Download or read book Facing the Red Army in Festung Posen written by Hans Klapa and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Facing the Red Army in Festung Posen features the stories of two German soldiers who took part in the battles for Festung Posen (Pozna? Fortress) in January and February 1945. Never before published in English, the accounts of Hans Klapa, written immediately after the war (1946) and Alfred Kriehn, a little later (early 1990s) provide details relating to the course of the battle, as well as the armaments of the German garrison, its morale and even first-hand descriptions of individual actions during bloody street fighting. Although describing the same battle, both memoirs are completely different as they represent different branches of the armed forces and each takes place in different parts of the city. While Hans Klapa fought only in the eastern part, Alfred Kriehn describes the fighting on the western side. However, what separates the two accounts the most is the fate of both heroes immediately after the battle, with Klapa describing his epic, months-long struggle with his comrades not to fall into the hands of the enemy and to avoid being taken prisoner by the Soviets at any cost.
Download or read book Red Army into the Reich written by Simon Forty and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated history of how the Red Army pushed west and into Berlin in 1945 during World War II. The last year of the war saw Russian offensives that cleared the Germans out of their final strongholds in Finland and the Baltic states, before advancing into Finnmark in Norway and the east European states that bordered Germany: Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. By spring 1945 the Red Army had reached to Vienna and the Balkans, and had thrust deep into Germany where they met American, French and British troops advancing from the west. The final days of the Third Reich were at hand. Berlin was first surrounded, then attacked and taken. Hitler’s suicide and his successors’ unconditional surrender ended the war. For writers and historians who concentrate on the Western Allies and the battles in France and the Low Countries, the Eastern Front comes as a shock. The sheer size of both the territories and the forces involved; the savagery of both weather and the fighting; the appalling suffering of the civilian populations of all countries and the wreckage of towns and cities—it’s no wonder that words like Armageddon are used to describe the annihilation. Red Army into the Reich combines a narrative history, contemporary photographs and maps with images of memorials, battlefield survivors and then & now views. It may come as a surprise to the western reader to see how many memorials there are to Russia’s Great Patriotic War and those to the losses suffered by the countries who spent so long under the murderous Nazi regime. Praise for Red Army into the Reich “If you have any interest in understanding the final cataclysm that overtook the Third Reich and delineated the hows and whys of the Cold War—and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union—Red Army into the Reich will give you a glimpse into a generally underreported past...a small slice of heaven for the East Front fan.” —ARMOR Magazine “Carries the reader into the Eastern Front with clear writing, good maps, and lavish illustration. Many of the photographs are accompanied by images of how the scene they depict appears today.” —WWII History Magazine “A better-illustrated recent volume would be hard to find, especially one that covers the breadth of Red Army combat operations in the third period of the war.” —Journal of Slavic Military Studies
Download or read book Hitler s Commanders written by James Lucas and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2014-01-22 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As absolute as Hitler's control over the German war machine was, it depended on the ability, judgment and unquestioning loyalty of the senior officers charged with putting his ideas, however difficult, into effect.Top military historian James Lucas examines the stories of fourteen of these men: all of different rank, from varied backgrounds, and highly awarded, they exemplify German military prowess at its most dangerous. Among his subjects are Eduard Dietl, the commander of German forces in Norway and Eastern Europe; Werner Kampf, one of the most successful Panzer commanders of the war; and Kurt Meyer, commander of the Hitler Youth Division and one of Germany's youngest general officers.The author, one of the leading experts on all aspects of German military conduct of the Second World War, offers the reader a rare look into the nature of the German Army a curious mix of individual strength, petty officialdom and pragmatic action.
Download or read book Hitler s Armed Forces Auxiliaries written by Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-11-20 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Hitler's Wehrmachtsgefolge (armed forces auxiliaries) is less well known than that of Germany's other armed forces in World War II, such as the panzer divisions, the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine. The Organization Todt (construction company), Reichsarbeitsdienst (labor service), Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrer Korps (driver's corp) and Volkssturm (people's militia) were given the status of armed forces auxiliaries to protect their members under the Geneva Conventions should they be taken prisoner. By 1944, the Wehrmachtsgefolge comprised 40 percent of the German armed forces, and their contribution to the war effort was far from negligible. This illustrated history documents the development, structure and organization, uniforms, regalia and technical data of these units and discusses their role in the war and during the prewar period.
