Best of
Germany

2017

Why?: Explaining the Holocaust


Peter Hayes - 2017
    Numerous theories have sprouted in an attempt to console ourselves and to point the blame in emotionally satisfying directions—yet none of them are fully convincing. As witnesses to the Holocaust near the ends of their lives, it becomes that much more important to unravel what happened and to educate a new generation about the horrors inflicted by the Nazi regime on Jews and non-Jews alike.Why? dispels many misconceptions and answers some of the most basic—yet vexing—questions that remain: why the Jews and not another ethnic group? Why the Germans? Why such a swift and sweeping extermination? Why didn’t more Jews fight back more often? Why didn’t they receive more help? While responding to the questions he has been most frequently asked by students over the decades, world-renowned Holocaust historian and professor Peter Hayes brings a wealth of scholarly research and experience to bear on conventional, popular views of the history, challenging some of the most prominent recent interpretations. He argues that there is no single theory that “explains” the Holocaust; the convergence of multiple forces at a particular moment in time led to catastrophe.In clear prose informed by an encyclopedic knowledge of Holocaust literature in English and German, Hayes weaves together stories and statistics to heart-stopping effect. Why? is an authoritative, groundbreaking exploration of the origins of one of the most tragic events in human history.

Those Who Forget: My Family's Story in Nazi Europe – A Memoir, A History, A Warning


Géraldine Schwarz - 2017
    During World War II, Géraldine Schwarz’s German grandparents were neither heroes nor villains; they were merely Mitlaüfer—those who followed the current. Once the war ended, they wanted to bury the past under the wreckage of the Third Reich. Decades later, while delving through filing cabinets in the basement of their apartment building in Mannheim, Schwarz discovers that in 1938, her paternal grandfather Karl took advantage of Nazi policies to buy a business from a Jewish family for a low price. She finds letters from the only survivor of this family (all the others perished in Auschwitz), demanding reparations. But Karl Schwarz refused to acknowledge his responsibility. Géraldine starts to question the past: How guilty were her grandparents? What makes us complicit? On her mother’s side, she investigates the role of her French grandfather, a policeman in Vichy. Weaving together the threads of three generations of her family story with Europe’s process of post-war reckoning, Schwarz explores how millions were seduced by ideology, overcome by a fog of denial after the war, and, in Germany at least, eventually managed to transform collective guilt into democratic responsibility. She asks: How can nations learn from history? And she observes that countries that avoid confronting the past are especially vulnerable to extremism. Searing and unforgettable, Those Who Forget is a riveting memoir, an illuminating history, and an urgent call for remembering.

The Beatrice Stubbs Boxset Two: European Crime Mysteries


J.J. Marsh - 2017
     “If you like Kate Atkinson, Alexander McCall Smith or Dorothy L Sayers, you’re going to love Beatrice Stubbs.” COLD PRESSED “Two things people fear the most? Change and death.” Santorini. Turquoise seas, ancient ruins and beautiful sunsets. And a woman thrown from a cliff. The violent death shocks fellow passengers of the Empress Louise, a grand cruise liner packed with British tourists. For newly promoted Inspector Nikos Stephanakis, the case poses linguistic and cultural problems. His request for assistance yields unexpected results. DI Beatrice Stubbs, called in as support, flies to Greece. What with tension at home, the timing couldn’t be better. She anticipates a few days in the sun and a swift resolution. Yet an earlier death at sea proves suspicious and when another elderly lady is killed in her cabin, terror spreads like contagion. Murder is aboard. And someone has Beatrice in his sights. From the Cyclades to the Dodecanese, Nikos and Beatrice pursue the killer and unearth a secret. Revenge is a dish best served cold. HUMAN RITES “Judgement is in the eye of the beholder.” Adrian Harvey, London wine merchant, has lost the Christmas spirit. Someone is stalking him, stealing his post and vandalising his shop. When the police question him after an anonymous tip-off, he’s more than anxious. He’s scared. And who is that nun? Long time neighbour and friend DI Beatrice Stubbs is dispatched to Germany to investigate a series of apparently related art thefts, so Adrian seizes the chance to flee the city. He follows her to Hamburg to do some Christmas shopping and visit his ex. Yet the stalker is still on his heels. While Beatrice is on the trail of a violent gang of mercenary thieves, Adrian runs from danger to the remote island of Sylt. But danger follows and Adrian has run too far. From the icy streets of Hamburg, to the canals of Amsterdam, and the snowswept beaches of Sylt, Beatrice and Adrian discover how a virtue taken to extremes can lead to deadly sin. BAD APPLES “Some people are just rotten to the core.” Acting DCI Beatrice Stubbs is representing Scotland Yard at a police conference in Portugal. Her task is to investigate a rumour – a ghostwritten exposé of European intelligence agencies – and discover who is behind such a book. Hardly a dangerous assignment, so she invites family and friends for a holiday. Days at the conference and evenings at the villa should be the perfect work-life balance. Until one of her colleagues is murdered. An eclectic alliance of international detectives forms to find the assassin. But are they really on the same side? Meanwhile, tensions rise at the holiday villa. A clash of egos sours the atmosphere and when a five-year-old child disappears, their idyll turns hellish. From Lisbon streets to the quays of Porto, Parisian cafés to the green mountains of Gerês, Beatrice realises trust can be a fatal mistake.

The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days


Juliet Conlin - 2017
    He has six days left to live and must relate his life story before he dies...His life has been rich and full. He has witnessed firsthand the rise of the Nazis, experienced heartrending family tragedy, fought in the German army, been interred in a POW camp in Scotland and faced violent persecution in peacetime Britain. But he has also touched many lives, fallen deeply in love, raised a family and survived triumphantly at the limits of human endurance. He carries within him an astonishing family secret that he must share before he dies... a story that will mean someone else’s salvation.Welcome to the moving, heart-warming and uncommon life of Alfred Warner.

The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany


Thomas Childers - 2017
    Fueled by outrage at the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty that ended the Great War, he found his voice and drew a following. As his views developed, Hitler attracted like-minded colleagues who formed the nucleus of the nascent Nazi party. The failed Munich putsch of 1923 and subsequent trial gave Hitler a platform for his views, which he skillfully exploited. Between 1924 and 1929 Hitler and his party languished in obscurity on the radical fringes of German politics, but the onset of the Great Depression provided Hitler the issues he needed to move into the mainstream of German political life. He seized the opportunity to blame Germany’s misery on the victorious allies, the Marxists, the Jews, and big business—and the political parties that represented them. By 1932 the Nazis had become the largest political party in Germany. Although Hitler became chancellor in 1933, his party had never achieved a majority in free elections. Within six months the Nazis transformed a dysfunctional democracy into a totalitarian state and began the inexorable march to World War II and the Holocaust. It is these fraught times that Childers brings to life: the Nazis’ rise to power and their use and abuse of power once they achieved it. Based in part on German documents seldom used by previous historians, The Third Reich charts the dramatic, improbable rise of the Nazis; the suffering of ordinary Germans under Nazi rule; and the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. This is the most comprehensive and readable one-volume history of Nazi Germany since the classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

A Prophet Without Honor: A Novel of Alternative History


Joseph Wurtenbaugh - 2017
    Written in epistolary style and populated with interesting, fully-realized characters, the multi-general narrative is a seamless blend of authentic fact and sound speculation. The plot focuses on the one great, unrealized opportunity of the Twentieth Century. In the first months of 1936, Adolf Hitler risked everything by ordering his untrained military to reoccupy the Rhineland. It was a bluff. The Germans would have been forced to retreat if the French or British had offered the slightest opposition. But the bluff succeeded. History changed decisively. Hitler quieted the opposition at home, and marched the world relentlessly on, to the edge of destruction and beyond. The story examines that lost chance in detail. The result is a compelling story full of intrigue, danger, romance, and action, culminating in the reckoning that Hitler might have faced, had events taken a different course. It is a celebration of ordinary integrity and the enduring power of simple good will - even in times when honesty is the most dangerous virtue of all and the effects of good will seem lost in obscurity.

