This volume investigates the strategic and operational shift that transformed the European conflict into a global war between 1941 and 1943. The authors, representing the Research Institute for Military History, utilize extensive primary source documentation from German archives to analyze the loss of initiative by the Axis powers. The text provides a rigorous examination of the political and military decisions that defined the climax and subsequent turning points of the war.

Experts and historians recognize this series as the definitive, comprehensive account of the German perspective during the Second World War. Readers frequently note the academic density and meticulous detail of the prose, which serves as a foundational resource for serious scholars of twentieth-century military history.