Download or read book Hitler s High Seas Fleet written by Richard Humble and published by Pan. This book was released on 1972 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hitler s Navy written by Jak Mallmann Showell and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-19 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German Navy, both before the War and throughout the years of fighting, was heavily outnumbered by the navies of Great Britain and the United States; nonetheless, it proved to be serious thorn in the sides of its adversaries. The U-boat war in the North Atlantic threatened the very liberation of Europe, while the major warships posed a constant threat to the Allied shipping lanes. This important reference book is an indispensable guide to the ships, organisation, command and rank structure, and leaders of the Kriegsmarine, and helps explain why it was such a potent force. A detailed text, augmented by photos, maps and diagrams, studies the German Navy from the Treaty of Versailles to the collapse of the U-boat offensive and the demise of the Third Reich. After covering the background organisation and naval bases, the author gives detailed descriptions of all the classes of ship from the battleships to motor torpedo boats and minesweepers. The officers and sailors are covered along with their uniforms and awards and insignia. Biographies of notable personalities and a chronology of the main naval events are included, as well as appendices and a select bibliography. Based on the author's 1979 title The German Navy in World War Two, this is a classic work of reference for a new generation of readers.
Download or read book Tirpitz written by Michael Epkenhans and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), who joined the Prussian Navy in 1865 as a midshipman, was chiefly responsible for rapidly developing and enlarging the German Navy, especially the High Seas Fleet, from 1897 until the years immediately prior to the First World War. Epkenhans uses newly discovered documents to provide a fresh treatment of this important naval leader. In 1897, Tirpitz became the Secretary of State of the Imperial Navy Department. In four major building acts of 1898, 1900, 1908, and 1912, and, in working closely with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tirpitz expanded the Imperial Navy from a small coastal force into a major blue-water navy. Great Britain, reacting with alarm to this challenge to its overseas trade and naval supremacy, accelerated the naval arms race by launching a revolutionary type of battleship, the Dreadnought, in 1906 and entering into strategic alliances with France and Russia. By the start of the First World War in 1914, the British Royal Navy still held a sizable advantage in capital ships over Germany, so that only one notable fleet action, Jutland in 1916, took place during the war. Tirpitz, who had become the German Navy commander with the outbreak of the war, thereafter became a staunch advocate of unrestricted submarine warfare. This policy did not differentiate between neutral and belligerent shipping and proved so controversial with the neutral United States that Germany was forced to retract it, albeit only temporarily. In the meantime, Tirpitz tendered his resignation to the Kaiser, who surprisingly accepted it. Tirpitz remained a minor figure thereafter, later serving the right-wing Fatherland Party as a deputy in the Reichstag.
Download or read book German Naval History written by Keith W. Bird and published by Scholarly Title. This book was released on 1985 with total page 1152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Killing the Bismarck written by Iain Ballantyne and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An excellent account . . . A suspenseful narrative that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.” —WWII History Magazine In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy’s pursuit and subsequent destruction of Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare. In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of the Second World War, Iain Ballantyne draws extensively on the graphic eyewitness testimony of veterans, to construct a thrilling story, mainly from the point of view of the British battleships, cruisers, and destroyers involved. He describes the tense atmosphere as cruisers play a lethal cat and mouse game, shadowing Bismarck in the icy Denmark Strait. We witness the shocking destruction of the British battle cruiser Hood, in which all but three of her ship’s complement were killed—an event that filled pursuing Royal Navy warships, including the battered battleship Prince of Wales, with a thirst for revenge. While Swordfish torpedo-bombers try desperately to cripple the Bismarck, we sail in destroyers on their own daring torpedo attacks, battling mountainous seas. Finally, the author takes us into the final showdown, as battleships Rodney and King George V, supported by cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire, destroy the pride of Hitler’s fleet. This vivid, superbly researched account portrays this epic saga through the eyes of so-called “ordinary sailors” caught up in extraordinary events—conveying the horror and majesty of war at sea in all its cold brutality and awesome power.
