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The Wehrmacht: The German Army of World War II, 1939-1945. By Tim Ripley. The Great Armies series. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2003. 352p. $95 (ISBN 1-57958-312-1).
Part of the new Great Armies series from Fitzroy Dearborn, this one-volume source helps fill a gap in military history reference: an objective analysis of how the regular German Army became such an elite force in World War II. (As a note, the title could be slightly misleading to the nonexpert. The Wehrmacht and the "German Army" are not equivalents. The Wehrmacht encompassed the whole of the German armed forces, of which the regular army was a major branch known as the Heer.)
Objectively analyzing this fighting force can stretch beyond the comfort zone of even military scholars since it was associated with perhaps the most oppressive regime of human history. However, author Tim Ripley asserts that, though a firm connection existed between the army and Nazism, the typical German soldier placed nationhood above political philosophy-hence, the stubborn resistance of the army to the end, even when the fascist order had clearly fallen.
Ripley, who has published several other military works, formulates Wehrmacht's four narrative...