Wehrmacht and German Rearmament PDF Download

Author: Wilhelm Deist
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349083860
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Author: Gerhard P. Gross
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813168392
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Surrounded by potential adversaries, nineteenth-century Prussia and twentieth-century Germany faced the formidable prospect of multifront wars and wars of attrition. To counteract these threats, generations of general staff officers were educated in operational thinking, the main tenets of which were extremely influential on military planning across the globe and were adopted by American and Soviet armies. In the twentieth century, Germany's art of warfare dominated military theory and practice, creating a myth of German operational brilliance that lingers today, despite the nation's crushing defeats in two world wars. In this seminal study, Gerhard P. Gross provides a comprehensive examination of the development and failure of German operational thinking over a period of more than a century. He analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of five different armies, from the mid--nineteenth century through the early days of NATO. He also offers fresh interpretations of towering figures of German military history, including Moltke the Elder, Alfred von Schlieffen, and Erich Ludendorff. Essential reading for military historians and strategists, this innovative work dismantles cherished myths and offers new insights into Germany's failed attempts to become a global power through military means.

Author: Alaric Searle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780313093210
Category : Generals
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Author: David Clay Large
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807845394
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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In "Germans to the Front," David Large charts the path from Germany's total demilitarization immediately after World War II to the appearance of the Bundeswehr, the West German army, in 1956. The book is the first comprehensive study in English of West Ge

Author: Samuel W. Mitcham Jr.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0275996425
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 768

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Book Description
The Rise of the Wehrmacht is the first comprehensive work to deal with the German war effort in World War II from this point of view. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it covers the entire war effort from the point of view of the German military that actually conducted and fought the war, something that has never been done before on this scale. Excellent books have been written about the German Army, Navy, the Luftwaffe, and the SS, as well as about the Panzer branch, the parachute arm, the U-Boat forces, etc., but this is the first to cover them all in depth. Mitcham also covers the German Wehrkreise (roughly translated as military district) system in depth and recognizes its importance, both in the formation and expansion of the German Army before the war and in its continuing importance throughout the conflict. He deals with the German rearmament in greater depth and detail than has been done before, points out the importance of the police in the development of Germany's reserves before and during World War II, and offers new insights into the evolution and development of the German military doctrine of Kesselschlact (the decisive battle of encirclement and annihilation). In addition, The Rise of the Wehrmacht explains the problems the Wehrmacht faced because of its too rapid expansion. This expansion was far more rapid than the German generals intended and resulted in many problems, especially in terms of equipment shortages and a shortage of qualified officers. Finally, Mitcham addresses the contributions of the Hitler Youth to the war effort, where their work on farms, fire and rescue crews, in nursing, and as postal workers, for example, provided essential services to German infrastructure.

Author: Wolfram Wette
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674022133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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This book is a profound reexamination of the role of the German army, the Wehrmacht, in World War II. Until very recently, the standard story avowed that the ordinary German soldier in World War II was a good soldier, distinct from Hitler's rapacious SS troops, and not an accomplice to the massacres of civilians. Wolfram Wette, a preeminent German military historian, explodes the myth of a "clean" Wehrmacht with devastating clarity. This book reveals the Wehrmacht's long-standing prejudices against Jews, Slavs, and Bolsheviks, beliefs that predated the prophecies of Mein Kampf and the paranoia of National Socialism. Though the sixteen-million-member German army is often portrayed as a victim of Nazi mania, we come to see that from 1941 to 1944 these soldiers were thoroughly involved in the horrific cleansing of Russia and Eastern Europe. Wette compellingly documents Germany's long-term preparation of its army for a race war deemed necessary to safeguard the country's future; World War II was merely the fulfillment of these plans, on a previously unimaginable scale. This sober indictment of millions of German soldiers reaches beyond the Wehrmacht's complicity to examine how German academics and ordinary citizens avoided confronting this difficult truth at war's end. Wette shows how atrocities against Jews and others were concealed and sanitized, and history rewritten. Only recently has the German public undertaken a reevaluation of this respected national institution--a painful but necessary process if we are to truly comprehend how the Holocaust was carried out and how we have come to understand it.

Author: Jörg Echternkamp
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1789205581
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 570

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Book Description
Contemporary historians have transformed our understanding of the German military in World War II, debunking the “clean Wehrmacht” myth that held most soldiers innocent of wartime atrocities. Considerably less attention has been paid to those soldiers at the end of hostilities. In Postwar Soldiers, Jörg Echternkamp analyzes three themes in the early history of West Germany: interpretations of the war during its conclusion and the occupation period; military veteran communities’ self-perceptions; and the public rehabilitation of the image of the German soldier. As Echternkamp shows, public controversies around these topics helped to drive the social processes that legitimized the democratic postwar order.

Author: Timothy A. Wray
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781780394244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Author: Ian Ona Johnson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190675144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Pre-publication subtitle: Soviet-German military cooperation in the interwar period.

Author: Robert Michael Citino
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9781555877149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Deals with the military activities of the German Reichswehr in the interwar period. Traces the path by which the army not only managed to survive, but to lay the groundwork for its rebirth by preparing a veritable military revolution. Tells how the army reassessed its methods of making war, developed a new doctrine stressing the war of movement, and devised a realistic operation doctrine for tanks and other mechanized vehicles. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR