German Military Memoirs

Amid the ravages of economic depression, Germans in the early 1930s were pulled to political extremes both left and right. Then, in the spring of 1933, Germany turned itself inside out, from a deeply divided republic into a one-party dictatorship. In Hitler's First Hundred Days, award-winning historian Peter Fritzsche offers a probing account of the pivotal moments when the majority of Germans seemed, all at once, to join the Nazis to construct the Third Reich.

Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz Guderian, are largely unknown. This biographical study of four German panzer army commanders serving on the Eastern Front is based upon their unpublished wartime letters to their wives. David Stahel offers a complete picture of the men conducting Hitler's war in the East, with an emphasis on the private fears and public pressures they operated under.

Born in Germany in 1922, Colin Anson's (Claus Ascher) childhood was marked by the trials of Nazism. His father was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937 and transported to Dachau, where he died shortly after. Colin, aged just seventeen, escaped to Britain in the Kindertransport. As soon as he was old enough, Colin volunteered in the Pioneer Corps. Then, in 1942, he was recruited for the elite commando unit X-Troop. Colin took part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943, where he sustained a near-fatal injury. But just months later, he returned to duty.

After World War II, 50 percent of Americans polled said they didn’t believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker in 1945, as captured Nazi officials claimed. Instead, they believed the dictator faked his death and escaped, perhaps to Argentina. This wasn’t a crazy opinion: Joseph Stalin told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler’s body and that he personally believed the Nazi leader had escaped justice. At least two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Argentina in July 1945.

The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the 20th century, a man whose research was integral to humanity’s understanding of cancer. He was also among the most despised figures in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it.

Panzer Gunner is a unique memoir of a Canadian serving in a German armored division. Bruno Friesen explains what it was like to fight in a tank on the Eastern Front and provides details on the battlefield performance of the Panzer IV tank. Six months before World War II erupted in 1939, Bruno Friesen was sent to Germany by his father in hopes of a better life. Friesen was drafted into the Wehrmacht three years later and ended up in the 7th Panzer Division. Friesen experienced intense combat against the Soviets in Romania, Lithuania, and West Prussia.

An enthralling story that vividly resurrects the web of everyday Germans who resisted Nazi rule.

Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, Hess, Bormann - names synonymous with power and influence in the Third Reich. Perhaps less familiar are Carin, Emmy, Magda, Margarete, Lina, Ilse, and Gerda. These are the women behind the infamous men - complex individuals with distinctive personalities who were captivated by Hitler and whose everyday lives were governed by Nazi ideology. Throughout the rise and fall of Nazism these women loved and lost, raised families, and quarreled with their husbands and each other, all the while jostling for position with the Fuhrer himself.

Fueled by hate, incapable of forming normal human relationships, unwilling to listen to dissenting voices, Adolf Hitler seemed an unlikely leader, and yet he commanded enormous support and was able to exert a powerful influence over those who encountered him. How did Hitler become such an attractive figure to millions of people? That is the question at the core of Hitler's Charisma. Acclaimed historian and documentary filmmaker Laurence Rees examines the nature of Hitler's appeal and reveals the role his supposed "charisma" played in his success.

In 1944, Benito Mussolini's daughter, Edda, gave Hitler and her father an ultimatum: release her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her leaking her husband's journals to the press. To avoid the peril of exposing Nazi lies, Hitler and Mussolini hunted for the diaries for months, determined to destroy them. Hilde Beetz, a German spy, was deployed to seduce Ciano to learn the diaries' location and take them from Edda. Drawing from in‑depth research and first-person interviews, Mazzeo gives listeners a riveting look into this little‑known moment in history.

Written from the "other side" and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.

