The Rise of Germany, 1939-1941

The War in The West, Volume 1

By: James Holland

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

For seven decades, our understanding of World War II has been shaped by a standard narrative built on conventional wisdom, propaganda, the dramatic but narrow experiences of soldiers on the ground, and an early generation of historians. For his new history, James Holland has spent over 12 years unearthing new research, recording original testimony, and visiting battlefields and archives that have never before been so accessible.

In The Rise of Germany, the first of a major new three-part history of World War II in the West, he weaves together the experiences of dozens of individuals, from civilians and infantrymen to line officers, military strategists, diplomats, and heads of state, as well as war strategy, tactics, and the economic, political, and social aspects of the war to create a captivating audiobook that redefines and enhances our understanding of one of the most significant conflicts in history.

Beginning with the lead-up to the outbreak of war in 1939 and ending in 1941 on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Russia, The Rise of Germany is a masterful history of the war on land, in the air, and at sea, destined to generate significant scholarly debate and listener interest.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2015 James Holland. First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

A must listen!

James Holland sheds new light on a subject that many may believe has been covered to the point of exhaustion!! From his re-examination of the myth of Wehrmacht mechanization and “blitzkrieg” to his in depth look at the nuts and bolts operational level of the war.

Paul Boehmer does a magnificent job narrating! Right down to spot on pronunciations of names and technical terminology along with various accents that, along with tone help keep a 28hr book alive and interesting!

Looking forward to volumes 2 and 3 of this series!!

Epic

listened to part 1, 2, 3 in reverse. Fascinating. The authors level of detail and use of personal storys is great

Keen Information

Though I knew much of this, learned much. The pronunciation of words took away from the flow of the narrative. I can say this as a German speaker with some French learning. Nontheles, about to download part 2.

Beware The RAISHHH

When I listened to the preview, I was initially thrilled that the couple of German names I heard were actually not massacred . . . little did I know.

Yet again—see my review of "Nemesis," by Max Hastings—we are confronted by a Performance, and not a Narration.

In this regrettable case, as in so many others, the narrator fancies himself not just an expert in multiple foreign languages, but also in the accents to go with them.

I'm not sure which is worse—a narrator who utterly mangles every foreign name or place, but does not attempt to "speak" every utterance by the multiple foreign personages in the book with an attempt at their accent, or the opposite—a narrator who "might" be able to passably pronounce foreign names and places, but then goes WAY beyond the call of duty and tries to attempt the accents of these poor people, who of course spoke the original words not in a criminally incompetent attempt to add their country's accent to an English translation.

Thus we have a "Night Of The Generals" situation (the execrable 1970s-era all-star cast movie about some sort of Uber-criminal stalking the Nazi High Kommand, with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole speaking English with hilarious German accents, as was the custom of the time) where all the "Chermanns" speek viss zese kindss off schtuffs . . .

However, with THIS narrator, it's so over the top that he actually seems to puff himself up before speaking one of these words, as in every instance of the word "Reich."

The result is so ludicrous that you just go dizzy shaking your head in wonder at how this guy ever got a job as an audiobook narrator . . . something like " . . . and Adolf Hitler and the Third—rrrrrRRRRRRRRRAAAAAISSSSHHH!" which the first time is bizarre, but subsequently FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE ENTIRE BOOK this guy does it again and again; and that is not the *only* verbal tic—dozens, maybe hundreds of them littered across persons, places and RRRAAAAISSSHHHes . . . if it weren't for the excellent writing (why doesn't James Holland narrate his OWN audiobooks? He's an excellent speaker—and I'm finding to my regret that the second book in this series suffers from precisely the opposite scenario—bad pronunciation, but no attempt to "perform") then I would have stopped listening about 30 minutes in.

I just am at my wits' end as to where they find these people to narrate these WWII books, which are spring-loaded to be chock-full of foreign names and places. The good ones probably number less than a dozen out of hundreds that I've listened to so far.

Thorough treatment of WW2: 1939-1942

Narration is reasonably clear but uneven: occasionally speaker sounds like he is in an echo chamber; seems to be switching off between two speakers, which is jarring; overuse of some phrases (eg., in terms of); lack of variation in rhythm and cadence.

Explanation of how war materials procured and influence on tactics and strategies is exceptionally well explained. This book-length integration of each of these factors is this a unique, important contribution to the WW2 literature.

Many important ideas repeated throughout the story, so I suppose some listeners Will be annoyed, preferring several hours be edited out if this audiobook.

RECOMMENDED, but I rate this audio lower than volume two of this three-volume series.

Good Story; Bad Reader

Would you consider the audio edition of The Rise of Germany, 1939-1941 to be better than the print version?

No opinion

Who was your favorite character and why?

No opinion

How did the narrator detract from the book?

His French pronunciation is appalling; he even gets some English words wrong. He is overly dramatic. He did a bad job on The Red Flag too.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Old war; new facts

Two historical and epic years.

Great detail of specific events and persons. It favored the Allied perspective. The narrator brought good energy.

Excellent

I'm glad I ignored some of the other reviews. I personally thought it was well-written and well performed. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the events between 1939 and 1941.

Kept my interest all the way through

I really appreciated how Holland emphasizes aspects about the war that are often ignored, such as logistics and industrial output. He doesn’t set out to show how powerful Germany was compared to a weak France, but instead reveals the opposite: France was still one of the most powerful industrialized nations in the world by 1940, and Germany’s apparent mechanization was only still developing. German victory over Poland, Norway, France, and Greece was indeed swift, but it came at a tremendous cost of lives and machines and relied on near reckless risk-taking.
Some people said they couldn’t stand the narrator, but I thought he was fine. I definitely will be listening to more James Holland books.

Another stunner from James Holland

James Holland is at his best here. The history of the beginnings of WWII, this being part 1 before the US is trust into the effort completely, is not a new undertaking. The history of the Third Reich has been told repeatedly, but Holland always brings a well o under and personal perspective. He’s able to at once maintain an overall perspective mixed with first person accounts. It’s brilliant as ever. What a stunning work. Paul Boehmer is exceptional here.