Book description
On 2 August 1944, in the wake of the complete destruction of the
German Army Group Centre in Belorussia, Winston Churchill mocked Adolf
Hitler in the House of Commons by the rank he had reached in the First
World War. 'Russian success has been somewhat aided by the strategy of
Herr Hitler, of Corporal Hitler,' Churchill jibed. 'Even
military idiots find it difficult not to see some faults in his
actions.'
Andrew Roberts's previous book Masters and Commanders studied
the creation of Allied grand strategy; Beating Corporal Hitler
now analyses how Axis strategy evolved. Examining the Second World War
on every front, Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-making
process and a different strategy, the Axis might even have won. Were
those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler after the war
correct, or were they merely scapegoating their former F hrer once he
was safely beyond defending himself?
In researching this uniquely vivid history of the Second World War
Roberts has walked many of the key battlefield and wartime sites of
Russia, France, Italy, Germany and the Far East. The book is full of
illuminating sidelights on the principle actors that bring their
characters and the ways in which they reached decisions into fresh focus.
Andrew Roberts's
Masters and
Commanders was one of the most acclaimed, bestselling history books of
2008. His previous books include
Salisbury: Victorian Titan
(1999), which won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver
Pen Award for Non-Fiction,
Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of
Leadership
(2003), which coincided with four-part BBC2 history series. He is one of
Britain's most prominent journalists and broadcasters.
