Europe Books - Page 16

Royals and the Reich: The Princes Von Hessen in Nazi Germany

Jonathan Petropoulos

By: Oxford University Press Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $44.65

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Royalty -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Seduction of Nazism 5 out of 5 stars.
23 of 23 people found this review helpful.

Philipp and Christoph von Hessen-Kassell were great-grandsons of Queen Victoria and nephews of Kaiser Wilhelm II. They were born into the highest circles of wealth and privilege in pre-World War I Germany, living in a variety of palaces and castles and secure within a wide family circle which extended into nearly every royal dynasty in Europe. Petropoulos' central story examines how such men could have been seduced into participating in the highest levels of one of the most thuggish regimes in modern times.

The Hessen family, like other royal/noble clans, was severely shaken by World War I. Although they did not lose all their property (or their lives) as so many of their relations did, Philipp and Christoph's family saw their status slip and some of their wealth vanish. This, along with the terrible suffering more ordinary Germans underwent in the post-World War I period, made the Hessen princes prime targets for the appeal of Nazism: militarism, aggressive nationalism, revenge for past defeats.

After Hitler's coming to power in 1933 and the establishment of the Third Reich, the Nazi Party made a concerted effort to win the support of highly placed individuals and families. Much of the German aristocracy and many members of former royal houses joined the Party, and while they may have privately sneered at the lumpenproletariat side of the Nazis and contrasted it with their own urbane sophistication, they were not above working for and doing the bidding of those they considered so uncouth. Philipp and Christoph were two prime examples. Philipp assisted Hitler in cultural affairs and, since he was married to a daughter of the Italian king, often served as an envoy to Mussolini. Christoph ran one of the Nazi intelligence agencies and served as a fighter pilot in World War II. Both were members of the SS, and both were used by Hitler to try to win influence with their cousins, the British royal family.

Having so much access to Hitler meant making a lot of moral compromises for the Hessens. Neither was particularly anti-Semitic (at least by the standards of the time) and had Jewish friends, but both were silent participants in the early stages of the Final Solution and similar atrocities. Both were artistic and fairly well educated by the standards of their caste, but neither protested the Nazi book-burnings or the destruction of art deemed insufficiently Aryan. Petropoulos does a good job contrasting this lack of action by the Hessens with the opposition of such aristocrats as Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, who with his family suffered enormously because he refused to collaborate.

As so often happens to those who cooperate with evil, Philipp and Christoph became victims themselves. Philipp and his wife (the beautiful Princess Mafalda of Savoy) ended up in concentration camps where Mafalda died after terrible sufferings. Christoph was killed in a suspicious plane crash after he too lost the Nazis' favor. After the war Philipp spent time in POW camps and went through a long drawn out denazification process before being allowed to retire, poorer and hopefully wiser, to what was left of his estates.

Petropoulos had the cooperation of many members of the Hessen family and other German nobles as well as that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who was Christoph's brother-in-law. He does a good job depicting the two men as the cultivated, charming cosmopolitans they were, and the reader is left with a disturbing question: If men such as these could be corrupted by the Nazis, is anyone really safe from similar extremism?

Stalingrad: Memories and Reassessments

Joachim Wieder, Heinrich Graf Von Einsiedel

List Price: $29.95 By: Arms & Armour Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $3.98

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Germany -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Germany -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

BRILLIANT BOOK 5 out of 5 stars.
25 of 26 people found this review helpful.

This book belongs on your bookshelf. Alongside you simply must have Joel Hayward, "Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East 1942-1943". These books give a tactical perspective and a strategic perspective. They therefore go hand in hand to give a complete picture.

This is a very nice book from reader's point of view. It reads like fiction, but it is not!

