Best of
Germany

2015

KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps


Nikolaus Wachsmann - 2015
    The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone." In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.

Secrets She Kept


Cathy Gohlke - 2015
    . . the consequences a daughter could not redeem—but will risk everything in her attempt.All her life, Hannah Sterling longed for a close relationship with her estranged mother. Following Lieselotte’s death, Hannah unlocks secrets of her mother’s mysterious past, including the discovery of a grandfather living in Germany.Thirty years earlier, Lieselotte’s father, ascending the ranks of the Nazi party, demands a marriage for his daughter to help advance his career. But Lieselotte is in love—and her beloved Lukas secretly works against the Reich. How far will her father go to achieve his goal?Both Hannah’s and Lieselotte’s stories unfold as Hannah travels to Germany to meet her grandfather, who hides wartime secrets of his own. Longing for connection, yet shaken by all she uncovers, Hannah must decide if she can atone for her family’s tragic past, and how their legacy will shape her future.

You, Me, and the Colors of Life


Noa C. Walker - 2015
    Her life-affirming attitude fascinates Thomas, a shy young man who begins to see the rich colors of life in a whole new light. As she reveals a world he never could have imagined for himself, Thomas falls head over heels for the strong young woman and becomes part of her quirky circle of friends and her loving family.Their generosity of spirit draws Thomas out of his shell. He finds strength in their visits to the children’s hospital where Janica volunteers, captivating the kids’ attention with her imaginative stories. But all too soon fate deals them a harsh blow. Can their love survive life’s obstacles?You, Me, and the Colors of Life is a moving, hopeful story about the power of love and the power of living a life filled with joy.

The House by the Lake: A Story of Germany


Thomas Harding - 2015
    It had been her ‘soul place’ as a child, she said – a holiday home for her and her family, but much more – a sanctuary, a refuge. In the 1930s, she had been forced to leave the house, fleeing to England as the Nazis swept to power. The trip, she said, was a chance to see it one last time, to remember it as it was. But the house had changed. Nearly twenty years later Thomas returned to the house. It was government property now, derelict, and soon to be demolished. It was his legacy, one that had been loved, abandoned, fought over – a house his grandmother had desired until her death. Could it be saved? And should it be saved?He began to make tentative enquiries – speaking to neighbours and villagers, visiting archives, unearthing secrets that had lain hidden for decades. Slowly he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived there – a wealthy landowner, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned composer, a widower and her children, a Stasi informant. All had made the house their home, and all – bar one – had been forced out. The house had been the site of domestic bliss and of contentment, but also of terrible grief and tragedy. It had weathered storms, fires and abandonment, witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, had withstood the trauma of a world war, and the dividing of a nation.As the story of the house began to take shape, Thomas realized that there was a chance to save it – but in doing so, he would have to resolve his own family’s feelings towards their former homeland – and a hatred handed down through the generations.The House by the Lake is a groundbreaking and revelatory new history of Germany over a tumultuous century, told through the story of a small wooden house. Breathtaking in scope, intimate in its detail, it is the long-awaited new history from the author of the bestselling Hanns and Rudolf.

Das Reboot: How German Football Reinvented Itself and Conquered the World


Raphael Honigstein - 2015
    Landing on his left foot, he takes a step with his right, swivels, and in one fluid motion, without the ball touching the ground, volleys it past the onrushing Argentine goalkeeper into the far corner of the net. The goal wins Germany the World Cup for the first time in almost twenty-five years. In the aftermath, Götze looks dazed, unable to comprehend what he has done.In Das Reboot, journalist and television pundit Raphael Honigstein charts the return of German football from the international wilderness of the late 1990s to Götze’s moment of genius and asks how did this come about? How did German football transform itself from its efficient, but unappealing and defensively minded traditions to the free-flowing, attacking football that was on display in 2014? The answer takes him from California to Stuttgart, from Munich to the Maracaná, via Dortmund and Durban. Packed with exclusive interviews with the key protagonists, Honigstein’s book lifts the lid on the secrets of German football’s success.

Learn German with Stories: Dino lernt Deutsch - German Short Stories for Beginners: Explore German Cities and Boost Your Vocabulary


André Klein - 2015
     There's A Litte Bit Of Dino Inside All Of Us Lured by the promise of endless possibilities, Dino, a young man from Sicily tries to make a new home in Germany. Equipped only with an intense curiosity and a knack for meeting new people, he's eager to delve into local customs and cuisine, if there only wasn't this pesky business of learning German ... Follow Dino on his adventures through 4 different German cities, experience daily life in Germany through the eyes of a newcomer, learn about the country and its people, and learn German effortlessly along the way! This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying) naturally flowing German short stories. Learning German Doesn't Have To Be A Chore Just got started on your German learning journey? Memorized a few words but struggle with longer texts? We've all been there. This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying!) authentic German fiction. Using simplified sentence structures and a very basic vocabulary, this story series is carefully crafted to allow even novice learners to boost their confidence and speed up their German learning journey. Each chapter comes with a complete German-English dictionary, with a special emphasis on collocative phrases (high frequency word combinations), short sentences and useful expressions. By working with these building blocks instead of just single words, learners can accelerate their understanding, boost retention and active usage of new German language material and make the language learning process more fluid and fun. What You'll Find In This Book 40 German short stories about German culture, language and cuisine tons of phrases and expressions you will actually use in daily life a detailed German-English vocabulary after each chapter short quizzes to boost your text-comprehension a relatable protagonist and other fun characters hand-drawn illustrations by the author the beginning of a grand German learning adventure ... Read, Learn & Collect Them All Yes! That's right. Once you're done reading the four episodes contained in this collector's edition, the story continues! Follow our protagonist to Palermo, Zurich, Vienna and many other cities in the next installment! Before you know it, you'll have traveled half of Europe and picked up more German than years' worth of expensive courses. Learning German has never been more fun. What You'll NOT Find In This Book dull characters designed by academics archaic words and phrases nobody uses in real life

Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel


Daniel Allen Butler - 2015
    In France in 1940, then for two years in North Africa, then finally back in France again, at Normandy in 1944, he proved himself a master of armored warfare, running rings around a succession of Allied generals who never got his measure and could only resort to overwhelming numbers to bring about his defeat.And yet for all his military genius, Rommel was also naive, a man who could admire Adolf Hitler at the same time that he despised the Nazis, dazzled by a Führer whose successes blinded him to the true nature of the Third Reich. Above all, he was the quintessential German patriot, who ultimately would refuse to abandon his moral compass, so that on one pivotal day in June 1944 he came to understand that he had mistakenly served an evil man and evil cause. He would still fight for Germany even as he abandoned his oath of allegiance to the Führer, when he came to realize that Hitler had morphed into nothing more than an agent of death and destruction. In the end Erwin Rommel was forced to die by his own hand, not because, as some would claim, he had dabbled in a tyrannicidal conspiracy, but because he had committed a far greater crime – he dared to tell Adolf Hitler the truth.In Field Marshal historian Daniel Allen Butler not only describes the swirling, innovative campaigns in which Rommel won his military reputation, but assesses the temper of the man who finally fought only for his country, and no dark depths beyond.

The Munich Girl


Phyllis Edgerly Ring - 2015
    Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother and Hitler’s mistress were friends. The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief, and a man, Hannes Ritter, whose Third Reich family history is entwined with Anna’s. Plunged into the world of the “ordinary” Munich girl who was her mother’s confidante—and a tyrant’s lover—Anna finds her every belief about right and wrong challenged. With Hannes’s help, she retraces the path of two women who met as teenagers, shared a friendship that spanned the years that Eva Braun was Hitler’s mistress, yet never knew that the men they loved had opposing ambitions. Eva’s story reveals that she never joined the Nazi party, had Jewish friends, and was credited at the Nuremberg Trials with saving 35,000 Allied lives. As Anna's journey leads back through the treacherous years in wartime Germany, it uncovers long-buried secrets and unknown reaches of her heart to reveal the enduring power of love in the legacies that always outlast war.