Blood Forest


Geraint Jones - 2017
    A lost soldier without a memory and now a brutal battle to win. For fans of Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow, Ben Kane and Conn Iggulden, a spectacular debut where honour and duty, legions and tribes clash in bloody, heart-breaking glory . . . AD 9. Fifteen thousand battle-hardened Roman legionaries strike deep into dense forest. Awaiting them are deadly, hostile Germanic tribes. In a clearing they find twelve massacred and strung-up legionaries.Is this a threat, or a warning?There is just one bloodied, broken survivor. He has no idea who he is. Only that he is a soldier.And now he must fight. As the legions are mercilessly cut down, the nameless soldier joins a small band of survivors trapped in the forest. If they fight together they have a slim chance of staying alive. But whose side is the soldier on? And is it the right one? 'Gives Rome's legionaries a contemporary voice - brutal, audacious and fast paced' Anthony Riches, author of Empire series'Historical fiction written by a real war veteran who knows all there is to know about blood and bonding in battle. An earthy and powerful read' Sport'Blood and guts, but also a clever exploration of the moral ambiguity of war and loyalty to a flag' Mail on Sunday

The Saxon Marriage (Women of the Dark Ages, #4)


Anna Chant - 2017
    Promise me, Eadgyth, you will always be that for my son.”Eadgyth’s happy childhood as the adored daughter of King Edward of the Anglo-Saxons came to an abrupt end at the age of nine, when her mother was cast away. Distraught at the rejection by her father, she learnt to keep her heart closely guarded.After ten years shut in a convent Eadgyth is commanded by her half-brother, King Athelstan, to go with her younger sister to the court of King Henry of Germany, where his son, the brave, young Otto will choose one of them as his wife.Indifferent to her fate, she travels to Saxony where she is welcomed by King Henry and his wife, the beautiful Queen Mathilda. As her friendship with the Queen grows Eadgyth warms to her new life, while her relationship with Otto, little more than a boy at seventeen, takes a turn she had not anticipated. Despite the ever present threat of war on the nearby Slavic front, Eadgyth dares to believe she can be happy.But beneath the surface of this contented family, tensions are building. Otto’s brothers harbour concealed ambitions, Mathilda’s love for her son seems strangely uncertain and Otto himself reveals an unexpected secret. And as Otto prepares himself to take the throne of Germany, the hostility boils over leaving Eadgyth facing a desperate struggle to hold her family together, terrified that yet again she could lose the man at the heart of it…

Travellers in the Third Reich


Julia Boyd - 2017
    How easy was it to know what was actually going on, to grasp the essence of National Socialism, to remain untouched by the propaganda or predict the Holocaust?Travellers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including students, politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, journalists, fascists, artists, tourists, even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler – one so palpable that the reader will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere.These are the accidental eyewitnesses to history. Disturbing, absurd, moving, and ranging from the deeply trivial to the deeply tragic, their tales give a fresh insight into the complexities of the Third Reich, its paradoxes and its ultimate destruction.

Forsake


Andrea Pearson - 2017
    And getting in the way is exactly what Nicole must do. Nicole Williams hopes for nothing more than to Restart like any normal Arete and gain access to the magic she’ll possess. But when she does Restart, she’s accused of gruesome murder, and she learns she must travel halfway around the world to save her best friend’s life. Knowing that the evil Hounds of Tindalos are hot on her tail and that they’ll stop at nothing to kill her before she hides her best friend from them forever, she invites her boyfriend, Conor, to come along as backup. But Conor’s plans may not line up with hers. Danger, intrigue, and harrowing fights with evil await you in Forsake, a Mosaic Chronicles novel. Start reading now to immerse yourself in the adventure! The entire Mosaic Chronicles is now complete! Suggested reading order: Forsake or Discern (either can be read first - both are complete stories that introduce themes/characters.) Praxis Perceive Observe Reclaim Conceal Obscure Enshroud Withhold

Don't Say Anything to Anybody: A German World War II Girlhood


Brigitte Z. Yearman - 2017
    Brigitte Z. Yearman’s evocative survival memoir provides that fresh voice. Young Brigitte knows nothing of the politics of war. All she knows is that the conflict has separated her from her family and taken her father away to fight. When her hometown becomes a bombing target, Brigitte is transported to the rural town of Seidel. Her foster family openly opposes the Nazi regime, but when the war ends, that isn’t enough to save them from new troubles brought by Allied troops. Russian soldiers and Polish settlers occupy Seidel, and Brigitte and her foster family are forced to leave. As refugees they embark on a harrowing life-or-death journey to safety in West Germany. Brigitte is determined to find and restore whatever is left of her biological family. That quest will forever change her understanding of home, peace, and personal identity. This tale of courage and compassion tells a poignant story about a resilient and resourceful girl coming of age during extremely troubled times. Along the way, she must learn to balance her longing for restoration with an acknowledgment that some wounds never heal.

The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany


Roger Moorhouse - 2017
    Tells the history of the Nazi regime from a fascinating new perspective” (Military History Monthly).   Hitler’s Third Reich is covered in countless books and films: no conflict of the twentieth century has prompted such interest or such a body of literature. Here, two leading World War II historians offer a new way to look at the subject—through objects that come from this time and place, much like a museum exhibit.   The photographs gathered by the authors represent subjects including the methamphetamine known as Pervitin, Hitler’s Mercedes, jackboots, concentration camp badges, a 1932 election poster, Wehrmacht mittens, Hitler’s grooming kit, the Tiger Tank, fragments of flak, and, of course, the swastika and Mein Kampf, among dozens more—along with informative text that sheds new light on both the objects themselves and the history they represent.

Katharina: Deliverance


Margaret Skea - 2017
    A fascinating reading experience.' Catherine Cho, Lead judge. 'It is very shameful that children, especially defenceless young girls, are pushed into the nunneries. Shame on the unmerciful parents who treat their own so cruelly.’ Martin Luther Germany 1505 Following the death of her mother and her father’s remarriage, five-year-old Katharina is placed in the convent at Brehna. She will never see her father again. Sixty-five miles away, at Erfurt in Thuringia, Martin Luder, a promising young law student, turns his back on a lucrative career in order to become a monk. The consequences of their meeting in Wittenberg, on Easter Sunday 1523, will reverberate down the centuries and throughout the Christian world. A compelling portrayal of Katharina von Bora, set against the turmoil of the Peasant’s War and the German Reformation ... and the controversial priest at its heart. ˃˃˃ From award-winning historical fiction author, Margaret Skea (Beryl Bainbridge Best first Time Novelist 2014; Long list Historical Novel Society New Novel Award 2016), a new novel that breathes life into the 'woman at Luther's side.' If you like your historical fiction well-researched and beautifully written, this book is for you. Reviews: ‘Margaret Skea has a brilliant eye for historical detail. She creates characters who take us by the hand so that we never stumble or wonder where we are. An engrossing read.’ A. Bacon: Between the Lines ‘A dramatic and most moving story, which transported me back to the 16th century and into Katharina’s mind. I felt what she was feeling and was both fascinated by and anxious for her right from the start. I loved it.’ Books Please 'A wonderfully vivid portrait of how a headstrong girl grows into a wry, steely and impassioned woman, carves a path for herself through tumultuous times, and changes the course of history in the process. Skea knows her history, but more importantly, she writes with imagination and humanity.' Professor Alec Ryrie, Durham University, author of Protestants. Get your copy today.

Loving Luther


Allison Pittman - 2017
    God, her father. This, her life. She takes her vows--a choice more practical than pious--but in time, a seed of discontent is planted by the smuggled writings of a rebellious excommunicated priest named Martin Luther. Their message? That Katharina is subject to God, and no one else. Could the Lord truly desire more for her than this life of servitude?In her first true step of faith, Katharina leaves the only life she has ever known. But the freedom she has craved comes with a price, and she finds she has traded one life of isolation for another. Without the security of the convent walls or a family of her own, Katharina must trust in both the God who saved her and the man who paved a way for rescue. Luther's friends are quick to offer shelter, but Katharina longs for all Luther has promised: a home, a husband, perhaps even the chance to fall in love.

Airborne (The Airborne Trilogy)


Robert Radcliffe - 2017
    In what will become known as the Battle of Arnhem, half of them will fall as casualties of war. Among their number is Theo Trickey, a young paratrooper so dreadfully injured he is not expected to survive.Under the care of Medical Officer Captain Daniel Garland, Trickey is shipped to Germany as a Prisoner of War. As Garland slowly nurses him back to health, he discovers that there's much that is unusual about Trickey, starting with a chance meeting he had with Erwin Rommel before the War...From the bestselling author of Under an English Heaven, Airborne is the first in an unforgettable trilogy that tells the story of a young soldier, of a new regiment and how, together, they altered the course of a war.

