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Author Topic: Arnhem book recommendation  (Read 29153 times)

Offline Hoagie

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  • Posts: 100
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Re: Arnhem book recommendation
« Reply #15 on: 03 June 2025, 02:00:08 PM »
It's very readable and for many years was THE source for the German perspective. Sadly, more recent research has overtaken a lot of the asserted "facts". This is especially so with regards to the OoB. I encountered this when researching the German formations for MG; there would be a contradiction here or conflicting sources. The best I can offer is this:

https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/6892/blogpost/138642/it-never-stops-snowing-the-historiography-of-opera

If you look at the German OoB you will find all sorts of issues and often it's not clear in Kershaw that this is so; but then he wrote it a while ago. Better research has become available. For example Michael Zwarts examined RAF photos of the Arnhem bridge and enlarged them to identify individual vehicles. It's possible to recreate part of the composition of Graebner's unit - BUT we still don't know if he was in a Humber armoured car or scout car. One veteran refers to it and that it was tipped over the bridge.

Due to the ad-hoc nature of many of the German formations, we cannot be 100% certain of their composition and thoughts on who had what are changing over time.
It's worth getting, but don't take it as the final word.
Neil


Thank you Neil, that link was exactly what I was looking for. I can live with it not  being the most recent scholarship, I was afraid it was going to be a Stephen Ambrose kind of problem where you have to be very wary about what's being presented as fact  lol

Offline Harry Faversham

  • Galactic Brain
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Re: Arnhem book recommendation
« Reply #16 on: 04 June 2025, 10:02:55 AM »
What threw me about 'It Never Snows in December' was one of the personal accounts. It was taken from Zeno's 'The Cauldron', about a flamethrower attack in Oosterbeek. Zeno's book is a novel, this made me doubt the accuracy, of the other personal accounts.
 ???
"Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

"I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

 

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