Oklahoma Books

Forget all the traditional, "standard" histories of Barbarossa you've ever read -- the ones which simply repeat the same tired reasons why Germany lost, ad infinitum and ad nauseum. R.H.S. Stolfi has written a work which presents a completely new view of Barbarossa, and the real possibilities of the German Army to win the European-wide war in 1941.

Basically what Stolfi contends is that the Germans had the force and the battle-winning tactics to defeat the Soviet Union, if only they'd done things alittle differently. Stolfi puts the spotlight on Hitler's decision, made during August, 1941, to divert the bulk of Army Group Center's panzers south into the Ukraine, instead of resuming the offensive on Moscow. Such a decision, which was severely contested by many of his generals, both in the Army High Command (OKH) and in the field forces, lost the Germans the initiative, gave the Soviets a breathing space of 3+ months to recover in front of Moscow, and threw away the best chance the Germans had of defeating the USSR.

Stolfi maintains that an uninterrupted drive on Moscow would have taken that city by the end of August. The facts he presents to bolster this view are, from what I can see even from his fiercest critics, beyond question. Stolfi points out that, by mid-July with the seizure of Smolensk (July 15th) and the bottling up of another vast host of Soviet forces west of that city, the Soviets had lost eight of the nine field armies within their Western Special Military District (which roughly corresponded to German Army Group Center's area of operation), and had relatively meager forces organized to meet the German onslaught. Stolfi estimates the total Soviet strength at about 35 divisions (only 22 of which where complete -- the rest being bits and pieces of other units, many already badly "roughed up" by the German attack). Against this weak force, Army Group Center could deploy all 55 units they began the campaign with (and at almost their authorized strengths -- so light had been German losses at that point), along with 3 to 5 divisions from their general reserve which von Bock wanted to throw in. That this force would have disposed of the remaining Soviet forces before Moscow is not in doubt. And based on proven German capabilities up to that point, Stolfi estimates it would have taken only three weeks to close the pincers on Moscow and seize that city (with alittle longer to destroy the trapped Russian forces in the pocket west of Moscow).

Some critics of Stolfi, unable to dispute this, have still gone back to the tired old refrain of "vast reserves" that somehow would have rallied to stop the Germans east of Moscow, and even suggest the German occupation of that city might have been short-lived. The problem with that argument is that, at the time of Stolfi's projected attack, almost no reserves had been built up in the area east-northeast of Moscow (what Stolfi terms the "Moscow-Gorki Mobilization Space")! By late July the Soviets were pouring all reserves into the region WEST of Moscow in a last-ditch attempt to protect the capital. Once the Soviet command realized the Germans weren't going to make that last 350 km "pounce" on Moscow immediately, and instead had directed much of their forces south into the Ukraine, did they start building up a reserve north-northeast of Moscow. And the fact is that it took them from August to early December to assemble an force of roughly 15 field armies (each field army being roughly equivalent to a German corps) from which to launch a counter-offensive on December 5th, after the German's Operation Typhoon had petered out. Stolfi's contention is that such a hypothetical German advance through Moscow and perhaps as far east as Gorki would have completely STILLBORN Russian attempts to utilize their "vast reserves". Not only would the physical areas for concentration have been denied the Russians, but most of the population centers from which the reservists and conscripts came from (especially Moscow, the largest city in the USSR) would have been in German hands.

Contrary to some critics, Stolfi doesn't conclude the Germans WOULD have won the Russo-German war had they followed this course, only that they would have given themselves the best opportunity to win. Whether the Germans could have successfully followed-up the seizure of the Western Special Military District is, of course, open to argument. But what Stolfi demolishes is any notion that the Soviets were "preordained" to win, whatever the Germans did. In fact, "Hitlers Panzers East" succeeds in demolishing quite a few long-held myths. Stolfi analyzes the campaign from every conceivable angle, and supports his conclusions with a mountain of evidence. He proves that, in no way did the Germans "underestimate" the rigors of a campaign against the vast USSR. Nor did they overlook the vast forces the Soviets COULD bring to bear in a longer war; in fact, the German generals valued speed above everything. They knew that the Soviets were too strong to be allowed any respite. And the central theme of Stolfi's book is that the Germans were, by late July, on a pace to deny the one thing the Soviets needed above all -- time!

