The German War

Author: Nicholas Stargardt
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465073972
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 761

Book Description
A groundbreaking history of what drove the Germans to fight -- and keep fighting -- for a lost cause in World War II In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of firsthand testimony -- personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence -- to explore how the German people experienced the Second World War. When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war the Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict -- the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of German cities -- alter their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realize they were fighting a genocidal war? Told from the perspective of those who lived through it -- soldiers, schoolteachers, and housewives; Nazis, Christians, and Jews -- this masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs and fears of a people who embarked on and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.

The German War

Author: Nicholas Stargardt
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 009953987X
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 738

Book Description
WINNER OF THE 2016 PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE The Second World War was a German war like no other. The Nazi regime, having started the conflict, turned it into the most horrific war in European history, resorting to genocidal methods well before building the first gas chambers. Over its course, the Third Reich expended and exhausted all its moral and physical reserves, leading to total defeat in 1945. Yet 70 years on - despite whole libraries of books about the war's origins, course and atrocities - we still do not know what Germans thought they were fighting for and how they experienced and sustained the war until the bitter end. When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict - the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of Germany's cities - change their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realise that they were fighting a genocidal war? Drawing on a wealth of first-hand testimony, The German War is the first foray for many decades into how the German people experienced the Second World War. Told from the perspective of those who lived through it - soldiers, schoolteachers and housewives; Nazis, Christians and Jews - its masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs, hopes and fears of a people who embarked on, continued and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.

Germany at War [4 volumes]

Author: David T. Zabecki
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1598849816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1938

Book Description
Written by experts for use by nonexperts, this monumental work probes Germany's "Genius for War" and the unmistakable pattern of tactical and operational innovation and excellence evident throughout the nation's military history. Despite having the best military forces in the world, some of the most advanced weapons available, and unparalleled tactical proficiency, Germany still lost both World Wars. This landmark, four-volume encyclopedia explores how and why that happened, at the same time examining Germany as a military power from the start of the Thirty Years' War in 1618 to the present day. Coverage includes the Federal Republic of Germany, its predecessor states, and the kingdoms and principalities that combined to form Imperial Germany in 1871. The Seven Years' War is discussed, as are the Napoleonic Wars, the Wars of German Unification (including the Franco-Prussian War), World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. In all, more than 1,000 entries illuminate battles, organizations, leaders, armies, weapons, and other aspects of war and military life. The most comprehensive overview of German military history ever to appear in English, this work will enable students and others interested in military history to better understand the sociopolitical history of Germany, the complex role conflict has played in the nation throughout its history, and why Germany continues to be an important player on the European continent.

The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945

Author: Alfred C. Mierzejewski
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 146963970X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
In this book Alfred Mierzejewski describes how the German economy collapsed under Allied bombing in the last year of World War II. He presents a broad-based, original study of German wartime industry and transportation, and of Allied air force planning and intelligence, including the first complete analysis in English of the German National Railway. The German industrial economy was extraordinarily dependent on the timely, adequate distribution of coal by railroad and inland waterway. The German National Railway in particular was the pivot of the finely balanced armaments production and distribution system created by Albert Speer. But Allied strategists did not immediately recognize this. Only in late 1944, when Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Sir Arthur Tedder built a new strategic consensus, was this vital coal/transport nexus severed. The result was the rapid paralysis of the Nazi war economy. Mierzejewski measures the economic consequences of the bombing by considering broad indices such as armaments and coal production, railway performance, and weapons deliveries to the armed forces. In addition, he shows how individual companies in each of Germany's major economic regions fared. By drawing on previously unexamined files of private German manufacturing companies, the Reich Transportation Ministry, and Allied air intelligence agencies, Mierzejewski creates a rare combination of economic analysis and military history that provides new perspectives on the German war economy and Allied air intelligence.

