'Russian success has been somewhat aided by the strategy of Herr Hitler, of Corporal Hitler... Even military idiots find it difficult not to see some faults in his actions.'
- Winston Churchill (2 August 1944, in the wake of the complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre in Belorussia)
Here is one of the best-selling history titles of 2009. Examining the Second World War on every front, Andrew Roberts asks whether, with a different decision-making process and a different strategy, Hitler's Axis might even have won.
Were those German generals who blamed everything on Hitler after the war correct, or were they merely scapegoating their former Fuhrer once he was safely beyond defending himself? In researching this uniquely vivid history of the Second World War, Roberts has walked many of the key battlefield and wartime sites of Russia, France, Italy, Germany, and the Far East.
The book is full of illuminating sidelights on the principle actors that bring their characters and the ways in which they reached decisions into fresh focus.
Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders was one of the most acclaimed, best-selling history books of 2008. His previous books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (1999), which won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction, and Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership (2003), which coincided with a four-part BBC2 history series. He is one of Britain's most prominent journalists and broadcasters.