Robert Kershaw (1) (1950–)

Dünkirchen 1940 by Robert Kershaw is a fascinating look at the battle and iconic (to the Allies) evacuation at Dunkirk through the eyes of the German.

Most history, especially popular history written for general readership, is presented from the perspective of the eventual winners. Even battles they lost are presented through a victorious lens. It is always interesting to get the other side of the story. Not just a couple of quotes to highlight the winner's version, but an actual account of the events from another perspective. That is what Kershaw offers the reader here.

What makes this of even greater interest is that the iconic evacuation was accompanied by, to Allied eyes, a curious strategical (perceived) error. By having a fuller picture from the German side, we learn the answers to our questions as well as a better understanding of what the larger plan was supposed to be.

The writing helps to make this not only an informative read but an enjoyable one as well. I always appreciate a writer who pays as much attention to engaging the reader as to presenting the facts.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (más)

While I appreciate Robert Kershaw's attempt to present an intimate and focused narrative of the US D-Day landings at Omaha Beach, both the organization of the book's contents and the prose of the story itself conspired to hinder my enjoyment of it. Without delving too deeply into an expansive review, I will note the following points which stayed with me through the reading:

1) The author's attempt to chronicle the timeline of the landing's first twenty-four hours by breaking down chapters and sections into blocks of time came off as feeling forced. Furthermore, it muddied the writing by restricting certain events to specific sections of the book, but did not at all help the continuity of the story. There are many other viable narrative structures that could have worked (theme, emotion, locale, perspective), but this one plainly did not.

2) Kershaw's writing is plagued by tautology and jargon. His constant repetition of actions, explanations, and definitions throughout the book is arrantly distracting, and is directly a product of the book's organization, as described above. The editing is also poor, with numerous spelling errors and an unforgivable lack of consistency with how commas are used. All of this made for some pretty frustrating reading.

3) Similarly, there are no interstitials between the accounts of Axis, Allies, or civilians, which creates confusion as each paragraph jumps back-and-forth from perspective to perspective. There were several times when I had to go back and pore through previous sections to figure out whom the author was "inhabiting" in a given scene – especially when some of the American soldiers happened to have had Germanic surnames.

4) The memorable details one might expect from a narrative with an itemized dramatis personae (Kershaw's "voices") are oddly devoid of character. Though it's obvious that the author spent vast amounts of time reading over first-person accounts of the landings from three sides, there is a distinct lack of individualism in the story – which informs his inability to empathetically and compellingly portray the human condition during this most incredible of days.

5) Kershaw's use of these first-person accounts is, disappointingly, ineffective. There are countless descriptive paragraphs that are first interrupted and then deflated by the insertion of unnecessary quotations from veterans of the event. Whether or not this is meant to add an air of authenticity to the story, it only serves to hinder the author's narrative voice and dull down the flow of the tale. Kershaw actively uses quotations to impede his own process; there are far too many of these when his own words would have done more effectively.

6) There is no measure of analysis whatsoever. Kershaw is so glaringly not a military historian that Landing on the Edge of Eternity leaves one quite sure there are far better accounts of the D-Day experience to consult. His only analytical question is a rhetorical one in the epilogue: "can this be judged as defeat or failure?" Spoiler: he claims that the answer is both, but we are not given much evidence in either direction.

I greatly respect the fact that the author is a long-time military veteran. Despite this and his rather extensive body of work in the field of military history, however, I am uninterested in exploring more of his work.… (más)

This is a great book for the student of military history. The US/British histories make much of their might and skills while not really saying much of anything about the German Army other than the usual anti-Nazi rants. This book gives you the trench level view of the battle for Arnhem from the German side of the line. The source material is taken from unit and personal diaries of German soldiers. You get a good look at the organizational skills and staff work that goes into a battle and are able to follow a number of soldiers through the battle.

It is not for the casual reader however. Kershaw assumes that you are already quite familiar with MARKET-GARDEN, and, like John Keegan, European geography. And, he only presents the German point-of-view but, since that is what the book is all about, that is fine. However, if you are only passingly familiar with MARKET-GARDEN, I suggest reading Cornelius Ryan’s A Bridge Too Far first. That should be all the background you need. An optional extra would be a good map of (WWII) Holland.

I have been reading books on WWII for 25 years, so I have seen the same pictures printed over and over in various books and games. However, this book contains at least 100 pictures, none of which you likely will have ever seen before. As far as I can tell, they are all from German Army archives and personal collections. The down side, and this may have more to do with this being a reprint edition, is that the photos are of pretty poor quality. Many look like photocopies of a newspaper photo. But they are new and give some good scenes.

My one knock on the book (and this is common to most books of this genre) is the maps. They are dreadful and misplaced. There are 8 or so color glossy maps grouped in the center of the book. This placement isn’t great, but I understand the realities of printing books of this type, especially these small run books, so I can live with that. But other criticisms:

* The maps appear to be only vaguely in chronological order (i.e., there are a few that are out of order, so you don’t discover them until you passed the section they illustrate. And with a topic this complex, that is more than a little vexing).
* The scale varies from map to map, sometimes greatly. Most maps have no legend, so there is no easy way to figure this out. Also, without any guidance, it is hard to find the locations you are interested in. This is where knowledge of WWII Holland’s geography would be useful.
* The icons used were very odd. I have seen a lot of military maps and I still had a lot of trouble orienting and following these.

There are a bunch of other maps scattered about in the book, but in black and white, and they were mostly useless.

That criticism aside, I highly recommend this book. Especially for those who you who may have fallen under the sway of too much Stephan Ambrose cheerleading. Especially in the aftermath of the BAND OF BROTHER miniseries. In Ambrose’s writing, the American Army is the best trained, led and equipped force ever and they crushed the German Army just as everyone knew they would. That view is inaccurate, the American Army of 1944 would have had its ass handed to it by the German Army of 1942. And there was great uncertainty at the time as to the outcome of the invasion of Europe. But that isn’t (fortunately) what we got to fight. The strength of the Wehrmacht had been bled white by the Russians by this time. Most of the serious fighting on the Western front was done by scratch units, NCO schools, Ostwehr, etc. And these formations were usually thrown into the fray before their training was complete and were equipped with whatever was available.

But, as this book points out, they shouldn’t be discounted in their abilities. One part of me would like to see what would happen if the armies met on more equal terms, but I am glad we never found out.… (más)