Robert Citino's latest book on the German military builds on his earlier works, particularly The German Way of War and Death of the Wehrmacht (on events of 1942), to address what he terms the forgotten year of World War II. This is a bit misleading as Citino's book is more a synthesis of existing historiography on operations in the European Theater during 1943 (the bibliography consists entirely of memoir and secondary accounts) than original research that fills a gap in the literature. The Wehrmacht Retreats generally succeeds as a synthesis of recent scholarship by both modifying generally accepted views and placing them in a broader context. For example, he demonstrates that German generals (Kesselring and Manstein in particular) were not as brilliant nor were Hitler and the Americans as inept as often portrayed. Citino also strives, sometimes repetitiously, to stress the role of the “German way of war” that he explored in his book of that title. This theory argues that the German military built upon Prussia's war-making tradition that called—due to the constraints of economy, geography, and manpower—for launching decisive offensive operations aimed at inflicting a stunning defeat on the enemy. The favored means was invariably a mobile concentric pincer movement aimed at a battle of encirclement (a Kesselschlacht) that would shock and cripple the enemy into surrendering. Citino shows that 1943 marked the year that this commitment to audacious offensive operations ceased to offer Germany hope for victory and that the Allied “battle management” approach with its reliance upon mass, firepower, logistics, and planning overwhelmed this German way of war.

Citino's book is at its best in showing how the reputations of German generals have often been overly inflated. For example, he notes that Kesselring's defensive genius would have been viewed differently had he commanded troops in Russia rather than in the favorable terrain of Italy. And Citino points out that while Italy did not become a decisive theater for the Allies, German casualties there exceeded the Allies' by twenty-five percent. Similarly, Citino strips away the patina of genius surrounding other German generals, including Manstein, as he shows that while many were excellent at the tactical and operational level, they gave little consideration to strategy, logistics, mass, and industrial productivity. They believed that skill and daring would shock and panic their enemies into surrender, and when this did not occur, their only solution was to plan yet another concentric attack—even though they increasingly lacked the materiel, manpower, and trained troops to do so. Thus he offers a cogent explanation for a critical factor behind Germany's defeat in World War II that moves beyond simply blaming Hitler, as did many German generals who survived the war.

Citino also excels at putting issues into broader context. The example noted above—the Wehrmacht leadership's critical failure to address strategic issues—enables him to illustrate how military historians (and generals) tend to overestimate the role of individuals. Citino generally does well at comparing the opponents' strategic situations. For example, his discussion of Kursk highlights that the Germans had to denude the eastern front of mobile reserves to launch this offensive while the Soviets—even after suffering immense losses in the first two years of war—were still able not only to gather forces to match the Germans at Kursk, but also prepared multiple other significant operations during the second half of 1943. Citino also effectively highlights the strategic interconnectedness of the various geographic fronts. This makes sensible Hitler's decision to suspend the Kursk offensive in light of its lack of progress, but even more so due to the imminent danger posed by the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily and the threat of Fascist Italy's impending collapse.

The Wehrmacht Retreats, of course, possesses some weaknesses, mainly of omission rather than commission. While there is significant discussion of the American, and to a lesser extent the British, approach of battle management, there is correspondingly less on the Soviets—and what exists comes rather late in the book, in chapter six. Also problematic is the book's target audience. The book focuses primarily on specialists familiar with the historiography and the frequent references to German military history (often going back to the campaigns of Frederick the Great). On the other hand there are instances, such as the identification of the Waffen SS (p. 114), that clearly aims at the novice. Also in this vein, Citino's style can be somewhat informal and even breezy such as the vignettes with which he begins several of his chapters (e.g., chapters four and five) or the reference to Prussia's commanders during the Seven Weeks' War as “a group of highly aggressive attack dogs masquerading as an officer corps” (p. 46). Style, of course, is a matter of taste but in this case it is a further symptom of Citino's less than completely successful effort to appeal to both scholarly and general readers simultaneously.

Overall, however, these are minor points. The Wehrmacht Retreats offers a fine synthesis of current scholarship on the critical year of 1943 in the European theater of World War II. Citino also adds further depth to his German way of war theory and convincingly shows that the Allies had succeeded in countering it. The work also offers the broader conclusion that military history ought to devote more attention to the systems and structures involved and particularly to the influence of culture on the conduct of war. While this certainly is not an original idea, Citino's The Wehrmacht Retreats shows that in spite—or perhaps because—of the mountain of books on World War II, reassessment of accepted views and methodologies is often necessary and, as in this instance, can be quite fruitful at providing a broader and more nuanced understanding of familiar events.