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.

Women of the Third Reich


Anna Maria Sigmund - 1998
    Many women in German high society were fascinated by Adolf Hitler and helped him to achieve political power, while women like filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl were fueling Hitler's propaganda machine. The private lives of Hitler's assistants' wives are also explored-revealing Magda Goebbels's complicity in the murder of her six children in 1945, Carin and Emmy Gring's relations with their morphine-addicted husbands, and the knowledge that Margaret Himmler had of her husband's actions as leader of the SS.

To War With the Walkers


Annabel Venning - 2019
    Six of us and we all survived the war. And yet one knew of other families who lost all of their children.' Ruth WalkerThis is the story of the Walkers, six siblings (including the author's grandfather) who survived Blitz, battle and internment and lived to tell the tale. This ordinary family's extraordinary experiences combine to tell a new social history of World War Two. Harold was a doctor who spent a week in a coma after being bombed whilst conducting an operation in St Thomas's hospital. Glamorous Beatrice married an American airman, and was widowed just weeks before the end of the war. Peter suffered terrible torture as a Japanese POW. Edward fought with the 1/8 Punjab regiment in India. Ruth performed pioneering skin grafts as a nurse for soldiers returning from Dunkirk. And Walter fought with the 8th Gurkhas against the Japanese in Burma.Together, the stories of these ordinary yet extraordinary siblings tell the story of WW2 from the home front to Italy, Burma and Malaya, North Africa and more.

The Iron Sea: How the Allies Hunted and Destroyed Hitler's Warships


Simon Read - 2020
    Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the waves could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence."The campaign against Hitler's warships would continue into the dying days of the World War II and involve everything from massive battleships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.

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.

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.

The Great Escaper


Simon Pearson - 2013
    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.

I'm Not From Around Here: A Jewish Boy Telling the Historical Story of his Family's Holocaust Survival in WW2 (Biographical Fiction Based on a Memoir)


Ishai Klinowsky - 2018
    It takes place against the backdrop of the Holocaust, the fate of the refugees at the end of the war, and the rebirth of the new Israel.The heroes of the plot are unusual, an antithesis of the weak and submissive Jew, sweeping the reader into a whirlwind of events and countless breathtaking adventures. How does a weak and very naive girl survive for three years in a deadly forced labor camp where others could not survive for more than a few months? Lola, the mother, whom we encounter as an innocent girl, sweeps the reader close to the hell of the monstrous and notorious labor camp, Ludwigsdorf. How does an “antithesis Jew” look to the submissive Jew? Staszek, the father, a street fighter and a tough and hard-working man from Warsaw, is hot-tempered, cunning, and daring. His gypsy appearance and colorful figure lead many women to fall easily into his arms. What does a spoiled "mother's son" and "father's daughter" feel when they see their family collapsing? From the eyes of an eight-year-old boy, the writer describes a stormy childhood with many heartrending vicissitudes: parents who disappear overnight, living with strangers, being trapped in a tough orphanage ... and more...Written in flowing and sensitive language, the story presents an accurate balance between a personal and family story and the story of a people. Scroll up now to get your copy of I’m Not From Around Here!

The Sledge Patrol: A WWII Epic of Escape, Survival, and Victory


David Howarth - 1957
    Using dogsleds to patrol a stark 500-mile stretch of the Greenland coast, their wartime mission was to guard against Nazi interlopers - an unlikely scenario given the cruel climate. But one day, a footprint was spotted on desolate Sabine Island, along with other obvious signs of the enemy. escaped to the nearest hunting hut only to have the Germans pursue on foot. In the dead of the Arctic night, the men escaped capture at the last instant and, without their coats or sled dogs, walked fifty-six miles to get back to base. While the Sledge Patrol had only hunting rifles, resilience and their knowledge of outdoor survival, the Germans were armed with machine guns and grenades and greatly outnumbered them.

Swimming Across: A Memoir


Andrew S. Grove - 2001
    Grove. Photos throughout.

Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Operation Valkyrie


Randall Hansen - 2013
         Anyone with even a passing interest in the Second World War knows about the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. There was even a Tom Cruise movie. But the story of the great wave of resistance that arose in the year that followed--with far-reaching consequences--has never been told before.     Drawing on newly opened archives, acclaimed historian Randall Hansen shows that many high-ranking Nazis, and average German citizens in far greater numbers than previously recognized, reacted defiantly to the Fuhrer's by then manifest insanity. Together they spared cities from being razed, and prevented the needless obliteration of industry and infrastructure. Disobeying Hitler presents new evidence on three direct violations of orders made personally by Adolf Hitler: The refusal by the commander of Paris to destroy the city; Albert Speer's refusal to implement a scorched earth policy in Germany; and the failure to defend Hamburg against invading British forces.      In gripping, story-driven style, Disobeying Hitler shows how the brave resistence of soldiers and civilians, under constant threat of death, was crucial for the outcome of the war. Their bravery saved countless lives and helped lay the foundations for European economic recovery--and continued peace