Editorial Review:

Stalingrad in the Second World War has become a by-word for misplaced military endeavour - and courage, endurance, heroism beyond all human belief. Joachim Wieder survived the German collapse, and the subsequent years in Soviet captivity, to write his memoir of the battle in 1962. It was no routine account; he found it necessary to re-examine what motives drove the Germans on in the face of hopeless odds, why orders were issued that could only lead to certain death, the lies promulgated by high command, the whole morass of unjustified and pointless conflict. This is an absorbing evaluation of war, revised in 1993 in the light of later information on the battle, and available now in English in Cassell Military Paperback for the first time. It was the first German book on Stalingrad to be published in the Soviet Union

The Ordeal of Total War: 1939-1945

Gordon Wright

Amazon Price: $20.50 List Price: $20.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Waveland Press Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $3.89

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> Europe

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fantastic Introduction to the European Theater of World War 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

If you're looking for an introduction to World War II concerning the European theater you would do well to pick up _The Ordeal of Total War_. Gordon Wright goes beyond the stadard military/political description of war as is so often the case and delves into the social, economic, and psychological impact of modern or "total war". In regards to economics the UK, USA, USSR and German economic policies are examined, evaluated and compared for their effectiveness in dealing with the demands for total war. Something very necessary in understanding what total war is all about.

Although the campaigns and individual battles of the war aren't greatly detailed they are covered sufficiently to provide a good introduction. Particularily useful are the chapters dealing with German rule in occupied Europe (and German resettlement polcies), the scientifid dimensions of warfare and the resistance movements (and competing resistance movements).

Gordon Wright doesn't end his book with the German surrender in 1945. He continues to explain the post-war situation, how World War II shaped the post 1945 Europe, and how the "Big Three" begins to unravel how the seeds of the Cold War are planted. I think Gordon's contention that the war time alliance of the Allies had no validity after the destruction of the Third Reich is right on target.

Final Word: Broad in scope yet compact; good reading even for the more familiar student of World War II.

Editorial Review:

The Second World War's destructive impact on the continent of Europe probably exceeds that of any previous disaster in the modern era. This volume is concerned with a brief six-year period. Wright, having mastered a vast amount of diffuse literature on WWII, has put his own stimulating interpretations on a difficult and complicated subject. The book goes far beyond the usual military chronicle. It is a splendid synthesis of a tragic phase of recent European history.

A Conspiracy Of Decency: The Rescue Of The Danish Jews During World War II

Emmy E. Werner

Amazon Price: $15.95 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Basic Books Amazon Marketplace: 21 new & used starting at $6.38

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Denmark
Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> Europe
Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The people of Denmark managed to save almost their country's entire Jewish population from extinction in a spontaneous act of humanity - one of the most compelling stories of moral courage in the history of World War II. Drawing on many personal accounts, Emmy Werner tells the story of the rescue of the Danish Jews from the vantagepoint of living eyewitnesses- the last survivors of an extraordinary conspiracy of decency that triumphed in the midst of the horrors of the Holocaust. A Conspiracy of Decency chronicles the acts of people of good will from several nationalities. Among them were the German Georg F. Duckwitz, who warned the Jews of their impending deportation, the Danes who hid them and ferried them across the Oresund, and the Swedes who gave them asylum. Regardless of their social class, education, and religious and political persuasion, the rescuers all shared one important characteristic: they defined their humanity by their ability to act with great compassion. These people never considered themselves heroes - they simply felt that they were doing the right thing.

Rommel's Desert War: The Life and Death of the Afrika Korps (Stackpole Military History Series)

Samuel W. Mitcham

Amazon Price: $13.22 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Stackpole Books Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $6.22

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> North Africa
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> General
Subjects -> History -> Africa -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Afrika Korps 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

It is a very well written book.

Not only the history of the North African campaign was vividly conveyed, the book gives the readers a balanced view of the strategies, tactics, challenges, mistakes on both sides (Allies and the Axis).

For those readers who are interested in the study of mobile warfare, this book contains detailed accounts of key battles in North Africa. The author successfully brings to life Rommel's command of element of surprise as well as his use of mobile units.

I thought the author has a very good writing style and a good sense of humor. It makes the reading all the more enjoyable.

