- Table View
- List View
The Nazi Party and the German Foreign Office (Routledge Studies in Modern European History #Vol. 11)
by Hans-Adolph Jacobsen Arthur L. Smith Jr.The Nazi Party and the German Foreign Office explores the struggle between entrenched diplomats in the Foreign Office and Party loyalists, who presumed that with the assumption of power in 1933 total state control was theirs.
The Nazi Party in Dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotzeit 1923-25
by David JablonskyThis book examines the effect the Verbotzeit had on the leadership structure and on the consequent position of the party within the völkisch movement. Looking primarily at Bavaria and North Germany it examines the failed attempts that were made to prevent Hitler from filling the leadership void within both the NSDAP (the National Socialist German Workers' Party) and the völkisch movement.
Nazi Plunder: Great Treasure Stories Of World War II
by Kenneth D. AlfordWorld War II was the most devastating conflict in human history, but the tragedy did not end on the battlefields. During the war, Germany--and, later, the Allies--plundered Europe's historic treasures. Between 1939 and 1945, German armed forces roamed from Dunkirk to Stalingrad, looting gold, silver, currency, paintings and other works of art, coins, religious artifacts, and millions of books and other documents. The value of these items, many of which were irreplaceable, is estimated in the billions of dollars. The artwork alone, looted under Hitler's direction, exceeded the combined collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the Louvre. As the war wound to its conclusion in 1945, occupying forces continued the looting. The story of these celebrated works of art and other vanished treasures--and the mystery of where they went--is a remarkable tale of greed, fraud, deceit, and treachery. Kenneth Alford's Nazi Plunder is the latest word on this fascinating subject.
Nazi Prisons in the British Isles: Political Prisoners during the German Occupation of Jersey and Guernsey, 1940–1945 (Modern Conflict Archaeology)
by Gilly CarrWith firsthand sources and archeological research, this study explores life inside Nazi prisons during the occupation of the Channel Islands.Through most of the Second World War, Nazis occupied the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, two British Crown dependencies in the English Channel. With extensive research, archeologist Gilly Carr has uncovered the enduring legacies of this occupation. In Nazi Prisons in Britain, she shines a light on the lives of citizen resisters who became political prisoners on their own soil. Carr explores political prisoner consciousness and solidarity through the letters of the “Jersey 21” and the diaries of Frank Falla, Guernsey’s best-known resister. Drawing on memoirs, poetry, graffiti, official archives, and material culture—as well as the words of war criminals, traitors, surrealist artists, and many others—she reveals what life was like inside these brutal Nazi prisons.
Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World
by Jeffrey HerfJeffrey Herf, a leading scholar in the field, offers the most extensive examination to date of Nazi propaganda activities targeting Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East during World War II and the Holocaust. He draws extensively on previously unused and little-known archival resources, including the shocking transcriptions of the "Axis Broadcasts in Arabic" radio programs, which convey a strongly anti-Semitic message. Herf explores the intellectual, political, and cultural context in which German and European radical anti-Semitism was found to resonate with similar views rooted in a selective appropriation of the traditions of Islam. Pro-Nazi Arab exiles in wartime Berlin, including Haj el-Husseini and Rashid el-Kilani, collaborated with the Nazis in constructing their Middle East propaganda campaign. By integrating the political and military history of the war in the Middle East with the intellectual and cultural dimensions of the propagandistic diffusion of Nazi ideology, Herf offers the most thorough examination to date of this important chapter in the history of World War II. Importantly, he also shows how the anti-Semitism promoted by the Nazi propaganda effort contributed to the anti-Semitism exhibited by adherents of radical forms of Islam in the Middle East today.
The Nazi Revolution: Hitler's Dictatorship and the German Nation (Fourth Edition)
by Allan MitchellThis anthology explores the Nazi movement in the context of German history and society.
Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, And The German Atomic Bomb
by Mark WalkerIn this book, Mark Walker - a historical scholar of Nazi science - brings to light the overwhelming impact of Hitler's regime on science and, ultimately, on the pursuit of the German atomic bomb. Walker meticulously draws on hundreds of original documents to examine the role of German scientists in the rise and fall of the Third Reich. He investigates whether most German scientists during Hitler's regime enthusiastically embraced the tenets of National Socialism or cooperated in a Faustian pact for financial support, which contributed to National Socialism's running rampant and culminated in the rape of Europe and the genocide of millions of Jews. This work unravels the myths and controversies surrounding Hitler's atomic bomb project. It provides a look at what surprisingly turned out to be an Achilles' heel for Hitler - the misuse of science and scientists in the service of the Third Reich.
