The Cambridge Companion to the Nazi-Soviet War

The Nazi-Soviet War was the largest and most brutal theatre of the Second World War fought between two of the most ruthless states ever to exist. Bringing together twenty-four of the most accomplished authors in both German and Soviet history this Cambridge Companion provides the most authoritative and yet highly accessible guide to the conflict. Each chapter examines a key aspect of the war from war planning the opposing forces and the campaigns to criminality and occupation alliances the home fronts and postwar legacies and myth-making. The authors demonstrate that the Nazi-Soviet war was both a conventional clash of arms in which millions of soldiers fought in titanic battles but also a non-conventional war in which soldiers and security forces murdered countless non-combatants. It was a war of resources industry mobilisation administration and popular support with implications that still drive European security debates today.