Download or read book The Battle of The Bulge written by Bill Cain and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2007-01-15 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of 1944, Germany realized that an Allied victory was imminent. As a last-gasp offensive thrust, the Germans planned an operation to split the Allied lines in Belgium, circle around and destroy four Allied armies, and force the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in favor of the Axis powers. After a brutal month-long struggle in freezing temperatures, the German advance was halted, and Nazi leader Adolph Hitlers dreams of world conquest were finally crushed.
Download or read book The Last Gasp written by Scott Christianson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Last Gasp takes us to the dark side of human history in the first full chronicle of the gas chamber in the United States. In page-turning detail, award-winning writer Scott Christianson tells a dreadful story that is full of surprising and provocative new findings. First constructed in Nevada in 1924, the gas chamber, a method of killing sealed off and removed from the sight and hearing of witnesses, was originally touted as a "humane" method of execution. Delving into science, war, industry, medicine, law, and politics, Christianson overturns this mythology for good. He exposes the sinister links between corporations looking for profit, the military, and the first uses of the gas chamber after World War I. He explores little-known connections between the gas chamber and the eugenics movement. Perhaps most controversially, he has unearthed new evidence about American and German collaboration in the production and lethal use of hydrogen cyanide and about Hitler’s adoption of gas chamber technology developed in the United States. More than a book about the death penalty, this compelling history ultimately reveals much about America’s values and power structures in the twentieth century.
Download or read book Hitler s Last Gasp written by Trevor N. Dupuy and published by HarperCol. This book was released on 1994-10-20 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the German attack in the Ardennes, which caught the American forces off-guard.
Download or read book World War II Battle of the Bulge written by C. David North and published by New Word City. This book was released on 2015-12-30 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Bulge was arguably the most pivotal - and bloodiest - battle of World War II. From the middle of December 1944 to January 25, 1945, more than a million Allied and German troops fought for control of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. The bitter conflict ended with more than 200,000 dead and wounded on both sides. The German counteroffensive was Adolf Hitler's last gasp, born out of desperation as he came to grips with reports that the Third Reich was losing ground in battlefields across Europe. Even in its weakened state, Germany's assault took Allied leaders by surprise. Hitler had correctly calculated that the Allied armies had moved too rapidly: The troops were not only undersupplied but unprepared for a surprise attack. Hitler was betting that a victory would allow Germany to negotiate for peace on its terms. He was almost right. If not for the bravery of American troops, who against all odds held up the German attack – and quick decisions made by General Dwight B. Eisenhower - history may have taken a much different turn. This is the story of World War II's final showdown.
Download or read book Hitler s Last Levy written by Hans Kissel and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion volume to our very successful In a Raging Inferno - Combat Units of the Hitler Youth, Hans Kissel's study offers a highly detailed account of the German Volkssturm, or Home Guard. Formed from men unfit for military service, the young, and the old, this ad-hoc formation saw extensive combat during the desperate defense of the Reich, 1944–45. The author describes the Volkssturm’s training, leadership, organization, armament and equipment, in addition to its active service on both the Eastern and Western fronts. The text is supported by an extensive selection of appendices, including translations of documents and many fascinating eyewitness combat reports. This edition also includes over 150 previously unpublished b/w photos, and 4 pages of specially commissioned color uniform plates by Stephen Andrew.
Download or read book The End written by Ian Kershaw and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-08-28 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of To Hell and Back, a fascinating and original exploration of how the Third Reich was willing and able to fight to the bitter end of World War II Countless books have been written about why Nazi Germany lost the Second World War, yet remarkably little attention has been paid to the equally vital questions of how and why the Third Reich did not surrender until Germany had been left in ruins and almost completely occupied. Drawing on prodigious new research, Ian Kershaw, an award-winning historian and the author of Fateful Choices, explores these fascinating questions in a gripping and focused narrative that begins with the failed bomb plot in July 1944 and ends with the death of Adolf Hitler and the German capitulation in 1945. The End paints a harrowing yet enthralling portrait of the Third Reich in its last desperate gasps.