Nazi Secret Warfare in Occupied Persia (Iran)
by Adrian O’sullivanThis is the first full-length work to be published about the spectacular failure of the German intelligence services in Persia (Iran) during WWII. Based on archival research it analyzes a compelling history of Nazi planning, operations, personalities, and intrigues, and follows the protagonists from Hitler's rise to power into the postwar era.
Nazi Spies & Collaborators in Britain, 1939–1945
by Neil R. Storey"...reveals the climate of fear along with the identities and case studies of suspected collaborators in key invasion areas." —ARGunners.comThe true extent of Nazi secret agent activity in Britain during the Second World War has received little attention. In large part this is due to the highly classified nature of the subject. This fascinating book uses recently released documents to explore how German agents penetrated our borders and explains methods of agent recruitment. Some spies were arrested and handed over the MI5 for interrogation. Several were turned and became ‘double-cross’ agents, while others were tried and executed or incarcerated in Camp 020 and other facilities. There were also those who came and left undetected and were only revealed after Nazi records were seized. The story, however, does not end there. While British authorities urged the public to beware of spies and posters warned ‘careless talk costs lives,’ the actual existence of Nazi collaborators in Britain was played down. Author Neil R Storey’s discovery of MI5’s and Regional Security Panels’ ‘Black Lists’ of those considered to be ‘likely to assist the enemy’ in the event of invasion reveals the climate of fear along with the identities and case studies of suspected Nazi collaborators in key invasion areas. This book is a gripping exposé of the very real threat posed by Nazi undercover operatives and collaborators in Britain during the Second World War.
Nazi Spymaster: The Life and Death of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris
by Gerhard L. Weinberg Michael MuellerAdmiral Wilhelm Canaris was the head of the Abwehr?Hitler's intelligence service?from 1935 to 1944. Initially a supporter of Hitler, Canaris came to vigorously oppose his policies and practices and worked secretly throughout the war to overthrow the regime. Near the end of the war, secret documents were discovered that implicated Canaris and hinted at the extent of the activities conducted by Canaris's Abwehr against the Hitler regime, and in 1945 Canaris was executed as a national traitor. But Canaris left little in the way of personal documents, and to this day he remains a figure shrouded in mystery. Drawing on newly available archival materials, Mueller investigates the double life of this legendary and enigmatic figure in the first major biography of Canaris to be published in German.
Nazi Steel
by Marcus O. JonesThis study explores an exemplary instance of the close interaction between private and official interests in planning and executing the programs of the Nazi government, namely the acquisition in 1941 of the Rombach steel works by the German industrialist Friedrich Flick. The industrial concern headed by Flick was among the largest and most influential steel producers and manufacturers of war material in the German economy during World War II. Its activities in the occupied territories of western Europe centered on control of the Rombach works, a large operation established in Lorraine in the late nineteenth-century by German industrialists and expropriated by France, along with the entire region, in the aftermath of the First World War. After successful military operations against France in 1940, the Nazi regime actively sought the collusion of the German industrial community in mobilizing the productive capacity of occupied territories for the war effort, and numerous private German businessmen advanced claims on the lucrative assets in Lorraine and adjacent regions. In his bid to gain control of the Rombach works, Flick was successful for reasons specific to his position within the Nazi German economic system and the character of his interests. This account of his activities, then, serves as a fine example of Nazi economic and occupation policy and its response to party, business, and bureaucratic influences.
