Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war’s end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness.Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.From BooklistIf there is an explanation for the political killing perpetrated in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, historian Snyder roots it in agriculture. Stalin wanted to collectivize farmers; Hitler wanted to eliminate them so Germans could colonize the land. The dictators wielded frightening power to advance such fantasies toward reality, and the despots toted up about 14 million corpses between them, so stupefying a figure that Snyder sets himself three goals here: to break down the number into the various actions of murder that comprise it, from liquidation of the kulaks to the final solution; to restore humanity to the victims via surviving testimony to their fates; and to deny Hitler and Stalin any historical justification for their policies, which at the time had legions of supporters and have some even today. Such scope may render Snyder’s project too imposing to casual readers, but it would engage those exposed to the period’s chronology and major interpretive issues, such as the extent to which the Nazi and Soviet systems may be compared. Solid and judicious scholarship for large WWII collections.

    The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone." In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.

    the authoritative appraisal of why American armed forces met the Japanese attack asleep” (The Christian Science Monitor). On December 6, 1941, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, assured his staff that the Japanese would not attack Pearl Harbor. The next morning, Japanese carriers steamed toward Hawaii to launch one of the most devastating surprise attacks in the history of war, proving the admiral disastrously wrong. Immediately, an investigation began into how the American military could have been caught so unaware.   The results of the initial investigation failed to implicate who was responsible for this intelligence debacle. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, realizing that high-ranking members of the military had provided false testimony, decided to reopen the investigation by bringing in an unknown major by the name of Henry C. Clausen. Over the course of ten months, from November 1944 to September 1945, Clausen led an exhaustive investigation. He logged more than fifty-five thousand miles and interviewed over one hundred military and civilian personnel, ultimately producing an eight-hundred-page report that brought new evidence to light. Clausen left no stone unturned in his dogged effort to determine who was truly responsible for the disaster at Pearl Harbor.  Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement reveals all of the eye-opening details of Clausen’s investigation and is a damning account of massive intelligence failure. To this day, the story surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stokes controversy and conspiracy theories. This book provides conclusive evidence that shows how the US military missed so many signals and how it could have avoided the events of that fateful day.

    . . within seconds, flaming gasoline was pouring out, burning white and orange . . .”“We shot at the Russian tanks when they came out of the dust cloud . . . the T34 exploded like a rotten fruit . . . engine, turret and deck all going in different directions, with the crew torn apart likewise . . .”Told by the men who fought in the tanks, with all the searing aggression and violence that they experienced . . . these are the shocking first-hand stories of the SS panzer troops themselves. The crews of the Panzer IV, the Stug, the Panther, Jagdtiger, Tiger and King Tiger . . . the authentic voices of the gunners, commanders and drivers who fought some of the deadliest battles in human history.In 1962, German researchers conducted a series of interviews with former members of the Waffen SS panzer troops who had fought in World War 2. The intention was to probe the SS veterans' motivations and psychology, but the men were unwilling to discuss these matters in depth. They were prepared, however, to describe their combat experiences - and they gave astonishing accounts of tank battles in Operation Barbarossa, Normandy, Italy, the Russian Front, the massive conflict at Kursk, the Ardennes and during the final apocalyptic battles against the Soviets within the Reich and for Berlin itself. These were men whose memories of battle were still vivid, and they were ready to relate the physical details of combat – the violent sights, sounds, and sensations of tank fighting, the weapons and tactics that they used, their triumphs and humiliations. Told in ice-cold, clinical detail, with phenomenal drama and sense of crisis, these first-hand accounts stand out today as one of the most remarkable testimonies to the experience of tank warfare in WW2. They will fascinate anyone interested in tank combat, the Waffen SS and the use of armor from 1941 to 1945.This book has the complete set of interviews from Books 1 and 2, with accounts of tank battles in:Operation Barbarossa (Panzer IV) Onslaught in the East (Stug III) Kursk (Tiger I)Italy (Elefant and Panther)Normandy (Panther)The Ardennes (Jagdtiger)Prussia (Stug IV)Berlin (King Tiger and Wirbelwind)A unique and shocking insight into panzer warfare in all its horrors.

    Among submariners in World War II, Dudley "Mush" Morton stood out as a warrior without peer. At the helm of the USS Wahoo he completely changed the way the sea war was fought in the Pacific. He would relentlessly attack the Japanese at every opportunity, going through his supply of torpedoes in record time on every patrol. In only nine months, he racked up an astounding list of achievements, including being the first American skipper to wipe out an entire enemy convoy single-handedly.Here, for the first time, is the life and legend of a heroic, dynamic, and ultimately divisive submarine commander who fought the war on his own terms, and refused to do so any other way.

