Book picks similar to
The Moscow Option: An Alternative Second World War by David Downing
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Tiger Tracks - The Classic Panzer Memoir
Wolfgang Faust - 2015
This memoir was his brutal and deeply personal account of the Russian Front's appalling carnage. Depicting a running tank engagement lasting 72 hours, Faust describes how his Tiger unit fought pitched battles in the snows of western Russia against the full might of the Red Army: the T34s, Stalin tanks, Sturmovik bombers and the feared Katyusha rocket brigades. His astonishing testimony reveals the merciless decisions that panzer crews made in action, the devastating power of their weaponry, and the many ways that men met their deaths in the snow and ice of the Ostfront. First published in the late 1940s, this memoir's savage realism shocked the post-war German public. Some readers were outraged at the book's final scenes, while others wrote that, ‘Now, at last, I know what our men did in the East.’ Today it stands as one of the great semi-autobiographical accounts of warfare in World War 2: a crescendo of horror, grim survival and a fatalistic acceptance of the panzer man’s destiny. “Among the most impressive narratives of the Eastern Front that I have read. The pages are alive with characters - their machines, their struggles, their decisions and their pain. Readers will finish the book haunted and truly moved, the mark of a great story." - Chris Ziedler, the English translator of ‘SS Panzer SS Voices.’ Originally published in the German Federal Republic as ‘Panzerdammerung’ (‘Panzer Twilight.’) The only other surviving memoir by this author is 'The Last Panther' - an astonishing account of panzer warfare in the final hours of the Third Reich - available now on Amazon.
Hitler Triumphant: Alternate Decisions of World War II
Peter G. TsourasPaddy Griffith - 2006
Based on real battles, actions and characters, each scenario has been carefully constructed to reveal how, at points of decision, a different choice or minor incident could have set in motion an entirely new train of events altering history forever. Scenarios in this volume include the fall of Malta in 1942 and the likely consequences and the possibility of Halifax making peace with Hitler.
Bomber
Len Deighton - 1970
There are no victors, no vanquished. There are simply those who remain alive, and those who die.Bomber follows the progress of an Allied air raid through a period of twenty-four hours in the summer of 1943. It portrays all the participants in a terrifying drama, both in the air and on the ground, in Britain and in Germany.In its documentary style, it is unique. In its emotional power it is overwhelming.Len Deighton has been equally acclaimed as a novelist and as an historian. In Bomber he has combined both talents to produce a masterpiece.
If the Allies Had Fallen: Sixty Alternate Scenarios of World War II
Dennis E. Showalter - 1997
WHAT IF STALIN HAD SIGNED WITH THE WEST IN 1939? WHAT IF THE ALLIES HAD BEEN DEFEATED ON D-DAY? AND WHAT IF HITLER HAD WON THE WAR?From the Munich crisis to the dropping of the first atomic bomb, and from Hitler's declaration of war on the United States to the D-Day landings, historians suggest what would have been if key events in the war had gone differently.This work of alternative history looks at sixty of the most famous "What if?" scenarios of World War II, from the possibility of war breaking out in 1938, through the controversies that surround Pearl Harbor and the war on the Eastern Front, to the final days of the war in Europe and the Pacific.Culled by three outstanding academic experts, and written by an exceptional team of historians, If the Allies Had Fallen is an authentic and terrifying alternate history.
The Great Escape
Paul Brickhill - 1950
With only their bare hands and the crudest of homemade tools, they sank shafts, forged passports, faked weapons, and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes. They developed a fantastic security system to protect themselves from German surveillance.It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men—every one of them, every minute, every hour, every day and night for more than a year.Made into the classic 1963 war film of the same name starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough.
The Aftermath
Rhidian Brook - 2013
Thousands remain displaced in what is now the British Occupied Zone. Charged with overseeing the rebuilding of this devastated city and the de-Nazification of its defeated people, Colonel Lewis Morgan is requisitioned a fine house on the banks of the Elbe, where he will be joined by his grieving wife, Rachael, and only remaining son, Edmund. But rather than force its owners, a German widower and his traumatized daughter, to leave their home, Lewis insists that the two families live together. In this charged and claustrophobic atmosphere all must confront their true selves as enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal. The Aftermath is a stunning novel about our fiercest loyalties, our deepest desires and the transformative power of forgiveness.
The Last Battle: The Classic History of the Battle for Berlin
Cornelius Ryan - 1966
It was also one of the war's bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come.Cornelius Ryan's compelling account of this final battle is a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.”It is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.