Download or read book Hitler s Navy written by Gordon Williamson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete illustrated study of the German Kriegsmarine throughout World War II. Hamstrung at first by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, during the 1930s, the German Navy underwent a programme of rearmament in defiance of the restrictions, building modern warships under limitations which forced technological innovation. Submarines were strictly prohibited by the treaty, and yet, following years of covert development, they became one of the Kriegsmarine's most deadly weapons. Blooded in the Spanish Civil War, the surface ships of the Kriegsmarine went on to play a crucial role in the opening salvoes of World War II during the invasions of Poland and Norway, although serious losses here set back plans for the invasion of Britain, and by the end of the war, only a handful of surface vessels remained to be divided up among the Allies. From the beginning of the war, but especially after the fall of France, the dreaded and extraordinarily successful U-boats stalked the Atlantic, threatening vital British shipping convoys and choking off the lifeline of munitions and supply from the US. Once Italy and Japan entered the war, German naval operations expanded to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. This highly illustrated volume is a comprehensive study of the German Navy throughout the war, from pocket battleships to torpedo boats.
Download or read book Erich Raeder written by Keith W Bird and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-05-11 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1928 to 1943, Erich Raeder led the German navy during the last turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, the rise of Hitler, and through World War II, yet until now there has not been a full-length biography written about him. This study draws on archival resources and the rich scholarship of German naval history over the past five decades to review the evolution of Raeder's concept of naval strategy and his attempts to achieve the political and military means necessary to attain the navy's global naval ambitions. While previous histories have viewed Raeder as a product of the Wilhelmian era and heir to Admiral von Tirpitz's sea power ideology, this work clearly demonstrates the navy's affinity with Hitler's fascism. Author Keith Bird refutes Raeder's own argument that his navy was non-political and independent and shows him to be a political activist and the architect of German naval policy. For the first time, Raeder's strict leadership of the navy after 1928 and his relationship to Hitler and the National Socialist state is placed in the context of Raeder's formative years as an Imperial naval officer, his First World War combat experience, and his critical role in the survival and development of the post-war Reichsmarine. The author traces the impact of Hitler's influence on both the pace and nature of naval rearmament 1933-1939 and the conduct of the Kriegsmarine in war as well as Raeder's furtive attempts to influence Germany's strategic thinking in favor of a maritime strategy. Blinded by his need to justify the navy's existence and achieve his vision of world power, Raeder was ultimately defeated by the contradictions in his own policies as well as Hitler's and the realities of Germany's resources and military necessities.
Download or read book Grand Admiral written by Erich Raeder and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2001-02-21 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The personal memoir of the Commander in Chief of the German Navy from 1935 until his final break with Hitler in 1943.
Download or read book Hitler s Secret Pirate Fleet written by James P. Duffy and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2001-06-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They were the deadliest ships of World War II--nine German commerce raiders disguised as peaceful cargo ships, flying the flags of neutral and allied nations. In reality, these heavily armed warships roamed the world's oceans at will, like 20th-century pirates. They struck unsuspecting freighters and tankers out of the darkness of night or from behind a curtain of fog and mist. For almost three years they led the Royal Navy on a deadly chase from sea to sea, seeding Allied ports with hundreds of mines and, on one occasion, even bombarding a shore installation. Masquerading as unarmed merchantmen, the raiders carried an awesome array of weapons cleverly hidden behind false structures and concealed inside empty packing crates on their decks. Seaplanes and motorboats helped them seek out their victims on the vast seas. They then fed off of these unsuspecting targets, pumping fuel from their prey into their own tanks and taking food from captured pantries to feed their own crews and the thousands of prisoners that they picked up along the way. These secret ships also acted as supply ships for U-boats, helping their fellow hunters remain at large for longer periods. At sea for months--or even years--those raider sailors lucky enough to survive were hailed as heroes when they returned home.
Download or read book Hitler s Secret Pirate Fleet written by James P. Duffy and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2005-05-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition of Keller's autobiography is the first major version available in more than 50 years that nearly replicates Keller's work with letters and commentary as it was first published in 1903.
Download or read book The Iron Sea written by Simon Read and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed military history author, this action-packed World War II history describes the Allies' brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler's surface fleet. The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships -- Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean -- roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence." The campaign against Hitler's surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea. Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.
