Hitlers Last Levy

Author : Hans Kissel
Publisher : Helion and Company
ISBN 13 : 1908916176
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hitler's Last Levy written by Hans Kissel and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2005-06-19 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth account of the formation Nazi Germany’s militia army as a desperate attempt to delay its defeat during the waning days of WWII. A companion volume to the very successful In a Raging Inferno—Combat Units of the Hitler Youth, Hans Kissel’s study offers a highly detailed account of the German Volkssturm, or Home Guard. Formed from men unfit for military service, the young, and the old, this ad-hoc formation saw extensive combat during the desperate defense of the Reich, 1944–45. The author describes the Volkssturm’s training, leadership, organization, armament, and equipment, in addition to its active service on both the Eastern and Western fronts. The text is supported by an extensive selection of appendices, including translations of documents and many fascinating eyewitness combat reports. This edition also includes over 150 previously unpublished black-and-white photos, and four pages of specially commissioned color uniform plates by Stephen Andrew.

Author : Bruno Just
Publisher : Helion
ISBN 13 : 9781909982727
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hitler's Last Levy in East Prussia written by Bruno Just and published by Helion. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 16 October, 1944, the 3rd White Russian Front launched its massive offensive against Heeresgruppe Mitte. The German 4th Armee, whose line of defense stretched from Nowograd on the Narew to Memel, was quickly broken through. This is the very personal war-diary of the adjutant of Volkssturm Einsatz Bataillon Goldap (25/235), which was activated, with a strength of 400 men, on 17 October, 1944. Inadequately armed with Russian infantry rifles lacking slings, light machine guns and Panzerfäuste, with no uniforms, entrenching tools, identity discs, blankets or medical packets, the battalion was hastily thrown into action three days later, on October 20, in the Goldap sector of the 4th Armee front, losing 76 killed and wounded in its first action. Withdrawn on 23 October for urgently needed training and better armament, the battalion went back into action on 18 January in the Eichwald northeast of Insterburg, near Stobingen, and fought on, with hardly a break, falling back to the city of Königsberg and taking a valiant part in the bitter defense that enabled the escape of refugees and most of the surviving military units by sea. The 70 survivors of the battalion owed their personal survival to an order forged by their last battalion commander that led to their relief by a Wehrmacht division and enshipment for Denmark. The author chronicles daily life dominated by desperate military action, interspersed with brief glimpses of his family, as he crosses paths with his wife and daughter, caught up in the mass of refugees fleeing before the advancing Russians. There are very few personal accounts of Hitler's last levy, the Volkssturm. For years, the handwritten diary and a copy typed by the author, remained in the files of the Bundesarchiv (L) in Bayreuth. The author's granddaughter approved publication for distribution, in photocopied form, to survivors and family members of the battalion. Such copies, in German, are hard to find. Now at last, this precious document from the closing days of World War II in East Prussia has become available in English translation, with careful footnotes filling in details regarding the Volkssturm, a unique force called into being by the Nazi Party in the closing months of the war, conceived as a party-led alternative to the Wehrmacht. Ill-equipped, pitifully armed (when armed at all) and poorly led, nevertheless on the Eastern Front - where the youngsters and older men comprising its battalions were highly motivated in a desperate attempt to delay the onrushing Russian hordes so that their wives and children could escape rape, torture, mutilation and murder at Russian hands - the Volkssturm sometimes achieved their goal.

Author : Antony Beevor
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698411498
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ardennes 1944 written by Antony Beevor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prizewinning historian and bestselling author of D-Day, Stalingrad, and The Battle of Arnhem reconstructs the Battle of the Bulge in this riveting new account On December 16, 1944, Hitler launched his ‘last gamble’ in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes in Belgium, believing he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp and forcing the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. Many were exultant at the prospect of striking back. The allies, taken by surprise, found themselves fighting two panzer armies. Belgian civilians abandoned their homes, justifiably afraid of German revenge. Panic spread even to Paris. While some American soldiers, overwhelmed by the German onslaught, fled or surrendered, others held on heroically, creating breakwaters which slowed the German advance. The harsh winter conditions and the savagery of the battle became comparable to the Eastern Front. In fact the Ardennes became the Western Front’s counterpart to Stalingrad. There was terrible ferocity on both sides, driven by desperation and revenge, in which the normal rules of combat were breached. The Ardennes—involving more than a million men—would prove to be the battle which finally broke the back of the Wehrmacht. In this deeply researched work, with striking insights into the major players on both sides, Antony Beevor gives us the definitive account of the Ardennes offensive which was to become the greatest battle of World War II.

Author : Stephen Kotkin
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 073522448X
Total Pages : 1249 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Stalin written by Stephen Kotkin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 1249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Monumental.” —The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world’s largest peasant economy into “socialist modernity,” otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became. Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa. The wholesale collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. But Stalin did not flinch. By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters. Stalin, however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of young strivers like himself. Stalin’s obsessions drove him to execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership, diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading lights in culture. While Stalin revived a great power, building a formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies. The quest for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain would not unfold as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision, as the world hung in the balance. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin’s seat of power. It is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship, and in the art of biography.

