Even today, more than fifty years after the phenomenon of the Third Reich, it is difficult to believe that a single person could have caused so much havoc and personal suffering, and so nearly succeeded in accomplishing his megomaniacal goal of universal domination. While the world has seen more than its fair share of dictators, none were so manipulative as Hitler, who singlemindedly pursued his own fantasies & managed to compel the entire German nation into acting them out on his behalf. "People are going to greedily devour this book...for the terror & curiosity are here. The monsters, dragons, & wolves are here. And more important, a talent for historical narrative is here..."-- The New York Times.

    But "Odessa" was nothing more than a myth. Now, in Nazis on the Run, historian Gerald Steinacher provides the true story of how the Nazis escaped their fate.Steinacher not only reveals how Nazi war criminals escaped from justice at the end of the Second World War, fleeing through the Tyrolean Alps to Italian seaports, but he also highlights the key roles played by the Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Secret Services of the major powers. The book takes a hard look at the International Committee of the Red Cross, proving that identification papers issued by the Red Cross made it possible for thousands of Nazis, war criminals, and collaborators - including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengale - to slip through the hands of justice and to find refuge in North and South America, Spain, and the Near East. Steinacher underscores the importance of the South Tyrol as a "ratline" from Germany to Italy and also reveals that many figures in the Catholic Church - sometimes knowingly, other times unwittingly - were involved in large-scale Nazi smuggling, often driven by the fear of an imminent communist takeover of Italy. Finally, the book documents how the Counter Intelligence Corps (the predecessor to the CIA) recruited former SS men to advise U.S. intelligence agencies and smuggled them out of Soviet-occupied areas of Austria and Eastern Europe into Italy and on to South America.Based on extensive research in newly opened archives, Nazis on the Run is the first book to provide a complete picture of this little-known story of justice denied.

    Life in the Third Reich draws extensively on interviews, letters and diaries from the earliest days of the Nazi Party to the final hours of the thousand-year Reich to reveal how the Hitler cult influenced and corrupted every aspect of life, from education, health, business, the press, the judicial system and the Church to sport, culture, work and the family.It reveals the stark contrast between the myth of 'One People, One Fuhrer' perpetuated by Nazi propaganda and the harsh realities of life in a dictatorship.Life in the Third Reich challenges the popular view of Nazi Germany as a nation united behind their despotic leader and asks 'What would you have done? Would you have behaved any differently if you had lived in Hitler's Germany?'

    

    First published in 1974, this work remains in the forefront of the many books, movies, and television programs about the epic World War II drama played out in the stormy Atlantic. It is a thrilling firsthand account of the hunting down and sinking of the battleship 'Bismarck', pride of the German Fleet, told by a member of the Royal Navy's destroyer force who participated in the pursuit. The author's own experiences add fire and immediacy to the account that has come to be considered a classic by critic and general reader alike. The world's largest warship when she first sailed into the Atlantic in May 1941, the 'Bismarck' was a serious threat to Britain's survival and her sinking of the beloved battle cruiser 'HMS Hood' with nearly fifteen hundred aboard sent shock waves throughout Britain. Determined to track her down, the Royal Navy engaged in pursuit, finding the mammoth warship just hours from her safe harbor. The chess-like plotting, the horror and heroism on both sides, the final apocalyptic action have never been portrayed more vividly and objectively - and never with the benefit of such detailed documentation from both British and German sources. A measure of the book's epic qualities is that knowledge of the outcome in no way lessens the tension. When she was sunk just days after her own victorious action with the 'Hood<', the 'Bismarck' took more than two thousand German sailors to the bottom of the ocean and with them the dreams of the German naval high command. For sheer suspense, this book can hardly be equalled. For carefully researched history, it is an admirable example of fine writing. Ludovic Kennedy's introduction to this new edition places the event in perspective for today's audiences.

