Download or read book Bandits and Partisans written by Erik C. Landis and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the fall of 1920, Aleksandr Antonov led an insurgency that became the largest armed peasant revolt against the Soviets during the civil war. Yet by the summer of 1921, the revolt had been crushed, and popular support for the movement had all but disappeared. Until now, details of this conflict have remained hidden. Erik Landis mines recently opened provincial and central Soviet archives and international collections to provide a depth of detail and historical analysis never before possible in this definitive account of the uprising. Landis examines both sides of the conflict, probing the testimonies of the insurgents, their opponents, and those caught in between. We witness firsthand the frustrations, failures, and internal conflicts of the Bolsheviks and the spirit of rebellion that drove the insurgents and helped drive a localized dispute into a well-organized mass rebellion that struck fear in the hearts of Communist leaders. This political and military threat was influential in bringing about Lenin's conciliatory New Economic Policy, which allowed farmers and villages to sustain themselves in a quasi-market economy. Bandits and Partisans presents a gripping tale of brutality, domination, and revolt, placing readers at the frontlines of the complex and rich history of the Russian civil war and the consolidation of the new Soviet state.

Download or read book Bandits and Partisans written by Erik C. Landis and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the fall of 1920, Aleksandr Antonov led an insurgency that became the largest armed peasant revolt against the Soviets during the civil war. Yet by the summer of 1921, the revolt had been crushed, and popular support for the movement had all but disappeared. Until now, details of this conflict have remained hidden. Erik Landis mines recently opened provincial and central Soviet archives and international collections to provide a depth of detail and historical analysis never before possible in this definitive account of the uprising. Landis examines both sides of the conflict, probing the testimonies of the insurgents, their opponents, and those caught in between. We witness firsthand the frustrations, failures, and internal conflicts of the Bolsheviks and the spirit of rebellion that drove the insurgents and helped drive a localized dispute into a well-organized mass rebellion that struck fear in the hearts of Communist leaders. This political and military threat was influential in bringing about Lenin's conciliatory New Economic Policy, which allowed farmers and villages to sustain themselves in a quasi-market economy. Bandits and Partisans presents a gripping tale of brutality, domination, and revolt, placing readers at the frontlines of the complex and rich history of the Russian civil war and the consolidation of the new Soviet state.

Download or read book Defiance written by Nechama Tec and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-26 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust is one of helpless victims, but in fact many Jews struggled against the terrors of the Third Reich. In Defiance, Nechama Tec offers a riveting history of one such group, a forest community in western Belorussia that would number more than 1,200 Jews by 1944--the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Tec reveals that this extraordinary community included both men and women, some with weapons, but mostly unarmed, ranging from infants to the elderly. She reconstructs for the first time the amazing details of how these partisans and their families--hungry, exposed to the harsh winter weather--managed not only to survive, but to offer protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them. Arguing that this success would have been unthinkable without the vision of one man, Tec offers penetrating insight into the group's commander, Tuvia Bielski. Tec brings to light the untold story of Bielski's struggle as a partisan who lost his parents, wife, and two brothers to the Nazis, yet never wavered in his conviction that it was more important to save one Jew than to kill twenty Germans. She shows how, under Bielski's guidance, the partisans smuggled Jews out of heavily guarded ghettos, scouted the roads for fugitives, and led retaliatory raids against Belorussian peasants who collaborated with the Nazis. Herself a Holocaust survivor, Nechama Tec here draws on wide-ranging research and never before published interviews with surviving partisans--including Tuvia Bielski himself--to reconstruct here the poignant and unforgettable story of those who chose to fight.

Download or read book The German Anti Partisan Badge in World War II written by Rolf Michaelis and published by Schiffer Publishing. This book was released on 2012-08-28 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II nearly every Wehrmacht soldier outside of Germany came into contact, either directly or indirectly, with the nearly one-million partisans throughout Europe. Operations against these "bandits" usually fell outside the rules of war and those who fought saw image of incredible cruelty. Those German soldiers and police members who fought against the partisans were qualified to receive the anti-partisan badge. This concise book discusses the award's three grades and includes rare documents and war-era photographs.