Author : Alan Levy
Publisher : Constable Limited
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 488 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Wiesenthal File written by Alan Levy and published by Constable Limited. This book was released on 1993 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relates Simon Wiesenthal's biography and the most prominent of his activities. Wiesenthal was born in Galicia, and during the Second World War went through a number of labor and concentration camps. Disappointed by the laxity of American military authorities, he founded his own Documentation Center in Austria to trace Nazi war criminals. Wiesenthal played a key role in tracking down Eichmann, Mengele, Stangl of Treblinka, Wagner of Sobibór, and Braunsteiner-Ryan of Majdanek. Wiesenthal was also active in the search for Wallenberg. In 1986 he was involved in the Waldheim affair. Despite the World Jewish Congress's firm belief that Waldheim was a war criminal, Wiesenthal could not substantiate these allegations, and came to Waldheim's defense. Wiesenthal's activities brought him into conflict with Bruno Kreisky, Austrian Chancellor and a "self-hating Jew".

Author : W. Darrin Weaver
Publisher : Collector Grade Publications
ISBN 13 : 9780889353725
Total Pages : 394 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Desperate Measures written by W. Darrin Weaver and published by Collector Grade Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Deb Levy
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781484068632
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bury the Hot written by Deb Levy and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-04-13 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She grew up celebrating holidays with Sal's family. She trick-or-treated with his daughter. Yet Deb knew nothing about Sal's past until he called out of the blue and asked her to write his story. There was a reason she didn't know. Sal hadn't even told his wife the details of his childhood. BURY THE HOT is the Holocaust story few have the tenacity or courage to share, and explores both a traumatized childhood, and how the repression of it impacts a marriage. It is the heartbreaking account of evading murder, and a brutally honest reflection of a life lived trying to escape the memories.

Author : Yehuda Bauer
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780300068528
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Jews for Sale? written by Yehuda Bauer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world has recently learned of Oskar Schindler's efforts to save the lives of Jewish workers in his factory in Poland by bribing Nazi officials. Not as well known, however, are many other equally dramatic attempts to negotiate with the Nazis for the release of Jews in exchange for money, goods, or political benefits. In this riveting book, a leading Holocaust scholar examines these attempts, describing the cast of characters, the motives of the participants, the frustrations and few successes, and the moral issues raised by the negotiations. Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined sources, Yehuda Bauer deals with the fact that before the war Hitler himself was willing to permit the total emigration of Jews from Germany in order to be rid of them. In the end, however, there were not enough funds for the Jews to buy their way out, there was no welcome for them abroad, and there was too little time before war began. Bauer then concentrates on the negotiations that took place between 1942 and 1945 as Himmler tried to keep open options for a separate peace with the Western powers. In fascinating detail Bauer portrays the dramatic intrigues that took place: a group of Jewish leaders bribed a Nazi official to stop the deportation of Slovakian Jews; a Czech Jew known as Dogwood tried to create an alliance between American leaders and conservative German anti-Nazis; Adolf Eichmann's famous "trucks for blood" proposal to exchange one million Jews for trucks to use against the Soviets failed because of Western reluctance; and much more. Tormenting questions arise throughout Bauer's discussion. If the Nazis were actually willing to surrender more Jews, should the Allies have acted on the offer? Did the efforts to exchange lives for money constitute collaboration with the enemy or heroism? In answering these questions, Bauer's book—engrossing, profound, and deeply moving—adds a new dimension to Holocaust studies.

Author : James P. Levy
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 9780742545373
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Appeasement and Rearmament written by James P. Levy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standing against conventional wisdom, historian James Levy reevaluates Britain's twin policies of appeasement and rearmament in the late 1930s. By carefully examining the political and economic environment of the times, Levy argues that Neville Chamberlain crafted an active, logical and morally defensible foreign policy designed to avoid and deter a potentially devastating war. Levy shows that through Chamberlain's experience as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he knew that Britain had not yet fully recovered from the first World War and the longer an international confrontation could be avoided, the better Britain's chances of weathering the storm. In the end, Hitler could be neither appeased nor deterred, and recognizing this, Britain and France went into war better armed and better prepared to fight.

Author : Hans Holztrager
Publisher : Helion & Company Limited
ISBN 13 : 9781874622178
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book In a Raging Inferno written by Hans Holztrager and published by Helion & Company Limited. This book was released on 2004-02-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a Raging Inferno is the first English-language book ever to recount the story of the Hitler Youth and its combat role at the end of World War II. During the desperate final months of the Third Reich boys (and girls) as young as ten were thrown into action against the advancing British, American and Soviet armies, frequently fighting with a fanatical and suicidal fury. The author spent many years collecting material and interviewing veterans of the Hitler Youth combat units. The result is a fascinating - and sometimes disturbing - account, packed with eyewitness accounts and rare photographs. In addition, well-known military artist Stephen Andrew has produced 4 superb pages of color uniform plates.