The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III: The Full Story of How 76 Allied Officers Carried Out World War II's Most Remarkable Mass Escape


Tim Carroll - 2005
    But on March 24, 1944, in a courageous attempt by two hundred prisoners to break out through a series of tunnels, seventy-six Allied officers managed to evade capture -- and create havoc behind enemy lines in the months before the Normandy Invasion. This is the incredible story of these brave men who broke free from the supposedly impenetrable barbed wire and watchtowers of Stalag Luft III -- and who played an important role in Allied intelligence operations within occupied Europe. The prisoners developed an intricate espionage network, relaying details of military deployment, bombings, and raids. Some of them were involved in other daring escape attempts, including the famous Wooden Horse episode, also turned into a classic film, and the little-known Sachsenhausen breakout, engineered by five Great Escapers sent to die in the notorious concentration camp on Hitler's personal orders. Tragically, fifty of those involved in the Great Escape were murdered by the Gestapo. Others were recaptured; only a few made it all the way to freedom. This dramatic account of personal heroism is a testament to their ingenuity and achievement -- a stirring tribute to the men who never gave up fighting. Includes eight pages of photographs and illustrations, excerpts from Göring's testimony during postwar investigations, and a list of the men who escaped.

From Chicago to Vietnam: A Memoir of War


Michael Duffy - 2016
    The perimeter of the massive Saigon Airbase, Tan Son Nhut, was breached, and fighting raged all morning. Both gritty and intimate, From Chicago to Vietnam tells the powerful story of the ensuing epic battle, the Tet Offensive, from the perspective of one brave American soldier, Michael Duffy, whose life, like so many others, would forever be changed.Duffy's war experience begins when he exits a C-130 cargo plane onto the Tan Son Nhut tarmac--a chaotic scene of blasts, explosions, and small arms fire. Sprinting to a waiting helicopter, he is lifted up and over the city, where he gets a bird's-eye view of Saigon under attack. The helicopter lands on a road outside Bien Hoa Base Camp, and Duffy crawls in under enemy fire, tumbling into a fox-hole under cover of two GIs. Later, he meets up with his younger brother, Danny Duffy, in an ammunition convoy driving up Highway 1 to the village of Xuan Loc.After his brutal one-year tour in Vietnam, Duffy returns to Chicago, where he enjoys a Christmas dinner with his family before enrolling as a freshman at Colorado College. Like many vets, his return from the war would be met with curiosity, indifference, and, at times, scorn. This harrowing memoir was thirty years in the making.

Bloc Life: Stories from the Lost World of Communism


Peter Molloy - 2008
    Bloc Life collects first hand testimony of the people who lived in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania during the Cold War era, and reveals a rich tapestry of experience that goes beyond the headlines of spies and surveillance, secret police and political corruption. In fact, many of the people remember their lives under communism as 'perfectly ordinary' and even hanker for the 'security' that it offered.From political leaders, athletes and pop stars, to cooks, miners and cosmonauts, the stories collected in Bloc Life evoke the moods, preoccupations and experiences of a world that vanished almost overnight.

Duel Under the Stars: The Memoir of a Luftwaffe Night Pilot in World War II


Wilhelm Johnen - 1956
    The rest was merely a matter of seconds. The bomber fell like a stone out of the sky and exploded on the ground. The nightmare came to an end."In this enthralling memoir, the author recounts his experiences of the war years and traces the story of the ace fighter pilots from the German development of radar to the Battle of Britain.Johnen flew his first operational mission in July 1941, having completed his blind-flying training. In his first couple of years he brought down two enemy planes. The tally went up rapidly once the air war was escalated in spring 1943, when Air Marshal Arthur Harris of the RAF Bomber Command began the campaign dubbed the Battle of the Ruhr.During this phase of the war Johnens successes were achieved against a 710-strong force of bombers. Johnens further successes during Harriss subsequent Berlin offensive led to his promotion as Staffelkapitan (squadron leader) of Nachtjagdgeschwader and a move to Mainz. During a sortie from there, his Bf 110 was hit by return fire and he was forced to land in Switzerland. He and his crew were interned by the authorities. The Germans were deeply worried about leaving a sophisticatedly equipped night fighter and its important air crew in the hands of a foreign government, even if it was a neutral one. After negotiations involving Gring, the prisoners were released.Johnens unit moved to Hungary and by October 1944 his score was standing at 33 aerial kills. His final one came in March the following year, once Johnen had moved back to Germany.