Skorzeny's Special Missions: The Memoirs of "The Most Dangerous Man in Europe"


Otto Skorzeny - 1950
    His extraordinary wartime career was one of the high risk adventure. Among the exploits that earned him the reputation as "the most dangerous man in Europe" were the rescue of Mussolini in 1943 and the capture of the Hungarian regent Admiral Horthy just before he could sign a peace treaty with Stalin. In this book Skorzeny tells the full story.

Coffin Corner Boys: One Bomber, Ten Men, and Their Harrowing Escape from Nazi-Occupied France


Carole Engle Avriett - 2018
    Their B-17 is shot down and the airmen—stumbling through fields and villages—scatter across Europe. Some struggled to flee for safety. Others were captured immediately and imprisoned. Now, for the first time, their incredible story of grit, survival, and reunion is told. In 1944, George Starks was just a nineteen-year-old kid from Florida when he and his high school buddies enlisted in the US military. They wanted to join the action of WWII. George was assigned to the 92nd Bomb Group—in which the median age was 22—and on his crew’s first bombing mission together received the most vulnerable spot of a B-17 mission configuration: low squadron, low group, flying #6 in the bomber box formation. Airmen called George’s position the “Coffin Corner” because here exposure was most likely to draw hostile fire. Sure enough, George’s plane was shot down by a German Fw190, and he jumped at 25,000 feet for the “first and only time,” as he tells the story. He landed near Vitry-le-Perthois to begin a 300-mile trek through the dangers of war-torn France towards the freedom of neutral Switzerland. Through waist-deep snow, seering exhaustion, and close encounters with Nazis, George repeated to himself the mantra “just one more day.” He battled to keep walking. His comrades were scattered all across Europe and experienced places as formidable as German POW camps and as hospitable as Spain, each crew member always wondering about the fate of the others. After the war, George made two vows: he would never lose touch with his men again and one day would attempt to thank those who had risked their lives to save his. Despite passage of time and demands of career and family, he accomplished both. He reunited with his crew then twenty-five years later returned to France to locate as many of the brave souls who had helped him evade the enemy as he could. Join George as he retraces his steps to freedom and discover the amazing stories of sacrifice and survival and how ten young American boys plus their French Helpers became heroes.

Masquerade: The Incredible True Story of How George Soros' Father Outsmarted the Gestapo


Tivadar Soros - 1965
    But when they did arrive, their orders were to put the “Final Solution” into effect with deliberate speed. Soros, a Jewish lawyer in Budapest, secured fake Christian identities for himself, his wife, and his two sons following the German invasion of Hungary on March 19, 1944. In a narrative reminiscent of the great Primo Levi, Soros recounts his experiences with a beguiling humor, deep humanity, and a wisdom that is humbling. Superbly translated by Humphrey Tonkin, Masquerade is a unique account of how one man managed not only to survive but to retain his integrity, compassion, family unity, and humor by “dancing around death.” Like Klemperer’s Diary of the Nazi Years, this very personal, low-key testament of the Holocaust is a gripping depiction of “normal” daily life under the Nazis—told by a man who triumphed by leading an ordinary life under extraordinary and terrifying circumstances.

Betrayal at Little Gibraltar: A German Fortress, a Treacherous American General, and the Battle to End World War I


William T. Walker - 2016
    German engineers have fortified Montfaucon, a rocky butte in northern France, with bunkers, trenches, and giant guns. Following a number of bloody, unsuccessful attacks, the French deem Montfaucon impregnable and dub it the Little Gibraltar of the Western Front. Capturing it requires 1.2 million American soldiers, and 122,000 American casualties. But at the heart of the victory is a betrayal of Americans by Americans. Now William T. Walker tells the full story in his masterful Betrayal at Little Gibraltar.In the assault on Montfaucon, American forces became strangely bogged down, a delay that cost untold thousands of lives as the Germans defended their position with no mercy. Years of archival research demonstrate that the actual cause of the failure was the disobedience of a senior American officer, Lieutenant General Robert E. Lee Bullard, who subverted orders to assist the US 79th Division, under the command of General John J. Pershing. The result was unnecessary slaughter of American doughboys. Although several officers discovered the circumstances, Pershing protected Bullard—an old friend from West Point days—and covered up the story. The true account of the battle was almost lost to time.Betrayal at Little Gibraltar tells vivid human stories of the soldiers who fought to capture the giant fortress and push the American advance. Using unpublished first-person accounts—and featuring photographs, documents, and maps that place you in the action—Walker describes the horrors of World War I combat, the sacrifices of the doughboys, and the determined efforts of two participants to pierce the cover-up and to solve the mystery of Montfaucon. Like Stephen Ambrose and S.C. Gwynne, Walker is writing popular history at its best.

I, a Squealer: The Insider's Account of the "Pied Piper of Tucson" Murders


Richard Bruns - 2018
    The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and The Righteous Brothers filled the airwaves. Television shows like "The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriett" and "The Andy Griffith Show" mirrored the innocence of life in the dusty city of Tucson, Az. But the sunbaked desert surrounding Tucson was hiding a sinister secret. A psychopath names Charles Schmid, later nicknamed the "Pied Piper of Tucson" by Life Magazine, would steal that innocence away, along with the lives of three beautiful teenage girls.In this firsthand account written in 1967, Richard Bruns shares the evolution of his friendship with Schmid, the details of getting involved way in over his head, and how he finally summoned the courage to blow the whistle to end the deadly rampage that shocked the nation and changed the city of Tucson forever.