The Third Reich in History and Memory


Richard J. Evans - 2015
    In this brilliant and eye-opening collection, Richard J. Evans, the acclaimed author of the Third Reich trilogy, offers a criticalcommentary on that transformation, exploring how major changes in perspective have informed research and writing on the Third Reich in recent years.Drawing on his most notable writings from the last two decades, Evans reveals the shifting perspectives on Nazism's rise to political power, its economic intricacies, and its subterranean extension into postwar Germany. Evans considers how the Third Reich is increasingly viewed in a broaderinternational context, as part of the age of imperialism; discusses the growing emphasis on the larger economic and cultural circumstances of the era; and emphasizes the development of research into Nazi society, particularly in the understanding of Nazi Germany as a political system based onpopular approval and consent. Exploring the complex relationship between memory and history, Evans also points out the places where the growing need to confront the misdeeds of Nazism and expose the complicity of those who participated has led to crude and sweeping condemnation, when insteadhistorians should be making careful distinctions.Written with Evans' sharp-eyed insight and characteristically compelling style, these essays offer a summation of the collective cultural memory of Nazism in the present, and suggest the degree to which memory must be subjected to the close scrutiny of history.

Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself: The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945


Florian Huber - 2015
    A wave of suicides rolled across the country as thousands chose death—for themselves and their children—rather than face the defeat of the Third Reich and what they feared might follow. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, historian Florian Huber tells of the largest mass suicide in German history and its suppression by the survivors—a fascinating insight into the feelings of ordinary people caught in the tide of history who saw no other way out.

The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis


Simon Goodman - 2015
    And that’s almost all he knew about them—his father rarely spoke of their family history or heritage. But when he passed away, and Simon received his father’s old papers, a story began to emerge.The Gutmanns, as they were known then, rose from a small Bohemian hamlet to become one of Germany’s most powerful banking families. They also amassed a magnificent, world-class art collection that included works by Degas, Renoir, Botticelli, Guardi, and many, many others. But the Nazi regime snatched from them everything they had worked to build: their remarkable art, their immense wealth, their prominent social standing, and their very lives.Simon grew up in London with little knowledge of his father’s efforts to recover their family’s prized possessions. It was only after his father’s death that Simon began to piece together the clues about the Gutmanns’ stolen legacy and the Nazi looting machine. He learned much of the collection had gone to Hitler and Hermann Goering; other works had been smuggled through Switzerland, sold and resold to collectors and dealers, with many works now in famous museums. More still had been recovered by Allied forces only to be stolen again by heartless bureaucrats—European governments quietly absorbed thousands of works of art into their own collections. Through painstaking detective work across two continents, Simon has been able to prove that many works belonged to his family, and successfully secure their return.With the help of his family, Simon initiated the first Nazi looting case to be settled in the United States. They also brought about the first major restitution in The Netherlands since the post-war era.Goodman’s dramatic story, told with great heart, reveals a rich family history almost obliterated by the Nazis. It is not only the account of a twenty-year long detective hunt for family treasure, but an unforgettable tale of redemption and restoration.

Madness in the Ruins


John A. Connell - 2015
    The only clue, a message, “Those who I have made suffer will become saints and they shall lift me up from hell.” Winter, 1945. Munich is in ruins. Though the war is over, murder still flourishes.U.S. Army investigator Mason Collins enforces the law in the American Zone of Occupation. This post is his last chance to do what he loves most—being a homicide detective.But he gets more than he’s bargained for when the bodies start piling up, the city devolves into panic, and the army brass start breathing down his neck.Then the murderer makes him a target. Now it's a high-stakes duel, and to win it Mason must bring into deadly play all that he values: his partner, his career—even his life.

Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany


Norman Ohler - 2015
    There have been other books on Dr Morell's cocktail of treatments for Hitler and Goering's reliance on drugs, but Ohler's book is the first to show how the entire Nazi regime was permeated with drugs - cocaine, heroin, morphine and methamphetamines, the last of these crucial to troops' resilience and partly explaining German victory in 1940. Ohler is explicit that drugs cannot explain Third Reich ideology, but their promiscuous use impaired and confused decision-making, with drastic effects on Hitler and his entourage, who, as the war turned against Germany, took refuge in ever more poorly understood cocktails of stimulants. This chemical euphoria changes how we should think about the Nazi high command and its ability to understand the situation it found itself in by 1944-45. As such Blitzed will force a wider reinterpretation of several key events during the Second World War.

Blue-Eyed Son


Melissa Tomlinson Romo - 2015
    An orphan boy is adopted by a childless couple. He grows up in a divided and war-weary Germany with the legacy of a hideous crime on his consience. More than fifty years later, his American daughter, Agnes, prepares to marry her Polish-American sweetheart. But when the wedding day comes, the father of the bride fails to appear and the groom storms away with a mysterious letter. In that moment, Agnes realizes that even half a century isn't long enough to extinguish the flames of war. Hoping to forge a peace between her father and her groom, Agnes ventures to Berlin, Munich, and ultimately Warsaw in search of answers only her father's estranged and ailing mother, Gertrude, can provide. But as Gertrude's health deteriorates, it becomes clear that she holds the key to a horrific secret that she is determined to take to her grave. To uncover the truth, Agnes must race against the silencing jaws of death through a tangled post-Communist bureaucracy, American embassies, Polish convents, Nazi legacies and the spectre of her own doubts. Agnes must decide how far she is willing to go, and if it's worth destroying her father and casting shame over the final days of the woman who raised him.

Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?: The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It


Bruni de la Motte - 2015
    Such descriptions are based largely on prejudice, ignorance and wilful animosity. This book is an attempt to provide a more balanced evaluation and to examine GDR-style socialism in terms of what we can learn from it. The authors, while not ignoring the real deficiencies of GDR society, emphasise the many aspects that were positive, and demonstrate that alternative ways of organising society are possible. This volume is an updated and much expanded edition of their booklet first published in 2009. The authors have added more detail on how the GDR came into being as a separate state, and about how society functioned and what values determined the every-day life of its citizens. There is also a whole new section on what happened in the aftermath of unification, particularly to the economy. While unification brought East Germans access to a more affluent society, freedom to travel throughout the world and the end to an over-centralised political system, it also brought with it unemployment, social breakdown and loss of hope, particularly in the once thriving rural areas.

Love Among the Ruins


Harry Leslie Smith - 2015
    But they must face both German suspicion and British disapproval of relations with ‘the enemy’.Presenting a street-level view of a city reduced to rubble, populated with refugees, black marketeers, corrupt businessmen and cynical soldiers, Love Among the Ruins is a unique snapshot of a terrible period in Europe’s history, a passionate love letter to a city, to a woman, and to life itself.

Rick Steves Pocket Munich & Salzburg


Rick Steves - 2015
    Extending your trip? Try Rick Steves Best of Germany.

German Men Sit Down to Pee and Other Insights into German Culture


Niklas Frank - 2015
    'German men sit down to pee' is a tongue-in-cheek guidebook to German culture that highlights the rules Germans consciously and unconsciously follow, while trying to make a little sense of it all along the way. Why, for example, mowing your lawn on a Sunday will mean getting an earful from your neighbour, but lie naked in the middle of a public park and nobody will bat an eyelid. Ideal for anyone visiting or moving to Germany, 'German Men Sit Down to Pee' offers a collection of insights into German culture while at the same time highlighting rules and cultural norms that those visiting Germany will not only find humorous but useful for avoiding any cultural faux-pas.

Never Surrender: Winston Churchill and Britain's Decision to Fight Nazi Germany in the Fateful Summer of 1940


John Kelly - 2015
    Everyone was on edge; civilization itself seemed imperiled. The Germans are marching. They have taken Poland, France, Holland, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia. They now menace Britain. Should Britain negotiate with Germany? The members of the War Cabinet bicker, yell, lose their control, and are divided. Churchill, leading the faction to fight, and Lord Halifax, cautioning that prudence is the way to survive, attempt to usurp one another by any means possible. Their country is on the line. And, in Never Surrender, we feel we are alongside these complex and imperfect men, determining the fate of the British Empire.Drawing on the War Cabinet papers, other government documents, private diaries, newspaper accounts, and memoirs, historian John Kelly tells the story of the summer of 1940—the months of the “Supreme Question” of whether or not the British were to surrender. Impressive in scope and attentive to detail, Kelly takes readers from the battlefield to Parliament, to the government ministries, to the British high command, to the desperate Anglo-French conference in Paris and London, to the American embassy in London, and to life with the ordinary Britons. He brings to life one of the most heroic moments of the twentieth century and intimately portrays some of its largest players—Churchill, Lord Halifax, FDR, Joe Kennedy, Hitler, Stalin, and others. Never Surrender is a fabulous, grand narrative of a crucial period in World War II history and the men and women who shaped it.