Download or read book The Nazi War Against Soviet Partisans 1941 1944 written by Matthew Cooper and published by Scarborough House. This book was released on 1979 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set largely in Eastern Europe, this is the history of one of the pivotal struggles of World War II. A story of action, retaliation and reprisals that involved some two million people, told from both side of the rifle sights.

Download or read book Shadows on the Mountain written by Marcia Kurapovna and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2009-11-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at a crucial, little-known World War II episode—the failed Allied policy in Yugoslavia and its ramifications in the Balkans and beyond Winston Churchill called it one of his biggest wartime failures—the shift of British and U.S. support from Yugoslavia's Draža Mihailovic and his royalist resistance movement to Tito and his communist Partisans. This book illuminates the complex reasons behind that failure through the incredible story of what has been called the greatest rescue of Allied airmen from behind enemy lines in World War II history, a rescue executed, incredibly, with minimal official support from the United States and none such support from Great Britain. Recounts an unknown chapter of World War II history and the single largest rescue operation of the war Starting with Serbia's tragedy and triumph in World War II through civil war in Yugoslavia during World War I, focuses on the history of the Balkans, a tragically misunderstood part of the world Sheds new light on the OSS-SOE relationship and manipulations of intelligence that profoundly altered policy decision making Reveals how failed Allied policy set the stage for Yugoslavia's breakup in the 1990s Details the wartime camaraderie of unlikely warriors who became fast friends, outcasts, and heroes in executing the rescue Written with the drama of a novel and the insight of serious history, Shadows on the Mountain is essential reading for anyone interested in World War II, European history, and the Balkans.

Download or read book Terror in the Balkans written by Ben Shepherd and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-13 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Ben Shepherd ... uses Austro-Hungarian Army records to consider how the personal experiences of many Austrian officers during the Great War played a role in brutalizing their behavior in Yugoslavia. A comparison of Wehrmacht counter-insurgency divisions allows Shepherd to analyze how a range of midlevel commanders and their units conducted themselves in different parts of Yugoslavia, and why"--Jacket.

Download or read book Hitler s White Russians written by Antonio J. Muñoz and published by Europa Books Incorporated. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using private and archival sources spanning three continents the authors have written the definitive study on the history of collaboration and the anti-partisan war in White Russia during World War II. In addition, the history of the Shoah (holocaust) in White Russia is fully covered. The text is supported by close to 2,000 fully documented footnotes, as well as 125 rare photographs, many never before published, 97 battle maps (33 in full color), 12 color plates, 40 tables, 9 appendices, 9-page glossary of German political and military terms, and a 30-page index which facilitates research. The authors used materials from the Minsk archives, Bundesarchiv, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, US National Archives, Museum of Modern History, Ljubljana and the Yad Vashem Archives in Israel in addition to employing items from private sources. This is truly a monumental study on a little known subject.

Download or read book Warriors of the Wildlands written by Jim Cornelius and published by . This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fallen Guidon written by Edwin Adams Davis and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Robert E. Lee, surrendered at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865, some Confederates refused to abandon their cause. Fallen Guidon, originally published in 1962 by Jack Rittenhouse's Stagecoach Press, described the adventures of a Confederate brigade that, rather than surrender, decided to transplant its vision of Southern Empire in the troubled soils of Mexico. General Jo Shelby had led the Missouri Cavalry Division through numerous battles in the Trans-Mississippi theater. "We will stand together, we will keep our organization, our arms, our discipline, our hatred of oppression." He planned to march his brigade to Mexico and fight alongside the guerrillas against Emperor Maximilian's French army of occupation. They would come to Mexico's aid and, at the same time, save their honor and perhaps gain riches in a new land. Shelby and his men marched through Texas, burying their Confederated battle flag in the murky waters of the Rio Grande. But the men did not want to fight Maximilian's French soldiers. Identifying themselves as "imperialists," they instead fought the opposition Juaristas, spilling blood from Piedras Negras to Mexico City. This popularly written history, based on archival sources and the reminiscences of Shelby's adjunct, brings vividly to life a little-remembered episode of the Civil War period and of American incursions in Mexico -- Back cover.