Stolfi emphasizes that under the lighting war the Germans were waging, the Soviets simply couldn't "trade space for time", at least in the Western Special Military District. In less than a month Army Group Center had advanced 400 miles from the pre-war frontier, fought and won three great battles of encirclement, and seized the all-important "Smolensk Land Bridge" between the Dvina and Dniepr Rivers. This was a pace which the Red Army simply couldn't cope with. They had seen 8 of 9 field armies virtually destroyed, and the Germans hadn't even been seriously delayed. No amount of un-utilized "vast reserves" was going to halt this juggernaut.

The Soviet Union was, by late July, in "extremis". They had lost most of their pre-war field armies, and a tremendous amount of real estate, to the rampaging Germans. Both panic and defeatism were beginning to set in, not only on the front lines, but in Moscow itself. I believe all the talk of huge reserves still available to the Soviets stemmed from Stalin's efforts to curb such panic and defeatism. Same can be said of the impossibly high estimates of such reserves that have come to light in Russian archives since Stolfi wrote his book in 1993. Such round figures of 8, 10, or even 12 million are hardly credible; they give no explanatory detail of who and where these "reserves" were located, nor do they even provide citations of where the information is coming from. And, fact is, they simply don't jibe with pre-war figures of Soviet reserves (which themselves were inflated for propaganda purposes). I can only regard such "evidence" as highly suspicious. That the Soviets had the need to propagandize, both during and after the war, and the ability to do so, is obvious. Stalin and his Communist regime could never admit to how badly they were being defeated.

Stolfi points out that the loss of the Greater Moscow area alone would have been a devastating blow, both psychologically and materially. Moscow was the biggest population center and industrial base of the nation. It was the very hub of all European Russian transportation and communications systems. And it was the seat of government and the military high command. One can only imagine how effective Stalin and his generals would have been in continuing the war while on the run, perhaps to the Urals. Or how effective the hold of the party apparatus and Red Guards would have been on those areas still unconquered by German arms.

This brings up the very real possibility, which Stolfi analyzes, that Stalin's regime could not have survived the fall of Moscow. While this is certainly open to argument, there's no doubt the loss of his capital and all the functions of government and party would have weakened his grip on Russia. Stalin's murderous, repressive regime was not particularly popular, and nothing would have showed the Russian people his vulnerability than the loss of the capital, on top of Germany's other rapid gains. One can't help wondering if anti-Stalin forces might have taken advantage of the situation, rushing in to "fill the power vacuum" and set up a provisional government -- exactly what happened in April, 1917 when Kerensky's socialists took power from the Tsar during the First World War. And might not this provisional government have been as anxious to end the war, whatever the harsh conditions, as did Lenin's Bolsheviks when they in turn took over in October, 1917? Just a year before, in July of 1940 a provisional French government under Marshal Petain had done likewise. Certainly the possibility exists of a "rump" Russian state east of the Urals being created, while Hitler took the whole of European Russia. True, Stalin and his die-hards could've tried continuing the war somewhere in the Urals, but this would have been of little consequence to the mighty, victorious German Army.

The capture of Moscow and much of the Western Special Military District (perhaps even to the Volga) would have freed up the bulk of Army Group Center (particularly Guderian and Hoth's powerful Panzergruppes) for operations radiating both North and South. The Soviets still had strong forces on the Ukrainian and Leningrad fronts, but the taking of the Central swath of Russia would have strategically flanked these areas, besides insuring they received no reinforcements and supplies from that direction. True, the further one moves away from actual history, the more conjectural becomes the case. But I agree with Stolfi that competent generals like Halter, von Bock, and von Rundstedt, urged along by ultra-decisive ones like Guderian and Hoth, would have moved strong elements of Army Group Center both north and south, right into the rear of the Soviet armies holding out along those positions. Not only would such a move cut many of the remaining supply lines from the east, but would have placed the Soviet Ukrainian and Leningrad forces in the nightmarish situation of trying to fight on their original fronts (against the still powerful Army Groups North and South), and on REVERSED fronts as well! Any military strategist worth his salt will confirm that this situation would have led to disaster and the ultimate destruction of these Soviet field armies.

With the defeat of these last real "professional" Soviet armies from the pre-war days, the situation of the Soviet Union would have been pretty hopeless. The only real weak-point of Stolfi's thesis is his belief that the war would have been largely over by the end of 1941, and operations in 1942 would have been merely of a "mopping up" nature. Barring the complete ouster of Stalin and his communists, I believe the Germans would still have had some large-scale campaigns to conduct, and some tough fighting ahead, especially in the eastern Ukraine. But, even with a large pool of manpower to draw from, what real chances would the Soviets of had by then?