The Incidental Spy


Libby Fischer Hellmann - 2015
    After learning English, she eventually finds a new life as a secretary in the Physics Department of the University of Chicago. She meets and marries another German refugee scientist and has a child. Then tragedy strikes, and Lena is forced to spy on the nuclear fission experiments at the U of Chicago. A novella set in the early years of the Manhattan Project, The Incidental Spy is another fascinating historical thriller by Libby Fischer Hellmann, also the author of the highly acclaimed stand-alone thrillers Set the Night on Fire, A Bitter Veil, and Havana Los

Hitler's Last Day: Minute by Minute


Jonathan Mayo - 2015
    All over the country, people are on the move- concentration camp survivors, Allied PoWs, escaping Nazis- and the civilian population is running out of food. The man who orchestrated this nightmare is in his bunker beneath the capital, saying his farewells. This is the gripping story of Hitler's final hours, as seen through the eyes of those who were with him in the bunker; those fighting in the streets of Germany; and those pacing the corridors of power in Washington, London and Moscow.30th April 1945 was a day that millions had dreamed of, and millions had died for.

Paris at War: 1939-1944


David Drake - 2015
    Readers will relive the fearful exodus from the city as the German army neared the capital, the relief and disgust felt when the armistice was signed, and the hardships and deprivations under Occupation. David Drake contrasts the plight of working-class Parisians with the comparative comfort of the rich, exposes the activities of collaborationists, and traces the growth of the Resistance from producing leaflets to gunning down German soldiers. He details the intrigues and brutality of the occupying forces, and life in the notorious transit camp at nearby Drancy, along with three other less well known Jewish work camps within the city.The book gains its vitality from the diaries and reminiscences of people who endured these tumultuous years. Drake’s cast of characters comes from all walks of life and represents a diversity of political views and social attitudes. We hear from a retired schoolteacher, a celebrated economist, a Catholic teenager who wears a yellow star in solidarity with Parisian Jews, as well as Resistance fighters, collaborators, and many other witnesses.Drake enriches his account with details from police records, newspapers, radio broadcasts, and newsreels. From his chronology emerge the broad rhythms and shifting moods of the city. Above all, he explores the contingent lives of the people of Paris, who, unlike us, co­uld not know how the story would end.

Hitler at Home


Despina Stratigakos - 2015
    This provocative book exposes the dictator’s preoccupation with his private persona, which was shaped by the aesthetic and ideological management of his domestic architecture. Hitler’s bachelor life stirred rumors, and the Nazi regime relied on the dictator’s three dwellings—the Old Chancellery in Berlin, his apartment in Munich, and the Berghof, his mountain home on the Obersalzberg—to foster the myth of the Führer as a morally upstanding and refined man. Author Despina Stratigakos also reveals the previously untold story of Hitler’s interior designer, Gerdy Troost, through newly discovered archival sources.   At the height of the Third Reich, media outlets around the world showcased Hitler’s homes to audiences eager for behind-the-scenes stories. After the war, fascination with Hitler’s domestic life continued as soldiers and journalists searched his dwellings for insights into his psychology. The book’s rich illustrations, many previously unpublished, offer readers a rare glimpse into the decisions involved in the making of Hitler’s homes and into the sheer power of the propaganda that influenced how the world saw him.

Atlas of the Eastern Front: 1941–45


Robert Kirchubel - 2015
    This expansive collection of maps offers a visual guide to the theater that decided the fate of the war, spanning the thousands of miles from Berlin to the outskirts of Moscow, Stalingrad, East Prussia and all the way back. The accuracy and detail of the military cartography found in this volume illuminates the enormity of the campaign, revealing the staggering dimensions of distance covered and human losses suffered by both sides.

Threaten to Undo Us


Rose Seiler Scott - 2015
    You are no longer under the protection of the German army. All German citizens of the Third Reich are to evacuate.”At these words, Liesel and her young children are forced to flee their home. But losing the only home she has ever known is only the beginning. The brutal advance of Stalin’s forces into Poland results in a regime of terror and uncertainty, threatening to destroy Liesel’s family at every turn. Interrogated and imprisoned in a labour camp, her dream to re-unite with her husband and children seems impossible. Her only hope? A dangerous gamble, buoyed by a sliver of faith. Based on a true story, Threaten to Undo Us exposes shocking history in the shadow of World War Two.

From Yellow Star to Pop Star: How one young girl survived the Holocaust and became a singing sensation


Dorit Oliver-Wolff - 2015
    By six years old she was in hiding from the German soldiers who were rounding up and transporting her fellow Jews to concentration camps around Europe. Years of terror follow, with narrow escapes from capture and bombing raids plus betrayals by those she thought were her friends until, at last, she and her mother are rescued from the basement flat in which they are hiding. Singing helps her survive those dark days. But the Holocaust is only part of Dorit’s amazing story. After the war, stateless and without papers, she joins a touring dance troupe in order to be permitted to travel. She studies by day and sings and dances in seedy clubs by night until a talent scout spots her… and then her story really begins. Tense, moving and inspirational, Dorit’s remarkable story moves the reader through fear and horror, to freedom and joy and shows how the bravery and fortitude of one little Jewish girl helped her survive the Holocaust and become a star.

The Annotated Luther, Volume 1: The Roots of Reform


Martin Luther - 2015
    Included are treatises, letters, and sermons written from 1517-1520, revealing Luthers earliest confrontations with Rome and his defense of views that led to his excommunication. Each volume in The Annotated Luther series contains new introductions, annotations, illustrations, and notes to help shed light on Luthers context and interpret his writings for today.

John Heartfield: Laughter is a Devastating Weapon


David King - 2015
    In the 1930s, he produced some of the most visually arresting and politically hard-hitting artwork of the 20th century, appropriating the widely circulated propaganda of the time to create its total antithesis. In his own words, he used “laughter as a devastating weapon” to target the Nazis, which made him a target for Nazi censorship. In 1933, the Gestapo destroyed much of his work, after which he produced his brilliantly terrifying images in exile. This new book includes an insightful essay and more than 150 full-color reproductions of his works.

Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany: The Franco-Prussian War of 1813, Volume 1. The War of Liberation, Spring 1813


Michael V. Leggiere - 2015
    Michael Leggiere reveals how, in the spring of 1813, Prussia, the weakest of the Great Powers, led the struggle against Napoleon as a war of national liberation. Using German, French, British, Russian, Austrian and Swedish sources, he provides a panoramic history which covers the full sweep of the battle for Germany from the mobilization of the belligerents, strategy and operations to coalition warfare, diplomacy and civil-military relations. He shows how Russian war weariness conflicted with Prussian impetuosity, resulting in the crisis that almost ended the Sixth Coalition in early June. In a single campaign, Napoleon drove the Russo-Prussian army from the banks of the Saale to the banks of the Oder. The Russo-Prussian alliance was perilously close to imploding only to be saved at the eleventh-hour by an armistice.

For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619-1918


Richard Bassett - 2015
    Bassett shows how the Imperial Austrian Army, time and again, was a decisive factor in the story of Europe, the balance of international power, and the defense of Christendom. Moreover it was the first pan-European army made up of different nationalities and faiths, counting among its soldiers not only Christians but also Muslims and Jews. Bassett tours some of the most important campaigns and battles in modern European military history, from the seventeenth century through World War I. He details technical and social developments that coincided with the army’s story and provides fascinating portraits of the great military leaders as well as noteworthy figures of lesser renown. Departing from conventional assessments of the Habsburg army as ineffective, outdated, and repeatedly inadequate, the author argues that it was a uniquely cohesive and formidable fighting force, in many respects one of the glories of the old Europe.