Genius for War

Author: Trevor Nevitt Dupuy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780963869210
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description

Orderly and Humane

Author: R. M. Douglas
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300183763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

Book Description
The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic). Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless. In this authoritative and objective account, historian R.M. Douglas examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the forced migrations were conceived, planned, and executed, and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The first comprehensive history of this immense manmade catastrophe, Orderly and Humane is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing." It may also be the most significant untold story of the World War II.

Germany's War and the Holocaust

Author: Omer Bartov
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801468817
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Omer Bartov, a leading scholar of the Wehrmacht and the Holocaust, provides a critical analysis of various recent ways to understand the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime and the reconstruction of German and Jewish identities in the wake of World War II. Germany's War and the Holocaust both deepens our understanding of a crucial period in history and serves as an invaluable introduction to the vast body of literature in the field of Holocaust studies.Drawing on his background as a military historian to probe the nature of German warfare, Bartov considers the postwar myth of army resistance to Hitler and investigates the image of Blitzkrieg as a means to glorify war, debilitate the enemy, and hide the realities of mass destruction. The author also addresses several new analyses of the roots and nature of Nazi extermination policies, including revisionist views of the concentration camps. Finally, Bartov examines some paradigmatic interpretations of the Nazi period and its aftermath: the changing American, European, and Israeli discourses on the Holocaust; Victor Klemperer's view of Nazi Germany from within; and Germany's perception of its own victimhood.

The German Way of War

Author: Robert Michael Citino
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
For Frederick the Great, the prescription for warfare was simple: kurz und vives (short and lively) - wars that relied upon swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again. Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great sleigh-drive against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I.

The German Way of War

Author: Jaap Jan Brouwer
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526790386
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Book Description
How the German Army combined opposing characteristics, such as drill and creativity, authority and independent thinking, into a potent mix of fighting power. The German Army lost two consecutive wars and the conclusion is often drawn that it simply wasn’t able to cope with its opponents. This image is constantly reinforced in literature and in the media, where seemingly brainless operating German units led by fanatical officers predominate. Nothing was as far from the truth. The records show that the Germans consistently outfought the far more numerous Allied armies that eventually defeated them: their relative battlefield performance was at least 1.5 and in most cases 3 times as high as that of its opponents. The central question in this book is why the German Army had a so much higher relative battlefield performance than the opposition. A central element within the Prussian/German Army is Auftragstaktik, a tactical management concept that dates from the middle of the nineteenth century and is still very advanced in terms of management and organization. Using more than fifty examples to illustrate the realities of the battlefield, from North Africa to Arnhem and the Hürtgen Forest, the author explains why the Prussian/German Army was such an unprecedented powerful fighting force. And why Auftragstaktik—under other guises—is still the basic form of operation for many European armies, with even the US Army introducing certain elements of Auftragstaktik into its organization, more than 150 years after its conception. “A fascinating book looking at the way the German Army went about training its units and men.” —UK Historian

Islam and Nazi Germany’s War

Author: David Motadel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674744950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509

Book Description
Winner of the Ernst Fraenkel Prize, Wiener Holocaust Library An Open Letters Monthly Best History Book of the Year A New York Post “Must-Read” In the most crucial phase of the Second World War, German troops confronted the Allies across lands largely populated by Muslims. Nazi officials saw Islam as a powerful force with the same enemies as Germany: the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Jews. Islam and Nazi Germany’s War is the first comprehensive account of Berlin’s remarkably ambitious attempts to build an alliance with the Islamic world. “Motadel describes the Mufti’s Nazi dealings vividly...Impeccably researched and clearly written, [his] book will transform our understanding of the Nazi policies that were, Motadel writes, some ‘of the most vigorous attempts to politicize and instrumentalize Islam in modern history.’” —Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal “Motadel’s treatment of an unsavory segment of modern Muslim history is as revealing as it is nuanced. Its strength lies not just in its erudite account of the Nazi perception of Islam but also in illustrating how the Allies used exactly the same tactics to rally Muslims against Hitler. With the specter of Isis haunting the world, it contains lessons from history we all need to learn.” —Ziauddin Sardar, The Independent