Download or read book Hitler s Naval Bases written by Jak P. Mallmann Showell and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-01-21 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hitler's U-boats and his dreaded pocket battleships such as Bismarck and Tirpitz - Churchill dubbed the latter as 'The Beast' - continue to fascinate an ever-growing interest in the Second World War. Despite a numerical disadvantage when compared the Royal Navy, Hitler's U-boats wrecked havoc in the Atlantic against vulnerable convoys and the doomed Bismarck took on the might of Britain's battleships in a mighty clash of the titans. Hitler's Naval Bases, a work of love that took the author over forty years to research and write, is the most comprehensive and dedicated book on the subject matter. A world's first, it covers bases in remarkable detail from the smallest and unmanned locations to the largest dedicated bases in Lorient, Kiel and Wilhemshaven. The book covers the different types of naval base from isolated and forgotten bases, escape and survival bases, to the extremities of the main naval bases. The functions and various departments - artillery, ship construction to dockyard medical service - are explained as are North Sea naval bases in Emden, The Weser Ports and Cuxhaven, Baltic ports, the major bases that never were ('The Lobster's Claw on Heligoland') to France, Asia and German colonies, including re-fuelling in Spain and bases located in Russia and in the 'Heart of England'. Also covered are naval artillery and naval infantry as well as the anatomy of coastal artillery batteries, the shipping yards and even rules for living in such conditions. A most lavish and phenomenal book, it is beautifully illustrated with over 200 unpublished photographs complemented with thousands of unique interviews with veterans during the war as well as survivors. A labour of love, Hitler's Naval Bases is written by a world's leading authoritarian figure and is an essential book for those interested in the armed forces of the Third Reich.
Download or read book Hitler s Battleships written by Edwyn Gray and published by Leo Cooper Books. This book was released on 1992 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battleships of Hitler's navy challenged the enemy in the arctic blizzards of the Barents Sea and gave battle from the ice-floes of the Denmark straits to the North Atlantic and beyond the equator. But, according to this book, the Nazi leadership never fully appreciated their naval advantage.
Download or read book Plan Z written by David Wragg and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2008-09-22 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A well-written yet concise history” of Hitler’s plan to build a massive naval fleet, why it failed, and how it may have affected the outcome of WWII (Nautical Research Journal). Except for the strength of the U-boat fleet at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Navy, or Kriegsmarine, was never a match for the Royal Navy, even though the latter was overstretched and fighting in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Arctic. It was not supposed to be that way. Hitler and his naval staff had a vision for a large and well-balanced fleet, including aircraft carriers. Plan Z was the name given for the massive fleet that Germany intended to build. However, the Plan relied on the outbreak of the war not occurring until at least 1942. This book examines the way in which such a fleet could have influenced the major battles between the Royal Navy and the Germans. Plan Z starts by looking at Germany’s history and ambitions as a maritime power. The relationships among the three armed forces, and between them and the Fuhrer, are also examined, along with the country’s economic and industrial position. Thanks to the author’s detailed research, Plan Z considers whether the Nazis’ ambitions could ever have been realized even if the war had been delayed due to the resource and manpower limitations—and also considers what the Royal Navy’s response could have been. Includes photographs
Download or read book Hitler s Northern War written by Adam R. A. Claasen and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adolf Hitler had high hopes for his conquest of Norway, which held both great symbolic and great strategic value for the Fuhrer. Despite early successes, however, his ambitious northern campaign foundered and ultimately failed. Adam Claasen for the first time reveals the full story of this neglected episode and shows how it helped doom the Third Reich to defeat. Hitler and Raeder, the chief of the German navy, were determined to take and keep Norway. By doing so, they hoped to preempt Allied attempts to outflank Germany, protect sea lanes for German ships, access precious Scandinavian minerals for war production, and provide a launchpad for Luftwaffe and naval operations against Great Britain. Beyond those strategic objectives, Hitler also envisioned Norway as part of a pan-Nordic stronghold—a centerpiece of his new world order. But, as Claasen shows, Hitler's grand expectations were never realized. Gring's Luftwaffe was the vital spearhead in the invasion of Norway, which marked a number of wartime firsts. Among other things, it involved the first large-scale aerial operations over sea rather than land, the first time operational objectives and logistical needs were fulfilled by air power, and the first deployment of paratroopers. Although it got off to a promising start, the German effort, particularly against British and arctic convoys, was greatly hampered by flawed strategic thinking, interservice rivalries between the Luftwaffe and navy, the failure to develop a long-range heavy bomber, the diversion of planes and personnel to shore up the German war effort elsewhere, and the northern theater's harsh climate and terrain. Claasen's study covers every aspect of this ill-fated campaign from the 1940 invasion until war's end and shows how it was eventually relegated to a backwater status as Germany fought to survive in an increasingly unwinnable war. His compelling account sharpens our picture of the German air force and widens our understanding of the Third Reich's way of war.
Download or read book War on the High Seas written by Time-Life Books and published by Time Life Medical. This book was released on 1990 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series that chronicles the rise and eventual fall of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Download or read book Fighting Ships of World Wars One and Two written by and published by Crescent. This book was released on 1976 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
