The German High Command was under the impression that the Red Army could be destroyed west of the Dnepr River and that there would be no need for conducting operations in cold, snow, and mud. They were wrong.In reality, the extreme conditions of the German war in Russia were so brutal that past experiences simply paled before them. Everything in Russia--the land, the weather, the distances, and above all the people--was harder, harsher, more unforgiving, and more deadly than anything the German soldier had ever faced before.Based on the recollections of four veteran German commanders of those battles, FIGHTING IN HELL describes in detail what happened when the world's best-publicized "supermen" met the world's most brutal fighting. It is not a tale for the squeamish.

    It is a tale of immense bravery, endurance and great leadership of loyal Norwegians, plus a little good fortune and help from the British against intrigue and overwhelming odds.The German invasion of Norway on the night of April 8th/9th 1940 almost took Norway completely unawares; had it not been for the defiance of one small coastal battery, the Norwegian Royal Family, Government, and nearly 50 tons of Gold bullion would have had no chance to escape. In desperate haste the Royal Family fled Oslo by rail, dodging bombs and strafing, eventually reaching the port of Molde which was subsequently devastated by fire bombing. The gold with extraordinary ingenuity was moved by road, rail and fishing boat, hotly pursued by the Germans. Its weight and the need for total secrecy created unique transportation problems. After several instances of near disaster, the Norwegians managed to get the gold to the coast where the Royal Navy came to the rescue. Such was the difficulty of extricating the bullion, it was not possible to load it in one cargo, and it was taken off in three Royal Navy Cruisers, HMS Enterprise, Galatea and Glasgow, from different locations. The ships were attacked in port, then constantly harassed and bombed by the Luftwaffe as they made their way back to the UK.The loss of the bullion was a blow to the Germans. They had gained a country, but lost a King, a government and huge amount of bullion that would have financed their war machine. That loss is directly attributed to a visionary bank chief, a Colonel, a hastily assembled body of Norwegians and the ships and men of the Royal Navy, ever resourceful, brave and loyal to their respective countries. This is their story.Robert Pearson is a high school teacher and writer, who researches Norway in the Second World War. He is particularly passionate about the roles that the Norwegians and British played during the War, Naval Intelligence and the Special Operations Executive – better known as SOE.

    But few know that those lists were made possible by a secret strategy designed by a young Polish Jew at the Płaszow concentration camp. Mietek Pemper’s compelling and moving memoir tells the true story of how Schindler’s list really came to pass.Pemper was born in 1920 into a lively and cultivated Jewish family for whom everything changed in 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland. Evicted from their home, they were forced into the Krakow ghetto and, later, into the nearby camp of Płaszow where Pemper’s knowledge of the German language was put to use by the sadistic camp commandant Amon Goth. Forced to work as Goth’s personal stenographer from March 1943 to September 1944—an exceptional job for a Jewish prisoner—Pemper soon realized that he could use his position as the commandant’s private secretary to familiarize himself with the inner workings of the Nazi bureaucracy and exploit the system to his fellow detainees’ advantage. Once he gained access to classified documents, Pemper was able to pass on secret information for Schindler to compile his famous lists. After the war, Pemper was the key witness of the prosecution in the 1946 trial against Goth and several other SS officers. The Road to Rescue stands as a historically authentic testimony of one man’s unparalleled courage, wit, defiance, and bittersweet victory over the Nazi regime.

    From the unrelenting fear of death and gnawing pain of hunger, to the budding relationships of an adolescent girl growing into womanhood during the worst of all times, the author withholds nothing. Fanya Gottesfeld Heller's subtle depiction of her parents knowledge that it was a non-Jew's love for their daughter that had moved him to hide them, and their embarrassment and ultimate acceptance of the situation, lead us to wonder how we would have acted under the same circumstances as father, mother, or daughter. Love in a World of Sorrow features Fanya's gripping tale of survival and an updated foreword and epilogue by the author, reflecting more than a decade of experience bearing witness to the Holocaust before hundreds of audiences around the world. On the reading list at Princeton University, the University of Connecticut, and Ben Gurion Univesity of the Negev, among others. Fanya Gottesfeld Heller's book is an indispensable educational tool for teaching future generations about the human potential for both good and evil.

