German Defeat/Red Victory: Change and Continuity in Western and Russian Accounts of June-December 1941
Journal: Research Online (University of Wollongong)
Year: 2018

The second half of 1941 has become a major focus in the writing of the history of the Nazi-Soviet War in the English-speaking and Russian-speaking worlds. For decades, historians outside of the Soviet Union tended to view 1941 as more of a German defeat brought about by Hitler’s mistakes and the weather rather than a Red victory brought about mainly by the resistance of the Soviet state, army and people. The reverse was true in the Soviet Union where historians explained the German failure to ca