The Book Cover in the Weimar Republic


Jürgen Holstein - 2015
    With Berlin as its epicenter, the Weimar republic was replete with ground-breaking literature, philosophy, and art. At the heart of this intellectual and creative hub were some of the most outstanding and forward-thinking book designs in history.Book Covers in the Weimar Republic assembles 1,000 of the most striking examples from this hub of publishing activity and innovation. Based on the remarkable collection of Jürgen Holstein and his rare collectible Blickfang, it combines an unparalleled catalog of dust jackets and bindings with Holstein’s introduction to the spirit and leading figures of Weimar publishing. Expert essays discuss the aesthetic and cultural context of these precious fourteen years, in which a freewheeling spirit would flourish, only to be trampled, burned, or driven out of the country with the rise of National Socialism.From children’s books to novels in translation, bold designs for political literature to minimalist artist monographs, this is a dazzling line-up of typography, illustration, and graphic design at its most energetic and daring. Part reference compendium, part vintage visual feast for the eyes, this very particular cultural history is at once a testament to an irretrievable period of promise and a celebration of the ambition, inventiveness, and beauty of the book. Text in English and German

Undeutsch: Die Konstruktion Des Anderen in Der Postmigrantischen Gesellschaft


Fatima El-Tayeb - 2015
    A third factor however remained absent, which could have likewise used a re-evaluation: the colonial past. Fatima El-Tayeb approaches the current conflicts around German identity through their historical contextualization, and the question of their gaps. She investigates the effects of these unbalanced processes of coming to terms with history by way of the production of three racialized groups - black people, the Roma and Muslims - as �Un-German�. Thus showing that a post-migrant Germany not only needs open visions of the future, but also new historical narratives.

Coventry: Thursday, 14 November 1940


Frederick Taylor - 2015
    Only after eleven hours of continual bombardment by the German Luftwaffe could its people emerge from their half-sunk Anderson shelters and their cellars, from under their stairs or kitchen tables, to venture up into their wounded city. That long night of destruction marked a critical moment in the Second World War. It heralded a new kind of air warfare, one which abandoned the pursuit of immediate military goals and instead focused on obliterating all aspects of city life. It also provided the push America needed to join Britain in the war. But while the Coventry raid was furiously condemned publically, such effective enemy tactics provided Britain's politicians and military establishment with a 'blueprint for obliteration', to be adapted and turned against Germany. A merciless four-year war of attrition had begun. In this important work of history Frederick Taylor draws upon numerous sources, including eye witness interviews from the archives of the BBC which are published here for the first time, to reveal the true repercussions of the bombing of Coventry in 1940. He teases out the truth behind the persistent rumours and conspiracy theories that Churchill knew the raid was coming, assesses this significant turning point in modern warfare, looks at how it affected Britain's status in the war, and considers finally whether this attack really could provide justification for the horror of Dresden, 1945.

Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books


Mark Glickman - 2015
    Nazi soldiers and civilians emptied Jewish communal libraries, confiscated volumes from government collections, and stole from Jewish individuals, schools, and synagogues. Early in their regime the Nazis burned some books in spectacular bonfires, but most they saved, stashing the literary loot in castles, abandoned mine shafts, and warehouses throughout Europe. It was the largest and most extensive book-looting campaign in history. After the war, Allied forces discovered these troves of stolen books but quickly found themselves facing a barrage of questions. How could the books be identified? Where should they go? Who had the authority to make such decisions? Eventually the military turned the books over to an organization of leading Jewish scholars called Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc.—whose chairman was the acclaimed historian Salo Baron and whose on-the-ground director was the philosopher Hannah Arendt—with the charge of establishing restitution protocols. Stolen Words is the story of how a free civilization decides what to do with the material remains of a world torn asunder, and how those remains connect survivors with their past. It is the story of Jews struggling to understand the new realities of their post-Holocaust world and of Western society’s gradual realization of the magnitude of devastation wrought by World War II. Most of all, it is the story of people —of Nazi leaders, ideologues, and Judaica experts; of Allied soldiers, scholars, and scoundrels; and of Jewish communities, librarians, and readers around the world.

The Seven Secrets of Germany: Economic Resilience in an Era of Global Turbulence


David B. Audretsch - 2015
    At the turn of the century, Germany had been written off as the sick man of Europe. No more. Even as most of its European neighbors and OECD trading partners have struggled in the face of a turbulent global economy, the German economy hasthrived.How does Germany do it? What is the secret? In The Seven Secrets of Germany, authors David Audretsch and Erik Lehmann answer these very questions. This book reveals, explains, and analyzes seven key aspects of Germany, its economy, and its society that have provided the nation with considerablebuoyance in an era of global turbulence. These seven features range from the key and strategic role played by small firms to world leadership in its skilled and trained labor force, an ability to harness global opportunities through leveraging local resources, public infrastructure, the capacity todeal with change and confront challenges in a flexible manner, and the emergence of a remarkably positive identity and image.The Seven Secrets of Germany have insulated the country from long-term economic deterioration and enabled it to take advantage of the opportunities afforded from globalization rather than succumbing as a victim to globalization. This insights can be instructive to other countries and refute thedefeatist view that globalization leads to an inevitable deterioration of the standard of living, quality of life, and degree of economic prosperity.

Easterleigh Hall at War


Margaret Graham - 2015
    With its army of volunteers and wounded servicemen, cook Evie Forbes is determined that everyone will be properly provided for, despite the threat of rationing and dwindling supplies. All the while she waits for letters from her fiancé and beloved brother, fighting on the Western Front. Then the worst happens – a telegram arrives with shattering news. And Evie wonders if she’ll have the strength to carry on…

Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland


Karl Schlögel - 2015
    The Western response to Russian aggression has been uncertain and hesitant in handling the unfamiliar yet large nation of Ukraine, a country with a complicated past, and one whose history is little known in the rest of Europe.In Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland, Karl Schlögel presents a picture of a country which lies on Europe’s borderland and in Russia’s shadow. In recent years, Ukraine has been faced, along with Western Europe, with the political conundrum resulting from Russia’s actions and the ongoing Information War. As well as exploring this present-day confrontation, Schlögel provides detailed, fascinating historical portraits of a panoply of Ukraine’s major cities: Lviv, Odessa, Czernowitz, Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk and Yalta – cities whose often troubled and war-torn histories are as varied as the nationalities and cultures which have made them what they are today, survivors with very particular identities and aspirations. Schlögel feels the pulse of life in these cities, analysing their more recent pasts and their challenges for the future.

Frank Auerbach


Catherine Lampert - 2015
    His intentions have been consistent: 'What I wanted to do was to record the life that seemed to me to be passionate and exciting and disappearing all the time'. This publication will accompany a retrospective of Auerbach's work at Tate Britain and the Bonn Kunstmuseum in 2015. The exhibition is curated by Catherine Lampert (who has sat for Auerbach since 1978) in close consultation with the artist, and will provide a wholly fresh survey of Auerbach's career. This book will be the only accessible, affordable survey of Auerbach's work on the market. Including a new essay by art historian T. J. Clark, the book also features statements from the artist and previously unseen documentary photographs.

Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis


Laurie Marhoefer - 2015
    The home of the world s first gay rights movement, the republic embodied a progressive, secular vision of sexual liberation. Immortalized however misleadingly in Christopher Isherwood s Berlin Stories and the musical Cabaret, Weimar s freedoms have become a touchstone for the politics of sexual emancipation.Yet, as Laurie Marhoefer shows in Sex and Weimar Republic, those sexual freedoms were only obtained at the expense of a minority who were deemed sexually disordered. In Weimar Germany, the citizen s right to sexual freedom came with a duty to keep sexuality private, non-commercial, and respectable.Sex and the Weimar Republic examines the rise of sexual tolerance through the debates which surrounded immoral sexuality: obscenity, male homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender identity, heterosexual promiscuity, and prostitution. It follows the sexual politics of a swath of Weimar society ranging from sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld to Nazi stormtrooper Ernst Rohm. Tracing the connections between toleration and regulation, Marhoefer s observations remain relevant to the politics of sexuality today."

