Empfehlungen basierend auf "The Second World War"

From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany like no other For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Twenty-five years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany both geography and history have always been unstable. Its frontiers have constantly floated. Königsberg, home to the greatest German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, is now Kaliningrad, Russia; Strasbourg, in whose cathedral Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's greatest writer, discovered the distinctiveness of his country's art and history, now lies within the borders of France. For most of the five hundred years covered by this book Germany has been composed of many separate political units, each with a distinct history. And any comfortable national story Germans might have told themselves before 1914 was destroyed by the events of the following thirty years. German history may be inherently fragmented, but it contains a large number of widely shared memories, awarenesses and experiences; examining some of these is the purpose of this book. Beginning with the fifteenth-century invention of modern printing by Gutenberg, MacGregor chooses objects and ideas, people and places which still resonate in the new Germany - porcelain from Dresden and rubble from its ruins, Bauhaus design and the German sausage, the crown of Charlemagne and the gates of Buchenwald - to show us something of its collective imagination. There has never been a book about Germany quite like it.

Events Relating to the Last Flight of an R.A.F. over Germany on the Night of June 31, 1943.

Rees, Laurence. Their Darkest People tested to the extreme during WWII New York, Ebury, 2007. 15.5 cm x 24 cm. X, 310 pages. With 15 colour illustrations. Original Hardcover with illustrated dustjacket in protective Mylar. Excellent condition with only very minor signs of external wear. Award-winning writer and filmmaker Laurence Rees has spent nearly 20 years meeting people who were tested to the extreme during World War II. He has come face-to-face with rapists, mass murderers, even cannibals, but he has also met courageous individuals who are an inspiration to us all. His quest has taken him from the Baltic States to Japan, from Poland to America, and from Germany to China. Here he presents 35 of his most electrifying encounters. Meet Estera Frenkiel, a young Jewish woman given the chance to save ten fellow Jews from deportation and death; Peter Lee, a British officer brutally treated by his Japanese captors; Zinaida Pytkina, a female member of the Soviet Union's infamous SMERSH organisation, who took pleasure in killing a German Prisoner; Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier so fanatical that he refused to surrender until 29 years after the end of the war; and Petras Zelionka, a Lithuanian who shot Jewish men, women and children for the Nazis. The devastating first-hand testimony in Their Darkest Hour is both a lasting contribution to our understanding of the war and a powerful insight into the behaviour of human beings in crisis. (Amazon)

At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train'. Spike Milligan's on the march, blitzing friend and foe alike with his uproarious recollections of army life from enlistment to the landing at Algiers in 1943. Bathos, pathos and gales of drunken laughter, and insane military goonery explode in superlative Milliganese.

Within days of the D-Day lanings, the 'Das Reich' 2nd SS Panzer Division marched north through France to reinforce the front-line defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Veterans of the bloodiest fighting of the Russion Front, 15,000 men with their tanks and artillery, they were hounded for every mile of their march by saboteurs of the Resistance and agents of the Allied Special Forces. Along their route they took reporisals so savage they will live for ever in the chronicles of the most appalling atrocities of war. Max Hasting's powerful account of their progress is a true military classic.

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER AWARD A magisterial and acclaimed history of post-war Europe, from Germany to Poland, from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, selected as one of New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year Europe in 1945 was drained. Much of the continent was devastated by war, mass slaughter, bombing and chaos. Large areas of Eastern Europe were falling under Soviet control, exchanging one despotism for another. Today, the Soviet Union is no more and the democracies of the European Union reach as far as the borders of Russia itself. Postwar tells the rich and complex story of how we got from there to here, demystifying Europe's recent history and identity, of what the continent is and has been. 'It is hard to imagine how a better - and more readable - history of the emergence of today's Europe from the ashes of 1945 could ever be written...All in all, a real masterpiece' Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler

Half a century after their deaths, the dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler still cast a long and terrible shadow over the modern world. They were the most destructive and lethal regimes in history, murdering millions. They fought the largest and costliest war in all history. Yet millions of Germans and Russians enthusiastically supported them and the values they stood for. In this first major study of the two dictatorships side-by-side Richard Overy sets out to answer the question: How was dictatorship possible? How did they function? What was the bond that tied dictator and people so powerfully together? He paints a remarkable and vivid account of the different ways in which Stalin and Hitler rose to power, and abused and dominated their people. It is a chilling analysis of powerful ideals corrupted by the vanity of ambitious and unscrupulous men.

Nine-year-old Anna was too busy with schoolwork and friends in 1933 to take much notice of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in her native Germany. But when her father is suddenly, unaccountably missing, and her family flees Berlin in secrecy, Anna is forced to learn the skills needed to be a refugee and finds she's much more resilient than she thought.192 pp.

"The leading nonfiction best seller in Germany since its publication, with translations in preparation in seventeen countries, Mr. Fest's monumental work on the most fateful historical figure of our time stands out as a towering achievement. Absorbingly readable, it tells and interprets the extraordinarily dramatic story of a man's and nation's rise from impotence and insignificance to a brief period of absolute power, as Germany and Hitler, from shared premises, entered into their covenant. Convincingly, Fest exhibits the true source of Hitler's overwhelming dynamism, the basis of his stupendous initial success in peace and war, and finally the real effects of his policies to this day ... The Germany of the times comes vividly alive with its contrasts of misery and grandiosity, with its fierce strife and the varied company of both is good and evil figures. The preliminaries of World War II are unraveled with skillful lucidity, Hitler's purposeful actions contrasted with the hesitancy or hubris of his opponents. In the last analysis, however, Fest uncovers in Hitler a constantly destructive personality who aimed at and achieved destruction on an unprecedented scale, not least because an insecure world gave him opportunities. In a final irony, he changed the world irrevocably, thoughnow as he wished or foresaw, for all of us."--Jacket.

'YOU WANTED TO SEE SOME ACTION - WELL YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT NOW. YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT NOW ALL RIGHT.' Friday 24th May, 1940 Private Johnny Hawke, aged sixteen, awakens to artillery fire. Hours later, Stukas scream down from the sky. Messerschmit fighters roar towards his regiment. Trucks burst into flames. Now men and mules lay dead and dying, severed limbs twisted grotesquely as blood soaks the cobbled streets. Young Private Hawke just wants to do his duty and serve his country. But as he - and his fellow soldiers - prepare to stop the German advance, there's only one question on everyone's lips. HOW WILL THEY SURVIVE?