Der Fotograf Otto Eder ist als Funker in Frankreich stationiert, bevor er mit seiner Division nach Jugoslawien geschickt wird. Als der Befehl kommt, an die Ostfront zu ziehen, verlieren viele seiner Kameraden in schweren und zum Teil sehr verlustreichen Kämpfen das Leben. Die Versorgungswege der Truppe werden immer länger, Verpflegung und Munition gehen zu Ende. Über den Kaukasus geht es weiter zum Kuban-Brückenkopf. Otto wird schwer verletzt und nach seinem Genesungsurlaub in Italien eingesetzt.

The Brandenburgers were Hitler's Special Forces, a band of mainly foreign German nationals who used disguise and fluency in other languages to complete daring missions into enemy territory. Overshadowed by stories of their Allied equivalents, their history has largely been ignored. First published in 1984, de Giampietro's highly-personal and eloquent memoir is a vivid account of his experiences. In astonishing detail, he delves into the reality of life in the unit from everyday concerns and politics to training and involvement in Brandenburg missions.

In this revealing insight into a little-known aspect of British wartime history, Helen Fry documents the stories of those who fought for king and adopted country. Based on interviews with veterans and drawing on a rich vein of source material, the author sets their personal stories against the bigger picture of the experience of enemy aliens in Britain during the Second World War.

Becketts Tagebuchaufzeichnungen über seine Deutschlandreise während des Aufstiegs des Nationalsozialismus, gelesen von Sabin Tambrea. Samuel Beckett hat nur einmal in seinem Leben über längere Zeit Tagebuch geführt, nämlich auf seiner großen Deutschlandreise von September 1936 bis April 1937, die ihn u. a. nach Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden und München führte. Die German Diaries sind die letzten bedeutenden Texte von Samuel Beckett, die noch unveröffentlicht sind. Sie geben Aufschluss über die Entwicklung von Becketts Ästhetik in dessen Auseinandersetzung mit Literatur und mit bildender Kunst.

Lieutenant John Ryan couldn’t wait to see action in WWI. He joined up with the British colors out of Canada. As one of several American pilots in the Royal Flying Corps before the US joined the war, he earned his wings and became an ace through fierce air battles over the skies of Germany. After getting shot down twice behind enemy lines, Lieutenant Ryan recounts the trials, tragedies, and tribulations of 72 days on the run behind enemy lines.

This book presents the remarkable personal journals of German soldier Hans Roth. Writing as events transpired, he recorded the mystery and tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. In these journals, battles are described in "you are there" detail, as Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing that his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass through Wehrmacht censors.

Der Großvater erzählt dem Enkel vom Krieg - so wie er ihn erlebt hat - ohne Umschweife und verklärten Pathos. Die Fehler der Herrschenden werden stets von den einfachen Leuten mit Blut bezahlt. Das war schon zu allen Zeiten so. Nicht anders erging es einem steirischen Bergbauernsohn, der, in der Blüte seiner Jugend stehend, in den Fleischwolf der Ostfront geschmissen wurde. Das in einer Phase, wo der Krieg für das Dritte Reich so gut wie verloren war. Im Greisenalter erinnert sich der Bergbauernsohn an jene dunklen Stunden zurück, die ihn Zeit seines Lebens verfolgt haben.

Chris Kyle diente von 1999 bis 2009 bei den US Navy SEALs und verzeichnete in jener Zeit die höchste Zahl an tödlichen Treffern in der amerikanischen Militärgeschichte. 160 gezielte Liquidationen schreibt ihm das Pentagon offiziell zu. Seine Kameraden nannten ihn "Die Legende", seine Feinde "Teufel"... In dieser eindringlichen Autobiografie erzählt der geborene Texaner, der 2013 erschossen wurde, die Geschichte seiner außergewöhnlichen Karriere.

März 2028: Russische Truppen erobern die estnische Kleinstadt Narwa und die Insel Hiiumaa in der Ostsee. Der Angriff auf das Baltikum hat begonnen. Jetzt rächt sich, dass Europa nach dem Ende des Krieges in der Ukraine nicht aufgerüstet hat und wichtige Fähigkeiten fehlen.