    It is a tale of double agents, black radio broadcasts, phantom armies, 'Ultra' decrypts, and dummy parachute drops. These diverse tactics were intended to come together to create a single narrative so compelling that it would convince Adolf Hitler of its authenticity.Operation Fortitude was intended to create the false impression that the Normandy landings were merely a feint to disguise a massive forthcoming invasion by this American force in the Pas de Calais. In other words, the success of D-Day – the beginning of the end of the Second World War – was made possible by the efforts of men and women who were not present on the Normandy beaches.Men such as Juan Pujol, a Spanish double-agent (code-name GARBO) who sent hundreds of wireless messages from London to Madrid in the build-up to D-Day relaying supposed intelligence from his fictitious spy network. This allowed the enemy to conclude that the number of Allied divisions preparing to invade was twice the actual number.Men such as R.V Jones, the head of British Scientific Intelligence, who masterminded the dropping of tinfoil confetti from the bomb-bay doors of Lancaster bombers, creating a false impression that a flotilla of Allied ships was heading in the opposite direction to the genuine invasion fleet.Using first hand sources from a wide range of archives, government documents, letters and memos Operation Fortitude builds a picture of what wartime Britain was like, as well as the immense pressure these men and women were working under and insure D-Day succeeded.

    Dower's brilliant examination of Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II.Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways neither side could anticipate. Dower, whom Stephen E. Ambrose has called "America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific," gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life. Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order.

    It started like a Hollywood thriller, secretly transporting from England $25 million in British gold bullion, delivered to the ship in unguarded bread trucks, a pre-war “Neutrality Patrol” that was really an unofficial hostile search for the far bigger and more powerful German battleship Prinz Eugen, and sneaking through the Panama Canal at night with the ship’s name and hull number covered for secrecy. Now, with the ship bulging with an unusual load of fuel and supplies, in the company of a large fleet quietly passing under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the crew was about to learn of their latest (but not last) and most improbable adventure yet as the captain made an announcement that would change the war and their lives forever, “We are going to Tokyo!”. Over three years, scores of battles and hundreds of thousands of ocean miles later, the Nashville and her crew had earned 10 Battle Stars, served from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, from the Aleutians to the Yangtze River, as McArthur’s flagship and suffered heavy casualties from a devastating kamikaze attack. Tokyo Rose reported her sunk, repeatedly. Earlier, with goodwill trips that included France, England, Scandinavia, Bermuda and Rio de Janeiro, the new, sleek Nashville built a pre-war reputation as a “glamour ship”. But with war came the secret missions, capturing the second and third Japanese POWs of the war, having a torpedo pass just under the stern, being strafed and bombed by Japanese planes, losing a third of the crew in a single devastating Kamikaze attack, swimming in shark infested waters protected by marines with machine guns, enjoying the beauty of Sydney and her people, planning a suicide mission to destroy the Japanese fishing fleet, and bombarding Japanese troops and airfields across the Pacific. The Nashville crew served their ship and country well. They came from Baltimore row-houses, New York walk-ups, San Francisco flats, Kansas wheat farms, Colorado cattle ranches, Louisiana bayous and Maine fishing towns. Many had never traveled more than 25 miles from home and had never seen the ocean until they joined the service. They were part Irish, part Italian, part Polish and All-American. Battered, burnt and bombed, they made the USS Nashville their home and lived and died as eternal shipmates. Historical narrative enriched with the personal stories of the crew, this is the story of a ship and crew of ordinary men who did extraordinary things.

    This small band of highly trained and highly skilled individuals fought in the front line for six long years, undertaking some of the most dangerous missions of the war.

    The legendary Marine Corps officer and his bunch of misfits, outcasts, and daredevils gave new definition to "hell-raising" - on the ground and in the skies.Pappy himself was a living legend - he personally shot down 28 Japanese planes, and won the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross. He broke every rule in the book in doing so, but when he fell into the hands of the vengeful Japanese his real ordeal began.Here, in his own words, is the true story of America's wildest flying hero, of his extraordinary heroism, and of his greatest battle of all - the fight to survive.

    To protect itself, the nation fell back on cunning and camouflage. With Winston Churchill in charge, the British bluffed their way out of trouble—lying, pretending and dressing up in order to survive. The British had developed this uncommon talent during the trench and desert fighting of the First World War, when writers and artists created elaborate camouflages and fiendish propaganda. So successful were these deceptions they gave rise to the German belief that they hadn't been beaten fairly - in which case why not 'have a second go'? By the Second World War, the British were masters of the art. Churchill adored stratagems, ingenious devices and special forces: pretend German radio stations broadcast outrageous British propaganda in German. British geniuses broke German secret codes and eavesdropped on their messages. Every German spy in Britain was captured and many were used to send back false information to their controllers. Forged documents misled their Intelligence. Bogus wireless traffic from entire phantom armies, dummy airfields with model planes, disguised ships and inflatable rubber tanks created a vital illusion of strength. Culminating in the spectacular misdirection that was so essential to the success of D-Day in 1944, Churchill's Wizards is a thrilling work of popular military history. Above all, Nicholas Rankin reveals the true stories of those brave and creative mavericks who helped win what Churchill called 'the war of the Unknown Warriors'.

