Illustrated History of the Sturmgeschutz-Abteilung 202

Very happy with this purchase. Though the account of the battalion's operations is very much based on the unit's own war diary, the author makes judicious use of other sources, notably the notes of Wachtmeister Georg Hiller, who served with StuG.Abt 202 from the beginning of December 1942 to the beginning of February 1944. The Battalion took part in a number of memorable operations, including Operation 'Typhoon' which took the Germans almost to the gates of Moscow, the desperate defensive operations in winter 1941/42, the battles around Rzhev that frustrated the Red Army's Operation 'Mars ' in late 1942 and the unsuccessful struggle to retain Kiev in autumn 1943. The unit was almost destroyed in March 1944 during the Red Amy's drive to Uman and Vinnitsa and had to be rebuilt in Germany, ending the war with 16th Army (July 1944-May 1945).Of course it isn't possible to follow the broad sweep of these operations from the perspective of this small unit's KTB, but there are many fascinating details of the invaluable service of the assault guns, which were very often the last hope of the hard-pressed German infantry. For example, StuG Abteilung (later Brigade) 202 almost never fought as a single unit; rather its batteries were constantly parceled out in ones and twos to serve under the direct orders of infantry corps or division HQs. Despite this 'mismanagement' - which must have rendered the battalion commander's role superfluous for most of the time - its assault guns were credited by the German army with destroying over 1,000 Russian tanks. This was an extraordinary achievement for a unit that never had more than 30 assault guns available for action on any given date, and usually far fewer. The number of high awards given to individual members of the unit is equally staggering: 1 Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, 6 Knight's Crosses and 18 awards of the German Cross in Gold. To understand the headline of my review one should bear in mind that quite a few entire panzer divisions achieved less, both in terms of the number of enemy AFVs they were credited with destroying and the number of high awards their officers and men received.As noted by another reviewer, the book itself comes loaded with a fine selection of maps, photographs and coloured plates. Better still, the translation from the original Hungarian text is very competent. Compliments to Ms. Timea Tothne Vago.

Számvébers "Illustrated History of the Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 202" füllt eine Lücke, denn über diese Sturmgeschützabteilung lag bislang noch keine Monografie vor. Das Fotomaterial finde ich gut und die Chronik ist zweifellos mit viel Fleiß zusammengestellt, allerding hätte Szamvéber viel mehr daraus machen können. Er hat sich lediglich auf Akten aus dem NARA und auf Berichte aus der Zeitschrift "Der Sturmartillerist" sowie einige wenige weitere Darstellungen gestützt, vor allem das Buch "Sturmartillerie" von Franz Kurowski und Gottfried Tornau, das schon wegen des einen Verfassers - des Geschichtsfälschers Franz Kurowski - nicht unproblematisch ist. Die NARA-Akten sind für Számvébers Vorhaben ebenfalls unzureichend, denn es handelt sich nur um SW-Kopien der Original-Kriegstagebücher. Daher sind auch alle abgebildeten Karten lediglich in SW und daher meist in unbefriedigender Qualität abgedruckt. Számvéber hätte unbedingt ins Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv nach Freiburg fahren müssen. Und zwar nicht nur, weil er dort die farbigen Karten bekommen hätte, sondern weil es in diesem Archiv auch unzähliges Material gibt, das im NARA nicht vorliegt und das sein Buch enorm hätte bereichern können. Völlig ungenutzt gelassen hat Számvéber obendrein die Bestände der Deutschen Dienststelle und des ehem. Archivs der Gemeinschaft der Sturmartillerie. Und so ist sein Buch nur eine recht oberflächliche und lückenhafte Chronik geworden - sicherlich besser als nichts zu dieser StuG.Abt., aber auch weit davon entfernt, das zu sein, was es hätte sein können. Schade!

This book is created from the war diary of the unit, Stug.Abt.202. A german WW2 unit war diary is a very dry document. It is in the format of Date; Location of action; Sub-Units involved; Losses and Victory claims. So it goes with this book, it is like a diary, going chronologically and listing the unit's actions.My problem with books derived from war diaries is that they are dull and repetitive. Very dull. Theres no first person descriptions, no details of how the action developed. Just the date, location, the name of the units, a brief overview of the action (eg "attacked village X", "counterattacked breakthru", "aided defence of X" etc). Theres no analysis anywhere! We dont know who the enemy is, why they are here fighting, how this affects the bigger picture, or anything else beyond the basics.A unit war diary is of interest to historians, researchers etc. But lay readers who want history well told are not catered for. A war diary can be used as the start of a wider narrative, to be fleshed out with interview material and info from "the other side". But to write a whole book, to basically just translate and copy the war diary, makes for a very dull, repetitive effort. Pages and pages just filled with dates, places (no maps either!) losses, victories, left me skipping chunks and not caring. Its very lazy history writing, in fact its no writing at all, its just copying a dry summary.The photo section will be of some interest, but theyre not well reproduced nor very large.If u want an endless list of dates and places where Stug.Abt.202 fought, then this is for u. If u want historical analysis, keep looking.

This book leaves impression that the author had to urgently finish it to get money. It uses NARA archives to describe daily activity of the St.Abt 202 - those records are not complete and many dates are missing. No analysis whatsoever. Plus, translation from military German to English is simply lacking - translator did not know how to translate certain German phrases so he picked path of ambiguous translation - as result you can guess what really happened. Not recommended unless you don't want to buy respective rolls from NARA and really need story of this unit. Finally, maps are virtually absent too.

From Sept. '41 thru May '45 an interesting almost daily unit diary. Kind of dry for reading, but good reference with a rather complete index & some useful Appendices. Some of the period maps are virtually useless being too small to see any detail. Other maps are useful. The 60+ pages of photos are reproduced as well as can be expected from period photos at 1 or 2 per page. A useful collection. Finally, 9 pages of nicely done color plates.