Download or read book Hitler s Bandit Hunters written by Philip W. Blood and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 761 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 1942, Hitler directed all German state institutions to assist Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS and the German police, in eradicating armed resistance in the newly occupied territories of Eastern Europe and Russia. The directive for "combating banditry" (Bandenbekämpfung), became the third component of the Nazi regime's three-part strategy for German national security, with genocide (Endlösung der Judenfrage, or "the Final Solution of the Jewish Question") and slave labor (Erfassung, or "Registration of Persons to Hard Labor") being the better-known others. An original and thought-provoking work grounded in extensive research in German archives, Hitler's Bandit Hunters focuses on this counterinsurgency campaign, the anvil of Hitler's crusade for empire. Bandenbekämpfung portrayed insurgents as political and racial bandits, criminalized to a greater degree than enemies of the state; moreover, violence against them was not constrained by the prevailing laws of warfare. Philip Blood explains how German forces embraced the Bandenbekämpfung doctrine, demonstrating the equal culpability of both the SS police forces and the "heroic" Waffen-SS combat arm and shattering the contrived postwar distinctions between them. He challenges the traditional view of Himmler as an armchair general and bureaucrat, exposing him as the driving force behind one of the most successful security campaigns in history, and delves into the contentious issue of the complicity of ordinary German police, soldiers, and citizens, as well as the citizens of occupied territories, in these state-sponsored manhunts. This book provokes new debates on the Nazi terrorization of Europe, the blind acquiescence of many, and the courageous resistance of the few.

Download or read book Churchill s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare written by Giles Milton and published by Picador. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men—along with three others—formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Giles Milton's Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.

Download or read book Red Partisan written by Nikolai I. Obryn'ba and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2006-10-19 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir of a Soviet artist who became a resistance fighter against Nazi Germany during World War II. The epic World War II battles between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are the subject of a vast literature, but little has been published in English on the experiences of ordinary Soviets?civilians and soldiers?who were sucked into a bitter conflict that marked their lives forever. Their struggle for survival, and their resistance to the invaders’ brutality in the occupied territories, is one of the great untold stories of the war. Written late in the author’s life, Nikolai Obryn’ba’s unforgettable, intimate memoir tells of Operation Barbarossa, during which he was taken prisoner; the horrors of SS prison camps; his escape; his war fighting behind German lines as a partisan; and the world of suffering and tragedy around him. His perceptive, uncompromising account lays bare the everyday reality of war on the Eastern Front. Praise for Red Partisan “[Obryn’ba’s] descriptions of life in a German POW camp offer unique insights into a little-discussed aspect of the Eastern Front.” —Military Review “Obryn’ba’s simple and candid yet gripping memoir presents a credible mosaic of vivid images of life in the Red Army during the harrowing first few months of war and unprecedented details about his participation in the brutal but shadowy partisan war that raged deep in the German army’s rear. A must read for those seeking a human face on this most inhuman of twentieth-century wars.” —David M. Glantz, historian of the Soviet military

Download or read book On Guerrilla Warfare written by Mao Tse-tung and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first documented, systematic study of a truly revolutionary subject, this 1937 text remains the definitive guide to guerrilla warfare. It concisely explains unorthodox strategies that transform disadvantages into benefits.

