• Inside the Nazi War Machine

  • How Three Generals Unleashed Hitler's Blitzkrieg Upon the World
  • By: Bevin Alexander
  • Narrated by: Ray Porter
  • Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (68 ratings)

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Inside the Nazi War Machine  By  cover art

Inside the Nazi War Machine

By: Bevin Alexander
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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Publisher's summary

In January of 1940, France possessed the most powerful army in Europe. Under orders of the Fuhrer, the German General Staff reluctantly drew up a lackluster plan of invasion. Yet it was the audacious scheme of three of Hitler’s top generals that brought down France’s military force, Rather than simply move troops to engage the enemy, for the first time they would unleash the tank and drive straight into the heart of their foe. Inside the Nazi War Machine explores how this new tactic – the blitzkrieg – gave control of Europe to the brutal Nazi regime and set the stage for World War II.

©2010 Bevin Alexander (P)2010 Oasis Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about Inside the Nazi War Machine

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good listen ..... however...

Before you listen to this audiobook, spend 15 minutes and print out a few maps of France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. THEN sit down and listen to this book. Great listen for the history buff. Highly recommended.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

So good. Need to listen to it again.

An excellent, lively book narrated by the best narrator Audible has!

What more do you want? The drawbacks of Charbis tanks, Rommel's blasting away a hole in the Maginot line and driving his tanks through by firing at both flanks non-stop.

The bravery of British betrayed by the French surrender, and the shock of the British ambush that forced Hitler to avoid attacking Dunkirk.

As the author says: For want of a nail, the ship was lost. If Hitler had listened to his Generals and let them loose on Dunkirk instead of depending on Goering, the history would be different and we would all be typing this out in German.

I play the Company of Heroes RTG, and I have learnt a lot of how to utilize the strategies outlined here.

The book would have been spoiled if not for Ray Porter. He brings out the urgency, the panache, the chutzpah and the anger well.

May he live long and prosper.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

LOVE THIS BOOK

If you could sum up Inside the Nazi War Machine in three words, what would they be?

Detailed, Clear and Concise....I personally love books like this as the military thought going into campaigns to me is interesting.

What did you like best about this story?

Both French and German commanders are discussed as well as the processes they followed to either achieve their goals or fall short of them.

Which character – as performed by Ray Porter – was your favorite?

Great steady pace not too slow or too fast.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The battle for Stonne was covered well.

Any additional comments?

Highly praise this book and encourage others to listen to it.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Hitlers cowardess

Great book. Shows how hitler was so fixated on things that made him loose the war with ease

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Starts poorly, improves some

The first hour-and a-half is dull, plodding, repetitive, colorless, lifeless. OK, I guess I have become a snob. I thought this shorter length would be nice, as I didn't want 21 hours of every nut and bolt and jerry-can in this campaign. But it turns out, it should have been one-tenth this length, and would be better. If the listener has any sophistication on this at all, even having seen a decent documentary of this, this experience will be excruciating. (And it lacks the redeeming quality of good documentary film scenes.) It is every well-worn obvious cliche, but worse, it repeats every such thing many times. For example, fast concentrated armor can punch through a static and spread-out defensive line, and then disrupt the defender from many novel angles. This simple central insight is said literally dozens of times (no exaggeration) with barely any variation. If you have little knowledge of this history, yes, Hitler was an enlisted man in trench warfare and tended to cling (sometimes) to rusty ideas about infantry and artillery. OK, and the old guard in his staff thought similarly. Oh, and Sun Tzu said surprise is good in war, and some commanders have used this in history. My 7th grade history teacher told all this content in a more animated and sprightly way in 2 minutes.

But then, it starts to open out into an actual narrative, events and actions and places and people, that moves, and moves fairly well. But then, it flops over to a different problem: unit names and locations without effective description and context. The audiobook itself can't present a map, so the names and locations blur in the mind.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Like reading a map without the map.

This book read more like academic literature than anything else. "....German Army Group A moved east over bridge X, exposing their left flank, or southern flank, to French Army 2 and German Tank Commander counterattacked for 10 hours. French Army 2's tanks ran out of gas and it took them 3 hours to fill up their gas tanks due to poor French tank design. Six hours later, German Army Group A's rear supply squad moved supplies northeast over bridge X and the German Army Group A was resupplied..."

You have to be very, very familiar with the exact towns, bridges, rivers, forests and other landmarks of this particular area in order to get the best audio experience.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant Description of why France Fell in 1940

I have read dozens of Military books on the May 1940 Fall of the Low Countries and this book is without a doubt the BEST dissertation on this subject I have ever read. (Or Listened to!)
With the fantastic descriptions of the brilliance of Guderian (and mostly the outrageous personal courage of Erwin Rommel) AND the added bonus of having the KING of audio reads, Ray Porter, doing the reading, this book was so fascinating that I kept re-listening to some chapters just for the historical knowledge that was being disseminated. Well done! I would love to have the author do a similar book on why The British lost Singapore so disastrously. Thank you Bevin Alexander and Ray Porter!
Great book!!

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