    Tracing the prehistory of the Holocaust from the 1800s to the Nazis’ assumption of power in 1933, Aly shows that German anti-Semitism was—to a previously overlooked extent—driven in large part by material concerns, not racist ideology or religious animosity. As Germany made its way through the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, the difficulties of the lethargic, economically backward German majority stood in marked contrast to the social and economic success of the agile Jewish minority. This success aroused envy and fear among the Gentile population, creating fertile ground for murderous Nazi politics.Surprisingly, and controversially, Aly shows that the roots of the Holocaust are deeply intertwined with German efforts to create greater social equality. Redistributing wealth from the well-off to the less fortunate was in many respects a laudable goal, particularly at a time when many lived in poverty. But as the notion of material equality took over the public imagination, the skilled, well-educated Jewish population came to be seen as having more than its fair share. Aly’s account of this fatal social dynamic opens up a new vantage point on the greatest crime in history and is sure to prompt heated debate for years to come.

    Determining that by age ten children's minds could be turned from play to politics, the regime inducted nearly all German juveniles between the ages of ten and eighteen into its state-run organization. The result was a potent tool for bending young minds and hearts to the will of Adolf Hitler.Baldur von Schirach headed a strict chain of command whose goal was to shift the adolescents' sense of obedience from home and school to the racially defined Volk and the Third Reich. Luring boys and girls into Hitler Youth ranks by offering them status, uniforms, and weekend hikes, the Nazis turned campgrounds into premilitary training sites, air guns into machine guns, sing-alongs into marching drills, instruction into indoctrination, and children into Nazis. A few resisted for personal or political reasons, but the overwhelming majority enlisted.Drawing on original reports, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Kater traces the history of the Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree, and impact of conversion, and the subsequent fate of young recruits. Millions of Hitler Youth joined the armed forces; thousands gleefully participated in the subjugation of foreign peoples and the obliteration of racial aliens. Although young, they committed crimes against humanity for which they cannot escape judgment. Their story stands as a harsh reminder of the moral bankruptcy of regimes that make children complicit in crimes of the state.

    Widely hailed as a masterpiece, this volume remains the first history of World War II to provide a truly global account of the war that encompassed six continents. Starting with the changes that restructured Europe and its colonies following the First World War, Gerhard Weinberg sheds new light on every aspect of World War II. Actions of the Axis, the Allies, and the Neutrals are covered in every theater of the war. More importantly, the global nature of the war is examined, with new insights into how events in one corner of the world helped affect events in often distant areas.

    Drawing on newly opened archives and the reminiscences of the major players, John Lewis Gaddis explains not just what happened but why—from the months in 1945 when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went from alliance to antagonism to the barely averted holocaust of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the maneuvers of Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Gorbachev. Brilliant, accessible, almost Shakespearean in its drama, The Cold War stands as a triumphant summation of the era that, more than any other, shaped our own.

    A few were swiftly caught, including the notorious SS leader, Heinrich Himmler. Others, however, evaded capture through a sophisticated Nazi organization designed to hide them. Among those war criminals were Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who performed hideous medical experiments at Auschwitz; Martin Bormann, Hitler's brutal personal secretary; Klaus Barbie, the cruel "Butcher of Lyon"; and perhaps the most awful Nazi of all: Adolf Eichmann.Killing the SS is the epic saga of the espionage and daring waged by self-styled "Nazi hunters." This determined and disparate group included a French husband and wife team, an American lawyer who served in the army on D-Day, a German prosecutor who had signed an oath to the Nazi Party, Israeli Mossad agents, and a death camp survivor. Over decades, these men and women scoured the world, tracking down the SS fugitives and bringing them to justice, which often meant death.Written in the fast-paced style of the Killing series, Killing the SS will educate and stun the reader.The final chapter is truly shocking.

    This revised and expanded edition of Hilberg's classic work extends the scope of his study and includes 80,000 words of new material, particularly from recently opened archives in eastern Europe, added over a lifetime of research.

    This book tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved many.

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

    From James P. O'Donnell's interviews with fifty eyewitnesses to the madness and carnage--everyone from Albert Speer to generals, staff officers, doctors, Hitler's personal pilot, telephone operators, and secretaries -- emerges an account that historian Theodore H. White has hailed as "superb . . . quite simply the most accurate and terrifying account of the nightmare and its end I have ever read.""A riveting, damned near incredible (but true) story."--Gerald Green, author of Holocaust

    Guerrillas on skis, heroic single-handed attacks on tanks, unfathomable endurance, and the charismatic leadership of one of this century's true military geniuses - these are the elements of both the Finnish victory and a gripping tale of war.