True, they still could have raised large armies in the east, but the "raw materials" to make up these forces would have been so vastly inferior as to doubt their utility. With almost all of their veteran, front-line troops now gone, as well as much of their first-rate reservists, the Russians would have been in deep trouble. Older reservists, home guard-types, and green conscripts simply cannot be whipped into effective armies on the fly -- the Soviets would have needed a good amount of time to craft this sort of "raw material" into anything approaching a good army (not even to mention the problem of properly equipping such forces, with most of the industrial base of the country captured and most of the ports through which Allied aid could flow seized by German arms). Again, as Stolfi hammers home -- the Germans were not about to give the remaining Soviets that time.

To gauge what chances these new "conscript" armies raised in the Urals and eastern Ukraine might have of surviving, let alone turning the tide of the war, one has only to look back at similiar situations in history. Though doubtless many might come to mind to military history buffs, the one that leaps to my mind is that of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Lest we forget, the two principal field armies of Imperial France were lost in 1870 -- one defeated at Sedan in August, the other surrendered at Metz in October -- and Napoleon III's Empire fell to a provisional republican government. France did manage to continue the war, and even succeeded in raising large "armies" of old reservists and green levees, but with only a smattering of quality troops. Unfortunately, the military record of these large, improvised "armies" is absolutely wretched. All the elan of the French people to continue resistance against the hated Prussian Army didn't help these hapless republican armies when they went up against the professional, battle-tested Prussians. Hemmed in at beseiged Paris, and trying to hold a long line south of that city, the Republican armies were too inept to sustain any offensive operations to break out of Paris or relieve it from without. Then when the Prussians attacked their lines, they folded like a house-of-cards. Disaster followed upon disaster, and the French government finally had to wake up to reality, suing for peace. The cold fact of the matter was that once their first-rate professional army was lost, the French were just living on borrowed time. Enthusiasm for the cause among millions of Frenchmen didn't translate into effective armies capable of taking on the vaunted Prussians. The French would have needed much time to recoup, and that's one thing the Prussians were not going to give them.

The analogy of the French in 1871 to that of the Soviets trying to create new "armies" of largely untrained and ill-equipped men in the Urals and east Ukraine is simply too obvious. I am convinced Hitler's army would have made as short a work of such "armies" as von Moltke's did of the French in 1871. Again, as Stolfi points out, vast manpower is only useful if one is given the time to utilize it. The German's superior war-fighting tactics and ability was proven again and again during the Barbarossa Summer. The essence of the blitzkrieg was speed, and denying the enemy the time to recover. Without time, even a colossus like the Soviet Union could not keep absorbing the kind of losses of first-rate troops they were experiencing on all fronts -- losses in killed,wounded, and captured that had reached over 2 million by late August.

As Stolfi rightly contends, the German offensive was of such overwhelming speed, scope, breadth, and violence that the Soviets simply were not in control of events by late July/early August. Their only salvation was the sort of "unforced error" that Hitler made in changing the focus of the attack south into the Ukraine. R.H.S. Stolfi has given us a new interpretation of the Barbarossa Summer, and with it, of World War II. He has done a masterful job of marshaling his facts and laying down his arguments. He presents much evidence to support his thesis, and does a credible job of demolishing the tired old rehashes of both both Western and Soviet sources since the end of World War II on why the Soviets won. It wasn't "vast Soviet resources", or German "underestimation of the rigors of the campaign" or even "the harsh Russian winter" which defeated the German Army, but Adolf Hitler's meddling in military strategy which should have been left to his very competent generals. After reading "Hitlers Panzers East", I think you'll agree that all the previous volumes on the subject will ring very hollow, indeed!

Filled with adventure, romance and intrigue coupled with its historical setting this book tells the story of the early background players in motion pictures. Although it revolves around the authors father, cowboy, stuntman Jack Montgomery the tales she tells are indicative of a way of life that are long gone as are most of the background players of the golden era of western movies. It tells of the "real" cowboy migration of the western plains to become the "reel" cowboys of motion pictures and the code that they brought with them. This book will make you laugh and cry; it will fill you with excitement; provide insight to the disdain for human and animal care by early Hollywood. This book answers the question, "Where did they come from and how did they do it."