Holocaust Survivors: Holocaust Survivor Accounts And Holocaust Rescuers: Surviving The Holocaust Stories (Holocaust Survivor Stories, Auschwitz And The Holocaust, Holocaust Saviors)


Cyrus J. Zachary - 2015
    In 1933 the population of Jews in Europe was about nine million. After Adolf Hitler came to power on a campaign of aggressive foreign policy, focus on domestic unification and the idea of racial superiority - nearly two thirds of the Jewish people in the continent had perished. The ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Problem’ was, of course, murder. Although Jews, who were seen by Hitler and the Nazi regime as primarily responsible for Germany’s capitulation in the First World War, in addition to being inferior as a race, were the primary targets, several other demographics also received attention during the holocaust. These were the disabled, the gypsies, and some of the Slavic nations. Several others were targeted based on their ideology: homosexuals, Communists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses (who had completely disappeared from Germany by 1939). Nearly 2,00,000 physically and mentally disabled people were murdered under the Euthanasia program. We wouldn’t even know about the true extent and horror of the Holocaust if it were not for the survivors, scattered all across the world, who have made a point of speaking out about these atrocities. They want to make sure this deplorable chapter in human history does not vanish into obscurity and the lessons from it remain unlearned. If you enjoy reading all about the history of the holocaust, it's survivors, rescuers and heroines, then grab this box set now!>> Download This Book Today <<Tags: holocaust survivor accounts, holocaust survivor stories, auschwitz and the holocaust, world war 2 women, holocaust rescuers, holocaust saviors, holocaust escape, holocaust history, irma grese, surviving the holocaust, irma grese and the holocaust, world war 2 soldiers, world war 2 weapons, world war 2 technology, concentration camps, nazi concentration camps, world war 2, world war II,

A Little Village Called Lidice: The Story of the the Return of the Women and Children of Lidice


Zdena Trinka - 2015
    The reprisal was ordered by Hitler following the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1942 outside of Prague. On June 9, 1942, Gestapo and other German forces entered the small village of Lidice (chosen apparently at random by the Nazis), rounded up all men and male teenagers 15 and over, and executed them by firing squad (173 in all). Their bodies were placed in a common grave. Some women were also executed, with most transported to concentration camps. A handful of the approximately 100 village children were removed from their mothers to be raised by German families, but over 80 were sent to their death in the extermination camp at Chelmo, where they were placed in sealed trucks and gassed. Following the executions, the village was razed by fire, leveled by explosives, then bulldozed into rubble. The village's famous cherry orchards were also uprooted and destroyed, a small lake was filled-in, and a stream diverted. Grass was planted so that the village was, in effect, obliterated. At war's end, only a few women and 17 Lidice children survived to return to the village. Following the war, houses for a new Lidice were built near the site of the original village, and a memorial erected in honor of those who were killed.Author Zdena Trinka (1892-1967) was a native of North Dakota who wrote a number of additional books, mostly concerning the history of North Dakota. She escaped the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia while on a visit.

A Complex Fate: William L. Shirer and the American Century


Ken Cuthbertson - 2015
    In 1937, Shirer left print journalism and became the first of the now legendary "Murrow boys," working as an on-air partner to the iconic CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. With Shirer reporting from inside Nazi Germany and Murrow from blitz-ravaged London, the pair built CBS’s European news operation into the industry leader and, in the process, revolutionized broadcasting. But after the war ended, the Shirer-Murrow relationship shattered. Shirer lost his job and by 1950 found himself blacklisted as a supposed Communist sympathizer. After nearly a decade in the professional wilderness, he began work on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Published in 1960, Shirer's magnum opus sold millions of copies and was hailed as the masterwork that would "ensure his reputation as long as humankind reads." Ken Cuthbertson's A Complex Fate is a thought-provoking, richly detailed biography of William Shirer. Written with the full cooperation of Shirer’s family, and generously illustrated with photographs, it introduces a new generation of readers to a supremely talented, complex writer, while placing into historical context some of the pivotal media developments of our time.

Go-Betweens for Hitler


Karina Urbach - 2015
    As Urbach shows, Coburg and other senior aristocrats were tasked with some of Germany's most secret foreign policy missions from theFirst World War onwards, culminating in their role as Hitler's trusted go-betweens, as he readied Germany for conflict during the 1930s - and later, in the Second World War.Tracing what became of these high-level go-betweens in the years after the Nazi collapse in 1945 - from prominent media careers to sunny retirements in Marbella - the book concludes with an assessment of their overall significance in the foreign policy of the Third Reich.

City of Exiles: Berlin from the outside in


Stuart Braun - 2015
    Destroyed, divided and held captive during a century of chaos and upheaval, borderless Berlin has yet remained a city where drifters, dreamers and outsiders can find a place—and finally run free. In City of Exiles, Stuart Braun evokes the restless spirits that have come and gone from Berlin across the last century, the itinerants who are the source of the Berliner Luft, the special free air that infuses this beguiling metropolis.

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Berlin


Various - 2015
    The guide includes unique cutaways, floorplans and reconstructions of the city's stunning architecture, plus 3D aerial views of the key districts to explore on foot. You'll find detailed listings of the best hotels, restaurants, bars and shops for all budgets in this fully updated and expanded guide, plus insider tips on everything from where to find the best markets and nightspots to great attractions for children.The uniquely visual DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Berlin 2016 also includes in-depth coverage of all the unforgettable sights and comes complete with a free pull-out city map, clearly marked with sights from the guidebook and an easy-to-use street index. The map has detailed street views of all the key areas, plus there are transport maps and information on how to get around the city, and there's even a chart showing the distances between major sights for walkers.The DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Berlin 2016 shows you what others only tell you.

Oktoberfest Cookbook


D.K. Publishing - 2015
    Recipes include snacks and soups, meaty and vegetarian mains, and sweet desserts and treats. Throughout, full-color photography, tips, and feature spreads on "Wiesn" knowledge capture the Oktoberfest atmosphere at its best.Whether you dream of an Oktoberfest adventure, are hosting a party of your own, or simply love authentic German cuisine, Oktoberfest Cookbook will have you raising your glass to shout "Prost!"

A Rainbow Division Lieutenant in France: The World War I Diary of John H. Taber


John H. Taber - 2015
    His diary provides a detailed narrative of a young officer maturing through his war experiences, from the voyage across the submarine filled Atlantic, to training in France, to front line combat. In a clear, unaffected voice, Taber records his dealings with superiors and enlisted men, billets in French and German towns, life in the trenches, intense shelling, machine gun fire, gas warfare, leaves to Paris, the occupation of Germany, and his return to New York.

Frederick the Great: King of Prussia


Timothy C.W. Blanning - 2015
    From early in his reign he was already a legendary figure - fascinating even to those who hated him. Tim Blanning's brilliant biography recreates a remarkable era, a world which would be swept away shortly after Frederick's death by the French Revolution. Equally at home on the battlefield or in the music room at Frederick's extraordinary miniature palace of Sanssouci, Blanning draws on a lifetime's obsession with the 18th century to create a work that is in many ways the summation of all that he has learned in his own rich and various career. Frederick's spectre has hung over Germany ever since: an inspiration, a threat, an impossible ideal - Blanning at last allows us to understand him in his own time.

Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil


Gerard Menuhin - 2015
    Many know that something is not right in the world. Nations engage in perpetual war while bankers and armaments makers line their pockets from the carnage. The average citizen of the world has been cut out of the decision-making process of government, whether he lives in a democracy, republic, theocracy or dictatorship. All the while, the ruling elite grow stronger and richer, as the real producers struggle to survive. Behind the scenes, events are controlled by a coterie of ethnic puppet masters who work their marionettes in high places out of public view.How did this world get to the dark place it is today? Who could have stopped it and what can we do today?The book consists of three sections. The first section concerns Adolf Hitler, his character and intentions, and the real causes leading up to the outbreak of WWII, including the actions of the real culprits and the rejection of the great lie.The second section enlarges on the activities of the real culprits, provides a historical overview of their progress, their nature, their power over finance and the media, and the methods by which they achieved it. It includes insights into Freemasonry, the European revolutions, the influence and control of education and foreign policy, the creation of the EU, the New World Order and the evolution of the plan through the same powers and their proxies, since the 17th century up to the present.The third section concerns the First and Second World Wars (what the author refers to as “the Second Thirty Years War”), their conception, funding and inescapable continuity; current laws against freedom of expression, and the evolution of the Orwellian state; the importance of U.S. support for the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, and Communism’s significance in the plan; the true origins of the enemy; Palestine’s occupation and its fate as an example of our common fate; plus much more.The text is interspersed with “Memos from Today,” that emphasize its relevance by citing current events. Hundreds of quotes are included from a wide range of authoritative sources, original and translated.The last pages of this manuscript comprise conclusions and predictions. The narrative is dense and packed with facts, and backed by expert testimony. At times, the style is personal, even casual, and absolutely non-intellectual. It has been assumed that a personal touch makes the contents more accessible. The author is the son of the great American-born violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who, though from a long line of rabbinical ancestors, fiercely criticized the foreign policy of the state of Israel and its repression of the Palestinians in the Holy Land.

