THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion
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2015 - October - Theme Read - Aspects of the Third Reich
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing...
http://www.spitecast.com/aemathisphd/...

I a quite enjoying my book; The German War by Nicholas Stargardt. I have found a few reviews which may interest some group members as they give a good indication of the books content:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


"In the summer of 1943, she was returning from shopping in Lwów when she saw a group of nearly naked children crouching by the side of the road. She stopped the carriage, calmed the six frightened children and took them home, where she gave them some food and waited for her husband to return. When he did not turn up, she took matters into her own hands. Pocketing an old service revolver which her father had given her as a parting gift, Erna Petri led the children through the woods to a pit where she knew other Jews had been shot and buried. There she lined them up in front of the ditch and went along the line firing into the back of each child's neck. She remembered that after the first two, the others 'began to cry', but 'not loudly, they whimpered'."

Some information on Erna Petri:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,73...
http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?perso...

"Since the beginning of the war our propaganda has followed the following erroneous path:
First year of the war: we have won.
Second year of the war: we shall win.
Third year of the war: we must win.
Fourth year of the war: we cannot be defeated."



Dimitri wrote: "I finished The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy; review in progress..."
How horrible!

Better late than never :)

UNBELIEVABLE! I had never heard of this story.

" ... But as an old doctor from Hamburg sadly lamented, there was always the danger that the English would not get the message: so, any leaflet would have to address them 'in the style of someone who is slow on the uptake' and even then it might all fail, because 'We Germans are used to talking to educated nations ... The English-speaking people do not come up to this level'."

It is a good thing Stalin, Morgenthau & myself were not solely responsible for the fate of Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brno_de...
http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraf...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brn..."
AR: I read --

which went into the subject of the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Poland, East Prussia, Hungary, Romania and especially Czechoslovakia. It was a brutal "payback" in the eyes of the local citizenry.

There were local German elements who jumped on the Nazi bandwagon, but in Bohemia and Moravia the story was older and more complicated. In the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the nobles, the gentry, and the burghers tended to be Germans while the peasantry and workers were Czechs or Slovaks. Hard feelings ran long and deep -- ethnic, religious, class, and economic.

For the non-Nazis, themselves victims of the murderous regime, the Marshall plan was a blessing, and my family and our friends (all of them non-Nazis) were very grateful for it, yet the Nazis (and especially the cruel Nazis) certainly did not deserve it. (I don't know whether the Nazis felt any gratitude. We did not socially interact with any Nazis.)
From a strictly political aspect, the Marshall plan was, most likely, also the better solution.

I just read the description of "After the Reich", and I am stunned. This may be true for the Russian-occupied territory, but I don't think it holds true for the American- and British-occupied parts of Germany.
We lived in a small town (population 5,000), 20 miles north of Dachau. My hometown was a particular Nazi-nest. Nevertheless, I know of (and experienced myself) only kind actions of the Americans who occupied our town. And they wouldn't even know how to distinguish between Nazis and non-Nazis.

It is Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany

Here is a link to my review.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This incident was also recounted in "Hitler's Furies" by Wendy Lower.

Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler by Stefan Ihrig (available in January)

Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler by Stefan Ihrig (available in January)"
Added



Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler by Stefan Ihrig (available in January)"
Added [bookcover:Justifying Genocide: G..."
Thanks Mike ! It's so important to read historical books that counterbalance one another when there's a controversial subject at hand.

Last night (actually, brutally early this morning) I more-or-less finished a project that has taken me, off and on, just under two years. I discovered this amazing 50 volume set of military history works on WWII which was published in West Germany between 1950 and 1975, and have now managed to find and enter listings on GR for all but one of the volumes in the set, most of them complete with cover scans. This project was probably an incredible waste of time and effort, since there are not that many GR members fluent enough in German to actually read these books (as far as I can tell, only 2 have ever been translated into English), but it was fun & fascinating to track them down. If any of you are interested, here is a link: (https://www.goodreads.com/series/9127...). The series is titled "Die Wehrmacht Im Kampf"; I hope some of you find it of interest!
The two works in this series which have been translated into English are Generalmajor F.W. von Mellenthin's excellent Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War (this was the book that led me to discover the series) and Generaloberst Hermann Hoth's Panzer Operations: Germany's Panzer Group 3 During the Invasion of Russia, 1941, which was just published for the first time in English earlier this year.



Last night (actually, brutally early this morning) I more-or-less finished a project that has taken me, off and on, just under two years. I discovered this amazing 50 volume set of mil..."
Nice find, Liam, I'm actually a native speaker but haven't read too much in that language. I'll give these a look.

Last night (actually, brutally early this morning) I more-or-less finished a project that has taken me, off and on, just under two years. I discovered this amazing 50 volume set of mil..."
Good job, Liam!

Colin- I know I've said this before, but you are fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak with so many of those who played a part in the history of the 20th Century. I expect von Mellenthin was quite interesting! The more I have learned about his career, the greater my respect for him as a soldier has become.

By the way, Jerome- I never would have guessed. I'm happy to know that, 'cause I've come across a lot of interesting books only available in German, and thought I had no one to recommend them to!



By the way, Jerome- I never would have guessed. I'm happy to know that, 'cau..."
And with the 31st volume ends a worthy effort Liam as it may help even a few people discover and connect with books they were not aware of.

I finished The army, politics and society in Germany, 1933-45: Studies in the army's relation to Nazism a few hours ago. It was a bit dry, as I had expected, but surprisingly not to the point of inducing somnolence; for a scholarly work in translation, it actually moved along quite well. Most of the book dealt with Generaloberst Ludwig Beck; specifically with the chronology, extent & motivation of his opposition to Hitler. There isn't much new here, as this work was written some thirty-odd years ago, but given the dearth of English-language material on Beck it was still well worth reading. I'd give it a qualified recommendation. This is the second work I've read from the "War, Armed Forces and Society" series published by Manchester University Press during the 1980s; the other was Troubled days of peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia Command, 1945-46, which was really quite good, although getting hold of a copy took several years and was an enormous pain in the ass. Expensive, too. Happily, Klaus-Jürgen Müller's book is much easier to find and quite inexpensive! I'm not sure what happened with the series; as far as I know only 3 or 4 works were actually published. A shame, really, as the series' General Editor was the well-respected Dr. Ian F.W. Beckett, and the equally renowned Professor Douglas Porch served on the Editorial board...

I read his Panzer Battles, my impression was he was catering to the Americans in the book. He seemed to have more praise for their fighting ability than any of the other nations he fought against. More so than most of the Germans, who had more to say about the abundance of material.

Erudite point, Dj. Never considered the American Revolution a Civil War, but it is, with the population split by thirds: revolutionary, loyalist & neutral/we'll see.
Still funny to read the cracked.com comment section :
"....since the Civil War..."
"THE Civil War ?" (British member)
"Welcome to an American website !"
Books mentioned in this topic
Troubled days of peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia Command, 1945-46 (other topics)The army, politics and society in Germany, 1933-45: Studies in the army's relation to Nazism (other topics)
Anmerkungen zu Hitler (other topics)
Panzer Operations: Germany's Panzer Group 3 During the Invasion of Russia, 1941 (other topics)
Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Klaus-Jürgen Müller (other topics)Ian F.W. Beckett (other topics)
Douglas Porch (other topics)
F.W. von Mellenthin (other topics)
Hermann Hoth (other topics)
More...
Ground level (o..."
Sounds good, Mike.