With the Courage of Desperation: Germany'S Defence of the Southern Sector of the Eastern Front 1944–45 - Tapa dura

This volume covers events on the southern portion of the Eastern Front from July 1944, in the aftermath of the cataclysmic defeat of Heeresgruppe Mitte, through the Soviet drive to victory. Events covered include the retrograde fighting of 4th Panzer-Armee, the situation on the flanks of Heeresgruppe Nordukraine, operations around Lemberg, and the settling of positions along the line of the Vistula river. The Soviet drive through Romania against Heeresgruppe Sudukraine is described, leading up to the fall of Bucharest before the panorama moves into the Hungarian Puszta. The German attempts to stem the Soviet drive on Budapest, the Gran bridgehead and the last great German offensive of the war, Operation"Spring Awakening", are all recounted, as is the steady and inevitable final withdrawal and defeat of the remaining Axis forces as the Soviets pushed into Austria. The fall of both Budapest and Vienna are covered, before Hinze completes his study with the final battles in Austria and the area north of the Danube. Hinze's accounts are indispensable to any study of the decline and collapse of the German Eastern Front. There are no other detailed, comprehensive accounts in which the various individual narratives, unit histories and studies of individual battles may find their place in relation to the big picture. Hinze's maps alone would justify his works, for most of the unit histories, narratives and studies of individual battles lack maps illustrating their place in the larger geography of the war. The study is complemented by orders of battle, the aforementioned maps and photographs. Publication of With the Courage of Desperation completes Hinze's Eastern Front trilogy, and represents a keystone to our understanding of the Soviet-German War 1941-45.

Rolf Hinze, born in 1922 in eastern Germany, joined the 19th Artillery Regiment in Hanover in 1939. Following the Campaign in the West he joined military academy at Jutterborg. For the remainder of the war he served as a forward observation officer with the 19th Panzer Division. After the war he became a town magistrate before setting up in practise as a lawyer. He is deceased.