Review by Booklist Review
By December 1944, Nazi Germany seemed on the brink of disintegration. The Russians were rapidly advancing in the east, while the Americans and British, after a brief pause, were primed to thrust into Germany from the west. So the German counterattack through the Ardennes was a complete surprise and, initially, a great success. Ultimately, however, the Germans failed to split the Allied armies and drive to the sea. Still, Weintraub has written a compact, fast-moving account of those critical days that largely glosses over the military technicalities to focus upon the individual experiences of ordinary soldiers. At the center of the narrative is George Patton, hardly an ordinary soldier. As one would expect, Weintraub shows Patton as brash, brilliant, and profane. Patton's part prayer, part challenge to God to provide clear weather for Allied air attacks is recounted memorably here. But Weintraub's use of the letters and diaries of lesser soldiers enlivens his account and makes this a particularly poignant saga of men in war. --Jay Freeman Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The Battle of the Bulge doesn't quite fit the epic mold it's often cast in bloody, yes, but lacking in strategic consequence, with no one but Hitler doubting the Allied victory. That the carnage spoiled Christmas time is the slender irony anchoring this aimless retelling by military historian Weintraub (Silent Night: The Story of the 1914 Christmas Truce). Noting American complacency about the German buildup, and strategic and personal squabbles among the Allied commanders, he trumps up Patton's prayer for good killing weather into a dramatic turning point. Mainly, though, the book is a kaleidoscope of anecdotes, combat scenes alternating incoherently with foxhole doldrums and frontline picaresque. There's pluck and defiance " `They've got us surrounded, the poor bastards,' " quips a jaunty GI and death and despair. There are celebrity cameos: correspondent Ernest Hemingway drinks and growls and shoots a few Germans; Marlene Dietrich, on a USO tour, allows a soldier to dust her body with delousing powder. And there are many Christmas celebrations, everywhere from POW camps and Belgian orphanages to Hitler's headquarters. Unfortunately, the reader gleans neither a clear battle narrative nor a sense of pathos only a period-authentic impatience to get the war over with. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 28) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Weintraub (arts & humanities, emeritus, Penn State Univ.; Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914) again offers a holiday-themed history book, this time reviewing the Battle of the Bulge, one of the final operations of World War II. He presents the stories of those involved, covering the perspectives of everyone from the enlisted men to the top generals, both Allies and Germans. One of his major characters is naturally Gen. George Patton, whose military experience and personal idiosyncrasies always make him an interesting study. This book is not meant to be a major assessment of the battle, but by weaving in holiday facets, Weintraub offers an appealing new way to look at a topic already covered in great historic detail. Recommended for most public libraries.--Joel W. Tscherne, Cleveland P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
One of war's most graceful chroniclers (Iron Tears, 2005, etc.) visits the troops in the winter of 1944 as the Germans planned and executed a fierce, desperate attack. How do men in hell celebrate Christmas? Weintraub (Arts and Humanities Emeritus/Penn State Univ.) explores that question while delineating German strategy and the Allied response, territories he knows well. The author outlines Hitler's basic intent: to convince the Allies with a ferocious surprise attack that they could not easily win the war; perhaps to earn the Reich a treaty rather than a total defeat. Weintraub alternates regularly between the two sides, quoting from wartime diaries and postwar memoirs of the participants to let us know what is happening; he even pulls away a few times to explain what the Russians were doing on the Eastern Front. He finds space as well for celebrity news. Marlene Dietrich was around, sleeping with an officer or two. Hemingway and his estranged third wife, Martha Gellhorn, were both there; impolitic Weintraub says she "nagged" Papa from the rear of a Jeep they shared. Young Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was captured and sent off to Slaughterhouse-Five in Dresden. The tale's hero is George S. Patton, whose daring and full-speed-aheadedness the author greatly admires. Field Marshal Montgomery, by contrast, comes off as timorous and tardy; Eisenhower frolics too much with Kay Summersby; the displaced Omar Bradley pouts. The best, most affecting and effective sections are anecdotes about how individuals behaved (bravely, brutally, cravenly, bizarrely), how some men were able to convince other men to run toward gunfire, how soldiers and officers on both sides figured out how to celebrate Christmas in the absence of all evident humanity. Patton's death closes the narrative. A dark Christmas card from the middle of some frozen and very bloody ground. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.