Germany Books

This book is both scholarly and riveting. It describes the controversial assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, originally Himmler's deputy at SS headquarters and later supreme Nazi commander of the Czech territories. No one will be shocked to learn of SS oppression of the occupied territories in Central Europe, but it is especially chilling to hear a detailed account. The book will come as a revelation to those who may never have heard of Heydrich, or who have encountered only scattered references to his name. In fact, at 38 years old, Heydrich was a rising star in the Nazi movement and one of its most brutal figures at the time of his killing. One especially shocking feature of the book is that Heydrich comes off as an even more vile character than Hitler, to whatever extent that is possible. The handsome SS-Oberfuehrer was actually an expert at manipulating Hitler, egging him on to some of his worst atrocities by falsely claiming that revolts were brewing in the occupied territories. Based on these generally illusory reports, Hitler would give Heydrich and the SS a free hand in using all possible suppressive tactics against the native populations. It was Heydrich who chaired the infamous Wannsee conference, which sealed the fate of European Jewry; afterwards, he was sometimes rumored to be Hitler's likely successor as the Third Reich stretched onward into the late 20th century. After finishing off the Jews, Heydrich planned to deport the entire Polish race to death camps, followed by as many as 60% of the Czechs (those who were deemed non-Germanizable.) The book argues that the assassination occurred in the following context. Czech intelligence was astoundingly good even before the Munich Conference in 1938. The main reason is that Paul Thuemmel (the mysterious Agent A-54), a high-ranking Wehrmacht officer, was spying for the Czechs for reasons that are still not clear. After the German invasion of their country, Czech intelligence fled to London, from where they broadcast news to their oppresssed countrymen and trained patriot commandoes in Scotland to undertake parachute raids in the motherland. Czech access to Thuemmel gave them an enviable position with respect to the British and Soviet governments, who first learned in this way of the planned Nazi invasion of Russia. But in February of 1942, Thuemmel was discovered and arrested by the Gestapo. This put Eduard Benes and his Prague exiles under great pressure to find other avenues to maintain their prestige with the leading Allied powers. They achieved this result with the killing of Heydrich, who had gotten off to a busy start in Prague with the summary execution of the city's student leaders, and with other brutal, cynical maneuvers. (One of the worst was Heydrich's proclamation tripling pension benefits for Czech citizens, knowing fullwell that he planned to gas most of them well before retirement age.) Two Czech soldiers who had parachuted back into the country in late 1941 attempted the hit on Heydrich on what was reportedly his very last day in Prague, on May 27th in 1942. His next stop was to have been France, where he would certainly have liquidated the French resistance by means of the despicable techniques pioneered in occupied Czechoslovakia. At the crucial moment, the gun meant to kill Heydrich jammed, but a bomb wisely designed as a back-up sent shrapnel into his spleen. The man often described as the model SS soldier died a week later in Prague, of blood poisoning (the Nazis did not have penicillin, which would probably have saved his life). Wicked retaliations followed. The village of Lidice, wrongly thought to be connected with the killing, had all of its males over age 15 shot on the spot. The women were sent to death camps, and so were the non-Germanizable children. The "best" children were put up for adoption in Germany, and tracked down after the war by the Red Cross. Furthermore, all political prisoners were immediately executed, and a special train of Prague Jews was immediately sent to Auschwitz, labelled with signs reading "The Assassination of Heydrich". The son of the family that had provided a safe house for the assassins was tortured for a full day without revealing any information. He finally broke down when the SS brought into his presence the severed head of his mother floating in a fish tank (she had actually taken cyanide earlier in the day to avoid interrogation). Having been broken in this way, he finally revealed the hiding place of the valiant assassinsРthe basemnt of a greek Orthodox Church in central Prague. After a courageous siege in the church, the assassins and their look-out men use their final bullets to take their own lives. The names of the assassins had already been supplied by a traitorРanother of the Czech parachutists who had turned on his compatriots, perhaps with the initial aim of preventing further German retaliation against innocent civilians. This traitor, Karel Curda, later went into the permanent employ of the SS, marrying the sister of a ranking official and posing as a commando in various parts of Czechoslovakia so that anyone offering him aid might be captured and executed. He himself was hanged after the war by his outraged countrymen after stating at trial, "You would have done it too for one million marks." Heydrich's deputy, a grim one-eyed Sudeten book dealer named Karl Frank, was also hanged after the war. The story of Heydrich is an amazing one in so many respects, and the author proivdes us with an exhaustive but readable picture of several key elements to the story: 1) the grim background of Heydrich's manipulative rise from cashieered Navy womanizer and SA street-brawler to Heinrich Himmler's ace hatchet man. We watch on in amazement as the lonely teen-aged son of an obscure Halle composer turns into a formidable customer matching intrigues with the shadowy likes of Martin Bormann and Adolf Hitler himself. 2) the remarkable tale of the birth of the Czech intelligence service. This story of the far-sighted Frantisek Moravec and his brilliant cultivation of a top agent within the German military would be worthy of a book in its own right. 3) the complicated saga of former Czech President Eduard Benes, stiffed by the appeasing allies at Munich in 1938. Benes is the picture of liberally-minded nationalism, but also of a ruthless politician willing to risk the deaths of hundreds of countrymen in his power-jockeying against the Czech Communist Party for eventual postwar influence. 4) the cloak-and-dagger tale of the assassination itself, one of the best real-life spy stories one could ever hope to read. The eventual assassins are forced to improvise following a disastrous parachute drop miles from their target zone and to indiscreetly debate the merits of the assassination with resistance workers concerned about the after-effects for the general population. 5) finally, the account of brutal SS retaliation against innocent Czech civilians in the wake of Heydrich's death. This part of the book offers one the best account I've ever read of Nazi atrocities OUTSIDE of the notorious death camps. In sum, the author gives us at least five compelling narratives woven into one compact account that will leave even ardent death penalty opponents (such as this reviewer) cheering in spite of themselves for the timely fall of Reinhard Heydrich.

