German History English

A country both admired and feared, Germany has been the epicenter of world events time and again: the Reformation, both World Wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It did not emerge as a modern nation until 1871 - yet today, Germany is the world's fourth-largest economy and a standard-bearer of liberal democracy.

Before 1871, Germany was not yet a nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring 39 individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? How would he convince proud Prussians, Bavarians, and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France - all without destroying itself in the process?

May 1945. Hitler is dead, and the Third Reich is little more than smoking rubble. No GI wants to be the last man killed in action against the Nazis. But for cigar-chewing, rough-talking, hard-drinking, hard-charging Captain Jack Lee and his men, there is one more mission: rescue 14 prominent French prisoners held in an SS-guarded castle high in the Austrian Alps. It's a dangerous mission, but Lee has help from a decorated German Wehrmacht officer and his men, who voluntarily join the fight.

For almost four desperate years between 1939 and 1943, British and American navies fought a savage, losing battle against German submarine wolf packs. The Allies might never have turned the tide of that historic battle without an intelligence coup. The race to break the German U-boat codes is one of the last great untold stories of World War II.

Greg Donahue’s The Minuteman, tells the story of one of Newark’s native sons; ex-prizefighter and longtime Zwillman enforcer Sidney Abramowitz, a.k.a. Nat Arno, who took over leadership of the Minutemen in 1934 and made it his personal business to put an end to what he saw as the Bund’s “anti-American” activities. For six years, Arno and his crew of vigilantes battled Newark’s Nazis at every turn. The Minuteman is a story of the ethics of violence in the face of fascism; a forgotten legacy that is as relevant now as it was nearly a hundred years ago.

May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.

Thomas Sowell provides us with a useful and concise record tracing the history of nine ethnic groups: Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans.

Germany is one of the richest and most influential countries in the world, which is amazing when you consider that the nation is only about the size of the US states of Oregon and Washington combined. It’s even more astounding when you consider that at the end of World War II, every major German city (and many minor ones) had been flattened by the Allied bombing campaign. Still more amazing is that the country has gone from international pariah and home of the Holocaust to one of the most well-regarded and humanitarian nations on Earth.

Hitler’s Last Resort: The Child Soldiers of the Third Reich As the Third Reich faced its downfall, Hitler turned to a desperate defense strategy: children. Fueled by relentless war propaganda, many members of the Hitler Youth believed that they could still achieve final victory and save Germany from collapse. By 1943, around 200,000 Luftwaffe auxiliaries, some as young as 15, were almost single-handedly defending German cities. In the fall of 1944, the Volkssturm became mandatory for everyone aged 16 and up, and by 1945, the Nazi regime even exploited 14-year-olds as stopgaps and cannon ...

Considered one of the finest tanks of WWII, the Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger tank killed 11.52 tanks for every one Tiger destroyed in battle. Tigers suffered a large number of non-combat losses, however, as the chaos of wartime and the Tiger’s mechanical reliability reduced the number of deployable tanks, then along with frequent breakdowns the Tiger managed only 5.25 enemy tanks killed for every lost Tiger. The Second World War began with the lightning German Blitzkrieg as their Wehrmacht raced across Europe, spearheaded by the most dreaded weapon of the 20th century. No German tank better ...

""An astonishing true story of courage, love, and betrayal, told with the verve of a thriller. Freedland is a master at weaving spellbinding entertainments drawn from forgotten corners of history.""—Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow Horses From the New York Times bestselling author of...

After World War II, 50 percent of Americans polled said they didn’t believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker in 1945, as captured Nazi officials claimed. Instead, they believed the dictator faked his death and escaped, perhaps to Argentina. This wasn’t a crazy opinion: Joseph Stalin told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler’s body and that he personally believed the Nazi leader had escaped justice. At least two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Argentina in July 1945.

This “elegant and sobering” (The New York Times) history reveals how Germany’s fractured republic gave way to the Third Reich, from the breakthrough of the Nazi party to the rise of Hitler Amid the ravages of economic depression, Germans in the early 1930s were pulled to political extremes...

With Virginia Woolf as a guide, the stories of eight radical 20th century women--wanderers, rebels, explorers, mentors--who made a life for themselves in spite of everything. Everything that changed in the 20th century changed more dramatically for women. Her Own Voice tells the stories of eight...

This is the riveting and extraordinary story of Kapitan Herbert Cleff, presented here for the first time by Brian Brinkworth. Cleff, an officer on the staff of General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, attached to the 21st Panzer division operating in the Western desert, was captured near El Dab'a in Libya on the sixth of November, 1942. He was interrogated both in the Western Desert and in the United Kingdom, following assessments that led his British captors to believe that he might prove useful to the Allied war effort. During this interrogation period, Cleff kept releasing tantalizing snippets.

Secrets of Encirclement Warfare: A Gripping Exploration of the Intersection of Land and Air Power Imagine being surrounded by enemy forces, with limited supplies and no clear escape route. This is the harsh reality of encirclement warfare, a tactic that has been used to devastating effect throughout history. From the frozen tundras of World War II to the jungles of Vietnam, encirclement has proven to be a game-changer on the battlefield. In this fascinating and deeply researched book, we delve into the world of encirclement warfare, exploring the successes and failures of this complex and ...

An out-of-work actor accepts the role of a lifetime—sitting soundlessly in a lecture theater, zipped into a large leather bag—to aid a professor’s psychological experiment. What could possibly go wrong? In Luke Kennard’s audacious new novel, a penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a...

First published in 1955, They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Milton Mayer's book is a study of 10 Germans and their lives from 1933-45, based on interviews he conducted after the war when he lived in Germany.

The Cursed Generation: Untold Stories of Wehrmacht Soldiers For decades, the Holocaust has rightly occupied a central place in our understanding of history. Yet there is a less explored facet of World War II—the personal experiences of the soldiers who fought on the German side. The Cursed Generation fills this gap, offering a nuanced perspective that challenges sweeping generalizations. Germany's culture of remembrance struggles to separate Nazis from Wehrmacht soldiers, silencing many conversations about the latter's experiences. This fear of misjudgment has long affected the entire ...

German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative. Looking beyond Prussia to German-speaking Europe across the last five centuries, Wilson finds little unique or preordained in German militarism or warfighting. Iron and Blood takes as its starting point the consolidation of the Holy Roman Empire, which created new mechanisms for raising troops but also for resolving disputes diplomatically.