    All of its pilots were men. But by 1940, after Fighter Command lost hundreds of pilots during the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill realised the recruitment pool needed to be widened. In stepped ATA Senior Commander Pauline Gower, who had been a famous flier before the war. When Gower and ATA founder Gerard ‘Pop’ d’Erlanger discussed the idea of women flying in the ATA she answered the question ‘why women?’ with ‘why not?’ These women pilots were to become the ‘Bomber Girls’. By the end of the War, 166 extraordinarily brave young women learned to laugh off morale-crushing socio-political taboos in a bid to help Britain in its hour of need. Among them was the world famous aviatrix and socialite Amy Johnson who, in 1930 had made a pioneering solo flight, from Britain to Australia. But most were ordinary girls, who nonetheless counted themselves the equal of any man, and were willing to face death to defeat the enemy. Unlike the male pilots they had none of the firepower to defend themselves against enemy attack; neither had they been taught any specific manoeuvres that might save their lives if they were shot at. Their orders from the commanders at the ATA ferry pools were simple and straightforward: stay on course, try not to fly above 800 feet in bad weather, and don’t try anything fancy. But their fight was not just against the Nazis. It was also against the male establishment of the Armed Forces. Thanks to the political guile of Miss Gower they were the first collective of women to earn the same salary as their male colleagues doing the same job. Even so, it was only in 2008 that women of the ATA were rewarded with medals for their outstanding work and heroism during the war years. ‘Bomber Girls’ is the inspiring account of the achievements of those 166 women during the Second World War, not only in defending their country, but in breaking new ground for women’s rights. Based on exclusive interviews with the veterans of those harrowing years, it is a brilliantly told story of the War’s heroines. M J Foreman is a journalist, writer and editor with a varied experience in newspapers, broadcasting, and communications. Her books include ‘So You Think You Know Canterbury?’ and ‘Kent Revisited’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    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.

    'Survivor' is the story of impossible misfortune and improbable good luck - the compelling and uplifting account of the boy who made it out of the ghetto, survived Auschwitz and Stutthof and endured the Dresden bombing, before escaping to England.

    Quickly falling in love with the rush of being a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne, he believed his service would honorably help the South Vietnamese protect their country from the ruthless communist North and their Southern allies. But once in the volatile jungles of Vietnam, the merciless hunting and killing of the enemy, constant threat of landmines and booby traps, ambushes that could easily backfire, and deaths of his comrades made Stillman question how any man—if he survived—could ever return to his life as he’d known it. Written with John’s daughter, Lori Stillman, Jumping from Helicopters is a vivid and moving memoir that unearths fifty years of repressed memories with stunning accuracy and raw details. Interwoven with the author’s own journal entries and including thirty-five photographs, it is a story that will open your eyes to what these brave young men witnessed and endured, and why they returned facing a lifetime of often unspoken unrest, persistent nightmares, and forced normalcy, haunting even the strongest of soldiers.

    She had given up until one day, watching the drama unfold on the television programme, Long Lost Family, her daughter suggested that maybe this was the only way she would ever find her sister.What she didn’t expect to uncover was a story of a pregnant mother fleeing Nazi-invaded Jersey, a sister left behind to survive the deprivations of the German-controlled island and a family torn apart in a time when war left so many alone. Cherry’s story, pieced together by a team of researchers, would bring her unimaginable sadness and joy, and answers where she had given up.

    After dying her hair blonde and studying the catechism in hopes of passing as Christian Poles, Berta, her mother, and her sister live a life of constant vigilance and fear. It is only through her abiding faith in a higher power that she is enabled to survive while hiding in plain sight.

    Through exclusive access to this material - as well as fascinating new research from other sources - Simon Pearson, Chief Night Editor of The Times, has now written the first biography of this iconic figure. Born in South Africa in 1910, Roger Bushell was the son of a British mining engineer. By the age of 29, this charismatic character who spoke nine languages had become a London barrister with a reputation for successfully defending those much less fortunate than him. He was also renowned as an international ski champion and fighter pilot with a string of glamorous girlfriends. On 23 May, 1940, his Spitfire was shot down during a dogfight over Boulogne after destroying two German fighters. From then on his life was governed by an unquenchable desire to escape from Occupied Europe.Over the next four years he made three escapes, coming within 100 yards of the Swiss border during his first attempt. His second escape took him to Prague where he was sheltered by the Czech resistance for eight months before he was captured. The three month's of savage interrogation in Berlin by the Gestapo that followed made him even more determined. Prisoner or not, he would do his utmost to fight the Nazis. His third (and last escape) destabilised the Nazi leadership and captured the imagination of the world.He died on 29 March 1944, murdered on the explicit instructions of Adolf Hitler.Simon Pearson's revealing biography is a vivid account of war and love, triumph and tragedy - one man's attempt to challenge remorseless tyranny in the face of impossible odds.

