What is everyone reading on WW2?

[Attrition]

Monty's Functional Doctrine: Combined Arms Doctrine in British 21st Army Group in Northwest Europe, 1944–45 by Charles Forrester (2018) 978-1912174775

The ususal abysmal prose but very interesting on the development of 21st Army Group technique, D-Day to the Baltic.

[OpanaPointer]

The New York Time Complete World War II: The Coverage of the Entire Conflict. Edited by Richard Overy.

"Includes DVD-ROM with 98,367 NEW YORK TIMES articles."

NYT has always been my go-to. When I was at Purdue I spent countless hours reading the first-hand reports. One guy claimed the Japanese had shelled USS Augusta, and then failed to tell the US people about it. (It was front page news on NYT.) Another one said that his father's ship had sailed up and down the English Channel with all available lights on, trolling for U-boats so FDR could have his war. (The cruiser was delivering Admiral Leahy, the new American ambassador to the Vichy French. The rules of war state neutral ships must be well lit at night in combat zones. I guess FDR was sneaky enough to follow the laws?)

[Hans1906]

I got the german book:

Heinz Linge - Bis zum Untergang
- Als Chef des Persönlichen Dienstes bei Hitler -

Herausgegeben von Werner Maser
Herbig Verlag München - Berlin
Zweite Auflage Mai 1980

Link: https://www.zvab.com/buch-suchen/titel/ ... inz-linge/

An old lady in the neighborhood can no longer read, from time to time, the lady leaves me one or two stacks of books, the Linge biography was also included.
Interesting, I wasn't even aware, that Linge had written anything about his life and memories at the time.

The book contains many black and white photographs, which are not to be published here in the forum.

I don't remember the book from the book trade at the time, probably a "burnt" title, as they said back then...


Hans
P.S. The book is in new condition, and not for sale

[Leprechaun]

Just read An Uncompromising Generation by Wildt knowing nothing about the Third Reich this book was a fascinating read about some of the better educated people of Germany,Austria recruited by Heydrich to serve in the RSHA.What shocked me is how so many of the main players got away with their role in genocide in Europe and the East.Also how many were virulent Anti-Semitics before having any thing to do with the Nazis, highly recommend if you want an insight into the workings of the RSHA and how it ended up trying to annihilate European Jews.

[Hans1906]

Found this book in a local bookstore lately:

Veronika Moos
"Nachbarn"
Bahnhofstraße 44/46

Two very different neighbors live in a large semi-detached house from the 19th century in Wiesbaden. On the one hand, there is the "Aryan" Moos family from a middle-class background, who struggled with financial problems for a long time. Heinrich's father became a member of the NSDAP early on and later became a staunch supporter of Hitler. The other half of the semi-detached house belongs to the Jewish Strauss family, who are wealthy wine merchants. Two of her children had already emigrated in 1939 to escape the Nazi regime. An extensive exchange of letters has been preserved from both neighboring families, which allows a simultaneous view of two worlds: war and National Socialist convictions on the one hand and oppression, persecution and deportation on the other. The letters presented here for the first time in a selection in terms of time, topic and location illustrate the parallelism of the experiences and provide a source of evidence for everyday life in Germany between 1939 and 1945 that should not be overestimated.

Source and link: https://www.verlagshaus-roemerweg.de/Wa ... 04945.html


As a Wiesbaden citizen, you just walk by there every week, one knows the memorial on the other side of the "Bahnhofstraße" just across
the street next to the road, at the large bus stop...


Hans

[Attrition]

Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign: The Eighth Army and the Path to El Alamein (2011) by Jonathan Fennell

Fennell uses contemporary records of morale surveys of British and Commonwealth troops and other primary sources for his monograph.

My usual caveat about abysmal prose must be modified because it's the abstraction of some of the chapters that irritates more than the prose. The chapters that get to the point are rather good albeit banal - facing weapons with the means to defeat them is essential for morale. The deficiencies in equipment and then qualitative inadequacies undermined morale which recovered when the RAF pulled its finger out during the retreat to El Alamein after the Eighth Army had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at Gazala. Better quality equipment (Sherman, Crusader Mk III, 6-pounder A/T guns) replaced outmoded tanks etc. When the tanks let the infantry down again during the First Battle of Alamein, morale duly plunged, particularly in the 2nd NZ Division whose troops were left in the lurch several times. Monty took more account of morale and nursed the men of the Eighth Army through the rest of his tenure.

[Bart007]

I'm currently reading Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis by Ian Kershaw. It's the second volume in a 2-part biography.

I haven't read this before but from a recent summary it is a summary of Hitler's initial European successes in the aftermath of the Rhineland occupation, from Czechoslovakia to Poland. It also covers crucial questions about the unique nature of Nazi radicalism; explores the Holocaust and the European world that allowed Hitler to operate so effectively. It all ends nine years later with the suicide in the Berlin bunker.

It's quite a chunky read at over 1,100 pages (including footnotes and index).

[Felix C]

Recently read these dealing with the PTO in WW2 and recommend:

Okinawa Odyssey, Bob Green. Army tanker on Okinawa.
Mr. Michel's War. John Michel. USS Pope POW in Japan
Tales from a Tin Can. USS Dale from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. Michael Olson. Interviews with crewmen during the period mentioned.
Extraordinary Leaders: World War II Memoirs of an American Naval Officer and an Imperial Japanese Naval Officer. Joe Jannotta. As in the subtitle.
Encounter at Sea and a Heroic Lifeboat Journey. Ichiro Matsunaga. Light cruiser Natori surivors tale.

[JeroenPollentier]

Traudl Junge: "Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary"
An important and fascinating firsthand account of life with Hitler from 1942 until his death in the Berlin bunker in 1945, by the young woman who was his last secretary.

Rick Atkinson: An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943

[Hans1906]

Wolfgang Schieder
Faschistische Diktaturen
- Studien zu Italien und Deutschland - (2009)

The debate about an adequate definition and classification of "fascism" against the background of the age of ideologies is as old as the phenomenon itself. Wolfgang Schieder can be considered one of the most pronounced advocates of a general concept of fascism in the German-speaking world again advocated the application of the term to the Italian and German movements and regimes. This volume contains numerous essays from the years 1983 to 2006 in which the author deals with this still controversial debate in one form or another. In addition, there is a previously unpublished essay on Benito Mussolini and an essay on “Duce and Führer” and the “photographic stagings” undertaken by the two dictators, which has also not yet been printed.

Source and link: https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-12115


Hans

[OpanaPointer]

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour Paperback – March 29, 2005
by James D. Hornfischer (Author)

...for obvious reasons.

[Hans1906]

"Attraktion Der NS-Bewegung"

SA, SS, whatever...

Enorm viel Text...

Hans

[Westphalia1812]

Entscheidung im Westen 1944: Der Oberbefehlshaber West und die Abwehr der alliierten Invasion - Dieter Ose

[Attrition]

Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War (1990) by John Ellis

Thought I should give it a go but it's somewhat underwhelming, relying on superseded secondary and tertiary sources, a facile psychology of great men and (so far) an implicit assumption that Allied methods bad, German methods good.

[NManteufel]

Panzer Baron: The Military Exploits of General Hasso von Manteuffel (1975) by Donald Grey Brownlow

The book appears to be written with a significant amount of input from Hasso von Manteuffel. It contains many concise accounts of Manteuffel's perspective and analysis of events, situations, and people he encountered.