Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

a new book in two volumes that will more or less completely alter the image of Operation Market Garden.

IIRC he made similar claims in respect of his books on the Battle of Britain and the Ardennes Offensive.

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

And what was the outcome? I haven't seen the book.

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

I haven't seen the Ardennes book. I did look at the BoB one in a bookshop and one of his arguments was that the Bf 110 was more effective as a fighter than other authors believed (he'd compiled stats to support his case). Really the point of my original post was that a proud author would naturally claim that his book improved on existing ones.

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

Well, "improve" and "completely alter the image" are two very different claims. I was wondering which one was actually the case.

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

I like his work but having read the Ardennes and BoB books I’m in the “added to the research and improved understanding” camp over “completely altered perceptions” camp. I’m in a similar wait and see mode for the Market Garden works. There have been some excellent new works (Autumn Gale and its companion from the same publisher spring to mind) looking at the campaign so I’d be interested to see what new revelations he’s going to share.

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

Pages are up at Vaktel Förlag for volumes I and II of Arnhem 1944 – An Epic Battle Revisited

Vol. 1: Tanks and Paratroopers
https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/arnh...-paratroopers/


Vol. 2: The Lost Victory. September-October 1944
https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/arnh...-october-1944/


Publisher's description of Volume I

"This is the ultimate book on ”Operation Market Garden”, by internationally highly acclaimed military historian Christer Bergström.

The indepth research made by the author has resulted in many myths and misconceptions being convincingly dispelled, backed up by detailed source notes. In fact, these two volumes form a completely new image of the battle in the Netherlands in the autumn of 1944.

It was Cornelius Ryan who in 1974 put ”Market Garden” so to say ”on the map”. However, it is obvious that he had no time to go through his vast collection of first-hand material on ”Market Garden” before he so sadly passed away that same year. This is a mission that Christer Bergström has taken upon himself.

A torrent of new books about ”Market Garden” has been published since 1974, and many of its authors – all included – have done meritorious work in producing new research. But it appears quite obvious that nobody has previously tried to go through The Cornelius Ryan Collection in its entirety in order to publish to the public the important pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that Ryan produced but was never able to use in his book. But now it has been done, for the first time, in this book by Christer Bergström.

Bergström has made a painstaking research work for several years, interviewing veterans and others who participated or witnessed the battle. He has gone through all relevant documents in all relevant archives in the UK, the USA, Germany and the Netherlands, and that material forms the basis of his book.

But even more so: Cross-referencing both sides’ documents is absolutely crucial to form an opinion that is as close to the actual events as possible.

The major part of the archive material about the Second World War in official collections has now been made accessible, but this has obviously not been enough – for several reasons. To begin with, we have the fact that the German side destroyed most of its remaining military documents at the end of the war. Even if Germany’s Bundesarchiv has an impressive collection of documents from the Second World War at its disposal, it only constitutes a small part of the German military documents that were produced during the war. This is especially true for the last years of the war. In order to get as good an image as possible from the German side, I have during the last few decades had access to large quantities of first-hand material (documents from the war) from private collections – veterans, veterans’ associations, collectors, etc."

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

I found Robert Kershaw's "It Never Snows in September" very good, especially as I have the original hardback edition with several full-page maps in colour.

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

I think it's a shame that he has decided to invest his valuable time covering air history from the skies in the West which has been thoroughly hashed and mashed, sliced and diced over the past 70 years. Christer should continue to devote his time to the war in the East where his language skills in Russian and German give him an edge on most other aviation authors of the World War II period.

L.

Re: Upcoming books by Christer Bergstrom
 

A comprehensive account of the Luftwaffe's response to MARKET-GARDEN (i.e. not just the fighters) would be something new, I think.