The East German Handbook: Arts and Artifacts from the GDR / Das DDR Handbuch: Kunst und Alltagsgegenstände aus der DDR


Justinian Jampol - 2017
    Die DDR-Sammlung des WendemuseumsArts and Artifacts from te GDR.Kunst und Alltagsgegenstände aus der DDRThis special two-language edition comes with texts both in English and German.For 40 years, the Cold War dominated the world stage. East and West Germany stood at the frontlines of the global confrontation, symbolized by the infamous Berlin Wall, which separated lovers, friends, and families, coworkers and compatriots.The Wende Museum in Los Angeles, California, is named after the period of change following the wall's destruction. It was established in 2002 to study the visual and material culture of the former Eastern Bloc, and, with physical and psychic distance, to foster multiple perspectives on this multilayered history that continues to shape our world.This encyclopedic volume features over 2500 items from its extraordinary collections. Never before has a book included this full a spectrum of art, archives, and artifacts from socialist East Germany: official symbols and dissident expressions, the spectacular and the routine, the mass-produced and the handmade, the funny and the tragic. Packaged in a slick, portable box, the book also comes with a facsimile of a GDR family scrapbook, documenting real and imagined travels both within East Germany, and across the border.Accompanying these remnants of a now-vanished world are texts from scholars and specialists from across Europe, Canada, and the United States, with themes ranging from the secret police to sexuality, from monuments to mental-mapping.More than 900 pages, featuring over 2500 objects.Color-coded tabs for swift navigation throughout the eight main chapters.Most comprehensive overview of GDR visual and material culture to date.Several dozen images of everyday life and public events from the most famous GDR photographers.Bonus material inside the handy shipping box: 56-page facsimile of a GDR family scrapbook, documenting real and imagined travels both in East Germany, and across the border.Enhanced, multimedia content, providing original videos and audio recordings from the GDR.

Hitler's Girls: Doves Amongst Eagles


Tim Heath - 2017
    Concentrating purely on the role of German girls in Hitler's Third Reich, we learn of their home lives, schooling, exploitation and eventual militarization from firsthand accounts of women who were indoctrinated into the Jung Madel and Bund Deutscher Mädel as young girls. From the prosperous beginnings of 1933 to the cataclysmic defeat of 1945, this insightful book examines in detail their specific roles as defined by the Nazi state. Few historical literary works have gone as deep to find the truth, the conscience and the regret, and in this sense 'Hitler's Girls' is a unique work unlike any other yet published. Written in an attempt to provide a definitive voice for this unheard generation of German females, it will leave the reader to decide for themselves whether or not the girls were the obedient accessories to genocide, and it will lead many readers to question many aspects of what they have previously thought about the role of girls and young women in Hitler's Third Reich. This is their story.

Night falls on the Berlin of the Roaring Twenties


Robert Nippoldt - 2017
    Of scientific breakthroughs, literary verve, and the political chaos of the Weimar Republic. After the best-selling Hollywood in the 30s and Jazz: New York in the Roaring Twenties, illustrator Robert Nippoldt teams up with author Boris Pofalla to evoke the fast-moving, freewheeling metropolis that was Berlin in the 1920s.Like a cinematographic city tour through time, Berlin of the Roaring Twenties takes in the urban scale and the intricate details of this transformative decade, from sweeping street panorama, bejeweled with new electric lights, to the foxtrot and tango steps tapped out on dance floors across the town. With characteristic graphic mastery of light, shadow, and expression, as well as a silver printing sheen, Nippoldt intersperses portraits with cityscapes, revealing the changing scenery and dynamic hubs of this burgeoning and rapidly industrializing capital, as well as the extraordinary protagonists that made up its hotbed scene of art, science, and ideas.With an eager eye on the eccentrics and outlaws that made up this heady age as much as the established “greats,” Nippoldt includes rich profiles not only of the likes of Lotte Reiniger, Christopher Isherwood, Albert Einstein, Kurt Weill, Marlene Dietrich, and George Grosz, but also for Thea Alba “the woman with ten brains,” Magnus Hirschfeld, the “Einstein of Sex,” and the city’s notorious criminal Adolf Leib. So, too, does the book contain special features for some of the most prominent cultural and political phenomena of the time, whether the most iconic film characters or the frenzied chaos of the Weimar cabinet.Beyond the people and the places, the book captures above all the incomparable and ineffable spirit of time and place, of an epoch suspended between two world wars and a country caught between joie de vivre daring and the darkness of encroaching National Socialism. Before the night falls, Nippoldt shows it all to us: the bright lights and the backstage whispers, the looming factories and the theoretical physics, the roar of the sports hall and the hush of the theater, the songs of the Comedian Harmonists, the satire of George Grosz, and the gender-bending icon of Marlene Dietrich, lighting up a cigarette in top hat, tuxedo, and come-to-bed eyes.

Martin Luther: Catholic Dissident


Peter Stanford - 2017
    Stanford is particularly brilliant on the tensions inside Luther's private and spiritual life. This is a very fine book, written with a flourish.' Melvyn BraggThe 31st of October 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther pinning his 95 'Theses' - or reform proposals - to the door of his local university church in Wittenberg. Most scholars now agree that the details of this eye-catching gesture are more legend than hammer and nails, but what is certainly true is that on this day (probably in a letter to his local Archbishop in Mainz), the Augustinian Friar and theologian issued an outspokenly blunt challenge to his own Catholic Church to reform itself from within - especially over the sale of 'indulgences' - which ultimately precipitated a huge religious and political upheaval right across Europe and divided mainstream Christianity ever after.A new, popular biography from journalist Peter Stanford, looking at Martin Luther from within his Catholic context, examining his actual aims for Catholicism as well as his enduring legacy - and where he might fit within the church today. 'Peter Stanford makes the life of Luther into a thrilling narrative, told from a modern Catholic perspective' Antonia Fraser

Berlin Calling: A Story of Anarchy, Music, The Wall, and the Birth of the New Berlin


Paul Hockenos - 2017
    It’s the story of a newly undivided Berlin when protest and punk rock, bohemia and direct democracy, techno and free theater were the order of the day.In a story stocked with fascinating characters from Berlin’s highly politicized undergrounds—including playwright Heiner Müller, cult figure Blixa Bargeld of the industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, the internationally known French Wall artist Thierry Noir, the American multimedia artist Danielle de Picciotto (founder of Love Parade), and David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust incarnation—Hockenos argues that the DIY energy and raw urban vibe of the early 1990s shaped the new Berlin and still pulses through the city today.Just as Mike Davis captured Los Angeles in his City of Quartz, Berlin Calling is a unique account of how Berlin became hip, and of why it continues to attract creative types from the world over.

Berlin in the 1920s


Rainer Metzger - 2017
    Between the paroxysms of two world wars, Berlin in the 1920s was a carpe diem cultural heyday, replete with groundbreaking art, invention, and thought.This book immerses readers in the freewheeling spirit of Berlin's Weimar age. Through exemplary works in painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic design, photography, and film, we uncover the innovations, ideas, and precious dreams that characterized this unique cultural window. We take in the jazz bars and dance halls; the crowded kinos and flapper fashion; the advances in technology and transport; the radio towers and rumbling trams and trains; the soaring buildings; the cinematic masterworks; and the newly independent women who smoked cigarettes, wore their hair short, and earned their own money.Featured works in this vivid cultural portrait include Hannah Hoch's Journalists; Lotte Jacobi's Hands on the Typewriter; Otto Dix's Portrait of Sylvia von Harden; Peter Behrens's Project Alexanderplatz; and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, starring Dietrich as cabaret performer Lola Lola. Along the way, we explore both the utopian yearnings and the more ominous economic and political realities which fueled the era's escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterworks. Behind the bright lights and glitter dresses, we see the inflation, factory labor, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden era and would eventually spell its savage end with the rise of National Socialism.

Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee


Ann Marie Ackermann - 2017
    The first volunteer killed defending Robert E. Lee’s position in battle was really a German assassin. After fleeing to the United States to escape prosecution for murder, the assassin enlisted in a German company of the Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Mexican-American War and died defending Lee’s battery at the Siege of Veracruz in 1847. Lee wrote a letter home, praising this unnamed fallen volunteer defender. Military records identify him, but none of the Americans knew about his past life of crime.Before fighting with the Americans, Lee’s defender had assassinated Johann Heinrich Rieber, mayor of Bönnigheim, Germany, in 1835. Rieber’s assassination became 19th-century Germany’s coldest case ever solved by a non–law enforcement professional and the only 19th-century German murder ever solved in the United States. Thirty-seven years later, another suspect in the assassination who had also fled to America found evidence in Washington, D.C., that would clear his own name, and he forwarded it to Germany. The German prosecutor Ernst von Hochstetter corroborated the story and closed the case file in 1872, naming Lee’s defender as Rieber’s murderer.Relying primarily on German sources, Death of an Assassin tracks the never-before-told story of this German company of Pennsylvania volunteers. It follows both Lee’s and the assassin’s lives until their dramatic encounter in Veracruz and picks up again with the surprising case resolution decades later.This case also reveals that forensic ballistics―firearm identification through comparison of the striations on a projectile with the rifling in the barrel―is much older than previously thought. History credits Alexandre Laccasagne for inventing forensic ballistics in 1888. But more than 50 years earlier, Eduard Hammer, the magistrate who investigated the Rieber assassination in 1835, used the same technique to eliminate a forester’s rifle as the murder weapon. A firearms technician with state police of Baden-Württemberg tested Hammer’s technique in 2015 and confirmed its efficacy, cementing the argument that Hammer, not Laccasagne, should be considered the father of forensic ballistics.The roles the volunteer soldier/assassin and Robert E. Lee played at the Siege of Veracruz are part of American history, and the record-breaking, 19th-century cold case is part of German history. For the first time, Death of an Assassinbrings the two stories together.