    The Germans responded with a dizzying series of assaults, using every tool of modern warfare developed in the previous generation. Airlifted infantry, mountain troops and paratroopers were dispatched to the north, seizing Norwegian strongpoints while forestalling larger but more cumbersome Allied units.The German navy also set sail, taking a brutal beating at the hands of Britannia, while ensuring with its sacrifice that key harbors could be held open for resupply. As dive-bombers soared overhead, small but elite German units traversed forbidding terrain to ambush Allied units trying to forge inland. At Narvik, some 6,000 German troops battled 20,000 French and British, until the Allies were finally forced to withdraw by the great disaster in France, which had then gotten underway.Henrik Lunde, a native Norwegian and former U.S. Special Operations colonel, has written the most objective account to date of a campaign in which 20th-century military innovation found its first fertile playing field.REVIEWS:"While it's almost impossible to find a new book about a hitherto unexplored WWII-related subject, it's almost as unlikely to discover a new book that turns out to be the best yet written on the topic. . . . Henrik Lunde's new Hitler's Pre-Emptive War is certainly not the first book about the 1940 invasion of Norway and the battles around Narvik, but it sure looks like the best."-Stone and Stone Second World War Books"Lunde has thoroughly dissected both ground and naval battles and managed to make a complex politico-military situation clear. . . . military collections will want to acquire this excellent effort . . ."-Library Journal"Well written with an unbiased eye. . . . Every aspect is covered, with British, French, German and Norwegian viewpoints, decisions and actions all being taken fairly into account. . . . It's an interesting story and one I would recommend." - Military Modeling, 06/2009.."a detailed, well laid out history... essential reading; a must-have in your military library and a job very well done by the author."Military Model Craft International, 07/2009 "This large book will fuel debate. . . . Exhaustive research and intellectual detachment enable the author to bring objectivity and a fresh interpretation to a subject that has been until now laden with national self-justification. . . . Holds the reader's interest while progressing seamlessly from political and strategic decisions to theater operations and tactics of the various national forces engaged, including describing and analyzing combat on land, at sea, and in the air. . . . This book is a gem."-Parameters"... an excellent job of compiling research material, which can be quite challenging due to the bias of what's out there...tough to put down...well written and thoroughly researched."Internet Modeler, 08/2009"Thoroughly researched, objective and thoughtfully written... a highly recommended addition to the historiography of World War II, and sheds new light on this misunderstood campaign."Carlo D'Este, World War II Magazine, 11/2009"A very detailed look at what was the first "joint" operation of the Second World War, the highly risky and amazingly successful German invasion of Normandy in April 1940...a comprehensive account of what was one of the most complex campaigns of the war..."The NYMAS Review, Fall-Winter 2009 ".. will undoubtedly become recognized as a milestone among the books about Norway in 1940."MILITAR HISTORIA 3/2009 (Norway)

    Stoically poised for battle in the spring of 1945—when even Japan’s last desperate technique of arms, the kamikaze, was running short—Yamato arose as the last magnificent arrow in the imperial quiver of Emperor Hirohito. Here, Jan Morris not only tells the dramatic story of the magnificent ship itself—from secret wartime launch to futile sacrifice at Okinawa — but, more fundamentally, interprets the ship as an allegorical figure of war itself, in its splendor and its squalor, its heroism and its waste. Drawing on rich naval history and rhapsodic metaphors from international music and art, Battleship Yamato is a work of grand ironic elegy.

    The name of the detention centre -- Auschwitz.It was only after arriving at the camp that he started to discover the Nazi’s terrifying designs. Over the next two and half years, Witold forged an underground army that smuggled evidence of Nazi atrocities to the West, culminating in the mass murder of over a million Jews. His reports from the camp were to shape the Allies response to the Holocaust - yet his story was all but forgotten for decades.This is the first major account of his amazing journey, drawing on exclusive family papers and recently declassified files as well as unpublished accounts from the camp’s fighters to show how he saved hundreds of thousands of lives.The result is a enthralling story of resistance and heroism against the most horrific circumstances, and one man’s attempt to change the course of history.

    . . have positive angle . . . attempting to blow . . . Then came the sounds of air under pressure and a garbled message: . . . test depth . . . Last came the eerie sounds that experienced navy men knew from World War II: the sounds of a submarine breaking up and compartments collapsing.When she first went to sea in April of 1961, the U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher was the most advanced submarine at sea, built specifically to hunt and kill Soviet submarines. In The Death of the USS Thresher, renowned naval and intelligence consultant Norman Polmar recounts the dramatic circumstances surrounding her implosion, which killed all 129 men on board, in history's first loss of a nuclear submarine. This revised edition of Polmar's 1964 classic is based on interviews with the Thresher's first command officer, other submarine officers, and the designers of the submarine. Polmar provides recently declassified information about the submarine, and relates the loss to subsequent U.S. and Soviet nuclear submarine sinkings, as well as to the escape and rescue systems developed by the Navy in the aftermath of the disaster. The Death of the USS Thresher is a must-read for the legions of fans who enjoyed the late Peter Maas's New York Times best-seller The Terrible Hours.