The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II
by Robert P. WatsonBuilt in 1927, the German ocean liner SS Cap Arcona was the greatest ship since the RMS Titanic and one of the most celebrated luxury liners in the world. When the Nazis seized control in Germany, she was stripped down for use as a floating barracks and troop transport. Later, during the war, Hitler's minister, Joseph Goebbels, cast her as the "star" in his epic propaganda film about the sinking of the legendary Titanic.Following the film's enormous failure, the German navy used the Cap Arcona to transport German soldiers and civilians across the Baltic, away from the Red Army's advance. In the Third Reich's final days, the ill-fated ship was packed with thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Without adequate water, food, or sanitary facilities, the prisoners suffered as they waited for the end of the war. Just days before Germany surrendered, the Cap Arconawas mistakenly bombed by the British Royal Air Force, and nearly all of the prisoners were killed in the last major tragedy of the Holocaust and one of history's worst maritime disasters.Although the British government sealed many documents pertaining to the ship's sinking, Robert P. Watson has unearthed forgotten records, conducted many interviews, and used over 100 sources, including diaries and oral histories, to expose this story. As a result, The Nazi Titanic is a riveting and astonishing account of an enigmatic ship that played a devastating role in World War II and the Holocaust.Visit NaziTitanic.com
Nazi UFOs: The Legends and Myths of Hitler’s Flying Saucers in WW2
by S.D. TuckerNazi UFOs tells the strange tale of how, following the first alleged flying saucer sightings made in the USA in 1947, a series of fantasists and neo-fascists came forward to create a media myth that the Nazis may have invented these incredible craft as a means for winning the Second World War, a plan which was tantalisingly close to completion before the Allies conquered Berlin in 1945. Today, the fantasy of Nazi UFOs has grown into an entire mythology in books, on TV and online. Did Germany back-engineer anti-gravity craft, and even a full-blown time-machine, by stripping technology from a crashed alien saucer? Did the SS secretly invent ‘Green’ technology for use in their star ship engines, and was this planet-saving discovery later suppressed at the behest of a sinister Big Oil conspiracy? Did Himmler try to develop ‘lightning weapons’ for use in aerial combat? By contrasting the fake military-industrial pseudo-histories of Nazi UFO theorists with details of real-life Nazi aerospace achievements, the author demonstrates both how this modern-day mythology came about and how it cannot possibly be more than fractionally true. For the first time, this fake ‘alternative military history’ is laid out in full. This book features an appealing cast of con-men and spies, complete madmen, real-life Nazis and completely made-up ones, operating right across the globe from South America to wartime Europe and Japan. A good example may be the ‘mad professor’, Viktor Schauberger, who actually genuinely did manage to gain a personal audience with Adolf Hitler in order to try and convince him that he had discovered and then exploited some amazing new source of natural ‘free energy’ which could make objects (such as saucers, in the opinion of some) float. Hitler dismissed his plan, but it does nonetheless show how close some bizarre schemes came to being implemented in Nazi Germany.
Nazi Volksgemeinschaft Technology: Gottfrried Feder, Fritz Todt, and the Plassenburg Spirit
by John C. GuseThis book traces how Gottfried Feder and Fritz Todt made technology essential to the Nazi ‘world view’. They groomed engineers with a racist technical ideology that prepared them to later supervise slave labor and the Holocaust. Their concepts evolved from völkisch technocracy to an idealized harmony of man, machine and nature, and were eclipsed by Albert Speer’s total war. Partially due to willing ‘self-coordination’ from engineers, they gained political control over the engineering profession. Destined to be pillars of the Volksgemeinschaft, engineers were indoctrinated with Nazi principles of Aryan superiority at the Reich School of Technology, the Plassenburg. Nazi propaganda announced a bright future through technology, furthering a sense of normalcy in Germany, despite the ruthless exclusion of those unwanted.
Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg: Controversies Regarding the Role of the Office of Strategic Services
by Michael SalterReviewing recently declassified CIA documents, this book provides a balanced but critical discussion of the contribution of American intelligence officials to the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Giving new details of how senior Nazi war criminals, such as SS General Karl Wolff, were provided with effective immunity deals, partly as a reward for their wartime cooperation with US intelligence officials, including Allen Dulles, former CIA Director, the author also discusses the role of such officials in mobilizing the unique resources of a modern intelligence agency to provide important trial testimony and vital documentary evidence. Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg argues that both war crimes prosecutors and intelligence officials can engage in mutually beneficial collaborations, but that both sides need to recognize and appreciate the problems that may arise from the fact that these institutions are required to operate according to different, and in some cases contradictory, agendas. This topical book gives those studying, or with interests in, international law, criminal law and history an insight into the debates surrounding international war crimes, within the context of the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany
by James WyllieNazi Wives is a fascinating look at the personal lives, psychological profiles, and marriages of the wives of officers in Hitler's inner circle.Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, Hess, Bormann—names synonymous with power and influence in the Third Reich. Perhaps less familiar are Carin, Emmy, Magda, Margaret, Lina, Ilse and Gerda... These are the women behind the infamous men—complex individuals with distinctive personalities who were captivated by Hitler and whose everyday lives were governed by Nazi ideology. Throughout the rise and fall of Nazism these women loved and lost, raised families and quarreled with their husbands and each other, all the while jostling for position with the Fuhrer himself. Until now, they have been treated as minor characters, their significance ignored, as if they were unaware of their husbands' murderous acts, despite the evidence that was all around them: the stolen art on their walls, the slave labor in their homes, and the produce grown in concentration camps on their tables.James Wyllie's Nazi Wives explores these women in detail for the first time, skillfully interweaving their stories through years of struggle, power, decline and destruction into the post-war twilight of denial and delusion.
The Nazis: A Warning From History
by Laurence ReesFollowing the success of Rees' bestselling Auschwitz, this substantially revised and updated edition of The Nazis - A Warning from History tells the powerfully gripping story of the rise and fall of the Third Reich.During a 16-year period, acclaimed author and documentary-maker Laurence Rees met and interviewed a large number of former Nazis, and his unique insights into the Nazi psyche and World War 2 received enormous praise.At the heart of the book lies compelling eyewitness accounts of life under Adolf Hitler, spoken through the words of those who experienced the Nazi regime at every level of society. An extensive new section on the Nazi/Soviet war (previously published in Rees' War of the Century) provides a chilling insight into Nazi mentality during the most bloody conflict in history.Described as one of the greatest documentary series of all times The Nazis - A Warning from History won a host of awards, including a BAFTA and an International Documentary Award.
Nazis after Hitler: How Perpetrators of the Holocaust Cheated Justice and Truth
by Donald M McKaleThis deeply researched and informative book traces the biographies of thirty "typical" perpetrators of the Holocaust—some well known, some obscure—who survived World War II. Donald M. McKale reveals the shocking reality that the perpetrators were only rarely, if ever, tried or punished for their crimes, and nearly all alleged their innocence in Germany's extermination of nearly six million European Jews during the war. He highlights the bitter contrasts between the comfortable postwar lives of many war criminals and the enduring suffering of their victims. The author shows how immediately after the war's end in 1945, Hitler's minions, whether the few placed on trial or the many living in freedom, carried on what amounted to a massive postwar ideological campaign against Jews. To be sure, the perpetrators didn't challenge the fact that the Holocaust happened. But in the face of exhaustive evidence showing their culpability, nearly all declared they had done nothing wrong, they had not known about the Jewish
Nazis en las sombras (Historia Incógnita)
by Julio B. MuttiArgentina fue un hervidero de espías nazis durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Estaban en todos los estamentos y vinculados estrechamente con las altas esferas luchando por el control estratégico de Sudamérica. La historia de estos espías, sin embargo, no ha sido revelada hasta ahora. “Nazis en las sombras” desvela la historia documentada y nunca antes narrada de las redes de espionaje nazis en Argentina durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Su verdadero alcance, tamaño, objetivos y actividades clandestinas. Es sabido que la Argentina fue el último puente con Occidente de la Alemania nazi. Sin embargo, la historia en las sombras de los más de ciento cincuenta espías que apuntalaron aquella situación a permanecido oculta, a medio narrar o simplemente desconocida por más de setenta años. Las presentes páginas harán recorrer al lector la extensa geografía argentina. Desde la sureña Santa Cruz hasta el norte más árido, los alemanes expandieron sus redes de información y estaciones clandestinas de radiotelegrafía. Chacras misteriosas, dobles agentes y desembarcos clandestinos en playas desoladas llevaran el relato a su punto culminante. Las relaciones y pactos secretos de los espías nazis con el poder gobernante de los años cuarenta no pueden ser eludidos. Salvoconductos secretos, utilización de la información de espionaje y hasta acuerdos de alta política entre naciones sudamericanas aparecerán evidenciados en el transcurso de la presente investigación.