Jutland 1916: The Archaeology of a Naval Battlefield


Innes McCartney - 2017
    For years the myriad factors contributing to the loss of many of the ships remained a mystery, subject only to speculation and theory.In this book, marine archaeologist and historian Dr. Innes McCartney reveals for the first time what became of the warships that vanished on the night of May 31, 1916, examining the circumstances behind the loss of each ship and reconciling what was known in 1916 to what the archaeology is revealing today. The knowledge of what was present was transformed in 2015 by a groundbreaking survey using the modern technology of multi-beam. This greatly assisted in unraveling the details behind several Jutland enigmas, not least the devastating explosions which claimed five major British warships, the details of the wrecks of the thirteen destroyers lost in the battle, and the German warships scuttled during the night phase.This is the first book to identify the locations of many of the wrecks, and--scandalously--how more than half of these sites have been illegally plundered for salvage, despite their status as war graves. An essential and revealing read for anyone interested in naval history and marine archaeology.

Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex


Rupert Darwall - 2017
    In the 1970s, the Swedish Social Democrats used global warming to get political support for building a string of nuclear power stations. It was the second phase of their war on coal, which began with the acid rain scare and the first big UN environment conference in Stockholm in 1969.Acid rain swept all before it. America held out for as long as Ronald Reagan was in the White House, but capitulated under his successor. Like global warming, acid rain had the vocal support of the scientific establishment, but the consensus science collapsed just as Congress was passing acid rain cap-and-trade legislation. Rather than tell legislators and the nation the truth, the EPA attacked a lead scientist and suppressed the federal report showing that the scientific case for action on curbing power station emissions was baseless.Ostensibly neutral in the Cold War, Sweden had a secret military alliance with Washington. A hero of the international Left, Sweden's Olof Palme used environmentalism to maintain a precarious balance between East and West. Thus Stockholm was the conduit for the KGB-inspired nuclear winter scare. The bait was taken by Carl Sagan and leading scientists, who tried to undermine Ronald Reagan's nuclear strategy and acted as propaganda tools to end the Cold War on Moscow's terms.Nuclear energy was to have been the solution to global warming. It didn't turn out that way, most of all thanks to Germany. Instead America and the world are following Germany's lead in embracing wind and solar. German obsession with renewable energy originates deep within its culture. Few know today that the Nazis were the first political party to champion wind power, Hitler calling wind the energy of the future.Post-1945 West Germany appeared normal, but anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s led to the fusion of extreme Left and Right and the birth of the Greens in 1980. Their rise changed Germany, then Europe and now the world. Radical environmentalism became mainstream. It demands more than the rejection of the abundant hydrocarbon energy that fuels American greatness. It requires the suppression of dissent.

Ghosts on the shore: Travels along Germany's Baltic Coast


Paul Scraton - 2017
    A place of escape, of carefree summer holidays, of spa towns and health retreats. A place where some of the darkest stories of 20th century German history played out.Inspired by his wife's collection of family photographs from the 1930s and her memories of growing up on the Baltic coast in the GDR, Paul Scraton set out to travel from Lübeck to the Polish border on the island of Usedom, an area central to the mythology of a nation and bearing the heavy legacy of trauma.Exploring a world of socialist summer camps, Hanseatic trading towns long past their heyday and former fishing villages surrendered to tourism, Ghosts on the Shore unearths the stories, folklore and contradictions of the coast, where politics, history, and personal memory merge to create a nuanced portrait of place.

Giles's War


Timothy S. Benson - 2017
    . . Wonderful cartoons.’ Nick Robinson, Radio 4 TodayFew contemporaries captured Britain's indomitable wartime spirit as well or as wittily as the cartoonist Carl Giles. Now, for the first time, the very best of the cartoons he produced between 1939 and 1945 are brought together, including many that have not seen the light of day in over 75 years.As a young cartoonist at Reynold’s News and then the Daily Express and Sunday Express, Giles's work provided a crucial morale boost – and much-needed laughs – to a population suffering daily privations and danger, and Giles's War shows why. Here are his often hilarious takes on the great events of the war – from the Fall of France, via D-Day, to the final Allied victory – but also his wryly amusing depictions of ordinary people in extraordinary times, living in bombed-out streets, dealing with food shortages, coping with blackouts, railing against bureaucracy and everyday annoyances. It's a brilliantly funny chronicle of our nation’s finest hour, as well as a fitting tribute to one of our greatest cartoonists.

The Battle for Heraklion. Crete 1941: The Campaign Revealed Through Allied and Axis Accounts


Yannis Prekatsounakis - 2017
    Many books have been written about this famous invasion, with the emphasis mainly on the battles for Maleme and Chania. The Battle for Heraklion - an epic struggle - remained largely forgotten and widely unstudied. Yet the desperate fight for Heraklion had everything: street-fighting in the town; heroic attacks against well-fortified positions and medieval walls; heavy losses on all sides; and tragic stories involving famous German aristocratic families like the von Bluchers and members of the Bismarck family. This book highlights personal stories and accounts - and the author s access to records from all three sides allowed accounts to be placed in their correct place and time. Finally, the history of the battle is written with the added perspective of extensive Greek accounts and sources. In contrast, earlier books were based solely on British and German sources - totally ignoring the Greek side. Many of these accounts are from people who were fighting directly against each other - and some reveal what the enemies were discussing and thinking while they were shooting at or attacking each other. Some accounts are so accurate and detailed that we can even identify who killed whom. In addition, long-lost stories behind both well known and previously unpublished pictures are revealed. For the first time, 75 year-old mysteries are solved: what were the names of the paratroopers in the planes seen crashing in famous pictures? What was the fate of soldiers seen in pictures taken just before the battle? The author has studied the battlefield in every detail - thus giving the reader the opportunity to understand actions and incidents by examining what happened on the actual field of battle. For example, how was it possible for a whole platoon to be trapped and annihilated, as in the fate of Wolfgang Graf von Blucher? Such a question is not easily answered even by people with a military background. How was it possible for the paratroopers to fail in their attempt to occupy the town? The answers to questions like these became very clear when the author walked through the battlefields - following the accounts of the people from all sides who had fought there and which describe the same incidents. The author s extensive research is vividly presented via detailed maps and photographs, both from the era of the battle and today; even battlefield archaeology plays a role in revealing what really happened on the battlefield. The author s approach addresses two different types of readers: those who are largely unfamiliar with the battle - hence the emphasis on personal stories, accounts and pictures - and the researcher who wants a reliable source of first-hand material and perhaps a different point of view, such as is offered by Greek accounts and sources (and by the writer s detailed analysis of the battle). This fresh account of one of the Second World War s most memorable battles is given added authority by the writer s military background, together with his deep knowledge of the battlefield and his access to Greek accounts and sources."

A Single Spy


William Christie - 2017
    In 1936, at the age of 16, Aleksi is caught by the NKVD and transported to Moscow. There, in the notorious headquarters of the secret police, he is given a choice: be trained and inserted as a spy into Nazi Germany under the identity of his best friend, the long lost nephew of a high ranking Nazi official, or disappear forever in the basement of the Lubyanka. For Aleksi, it’s no choice at all. Over the course of the next seven years, Aleksi has to live his role, that of the devoted nephew of a high Nazi official, and ultimately works for the legendary German spymaster Wilhelm Canaris as an intelligence agent in the Abwehr. All the while, acting as a double agent—reporting back to the NKVD and avoiding detection by the Gestapo. Trapped between the implacable forces of two of the most notorious dictatorships in history, and truly loyal to no one but himself, Aleksi’s goal remains the same—survival. In 1943, Aleksi is chosen by the Gestapo to spearhead one of the most desperate operations of the war—to infiltrate the site of the upcoming Tehran conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, and set them up to be assassinated. For Aleksi, it’s the moment of truth; for the rest of the world, the future is at stake.

