David Stahel
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David Stahel (born 1975 in
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...
, New Zealand) is a historian, author and senior lecturer in history at the
University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...
. He specialises in German military history of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. Stahel has authored several books on the military operations of the first six months of the Eastern Front, including on the launching of
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
, the
Battle of Kiev (1941) The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a huge encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfar ...
and the
Battle for Moscow The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign that consisted of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between September 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive e ...
.


Education and career

Stahel completed an honours degree at
Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...
and Boston College. He has an MA in War Studies from King's College London and a PhD in 2007 from the
Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...
. He joined the
University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...
Canberra in 2012.


Military historian of Nazi Germany

Stahel has authored several books on the military operations on the Eastern Front, including
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
, the
Battle of Kiev (1941) The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a huge encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfar ...
and the Battle of Moscow; all books were published by
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...
. Reviewing Stahel's ''Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East'' for the '' New Republic'', the historian Richard Evans notes that "the story of the Battle of Kiev has been told many times, but seldom in such detail as it is in David Stahel’s book", at the same time "convey ngextremely complex military action with exemplary clarity". The reviewer writes:
Unlike more traditional military historians, Stahel is acutely aware of the wider context of the action, from Hitler’s overall aims for the war to the importance of logistics for the outcome; from the murderous racism and ruthless pragmatism with which the German leaders, military as well as political, condemned so many Soviet civilians to starve and so many Jewish inhabitants to terrible death, to the postwar disputes among historians and retired generals over Hitler’s strategy.
Evans commends Stahel for his "refreshing realism" in not "following traditional military historians’ often overly positive and simplistic descriptions of 'great' generals and 'decisive' battles" and exploring "convincingly if not entirely originally" how the foundations of the German war efforts were already beginning to crumble by the time of the victory at Kiev heralded in
Nazi propaganda The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...
as decisive.


Publications


Books

*''Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East'' (
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...
, Cambridge, 2009). *''Kiev 1941. Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East'' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012). *''Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization'' (ed., with Alex J. Kay and Jeff Rutherford) (Rochester, NY:
University of Rochester Press Boydell & Brewer is an academic press based in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, that specializes in publishing historical and critical works. In addition to British and general history, the company publishes three series devoted to studies, edition ...
, 2012). *''Operation Typhoon. Hitler's March on Moscow'' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013). *''The Battle for Moscow'' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015). *''Joining Hitler's Crusade: European Nations and the Invasion of the Soviet Union'' (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017). *''Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe'' (ed., with Alex J. Kay) ( Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2018). *''Retreat from Moscow'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2019).


Essays

*'Radicalizing Warfare: The German Command and the Failure of Operation Barbarossa' in Alex J. Kay, Jeff Rutherford and David Stahel (eds.), ''Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization'' (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2012), pp. 19–44.


Notes


References

*


External links

*"Operation Typhoon": , lecture by Stahel; via the official channel of USS Silversides Museum {{DEFAULTSORT:Stahel, David 1975 births 21st-century New Zealand historians Alumni of King's College London Living people Military historians Historians of World War II Writers from Wellington City Boston College alumni Monash University alumni University of New South Wales faculty