Germany Books

David Williams wraps up his two-volume history of Luftwaffe nightfighters with this well-done summary of the last two years of the war.

Paradoxically the July 1943 Hamburg firestorm mission wherein the RAF used chaff to blind German radars so traumatized Germany's military leadership that it served as an impetus for the development of new nightfighter tactics and weapons to replace the discredited Himmelbett system. Zahme Sau and Wilde Sau tactics coupled with new radars checkmated the advantage temporarily bestowed on RAF bombers by 'Window.' The battles that followed became a see-saw race as RAF and Luftwaffe engineers and aircrews developed new radars, counter tactics, different weaponry (Schrage Musik) and so on. Though German nightfighters inflicted punishing losses on RAF raiders on many occasions following the Hamburg raid, a number of factors including superior Allied technology and fuel shortages ground down the Nachtjagers.

Williams quite correctly points out that the turning point in this deadly see-saw campaign occurred not over Germany but rather at an English airfield! In July 1944 a disoriented Luftwaffe crew landed at an RAF base, thus presenting the British with a fully operational Ju88G equipped with the three radar systems that had made the nightfighters so deadly.

Given such a wide canvas, Williams does a good job of summarizing those momentous years as well as highlighting well-known nightfighter aces such as Werner Streib, Heinz Schnaufer and Wilhelm Johnen. The comprehensive text includes ten first-person accounts of night kills by German pilots and their RAF victims.

As with Volume One, this book is brimming with photos and artwork - over 190 black & white shots, 11 color pix including one showing a Schrage Musik-equipped Fw 189(!) and 16 color profiles of Me 110, He 219, Ju 88, FW 190, Do 217 and Me 262 night fighters.

All in all, this two-volume set is an well-written, visually appealing introduction to the subject. Luftwaffe fans will definitely want to pick up the set!

The Royal Air Force quickly learned in World War II that their planes were not suitable for daylight operation, so turned to night bombing. The Luftwaffe then had no choice but to begin to develop a night fighter system that would offer at least some defenst against the bombers.

By 1943 the war of the technical wizzards was well underway. For the Germans this meant radar systems, including both ground based to get the fighter close to the bomber, and airborne equipmen, usually mounted on twin engine planes such as the Me-110, the Ju-88, the Fw-189, He 219. To these were added a smaller number of single engine fighters, the Me-109, Me262 and Fw-190, some with and wome without radar.

This book has some text to explain the pictures, but it features a spectacular set of photographs of the night fighting planes of the Luftwaffe in the later years of the war. It also has several pictures taken of planes after the war as found in abandoned airfields or as they were removed to allied bases. Finally there is a set of detailed drawings of the planes to show details often missed in the photographs.

This Book is probaly the best book I have ever read on the cultural history of post WWII Germany. It also raises the question of where was the dissent against Hitler? Amazing in it's scope.

This book is very interesting in it's content. The details in it are a amazing. At first it seems as if you are being besieged by details but then a clearer picture emerges of a group of men who are trying to live out their lives as their culture has laid out for them. The tribulations that they go thorugh as far as personal honor are throughly examined. They are born and bred leaders the best of the best of the german navy but yet they hold back against speaking against Hitler. Rust examines their motives in not speaking up. It was also very interesting to find so much on the German Navy after WWII this is a subject which is hardly ever touched upoun. The question of what happened after is evrpresent on many history readers minds. He examines the lives of the men in their new surroundings and what has happened to them over the years.

This book is absolutely splendid! The series represents the very best quality in naval writing. Wegener is a first rate mind and his analysis of German Naval Stategy in the First World War is informative and provided by a naval officer who was on the scene and played an important role in German Naval thought during the inter-war years. If you are interested in German Naval affairs during the two world wars--- read this book!

