Author: Peter Caddick-Adams Publisher: National Geographic Books ISBN: 1529157730 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
March 1945. Allied troops are poised to cross the Rhine and sweep on into Germany. Victory is finally within their grasp. But if they believe this victory can be easily won, they face swift disillusionment. The final 100 days of the Second World War will prove to be bitterly and bloodily fought, village by village, town by town. In Victory in the West 1945 acclaimed military historian Peter Caddick-Adams brings this closing stage of the Allies' fight against Nazi Germany brilliantly to life. He explores the immense challenges they faced in crossing the Rhine on a 300-mile front. He tells stories of individual acts of resolve and heroism, of often exhausted troops pressing forward attacks in the face of ferocious resistance. He recounts their shocked first encounters with the barbarities of Hitler's regime as they reached the gates of Buchenwald, Belsen and Dachau. And he goes behind the front line to analyse the strategic decisions made at Allied headquarters and to offer pin-sharp portraits of the military leaders. Throughout he draws on a vast range of memoirs and personal interviews with survivors to give a vivid sense of what it was like to encounter enemy combatants and civilians face to face. Compulsively readable, this will be the standard work on the closing days of the Second World War for a generation.
Author: Norman Davies Publisher: Pan Macmillan ISBN: 0330472291 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 596
Book Description
The conventional narrative of the Second World War is well known: after six years of brutal fighting on land, sea and in the air, the Allied Powers prevailed and the Nazi regime was defeated. But as in so many things, the truth is somewhat different. Bringing a fresh eye to bear on a story we think we know, Norman Davies.Davies forces us to look again at those six years and to discard the usual narrative of Allied good versus Nazi evil, reminding us that the war in Europe was dominated by two evil monsters - Hitler and Stalin - whose fight for supremacy consumed the best people in Germany and in the USSR . The outcome of the war was at best ambiguous, the victory of the West was only partial, its moral reputation severely tarnished and, for the greater part of the continent of Europe, ‘liberation’ was only the beginning of more than fifty years of totalitarian oppression. ‘Davies writes with real knowledge and passion.’ Michael Burleigh, Evening Standard ‘Punchy and compelling' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph
Author: Martin Gilbert Publisher: Holt Paperbacks ISBN: 1429900377 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 527
Book Description
One of Britain's most acclaimed historians presents the experiences and ramifications of the last day of World War II in Europe May 8, 1945, 23:30 hours: With war still raging in the Pacific, peace comes at last to Europe as the German High Command in Berlin signs the final instrument of surrender. After five years and eight months, the war in Europe is officially over. This is the story of that single day and of the days leading up to it. Hour by hour, place by place, this masterly history recounts the final spasms of a continent in turmoil. Here are the stories of combat soldiers and ordinary civilians, collaborators and resistance fighters, statesmen and war criminals, all recounted in vivid, dramatic detail. But this is more than a moment-by-moment account, for Sir Martin Gilbert uses every event as a point of departure, linking each to its long-term consequences over the following half century. In our attempts to understand the world we inherited in 1945, there is no better starting point than The Day the War Ended.
Author: Gerhard L. Weinberg Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191008761 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 153
Book Description
The enormous loss of life and physical destruction caused by the First World War led people to hope that there would never be another such catastrophe. How then did it come about that there was a Second World War causing twice the 30 million deaths and many times more destruction as had been caused in the previous conflict? In this Very Short Introduction, Gerhard L. Weinberg provides an introduction to the origins, course, and impact of the war on those who fought and the ordinary citizens who lived through it. Starting by looking at the inter-war years and the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he examines how the war progressed by examining a number of key events, including the war in the West in 1940, Barbarossa, The German Invasion of the Soviet Union, the expansion of Japan's war with China, developments on the home front, and the Allied victory from 1944-45. Exploring the costs and effects of the war, Weinberg concludes by considering the long-lasting mark World War II has left on society today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author: Norman Davies Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1440651124 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 596
Book Description
One of the world's leading historians re-examines World War II and its outcome A clear-eyed reappraisal of World War II that offers new insight by reevaluating well-established facts and pointing out lesser-known ones, No Simple Victory asks readers to reconsider what they know about the war, and how that knowledge might be biased or incorrect. Norman Davies poses simple questions that have unexpected answers: Can you name the five biggest battles of the war? What were the main political ideologies that were contending for supremacy? The answers to these questions will surprise even those who feel that they are experts on the subject. Davies has established himself as a preeminent scholar of World War II. No Simple Victory is an invaluable contribution to twentieth-century history and an illuminating portrait of a conflict that continues to provoke debate.
Author: Ken Ford Publisher: Greenwood ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 104
Book Description
In early 1945 Allied Armies attempted to enter Germany by seizing the west bank of the Rhine. The Germans opened the Roer dams and the ensuing battle was characterized by amphibious attacks, frontal assaults on the much vaunted Siegfried Line and grim fighting for the Reichswald Forest.
Author: Stanley Weintraub Publisher: Plume Books ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 784
Book Description
From the inner councils of the Japanese to the fateful decisions to atom-bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stanley Weintraub brings to life this watershed month in which empires fell, old orders passed away, and a new age began. "The best account yet of the war's final month".--Newsweek. photos. 3 maps.
Author: Lionel Frederic Ellis Publisher: ISBN: 9781845740597 Category : World War, 1939-1945 Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The second of two books in the 18-volume official history of the Second World War describing the 1944-45 campaigns in western Europe. Opening in September 1944, the book describes Montgomery s plan to leapfrog the River Rhine, and Eisenhower s preference for a broad front advance. After the failure of the British attempt to outflank the Germans with the airborne landings at Arnhem, the book describes the slow Allied advance into the Low Countries. Hammered by the relentless bombing raids of the RAF and USAF, Hitler attempted an audacious counter-attack through the snowbound Ardennes in December, which, after initial success, was thrown back in the Battle of the Bulge . Setting the final fighting in the context of debate and disagreement among the Allies on post-war policy towards Germany, the authors narrate the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945, and the subsequent rapid collapse of a shattered and demoralised Germany. The book concludes with the meeting of the western allies and Russian forces on the Elbe, the grim discovery of the Nazi concentration camps, Hitler s suicide, and the surrender of the German armed forces to Montgomery on Luneburg Heath. There are eleven appendices on the forces engaged, and such subjects as the post-war allied administratioon of Germany. The book is illustrated with 8 general maps, 16 situation maps, 20 sketch maps and 61 photographs.
Author: Peter Caddick-Adams
Author: Peter Caddick-Adams
Author: Norman Davies
Author: Lionel Frederic Ellis
Author: Martin Gilbert
Author: Gerhard L. Weinberg
Author: Norman Davies
Author: Ken Ford
Author: Stanley Weintraub
Author: Lionel Frederic Ellis