This book is undoubtedly the definitive work on Reinhard Heydrich. As can be seen from the title, it focuses on both the brutal career of this so-called "Nazi Martyr" as well as his assassination, which has been hidden behind inaccuracy ever since it occured over fifty years ago. The book sheds very informing light on Exiled Czech President Eduard Benes and his government exiled in London, who sponsored the assassination, codenamed ANTHROPOID, for the main purpose of showing post-war world powers that the Czechs had attempted to strike out against the seemingly invincible Nazis that combined brutal measures and their seemingly immortal power to Germanize Czech soil and incorporate it into the Greater German Reich. Yet, Benes seemed to be pig-headed enough to continue the operation, despite his knowledge of the brutality of Nazi reprisals, especially when it came to killing a high-ranking official of grand importance. And then there is Heydrich himself, the ideal Nordic Man, a cold, calculating manipulator that worked his way up to the top in the SS. He had created the SD, or "Sicherheitsdienst" (Intelligence Service), the RSHA, or "Reichsicherheitshauptampt" (Reich Main Security Office), and had organised the infamous Wannsee Conference, in which the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned to the finest detail. He was also in charge of the "Einsatzgruppen," or the Mobile Killing Units which operated in Nazi-Occupied territories in the East. In late 1941, he was appointed by Hitler to be Reichsprotektor of Bohemia-Moravia. In this he excelled and was determined in smothering the remnats of the Czech Resistance. His successes grew, and so did his reputation within the Nazi regime. During this time, two young members of the Czech Brigade, Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik, were trained for the sole purpose of killing Heydrich who had now come to be known as the "Butcher of Prague." On the morning of May 27, 1942, at a suburban corner in Prague, Heydrich was being driven by his chauffeur, Klein, in his open Mercedes to the airport where he was to fly to Berlin to meet with Hitler and discuss Nazi occupation policy, the two assassins managed to mortally wound the Nazi--by a whisker. What followed was a brutal rampage: thousands of Jews and Czechs deported, the relatives of Kubis and the ANTHROPOID team's lookout man, Josef Valcik, killed, and the destruction of the two Czech villages of Lidice and Lezaky, in which the majority of the population was killed. The three team members, along with other parachutists, fought with the SS in the Karel Boromejsky Church where they had been hiding from the Gestapo for days in a crypt beneath the church. They fought for six hours and at the last minute, all of them used their last bullets to commit suicide rather than be taken alive. A captured Czech parachutist, Seargeant Karel Curda, had been caught a while before and had led the Gestapo to discover where the assassins were hiding. He received one million marks for his contribution and his mother and sister were saved. He became a Gestapo agent and married a daughter of an SS man. After the war, he stated to his prosecutor, when asked at how he could have betrayed his comerades, "You would do the same for one million marks." He was hanged for treason. Embarrassed by the enormous amounts of reprisals that followed Heydrich's assassination, Benes denied all responsibility for ANTHROPOID and stated that it was the work of the Czech resistance in Prague and London had nothing to do with it. This is just a part of the vivid episodes that the reader will encounter while reading Callum MacDonald's impressive and awesome account of the life and death of "the man with the heart of iron," Reinhard Heydrich. Get it and read it before it dissapears for good!

