Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941

This is a tightly-focused collection of eleven essays. Ten deal with Axis policy in the Soviet Union in the first six months of the Second World War. The odd chapter out might seem to be that of Thomas Laub, which is about occupied France; this piece, however, functions as a contrast to developments in the East (it also shows how these developments eventually influenced the French situation). The editors’ decision to consider both aspects of Operation Barbarossa—military operations and occupation policy—was undoubtedly correct. David Stahel outlines the major developments of the early campaign and argues that the German army was already struggling by August 1941. Adrian Wettstein covers the little-discussed theme of urban warfare, although prolonged fighting in built-up areas was not convincingly a major feature of German operations in the USSR in 1941. Felix Römer’s chapter is also on the ‘military’ side of the story; he discusses in general the familiar story of the Wehrmacht’s ‘criminal orders’, but especially the Commissar Order

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