Editorial Review:

In a series of battles marked by daring raids and quick-armored thrusts against a numerically superior enemy, Erwin Rommel, the notorious Desert Fox, and his Afrika Korps waged one of World War II s toughest campaigns in the North African desert in 1942. The Axis campaign climaxed in June with the recapture of Tobruk, a triumph that netted 33,000 prisoners and earned Rommel a field marshal s baton. By fall, however, after setbacks at Alam Halfa and the 2 battles of El Alamein, the Afrika Korps teetered on the brink of defeat, which would come in Tunisia 6 months later. Told largely from Rommel s perspective, using his papers and letters.

Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II

Stanley G. Payne

Amazon Price: $13.60 List Price: $20.00 Not yet published By: Yale University Press

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Germany -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Germany -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Was Franco sympathetic to Nazi Germany? Why didn't Spain enter World War II? In what ways did Spain collaborate with the Third Reich? How much did Spain assist Jewish refugees?

 

This is the first book in any language to answer these intriguing questions. Stanley Payne, a leading historian of modern Spain, explores the full range of Franco’s relationship with Hitler, from 1936 to the fall of the Reich in 1945. But as Payne brilliantly shows, relations between these two dictators were not only a matter of realpolitik.  These two titanic egos engaged in an extraordinary tragicomic drama often verging on the dark absurdity of a Beckett or Ionesco play.

 

Whereas Payne investigates the evolving relationship of the two regimes up to the conclusion of World War II, his principal concern is the enigma of Spain’s unique position during the war, as a semi-fascist country struggling to maintain a tortured neutrality. Why Spain did not enter the war as a German ally, joining with Hitler to seize Gibraltar and close the Mediterranean to the British navy, is at the center of Payne’s narrative. Franco’s only personal meeting with Hitler, in 1940 to discuss precisely this, is recounted here in groundbreaking detail that also sheds significant new light on the Spanish government’s vacillating policy toward Jewish refugees, on the Holocaust, and on Spain’s German connection throughout the duration of the war.

 

 

Blitz: The Story of December 29, 1940

Margaret Gaskin

Amazon Price: $17.82 List Price: $27.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harcourt Amazon Marketplace: 79 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> London
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

One Night During World War II 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

The German air attacks on England fall into about four main segments: Early, The Battle of Britain, The Blitz, and Later. Early was the almost casual air raids made by Germany. The Battle of Britain is usually considered to be from 9 July to 31 October 1940 and was the period when the Germans attempted to wipe out the RAF. The Blitz is the attack on British cities and is between 7 September 1940 and 16 May 1941. After that the later attacks were sporatic until the V-1 and V-2 weapons came into use.

This book is a detailed look at one day during the Blitz, December 29, 1940. This day saw the most devastating raid of the Blitz which caused what has been called The Second Great Fire of London. A famous photograph shows St Paul's Cathedral enshrouded in smoke, this photograph is used on the front cover of the book.

All in all, some 1,500 fires were started by the German incindary bombs, somewhere around 3,000 (no one knows for sure) civilians were killed. While these numbers are minor when compared to what came later in the war, the picture of St. Pauls, and the on the scene reporting by Edward R. Murrow was instrumental in convincing the Americans to enter the war.

This is not a historical report on the Blitz. It is a detailed report on what happened one night as told through the voices of people who were there.

Editorial Review:

Churchill called it his nation’s greatest trial and its finest hour. Europe had fallen to Hitler and Britain stood alone. Determined to bomb the English into submission, the German Luftwaffe attacked London nearly every night, targeting the “Square Mile,” the heart of the city and the site of some of its greatest landmarks. In this gripping historical narrative, Margaret Gaskin puts the reader into the middle of the Blitz, its horror and its heroism, by vividly reconstructing the night that Hitler tried to burn the city to the ground—the night that one of the war’s most haunting photographs was taken, showing St. Paul’s still standing amid burning ruins. Stunningly vivid and compelling, Blitz uses the voices of those on whom the bombshells fell—the ordinary and the famous, including Edward R. Murrow and FDR—to tell the story as it has never before been told.