Download or read book The Polish Underground 1939 1947 written by David G. Williamson and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2012-04-12 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of the Polish resistance movement chronicles the operations of various factions from WWII through the postwar battle for power. The Polish partisan army famously fought with tenacity against the Wehrmacht during World War II. Yet the wider story of the Polish underground movement, which opposed both the Nazi and Soviet occupying powers, has rarely been told. In this concise and authoritative study, historian David Williamson presents a major reassessment of the actions, impact and legacy of Polish resistance. The Polish resistance movement sprang up after the German invasion of 1939. As the war progressed, it took many forms, including propaganda, spying, assassination, disruption, sabotage and guerrilla warfare. Many groups were involved, including isolated partisan bands, the Jewish resistance, and the Home Army which confronted the Germans in the disastrous Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Going beyond the Second World War, Williamson's graphic account chronicles the clandestine civil war between the Communists and former members of the Home Army that continued until the Communist regime took power in 1947.

Download or read book Ordinary Organisations written by Stefan Kühl and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Holocaust, 99 percent of all Jewish killings were carried out by members of state organizations. In this groundbreaking book, Stefan Kühl offers a new analysis of the integral role that membership in organizations played in facilitating the annihilation of European Jews under the Nazis. Drawing on the well-researched case of the mass killings of Jews by a Hamburg reserve police battalion, Kühl shows how ordinary men from ordinary professions were induced to carry out massacres. It may have been that coercion, money, identification with the end goal, the enjoyment of brutality, or the expectations of their comrades impelled the members of the police battalion to join the police units and participate in ghetto liquidations, deportations, and mass shootings. But ultimately, argues Kühl, the question of immediate motives, or indeed whether members carried out tasks with enthusiasm or reluctance, is of secondary importance. The crucial factor in explaining what they did was the integration of individuals into an organizational framework that prompted them to perform their roles. This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust by demonstrating the fundamental role played by organizations in persuading ordinary Germans to participate in the annihilation of the Jews. It will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of organizations, violence, and modern German history, as well as for anyone interested in genocide and the Holocaust.

Download or read book Hitler s Police Battalions written by Edward B. Westermann and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the German Wehrmacht swarmed across Eastern Europe, an elite corps followed close at its heels. Along with the SS and Gestapo, the Ordnungspolizei, or Uniformed Police, played a central role in Nazi genocide that until now has been generally neglected by historians of the war. Beginning with the invasion of Poland, the Uniformed Police were charged with following the army to curb resistance, pacify the countryside, patrol Jewish ghettos, and generally maintain order in the conquered territories. Edward Westermann examines how this force emerged as a primary instrument of annihilation, responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of the Third Reich's political and racial enemies. In Hitler's Police Battalions he reveals how the institutional mindset of these "ordinary policemen" allowed them to commit atrocities without a second thought. To uncover the story of how the German national police were fashioned into a corps of political soldiers, Westermann reveals initiatives pursued before the war by Heinrich Himmler and Kurt Daluege to create a culture within the existing police forces that fostered anti-Semitism and anti-Communism as institutional norms. Challenging prevailing interpretations of German culture, Westermann draws on extensive archival research—including the testimony of former policemen—to illuminate this transformation and the callous organizational culture that emerged. Purged of dissidents, indoctrinated to idolize Hitler, and trained in military combat, these police battalions-often numbering several hundred men-repeatedly conducted actions against Jews, Slavs, gypsies, asocials, and other groups on their own initiative, even when they had the choice not to. In addition to documenting these atrocities, Westermann examines cooperation between the Ordnungspolizei and the SS and Gestapo, and the close relationship between police and Wehrmacht in the conduct of the anti-partisan campaign of annihilation. Throughout, Westermann stresses the importance of ideological indoctrination and organizational initiatives within specific groups. It was the organizational culture of the Uniformed Police, he maintains, and not German culture in general that led these men to commit genocide. Hitler's Police Battalions provides the most complete and comprehensive study to date of this neglected branch of Himmler's SS and Police empire and adds a new dimension to our understanding of the Holocaust and the war on the Eastern front.