The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath


Dan Stone - 2015
    When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months, and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives.Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivors—their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American, Canadian, and Russian liberators as they contended with survivors’ immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.

A Walk Along The Ku'damm: Playground and Battlefield of Weimar Berlin


Brendan Nash - 2015
    people and places from the heady days of the Weimar Era and beyond.

Elusive Alliance: The German Occupation of Poland in World War I


Jesse Kauffman - 2015
    But in the East the picture was quite different. The Kaiser’s army routed the Russians, took possession of Polish territory, and attempted to create a Polish satellite state. Elusive Alliance delves into Germany’s three-year occupation of Poland and explains why its ambitious attempt at nation-building failed.Dubbed the Imperial Government-General of Warsaw, Germany’s occupation regime was headed by veteran Prussian commander Hans Hartwig von Beseler. In his vision for Central Europe, Poland would become Germany’s permanent ally, culturally and politically autonomous but bound to the Fatherland in foreign policy matters. To win Polish support, Beseler spearheaded the creation of new institutions including a Polish-language university in Warsaw, reformed the school system, and established democratically elected municipal governments. For Beseler and other German strategists, a secure Poland was essential to ensuring Central Europe against a threatening tide of nationalism and revolution.But as Jesse Kauffman shows, Beseler underestimated the resistance to his policies and the growing hostility to occupation as Germany plundered Polish resources to fuel its war effort. By 1918, with the war over, Poles achieved independence. Yet it would not be long before they faced a second, far more brutal German occupation at the hands of the Nazis.

Surgeon With the Kaiser's Army


Stephen Kurt Westmann - 2015
    He was soon involved in bloody hand-to-hand fighting against the French before moving to the Russian front.Promoted to medical officer, despite being unqualified and barely into his twenties, he is given command of an ambulance train on the Western Front. He treats and operates on wounded of all nationalities and ranks and rescues British and German soldiers after gas attacks on the trenches of the Somme. As medical officer to the Imperial German Air Service (on attachment to Jagdgeschwader 1 - the "Von Richthofen Circus") Westmann sees the dangers and effects of aerial combat at first hand. He witnesses the British tank attacks at Cambrai.Westmann's writing graphically illustrates life and death in the front line, the carnage and humor that sustained soldiers of all nationalities. His insights into the social, political, religious, economic and medical aspects of war time life are also particularly revealing.The text is enhanced by contemporary photographs.

Fade to Black


Zoë Beck - 2015
    Cameraman Niall Stuart is an unwilling witness as two young men attack an off-duty soldier and murder him. Niall records the scene on his cell phone, and one of the killers approaches him, bloody knife in hand, to announce that this murder was carried out in the name of Allah, as his accomplice waves the flag of the Islamic State in the background. When Niall is later hired to make a documentary about the incident, he has no idea that he has been intentionally selected for this task. The reason why is more horrifying than he could imagine…2016 GERMAN CRIME FICTION PRIZEDie Zeit’s Juried Best Crime Picks of the Month (4 months)

The Eulenburg Affair: A Cultural History of Politics in the German Empire


Norman Domeier - 2015
    Sparked by accusations by the journalist and publicist Maximilian Harden, the scandal dominated European headlines until 1909; it was the first modern scandal in which homosexuality was openly discussed. Particularly shocking was Harden's claim that Wilhelm had long been under the influence of a homosexual camarilla led by Eulenburg. Allegedly, this clique had brought about Bismarck's dismissal, cut off the emperor from his people, and, with its undue pacifism, maneuvered Germany not only into isolation, but to the brink of war during the Morocco Crisis of 1905-6.The scandal came to be a forum for the German public to debate diverse political, social, and cultural issues: honor, friendship, marriage, privacy, sexual mores, anti-Semitism, spiritualism, class struggle, submission to authority, and enthusiasm for the military. Norman Domeier's book, now in English translation, is the first scholarly monograph on the scandal. It draws on a wealth of primary material, including ca. 5,000 newspaper articles as well as minutes of court trials, private correspondence, government files, pamphlets, diaries, memoirs, and images. Domeier's historical analysis offers fascinating insightsinto the cultural history of German politics in the fateful years of transition from the Belle �poque to the "Iron Age" of the world wars.Norman Domeier is Assistant Professor at the University of Stuttgart's Historical Institute.

The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933


Anton Kaes - 2015
    The volume conceives of “theory” not as a fixed body of canonical texts, but as a dynamic set of reflections on the very idea of cinema and the possibilities once associated with it. Unearthing more than 275 early-twentieth-century German texts, this ground-breaking documentation leads readers into a world that was striving to assimilate modernity’s most powerful new medium. We encounter lesser-known essays by Béla Balázs, Walter Benjamin, and Siegfried Kracauer alongside interventions from the realms of aesthetics, education, industry, politics, science, and technology. The book also features programmatic writings from the Weimar avant-garde and from directors such as Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau. Nearly all documents appear in English for the first time; each is meticulously introduced and annotated. The most comprehensive collection of German writings on film published to date, The Promise of Cinema is an essential resource for students and scholars of film and media, critical theory, and European culture and history.

The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618


Geoff Mortimer - 2015
    Drawing on recent research, he challenges the conventional view that the war was almost inevitable, a result either of the inexorable growth of inter-confessional tensions in Germany over the preceding forty years, or of the wider international conflicts between Spain, France and the Dutch. Hence he argues that the Bohemian revolt of 1618 was not, as has often been suggested, merely the spark to the powder keg, but the initial substantive cause of the war.Most histories deal only briefly with the circumstances occasioning the revolt, but The Origins of the Thirty Years War and the Revolt in Bohemia, 1618 offers the fullest modern account. The famous defenestration of Prague is also carefully re-examined, leading to a reappraisal of the long-accepted view that it was the premeditated action of a small core group of anti-Habsburg activists.

Putin's Propaganda Machine: Soft Power and Russian Foreign Policy


Marcel H. Van Herpen - 2015
    Marcel H. Van Herpen argues that the Kremlin's propaganda offensive is a carefully prepared strategy, implemented and tested over the last decade. Initially intended as a tool to enhance Russia's soft power, it quickly developed into one of the main instruments of Russia's new imperialism, reminiscent of the height of the Cold War. The author describes a multifaceted strategy that makes use of diverse instruments, including mimicking Western public diplomacy initiatives, hiring Western public-relations firms, setting up front organizations, buying Western media outlets, financing political parties, organizing a worldwide propaganda offensive through the Kremlin's cable network RT, and publishing paid supplements in leading Western newspapers. In this information war, key roles are assigned to the Russian diaspora and the Russian Orthodox Church, the latter focused on spreading so-called traditional values and attacking universal human rights and Western democracy in international fora. Van Herpen demonstrates that the Kremlin's propaganda machine not only plays a central role in its "hybrid war" in Ukraine, but also has broader international objectives, targeting in particular Europe's two leading countries-France and Germany-with the goal of forming a geopolitical triangle, consisting of a Moscow-Berlin-Paris axis, intended to roll back the influence of NATO and the United States in Europe. Drawing on years of research, Van Herpen shows how the Kremlin has built an array of soft power instruments and transformed them into effective weapons in a new information war with the West.

Stormtrooper Families: Homosexuality and Community in the Early Nazi Movement


Andrew Wackerfuss - 2015
    Extensive analysis of Nazi-era media across the political spectrum shows how the public debate over homosexuality proved just as important to political outcomes as did the actual presence of homosexuals in fascist and antifascist politics.As children in the late-imperial period, the stormtroopers witnessed the first German debates over homosexuality and political life. As young adults, they verbally and physically battled over these definitions, bringing conflicts over homosexuality and masculinity into the center of Weimar Germany's most important political debates. Stormtrooper Families chronicles the stormtroopers' personal, political, and sexual struggles to explain not only how individual gay men existed within the Nazi movement but also how the public meaning of homosexuality affected fascist and antifascist politics--a public controversy still alive today.