I was a friend of Randy from meeting him in 1991 til his death. He was one of the most persistent men I ever knew. Born in Oklahoma of mixed descent, Anglo and Native American, he attended the Naval Academy and served for many years. He became an accomplished artist and illustrator. He spent many years preparing his monumental work. Just when it was finished and ready to submit, he went to town on an errand, upon returning, he discovered his entire collection gone--the studio had burned to the ground. And he had to begin all over again. It is a testimony that he finished it and sent it in. Even though Volume Four was published post-humously. Not every man gets to fulfil his life's ambition as Randy did. Every illustration in this multi-volume work has been drawn by him from original materiel. Where relevent the complete text of regulations is quoted. For example, in the period which I research, that from the 1880s to today, the volume three, reprints the complete uniform regulations in the teens, not just the portion on mounted men. Thus, the work is useful also for those interested in the military up to 1943. One must elucidate on the title a bit. As stated, it is not just on the mounted horse cavalry so celebrated in John Wayne movies, but covers all the mounted troops, dragoons, mounted rifles, and cavalry in the period of the frontier expansion, before the Civil War, then both North and South, and the post war frontier patrolling days. Not only is the equipment, both individual and horse, of the cavalryman covered, so is that of the artillery man where it differed. The coverage is relevent to all mounted men--engineers, signalers, and hospital corpsmen, and their clothing and equipment.

Horses That Buck: The Story of Champion Bronc Rider Bill Smith is a carefully researched and engagingly presented biography of champion saddle bronc rider Bill Smith, who loved the wildness of horses that fought against being ridden. He broke more than a few bones following his passion, earning no less than thirteen trips to the national finals. When he was facing retirement in his thirties, he met schoolteacher and cowgirl Carole O'Rourke on the national rodeo circuit, and together they bought their own land upon which to raise horses. Gathering information from interviews, experience, and historical records, Margot Kahn gives an up close and personal look at the rodeo circuit in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and offers a captivating portrait of a man who truly embodied the spirit of the western frontier long after the west was won.

I first purchased this book at Canyon de Chelly, in the heartland of Navajo country. I had read all Tony Hillerman had written, and I had witnessed a pow-wow on the Navajo reservation. This book is so readable, enjoyable, and comfortable that I have given it to many friends who are interested in the Southwest. It was a fantastic read for a very, very bright sixth-grader, and a fantastic read for several very birght 40-something readers. An excellent way to refresh and enhance your history of the Navajos.

This is a valuable book (resource) for budding entrepreneurs. It seems to try to cover all the bases for starting a small business, but it can't do them all well in the space available between its covers. The book is only 288 pages long. If you are in the planning stages of starting a small business, then I highly recommend you get a copy of this book. Read it, study it, and outline it. There are helpful checklists to help you grasp the subjects. You will come up with a plethora of keywords and terms that you will want to google to find Web pages giving more detailed (and maybe more current) information.

I am a SCORE counselor (Senior Corps of Retired Executives) who typically does face-to-face counseling sessions three nights a month. It would really be neat if my clients would read this book BEFORE they came to their session with me because they would pretty much be "educated customers" ready to ask educated questions. Our sessions would be so much more beneficial.

My favorite chapters were:

1. Initial business concerns
2. Your business' structure
3. Business start-up details
5. Sources of business assistance (SCORE is mentioned here)
7. Your smart business plan (and a good sample plan is included)
8. Obtaining the financing you need

The book is weak when it comes to how the Internet can be used in corresponding, hiring, and marketing. But this is just one example of how googling keywords and concepts found in the book will make the book more complete. Don't treat the book as authoritative on the law. It isn't. Nor was it ever intended to be. It is light on tax information as it relates to small business.

I was particularly impressed with the material presented in Chapter 2: Choice of Legal Entity. That subject is sorely ignored in most small business books, and it is critically important. It is a subject I regularly must spend a great deal of time discussing at my SCORE sessions. This book does a pretty good job on the topic.

Chapters 4 and 9 through 12 are easy to find fault with. The topic of each could fill a book. But having these topics covered definitely will help a budding entrepreneur know some of the issues they raise.

I would have liked the book more if Chapter 6 (marketing) had been less superficial. When I read it I got the impression that the author was more a public relations expert than a marketing expert. I generally categorize public relations as a subset of marketing. Marketing includes advertising, public relations, and a whole host of other promotion techniques. I did not get this message when I read the book. I also would have liked the book better if the Internet, email, and Web sites had been discussed more. But there are many books on those subjects. Therefore, I can't complain too much about the limited discussion of computers.