The Lost Artist: Love Passion War (Part 1)


Eric Hausman-Houston - 2017
    I recommend it to everyone.” Rabbi Mark S. Golub, JBS TV, jbstv.orgTHE LOST ARTIST1934: a 13-year-old Jewish boy escapes Nazi Germany to become the highest decorated WWII Palestinian (future Israeli) soldier in the British Army.2010: a top Israeli computer scientist searches for the favorite artist of her youth. From the rise of the Nazi Party through the formation of the State of Israel, across a sea of time to present day, their worlds collide inLOVE PASSION WAR.PART 1(BASED ON A TRUE STORY)PART 1 ends in North Africa, July 3, 1942, El Alamein, when the Nazis had won the war, they just didn’t know it. It had taken sixty years, but a top Israeli computer scientist, racing against time, finally discovered the identity of the illustrator of “the pearl of Israeli children’s literature,” And There Was Evening, a bestseller and timeless classic, now in its 42nd edition. The celebrated, but unknown, artist was Fred Hausman, who also happened to be the highest decorated WWII Palestinian soldier in the British Army, the only one to earn the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), the highest gallantry award for a non-British citizen in the British Army, making it the most important WWII medal to Israel.The present and the past collide in The Lost Artist: Love Passion War (Part 1) written by Fred Hausman’s son, Eric Hausman-Houston. The Israeli researcher’s quest to find her favorite illustrator serves as a present-day backdrop to tell Fred Hausman’s harrowing story of escaping Nazi Germany at age thirteen and traveling alone to Palestine. There, he befriended an untamable horse, King Abdullah of Jordan, along with many other Arabs and joins the Haganah to help save illegal Jewish immigrants. The Lost Artist chronicles Hausman’s time in the British Army up until the decisive moment of WWII’s North Africa Campaign; July 3, 1942, the El Alamein line, 65 miles west of Alexandria, Egypt, when the Nazis won the war but just didn’t know it. Fred Hausman’s journey offers personal insight into the history of Palestine and Israel, the rise of the Nazi Party, Zionism, the Holocaust, WWII, and the seeds of our present day Middle East Crisis. The Lost Artist exposes neglected history and government coverups, including British atrocities in Palestine to both Arabs and Jews, why Winston Churchill had to perpetuate the Rommel myth, and how German resistance working at a Berlin radio station gave their lives to stop the Nazis from winning the war.Fred Hausman’s Distinguished Conduct Medal was unlawfully sold to a British lord under false terms. At the end of the book, there is a bonus chapter with information on these seedy misdoings, followed by documentation of Eric Hausman-Houston’s correspondence with Scotland Yard, the British Ministry of Defense, DNW Auction House, and billionaire Lord Michael Ashcroft, who is currently in possession of the stolen medal.All proceeds from The Lost Artist will go to reuniting Fred Hausman’s Distinguished Conduct Medal, and other medals stolen from within the British Ministry of Defense, with their rightful owners. The Hausman medals will then be donated to an orphanage in Israel so that they may sell the Hausman medals to a museum.

Dark Full of Enemies


Jordan M. Poss - 2017
    Already a veteran of the brutal war against Japan, McKay now works in secret for the special operations of the OSS in Europe. When his superiors suddenly present him with a new mission—scout and sabotage a hydroelectric dam in the winter-long darkness of Norway, north of the Arctic Circle—he contacts an old friend, now in the US Army, for help. The mission bothers McKay—the poor intelligence, the rushed preparation, the hodgepodge team assembled at last minute, and the long, chill, and sleepless night lying over the target. And after the difficult trip to Norway, he finds himself confronted with yet another obstacle—Josef Petersen, his silent, standoffish contact with the Norwegian resistance. Hundreds of miles deep in enemy territory, surrounded by dangers, and unsure of his friends, McKay steels himself to do his duty. But can he succeed? And can he escape with his team when the job is done?

Martin Luther: A Biography for the People


Dyron B. Daughrity - 2017
    Not written primarily for theologians, but rather for a general, twenty-fi rst-century audience, Martin Luther traces• Luther’s early development• Luther’s confl icts between civic and religious authorities• Luther’s leadership of reform in Germany• The subsequent impact of Luther’s writings and beliefs asthey stretched around the world

History in 30: The Life of Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany's Desert Fox


Percy Bennington - 2017
    Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don't in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered, and teach your subordinates to be the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.” – Erwin Rommel The 20th century was a century full of conflict and strife, not seen before on a global scale. While there were multiple conflicts that spanned over many years, the two World Wars marked the century. During both World Wars, the Germans were found on the losing end, but that is not to say that those armies were void of brilliance, quite to the contrary. The German Army of World War I was one of the most well-rounded and destructive war machines in history, and if anything, the death knell to the German side during the First World War was the fact that the Germans had weak allies and spent considerable resources and time to try to prop up other empires like Austria and the Ottoman Turks. World War II was an entirely different story. The Germans were angry after the First World War, and using public sway and anger, Adolf Hitler took power in the 1930s. Unlike the earlier army, the German Army of the Second World War committed some of the most grotesque and unforgivable atrocities in the history of mankind. This isn't to say that the German commanders and soldiers were all bad, and of all the men who fought for the Reich, the one with the most sterling reputation is Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. Rommel rose through the ranks of the German Army in the years preceding the outbreak of World War II, and he proved to be a cunning and insinuative soldier who was one of the most brilliant cavalry commanders in the history of warfare. Eventually, the evil that surrounded him engulfed him, and his pure brilliance went untapped. While there is a great division when it comes to historical opinion with respect to Rommel’s merits as a general as well as the moral choices he made, both historians and the public continue to be intrigued by this man who has been dead for over 70 years. People at large continue to consider Rommel one of the greatest generals of the 20th century, an opinion shared by many of his contemporaries on both sides of World War II. For example, British General Harold Alexander hinted at both his strengths and weaknesses, commenting, “He was a tactician of the greatest ability, with a firm grasp of every detail of the employment of armour in action, and very quick to seize the fleeting opportunity and the critical turning point of a mobile battle. I felt certain doubts, however, about his strategic ability, in particular as to whether he fully understood the importance of a sound administrative plan. Happiest while controlling a mobile force directly under his own eyes he was liable to overexploit immediate success without sufficient thought for the future.” History in 30: The Life of Erwin Rommel, Nazi Germany’s Desert Fox provides a quick but comprehensive look at the life of the general.

Hitler's 'National Community': Society and Culture in Nazi Germany


Lisa Pine - 2017
    Drawing on a range of significant scholarly works on the subject, Pine informs us as to the major historiographical debates surrounding the subject whilst establishing her own original, interpretative arc.The book is divided into four parts. The first section explores the attempts of the Nazi regime to create a Volksgemeinschaft ('national community'). The second part examines men, women, the family, the churches and religion. The third section analyses the fate of those groups that were excluded from the Volksgemeinschaft. The final section of the book considers the impact of the Nazi government upon German culture, in particular focusing on the radio and press, cinema and theatre, art and architecture, music and literature.This new edition includes historiographical updates throughout, an additional chapter on the early Nazi movement and brand new primary source excerpt boxes and illustrations. There is also expanded material on key topics like resistance, women and family, men and masculinity and religion.A crucial text for all students of Nazi Germany, this book provides a sophisticated window into the social and cultural aspects of life under Hitler's rule.

Modern Hungers: Food and Power in Twentieth-Century Germany


Alice Autumn Weinreb - 2017
    Within the new globalizing economy, food became intimately intertwined with waging war, and starvation claimed more lives than any other weapon. As Alice Weinreb shows in Modern Hungers, nowhere was this new reality more significant than in Germany, which struggled through food blockades, agricultural crises, economic depressions, and wartime destruction and occupation at the same time that it asserted itself as a military, cultural, and economic powerhouse of Europe.The end of armed conflict in 1945 did not mean the end of these military strategies involving food. Fears of hunger and fantasies of abundance were instead reframed within a new Cold War world. During the postwar decades, Europeans lived longer, possessed more goods, and were healthier than ever before. This shift was signaled most clearly by the disappearance of famine from the continent. So powerful was the experience of post-1945 abundance that it is hard today to imagine a time when the specter of hunger haunted Europe, demographers feared that malnutrition would mean the end of whole nations, and the primary targets for American food aid were Belgium and Germany rather than Africa. Yet under both capitalism and communism, economic growth as well as social and political priorities proved inseparable from the modern food system.Drawing on sources ranging from military records to cookbooks to economic and nutritional studies from a multitude of archives, Modern Hungers reveals similarities and striking ruptures in popular experience and state policy relating to the industrial food economy. In so doing, it offers historical perspective on contemporary concerns ranging from humanitarian food aid to the gender-wage gap to the obesity epidemic.

Ponderings VII-XI: Black Notebooks 1938-1939


Martin Heidegger - 2017
    The importance of the Black Notebooks transcends Heidegger's relationship with National Socialism. These personal notebooks contain reflections on technology, art, Christianity, the history of philosophy, and Heidegger's attempt to move beyond that history into another beginning.

Twilight of Empire: The Brest-Litovsk Conference and the Remaking of East-Central Europe, 1917–1918


Borislav Chernev - 2017
    Two separate peace treaties were signed at Brest-Litovsk the first between the Central Powers and Ukraine and the second between the Central Powers and Bolshevik Russia.Borislav Chernev, through an insightful and in-depth analysis of primary sources and archival material, argues that although its duration was short lived, the Brest-Litovsk settlement significantly affected the post-Imperial transformation of East Central Europe. The conference became a focal point for the interrelated processes of peacemaking, revolution, imperial collapse, and nation-state creation in the multi-ethnic, entangled spaces of East Central Europe. Chernev's analysis expands beyond the traditional focus on the German-Russian relationship, paying special attention to the policies of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. The transformations initiated by the Brest-Litovsk conferences ushered in the twilight of empire as the Habsburg, Hohenzollern, and Ottoman Empires all shared the fate of their Romanov counterpart at the end of World War I."