The Nazi's Granddaughter: How I Discovered My Grandfather was a War Criminal
by Silvia FotiA deathbed promise leads a daughter on an incredible journey to write about her grandfather who was a famous war hero. But this journey had a terrible destination: the discovery that he was a Nazi war criminal. Silvia Foti&’s mother was dying. Wanting to preserve family history, Silvia&’s mother asks her to write a book about Foti&’s grandfather, Jonas Noreika, a famous WWII hero. Foti&’s grandmother tries to intervene - begging her granddaughter not to write about her husband. &“Just let history lie,&” she whispered. Foti had no idea that in keeping her promise to her mother, her discoveries would bring her to a personal crisis, unearth Holocaust denial, and expose an official cover-up by the Lithuanian government that resulted in an internationally-followed lawsuit. Jonas Noreika was a Lithuanian known as General Storm. He led an uprising that won the country of Lithuania back from the communists, only to have it fall under Nazi control. He was an official during the Holocaust and chief of the second largest region in the country during the Nazi occupation, yet he became a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Foti set out to write a heroic biography about her famous grandfather. But as she dug ever deeper, she &“encountered so much evidence proving my flesh and blood &‘hero&’ was a Jew-killer, even I could no longer believe the lie.&” The Nazi's Granddaughter is Foti&’s first-hand account of her journey, which began as an act of family pride and ended with uncovering the secret her family, and an entire nation, had kept hidden for 79 years. It addresses: How should our family&’s past, shameful or noble, shape our identity? How could one man be revered as a hero, having a grammar school named after him, and yet be a villain responsible for the deaths of thousands? Why are some European countries still in denial about their role in the Holocaust? How was this kept secret until now?
Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East
by Barry Rubin Wolfgang G. SchwanitzA groundbreaking account of the Nazi-Islamist alliance that changed the course of World War II and influences the Arab world to this day.During the 1930s and 1940s, a unique and lasting political alliance was forged among Third Reich leaders, Arab nationalists, and Muslim religious authorities. From this relationship sprang a series of dramatic events that, despite their profound impact on the course of World War II, remained secret until now. In this groundbreaking book, esteemed Middle East scholars Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz uncover for the first time the complete story of this dangerous alliance and explore its continuing impact on Arab politics in the twenty-first century.Rubin and Schwanitz reveal, for example, the full scope of Palestinian leader Amin al-Husaini’s support of Hitler’s genocidal plans against European and Middle Eastern Jews. In addition, they expose the extent of Germany’s long-term promotion of Islamism and jihad. Drawing on unprecedented research in European, American, and Middle East archives, many recently opened and never before written about, the authors offer new insight on the intertwined development of Nazism and Islamism and its impact on the modern Middle East.“[Nazis, Islamists] reinsert[s] racial ideology into the study of the desert conflict and thereby offer[s] new insights into the Nazis’ relationships with their North African and Middle Eastern partners.” —Mia Lee, Contemporary European History“Thoroughly researched and closely argued.” —David Pryce-Jones, National Review“The odd-couple marriage between Nazis and Arab nationalists has come under increasingly revealing scrutiny over the last decade. Here, fresh research from previously unexamined archives explicitly ties that frightening nexus to today’s Middle East.”—Gene Santoro, World War II magazine“This book tells a remarkable and–to me at least–little known but very important story.” —Marshall Poe, New Books in History
The Nazis Knew My Name: A remarkable story of survival and courage in Auschwitz
by Magda Hellinger Maya LeeThe extraordinarily moving memoir by Australian Slovakian Holocaust survivor Magda Hellinger, who saved an untold number of lives at Auschwitz through everyday acts of courage, kindness and ingenuity. In March 1942, twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and nearly a thousand other young Slovakian women were deported to Poland on the second transportation of Jewish people sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The women were told they'd be working at a shoe factory. At Auschwitz the SS soon discovered that by putting Jewish prisoners in charge of the day-to-day running of the accommodation blocks, camp administration and workforces, they could both reduce the number of guards required and deflect the distrust of the prisoner population away from themselves. Magda was one such prisoner selected for leadership and over three years served in many prisoner leader roles, from room leader, to block leader – at one time in charge of the notorious Experimental Block 10 where reproductive experiments were performed on hundreds of women – and eventually camp leader, responsible for 30,000 women. She found herself constantly walking a dangerously fine line: using every possible opportunity to save lives while avoiding suspicion by the SS, and risking torture or execution. Through her bold intelligence, sheer audacity, inner strength and shrewd survival instincts, she was able to rise above the horror and cruelty of the camps and build pivotal relationships with the women under her watch, and even some of Auschwitz's most notorious Nazi senior officers including the Commandant, Josef Kramer. Based on Magda's personal account and completed by her daughter Maya's extensive research, including testimonies from fellow Auschwitz survivors, this awe-inspiring tale offers us incredible insight into human nature, the power of resilience, and the goodness that can shine through even in the most horrific of conditions.