Reading Marx in the Information Age: A Media and Communication Studies Perspective on Capital Volume 1


Christian Fuchs - 2015
    Through a range of international, current-day examples, Fuchs emphasises the continued importance of Marx and his work in a time when transnational media companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook play an increasingly important role in global capitalism. Discussion questions and exercises at the end of each chapter help readers to further apply Marx's work to a modern-day context.

Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the Nazi War of Annihilation


Lauren Faulkner Rossi - 2015
    Men who had devoted their lives to God found themselves advancing the cause of an abhorrent regime. Lauren Faulkner Rossi draws on personal correspondence, official military reports, memoirs, and interviews to present a detailed picture of Catholic priests who served faithfully in the German armed forces in the Second World War. Most of them failed to see the bitter irony of their predicament.Wehrmacht Priests plumbs the moral justifications of men who were committed to their religious vocation as well as to the cause of German nationalism. In their wartime and postwar writings, these soldiers often stated frankly that they went to war willingly, because it was their spiritual duty to care for their countrymen in uniform. But while some priests became military chaplains, carrying out work consistent with their religious training, most served in medical roles or, in the case of seminarians, in general infantry. Their convictions about their duty only strengthened as Germany waged an increasingly desperate battle against the Soviet Union, which they believed was an existential threat to the Catholic Church and German civilization.Wehrmacht Priests unpacks the complex relationship between the Catholic Church and the Nazi regime, including the Church's fierce but futile attempts to preserve its independence under Hitler's dictatorship, its accommodations with the Nazis regarding spiritual care in the military, and the shortcomings of Catholic doctrine in the face of total war and genocide.

Charlemagne's Practice of Empire


Jennifer R. Davis - 2015
    Davis explores how Charlemagne overcame the two main problems of ruling an empire, namely how to delegate authority and how to manage diversity. Through a meticulous reconstruction based on primary sources, she demonstrates that rather than imposing a pre-existing model of empire onto conquered regions, Charlemagne and his men learned from them, developing a practice of empire that allowed the emperor to rule on a European scale. As a result, Charlemagne's realm was more flexible and diverse than has long been believed.Telling the story of Charlemagne's rule using sources produced during the reign itself, Davis offers a new interpretation of Charlemagne's political practice, free from the distortions of later legend.

Germany's Black Holocaust: 1890-1945


Firpo Carr - 2015
    Colonial German doctors conducted unspeakable medical experiments on these emaciated helpless Africans decades before such atrocities were ever visited upon the Jews.Thousands of Africans were massacred. Regrettably, historians neglected to properly register the slaughter-that is, to lift it from the footnote in history that it had been relegated to-until now.In an attempt to give the incidents their rightful recognition in the historical context of the Holocaust, Dr. Firpo W. Carr has authored a new book entitled, Germany's Black Holocaust: 1890-1945. In it, he reveals the startling hidden history of Black victims of the Holocaust. The mayhem and carnage date back to the turn of the 20th century, many years before there were ever any other unfortunate victims-Jew or Gentile-of the Holocaust.Carr conducted three incredibly revealing interviews with: (1) a Black female Holocaust victim; (2) the Black commanding officer who liberated 8,000 Black men from a concentration camp; and (3) an African American medic from the all-Black medical unit that was responsible for retrieving thousands of dead bodies from Dachau. (White medical units were spared the gruesome task.)"Kay," the Black female Holocaust survivor, laments: "You cannot possibly comprehend the anger I have in me because of being experimented on in Dachau, and being called ‘nigger girl' and ‘blacky' while growing up."Testimonials from the Black commanding officer and African American medic are memorialized, for the first time ever, in Carr's book. The research is based on voluminous documentation, and more.If you are like most people, you simply have never heard the unbelievable story of Black victims of the Holocaust. You are invited to read about the human spirit's triumph over events that occurred during this horrible piece of hidden history.

The Town Musicians of Bremen


Gerda Muller - 2015
    A beautiful new edition of a classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, from much-loved illustrator Gerda Muller.Four unlikely animal companions set off on an adventure to become musicians in the town of Bremen.When night falls and they're cold and hungry, the friends find a cabin in the forest where they could rest and eat -- if it wasn't home to a band of robbers! Can the animals work together, and use their musical voices to chase the robbers away?Children will love braying along with the donkey, barking with the dog, purring with the cat and crowing with the rooster as the animals eventually find a new home.Gerda Muller's beautiful detailed illustrations bring this classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale of animal friends to life.

Hessians: Mercenaries, Rebels, and the War for British North America


Brady J. Crytzer - 2015
    While buried in debt from years of combat against the French, revolution was stirring in its wealthiest North American colonies. To allow the rebellion to fester would cost them dearly, but to confront it would press their exhausted armed forces to a breaking point. Faced with a nearly impossible decision, the administrators of the world's largest empire elected to employ the armies of the Holy Roman Empire to suppress the sedition of the American revolutionaries. By 1776 there would be 18,000 German soldiers marching through the wilds of North America, and by war's end there would be over 30,000. To the colonists these forces were "mercenaries," and to the Germans the Americans were "rebels." While soldiers of fortune fight for mere profit, the soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire went to war in the name of their country, and were paid little for their services, while their respective kings made fortunes off of their blood and sacrifice among the British ranks. Labeled erroneously as "Hessians," the armies of the Holy Roman Empire came from six separate German states, each struggling to retain relevance in a newly enlightened and ever-changing world. In Hessians: Mercenaries, Rebels, and the War for British North America historian Brady J. Crytzer explores the German experience during the American Revolution through the lives of three persons from vastly different walks of life, all thrust into the maelstrom of North American combat. Here are the stories of a dedicated career soldier, Johann Ewald, captain of a Field-Jager Corps, who fought from New York to the final battles along the Potomac; Frederika Charlotte Louise von Massow, Baroness von Riedesel who raced with her young children through the Canadian wilderness to reunite with her long-distant husband; and middle-aged chaplain Philipp Waldeck who struggled to make sense of it all while accompanying his unit through the exotic yet brutal conditions of the Caribbean and British Florida. Beautifully written, Hessians offers a glimpse into the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of the German armies commanded to destroy it.

Defenders of Christendom


James Fitzhenry - 2015
    Demonstrating his gallantry through daring feats or arms, the knight's faith, coupled with his marvelous courage, made him nearly invincible on the field of battle. Built around the stirring chronicle of the Knights of St. John, these inspiring accounts bring to life Catholic heroes who fought with courage, chivalry, and an unwavering trust in God to protect their neighbor, their country, and their faith.

German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic


John M. Efron - 2015
    Where they saw Ashkenazic Jewry as insular and backward, a result of Christian persecution, they depicted the Sephardim as worldly, morally and intellectually superior, and beautiful, products of the tolerant Muslim environment in which they lived. In this elegantly written book, John Efron looks in depth at the special allure Sephardic aesthetics held for German Jewry.Efron examines how German Jews idealized the sound of Sephardic Hebrew and the Sephardim's physical and moral beauty, and shows how the allure of the Sephardic found expression in neo-Moorish synagogue architecture, historical novels, and romanticized depictions of Sephardic history. He argues that the shapers of German-Jewish culture imagined medieval Iberian Jewry as an exemplary Jewish community, bound by tradition yet fully at home in the dominant culture of Muslim Spain. Efron argues that the myth of Sephardic superiority was actually an expression of withering self-critique by German Jews who, by seeking to transform Ashkenazic culture and win the acceptance of German society, hoped to enter their own golden age.Stimulating and provocative, this book demonstrates how the goal of this aesthetic self-refashioning was not assimilation but rather the creation of a new form of German-Jewish identity inspired by Sephardic beauty.

The Guardian of the Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on the Limits of Constitutional Law


Lars Vinx - 2015
    It includes Kelsen's seminal piece, 'The Nature and Development of Constitutional Adjudication', as well as key extracts from the 'Guardian of the Constitution' which present Schmitt's argument against constitutional review. Also included are Kelsen's review of Schmitt's 'Guardian of the Constitution', as well as some further material by Kelsen and Schmitt on presidential dictatorship under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. These texts show Kelsen and Schmitt responding to one another, in the context of a debate focused on a concrete constitutional crisis, thus allowing the reader to assess the plausibility of Kelsen's and Schmitt's legal and constitutional theories.

