{"product_id":"battle-for-the-ruhr-the-german-armys-final-defeat-in-the-west-modern-war-studies-9780700614905","title":"Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West (Modern War Studies)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith Allied armies poised on the banks of the Rhine  Nazi Germany tottered on the brink of collapse. The ensuing battles on German soilespecially those in the so-called Ruhr Pocketwere as fierce and hard-fought as any in the European theater. Going well beyond previous accounts  Derek Zumbro chronicles this key military campaign from a unique and fresh perspectivethat of the defeated German soldiers and civilians caught in the final maelstrom of the wars western front.  Best known for his translation of In Deadly Combat  the bestselling World War II memoir  Zumbro chronicles the relentless assault on the Ruhr Pocket through German eyes  as the Allied juggernaut battered the regions cities  villages  and homes into submission. He tells of children pressed into service by a desperate Nazi regime-and of even more desperate parents trying to save their sons from sacrifice at the eleventh hour. He also tells of unspeakable conditions suffered by foreign laborers  POWs  and political opponents in the Ruhr Valley and of the mass graves that gave Allied soldiers a grisly new understanding of their enemy.  Zumbro also recounts the story of Field Marshal Walter Models final hours. His eventual suicide effectively ended the existence of the Wehrmachts once-formidable Army Group B after being pursued  methodically encircled  and finally destroyed by U.S. and British forces. Through interviews with surviving members of Models former staff  Zumbro has uncovered the attitudes-and harrowing experiences-of beleaguered officers that official records could never convey.  Other interviews with former soldiers reveal the extent to which Allied bombing contributed to the rapid deterioration of German combat effectiveness and tell of civilians begging soldiers to abandon the war. Zumbros deep research reveals the identities of specific characters discussed in previous works but never identified  describes the final hours of German officers executed for the loss of the bridge at Remagen  and offers new insight into Models acquiescence to Hitler in military affairs.  By taking us inside the first-hand experiences and memories of Germans from Reichsmarshals to Burgermeisters  Battle for the Ruhr gives a profound and harrowing ground-level view of the enormous destructive power of war.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45657440256053,"sku":"ByrdShop_0700614907","price":21.78,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780700614905.jpg?v=1782039883","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/battle-for-the-ruhr-the-german-armys-final-defeat-in-the-west-modern-war-studies-9780700614905","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}