THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion
Introduction to the WW2 Site - Please Say Hi
message 1801:
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William
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Apr 03, 2014 12:48PM

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1937 wasn't a very good time to return to Germany, but my mother's family had raised heaven and hell to keep my mother from emigrating to Brasil "where a woman was worth less than a cow". :-)

Newly interested in the Italian campaign as well.
Looking forward to some good reading!"
Welcome. Don't be shy about pitching in.
message 1805:
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Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
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Newly interested in the Italian campaign as well.
Looking forward to some good reading!"
You've found the right place then, with a lot of great recommendations..

message 1812:
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Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
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By the way, I had been doing research on German E-boats (S-Boote) for my fiction and will share any good reads if I think they're helpful. Though most of what I'm using is in German. It's tough to find anything that details what it's like to be serving on and operating an E-boat as a crew member. Theirs was a really harsh and deadly environment. I know little about boats, which makes it sound even harsher.

message 1823:
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Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
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You're right, there doesn't seem to be that much, but here is a fiction suggestion: If Not Now, When?by Primo Levi

Welcome, Welcome
If anybody knows of any books on the eastern partisans - they are probably members of this group - a very knowledgable group of people here :)

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
message 1833:
by
Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
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Welcome Liberation, please feel free to join in.


So the above always depresses me as I can only imagine what unbelievable stories none of us will ever read. If any of this isn't quite true btw I'd love to be disabused of this opinion yet; the Germans seemed to be the only ones who had the time (and utensils) to note the numbers of fighters, etc..
I've been going through Bloodlands by Snyder which is probably the best mass-produced book for this subject, though I'd love some more recommendations;
Thanks Aussie Rick for that link, being of Polish blood myself (though my family came to the states in 1913) I have much interest in both the AK as well as the plight of those poor people in the ghetto
Colin I'd love to chat with you a bit and learn what you focused on and what you wrote about. Do you say German anti-Partisan warfare because that was the only available data/information about troop locations, like I mentioned above? I'm also very curious about cultural/racial pressure within paramilitary groups, I know that's a long shot, but I have read that Russian Partisans didn't allow Jews to join while Polish Partisans did.
In any case, thanks very much and nice to meet you all.

Take a look at:

and an older book:

message 1837:
by
Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
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Hi Liberation Sans, I hope the following will be of some help.
I had quick a look at the the 5 volumes on British Intelligence in the Second World War from the UK's Second World War official history series (see here for full series http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/) to see if there was anything on your area of interest.
I couldn't find anything quickly and all the references I did find to partisans were Yugoslav, Greek and Italian - Polish contribution to Enigma is mention in two volumes.
I also found this which may be of a help too: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/107...

For the UK official histories you might want to check them out to see if there is anything that might help you, but I think it will consume some time and the books are readily available but not that cheap. The benefit of them though is they were written with full and open access to official government papers.
Volumes are:
Volume I: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1979
Volume II: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1981
Volume III, Part 1: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1984
Volume III, Part 2: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1988
Volume IV: Security and Counter-Intelligence, 1990
Volume V: Strategic Deception, 1990

Both books were from the same collective body of research, from theses and dissertation. The end result was over 600 pages, so i created two books. both have extensive interview segments with German, Soviet and Allied persons involved, with unit locations and dispositions. Soviet partisan groups (most people never make the distinction b/w Soviet and Russian), as well as Ukrainians were not very receptive of Jews. Poles were more accepting, but most Jewish resistance groups were autonomous for safety reasons. This was especially true in the Baltic States.

I have also read quite a few Holocaust books and was fortunate enough to be able to see Anne Frank's house right before the famous tree fell down a few years ago.




Welcome Kati and Selena. Please don't be shy about pitching in.

message 1850:
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Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
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James M. Fenelon (other topics)
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Rick Atkinson (other topics)
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