Download or read book Belgrade s Best written by Momcilo Dobrich and published by . This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hitler s Final Fortress written by Richard Hargreaves and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early 1945, the Red Army plunged into the Third Reich from the east, rolling up territory and crushing virtually everything in its path, with one exception: the city of Breslau, which Hitler had declared a fortress-city, to be defended to the death. This book examines in detail the notorious four-month siege of Breslau. • The first full-length English-language account of the bloody siege • Chronicles the bitter struggle as the Red Army encircled Breslau and eventually pillaged the city, taking savage retribution on the survivors • Details the brutal methods used by the city's Nazi leaders to keep German troops fighting and maintain order
Download or read book Tanks in the Battle of Germany 1945 written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-24 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history and analysis of the German and Soviet tank forces that battled on eastern German soil in the final months of World War II. The final months of World War II on the Eastern Front saw the Wehrmacht fighting with exhausted armoured divisions, albeit now armed with the most advanced and heaviest tanks of the war, to slow the Soviet advance. The Red Army meanwhile was rolling relentlessly westwards, with its own highly developed tank forces now equipped with T34/85s and the huge IS-2 heavy tanks, intent on taking Berlin and as much German territory as possible. This book is a history and analysis of the state of these two mighty armoured forces, as their battles decided the fate of Germany. It covers their initial encounters on the German frontier in 1944 (East Prussia), the fighting of the Oder-Vistula offensive in January 1945 and describes the condition of the German tank forces and their Hungarian allies as they were beaten back. It also considers the huge impact of The Red Army and other significant Allied forces such as those from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania on the outcome of victory in the war.
Download or read book Stalin s Secret War written by Rupert Butler and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The use of terror has been a characteristic of Russia from the days of the Tsars. During 'the Great Patriotic War', Soviet soldiers and citizens feared not only the Germans but the secret police. The agents of the NKVD waged a merciless campaign against their own people. The full extent of this operation is told in this compelling study.
Download or read book Eyewitness to Wehrmacht Atrocities on the Eastern Front written by Luis Raffeiner and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-12-22 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A German soldier deployed to Russia recounts his harrowing experience as both victim and perpetrator of Nazi atrocities in this WWII memoir. Serving his country on the Eastern Front, Luis Raffeiner witnessed devastating acts committed by the German army that couldn’t be reconciled with the heroic propaganda back home. Caught up in the turmoil of the vast conflict, he struggled to make sense of the ruthlessness he witnessed—and the part he himself played in it. In this bracingly candid memoir, Raffeiner offers a detailed firsthand account of the Nazi war of annihilation in the Soviet Union. Raffeiner chronicles his family life in a remote village in the Tyrol in the 1930s, his military service in Italy, his transfer to the Wehrmacht and his training as a mechanic on assault guns. He then proceeds to his march into the Soviet Union in 1941. There he experienced, as he says, ‘war in its brutal and cruel reality’. Captured by the Red Army, Raffeiner barely survived as a prisoner of war. His dramatic and honest recollections shatter the myth of the clean conduct of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. He testifies to vicious actions, including some in which he himself was involved. His memoir is not a heroic tale – it shows how a man from an ordinary background can come to participate in the horrors of war.
Download or read book Prussian Strategic Thought 1815 1830 Beyond Clausewitz written by Jacek Jędrysiak and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-12 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Prussian Military Thought 1815-1830: Beyond Clausewitz Jacek Jędrysiak offers a new perspective on the Prussian army after the Napoleonic wars in order to better understand the classic text On War by Carl von Clausewitz.
Download or read book Confronting Case Blue written by Igorʹ Sdvizhkov and published by Helion. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author, Igor' Sdvizhkov, takes a close look at the attempt by the Briansk Front's Operational Group Chibisov to collapse the northern shoulder of the German drive to the Caucasus - north-west of Voronezh - in July 1942. Using both previously classified Soviet documents and German documents, Sdvizhkov focuses in particular on General A.I. Liziukov's role in the counteroffensive as commander of the 2nd Tank Corps after his 5th Tank Army was disbanded following failed counterattacks in early July. The Soviet attacks led to nine days of heavy see-saw fighting involving tens of thousands of men and hundreds of tanks and guns on both sides, and threatened to isolate the German forces holding Voronezh. Sdvizhkov also describes the German reaction to the initial penetration made by Operational Group Chibisov's offensive: a counterattack primarily with the forces of the 9th Panzer Division, which at the time of the new Soviet offensive, was in a reserve position - serving as a fire brigade. The German riposte blunted the Soviet attacks and encircled elements of Operational Group Chibisov, and ultimately stabilized the tottering German front north-west of Voronezh for the time being. General Liziukov would go missing during the 2nd Tank Corps' attack, and the author discusses why the Briansk Front and Operational Group Chibisov Command initially made little or no effort to find the General, Stalin's suspicions surrounding General Liziukov's disappearance and the results of the official wartime investigation of the matter. Sdvizhkov also addresses the numerous controversies that later ensued due to erroneous and/or misleading recollections, as well as the total inability to locate General Liziukov or his remains. Carefully examining the available evidence, Sdvizhkov offers a cogent and persuasive explanation of what happened.