When you read this book it may feel a little like it was produced on an assembly line. Maybe it was? There are 51 versions of this book sold; one for each state and the District of Columbia. Content is king, and this book has it. 5 stars!

Got this for my 90 year old mother but think I enjoyed it as much as she did - brought back a lot of memories looking over familiar sights - the book is well done and is complete with a lot of remembrances from our past in Oklahoma - the only problem with it is that it just wasn't long enough!

I do not know the poetry of Wislawa Szymborska. But I was deeply impressed by his Nobel Speech. Of all those I have read it seeemed to me the most genuinely modest. It is also generous and considerate. It speaks about the poet's somewhat awkward place in society. It tells of how the 'poet's life' is ordinarily the least capable of arousing general interest, at least in the form of film biography. It also speaks beautifully about the poet as 'inspired. But it does not limit the ranks of the inspired to the artistic alone, but rather includes all those who are called to do some kind of work.
It contains a very persuasive statement about the uniqueness of each person.And how it is the poet's task time and again to write of the uniqueness.
It shows a humble and my mind realistic sense our limitations in knowing the world.
Here is Szymborska's, to my mind very persuasive conclusion.

"Poets, if they're genuine, must also keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that's absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their "oeuvre."

Only if you were on another planet could you have not been aware of the heinous and hideous act of terrorism and cowardice that struck the people of Oklahoma City (and the nation) in April, 1995. In this very real (but fictional account) of the quest for the all-loving and all-powerful God, Kara and Rachael (two friends in OKC), and Kara's uncle in Charleston, SC (a retired Episcopal priest) explore the issues of theodicy, the sovereignty of God, and why evil is in this world. In a historically accurate, and theologically astute manner, Doctor Truesdale (professor of philosophy and ethics at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO) explores these questions that have plagued honest-hearted believers for centuries. "IF God is God, then why?" is such a profound masterpiece of heart-searching spirituality, that I had to read it three times. I will recommend it to anyone. I will certainly recommend it to my seminary professors. And I will re-read it, everytime I want to ask "If God is God, then why?" Truesdale has done a tremendous service to the Body of Christ in this deeply reflective book. Buy one for yourself, buy one for a friend, and search the scriptures, just as the author has encouraged the three main players to do in this magnanimous work. Thank you, Doctor Al Truesdale for pastoring so many of us in this great book!

In essence, as Brown states in his preface, the Imperial War Museum is the author of this thought provoking compilation of moving textual and stunning visual records of the First World War, 1914-1918. The Museum was established in the wake of the greatest conflagration the world had ever known and has an almost inexhaustable reserve of pictures, posters, postcards, photographs, films, pamphlets, books, diaries, letters, and documents detailing the massive British effort to fight and win 'the war to end all wars.' The author does not attempt to present a comprehensive study but rather one that naturally leans towards areas in which the Museum's holdings are rich. Thus, the British role on the Western Front is emphasized although other wartime operations such as Gallipoli, Salonika, and the Middle East are not ignored. While the war was highly political and technological, the focus of this book is on the personal and the particular. The subject matter is not war so much as people caught up in war and the author clearly intends to provide a fresh look at the First World War which is as precise and objective as possible yet spiritually enriching and in context to current events. Strong editorialship is utilized to weave together personal profiles and special features with linking narrative prose which is clearly written and assimilated. In these pages great political and military figures such as David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, and Douglas Haig appear remote and somewhat dehumanized rather than the masses of individual participants as is usually the case. For example, the reader is shocked but ultimately relieved at the situation of W.H. Wykeham-Musgrave, Royal Navy, who was torpedoed three times on the same day as the armored cruisers HMS ABOUKIR, HOGUE, and CRESSY were sunk by a single German U-boat on 22 September 1914. There is also ample evidence of the largely unheralded efforts of women in the munitions factories and in military support services such as nursing and transportation. Contemporary humor remains relevant especially in regard to the contrasting abysmal conditions in the trenches and the more comfortable home fires. In one military paper a woman asks a soldier "What struck you most about the Ypres battle?" to which he replies "Shrapnel, lady." (p. 265). Finally, the book concludes with the disillusioned observations of one soldier who argues that "the old order had changed; the genteel of 1914 were gone; blatent riches reigned in their stead; money was the power in the land; money that had been reaped from the bodies of the dead. This was victory. The war to end war" (p. 282). Such a loss of idealism in the aftermath of this cataclysmic horror became the zeitgeist for an entire 'lost generation' and is well represented in this book and masterfully communicated to the reader.