It's a Small World Felted Friends: Cute and Cuddly Needle Felted Figures from Around the World


Sachiko Susa - 2017
    Even experienced felters can pick up tips on how to work with new colors and details. Thorough instructions for each project show you how to take raw wool or roving to make the basic shapes and blend them seamlessly. A special step-by-step section shows you how easy even the most complex piece can be, and how any small figure can be made into an accessory you can carry or wear. These cute felted friends range from the wonderfully realistic to enchantingly cute. Included in this book are:An Elephant all decked out for festival dayA Queen's Guard and a Dutch Girl in traditional dressA Mama Kangaroo with her JoeyAn enchanting Teddy BearCute accessories featuring foods and flags from different landsFelt scenery to set the stage for your felt creationsAnd a lot more!The projects range from about 2-4 inches high and instructions are included for turning a few of your felt creations into fun dangly accessories. A full lesson takes you through one of the projects from beginning to end, covering all the basics to ensure that you have all the skills you need to make any fuzzy friend you want.

Weird War Two


Peter Taylor - 2017
    And museums as big and well-stocked as the Imperial War Museums have plenty of the ones you’d expect to find: tanks, jets, helmets, guns, and the like. But there was a whole lot more to the war—and a surprising amount of it is, well, downright weird.​Weird War Two pulls the strangest items from deep within the IWM’s archives to offer a surprising new, wildly entertaining angle on the war. From wacky inventions such as flying jeeps and bat bombs to elusive secret agents, from wholly bizarre propaganda posters to a dummy whose role as a decoy enabled a daring escape, and from inflatable tanks to painted cows—really—Weird War Two reminds us that human ingenuity is boundless, yet at the same time that usually means that truth ends up stranger than fiction.

Genocidal Gaze: From German Southwest Africa to the Third Reich


Elizabeth R. Baer - 2017
    The perception of Africans as subhuman-lacking any kind of civilization, history, or meaningful religion-and the resulting justification for the violence against them is what author Elizabeth R. Baer refers to as the "genocidal gaze," an attitude that was later perpetuated by the Nazis. In The Genocidal Gaze: From German Southwest Africa to the Third Reich, Baer uses the trope of the gaze to trace linkages between the genocide of the Herero and Nama and that of the victims of the Holocaust. Significantly, Baer also considers the African gaze of resistance returned by the indigenous people and their leaders upon the German imperialists.Baer explores the threads of shared ideology in the Herero and Nama genocide and the Holocaust-concepts such as racial hierarchies, lebensraum (living space), rassenschande (racial shame), and endl?sung (final solution) that were deployed by German authorities in 1904 and again in the 1930s and 1940s to justify genocide. She also notes the use of shared methodology-concentration camps, death camps, intentional starvation, rape, indiscriminate killing of women and children-in both instances.While previous scholars have made these links between the Herero and Nama genocide and that of the Holocaust, Baer's book is the first to examine literary texts that demonstrate this connection. Texts under consideration include the archive of Nama revolutionary Hendrik Witbooi; a colonial novel by German Gustav Frenssen (1906), in which the genocidal gaze conveyed an acceptance of racial annihilation; and three post-Holocaust texts-by German Uwe Timm, Ghanaian Ama Ata Aidoo, and installation artist William Kentridge of South Africa-that critique the genocidal gaze. Baer posits that writing and reading about the gaze is an act of mediation, a power dynamic that calls those who commit genocide to account for their crimes and discloses their malignant convictions. Careful reading of texts and attention to the narrative deployment of the genocidal gaze-or the resistance to it-establishes discursive similarities in books written both during colonialism and in the post-Holocaust era.The Genocidal Gaze is an original and challenging discussion of such contemporary issues as colonial practices, the Nazi concentration camp state, European and African race relations, definitions of genocide, and postcolonial theory. Moreover, Baer demonstrates the power of literary and artistic works to condone, or even promote, genocide or to soundly condemn it. Her transnational analysis provides the groundwork for future studies of links between imperialism and genocide, links among genocides, and the devastating impact of the genocidal gaze.

Let's Take Berlin: Essays on Expat Life


Jessica Guzik - 2017
    Weaving colorful observations with poignant personal observations, Jessica’s essays on sex clubs, saunas, and everything in between will make you feel like a true Berliner—complete with cigarette smoke in your hair, club stamps on your wrist, and a smile on your face.

The Hirschfeld Archives: Violence, Death, and Modern Queer Culture


Heike Bauer - 2017
    It was destroyed by the Nazis in 1933. This episode in history prompted Heike Bauer to ask, Is violence an intrinsic part of modern queer culture? The Hirschfeld Archives answers this critical question by examining the violence that shaped queer existence in the first part of the twentieth century.Hirschfeld himself escaped the Nazis, and many of his papers and publications survived. Bauer examines his accounts of same-sex life from published and unpublished writings, as well as books, articles, diaries, films, photographs and other visual materials, to scrutinize how violence-including persecution, death and suicide-shaped the development of homosexual rights and political activism.The Hirschfeld Archives brings these fragments of queer experience together to reveal many unknown and interesting accounts of LGBTQ life in the early twentieth century, but also to illuminate the fact that homosexual rights politics were haunted from the beginning by racism, colonial brutality, and gender violence.

German Submarine Warfare in World War I: The Onset of Total War at Sea


Lawrence Sondhaus - 2017
    Noted historian Lawrence Sondhaus shows how the undersea campaign, intended as an antidote to Britain's more conventional blockade of German ports, ultimately brought the United States into the war. Although the German people readily embraced the argument that an "undersea blockade" of Britain enforced by their navy's Unterseeboote (U-boats) was the moral equivalent of the British navy's more conventional blockade of German ports, international opinion never accepted its legitimacy.Sondhaus explains that in their initial, somewhat confused rollout of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915, German leaders underestimated the extent to which the policy would alienate the most important neutral power, the United States. In rationalizing the risk of resuming the unrestricted campaign in 1917, they took for granted that, should the United States join the Allies, German U-boats would be able to stop the transport of an American army to France. But by bringing the United States into the war while also failing to stop the deployment of its troops to Europe, unrestricted submarine warfare ultimately led to Germany's defeat. Because U.S. manpower proved decisive in breaking the stalemate on the Western Front and securing victory for the Allies, Sondhaus argues that Germany's decision to stake its fate on the U-boat campaign ranks among the greatest blunders of modern history.

Strange Bird: The Albatross Press and the Third Reich


Michele K. Troy - 2017
    It was funded by British-Jewish interests. Its director was rumored to work for British intelligence. A precursor to Penguin, it distributed both middlebrow fiction and works by edgier modernist authors such as D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway to eager continental readers. Yet Albatross printed and sold its paperbacks in English from the heart of Hitler’s Reich. In her original and skillfully researched history, Michele K. Troy reveals how the Nazi regime tolerated Albatross—for both economic and propaganda gains—and how Albatross exploited its insider position to keep Anglo-American books alive under fascism. In so doing, Troy exposes the contradictions in Nazi censorship while offering an engaging detective story, a history, a nuanced analysis of men and motives, and a cautionary tale.

The German-Jewish Cookbook: Recipes and History of a Cuisine


Gabrielle Rossmer Gropman - 2017
    Because these dishes differ from more familiar Jewish food, they will be a discovery for many people. With a focus on fresh, seasonal ingredients, this indispensable collection of recipes includes numerous soups, both chilled and hot; vegetable dishes; meats, poultry, and fish; fruit desserts; cakes; and the German version of challah, Berches. These elegant and mostly easy-to-make recipes range from light summery fare to hearty winter foods. The Gropmans—a mother-daughter author pair—have honored the original recipes Gabrielle learned after arriving as a baby in Washington Heights from Germany in 1939, while updating their format to reflect contemporary standards of recipe writing. Six recipe chapters offer easy-to-follow instructions for weekday meals, Shabbos and holiday meals, sausage and cold cuts, vegetables, coffee and cake, and core recipes basic to the preparation of German-Jewish cuisine. Some of these recipes come from friends and family of the authors; others have been culled from interviews conducted by the authors, prewar German-Jewish cookbooks, nineteenth-century American cookbooks, community cookbooks, memoirs, or historical and archival material. The introduction explains the basics of Jewish diet (kosher law). The historical chapter that follows sets the stage by describing Jewish social customs in Germany and then offering a look at life in the vibrant émigré community of Washington Heights in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. Vividly illustrated with more than fifty drawings by Megan Piontkowski and photographs by Sonya Gropman that show the cooking process as well as the delicious finished dishes, this cookbook will appeal to readers curious about ethnic cooking and how it has evolved, and to anyone interested in exploring delicious new recipes.

Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany


Kerry Wallach - 2017
    

New World Order Exposed: Strategy, tactics and methods of the power elite


Oliver Janich - 2017
    Most people tend to believe that world events are either mere coincidences or a direct result of the incompetence of decision-makers. A thorough examination shows a different picture. There are certain groups who have a vested interest in promoting a so-called New World Order, which is basically another term for totalitarian world government. The market is already full of books on the topic. This one is different. The author uses scientific methods to prove his points. For instance by applying the falsification theorem of Karl Popper to falsify conspiracy theories and fake news, he demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that these are often spread by government and mainstream media. This book shows how the Austrian School of Economics presents solutions to most of the problems the world faces today. Its teachings provide knowledge for a deeper understanding of the so-called power elite’s behavior. They equip the reader with the tools to analyze and predict the methods, strategies and tactics of interest groups such as big corporations, NGOs and secret societies, whose strong influence on society this book proves. Inspite of its scientific approach, the German version under the name “Das Kapitalismus Komplott“ (Capitalism Conspiracy) was a bestseller, receiving positive reviews for its concise and simple language. The English translation has been thoroughly updated and includes recent developments like the presidency of Donald Trump and the so-called immigration crisis, an important key in the ushering in of the New Word Order. The author and journalist, Oliver Janich, is known for his work for the biggest publishing houses in Germany. He was the first in Europe and possibly worldwide to expose the lies and inconsistencies of the official version of 9/11 in a mainstream business magazine (Focus Money). His two books are both bestsellers in Germany and his Youtube Videos receive millions of views. Leading intellectuals such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Thorsten Polleit and Jörg Guido Hülsmann and celebrities like the popular singer Xavier Naidoo, stand-up artist and actress Lisa Fitz or Golden Globe Awardee Christine Kaufmann have all praised his work. Ron Paul commended the manifesto of the libertarian “Partei der Vernunft“ (“Party of Reason“) which Janich founded.

The Bavarian Army During the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648: The Backbone of the Catholic League


Laurence Spring - 2017
    Among the generals of the Bavarian Army were Count Johan von Tilly and Gottfried von Pappenheim, who are two of the most famous generals of the war. This book covers not only the Bavarian Army's organisation, but also has chapters on recruitment, officers, clothing, weaponry, pay and rations of a soldier during the Thirty Years War. As well as life and death in the army, this book also looks at the women who accompanied it. The chapter on 'civilians and soldiers' looks at the impact of the war on the civilian population, their reaction to it and the infamous sack of Magdeburg which sent shockwaves across Europe. This chapter also looks at the impact on Bavaria by having Swedish, Spanish and Imperialist troops quartered upon it and how this affected the country's war effort. In addition there are chapters on regimental colours and a detailed look into the tactics of the time, including those of Spain, Sweden and the Dutch. As well as using archival and archaeological evidence to throw new light on the subject the author has used several memoirs written by those who served in the army during the war, including Peter Hagendorf who served in Pappenheim 's Regiment of Foot from 1627 until the regiment was disbanded after the war. Hagendorf's vivid account is unique because not only is it a full account of the life of a common soldier during the war, but also records the human side of campaign, including the death of his two wives and all but two of his children. This book is essential reading to anyone interested in the wars of the early seventeenth century, not just the Thirty Years War.

Stalag Luft III: An Official History of the POW Camp of the Great Escape


John Grehan - 2017
    This did not stop the prisoners who dug through more than one hundred yards of loose sand, enabling seventy-six men to flee. All but three of the men were recaptured, however, and fifty were executed by the Germans. This camp was known for two famous prisoner escapes that took place there by tunneling, which were depicted in the films The Wooden Horse (1950) and The Great Escape (1963).The official history of the camp was prepared for the War Office but was never released to the general public. It explains the German administration and running of the camp, the food and conditions the prisoners endured, and the means by which morale was maintained under such trying circumstances. Considerable space is devoted to the escapes and their careful preparation as well as the anti-escape measures undertaken by the guards. This account provides the reader with an accurate and unprecedented insight into life in a German POW camp in the latter years of World War II.

HITLER CHRIST - Nazism, Fascism, Socialism: Swastika, Cross, Hakenkreuz, Hooked-Cross, Crucifixion


Ian Tinny - 2017
    Don't fall prey to the lies your teachers taught you. Learn about the mysteries of the symbolism. Never-before-revealed secrets are exposed. And what about the followers? Who did what to whom? Some of them remain with us today. They use crosses as important -even magical- emblems. This book reveals both occult and cult knowledge. Explore the ideologies in these cryptic pages. Widely proclaimed a classic work of historical scholarship, "Hitler Christ" has been hailed as the most eloquent of Ian Tinny's many books. The fruit of many years of reflection and research, it is a dramatic and moving recounting of the darkest chapters survived by humanity. A penetrating study of the personification of evil. This landmark work provides revealing looks at the megalomania, delusions of grandeur, and schizophrenia. All the monstrous parts are dissected in this autopsy. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarship, Tinny explores Professor Rex Curry's research to shine important new light on all the cadavers. For too long the world has tried to grasp how it was possible. This riveting biography brings us closer than ever to the answer. Many previous books have focused only on larger social conditions to explain these historical topics. With his customary insight and irreverence, Tinny interprets the evidence and describes events not only in historical perspective but also in exciting and contemporary terms -- seeing in calamities both modern parallels and timeless lessons. His thoughtful, probing analysis provides new insight into well-known episodes. An appealing blend of philosophy, history, and philological exegesis, from the most-loved American historical leader of the twenty-first century, "Hitler Christ" has long been a source of inspiration and guidance. For those seeking to better understand the mixed messages of the ages, this vivid review is a must-read. "...author Ian Tinny recalls Dr. Rex Curry's love of history, his insatiable curiosity and academia's unwavering belief in his prodigious talent. Dr. Curry's neologistic side, with regard to the fashioning of modernity and the influence and effluence of totalitarian culture are often elided by critics and thus lost in translation. Paradoxically, it is Dr. Curry's very act of exposing so many misrepresentations that conjures a positive corporeal valence between the historian and our sense of self or identity." - Philological Foundation of America "Dr. Rex Curry is a pop-culture icon by being a pop-culture iconoclast. This holds true regarding Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ in 'Hitler Christ' and its biographical critiques." - Blue Teapot Review "All anarchists can unite behind this fascinating book. It should be required reading each day in all schools ...right after the Pledge of Allegiance." - Anarchist Book Society Did Stalin, Mao, Hitler and their ilk prove that there is no God?

The Waffen-SS: A European History


Jochen Böhler - 2017
    Building on the findings of regional studies by other scholars - many of them included in this volume - The Waffen-SS aims to arrive at a fuller picture of those non-German citizens (from Eastern as well as Western Europe) who served under the SS flag. Where did the non-Germans in the SS come from (socially, geographically, and culturally)? What motivated them? What do we know about the practicalities of international collaboration in war and genocide, in terms of everyday life, language, and ideological training? Did a common transnational identity emerge as a result of shared ideological convictions or experiences of extreme violence? In order to address these questions (and others), The Waffen-SS adopts an approach that does justice to the complexity of the subject, adding a more nuanced, empirically sound understanding of collaboration in Europe during World War II, while also seeking to push the methodological boundaries of the historiographical genre of perpetrator studies by adopting a transnational approach.

