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Ardennes: The Secret War (The Siegfried Line Campaign Book 2) Kindle Edition

by Charles Whiting (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 27 ratings
The eye-opening account of how the Germans almost halted the Allied advance in December 1944 and were close to winning the Battle of the Bulge.

This overlooked story, told with in-depth access to German sources, should be essential reading for fans of Max Hasting’s The Secret War¸ Giles Milton’s Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and Ewen Montagu’s classic The Man Who Never Was.

On the morning of 16 December 1944, a monumental German force of six hundred thousand men crashed into the Allied lines in the snowbound hills of the Belgian Ardennes.

Why were Allied forces so surprised by this counterattack? And why have the German sabotage and deception operations that disrupted supply lines and outwitted Allied intelligence been so overlooked by historians?

Through interviews with three key German officers undertaken shortly after the end of the war, Charles Whiting examines the Battle of the Bulge from a new perspective. Hermann Giskes, a German Army counter-intelligence officer, sheds light on his activities directing spies and saboteurs. Paratrooper Freiherr von der Heydte tells how his men were blown over great distances but managed to engage and tie down thousands of Allied troops who thought Nazi paratroopers were landing everywhere. And SS commando leader Otto Skorzeny recounts how he led a handful of special forces, wearing US uniforms and driving US equipment, behind enemy lines to wreak havoc.

Ardennes: The Secret War exposes the weaknesses of Allied intelligence and shows how, even when it seemed that the war would be over by Christmas, the Germans nearly turned defeat into victory.
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  1. Book 2 of 4
    The Siegfried Line Campaign
  2. Print length
    232 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    February 24, 2025
  5. File size
    2.5 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Charles Whiting is one of the most prolific authors of books on World War II. He has written all eight of the books in the the West Wall Series published by Combined Publishing. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author


Charles Whiting is a prolific writer of military fiction and non-fiction, having sold some 3-1/2 million copies in the UK alone and has been translated into most European languages. His non-fiction books include West Wall, The Battle for Hitler's Siegfried Line, '44: In Combat from Normandy to the Ardennes, The Battle of Hurtgen Forest, The Last Assault, Bloody Aachen, Decision at St Vith and many others. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DNZ4X8KF
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sapere Books (February 24, 2025)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 24, 2025
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.5 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 232 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 27 ratings

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Charles Whiting

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4.4 out of 5 stars
27 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • PCH
    5.0 out of 5 stars Book
    Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2019
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  • George O'Leary
    4.0 out of 5 stars As Good An Account Of The Battle Of The Bulge As Any
    Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2013
    Some may read this book and pass it off as just another of many retrospectives on events of WW II that seek to portray the Germans in a more positive light - in terms of their military prowess - than they really deserve and the Americans as a bunch of bungling idiots who eventually prevailed due to sheer numbers ... and luck.

    But the fact is, Hitler nearly pulled off the impossible by assembling a strong armoured force (albeit at the expense of denuding the Eastern front which many in the Wermacht thought was pure insanity - which it ultimately was) opposite what his intelligence told him was a collection of largely green U.S. units with limited - if any - battle experience. And he had his weather experts predict a time of prolonged cloud cover which would limit Allied air activity (the Luftwaffe was then incapable of resisting any sustained air attack so that was essential to his plan).

    Whether the achievement of his plan - which was to reach the Belgian coast and split the Allied forces in two - would have made any ultimate difference in the outcome is open to conjecture and I have read many assessments that say it would have made little difference since the extended German lines - with the Americans on one side and the British-Canadian forces on the other - could not possibly have held against strong counter-attacks. But at the time, with all the ensuing confusion the attack created at Eisenhower's HQ, no one knew anything for certain because ... well ... what happened wasn't supposed to have happened in the first place according to their own intelligence.

    The U.S. did suffer huge losses, and there was the undeniable and so-called "big bug out," but in the end they held and stopped the desperate and unlikely advance cold. And Whiting covers this well in his small (5 3/4 x 8 ½) 176-page book which comes with many photos and a few battle maps of the key stages of what is more commonly known as The Battle Of The Bulge.

    Perhaps the best view of the battle came from Winston Churchill who said this, even as the battle was still raging in January 1945 "I have seen it suggested that the terrific battle which has been proceeding since 16th December on the American front is an Anglo-American battle. In fact, however, the United States troops have done almost all the fighting and have suffered almost all the losses. They have suffered losses almost equal to those on both sides in the battle of Gettysburg. Only one British Army Corps has been engaged in this action. All the rest of the 30 or more divisions, which have been fighting continuously for the last month are United States troops. The Americans have engaged 30 or 40 men for every one we have engaged, and they have lost 60 to 80 men for every one of ours. That is the point I wish to make."
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  • Maple
    1.0 out of 5 stars Ardennes - The secret war - more of the same
    Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2011
    As my title suggests, more of the tired 'weren't the Nazis wonderful but unlucky, weren't the Allies stupid but lucky?' school of history. I should have guessed what to expect when I saw David Irving listed in the bibliography - you'll remember him from the court case where he was outed as an apologist for the Third Reich - I digress

    The book is badly written and poorly researched, the battle itself has been covered from every angle by historians and those on the ground at the time, I was rather hoping this would add to the sum of knowledge about the battle but I was to be disappointed, it's only for the Nazi fanboys I'm afraid.

    The author makes some surprising conclusions about the success of the invincible Germans - according to Mr Whiting the para drop that scattered the half trained ersatz fallschirmjager all over the Ardennes was a success (which may come as a surprise to any of the survivors especially those who wrote about the fiasco afterwards)

    Skorzeny was a covert-ops genius, ten feet tall and the brains of a rocket scientist - which doesn't exactly fit with the opinion of the Luftwaffe group that actually liberated Mussolini (he nearly blew their mission by muscling-in and stealing the credit), nor when discussion his background did Mr Whiting seem aware of Skorzeny's failures and poor planning skills on other ops.

    And that's my problem with this book, unabated hero worship of the Germans and a dismissal of any unit or major player on the Allies side - makes you wonder how they won.

    The author has a few problems with simple to verify facts that make me worry about the standards of his research, the USAAF flying B-29s in Europe? News to them, the Luftwaffe losses during Bodenplatte being about 100, when all other historians give figures around 300? Drawing the conclusion that Bodenplatte (surprise) was another German victory when in reality it destroyed the Luftwaffe while hardly effecting Allied air ops

    Naah - my copy will be going in the bin
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