Book picks similar to
The German Opposition to Hitler by Hans Rothfels
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Arctic Rescue: A Memoir of the Tragic Sinking of HMS Glorious
Ronald Healiss - 2020
Ideal for readers of Evan Mawdsley, Max Hastings and Iain Ballantyne.On the 8th June 1940, the Nazi battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau opened their guns on the aircraft-carrier HMS Glorious.Within minutes the Glorious was taking on water and the order was given to abandon ship.Hundreds of men leapt into the icy waters of the Norwegian Sea. They hoped and prayed that nearby ships would have heard their distress signal and send help.Yet, they did not come. Men were left to tread water, hold onto small inflatables or clamber onto overcrowded lifeboats. The situation looked bleak for the few who survived the first twenty-four hours; there was nothing to eat and men resorted to drinking saltwater and their own urine to slake their thirst, but the effects of hypothermia and delirium began to take their toll.Over 1,200 men lost their lives as a result of this tragedy.Only forty men survived this ordeal, one of which was Royal Marine Ronald “Tubby” Healiss, who served as a member of a 4.7 gun crew on the Glorious. His award-winning account is a true and terrible record of suffering, which uncovers one of the greatest undocumented naval stories of the Second World War.
Hitler's Jet Plane: The Me 262 Story
Mano Ziegler - 2006
Mano Ziegler was involved from its inception and contributed to the design, testing, training and even served in it operationally. Could the ME 262 have broken the Allied supremacy in the air? Why did it take so long to come into service and why were hundreds of German pilots sacrificed in developing it? Why did the ME 262 prove not to be the unparalleled success claimed by Goering and why were German cities left dangerously exposed against Allied bombing campaigns? These are only some the important questions this new book answers. Mano Ziegler, born 7 June 1908, had a lifetime fascination with flight. At the age of eight, he wrote to Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the famous "Red Baron", asking to be allowed to fly with him. Richthofen even replied, telling him, "Yes, we'll fly together!". At the age of 21, he took up glider flying. He also pursued his sport of diving and was a core member of Germany's Olympic high-diving team. In 1932 and 1934 he was student world high-diving champion at the world championships in Darmstadt and Turin. When war broke out in 1939 he became a pilot in the Luftwaffe, and from 1943 until the war's end he flew the Me 163 with Erprobungskommando 16 (Operational Test Unit 16) and Jagdgeschwader 400 (Fighter Group 400). After the war he escaped from Russian captivity and - having returned to Berlin - continued to fly and write newspaper articles. In Berlin he guested as a high-wire walker with the Camilla Mayer circus troupe, walking the 24-metre high wire - without any prior training - for a newspaper article. He eventually became editor-in-chief of the Flug-Revue aviation monthly in Stuttgart and, as such, made his first supersonic flight in an English fighter aircraft in the spring of 1960. Hitler's Jet Plane fills an important gap in the history of the Luftwaffe and of aviation in general with new research which dicloses how the first ever military jet plane failed to make its mark on World War II.
Codename Tricycle: The true story of the Second World War's most extraordinary double agent
Russell Miller - 2004
In fact, he was one of Britain's most successful double agents, and, some say, the inspiration for James Bond. With full access to FBI and MI5 records, along with private family papers, his incredible adventures can now be told authoritatively for the first time. Recruited by the Abwehr in 1940, 27-year-old Popov immediately offered his services to the British. His code-name was Tricycle. Throughout the war he fed the Germans with a constant stream of military 'intelligence', all vetted by MI5, and came to be viewed as their most important and reliable agent in Britain. But when he was ordered by the Abwehr to the United States to report on the defences at Pearl Harbor, J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, failed to heed his warnings, distrusting all spies and detesting Popov in particular, whom he considered to be 'a moral degenerate'. Facing the danger of exposure, arrest and execution on a daily basis, Tricycle went on to build up a network known as the Yugoslav Ring, which not only delivered a stream of false information to Berlin but also supplied vital intelligence to the Allies on German rocketry, strategy and security. After the war Dusko Popov was granted British citizenship and awarded an OBE. The presentation was made, appropriately, in the cocktail bar at the Ritz.
Hellcats of the Sea (Annotated): Operation Barney and the Mission to the Sea of Japan
Charles A. Lockwood - 1955
On June 9, 1945, torpedoes from nine American submarines - 'The Hellcats' - were launched at dozens of Japanese freighters, paralyzing maritime operations between Japan and Korea. Each U.S. sub was equipped with newly designed mine-detectors and Mark-18s -- electronic torpedoes that left no traceable wakes or fume exhausts. Operation Barney continued for 15 days and proved a crucial breakthrough in the war, with U.S. submarines sinking 28 Japanese ships totaling some 70,000 tons. Hellcats of the Sea is a riveting account of the planning and events of those 15 days.*Annotated edition with original footnotes.*Includes photographs from Operation Barney.