A great book about the King Of England's German troops from Hanover that did their bit for King and Country. Who by doing so also established a great combat record for Bravery and overall professionalism. RSM Chappell has done a 1st rate job that is worthy of its subject.

The written portion concentrates on the early history of the KGL and is an excellant synopsis. There is a short section on uniforms/equipt but the outstanding color plates and descriptions give you most of the detailed info that Osprey & Chappell are famous for. The b/w drawings are also helpful. This book and its mate fit in nicely with the other Napoleonic Brit Army Osprey titles.

This is, of course, the definitive reference on DTCs. I have had my own personal copy for some time now and call it my 'blue book'. (No mystery there, that is the colour of the dust jacket! :). As the previous reviewer wrote, it has been with me for quite some time & I hope it (or a newer edition) will remain with me for a long time to come.

This is one work which should be within an arm's length (!) of a lot of us who are involved in DTCs, but it is a sad fact that there are many offices of many firms that do not have a single copy of this book (or, for that matter, any equivalent commentary)...

Very highly recommended! I turn to it again and again, just to see whether the 'blue book' can cast any light on the new questions which an issue raises or the new twists in an otherwise familiar problem.

It is beginning to show its age somewhat. The latest English edition was published almost 10 years ago (in 1997). There have been some changes in the commentary since then, and it would be nice to have a new edition which casts some light on, for example, the notorious example of the painter! But until that new edition comes (and I hope it will be published soon) this blue edition should remain firmly next to one's desk!

I read in the acknowledgments that the original translation from the German was made possible by a grant from Dresdner Bank AG. Thank you to Dresdner Bank & Dr. Paul Franken for making this work available to a much wider audience.

I am doing a doctoral thesis about national(Spanish)and international tax law. In this book I have read the best commentary about interpretation and the "qualification problem", at the Introduction and at the Commentary to the Art. 3(2)of the OECD MC. I agree entirely with the author's point of view. The exposition about the general concepts in double taxation conventions is really understandable. The literature, decisions and law (acts...) cited is amazing. I have spent a lot of time reading this book. It has more than 1600 pages! But I am completely satisfied. At this moment I have the book on my right and I'll have it for many time

If you want a quick reference to every single Diamonds winner of the Wehrmacht, this is the finest book you can get. With the exception of just a few mistakes (like that of the 28 total awards, when they were clearly 27), the short biographies of the holders of this prestigious award are excellent and very comprehensive. Mr Williamson has a nice writing style as was evident in his older books "Aces of the Reich" and "Infantry Aces of the Reich" and the book can be read in a single day. There are also photographs (sometimes more than one) of every person discussed. A very nice addition to the WW II literature.

Of the estimated 13-15 million men who served in the German Armed Forces in World War II only 27 were awarded the Knight's Cross with Diamonds, formally known as the Knight's Cross with Oak-leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. (Some accounts refer to 28 winners of this award but that is due to mistakenly counting one recipient, renowned fighter pilot Hans Ulrich Rudel, twice because he was awarded not only the Knight's Cross with Diamonds but also the Knight's Cross with Diamonds in Gold, a separate award specifically limited to be given only 12 times. Rudel became the only recipient of the Knight's Cross with Diamonds in Gold.)

