World War Ii Social History

Most Americans have grown accustomed to accept the version of history that the Soviets were our noble allies and took the brunt of the casualties during World War II. But after decades of research by veteran journalist M. Stanton Evans and intelligence expert Herbert Romerstein, the truth has come to light and is now exposed in Stalin's Secret Agents. Evans and Romerstein focus on the role of secret Communist Alger Hiss at the crucial Yalta Conference of 1945, where vast U.S. concessions were made to Russia....

In August 1940, Berlin was hit by British bombers. Hitler immediately ordered a series of gigantic air defences be built - each one more expensive than the city’s entire Olympic facilities - but they’re ineffective and resources are wasted. The Führer also has an opportunity to force the British out of North Africa and gain control of the Middle East’s valuable oil. But he rejects his generals’ advice, just as he unnecessarily draws the United States into the war in Europe.

On 27th January 1944, Stalin declares that Leningrad has been liberated. After a siege lasting two and a half years, German forces retreat with the Red Army in hot pursuit. Encouraged by the victory, Soviet general Govorov decides to liberate Estonia, but in the battle of Narva, the Germans upset his plans, and the front comes to a temporary halt. Hitler's forces are feeling the pressure on all sides, however.

The Germans and their Japanese allies have gone from victory to victory since the start of the war, but in the autumn of 1942, that begins to change. On the small Pacific island of Guadalcanal, US forces drive back the Japanese to capture a key airfield. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, Hitler’s blitzkrieg slams to a halt at Stalingrad, stopped by the Russian winter and a Red Army determined to defend every street. As the war enters its fourth year, the conflict becomes ever more brutal.

With Europe overrun by Hitler’s thundering war machine, Churchill is the only head of state with the courage to stand up to the Führer. The British Prime Minister’s iron will makes him a role model in Great Britain and across the continent. Churchill and his V-sign become a symbol of resistance against Nazi Germany. In Germany in February 1942, armaments minister Albert Speer has the job of making sure that there’s a steady supply of prisoners of war to man the plants and factories -at the same time as the SS are on a killing spree.

Luftwaffe pilots fear one weapon more than any other: British Spitfires. Powerful Rolls Royce engines and an ingenious design make the plane fast and manoeuvrable. In 1940, Spitfires and their fearless pilots resist Hitler’s attempts to bomb Britain to submission. The fighter’s success forces Germany’s leaders to develop even more powerful weapons. London is targeted by V-1 and V-2 bombs, forerunners of the Saturn V moon rocket. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front the supergun Schwerer Gustav fires shells at targets 47 kilometres away.

The battle is won, the enemy driven out, and everyone can breathe again. Many field generals thought this - but generals often make mistakes. Throughout World War II, specially trained soldiers made sure that the enemy never rested in peace. Command units struck anywhere and at any time: a German general was kidnapped in the middle of Crete, while commandos liberated Benito Mussolini from his prison on a mountain top. And British units blew up factories in a Norwegian town to deprive Germany of important raw materials.

German tanks rolled unimpeded across the Russian steppes at the start of Hitler’s campaign against the Soviet Union. But in 1943, the so-called Slavic "untermensch" (subhumans) gain the initiative and transform the country into a hell for Hitler’s invasion forces. Nearly 100,000 Germans are captured after the Battle of Stalingrad at the beginning of the year. Ahead lies cold, hunger and ill-treatment, and only five percent of prisoners will return to Germany after the war.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler seizes power after seducing the German people with lavish promises of restoring order, prosperity and the Greater German Reich to its former glories. He then goes to on exploit other Western European powers’ fear of confrontation to rearm the country in direct defiance of the restrictive terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Before his neighbours can react, Hitler has transformed Germany’s armed forces into the most modern war machine of the day. And Hitler is not alone.

Victor Capesius custodiaba la reserva nazi de gas Zyklon B y proporcionaba fármacos que eran empleados por médicos para llevar a cabo experimentos espantosos y mortales en mujeres embarazadas y niños. Hurgaba en los cadáveres de los judíos en busca de empastes de oro, y llevado por la codicia, arrastraba pesadas maletas llenas de ese metal extraído a miles de víctimas. El farmacéutico de Auschwitz cuenta su historia. Tras una exhaustiva investigación, Patricia Posner recrea la historia de Victor Capesius.

