Knobelsdorff, a German panzer general who commanded troops in battles every bit as pivotal as his contemporaries did, in quantity and quality, and who also fought against General George S. Read more

Erich von Manstein

The Battle of Kiev: How it Brought About an End to Nazi Terror

By Pat McTaggart

It was less than a month since the great blood letting in the Orel salient in July 1943 had taken place, and just some months to go before the infamous Second Battle of Kiev. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’s Drive to the Don

By Pat McTaggart

Rostov was the key to the Caucasus and the rich Soviet oil fields that lay along the Black and Caspian Seas. Read more

Erich von Manstein

The Wehrmacht in France: Decisions in a Time of Debacle

By Brooke C. Stoddard

May 10, 1940, marked the beginning of the war in western Europe. Nazi-controlled Germany invaded Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Romania’s Disaster at Stalingrad

By Tom W. Murrey, Jr.

World War II involved some of the most complex alliance systems in the history of warfare. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Death of the Ternopil Garrison

By Pat McTaggart

The city of Ternopil, located on the eastern bank of the Seret River, was founded in 1540 as a Polish military stronghold. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Heinz Guderian: Author of the Blitzkrieg

By Phil Zimmer

Hitler was enraged as he stalked his way around the room during the waning months of World War II. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Stalingrad: Apocalypse on the Volga

By John Walker

After Adolf Hitler’s audacious invasion of Russia finally ground to a halt in December 1941 on the forested outskirts of Moscow, the exhausted German Army stabilized its winter front in a line running roughly from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Panzer Group 4: The March to Leningrad

By Pat McTaggart

Adolf Hitler was obsessed with Leningrad. When planning his invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer demanded that the capture of the city, which he regarded as the cradle of Bolshevism, be one of the top priorities of the campaign, giving it precedence over the capture of Moscow. Read more

Erich von Manstein

The Battle of Kursk: Showdown at Prokhorovka and Oboian

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

With the German Sixth Army destroyed at Stalingrad, the Soviet juggernaut lunged west and southwest across the River Donets. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Battle for the Ore Deposits: The Red Army vs. Nazi Germany

By Pat McTaggart

At first, it was all about the ore. Magnesium, iron, and manganese ore were the lifeblood of German industry, especially the armaments industry, which used the iron and manganese to produce steel for Hitler’s war machine. Read more

Erich von Manstein

WWII Ordnance: The Marauding Marder

By William E. Welsh

On the second day of Adolf Hitler’s bold invasion of Russia in June 1941, the Germans were confronted with one of their most glaring shortcomings in weapons and armament. Read more

Erich von Manstein

Night Jump into Tragedy

By Victor Kamenir

In August 1943, immediately after the Battle of Kursk, the Red Army launched a series of follow up operations, resulting in the liberation of a large swath of Nazi-occupied Soviet territory. Read more