In order for a person to receive the Knight's Cross with Diamonds, he had to first receive the the Iron Cross, Second Class; the Iron Cross, First, Class; the Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross; the Knight's Cross with Oak-leaves; and finally the Knight's Cross with Oak-leaves and Swords, of which there were only 160 recipients. (The German Cross in Gold, although its requirements were similiar, was not officially part of this hierarchy of awards. The German Cross in Gold was given for acts of individual valor or leadership that surpassed the Iron Cross, First Class, but were not quite sufficient to qualify for the Knight's Cross.) In this respect the Knight's Cross with Diamonds was not awarded so much for a single act or action of extreme bravery (like the U.S. Medal of Honor) or successful leadership in battle but was more often the result of a series of acts, although occasionally one act could qualify a person for receiving more than one of the lower grades simultaneously, with each level requiring a higher standard of accomplishment.

Gordon Williamson's book on the winners of the Knight's Cross with Diamonds does an outstanding job in providing an overview of each of the winners of this award. Each recipient is given his own 1-3 page biography, including the events or actions that led to being awarded each level of the Knight's Cross, culminating in the Knight's Cross with Diamonds. Each entry is thorough, objective, and well-written. At least one picture is provided of each recipient, sometimes even three or four, to put a face to the story. Outstanding full-page color illustrations are also provided for seven of the recipients.

Given the page limitations set by the publisher, the book has few faults. One is that the color pictures of the award itself are not that clear and do not show how dazzling these awards really were. (The awards were in platinum and over 50 diamonds were set into the oak-leave cluster and on the handles and hilt of the swords. As this was too gaudy to wear in the field, after the first few presentations winners were also given a copy of the award in silver, with fake diamonds, for everyday wear. At the same time the actual award was slightly increased in size, and brilliance.)

Altogether the book is an excellent introduction to the award and each of its winners.

After reading this book to my children i realized what a great book this is. If you want to teach your children about the war this is a very simple but powerful way to do it. This book should be read by children and adults of all ages. If this story is not passed on from generation to generation

This book is amazing, I learned so much from reading it. It is a great documentary of a childs version of the war.

I've read this book twice and enjoyed it each time. It is obvious Mr. Stone knows what he is talking about when it comes to modern warfare. The battle scenes are realistic and the tactics are sound. Overall this is a great read and worth every penny.

Since I've just begun reading again, I finally decided to read Kriegspiel. I'd gotten the book, I'm embarrassed to say, nearly 6 years ago. But my past experience with military style books was that they were incredibly boring. Not this book! I couldn't set it down! I felt like I was in the middle of the battles myself. I hope Todd Stone writes more books in the future. I'll be first in line to read his next one.

Yes, this is the best book I have ever read.

There is something addictive about this little book, filled with seemingly dull, commercial postcards from Germany. The heft and compact size of it make you want to pick it up again and again and dream about the modern Europe of the 60's and 70's. No words get in the way. The images are of autobahns, health spas, restaurants, apartment buildings...and the overall effect of seeing these tidy, newly built spaces--without people--is somehow poignant, hopeful, serene and surreal. Often, geometric shapes dominate a landscape or visual field, and the postcard becomes a reduced, abstract scene which may or may not have been photographed on earth. "Boring" postcards is strangely fascinating!

A fascinating new look at personalities associated in one way or another with Hitlers Third Reich, this
time from the perspective and expertise of Charles Hamilton, the foremost authority on handwriting (and
the man who exposed the "Hitler Diaries" as fakes).
Each entry includes an incisive biographical sketch, usually with one or more good photos (many rare),
and perhaps most importantly for our purposes here, a sample of handwriting.
The entries are expanded for the more important figures, such as Frederick the Great and Hermann
Goering, and for Hitler himself not only a thorough graphological analysis (with special attention to
forgeries) but also a most interesting assessment of his art (again with attention to forgeries).
.
Volume One includes Hitler and his inner circle, the women in Hitler's life (more than one might have
thought), all the leading Gauleiters and other functionaries, and prominent refugees from the Reich.
Volume Two contains studies of Hitler's art and the "degenerate" art he despised, Nazi military and
cultural leaders, cohorts and allies, war criminals, and the brave and doomed resistance leaders.

