Germany World War Ii

On May 7, 1945, journalist Edward Kennedy bypassed military censorship to be the first to break the news of the Nazi surrender executed in Reims, France. While, at the behest of Soviet leaders, Allied authorities prohibited release of the story, Kennedy stuck to his journalistic principles and refused to manage information he believed the world had a right to know. No action by an American correspondent during the war proved more controversial.

At the height of World War II, with the Third Reich's final solution in full operation, a small group of Jews who had barely escaped the Nazis did the unthinkable: They went back. Spies now, these men took on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. They Dared Return is their story - a tale of adventure, espionage, love, and revenge.

Erwin Rommel remains one of the best remembered generals of World War II and history at large, despite the fact he was on the losing side, and he was defeated at the most famous battle of his career. Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was one of the most respected commanders and theoreticians of World War II. Albert Kesselring was undoubtedly a gifted commander, but one who served at a time when the German military was tainted with the evils of Nazism.

The Mafia at War reconstructs the relationships between the Mafia and Allied intelligence organizations.

Discover how Jewish gangsters clashed with Nazis on the streets of New York; how Mafiosi nearly issued contracts to kill top Nazis, including Hitler; how Mafia-backed bandits conducted a guerrilla war for Sicilian independence; and how Eisenhower was happy to arm the Mafia during the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Two loves rule Viktoria Jochum-Kraus's life. One is the Hotel Quadriga, built by her father, opened on the day she was born and, in January 1933, the most luxurious hotel in Berlin. The other is her son, Stefan. Only Viktoria knows that Stefan is the result of a youthful infatuation with her husband's cousin, Count Peter von Biederstein. As war wreaks its fearful devastation—on the city and on the people she loves—all that Viktoria holds most dear is threatened....

Despite the best efforts of a number of historians, many aspects of the ferocious struggle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during the Second World War remain obscure or shrouded in myth. One of the most persistent of these is the notion - largely created by many former members of its own officer corps in the immediate postwar period - that the German Army was a paragon of military professionalism and operational proficiency whose defeat on the Eastern Front was solely attributable to the amateurish meddling of a crazed former Corporal.

To Command the Sky is a scholarly record of the fight for domination of the skies over Western Europe during World War II. It also explains the technical details of the tactics used to defeat the Luftwaffe. This book is important for serious students of World War II or military aviation.

The bitter Battle of Stalingrad on the Eastern Front was the turning point of World War II. The relentless and unstoppable German advances that had seen the panzers sweep hundreds of miles into Russia was finally brought to a halt. The elite German Sixth Army was first fought to a standstill, then surrounded and forced to surrender.

The Swedish Red Cross expedition to the German concentration camps in March-April 1945 was the largest rescue effort inside Germany during World War II. Sponsored by the Swedish Government and led by Count Bernadotte of Wisborg, the mission became known for its distinctive buses. Each bus was purposefully painted entirely white except for the Red Cross emblem on the side so that they would not be mistaken for military targets.

Richard Bessel, history professor at the University of York, specializes in the social and political history of Nazi Germany. In four compelling essays, he forcefully argues that racism made war inevitable. The Third Reich, led by "[A] band of political gangsters", came to power with a deep ideological commitment to war and racism. As the driving force behind the economics, social policy, and propaganda of Germany, racial hatred was the catalyst that plunged Europe into war.

Distant, silent, often drunk, Walter Urban is a difficult man to have as a father. But his son - the narrator of this slim, harrowing novel - is curious about Walter's experiences during World War II, and so makes him a present of a blank notebook in which to write down his memories. Walter dies, however, leaving nothing but the barest skeleton of a story on those pages, leading his son to fill in the gaps himself, rightly or wrongly, with what he can piece together of his father's early life.

During the Second World War, Allied air forces dropped nearly two million tons of bombs on Germany, destroying some 60 cities, killing more than half a million German citizens, and leaving 80,000 pilots dead. But the terrible truth is that much of the bombing was carried out against the expressed demands of the Allied military leadership, leading to the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Focusing on the crucial period from 1942 to 1945, Fire and Fury tells the story of the American and British bombing campaign through the eyes of those involved.

Terror Flyers examines the "lynch justice" (Lynchjustiz) committed against American airmen in Nazi Germany during World War II. Using engaging first-person accounts of downed pilots, as well as previously unused primary sources, Terror Flyers challenges the notion that such lynchings were exclusively the domain of Nazi party officials and soldiers. New evidence reveals ordinary German people executed Lynchjustiz as well.

An inspiring account from one of history’s darkest moments. Marione Ingram grew up in Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She was German. She was Jewish. She was a survivor. This is her story. As a young girl, Marione was aware that people of the Jewish faith were regarded as outsiders, the supposed root of Germany’s many problems. She grew up in an apartment building where neighbors were more than happy to report Jews to the Gestapo.

Zwischen März und November 1945 folgte George Orwell als Kriegsberichterstatter den alliierten Streitkräften durch Deutschland und Österreich. Seine Reportagen schildern frei von Triumph oder Hass, welche Zerstörung der Krieg über Städte, Länder und Menschen gebracht hat. Hier erscheinen sie erstmals geschlossen in deutscher Übersetzung.

In the Second World War, Poznan was a key river crossing and railway junction on the Polish-German border. When the alarm was given indicating the Red Army's approach in January 1945, the city's 80-100,000 German civilians were speedily evacuated, leaving a garrison of some 15,000 men, mostly poorly-armed infantry, to face the rigors of a siege conducted by a massively superior and ruthless enemy anxious to acquire this transport center, which was vital for the advance on Berlin.

Dopo la fine della Prima Guerra Mondiale la situazione della Germania è a dir poco drammatica. Il paese è letteralmente devastato e sulle ceneri di quella che era stata una delle nazioni più importanti d'Europa sorge la debole Repubblica di Weimar. Una crisi economica senza precedenti, resa ancora più difficile dalle durissime condizioni imposte dai francesi al termine del primo conflitto mondiale, porta all'affermarsi di movimenti estremisti che cavalcano il malcontento popolare.

"Es war am 4. November 1937, als wir in Buchenwald ankamen. Ich fühlte mich den anderen gegenüber ein wenig überlegen, denn ich hatte im Jahre 1933 bereits zwei Konzentrationslager (Colditz und Sachsenburg) kennengelernt. Was konnte mir Buchenwald schon Neues bringen. Jedoch das Gefühl der Überlegenheit verlor sich sehr bald, denn die unverwischbaren Eindrücke schon des ersten Tages zeigten, dass das Lager Buchenwald des Jahres 1937 keinen Vergleich mit dem Lager Colditz aus dem Jahre 1933 zuließ.“ (Bruno Apitz).

For 28 years, the Berlin Wall was a symbol of communist oppression and tyranny. The barricade was built in August 1961 to keep East German citizens from defecting to West Germany. This is the story of an oppressive symbol — a wall erected to form a prison for those within its border — but it is also the story of triumph over tyranny when finally, 28 years after it was first built, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989.

Philipp Freiherr v. Boeselager war Zeitzeuge der Ereignisse um den 20. Juli 1944. Als Ordonnanzoffizier des Oberbefehlshabers der Heeresgruppe Mitte erfuhr Boeselager von den Massentötungen und anderen Verbrechen und gelangte zu der Überzeugung, dass das verbrecherische Regime Hitlers gestürzt werden müsse. Er schloss sich dem Widerstand um Henning von Tresckow an und übernahm die Aufgabe, andere Offiziere für den Staatsstreich zu gewinnen.