The Nazis' Nuremberg Rallies
by James Wilson&“An amazing collection of original photographs and postcards relating to the Nuremberg rallies of the Nazis . . . the book is dazzling.&” —War History Online This book describes the background to and the development of the Nazi Party Rallies held at Nuremberg each September from 1933 to 1939. These Reichsparteitage (National Party Days) were vast and meticulously staged managed extravaganzas in which ritual and ceremony played an important part. The Rallies had two key objectives. The first was to focus public attention on the successes of the Nazi Party and connect with the public conscience and build a close bond between Party and people. Even more important was the Rallies&’ role in presenting Adolf Hitler as the savior of the German nation sent to restore national pride, power and prosperity after the shame and economic disaster of the post war years and the deeply resented Versailles Treaty. The Hitler Cult was blatantly promoted with revolutionary use of propaganda by the latest technology and iron control of the media. The author&’s superb collection of postcards and images takes the reader on a visual journey through each year&’s Reichsparteitage. The Nazis&’ Nuremberg Rallies, which also includes character studies of the principal Nazi figures, is a truly fascinating way to understand this uniquely successful and threatening phenomena.&“Excellent . . . The book really does bring each and every rally to life, the book also has some rare photos that I haven&’t seen before and it also displays posters and postcards designed for the events. So you get to see the propaganda on multiple levels.&” —UK Historian
Los nazis sabían mi nombre
by David Brewster Maya Lee Magda HelllingerUna historia extraordinaria de supervivencia y coraje en Auschwitz Marzo de 1942, una joven maestra de jardín de niños llamada Magda Hellinger, procedente de Eslovaquia, fue deportada al campo de concentración de Auschwitz junto con casi mil mujeres más, en el que sería uno de los primeros arribos de mujeres judías al terrible campo nazi. En muy poco tiempo la brutalidad del nazismo se volvió el principio de realidad en el que Magda se movía. Por si fuera poco, las SS descubrieron que al poner a ciertos prisioneros a cargo de los bloques donde cientos de personas se alojaban les permitía trasladar sus responsabilidades hacia estos individuos que, si no llevaban a cabo sus labores administrativas de la manera adecuada, simplemente eran eliminados. Magda fue una de esas prisioneras seleccionadas para hacerse cargo del infame Bloque 10, en el que personal médico alemán experimentaba con los reclusos. En estas memorias, Magda nos relata cómo caminó al filo de la navaja durante varios años: salvar la mayor cantidad de vidas mientras evitaba las sospechas de las SS y corría el riesgo de ser ejecutada. A través de su fuerza interior y su instinto de supervivencia, pudo superar el horror y la crueldad de Auschwitz y construir relaciones de amistad con las mujeres bajo su vigilancia. La historia de Magda es un testimonio de cómo el espíritu humano puede salir adelante aun en las condiciones más deshumanizantes.
The Nazis' Winter Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941–1945: Rare Photographs From Wartime Archives (Images of War)
by Ian BaxterGraphically describes the appalling hardships faced by German troops on the Eastern Front 1941-1945.Hitler’s shock decision to launch the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 was arguably the turning point of the Second World War. Spectacular early victories saw the Nazis close in on Moscow but the Soviet 1941/42 winter counter offensive changed the odds entirely. Without doubt Russian winter conditions were a major factor compounded by the Germans’ woeful lack of preparedness. As this fascinating book reveals, Wehrmacht and SS units only began to be issued with winter clothing in late 1941 and many had to improvise well into 1942. In an attempt to restore morale adversely affected by the harsh conditions and military reversals ‘The Winter Warfare Handbook’ (Winter Buch) was produced in 1942 and extracts are quoted in this work. Commanders had to adapt to the snow, freezing conditions and, almost worse, the impassable roads during the melt. With customary thoroughness and drastic measures the Germans largely mastered the climatic challenges but nothing could mask the reality of the ruthless and numerically superior enemy that they faced.