Germany World War Ii

In Goering, Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel use firsthand testimonies and a variety of historical documents to tell the story of a monster lurking in Hitler's shadows. After rising through the ranks of the German army, Hermann Goering became Hitler's right hand man and was hand-picked to head the Luftwaffe, one of history's most feared fighting forces. As he rose in power, though, Goering became disillusioned and was eventually shunned from Hitler's inner circle.

The Nazis presented themselves as warriors against moral degeneracy. Yet, as Norman Ohler's gripping best seller reveals, the entire Third Reich was permeated with drugs: cocaine, heroin, morphine and, most of all, methamphetamines, or crystal meth, used by everyone from factory workers to housewives, and crucial to troops; resilience - even partly explaining German victory in 1940.

Germany's Stormtroopers engaged in a vicious siege of violence that propelled the National Socialists to power in the 1930s. Known also as the SA or Brownshirts, these "ordinary" men waged a loosely structured campaign of intimidation and savagery across the nation from the 1920s to the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, when Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm and many other SA leaders were assassinated on Hitler's orders.

The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Third Reich in January 1945. Frenzied by their terrible experiences with Wehrmacht and SS brutality, they wreaked havoc - tanks crushing refugee columns, mass rape, pillage, and unimaginable destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred; more than seven million fled westward from the fury of the Red Army. It was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known.

The histories of the first three SS corps are well known - the actions of I, II, and III (Germanic) SS-Panzerkorps and their subordinate divisions, including the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Hitlerjugend, Hohenstaufen, Frundsberg, and Nordland divisions, have been thoroughly documented and publicized. Overlooked in this pantheon is another SS corps that never fought in the west or in Berlin but one that participated in many of the key battles fought on the Eastern Front during the last year of the war - the IV SS-Panzerkorps.

Notes on one of the most infamous and bloody battles of World War II - from the German perspective. As the Allied armies swept toward the Reich in late 1944, the German high command embarked on an ambitious plan to gain the initiative on the western front and deal a crippling blow to the Allied war effort. As early as August 1944, when the Germans were being crushed in the east and hammered in Normandy, Hitler was talking of an offensive aimed at destroying as many American and British divisions as possible in a massive surprise assault.

In 1940, the German sons and daughters of infamous Nazi dignitaries Himmler, Göring, Hess, Frank, Bormann, Speer, and Mengele were children of privilege at four, five, or 10 years old, surrounded by affectionate, all-powerful parents. Although innocent and unaware of what was happening at the time, they eventually discovered the extent of their fathers' occupations: These men were leaders of the Third Reich and would later be convicted as monstrous war criminals.

It's 1940, and the British Expeditionary Force is caught ill prepared for the onslaught of the German Blitzkrieg and its deadly panzers. Caught in the desperate retreat to Dunkirk, Tom Harsker, son of a World War One ace, discovers that he is a natural soldier. Escaping to England and with complete disaster narrowly averted, Tom is selected to join the newly formed Commandos.

Germany, 1945. Ever since Anton Kohler first heard the vibrant sound of the violin, he's dreamed of mastering the instrument. But when his father dies, the 15-year-old must give up his passion to support his seven younger siblings. As the Russian army marches closer to his hometown, Anton and his best friend Gerhard are pulled from their families and forced to help defend their home in a last desperate stand. When Anton witnesses the slaughter of concentration camp prisoners, he vows to escape the war and find a way home....

By July of 1944, the Third Reich's days were numbered. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a general staff insider with open eyes (and access to the Fuhrer), was convinced that assassinating Hitler was the only way to prevent the destruction of the Fatherland and the deaths of millions. On July 20, he hid a bomb-stuffed briefcase at a high-level meeting. The explosion tore through the room, but a table leg spared Hitler from the blast. The result was a witch hunt, a wave of executions, and a further pointless year of war. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh deliver an exhilarating and definitive portrait of the anti-Nazi movement (called "Secret Germany") that almost killed Hitler. Secret Germany is the story of "World War II's boldest plot-that-failed" (Time), a coup that was a moral and spiritual necessity.

The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.

Berlin, 1930—When a wave of change sweeps a radical political party to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes’s academic husband benefits from the ambitions of its newly elected chancellor. Although Sofie and Jürgen do not share the social views growing popular in Hitler’s Germany, Jürgen’s position with its burgeoning rocket program changes their diminishing fortunes for the better. But as Sofie watches helplessly, her beloved Berlin begins to transform, forcing her to consider what they must sacrifice morally for their young family’s security, and what the price for their neutrality will be.

In late March 1944, as Stalin’s forces push into Ukraine, young Emil and Adeline Martel must make a terrible decision: Do they wait for the Soviet bear’s intrusion and risk being sent to Siberia? Or do they reluctantly follow the wolves - murderous Nazi officers who have pledged to protect “pure-blood” Germans? The Martels are one of many families of German heritage whose ancestors have farmed in Ukraine for more than a century.

It is sometimes difficult to remember that in war there are innocents on all sides who suffer. German citizens who had no connection to the atrocities committed by their countrymen nonetheless endured great hardships because of them.

There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.

One man had a single goal…to eliminate Hitler from the face of the Earth. Living as a carpenter who had spent time working in a watch factory, Georg Elser was just an ordinary member of society living in Munich. That is, however, until he took it upon himself to attempt to assassinate the Fhrer, Adolph Hitler. Being a common man who opposed the Nazi regime, Elser took the skills from his craft and worked to assemble his own bomb detonator.

The 1941 Battle of Moscow, unquestionably one of the most decisive battles of World War II, marked the first strategic defeat of the German armed forces in their seemingly unstoppable march across Europe. The Soviets lost many more people in this one battle than the British and Americans lost in the whole of the Second World War. Now, with authority and narrative power, Rodric Braithwaite tells the story in large part through the individual experiences of ordinary Russian men and women.

When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue, and constant deprivation. Posted to the elite Grosse Deutschland division, he enters a violent and remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, and all that matters is the brute will to survive.

D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed the Allied landing, have become the defining episode of World War II in the west - the object of books, films, television series, and documentaries. Yet as familiar as it is, as James Holland makes clear in his definitive history, many parts of the OVERLORD campaign, as it was known, are still shrouded in myth and assumed knowledge.