The Swiss, The Gold And The Dead: How Swiss Bankers Helped Finance the Nazi War Machine

Jean Ziegler, John Brownjohn

List Price: $27.00 By: Harcourt Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $0.51

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Germany -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Germany -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Switzerland

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Another Swiss-bashing book 1 out of 5 stars.
8 of 21 people found this review helpful.

This is another Swiss-bashing book (not the first one from Ziegler) to be edited. Like Hitler said "if you keep on lying about a subject, in the end people will believe you". The proof is to be found in other posts here that say the Swiss stole money from Holocaust vicitims. Well after four years of an independent investigation, it was found that less than 200 accounts worth no more than $12 million belonged to Holocaust victims. The Times of London correctly called previous claims that Swiss Banks had stolen billions from Jews, a "MYTH".

The level of some peoples denial is amazing 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This is a good book on this subject it covers many areas of the Swiss partnership with the Nazis. I would highly recomend this book to anybody that is realativly new to the subject matter.

Now for my small rant.

It seams that every book on this subject has some reviewers that are in complete denial of what has been proven time and time again as fact. Why some people cannot accept that the Swiss sold their souls to the Nazis to avoid being invaded is beyond me. This book even thow it goes into many areas of the Nazi / Swiss connection, the sad unfourtunate truth is that there is even more ties that this book does not cover. A example being the fact that Swizerland was producing arms for Germany during WWII. The factorys were untouchable to the Allied bombers due to the so called neuteral status of the Swiss. If allied aircraft ventured into Swiss territory the Swiss would shoot them down, in the meantime Germany enjoyed free crossing across Switzerland by any mode of transportaion throughout WWII.

I did not write this to bash the swiss. I have no anomositys towards them. My only agenda for these statements is to maybe shake people out of the denial they so blindly post in book reviews on the subject of Switzerlands connection and profiterring off the Nazis rise to power. Every country in the world has somthing dark in its past. Denial of mistakes your culture has made really just contributes right back into the evil that was done so long ago. I have to accept my ancetors wrong doing every bit as much as anybody, I am german, and proud to be German. Quit contributing to the lies told for so many years, accept that your ancestors were not perfect. only when you accept your herritage for better or worse can you truley move on and hold your head high again.

Editorial Review:

This scathing indictment shatters the myth of Swiss neutrality during World War II, showing that Switzerland's leading financial institutions provided Hitler with the foreign exchange essential to his war effort, laundering gold looted from the banks of occupied Europe and from the bodies of concentration camp victims Author publicity. .

Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of WWII on the Eastern Front

Constantine Pleshakov

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Mariner Books Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Russia
Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> Eastern Front
Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> Europe

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Ten (more) days that shook the world 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Constantine Pleshakov's Stalin's Folly is a comprehensive and compelling examination of the first ten days of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

The invasion and the events leading up to it are well known. Pleshakov begins the story by tracing briefly the course of events in Eastern Europe in the two years before the invasion. The Hitler-Stalin Pact was signed on August 23, 1939. Eight days later, the German military launched its blitzkrieg against Poland. After the rapid defeat of Poland and pursuant to secret protocols in place between Germany and the USSR, the conquered territories were divided into Soviet and German spheres of influence. Estonia, Latvia and the eastern portion of Poland were placed under the Soviet sphere.

In an extended introductory section, Pleshakov points out that the Soviet defensive fortifications running along its old border, strong and well built, were dismantled and plans for new fortifications along the new border were made. Most of the Soviet air force was also moved into these forward areas. By the time of the invasion the new fortifications were not complete. Further the Soviet general staff and virtually its entire officer corps had either been killed or sent to the Gulag in Stalin's purges. The survivors included older cavalry generals from the Civil War and newly promoted senior officers such as the soon to be world famous Georgy Zhukov.

