Images of Barbarossa: The German Invasion of Russia, 1941

by Christopher Ailsby

Release Date: January, 2001

Edition: Hardcover

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Maps???

While the book has an impressive collection of good photographs, the text is often dry and difficult to follow. The author seems to assume excellent knowledge of Russian geography, providing only one map in the entire book! How can he pretend to explain the complex tactics and strategies of Barbarrosa without maps? On the other hand, the book is well organized, the photographs do illustrate important points, and the intro and conclusions chapters are good. Furthermore, the chapter on the racial war is very appropriate. It's easy to forget that those rearguard atrocities were part of the most remarkable campaign in the history of warfare.

Not worth it

I picked this book up looking for a good overview of Barbarossa with a lot of pictures. Well, there are a lot of pictures. However, if you want a good overview of the Operation, look elsewhere. There are almost no maps, so the author's narrative of events becomes very abstract for those who haven't memorized Russian geography. The narrative itself is not bad, but is rather dry. As for the pictures, which should be the crowning jewel of this book, there are almost none from the Russian perspective. The author's personal collection was used, and appears to be entirely German. The few pictures he inserts of Russians who are not not captured, shot, or blown up, come from elsewhere. The book should more appropriately be called "German Images of Barabarossa." I recommend Osprey's Ostfront for a more well-rounded, better written and visially appelaing introduction to Barbarossa.