A deft, lively, and highly readable history of the demise of the German way of war. As the allies found an antidote to the shock and awe approach of the Wehrmacht, the once mighty German army underwent an epic fall from remarkable operational victories to crushing operational defeats, forced to take on a defensive stance in a war it could never win.

For Hitler and the German military, 1942 was a key turning point of World War II, as an overstretched Wehrmacht replaced brilliant victories and territorial gains with stalemates and strategic retreats. This major reevaluation of that crucial yearn shows that the German army's emerging woes were rooted as much in its addiction to the "war of movement” as they were in Hitler's flawed management of the war.