Despite their inexperience the Soviet High Command understood that Stalin's decision to position the bulk of his army and air force so close to the front lines was extraordinarily dangerous. From a military viewpoint, defensive lines should be further from the initial point of attack so they would have time to deploy effectively. This advance positioning would only be effective if Soviet forces were planning a preemptive attack on the German forces. And this is exactly what Stalin was planning. Pleshakov's extensive research into Soviet archives indicates that Stalin planned a preemptive strike to commence in June 1942. Stalin knew the pact would not last but that the Germans would not attack until after Hitler's armies had conquered Britain. Sadly for Stalin, by the summer of 1940 Hitler had decided not to invade Britain and turned his attention east. Hitler instructed his general staff to plan for an invasion, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, to begin in the spring of 1941.

Once the invasion begins, in the dawn hours of June 22, 1941 Pleshakov takes the reader on a detailed, almost hour-by-hour discussion of the disastrous first ten days. These were ten days in which Stalin would not speak to the Soviet people. Pleshakov details Stalin's mood swings, his deep depression and panic. Disastrous counterattacks were ordered. On the first day of the invasion virtually the entire Soviet Air Force was destroyed on the ground. Three weeks into the war, the Soviet Union had lost 28 infantry divisions and 600,000 soldiers out of 3 million in uniform. It would take 3 more years and at least 10 million more Soviet lives before the territory lost in the first ten days of the war was liberated by the Red Army.

It is a tribute to Pleshakov's writing skills that he conveys the drama and suspense of an event that we know the outcome of. I should also add that the fact that this work may be called a popular history does not mean that Pleshakov's research and attention to detail is less than rigorous. It is.

Shakespeare once wrote, that "the common curse of mankind,-folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue!" As Pleshakov so artistically and intelligently shows, folly was found in great revenue in the first ten days of the war on the Eastern Front. Yet he also shows the courage and resilience of the people of the Soviet Union that enabled them to eventually stem the tide and destroy the German armies in the east. This is an excellent book. Anyone interested in the Second World War or Soviet history should enjoy it immensely.

L. Fleisig

Editorial Review:

On June 22, 1941, radios all over the Soviet Union crackled with the announcement that the country had been attacked by Nazi Germany. But the voice on the airwaves was not the familiar one of Joseph Stalin; it was the voice of his deputy, Molotov. Paralyzed by Hitler's unexpected move, Stalin disappeared completely from public view for the crucial ten days of war on the Eastern Front. In this taut, hour-by-hour account, Constantine Pleshakov draws on a wealth of information from newly opened archives to elucidate the complex causes of the Soviet leader's reaction, revealing the feared despot's unrealized military stratagems as well as his personal vulnerabilities, while also offering a new and deeper understanding of Russian history.

FIGHTER: THE TRUE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

LEN DEIGHTON

By: GRAFTON BOOKS Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Aviation

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Must-Have Book for Aerial History Buffs 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book is probably one of the best air history books you will find. It covers a specific battle, the Battle of Britain, one of the greatest air battles of all time. And it covers all aspects of the battle extensively--the machines, the men who flew them, the other inventions that figured in the battle, such as radar, the tactics employed by both sides, and much more. Some reviewers have called it too technical. Not if what you want is a thorough study of a battle from every angle. I found it fascinating and exciting reading.
If you are interested in aerial warfare, this book will satisfy you completely.

Technology 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Deighton presents the results of modern scholarship (refuting the Churchill/Coventry myth, etc) in a fascinating way. His greatest strength is his discussion of technology, which is slighted by too many historians (who consider technology and science beneath them). A pleasure to read.

More facts with less bias, this book has more meat & potatos 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Better than the "Coffee table books" that sing adoring praises of the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots, this book better reflects the thoughts and minds of both sides on a moment-by-moment basis than any other so called "analysis" work. With interviews and photos from both sides, this book captures the daily life of a RAF or Luftwaffe pilot and gives a better story about the 'Big Picture' than anywhere else. The hand drawn cartoons by the luftwaffe pilots are worth the price of the book alone.