This title belongs to the "Classics of sea power" collection edited by the United States Naval Institute. It's a good indicator that the book is worth reading. And certainly it is. Wolfgang Wegener was a German officer at the Imperial Navy during World War I. He disagreed on how the naval war was being fought and expressed himself on papers sent to his superiors. One of the major ideas he had, was that Germany needed to get ports on the Norwegian or French coasts in order to avoid British blocade. The importance of his thinking is that it led to Raeder's planning before World War II. The main text is an essay published after the Great War on which Wegener critiques the way the Navy was (mis)used during the entire conflict; here is where he points out the requirements (a hold on Norway and France) in order to achive a victorious campaign in the future. This edition includes some papers written by Wegener during the First World War, which set the basis for his later work. This is a book of geopolitics and strategy, certainly a must read for all those interested on naval affairs.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the period and/or in fashion. Loved the anecdotes! Fascinating from front to back. The pictures made the book even more enjoyable.

Can't wait to see what else Ms. Guenther writes!

For an unusual and insightful look into the Third Reich, I highly recommend this book. The title is a bit of a pun, as the subject material covers the Nazis' unfashionable attempts to maniplate control over female fashions and women's roles through the use of propaganda and manipulation of the fashion industry. The book is well researched, well written, and discloses new findings exposing the purging of Jews from the German fashion industry. The book also details information on the little known German Fashion Institute and the very fashion-conscious Nazi officials' wives and their hypocritical husbands. The book accurately portrays the parody of Nazi political folly, as well as the realism of the devastated German home front through the lives of German women during WWII and the millions of women in the concentration camps throughout Europe. Be forewarned - this is one of those books that once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down until you reach the last page.

Stackelberg and Winkle do a magnificent job of accumulating important primary sources into one, easily accessible sourcebook. Whether you are writing a dissertation on a topic of Nazi Germany, or are just looking for extra reading material, this book is not only useful, but also intriguing. Over 150 primary sources are included within the text, each including an introductory paragraph or two, which means you are getting your moneys worth.

I initially bought this book for my Nazi Germany class, but found myself reading through it for fun. I had never been into the historical topic of Germany during the WWI and WWII period until I opened this book, but now its one of my favorite subjects. Many people think they know, at least in a moderate sense, about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, but questions about what influenced Hitler's radical anti-Semitism and how he was able to seize and use the emotions of one of the most intelligent nations in the world are answered. I recommend this book to anyone even vaguely interested in Nazi Germany or how one of the world's most devastating genocidal wars came about.

This book is long overdue for students of Nazi Germany that have not yet mastered the German language. Included in this book are chapter after chapter of important primary documents from the late 19th century and World War I to the Historians Debate concerning Nazism in the late 20th century.
Stackelberg includes a very readable introduction to each chapter that puts the documents in that chapter in their historical perspective. Most documents are ordered chronologically, however a few are thematically ordered because they're best viewed in that context.
This isn't a book of just dry Nazi government documents either, it includes works from others that were influential in the development of the Nazi ideology, such as Wagner.
In contrast to other books, such as the series by Nokes and Pridham, this book also includes an index, which prevents scholars from having to search through the entire book to find a document on a particular subject.
This book should be read by anyone that has a serious interest in Nazi Germany.

The authors demonstrate how the Nazi gold seized by the US after the war disappeared without a trace. Quite unexpected. The Authors are historians.

After years of researching their subject throughout the world, Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting first published this book in 1984. Their research began in response to a very simple question. What happened to the German National Gold Reserves after World War II? The answer proves shocking.
Aside from bringing the reader into the fascinating world of Postwar Black Marketeering and corruption,the book relates how a veritable Aladin's Cave of treasure disapeared into the pockets of Crooked S. S. men, K. G. B. stooges, and members of the United States Military, whose occupation of Germany was corrupt from top to bottom. This book remains a timeless reminder that no matter what uniform we wear, we're all dirty as Hell.

In one of my graphic design classes, we studied Bauhaus design. I was fascinated by Walter Gropius' designs and decided to do a report on him (if you can ever visit his house in MA, you will be awed to see his theories put into practice!). When I found and read this book in my college library I knew I had to buy it. It was out of print when I ordered it, but worth the wait. This book is a must read for all architecture/art history/graphic design students.

