Into Darkness


Anton Gill - 2014
    The Führer has just survived another assassination attempt. But Germany is losing the war. Stauffenberg's attempted assassination and coup originated from inside the government and military. Is the Nazi Party about to turn on itself? Order must be restored and the High Command is calling for blood. Max Hoffmann is enlisted, under Hitler’s instruction, to carry out an investigation. The disillusioned detective has a problem though; he knows that as soon as the investigation starts, his own treason against the Party might be uncovered. As it becomes clear that Hoffman has not been a "good Nazi" he decides to go on the run, mere hours ahead of the SS Agents who are sent to arrest him. As a fugitive, Hoffman only has one objective: to fight one last battle against the people that turned against him, his friends and his family - and against one man in particular. ‘Into Darkness’ is a superb historical thriller, which sheds light not only upon the end days of the Third Reich but also upon one man, trying to serve his country and conscience.

Is Paris Burning?


Larry Collins - 1965
    An extraordinary series of events, fastidiously researched here, saved the city from what Hitler wanted to leave to the Allies "nothing but a field of ruins."

An Unlikely Warrior: A Jewish Soldier in Hitler's Army


Georg Rauch - 2006
    His family was among the few who worked underground to resist Nazi rule. Then came the day he was drafted into Hitler's army and shipped out to fight on the Eastern front as part of the German infantry―in spite of his having confessed his own Jewish ancestry. Thus begins the incredible journey of a nineteen year old thrust unwillingly into an unjust war, who must use his smarts, skills, and bare-knuckled determination to stay alive in the trenches, avoid starvation and exposure during the brutal Russian winter, survive more than one Soviet labor camp, and somehow find his way back home. Unlikely Warrior is Rauch's true account of this extraordinary adventure.

The Flight Girls


Noelle Salazar - 2019
    Audrey Coltrane has always wanted to fly. It's why she implored her father to teach her at the little airfield back home in Texas. It's why she signed up to train military pilots in Hawaii when the war in Europe began. And it's why she insists she is not interested in any dream-derailing romantic involvements, even with the disarming Lieutenant James Hart, who fast becomes a friend as treasured as the women she flies with. Then one fateful day, she gets caught in the air over Pearl Harbor just as the bombs begin to fall, and suddenly, nowhere feels safe.To make everything she's lost count for something, Audrey joins the Women Airforce Service Pilots program. The bonds she forms with her fellow pilots reignite a spark of hope in the face war, and--when James goes missing in action--give Audrey the strength to cross the front lines and fight not only for her country, but for the love she holds so dear.Shining a light on a little-known piece of history, The Flight Girls is a sweeping portrayal of women's fearlessness, love, and the power of friendship to make us soar.

O Holocausto - Uma História dos Judeus da Europa na Segunda Guerra Mundial


Martin Gilbert - 1978
    It is virtually a day-by-day account, in men and women's own words, of the horrifying events of the Holocaust - the Nazi attempt to exterminate people of the Jewish religion.

Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley and the Partnership that Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe


Jonathan W. Jordan - 2011
     Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, General George S. Patton, and General Omar N. Bradley engineered the Allied conquest that shattered Hitler's hold over Europe. But they also shared an intricate web of relationships going back decades. In the cauldron of World War II, they found their prewar friendships complicated by shifting allegiances, jealousy, insecurity, patriotism, and ambition. Meticulously researched and vividly written, Jonathan W. Jordan's Brothers Rivals, Victors recounts the battle for Europe through the eyes of these three legendary generals who fought to liberate two continents. For the first time in such detail, the bonds between these battle captains are explored, and readers are treated to a rare insider's view of life at the summit of raw, violent power. Throughout three years of hard, bloody warfare, Eisenhower, the Alliance's great diplomat, sought victory in the fighting qualities and tactical genius of his most trusted subordinates, Bradley and Patton. Bradley and Patton, in turn, owed their careers to Eisenhower, who protected them from the slings and arrows of politicians, rival generals, their allies, and the U.S. Navy. The twin pillars of their working relationships were duty and trust. Yet their friendship, so genuine and unalloyed before the war, would be put to the ultimate test as life-and-death decisions were thrust upon them, and honor and duty conflicted with personal loyalty. Brothers Rivals Victors is drawn from the candid accounts of its main characters, and strips away much of the public image of "Ike" (Eisenhower), the "G.I.'s General" (Bradley), and "Old Blood and Guts" (Patton) to reveal the men lurking beneath the legend. Adding richness to this insider's story are the words and observations of a supporting cast of generals, staff officers, secretaries, aides, politicians, and wives, whose close proximity to Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton in times of stress and tranquility are brought together to produce a uniquely intimate account of a relationship that influenced a war. The story of how these three great strategists pulled together to wage the deadliest conflict in history, despite their differences and rivalries, is marvelously told in this eye-opening narrative, sure to become a classic of military history.

The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s


Piers Brendon - 2000
    In this sweeping history, Piers Brendon brings the tragic, dismal days of the 1930s to life. From Stalinist pogroms to New Deal programs, Brendon re-creates the full scope of a slow international descent towards war. Offering perfect sketches of the players, riveting descriptions of major events and crises, and telling details from everyday life, he offers both a grand, rousing narrative and an intimate portrait of an era that make sense out of the fascinating, complicated, and profoundly influential years of the 1930s.

Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park


Michael Smith - 1998
    This was to be 'Station X', the Allies' top-secret centre for deciphering enemy codes.Their task was to break the ingenious Enigma cypher used for German high-level communications. The settings for the Enigma machine changed continually and each day the German operators had 159 million million million different possibilities. Yet against all the odds this gifted group achieved the impossible, coping with even greater difficulties to break Shark, the U-Boat Enigma, and Fish, the cypher system used by Hitler to talk to his generals.'Sation X' is also the story of the people involved from leading codebreakers such as Alan Turing, father of the modern computer, to the female operators who intercepted the messages. Through interviews with surviving members of Bletchley Park, Michael Smith has discovered what life was like there. In this chaotic and isolated environment they found time for drama performances, music recitals, orchestras and love affairs.Not only did these people shorten the war by several years - they were essential to victory in the Atlantic and North Africa and to the masterminding of the D-Day landings - 'Station X' was also the birth place of the world's first programmable computer and the successful Anglo-American intelligence partnership.

Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad


William Craig - 1973
    It signaled the beginning of the end for the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler; it foretold the Russian juggernaut that would destroy Berlin and make the Soviet Union a superpower. As Winston Churchill characterized the result of the conflict at Stalingrad: " the hinge of fate had turned." William Craig, author and historian, has painstakingly recreated the details of this great battle: from the hot summer of August 1942, when the German armies smashed their way across southern Russia toward the Volga River, through the struggle for Stalingrad-a city Hitler had never meant to capture and Stalin never meant to defend-on to the destruction of the supposedly invincible German Sixth Army and the terror of the Russian prison camps in frozen Siberia. Craig has interviewed hundreds of survivors of the battle-both Russian and German soldiers and civilians-and has woven their incredible experiences into the fabric of hitherto unknown documents. The resulting mosaic is epic in scope, and the human tragedy that unfolds is awesome.

Fighter


Len Deighton - 1977
    Focuses on the important role of technology in warfare. Complete with photos, drawings, and detailed maps.

The Cruel Sea


Nicholas Monsarrat - 1951
    First published to great acclaim in 1951, The Cruel Sea remains a classic novel of endurance and daring.

Eastern Approaches


Fitzroy Maclean - 1949
    Here Fitzroy Maclean recounts his extraordinary adventures in Soviet Central Asia, in the Western Desert, where he specialized in hair-raising commando-style raids behind enemy lines, and with Tito's partisans during the last months of the German occupation of Yugoslavia. An enthralling narrative, brilliantly told, "Eastern Approaches" is also a vivid personal view of episodes that have already become part of history.

The Secret Letter


Debbie Rix - 2019
     Germany, 1939: Thirteen-year-old Magda is devastated by the loss of her best friend, shy and gentle Lotte, cruelly snatched from her and sent to a concentration camp – the Star of David sewn on her faded, brown coat. As the Nazi’s power takes hold, Magda realizes she’s not like the other girls in her village - she hates the fanatical new rules of the Hitler Youth. So Magda secretly joins The White Rose movement and begins to rebel against the oppressive, frightening world around her. But when an English RAF pilot lands in a field near Magda’s home she is faced with an impossible choice: to risk the lives of her family or to save a stranger and make a difference in the war she desperately wants to end. England, 1939: Fifteen-year-old Imogen is torn from her family and evacuated to the Lake District, a haven of safety away from the war raging across Europe. All she has to connect her to the bombs and the battles are the letters she writes to her loved ones. Little does she know, on the other side of the enemy line, her fate rests on the actions of one girl who will change her life forever…

Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944


Anna Reid - 2011
    The siege was not lifted for two and a half years, by which time some three quarters of a million Leningraders had died of starvation.Anna Reid's Leningrad is a gripping, authoritative narrative history of this dramatic moment in the twentieth century, interwoven with indelible personal accounts of daily siege life drawn from diarists on both sides. They reveal the Nazis' deliberate decision to starve Leningrad into surrender and Hitler's messianic miscalculation, the incompetence and cruelty of the Soviet war leadership, the horrors experienced by soldiers on the front lines, and, above all, the terrible details of life in the blockaded city: the relentless search for food and water; the withering of emotions and family ties; looting, murder, and cannibalism- and at the same time, extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice.Stripping away decades of Soviet propaganda, and drawing on newly available diaries and government records, Leningrad also tackles a raft of unanswered questions: Was the size of the death toll as much the fault of Stalin as of Hitler? Why didn't the Germans capture the city? Why didn't it collapse into anarchy? What decided who lived and who died? Impressive in its originality and literary style, Leningrad gives voice to the dead and will rival Anthony Beevor's classic Stalingrad in its impact.

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II


Molly Guptill Manning - 2014
    Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered 20 million hardcover donations. In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks, for troops to carry in their pockets and their rucksacks, in every theater of war.Comprising 1,200 different titles of every imaginable type, these paperbacks were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy; in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific; in field hospitals; and on long bombing flights. They wrote to the authors, many of whom responded to every letter. They helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity. They made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. When Books Went to War is an inspiring story for history buffs and book lovers alike.