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Hitler's Volkssturm: The Nazi Militia and the Fall of Germany, 1944-1945. By David K. Yelton. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. ISBN 0-7006-1192-4. Maps. Photographs. Appendix of statistical tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xix, 305. $39.95.
Although the Volkssturm failed in its immediate goals of fanaticizing the German home front and helping to stalemate the war militarily, David K. Yelton argues convincingly that a detailed study of this militia illuminates several broader issues regarding Nazi Germany in the last year of the war. Typically dismissed as an incoherent and ineffective attempt by the Nazis to delay their inevitable defeat, few scholars have taken an in-depth look at the Volkssturm, despite the fact that the final months of the war required much heavy fighting and resulted in startlingly high casualties. In part, this neglect resulted from the difficulty in researching a topic where the primary source record was fragmentary, where records existed at the national, state, and local levels, and where relevant information was often buried in the files of other agencies. Just as important, though, was the belief that this was a hastily improvised force of little...