The Eric Voegelin Reader: Politics, History, Consciousness


Charles R. Embry - 2017
    One of the most original political philosophers of the period, Voegelin has largely avoided ideological labels or categorizations of his work. Because of this, however, and because no one work or volume of his can do justice to his overall project, his work has been seen as difficult to approach.   Drawing from the University of Missouri Press’s thirty-four-volume edition of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin (1990-2009), Charles Embry and Glenn Hughes have assembled a selection of representative works of Voegelin, satisfying a longstanding need for a single volume that can serve as a general introduction to Voegelin’s philosophy. The collection includes writings that demonstrate the range and creativity of Voegelin’s thought as it developed from 1956 until his death in 1985 in his search for the history of order in human society.   The Reader begins with excerpts from Autobiographical Reflections (1973), which include an orienting mixture of biographical information, philosophical motivations, and the scope of Voegelin’s project. It reflects key periods of Voegelin’s philosophical development, pivoting on his flight from the Gestapo.   The next section focuses on Voegelin’s understanding of the contemporary need to re-ground political science in a non-positivistic, post-Weberian outlook and method. It begins with Voegelin’s historical survey of science and scientism, followed by his explanation of what political science now requires in his introduction to The New Science of Politics. Also included are two essays that exemplify the practice of this “new science.” Voegelin started his academic career as a political scientist, and these early essays indicate his wide philosophical vision.   Voegelin recognized that a fully responsible “new science of politics” would require the development of a philosophy of history. This led to the writing of his magnum opus, the five-volume Order and History (1956–1985). This section of the Reader includes his introductions to volumes 1, 2 and 4 and his most essential accounts of the theoretical requirements and historical scope of a philosophy of history adequate to present-day scholarship and historical discoveries.   In the course of his career, Voegelin came to understand that political science, political philosophy, and philosophy of history must have as their theoretical nucleus a sound philosophical anthropology based on an accurate philosophy of human consciousness. The next set of writings consists of one late lecture and four late essays that exemplify how Voegelin recovers the wisdom of classical philosophy and the Western religious tradition while criticizing modern misrepresentations of consciousness. The result is Voegelin’s contemporary accounts of the nature of reason, the challenge of truly rational discussion, and the search for divine origins and the life of the human spirit.   During his philosophical journey, Voegelin addressed the historical situatedness of human existence, explicating the historicity of human consciousness in a manner that gave full due to the challenges of acknowledging both human immersion in the story of history and the ability of consciousness to arrive at philosophically valid truths about existence that are transhistorical. The essays in this final section present the culmination of his philosophical meditation on history, consciousness, and reality.

The Lost Idol: The Life and Death of a Young Officer: Esmond Elliot 1895 - 1917


Lord Astor of Hever - 2017
    His father, the Fourth Earl of Minto, was Governor General of Canada and Viceroy of India at the turn of the Century. His mother, Mary Minto, was a woman of beauty, intelligence and great wit. Her role as Lady in Waiting to, and confidante of, Queen Mary, placed her at the heart of political and royal circles.After leaving Eton in 1914, Esmond decided to postpone his studies at Cambridge, and joined the Lothians and Border Horse Yeomanry. As ADC to Geoffrey Feilding, GOC of the Guards Division, he was exposed to the complexities of High Command and to senior Generals and important officials. However, he yearned for action and in August 1916 joined the Scots Guards, a regiment which would take him to the Front Line.During the bitter winter of 1916/17, he saw fierce fighting on the Somme, when his Battalion suffered terrible losses. He kept a diary of his experiences; direct and spontaneous, it reveals the rapid transformation and maturing of a young officer exposed to war. In preparation for the Passchendaele offensive in July 1917, Esmond led a raid across the seventy-foot wide Yser Canal, returning with vital intelligence which enabled General Feilding to order the Guards Division across the canal, in broad daylight with no artillery bombardment or covering fire, to seize the opposite bank in the early hours of 27th, four days ahead of the main assault. A week later, in command of his Company, he was killed by a sniper on the Steenbeck, aged only 22. Letters of condolence collected by his grieving family show the extent to which was admired and respected; how throughout his life he won friends and touched people's hearts with his charm, humor and unstinting kindness. A fitting tribute to Esmond appears at the end of John Buchan's biography of Lord Minto: 'His gallantry was remarkable even among gallant men, he was supremely competent in his work, and in the darkest days his debonair and gentle spirit made a light around him. Alike over his men and his brother-officers, he cast a spell. Once, when volunteers were called for a raid, only a few came forward, till it became known that Esmond was to be in command, when the whole platoon volunteered and the rest of the company. "When the war is over and these Scotsmen return to their homes," a brother officer wrote, "they will tell their people of the wonderful boy who came to them in France, and who showed them what could be achieved by goodness."' His Platoon Sergeant wrote: 'We have lost our idol for we had set him on a pedestal in our hearts. He came to us and claimed our affections so that, now he has gone, we will miss him more than words can tell.'

The Kaiser's Confidante: Mary Lee, the First American-Born Princess


Richard Jay Hutto - 2017
    An active philanthropist to Protestant causes, she then married Count Alfred von Waldersee whose close ties to the Prussian court made her an intimate friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II and a mentor and valued friend to his young wife. Although she preferred to remain in the background, Mary's influence caused intense jealousy by those at court who resented her friendship with the kaiser and kaiserin. This biography chronicles the remarkable life of an American woman whose wealth and influence enabled her to rise to power in the Prussian royal court.

Home Front to Battlefront: An Ohio Teenager in World War II


Frank Lavin - 2017
    In his freshman year of college, he joined the reserves, a decision that would take him with the US Army from training across the United States and Britain to combat with the 84th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge. Home Front to Battlefront is the tale of a foot soldier who finds himself thrust into a world where he and his unit grapple with the horrors of combat, the idiocies of bureaucracy, and the oddities of life back home—all in the same day. The book is based on Carl’s personal letters, his recollections, and those of the people he served beside, official military history, private papers, and more.Home Front to Battlefront contributes the rich details of one soldier’s experience to the broader literature on World War II. Lavin’s adventures, in turn disarming and sobering, will appeal to general readers, veterans, educators, and students of the war. As a history, the book offers insight into the wartime career of a Jewish Ohioan in the military, from enlistment to training through overseas deployment. As a biography, it reflects the emotions and the role of the individual in a total war effort that is all too often thought of as a machine war in which human soldiers were merely interchangeable cogs.

Kill Abby White! Now!


C.B. Huesing - 2017
    a satisfyingly strong heroine." "[An] ambitious novel involving espionage, counterespionage, romance, and one very quirky relationship with Hitler ... an engaging, briskly paced spy tale with a few surprises." Kirkus ReviewsAbby White and her fellow college interns at the Chicago Tribune have no idea of the peril they will encounter when they find the scoop of their young lives. A full-blown mafia war in 1920s Chicago leads to a dangerous cat-and-mouse chase that forces them to risk it all. Three of the surviving interns struggle to elude the long arm of the mafia only to become immersed in the looming specter of World War II. Midwesterner Abby becomes a foreign correspondent in Berlin, rubbing elbows with the German elite. That puts her in prime position to spy on Hitler's newly formed Nazi government for U.S. Intelligence. Dan, an Irishman with a complicated relationship with the British, is acting as a double agent for MI6. Esther is a Jewish journalist living in France with her husband and young child. Although she fears for family and friends, she soon becomes aware that her little family's safety is also in jeopardy. Can Abby and her friends survive mafia assassins and the murderous Nazis?Kill Abby White! Now! is a fast-paced fun read with well-developed characters and a thrilling plot. The book paints a colorful picture of Chicago in the Roaring Twenties, 1930s Berlin, and France as it prepares for Nazi occupation. Abby White is a heroine to remember; and history fans will enjoy the real events and people woven into this unforgettable story.

The ‘Broomhandle’ Mauser


Jonathan Ferguson - 2017
    This saw its ultimate expression in the first-ever select-fire handgun--the "Schnellfeuer" machine pistol, fed by a detachable magazine and offering both full-automatic and single-shot modes.The C 96 was the first semi-automatic pistol to see combat, arming both sides in the Second Anglo-Boer War, and seeing service with the German, Russian, Chinese, and other militaries. Widely purchased commercially, it was carried by none other than Winston Churchill in the Sudan and South Africa, became prized by the Irish Republican Army and Soviet revolutionaries, and even armed Han Solo in the Star Wars movies.Featuring full-color artwork and an array of revealing photographs, this is the engrossing story of the C 96 "Broomhandle" Mauser, the ground-breaking semi-automatic pistol that armed a generation of military personnel, adventurers, and revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century.

Days of Twilight, Nights of Frenzy: A Memoir


Werner Schroeter - 2017
    In more than forty films made between 1967 and 2008, including features, documentaries, and shorts, he ignored conventional narrative, creating instead dense, evocative collages of image and sound. For years, his work was eclipsed by contemporaries such as Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, and Alexander Kluge. Yet his work has become known to a wider audience through several recent retrospectives, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Written in the last years of his life, Days of Twilight, Nights of Frenzy sees Schroeter looking back at his life with the help of film critic and friend Claudia Lenssen. Born in 1945, Schroeter grew up near Heidelberg and spent just a few weeks in film school before leaving to create his earliest works. Over the years, he would work with acclaimed artists, including Marianne Hopps, Isabelle Huppert, Candy Darling, and Christine Kaufmann. In the 1970s, Schroeter also embarked on prolific parallel careers in theater and opera, where he worked in close collaboration with the legendary diva Maria Callas. His childhood; his travels in Italy, France, and Latin America; his coming out and subsequent life as an gay man in Europe; and his run-ins with Hollywood are but a few of the subjects Schroeter recalls with insights and characteristic understated humor. A sharp, lively, even funny memoir, Days of Twilight, Nights of Frenzy captures Schroeter’s extravagant life vividly over a vast prolific career, including many stories that might have been lost were it not for this book. It is sure to fascinate cinephiles and anyone interested in the culture around film and the arts.