Killing Rommel
Steven Pressfield - 2008
AN ELITE BRITISH ARMY UNIT IS ON A DEADLY MISSION. Autumn, 1942: Hitler's legions have swept across Europe. Soviet Russia reels under the German onslaught while across the channel, Britain struggles on.And in North Africa, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps have routed the 8th Army, threatening the oil fields of the Middle East. The war hangs in the balance...Out of this, the British hatch a desperate plan - to send a small, highly mobile fighting force behind enemy lines to strike a blow that will stop Rommel's army in its tracks. It is to be called the Long Range Desert Group and its exploits will become the stuff of legend.Based on real events, Steven Pressfield's bold novel brings to pulse-racing life the ingenuity and daring of this maverick commando unit - a disparate, dedicated 'band of brothers' who sacrificed so much for the sake of freedom...
The Pacific
Hugh Ambrose - 2009
From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home. In The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of the five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To deepen the story revealed in the miniseries and go beyond it, the book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as The Pacific and the brave men who fought. Some considered war a profession, others enlisted as citizen soldiers. Each man served in a different part of the war, but their respective duties required every ounce of their courage and their strength to defeat an enemy who preferred suicide to surrender. The medals for valor which were pinned on three of them came at a shocking price-a price paid in full by all.
The Silver Music Box
Mina Baites - 2017
For Paul, with love. Jewish silversmith Johann Blumenthal engraved those words on his most exquisite creation, a singing filigree bird inside a tiny ornamented box. He crafted this treasure for his young son before leaving to fight in a terrible war to honor his beloved country—a country that would soon turn against his own family.A half century later, Londoner Lilian Morrison inherits the box after the death of her parents. Though the silver is tarnished and dented, this much-loved treasure is also a link to an astonishing past. With the keepsake is a letter from Lilian’s mother, telling her daughter for the first time that she was adopted. Too young to remember, Lilian was rescued from a Germany in the grips of the Holocaust. Now only she can trace what happened to a family who scattered to the reaches of the world, a family forced to choose between their heritage and their dreams for the future.
The Good Shepherd
C.S. Forester - 1955
A convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships is ploughing through icy, submarine-infested North Atlantic seas during the most critical days of World War II, when the German submarines had the upper hand and Allied shipping was suffering heavy losses. In charge is Commander George Krause, an untested veteran of the U.S. Navy. Hounded by a wolf pack of German U-boats, he faces 48 hours of desperate peril trapped on the bridge of the ship. Exhausted beyond measure, he must make countless and terrible decisions as he leads his small fighting force against the relentless U-boats.
The Lieutenants
W.E.B. Griffin - 1982
From the Nazi-prowled wastes of North Africa to the bloody corridors of Europe, they answered the call gladly. It was their duty, their job, their life. They marched off as boys, and they came back--those who made it--as soldiers and professionals forged in the heat of battle...
War of the Rats
David L. Robbins - 1999
The outcome is pivotal. If Hitler's forces are not stopped, Russia will fall. And with it, the world....German soldiers call the battle Rattenkrieg, War of the Rats. The combat is horrific, as soldiers die in the smoking cellars and trenches of a ruined city. Through this twisted carnage stalk two men—one Russian, one German—each the top sniper in his respective army. These two marksmen are equally matched in both skill and tenacity. Each man has his own mission: to find his counterpart—and kill him. But an American woman trapped in Russia complicates this extraordinary duel. Joining the Russian sniper's cadre, she soon becomes one of his most talented assassins—and perhaps his greatest weakness. Based on a true story, this is the harrowing tale of two adversaries enmeshed in their own private war—and whose fortunes will help decide the fate of the world.
Finding Rebecca
Eoin Dempsey - 2012
But when World War II finally strikes the island of Jersey, the Nazi invaders ship Rebecca to Europe as part of Hitler’s Final Solution against the Jewish population.After Christopher and his family are deported back to their native Germany, he volunteers for the Nazi SS, desperate to save the woman he loves. He is posted to Auschwitz and finds himself put in control of the money stolen from the victims of the gas chambers. As Christopher searches for Rebecca, he struggles to not only maintain his cover, but also the grip on his soul. Managing the river of tainted money flowing through the horrific world of Auschwitz may give him unexpected opportunities. But will it give him the strength to accept a brave new fate that could change his life—and others’ lives—forever?
The Best of Our Spies
Alex Gerlis - 2012
In the Pas de Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British Special Operations Executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears. In London, her husband Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, discovers the truth about her role in the Allies' sophisticated deception at the heart of D-Day. Appalled but determined, Quinn sets off on a perilous hunt through France in search of his wife. With the help of the Resistance he finds Nathalie, but then the bitterness of war and its insatiable appetite for revenge, catch up with them in dramatic fashion. Based on real events of the Second World War The Best of Our Spies is a thrilling tale of international intrigue, love, deception and espionage.