Download or read book The Lost Pianos of Siberia written by Sophy Roberts and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “melodious” mix of music, history, and travelogue “reveals a story inextricably linked to the drama of Russia itself . . . These pages sing like a symphony.” —The Wall Street Journal Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies, and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell. Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos—grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood. How these pianos traveled into this snowbound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers, and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle. The Lost Pianos of Siberia follows Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful—and peppered with pianos. “An elegant and nuanced journey through literature, through history, through music, murder and incarceration and revolution, through snow and ice and remoteness, to discover the human face of Siberia. I loved this book.” —Paul Theroux
Download or read book Hitler s Fortresses in the East written by Alexey Isaev and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-07-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Fortresses must carry out the same tasks as the fortresses of old....They must allow themselves to be surrounded and thus tie down as many enemy forces as possible.' So Hitler directed in March 1944 and, in so doing, sealed the fate of Ternopol', Kovel', Poznan and Breslau, cities in the Ukraine and Poland that were in the path of the Red Army's advance towards Nazi Germany. German forces, under orders to resist at all costs, adopted all-round defence and struggled to hold out while waiting for relief - which never came. In this gripping and original book, Alexey Isaev describes, in vivid detail, what happened next -intense and ruthless fighting, horrendous casualties among soldiers and civilians, the fabric of these historic cities torn apart. His account is based on pioneering archival research which offers us an unrivalled insight into the tactics on both sides, the experience of the close-quarter fighting in the streets and houses, and the dreadful aftermath. At the same time he shows why these cities were chosen and how the wider war passed them by as the Wehrmacht retreated and the battlefront moved westward. Each of these cities suffered a similar fate to Stalingrad but their story has never been told before in such graphic and circumstantial detail.
Download or read book Deep Maneuver written by Jack D Kern Editor and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-10-12 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 5, Deep Maneuver: Historical Case Studies of Maneuver in Large-Scale Combat Operations, presents eleven case studies from World War II through Operation Iraqi Freedom focusing on deep maneuver in terms of time, space and purpose. Deep operations require boldness and audacity, and yet carry an element of risk of overextension - especially in light of the independent factors of geography and weather that are ever-present. As a result, the case studies address not only successes, but also failure and shortfalls that result when conducting deep operations. The final two chapters address these considerations for future Deep Maneuver.
Download or read book Heinkel He 111 written by Krzysztof Janowicz and published by . This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Free extras for modelers, including decals and masking foil * Eighteen sheets of technical drawings and five color charts The first part of a monograph on the German WW2 bomber, Heinkel He 111 describes the development history of its all versions with coverage of changes made in their variants, sub-variants and field modifications. Originally designed as a bomber plane, He 111 was used as a torpedo and reconnaissance aircraft as well as - after the unique modification - for towing huge Me 321 gliders. The book features a detailed description of the aircraft's structure and technical data and a chapter about camouflage and markings. Complete with 112 pages, 99 photographs, 18 sheets of technical drawings in 1:48 and 1:72 scale with specification of external changes on production-run versions of the aircraft and 5 color charts with 8 examples of camouflage schemes. Free 1:48 and 1:72 decals for 5 schemes: Heinkel He 111 P-2, '1G+EK' of 2./KG 27 "Boelcke", Werneuchen (Germany), September 1939. Heinkel He 111 H-6, '1H+FK' of 2./KG 26, Grosseto (Italy), December 1942. Heinkel He 111 H-6, '1H+AH' of 1./KG 26, Barduffos (Norway), Summer 1942. Heinkel He 111 H-16, '5J+ER' of 7./KG 4, Białystok (Poland), Spring 1944. Heinkel He 111 H-20, '5J+GH' of 1./KG 4, Dresden (Germany), April 1945. About the Series Monographs is a series focusing on an individual type of aircraft. Each monograph contains descriptions of the aircraft's origins, its variants and combat history. Each volume includes several hundred archive photographs, technical scale drawings and color profile artworks, with free extras for modelers, including decals and masking foil.
Download or read book Globocnik s Men in Italy 1943 45 written by Stefano Di Giusto and published by Schiffer Military History. This book was released on 2016-12-28 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Odilo Globocnik, SS and police leader in Lublin, Poland, transferred to the Italian OZAK region in late 1943, he took with him a group of around 100 men who had run the notorious Aktion Reinhard extermination camps--Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor--where 1.5 million people (mostly Jews) had been killed. This book describes the little-known activities of this group, known as Abteilung R (Reinhard), in the OZAK region from 1943 to 1945. Here they not only continued persecuting Jews, but also became involved in the fight against the armed resistance movement, participated in security tasks, anti-partisan operations, retaliation operations including arresting and killing of civilians, and ran the infamous Risiera di San Sabba police camp in Trieste. The book also covers the SS-Wachmannschaften (SS guards units) of the OZAK, military units that were formed locally and had links with Abteilung R. There are also chapters on uniforms and insignia, as well as photographs related to anti-partisan operations in the region.
Download or read book Collected Plays written by Wole Soyinka and published by London ; New York : Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1973 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: `The Lion and the Jewel alone is enough to establish Nigeria as the most fertile new source of English-speaking drama since Synge's discovery of the Western Isles.' The Times The ironic development and consequences of `progress' may be traced through both the themes and the tone of the works included in this second volume of Wole Soyinka's plays. The Lion and the Jewel shows an ineffectual assault on past tradition soundly defeated. In Kongi's Harvest, however, the pretensions of Kongi's regime are also fatal. The denouement points the way forward. The two Brother Jero plays pursue that way, the comic `propheteering' of the earlier play giving way to the sardonic reality of Jero's Metamorphosis. Madmen and Specialists, Soyinka's most pessimistic play, concerns the physical, mental, and moral destruction of modern civil war.
