It Never Snows In September: The German View Of Market-Garden And The Battle Of Arnhem September 1944

Description

On the afternoon of 17 September 1944 Lieutenant Enthammer, a Wehrmacht artillery officer based in Arnhem, gazed up at the clear skies, hardly believing what he saw. White ‘snowflakes’ appeared to hang in the air. ‘That cannot be,’ he thought. ‘It never snows in September! They must be parachutists!’ They were. He was witnessing the first wave of the British parachute assault on Arnhem. The war was approaching the Reich. The blow, moreover, had come as a complete surprise. The Allies expected Operation Market Garden, of which the assault at Arnhem was the last link in a chain that stretched far to the south, to bring the collapse of the Wehrmacht in the west and shorten the war. But the Germans, however, had other ideas and resolved to fight, bringing days of some of the most bitter fighting on the campaign after the initial onslaught in June 1944. Based on extensive research, It Never Snows in September uniquely chronicles that struggle through the eyes of the German soldier and analyses the reasons for the eventual outcome. This major history — widely praised when first published in hardback — is now available in paperback for the first time in response to popular demand as the 60th anniversary of the battle approaches