Using revelatory new material on an event which changed the tide of
World War II, Robert Kershaw's ground-breaking history explores the
Battle of Dunkirk from the German perspective.
'Kershaw's book is a welcome rebalancing; a thoughtful,
well-researched and well-written contribution to a narrative that has
long been too one-sided and too mired in national mythology.' - Roger
Moorhouse, The Times
The British evacuation from the beaches of the small French port town of
Dunkirk is one of the iconic moments of military history. The battle has
captured the popular imagination through LIFE magazine photo spreads,
the fiction of Ian McEwan and, of course, Christopher Nolan's hugely
successful Hollywood blockbuster. But what is the German view of this
stunning Allied escape? Drawing on German interviews, diaries and unit
post-action reports, Robert Kershaw creates a page-turning history of a
battle that we thought we knew.
Dünkirchen 1940 is the first major history on what went wrong for the
Germans at Dunkirk. As supreme military commander, Hitler had seemingly
achieved a miracle after the swift capitulation of Holland and Belgium,
but with just seven kilometres before the panzers captured Dunkirk - the
only port through which the trapped British Expeditionary force might
escape - they came to a shuddering stop. Hitler had lost control of his
stunning advance. Only a detailed interpretation of the German
perspective - historically lacking to date - can provide answers as to
why.
Drawing on his own military experience, his German language skills and
his historian's eye for detail, Robert Kershaw creates a new history of
this familiar battle. With a fresh angle on this famous conflict,
Dünkirchen 1940 delves into the under-evaluated major German
miscalculation both strategically and tactically that arguably cost
Hitler the war.
