What is everyone reading on WW2?

[Hans1906]

* On a side note to the topic, maybe move this posting to the right topic, I can not find the right topic unfortunately..?

Two nice illustrated books were given to me today by a kind neighbor:


1. Huber, Jörg Adrian: Wilhelms Höhe: Kassel und der letzte deutsche Kaiser, (2002), 65 pages
2. Neese, Bernd-Michael: Der Kaiser kommt! Wilhelm I. und Wilhelm II. in Wiesbaden (2010), 140+ pages

Link: https://thorsten-reiss-verlag.de/shop/i ... er=product

Both books contain hundreds of historical photos, that are very unlikely to be found on the Internet.

The emperor loved the greatest possible appearance, also in the city of Wiesbaden.

Kaiser Wiesbaden.jpg

Hans

P.S. I'll spare my very personal opinion about this man, and you, that would end in messy discussions, very sure.

[Cult Icon]

"Tigers of Bastogne: Voices of the 10th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge" , a great collection of detailed, insightful, and tramatic combat accounts of CCB veterans fighting retrograde actions on the road to Bastogne.

[Cult Icon]

"Alamo in the Ardennes", a chronicle of the the road to Bastogne, mainly written to link together a large number of detailed veterans accounts (particuarly of the 28.ID) of desperate defense actions and describing what was going on around them.

[Larso]

'Tank Men' by Robert Kershaw. This is an excellent account of tank action in WW1 and particularly of WW2 in Europe and the Western Desert. There is some interesting stuff on the development of tanks in the key countries and the differing strategies. The most fascinating material is the many first hand accounts of crewmen and their experiences of battle. Much of this has been gleaned from the dozens of memoirs published posr-war, particularly by British veterans. While I've read most of these, it was gratifying to see Kershaw had obtained subsequent interviews where he could. These, along with various other sources provided extensive coverage of the combat between the Germans, British, Americans and Russians. There is much dramatic material, some of it very sobering indeed. Kershaw explores the cost of this kind of warfare in great detail. Very highly recommended!

[Attrition]

Palimpsest by Gore Vidal, which has anecdotes of his war service on an army ship carrying supplies around the Aleutian Islands and an account of the death of his lost love, Jimmy Trimble, who was killed during the conquest of Iwo Jima.

[Hans1906]

Received a good used copy of the book "Das Auge des Dritten Reiches - Hitlers Kameramann und Fotograf Walter Frentz" a few days ago.

Frentz Walter - Das Auge des Dritten Reiches.JPG

A copy of the first edition, at a reasonable price.

"Spiegel" review from the year 2008: https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/hitle ... 47893.html
(Including 21 color pictures from the book)

I do not post these photos here, for reasons that are certainly understandable.



Hans

[Hans1906]

Found the excellent book "Gold Gab Ich Für Eisen - Kriegsplakate 1914 - 1918" many years ago, a steal for just a few german Marks.

Many years later, I was offered a very famous imperial german poster by the graphic artist Fritz Erler.

Helft uns siegen! https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helft_uns_siegen

The poster came from a private collection of an elderly lady from the city of Oldenburg, the lady collected in the 1960s, and the early 1970s posters from the communist German movement, including today extremely rare posters of the DKP, the now banned "German Communist Party".

The bundle included the above poster by the graphic artist Erler, in perfect condition, as if fresh from a print shop.
The price for this convolute at that time was very small, something more like pocket money.
At that time, I had trouble getting this thick roll of old posters into my car, unfortunately, those days are gone, forever.

At that time, there was only a small circle of interested people and collectors on this subject, the old "material" was, so to speak, at one's own feet, one only had to pick it up...

Collectors greetings!


Hans

* No, the above poster is not for sale, there is no need to ask.

[Attrition]

A Forgotten Offensive: Royal Air Force Coastal Command's Anti-Shipping Campaign, 1940-1945 (Studies in Air Power #1) ] by Christina Goulter (1995). Ghastly prose and some eccentric organisation but informative with it.

[Hans1906]

The friendly owner of my pharmacy, a lady who is very interested in history, always leaves me her a little older special editions of German history magazines.

This time there were three booklets:

Spiegel Geschichte: "Die 20er Jahre"
ZEIT Geschichte: "Der Rausch der 20er Jahre - Glanz und Tragik der Weimarer Republik"
ZEIT Geschichte: "Die Deutschen und ihre Kolonien - Das Wilheminische Weltreich 1884 bis 1918"

Interesting reading material, especially the ZEIT special edition on the German colonies is very recommended.
All special editions from both magazines are av. online by mail order, paperback binding, excellent paper quality, nice stuff.


Hans

P.S. Our friend and colonial expert Holger will probably be able to write more about the photo on the cover...?

[JeroenPollentier]

Andrew Robert's Churchill biography is very good. It's so readable and fast-paced that it reminds me of John Toland's style. But I only started reading where William Manchester's biography had broken off, i.e. at about the invasion of France.

I'm still reading in John Röhl's Wilhelm II biography (part 3) as well, but it's beginning to drag. It's still interesting but the book is much too long and Röhl throws too many primary sources at the reader, as another reviewer has remarked. Every letter that Wilhelm ever wrote on any subject is quoted in full, and if he wrote three similar letters to three different persons, we get to read them all. Still, I'm planning to finish the book but I don't think I will ever read it again. I'm also doubting whether I will read the first and second volumes.

[thorwald77]

Czeslaw Madajczyk
Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen,

Goes into considerable detail which is not available to English readers. The caveat is that the author has a communist POV and that the book was translated in the DDR. Otherwise worth reading.

[Hans1906]

It's interesting, what books local neighbors keep putting down on garden walls for the taking, today:

Grab, Walter: "Die Französische Revolution", 1989
Speer, Albert: "Erinnerungen", 1969
Suchenwirth, Richard: "Deutsche Geschichte", 1934/1937

Richard Suchenwirth https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Suchenwirth

I should have carried home the whole set of books there, but I couldn't carry all that, alas, as so very often...


Hans

[Tamari]

I'm reading Patrick Beesly's "Very Special Intelligence - Geheimdienstkrieg der britischen Admiralität 1939 - 1945" Ullstein Verlag 1977.

It is about the Operational Intelligence Centre of the Royal Navy. The book describes the build-up of the unit before Second World War and how especially Naval Reserve and Administration officers were turned into intelligence specialists. It was the OIC which was supportive for Sidney Cotton and his airforce Photo Reconnaissance Unit.

The book describes the intelligence gathering during the hunt for battleships Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and later also the tracking efforts against the German U-boats which will help to win the battle in the Atlantic.

Beesly was a member of OIC.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Beesly

It is a topic which isn't often mentioned in literature and the unit is quite unknown. The book is very informative but also well written and translated. I enjoy it very much.

Best regards
Robert

[Attrition]

The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919–39 Doughty, R. A. 2014 (1985) Archon Books Hamden, CT edition Stackpole, Mechanicsburg, PA 978-0-8117-1460-0

Started reading this again after having decided that I couldn't bear to read American prose, syntax and punctuation for a while. Very informative, especially the explanation for the Army's torpor over the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland.

[Mark in Cleveland, Tn.]

Just finished with these, and await 2 new additions, books in series I have been missing for years and now found on a vintage book site and waiting the shipment to show up