Challenging democracy, he shaped a diametrical philosophy of life that experienced widespread approval in his own country and limited acceptance in other European lands. Regarding the German social and economic renaissance as a threat to their political and commercial interests, Western statesmen opposed Hitler s peacetime diplomacy and prepared for war. Passages cited from period German publications and speeches, most of which are unavailable in English, offer penetrating insight into the National Socialist creed and the waning age of European nationalism. The author critically examines the supposedly idealistic motives of members of the German resistance, whose covert sabotage of the war effort is overlooked by military historians. A fresh perspective based on research from over 200 published volumes, the majority in German language, as well as on documents from British, Russian and U.S. archives.

    Now award-winning journalist Max Wallace uncovers groundbreaking and astonishing revelations about the poisonous effect these two so-called American heroes had on Western democracy and how the two of them---acting in league with the Nazis---almost brought democratic Europe to the verge of extinction.With unprecedented access to declassified FBI and military intelligence files, Wallace reveals how the close friendship and ideological bond between automotive pioneer Ford and aviator Lindbergh culminated in an abuse of power that helped strengthen Hitler's regime and undermined the Allied war effort.Devastating, thoroughly researched, and engagingly written, The American Axis is not only a mesmerizing, cautionary tale, but a compelling historical exposé.

    . . serious, entertaining, provocative and distinctive." --Cleveland Plain Dealer In the fifty years since his suicide amid the ruins of Berlin, Adolf Hitler has been the subject of more biographies than any comparable figure of our time--and at the center of a crucial historical debate over the nature of evil and moral responsibility in the twentieth century. In this brilliant and original book, the historian John Lukacs climbs above the fray to produce a definitive "history of a history: the history of the evolution of our understanding of Hitler's life and our debates about its meaning."Like an expert attorney, Lukacs puts the biographies on trial, identifying their strengths, weaknesses, and hidden agendas. And through their intersecting and conflicting accounts, he addresses the enduring enigmas surrounding the demiurge of the Third Reich. Was Hitler a revolutionary or a reactionary? How successful was he as a statesman and a strategist? What was his primary motive for the extermination of the Jews? The Hitler of History answers these questions as fully as any modern work can hope to, with an intellectual boldness that makes it absolutely essential to any understanding of the post-Hitler world."Lukacs is a shrewd historian and an engaging writer . . . a sharp and sober portrait." --Philadelphia Inquirer

    We can only wonder, as biographer Peter Longerich asks, how could such a banal personality attain such an historically unique position of power? How could the son of a prosperous Bavarian Catholic public servant become the organizer of a system of mass murder spanning the whole of Europe? In the first comprehensive biography of this murderous enigma, Longerich answers those questions with a superb account of Himmler's inner self and outward acts. Masterfully interweaving the story of Himmler's personal life and political career with the wider history of the Nazi dictatorship, Longerich shows how skillfully he exploited and manipulated his disparate roles in the pursuit of his far-reaching and grandiose objectives. Himmler's actual strength, he writes, consisted in redrawing every two or three years the master plans for his sphere of power. Himmler expanded that sphere with ruthless efficiency. In 1929, he took the SS - a small bodyguard unit - and swelled it into a paramilitary organization with elite pretensions. By the end of 1934 he had become Reich Chief of the Political Police, and began to consolidate all police power in his own hands. As Germany grabbed neighboring territory, he expanded the Waffen SS and organized the "Germanization" of conquered lands, which culminated in systematic mass murder. When the regime went on the defensive in 1942, Himmler changed his emphasis again, repressing any opposition or unrest. The author emphasizes the centrality of Himmler's personality to the Nazi murder machine - his surveillance of the private lives of his men, his deep resentments, his fierce prejudices - showing that man and position were inseparable. Carefully researched and lucidly written, Heinrich Himmler is the essential account of the man who embodied Hitler's apparatus of evil.

    From working with a double agent who betrays his friendship and exposes a top secret cross border operation, Terry McIntosh wrestles with his own doubts and fears while protecting the rights of others to live free. He was chosen from the ranks of long range reconnaissance training to serve with Special Forces Detachment A-team 414 in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam 1968-1969. The border camp conducted clandestine operations to observe and engage a growing Viet Cong armed force 15 miles across the line. The top secret mission is exposed after team members are accused of executing the double agent. It is believed that Terry McIntosh is the youngest soldier to serve with the Green Berets on an "A" team and earn the coveted Combat Badge. This is his story about the transition from boy to man in the jungles of Vietnam where he met himself for the first time with a sense of shame and honor.

    It is a powerful story of warfare and human survival and a reminder that civilians on all sides suffered the consequences of Hitler's war.

    The author assures us it is not!Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other, they chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They would become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Vietnam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses.These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer's stateroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as Triple Sticks was the repository for a log (in navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later this log was the genesis of this memoir.In the lethal environment over the northern reaches of North Vietnam or ashore in the Officer's clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. One survived or did not according to his skill and luck.

    She is the girl with the blue tattoo.The story behind the distinctive tattoo is the stuff of legends. Some believed it was placed on her face during her captivity, following the brutal murders of her family members and the kidnapping of her and her sister. Others believe it was placed on her after her return.Rumors swelled. Her tattoo became a symbol of Native barbarianism and the triumph of American goodness, but like many stories of that era, the truth is far more complicated.This short book details the murders, her captivity, the aftermath, and her baffling return to her captors. Unravel the mystery of the woman who would become famous for all the wrong reasons and discover what her life story says about cultural identity, the power of resiliency, and what happens when fact and fiction bend and twist to muddy the waters.Read on to find out the truth!