Just knowing that everything in this book came directly from Gropius hand is fascinating. It's a look into an aspect of design/architecture that biographies and history books just can't give you.

I've found great substance with your book, "The New Architecture and the Bauhaus". It was brilliant and very informative. I was fascinated by the analysis of 20th Century Modern architecture and the history of its development. I recommend this book highly for anyone interested in modern design, or the courage of the indomitable human spirit. Gropius fought against mediocrity, mindless repetition and the numbing Status Quo. This book deserves to be read.

I actually have had the honor of meeting the editor and some of the film makers highlighted in this book. It's a fabulous account of the how and why behind German film makers.

I actually have had the honor of meeting the editor and some of the film makers highlighted in this book. It's a fabulous account of the how and why behind German film makers.

This volume of the set dealt with the internal social programs of the Third Reich. Propaganda, The Hitler Youth, labor and party organization, and other internal groups and people. As with all of these volumes there is a stunning amount of quality photo-journalism. Explanations of the various programs are accompanied by images and documantation of emblems, badges, knives, posters, flags and other accessories used by the Nazi's to surround the German people with a new culture and secure their loyalty by the preceptions they maintained and dogma they preached. It also shows that these groups and the power structure of the Third Reich were very innefficient and had to rely on coercion and deciet to maintain their strength.

A few things of interest:

The initial design and production of Volkswagons was prompted by a Nazi program that allowed workers to make payments out of each check to add to a stamp book towards getting a car. Combined with the construction of the Autobahn and other freeways, it was supposed to give the German people the highest numbers of cars per capita, and make them "free" to go anywhere. Instead, the cars were diverted to military use as staff cars when the war began.

The change in the educational standards under the Third Reich emphasized physical achievment over traditional study, and was so damaging to the learning of students that most entering colledge were not qualified and were placed in remidial courses for up to two years. If old admissions standards had been maintained the colledge enrollment would have been barely half their capacity.

Hitler, as a way of balancing the power of those below him, would create multiple organizations that did almost the same thing. Anytime he felt someone was gaining greater influence, he would simply create a new group or organization and promote someone to head that would be able to draw away some of the power and authority. Even Goebells was restrained in this way, as other groups shared censorship and propaganda duties that partially mirrored his own.

The Good: Almost everything. Covers a lot of topics not often talked about. Barely even mentions the military directly.

The Bad:Some editing and arrangement issues. Photo essays will begin in the middle of chapters interrupting them for 4 or 5 pages. You find yourself going back and forth a little bit to read around them. This seems to be common to the series.

The Ugly: Goebbels. Short, of small stature, with a deformed leg, he certainly was not an example of Hitler's ideal german.

I am a big fan of anything Time Life puts out on World War 2. I found this whole series of books very interesting for the amount of detail, the layout and the overall look of the books. This is the best place to start if you want to learn about World War 2. They are very easy to read with a great deal of corresponding diagrams, maps and photos and really bring the words alive. I think if you are a real die hard World War 2 buff you need to get a copy of these books.

Inevitably claims that deny that Nazism was rooted in Christianity draw fire. As a scholar in modern and early modern Europe at the University of Victoria, I affirm this book as extremely well researched. The onus is on those who would disprove its assertions to do more thorough research--a daunting challenge indeed. The Nazis were as hostile to Christianity as to Judaism. The preparation for the ascendency of National Socialism provided by the advocates of new religions like Jacob Wilhelm Hauer is a sobering reality that needs to be understood more widely today.

This is a wonderful book that I wish had been available when I was a student. There are things here that I have never seen anywhere else. Reading it one understands National Socialism much better. In particular the fact that the Nazis hated "Jewish-Christianity" which they saw as a form of "cultural imperialism" was a real insight to me. I strongly recommend this book to anyone intersted in the history of the twentieth century, cults and new religions, or the way politicians create and manipulate propaganda.