More than 100 US Army and Navy nurses were stationed in Guam and the Philippines at the beginning of World War II. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, five navy nurses on Guam became the first American military women of World War II to be taken prisoner by the Japanese. More than 70 army nurses survived five months of combat conditions in the jungles of Bataan and Corregidor before being captured, only to endure more than three years in prison camps.

From Michael Beschloss, one of America's most respected historians, The Conquerors reveals one of the most important stories of World War II. As Allied soldiers fought the Nazis, Franklin Roosevelt and, later, Harry Truman fought in private with Churchill and Stalin over how to ensure that Germany could never threaten the world again.

There are few adjectives, which have not been applied to the combined amphibious and airborne assault operation that took place on June the 6th 1944. Two and a half years in the planning, Operation Overlord, the invasion of German occupied France would require every tool in the allied arsenal. In this concise history authors, William R. Bradle and Robert Child examine the invasion from multiple angles from what planning was required to what tough decisions had to be made.

Shortly after World War II, Congress' House Committee on Un-American Activities began investigating Americans across the country for suspected ties to communism. Among the people called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, none are as controversial as Alger Hiss.

With an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, the United States Marine Corps - the last all-white branch of the U.S. military - was forced to begin recruiting and enlisting African Americans. The first black recruits received basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point, adjacent to Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina.

El gobierno de Franco y el Vaticano ayudaron a escapar de Europa y de ser juzgados en Núremberg a importantes nazis acusados de genocidio y de crímenes contra la humanidad. Adolf Eichmann, el «arquitecto» del Holocausto, Josef Mengele, el «Ángel de la muerte» de Auschwitz, Franz Stangl, el verdugo de Treblinka, Klaus Barbie, el carnicero de Lyon, John Ivan Demjanjuk, Erich Priebke, Gustav Wagner, Hermine Braunsteiner, Otto Wächter, Walter Rauff, Herberts Cukurs y Erich Rajakowitsch son las «ratas» que escaparon de Europa dejando tras de sí una gran marca de sangre y horror.

Da generationen, der var unge under besættelsen, blev søde, skrøbelige bedsteforældre, kunne vi ikke få os selv til at spørge dem, om de også huskede at elske, feste og føle dengang. Besættelsen 1940-1945 er gået over i historien som de fem forbandede år, en tid præget af vareknaphed, mørke, dårlig hygiejne og angsten for morgendagen. Ikke desto mindre er det et faktum, at der var babyboom under besættelsen, at kønssygdomme florerede, og at der blev udgivet en masse frække bøger og blade.

Morgonen den 6 augusti 1945 fäller besättningen på planet Enola Gay en atombomb över Hiroshima. Några minuter senare har den japanska staden förvandlats till ett brinnande helvete. Tre dagar senare drabbas Nagasaki av samma öde. Till och med de förhärdade japanska generalerna, som varit fast beslutna att fortsätta strida, är skakade av den ofattbara förödelsen. När även kejsaren förespråkar en kapitulation, väljer Japan till slut att acceptera en villkorslös sådan. I allra sista ögonblicket är det nära att planerna kullkastas av en grupp officerare.

Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg was among the most sought-after gynecologists in pre-World War II Germany. The creator of the first IUD, known as the Gräfenberg ring, he was posthumously credited with identifying the eponymous "Gräfenberg spot" or G-spot. He was also a Jew in Nazi Germany, and by 1938 he had been stripped of his practice, his possessions, and his freedom and was languishing in a Nazi prison.

Vividly capturing the heady times in the waning months of World War II, Ronald Weber follows the exploits of Allied reporters as they flooded into liberated Paris after four dark years of Nazi occupation. He traces the remarkable adventures of the men and women who lived, worked, and played in the legendary Hôtel Scribe, set in a highly fashionable part of the largely undamaged city. Press jeeps and trailers packed the street outside, while inside the hotel was completely booked with hundreds of correspondents.