    Providing vivid portraits of the main players of the drama of January 1933, and using newly available documents, Turner masterfully recreates the bewildering circumstances surrounding Hitler’s unexpected appointment as chancellor of Germany. The result is a work that Booklist calls “first rate … a gripping, foreboding narrative.”

    Allied troops were sweeping through Nazi Germany and discovering the atrocities of SS concentration camps. The first to be reached intact was Buchenwald, in central Germany. American soldiers struggled to make sense of the shocking scenes they witnessed inside. They asked a small group of former inmates to draft a report on the camp. It was led by Eugen Kogon, a German political prisoner who had been an inmate since 1939. The Theory and Practice of Hell is his classic account of life inside.Unlike many other books by survivors who published immediately after the war, The Theory and Practice of Hell is more than a personal account. It is a horrific examination of life and death inside a Nazi concentration camp, a brutal world of a state within state, and a society without law. But Kogon maintains a dispassionate and critical perspective. He tries to understand how the camp works, to uncover its structure and social organization. He knew that the book would shock some readers and provide others with gruesome fascination. But he firmly believed that he had to show the camp in honest, unflinching detail.The result is a unique historical document—a complete picture of the society, morality, and politics that fueled the systematic torture of six million human beings. For many years, The Theory and Practice of Hell remained the seminal work on the concentration camps, particularly in Germany. Reissued with an introduction by Nikolaus Waschmann, a leading Holocaust scholar and author of Hilter's Prisons, this important work now demands to be re-read.

    Beginning at the end of the Weimar Republic, Allen examines the entire period of the Nazi Revolution within a single locality.Tackling one of the 20th century's greatest dilemmas, Allen demonstrates how this dictatorship subtly surmounted democracy and how the Nazi seizure of power encroached from below. Relying upon legal records and interviews with primary sources, Allen dissects Northeim, Germany with microscopic precision to depict the transformation of a sleepy town to a Nazi stronghold. In this cogent analysis, Allen argues that Hitler rose to power primarily through democratic tactics that incited localized support rather than through violent means.Allen's detailed, analysis has indisputably become a classic. Revised on the basis of newly discovered Nazi documents, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945 continues to significantly contribute to the understanding of this prominent political and moral dispute of the 1900s.

    Hitler, who loathed flying, felt safe with Baur and would allow no one else to pilot him. As a result, an intimate relationship developed between the two men and it is this, which gives these memoirs special significance. Hitler relaxed in Baur's company and talked freely of his plans and of his real opinions about his friends and allies.Baur was also present during some of the most salient moments of the Third Reich; the R�hm Putsch, the advent of Eva Braun, Ribbentrop's journey to Moscow, the B�rgerbr�ukeller attempt on Hitler's life; and when war came, he flew Hitler from front to front. He remained in Hitler's service right up to the final days in the F�hrerbunker. In a powerful account of Hitler's last hours, Baur describes his final discussions with Hitler before his suicide; and his last meeting with Magda Goebbels in the tortuous moments before she killed her three children. Remarkably, throughout it all Baur's loyalty to the F�hrer never wavered. His memoirs capture these events in all their fascinating and disturbing detail.

    And he shows how these squads were utilized as the Nazis made two separate plans for dealing with the civilian populations they wanted to destroy. Drawing on Nuremberg Tribunal documents largely ignored until now, and on newly available material from eyewitnesses and survivors, Richard Rhodes has given us a book that is essential reading on the Holocaust the World War II.

    It led to a global panic, brought down the international monetary system, and turned a worldwide recession into a prolonged depression. The German crisis also contributed decisively to the rise of Hitler. Soon after the crisis, the Nazi Party became the largest party of the country which paved the way for Hitler's eventual seizure of power in 1933.The reason for the financial collapse was Germany's large pile of foreign debt denominated in gold currency which condemned the government to cut spending, raise taxes, and lower wages in the middle of a worldwide recession. As the political resistance to this austerity policy grew, the German government began to question its debt obligations, prompting foreign investors to panic and sell their German assets. The resulting currency crisis led to the failure of the already weakened banking system and a partial sovereign default.Hitler managed to profit from the crisis, because he had been the most vocal critic of the reparation regime. As the financial system collapsed, his populist attacks against foreign creditors and the alleged complicity of the German government resonated more than ever with the electorate. Sadly enough, Germany's creditors hesitated too long to take the wind out of Hitler's sails by offering debt relief.In 1931, Tobias Straumann reveals the story of the fatal crisis, demonstrating how a debt trap contributed to the rapid financial and political collapse of a European country, and to the rise of the Nazi Party.

    All over the country, people are on the move- concentration camp survivors, Allied PoWs, escaping Nazis- and the civilian population is running out of food. The man who orchestrated this nightmare is in his bunker beneath the capital, saying his farewells. This is the gripping story of Hitler's final hours, as seen through the eyes of those who were with him in the bunker; those fighting in the streets of Germany; and those pacing the corridors of power in Washington, London and Moscow.30th April 1945 was a day that millions had dreamed of, and millions had died for.