    Will Sarah’s strong will and determination be enough for her to survive when everything she loves is taken from her? Part memoir, part fiction, What She Lost is the reimagined true-life story of the author’s grandmother growing into a woman amid the anguish of the Holocaust. It is a tale of resilience, of rebuilding a life, and of rediscovering love. About the Author Melissa W. Hunter is an author and blogger from Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied creative writing and journalism at the University of Cincinnati, receiving a BA in English literature and a minor in Judaic studies. She received the English Department’s Undergraduate Essay Award and Undergraduate Fiction Award over two consecutive years. In her senior year, she received a grant to study and write about the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Her articles have been published on Kveller.com and LiteraryMama.com, and her short stories have appeared in the Jewish Literary Journal. She is a contributing blogger to the Today Show parenting community, and her novella Through a Mirror Clear was published as a serial installment on TheSame.blog, an online literary journal written for women by women. Her novel What She Lost is inspired by her grandmother’s life as a Holocaust survivor. When not writing, Melissa loves spending family time with her husband and two beautiful daughters.

    In the weeks that followed, as more camps were discovered, thousands of soldiers came face to face with the monstrous reality of Hitler’s Germany.These men discovered the very depths of human-imposed cruelty and depravity: railroad cars stacked with emaciated, lifeless bodies; ovens full of incinerated human remains; warehouses filled with stolen shoes, clothes, luggage, and even eyeglasses; prison yards littered with implements of torture and dead bodies; and―perhaps most disturbing of all―the half-dead survivors of the camps. For the American soldiers of all ranks who witnessed such powerful evidence of Nazi crimes, the experience was life altering. Almost all were haunted for the rest of their lives by what they had seen, horrified that humans from ostensibly civilized societies were capable of such crimes.Military historian John C. McManus sheds new light on this often-overlooked aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on a rich blend of archival sources and thousands of firsthand accounts―including unit journals, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, diaries, letters, and published recollections― Hell Before Their Very Eyes focuses on the experiences of the soldiers who liberated Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau and their determination to bear witness to this horrific history.

    Indeed, she was ostracized by Hitler for a number of months after she made the mistake of publicly contradicting him once too often.In addition to her portrayal of Hitler, there are illuminating anecdotes about Hitler's closest colleagues. She recalls, for instance, that the relationship between Martin Bormann and his brother Albert (who was on Hitler's personal staff) was so bad that the two would only communicate with one another via their respective adjutants - even if they were in the same room. There is also light shed on the peculiar personal life and insanity of Reichsminister Walther Darr�.Schroeder claims to have known nothing of the horrors of the Nazi regime. There is nothing of the sense of perspective or the mea culpa that one finds in the memoirs of Hitler's other secretary, Traudl Junge - who concluded 'we should have known'. Rather the tone that pervades Schroeder's memoir is one of bitterness. This is, without any doubt, one of the most important primary sources from the pre-war and wartime period.Christa Schroeder was Hitler's personal secretary for twelve years in total. She worked as his secretary until his suicide in April 1945, living at the Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg. Her memoir Er War Mein Chef was first published in 1985, a year after her death in Munich, aged 76.

    Four were condemned to death; two were executed. This engrossing book reveals the extraordinary methods adopted by MI5 to uncover British traitors and their German spymasters, as well as two serious wartime plots by well-connected British fascists to mount a coup d’etat which would replace the government with an authoritarian pro-Nazi regime. The book also shows how archaic attitudes to social status and gender in Whitehall and the courts ensured that justice was neither fair nor equitable. Aristocratic British pro-Nazi sympathizers and collaborators were frequently protected while the less-privileged foot soldiers of the Fifth Column were interned, jailed or even executed for identical crimes.