Berlin Metropolis 1918-1933


Olaf Peters - 2015
    Between 1871 and 1919, the population of Berlin quadrupled, and the city became the political center of Germany, as well as the turbulent crossroads of the modern age. This was reflected in the work of artists, directors, writers, and critics of the time. As an imperial capital, Berlin was the site of violent political revolution and radical aesthetic innovation. After the Germandefeat in World War I, artists employed collage to challengetraditional concepts of art. Berlin Dadaists reflected uponthe horrors of war, and the terrors of revolution and civil war.Between 1924 and 1929 as the spirit of modernity took hold, jazz, posters, magazines, advertisements, and cinema playeda central role in the development of Berlin's urban experience.The concept of the "Neue Frau"--the modern, emancipatedwoman-helped move the city in a new direction. Finally, Berlinbecame a stage for political confrontation between the leftand the right and was deeply affected by the economic crisisand mass unemployment at the end of the 1920s. This bookexplores in numerous essays and illustrations the artistic, cultural, and social upheavals in Berlin between 1918 and 1933, and places them in a broader historical framework.

Cruel Attachments: The Ritual Rehab of Child Molesters in Germany


John Borneman - 2015
    Said to suffer from a deeply rooted paraphilia, he is often considered as outside the moral limits of the human, profoundly resistant to change. Despite these assessments, in much of the West an increasing focus on rehabilitation through therapy provides hope that psychological transformation is possible. Examining the experiences of child sex offenders undergoing therapy in Germany—where such treatments are both a legal right and duty—John Borneman, in Cruel Attachments, offers a fine-grained account of rehabilitation for this reviled criminal type.             Carefully exploring different cases of the attempt to rehabilitate child sex offenders, Borneman details a secular ritual process aimed not only at preventing future acts of molestation but also at fundamentally transforming the offender, who is ultimately charged with creating an almost entirely new self. Acknowledging the powerful repulsion felt by a public that is often extremely skeptical about the success of rehabilitation, he challenges readers to confront the contemporary contexts and conundrums that lie at the heart of regulating intimacy between children and adults.

European Muslim Antisemitism: Why Young Urban Males Say They Don't Like Jews


Günther Jikeli - 2015
    Looking for insights into the views and rationales of young Muslims toward Jews, Günther Jikeli and his colleagues interviewed 117 ordinary Muslim men in London (chiefly of South Asian background), Paris (chiefly North African), and Berlin (chiefly Turkish). The researchers sought information about stereotypes of Jews, arguments used to support hostility toward Jews, the role played by the Middle East conflict and Islamist ideology in perceptions of Jews, the possible sources of antisemitic views, and, by contrast, what would motivate Muslims to actively oppose antisemitism. They also learned how the men perceive discrimination and exclusion as well as their own national identification. This study is rich in qualitative data that will mark a significant step along the path toward a better understanding of contemporary antisemitism in Europe.

Germany and 'The West': The History of a Modern Concept


Riccardo Bavaj - 2015
    Contrary to common assumptions, this volume argues that the German concept of the West was not born in the twentieth century, but can be traced from a much earlier time. In the nineteenth century, -the West- became associated with notions of progress, liberty, civilization, and modernity. It signified the future through the opposition to antonyms such as -Russia- and -the East, - and was deployed as a tool for forging German identities. Examining the shifting meanings, political uses, and transnational circulations of the idea of -the West- sheds new light on German intellectual history from the post-Napoleonic era to the Cold War.

MEIN KAMPF Adolf Hitler


Micky Barnetti - 2015
    Mein Kampf does not contain the word "Nazi" in any form. 2. Mein Kampf does not contain the phrase “Third Reich.”3. Mein Kampf does not contain the word "Fascist" ever as a self reference by Hitler.4. Mein Kampf does not contain a single use of the word "swastika."5. Nazis did not call their symbol a "swastika."6. Swastikas represented crossed "S" letters for "SOCIALISTS" under Adolf Hitler.7. Nazi salutes and Nazi behavior originated from the USA's Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.8. The Nazi salute came from the military salute (as used in the original Pledge of Allegiance in the USA).9. The word "Fascist" is related to the word "faggot."10. Vienna, Austria (Hitler was born in Austria) is the origin of the word "wiener."11. The word "Kampf" in Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is related to these words: campaign, champagne, champignon, champion, champ, camp, and campus.12. Learn about the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part).13. The fascist salute was performed by public officials in the USA from 1892 through 1942. What happened to the photographs and films of the American fascist salute performed by federal, state, county, and local officials? Public officials in the USA who preceded the Adolf Hitler and the Benito Mussolini were sources for the stiff-armed salute (and robotic chanting) in those countries and other foreign countries.14. Explore how the "ancient Roman salute" myth originated from the city of Rome in the state of New York (not Italy), Francis Bellamy's hometown. Learn about Mussolini's strange gift to the city of Rome, NY: a statue of two human male infants suckling on a female wolf. That statue remains on display in Rome, NY.The author Micky Barnetti explores the work of the historian Dr. Rex Curry in jaw-dropping detail. Dr. Curry was the first to point out that Wikipedia (and other so-called sources, including all the news outlets that you pay attention to) cites no example of Hitler ever using the term "Third Reich" or "Nazi" or "Fascist" as a self-identifier in German or in any language. And yet Wakipedia (similar to all the news outlets that you have spent your entire life paying attention to) deceives users into believing that Hitler over-used the term "Third Reich" and "Nazism" and "Fascism" as a self-identifier for his dogma. Writers for Wakipedia (and its ilk) are the people who over-use those terms. They over-use those terms to hide the word that Hitler DID use: SOCIALISM.Barnetti reminds us of the history of robotic chanting en masse and on cue, accompanied by violence for anyone who refused to submit.Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut someone up, defining their views as beyond the pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst? According to the author Micky Barnetti, the quintessential socialist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a public school teacher brainwashing children every day for 12 years of their lives. The pledge remains the first fascist bullying that begins each day in government schools (socialist schools) in Police State USA.

Go, Went, Gone


Jenny Erpenbeck - 2015
    Here, on Alexanderplatz, he discovers a new community -- a tent city, established by African asylum seekers. Hesitantly, getting to know the new arrivals, Richard finds his life changing, as he begins to question his own sense of belonging in a city that once divided its citizens into them and us.At once a passionate contribution to the debate on race, privilege and nationality and a beautifully written examination of an ageing man's quest to find meaning in his life, Go, Went, Gone showcases one of the great contemporary European writers at the height of her powers.

From Imperial Splendor to Internment: The German Navy in the First World War


Nicolas Wolz - 2015
    The inactivity of the great Imperial Navy caused deep frustration, particularly among the naval officers. Not only were they unable to see themselves as heroes, they were also ridiculed on the home front and felt profoundly humiliated. With the exception of the one sea battle at Jutland, their ships saw little or no action at sea. Morale collapsed to a point where, at the end of the war, the crews were in a state of mutiny. The order that forced the fleet to go to sea against the British in 1918 was driven by a sense of humiliation, but because the German sailors wanted no part in such madness it triggered a revolution.

Alpine Cookbook


Hans Gerlach - 2015
    From rich and meaty comfort foods to lighter vegetarian dishes, Alpine Cookbook contains a culinary delight for every palate.

German for Beginners, A1: Aus Liebe zu Pralinen


Carolin Hinck - 2015
     This is a book which will cover the student who is an absolute beginner to the student who is at the A1 level using a story written for all ages to enjoy. The story: After Tina inherited her aunt’s bakery in Germany she decides to give up her life in Melbourne, Australia and move back to her hometown, Augsburg. To Tina's dismay, running the Cafe is not turning out to be as easy as she assumed it would be. However, into the picture comes a handsome local by the name of Franz who promises her he can help, well, at least he thinks he can. Her love for chocolate, the German culture and the city Augsburg is what keeps Tina motivated. Go with Tina together through her ups and downs of giving up a stable life in the land down under to start a new chapter of life on the other side of the world. Experience the daily life in a German town in the south of Germany through the eyes of newcomer. Learn about the country and the culture while improving your German language skills effortlessly along the way. Please note: This book is created as an eTextbook. You can download and read it on your Fire tablet, iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac, and PC with the kindle app.

German for Artists


Stine Marie Jacobsen - 2015
    Written by Danish Artist- Stine Marie Jacobsen, the book offers a critical, yet highly humorous linguistic guide to the throbbing and international cultural scene of Berlin.