The Battered Bastards of Bastogne: The 101st Airborne and the Battle of the Bulge, December 19,1944-January 17,1945


George Koskimaki - 1994
    They lived and made this history, and much of it is told in their own words. The material contributed by these men of the 101st Airborne Division, the Armor, Tank Destroyer, Army Air Force , and others is tailored meticulously by the author and placed on the historical framework known to most students of the Battle of the Bulge. Pieces of a nearly 60-year-old jigsaw puzzle come together in this book, when memoirs from one soldier fit with those of another unit or group pursuing the battle from another nearby piece of terrain.

Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring


Gordon W. Prange - 1976
    For eight years, he masqueraded as a Nazi journalist and burrowed deep into the German embassy, digging for the secrets of Hitler’s invasion of Russia and the Japanese plans for the East. In a nation obsessed with rooting out moles, he kept a high profile—boozing, womanizing, and operating entirely under his own name. But he policed his spy ring scrupulously, keeping such a firm grip that by the time the Japanese uncovered his infiltration, he had done irreversible damage to the cause of the Axis.The first definitive account of one of the most remarkable espionage sagas of World War II, Target Tokyo is a tightly wound portrayal of a man who risked his life for his country, hiding in plain sight.

Where She Came From: A Daughter's Search for Her Mother's History


Helen Epstein - 1997
    After the death of her mother, Frances, in 1989, Helen Epstein set out to research and reconstruct the life of her mother and that of her grandmother and great-grandmother. Like so many children of Holocaust survivors and other people displaced by the catastrophes of the 20th century, she had few family documents, only stories. She traveled to Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Israel, searching out people who had known her family and locating material in libraries and archives on three continents. Using three decades of journalistic training, and working like an archaeologist with shards of data, she pieced together an account of the lives of the women in her family and the social history of Central European Jews.

Hitler's Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Confidante of Hitler, Ally of FDR


Peter Conradi - 2004
    An urbane Harvard-educated German, Putzi was living in Germany in 1922 when he first heard Hitler speak in Munich. Introducing himself after the speech, Putzi began one of the strangest relationships in twentieth-century politics. As he tried to introduce Hitler to Munich high-society and polish his image in the eyes of the world, Hanfstaengl helped finance Mein Kampf, claimed to have devised the chant of "Sieg Heil," and attempted to set Hitler up with the American ambassador's beautiful young daughter. But he fell out of Hitler's graces, fled to Britain where he was interned, and then transferred to America. There, he worked for his old friend from the Harvard Club, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The star of Roosevelt's "S-Project," Putzi provided information on four hundred leading Nazis, analyses of Hitler's speeches, and a sixty-eight-page psychological portrait of Hitler. Through newly declassified documents, photographs, interviews with members of Hanfstaengl's family, and original writing by Hanfstaengl, Peter Conradi recounts the remarkable life of history's personal link between Hitler and FDR.

Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love


Rebecca Frankel - 2021
    They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war they trekked across the Alps into Italy where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.During the first ghetto massacre, Miriam Rabinowitz rescued a young boy named Philip by pretending he was her son. Nearly a decade later, a chance encounter at a wedding in Brooklyn would lead Philip to find the woman who saved him. And to discover her daughter Ruth was the love of his life.From a little-known chapter of Holocaust history, one family’s inspiring true story.

A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara: Hero of the Holocaust


Alison Leslie Gold - 2000
    This book recounts one of the largest rescues of Jews during the Holocaust.

Vittoria: A Historical Drama Based on A True Story


Dafna Vitale Ben Bassat - 2016
    With the onset of World War II, her life is carried by a swirl of atrocities, decisions, farewells and remorse that will scar her forever. A stirring historical drama about the life of a Jewish family during WW II. This is the story of one unforgettable woman, supporting her husband and children under impossible conditions. It is also the story of a Jewish family who feels safe from war because of its status and wealth, and wakes up to a disastrous reality. More than anything, it is the story of the entire Italian Jewish community in face of the Holocaust – a story of disaster, overcoming and eventual immigration to Israel as a part of the Zionist movement. Behind every successful man stands an insightful woman. Daily life soaked in historical consequences, family ties and general atmosphere, aromas, sounds and tastes, based on thorough research, interviews and original historical manuscripts. A drama of loss and despair, survival and human triumph with unforgettable characters that stay with you long after the last page. Scroll up to grab your copy of Vittoria now!

Killer Cop: The Deviant Deputy Who Kidnapped, Raped and Killed


Ryan Green - 2018
    He told them it was illegal to hitchhike in the area and that he would take them back to safety. He lied.Schaefer took them to a remote wooded area where he drew his gun, tied them up, gagged them and looped nooses around their necks. Schaefer received a call on his police radio and had to leave the girls but he vowed to return and finish what he

No Greater Valor: The Siege of Bastogne and the Miracle That Sealed Allied Victory


Jerome R. Corsi - 2014
    The underdogs had saved the war for the Allies. It was nothing short of miraculous.Corsi's analysis is based on a record of oral histories along with original field maps used by field commanders, battle orders, and other documentation made at the time of the military command. With a perspective gleaned from newspapers, periodicals, and newsreels of the day, Corsi paints a riveting portrait of one of the most important battles in world history.

Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel


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