47 Days: The True Story of Two Teen Boys Defying Hitler's Reich
Annette Oppenlander - 2017
47 DAYS tells the true story of Günter and Helmut, best friends, who dared to defy and disobey. Without knowing how long the war might continue, they spent 47 harrowing days as fugitives on the run. Being caught meant certain execution. 47 DAYS is a novelette, an excerpt from the novel, SURVIVING THE FATHERLAND—A True Coming-of-age Love Story Set in WWII Germany. Set against the epic panorama of WWII, it is a sweeping saga of family, love, and betrayal and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the children's war.
Operación Valkiria
Jesús Hernández - 2008
Olbricht already has more than 200 recruits in different levels of German society, including in the intelligence and counterintelligence divisions of the military. The objective is to eliminate Hitler, Göring, and Himmler, neutralize the SS, and install a provision government that would try to make peace with the West and stop the war.
The Berlin Deception
Jeffrey Vanke - 2011
The Gestapo is closing in. On foot, by train, even on water, Becker is running and gunning for his life ... and for the world. Hitler's Third Reich is rearming and planning for war. Churchill wants to stop him, but only Becker's report can reverse the British mood of appeasement. Cornered by the Gestapo, desperate to save his German collaborator Maria, Becker has mere days to ward off double disaster...
This Is Berlin: Reporting from Nazi Germany 1938-40
William L. Shirer - 2002
""This is Berlin"" gathers together two-and-a-half years worth of his daily CBS radio broadcasts that described the menacing steps Germany took toward World War II, just as America and the world heard them. Here is a vivid, compelling, and urgent narrative, one of the great first-hand documents of the Second World War. An introduction by noted historian John Keegan and a preface by Shirer's daughter, Inga Shirer Dean, put Shirer's life and work into context. "It would be almost impossible to overstate the importance of William L. Shirer's broadcasts from Germany . . . Mr. Shirer's descriptions . . . read as well as they were heard 60 years ago." ("Dallas Morning News") "Shirer's broadcasts . . . are models of eloquence and subterfuge . . . any reader will find it hard to put down." ("Publishers Weekly," starred review) "His broadcasts . . . have an enduring freshness." ("Sunday Times")
A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato, April 1945
Russell Spurr - 1981
Chosen as a Main Selection of the Military Book Club.
The Goebbels Diaries, 1939-1941
Joseph Goebbels - 1948
From 1923 to 1941, he wrote the entries himself. From 1941 to 1945, he dictated lengthy passages to aides. He sometimes telephoned them in the middle of the night when he wanted to add some text.The dictations usually opened with a description of the military situation, followed by his personal comments. The dictated diary is not as personal as the earlier one he wrote himself.Much of the diaries were thought to have been lost during World War II. However in 1992, they were discovered to be held in Soviet-era archives — as Goebbels himself had ordered his diaries to be duplicated while in the Fuhrerbunker, and buried in a nearby grove of trees, believing that one day history would laud him, and would want to know about his life.There is dispute over which researcher first discovered the Soviet archives, with Elke Fröhlich and David Irving both laying claim to the title.
Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939 1945
George H. Stein - 1966
George H. Stein examines in detail the structure and organization of the Waffen SS and describes the rigid personnel selection and intensive physical, military, and ideological training that helped to create the tough and dedicated cadre around which the larger force of the later war years was built.
Desperate Ground
James R. Benn - 2000
He hears the haunting voice of his dead fiancé and the demons that roar through his mind as he perfects a plan to save Nazi Germany from defeat and insure a greater and deadlier new world war. Captain Dieter Neukirk, once a protégé of Faust's, is more concerned with saving the lives of his remaining men than in sacrificing them in a fanatical last stand.Meanwhile, Elsa Klein, Dieter's lover and the chief social worker at a Berlin hospital, is engaged in her own dangerous work, providing medical care and identity papers to hidden Jews in the city. American Captain Mack Mackenzie, pulled from a military hospital before his wounds are healed, is assigned to investigate reports of a secret Nazi operation. Wanting only to make it home alive, Mack finds himself in a life and death struggle with unlikely allies and a ferociously determined opponent.Americans and Germans alike are drawn to a hilltop in the remote German countryside, where they find themselves between powerful armies and forced into a terrible decision that could end one war or begin a new one.