Word: wehrmacht
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Grim Order. Hitler's Wehrmacht had already goose-stepped over almost all of Europe and more than 700 miles into Russia when his elite Sixth Army and panzer units were sent to take Stalingrad in August 1942. As squadrons of Luftwaffe dive bombers darkened the skies above, German troops surged into the city and, toward the north, broke through to the Volga. But Stalin had issued a grim order: "Not one step backward." With their backs to the river's edge, the Russians dug in determinedly. They fought the invaders in the streets, factories and cellars for each...
...turning point of World War II, though the Allies' invasion of Normandy and the successful defense of Britain certainly rival it for the honor. In any case, its impact was as much psychological as military. The battle proved the fallibility of Hitler and the vincibility of the Wehrmacht, which up to then had enjoyed little but victory. The magnitude of the Russian victory-91,000 prisoners were taken, including a field marshal and 20 generals*-aroused the dormant hopes of the Allies and gave them new confidence...
Hitler's Wrath. Gehlen was a colonel on the General Staff in Russia in 1942 when the Wehrmacht suddenly ran into unexpected Soviet resistance. Gehlen was given the mission-until then largely ignored by the overconfident Germans-of assessing the capabilities of the Red Army. As chief of intelligence on the Eastern front, he quickly won a reputation for precise forecasting of Russian moves, but his predictions of Soviet victories so angered Hitler that he ordered Gehlen sent to an insane asylum...
Instead, Gehlen fled with the retreating Wehrmacht into the Bavarian Alps, where he cached away 50 steel cases of intelligence data on the Red Army. Reckoning that the wartime alliance of the U.S. and Soviets would soon crum ble, he greeted the victorious invading Americans with a proposal: his secrets in return for U.S. financial backing. The U.S. accepted and installed Gehlen and his wartime staff in a heavily guarded compound near Munich that had formerly served as headquarters of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. There, behind double rows of concrete walls and steel fences, Gehlen plotted some...
STAUFFENBERG, by Joachim Kramarz. A distinguished biography of the aristocratic Wehrmacht officer who led the attempt to kill Hitler and overthrow Nazism...