This top-quality work is highly recommended for history readers, collectors, students, and all others
interested in that outbreak of collective madness known as the Third Reich.

Just an note for quick clarification here: there are 2 volumes in this same-named set: Vol. 1 being published in 1984, and Vol. 2 a decade later in 1996. Autograph-collecting buffs of WWII personalities will really enjoy these books that provide almost 1,000 pages of facsimile autograph examples and photographs of some 900 Hitler apparachnicks (and a few of his opponents), along with their biographies. Vol. 1 consists of autograph examples of primarially NAZI-party leaders, their political toddies and enforcing henchmen, and the Gauleiter political lords of the captured countries. Vol. 2 consists of autograph examples of primarially German WWII military personalities, along with some foreign military and political officials; has two chapters devoted to German spies and cultural leaders, and a short chapter discussing the forgeries of Hitler documents and etchings. These books are printed on choice glossy paper, which provides sharp and clear photographs and excellent facsimile reproductions of autographed documents. The author provides nice pithy comments regarding the personality shortcomings for most of these individuals. [A companion book would be "Who's Who in Nazi Germany" for more detailed biographical details.]

Letters Home will be of interest to the history buff and especially to anyone who lived overseas in the years immediately after World War II.

The military family of the title is the Kales, stationed in Würzburg, four of whose seven children attended the Nürnberg (Area) American High School, located at 19 Tannenstrasse in Fürth. "Barby" Kale was one of four seniors in the first NHS graduating class, 1948. Don and Dick Kale were underclassmen. Herbert "Bub" Kale, graduated in the NHS class of 1949. The parents were Major Samuel S. Kale, the Displaced Persons Officer for the Unterfranken area, and Julia Kale.

All of the Kales wrote letters to their relatives back in New Jersey. Dad and Mom's letters are short, mostly personal, dealing with family matters. Barbie, Don, and Dick wrote only obligatory letters to their grandparents. Bub is the prolific letter writer. His letters are lengthy, filled with details, and reflect his many interests. His letters make this book historically significant.

Mark Falzini, son of Barbara (Kale) Falzini and a professional archivist, summarizes the historical backdrop for the letters in Part I of the book. His ten-page account of those first school days in a dependent school will be of interest to any Military Brat, whether from those early days or from the last days in the 90s.

He explains how the Kale children commuted between the town their parents lived in and the town where they went to high school, as did most of the high schoolers. Barby remembers her first dorm room in Erlangen. "There were two other girls that shared my room, and at about six o'clock in the morning, this little German man would come into our room and fix our stove--you know, stoke the coal so that it gets warmer. He used to bump my bed all the time. We had army cots with metal at the end." The families paid $2.00 per month for dormitory expenses. There was a monthly charge for meals, $1.00 per day. In Erlangen the boys ate Sunday dinner at the Kaiserhof. During dinner, a German would stroll among all the tables playing his violin. Some of the boys would put Jello on their spoons and flip them up, trying to get the jello into the chandeliers.

In the much longer Part II of the book, Falzini prints the actual letters, edited only for relevance. In an early letter, Bub gives us a candid portrait of his English teacher: "Miss Leamer is a whopper. She's pretty (etc) but her looks deceive you and she's bowlegged. She laid her cards on the table the first class she had. . . . [S]he told us her pet peeves--1) using pencil sharpeners, 2) forgetting anything, 3) not doing lessons and on and on. . . . She told us that she works all weeks always but on Fri & Sat she quits and goes out and has a swell time--no matter what. She scared us to death right away--but maybe we'll learn something."

In other letters, Bub tells of his bird watching (he later got a Ph.D. in orinthology), his work with the Boy Scouts in the displaced persons camps (he arranged for used Scout uniforms to be sent from the States for the Lithuanian Scouts), three family sightseeing trips (one to Belgium and the Netherlands, a second to Southern Germany and Austria, and a third to France), and much more.

