Dunkirk: The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler

by Norman Gelb

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688077935
• ISBN13: 9780688077938
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Superb Coverage of The Events At Dunkirk in 1940!

This is a book that entertainingly presents the events surrounding the stunning German victory and the surprisingly facile defeat of the French army in a few short weeks in late Spring 1940, and the equally spectacular evacuation of the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the shores of Dunkirk in a desperate and decisive effort to save what was left of the British forces to fight another day. This book by Norman Gelb provides a comprehensive overview of those horrific events, and also illustrates the manifest effect the battle on the long sandy beaches was having on the balance of world transfixed by these monumental events.After all, the Wehrmacht had by this point nearly completed its masterful conquest of the French, Belgian, and British forces, outflanking, outfighting, and out-maneuvering their opponents to the point of exhaustion and capitulation. In less than three full weeks, the Nazis had accomplished what appeared to be the most extraordinary military campaign of in modern history, and had overrun most of France, Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium. The coup de grace would have seemed to have been the ultimate destruction of what remained of the formidable BEF on the beaches of Dunkirk and in its surrounding surf, where the disorganized and demoralized Brits waded toward the most outrageously pitiful armada of small boats and other vessels ever assembled. Meanwhile, the Nazis chose to dither, to engage themselves otherwise, and to ultimately squander their chance to make an eventual victory over England much more probable. Yet the true contribution of the book is not simply to be found in its wonderfully readable description of the evacuation of the BEF at Dunkirk and the reasons the Germans let it happen. Instead, it is his skillful ability to place these events in the context of a wildly overconfident Nazi hierarchy who appears to have been so over-impressed by their easy victory that they made the same kind of careless assumption about the British fighting spirit and their own invincibility that they made about the Russians the next summer. In essence, they forgot the lessons of history, and, believing their own press releases, were content to watch the desperate comedy of the BEF evacuation as if it made no difference. This was, of course, a very costly mistake, for which they paid quite dearly later. This is a wonderful book, one that shows the strategic import of the Dunkirk rescue along a startling variety of avenues. Therefore, while in essence this is the detailed description of one of the most celebrated escapes in history, it is also the story of how this particular defeat and the moment of uncertainty facing the Wehrmacht found them lacking in imagination and proper regard for their enemies. By underestimating the ability of the British to regroup and rearm, by misunderstanding just how willful and indefatigable they would become, the Nazis, at the moment of their greatest victory, began sowing the seeds of t