After returning from Holland in the summer of 1947, Bub writes, "It [was] a relief to be out of Germany. You never know how much you dislike Germany until you leave it and go see one of its neighbors! In Holland you do not feel that depressing condition that prevails in Germany, where the people are just plain poor. They have virtually nothing and they stare at you all the time no matter how many times they have seen you. . . . The Germans pity themselves, they wonder why they are starving--and are almost always angry." No, the Germany the Kales experienced was not the Germany that many later residents and visitors remember.

Scholars will find Letters Home a valuable primary source. Many will find it valuable as validation of their time overseas as a Military Brat.

Mark Falzini, a noted and respected archivist with an expertise in the Lindbergh kidnapping case, has put into the public hands a valuable look at life in post-WWII Germany. "Letters Home" brings to view the lives of Americans living overseas during the years following the war, a glimpse of life rarely seen in other historical books and documents written about the era.

For any American who has lived in there, these letters home will bring back vivid memories of Germany, and a fresh outlook on what families of military members went through simply to create a life of normalcy.

Few books provide the slice of America Overseas that "Letters Home" does. For any history buff, this book is a must-have, providing eye witness accounts of a significant time in history.

At last, a text that depicts life in a concentration camp as experienced by a mosaic of those who lived it. Dr. Anne Grenn Saldinger's 108 page text, Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp, provides the teen-aged reader with a sense of the vastness of the Nazi concentration camp system. She includes a sidebar entitled "shattered teenage dreams" that describes the experience of those the same age as her young readers, thus allowing for maximum identification. Throughout, Dr. Grenn Saldinger connects these experiences to the lessons to be learned for today.

Details from a variety of survivor's videotaped histories or memoirs illustrate her narrative that explains how the Nazis implemented the "Final Solution," the Nazi euphemism for the genocide of the Jews. She begins with Nazi ideology that gave rise to the camp system. There is a short chapter describing the Jews' transition from ghetto to camp, a crucial step in the extermination process often omitted in Holocaust literature. Her young reader will learn important details such as Jews were not the only victims, prisoners had to wear triangles which colors represented the various persecuted groups, and that every inmate had to master unwritten rules of survival. The question of resistance is answered by presenting examples such as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the bombing of a crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She emphasizes that staying alive under the dehumanizing conditions also demonstrated active resistance against the Nazi determination to eradicate all Jewish life.

Dr. Grenn Saldinger describes the inhumane conditions clearly and vividly both by her descriptions and by survivor testimony. Her examples do not dwell on the revolting and are sometimes uplifting. For example, she cites the story of a Gypsy (one of the groups targeted for extinction by the Nazis) inmate who saved 16 Jewish children. These children lived to liberation thanks to the Gypsy boy's initiative. The appendix lists the major concentration and death camps followed by an abbreviated glossary of terms. Her suggestions for further reading include an annotated list of a dozen texts suitable for teenagers.

On the next to the last page, Dr. Grenn Saldinger includes the pledge against intolerance created by the World of Difference Institute of the Anti-Defamation League that enables the reader to recognize and declare "that respect for individual dignity, achieving equality, and opposing anti-Semitism, racism, ethnic bigotry, homophobia, or any other form of hatred is a non-negotiable responsibility of all people."

As a Holocaust educator, I have been looking for and finally found a text on this subject that won't exhaust my students. I highly recommend this book even if you are not a Holocaust educator. It includes virtually all of the relevant issues for today's youth studying the Holocaust.

The book does a good job in revealing a complete story of survival of the terrible conditions in the Nazi Concentration Camps. I feel that the target audience was those in the 7 - 9th grades. The book also has a very complete bibliography at the end. While focusing primarily on the plight of the Jews in the Camps, the book also brings out that millions of others were interned in the Camps for various reasons. The book also details the means by which Hitler's SS systematically exterminated millions of innocent victims. The author does subscribe to the very correct line of thought that we must all remember this atrocious crime against humanity so that it isn't repeated. This book would be a great book for anyone who would like to find out more about the Concentration Camps.