Download or read book The Siege of Bastogne written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting written by generals and soldiers on both sides *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "They've got us surrounded - the poor bastards." - American army medic in Bastogne, December 20th, 1944 After the successful amphibious invasion on D-Day in June 1944, the Allies began racing east toward Germany and liberating France along the way. The Allies had landed along a 50 mile stretch of French coast, and despite suffering 8,000 casualties on D-Day, over 100,000 still began the march across the western portion of the continent. By the end of August 1944, the German Army in France was shattered, with 200,000 killed or wounded and a further 200,000 captured. However, Adolf Hitler reacted to the news of invasion with glee, figuring it would give the Germans a chance to destroy the Allied armies that had water to their backs. As he put it, "The news couldn't be better. We have them where we can destroy them." While that sounds delusional in retrospect, it was Hitler's belief that by splitting the Allied march across Europe in their drive toward Germany, he could cause the collapse of the enemy armies and cut off their supply lines. Part of Hitler's confidence came as a result of underestimating American resolve, but with the Soviets racing toward Berlin from the east, this final offensive would truly be the last gasp of the German war machine, and the month long campaign was fought over a large area of the Ardennes Forest, through France, Belgium and parts of Luxembourg. From an Allied point of view, the operations were commonly referred to as the Ardennes Offensive, while the German code phrase for the operation was Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein ("Operation Watch on the Rhine"), with the initial breakout going under the name of "Operation Mist." Today, Americans know it best as the Battle of the Bulge. Bastogne would become a legendary linchpin in the defense against the Ardennes Offensive, in part for its strategic importance but also because of the almost superhuman effort made to protect it. Seven important roads converged with the town of Bastogne, and the Germans, on their way to Antwerp, recognized its importance as a hub, but with the weather obscuring the military map and intelligence at an unusually low rate of abundance or reliability, no Americans on the ground, from private to general, knew precisely what was about to happen, or in what way it would manifest itself. Three officers, Colonel S.L.A. Marshall, Captain John G. Westover and Lieutenant A. Joseph Webber, collaborated to put it quite succinctly in the Washington Infantry Journal when they described Bastogne as "a series of small, dramatic military actions related more by circumstances beyond the control of the defensive forces involved than by the design of a single commander..." In an astonishing feat of planning, logistics and discipline, Patton's army redirected 133,000 vehicles, 62,000 tons of supplies, and the vehicles and men covered a combined distance of 1.5 million miles. To his superiors' amazement, Patton was poised to reach Bastogne and attack the Germans on December 22, and on December 21, he told Bradley, "Brad, this time the Kraut's stuck his head in the meat grinder, and I've got hold of the handle." Of course, for Patton's Third Army to relieve the siege, the men had to hold out a few days, which they were able to do because supplies were parachuted in and the Germans eschewed frontal assaults. In the end, Patton's army reached Bastogne in 4 days and lifted the siege, even he used superlatives to describe the action at Bastogne, calling it "the most brilliant operation we have thus far performed, and it is in my opinion the outstanding achievement of the war. This is my biggest battle."
Download or read book Battleground Prussia written by Prit Buttar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engrossing history of the last year of the Second World War, charting the battles fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazis across German soil. The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished. From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to life by a combination of previously untold testimony and astute strategic analysis recognising a conflict of unprecedented horror and suffering.
Download or read book World War II written by New Word City Editors and published by . This book was released on 2018-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Bulge was arguably the most pivotal - and bloodiest - battle of World War II.From the middle of December 1944 to January 25, 1945, more than a million Allied and German troops fought for control of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. The bitter conflict ended with more than 200,000 dead and wounded on both sides. The German counteroffensive was Adolf Hitler's last gasp, born out of desperation as he came to grips with reports that the Third Reich was losing ground in battlefields across Europe.Even in its weakened state, Germany's assault took Allied leaders by surprise. Hitler had correctly calculated that the Allied armies had moved too rapidly: The troops were not only undersupplied but unprepared for a surprise attack.Hitler was betting that a victory would allow Germany to negotiate for peace on its terms. He was almost right. If not for the bravery of American troops, who against all odds held up the German attack - and quick decisions made by General Dwight B. Eisenhower - history may have taken a much different turn.This is the story of World War II's final showdown.
Download or read book Hitler Donitz and the Baltic Sea written by David Grier and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-07-10 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The popular conception of Hitler in the final years of World War II is that of a deranged Fuhrer stubbornly demanding the defense of every foot of ground on all fronts and ordering hopeless attacks with nonexistent divisions. To imply that Hitler had a rational plan to win the war flies in the face of widely accepted interpretations, but historian Howard D. Grier persuasively argues here that Hitler did possess a strategy to regain the initiative in 1944-45 and that the Baltic theater played the key role in his plan. In examining that strategy, Grier answers lingering questions about the Third Reich's final months and also provides evidence of its emphasis upon naval affairs and of Admiral Karl Donitz's influence in shaping Hitler's grand strategy. Donitz intended to starve Britain into submission and halt the shipment of American troops and supplies to Europe with a fleet of new Type XXI U-boats. But to test the new submarines and train their crews the Nazis needed control of the Baltic Sea and possession of its ports, and to launch their U-boat offensive they needed Norway, the only suitable location that remained after the loss of France in the summer of 1944. This work analyzes German naval strategy from 1944 to 1945 and its role in shaping the war on land in the Baltic. The first six chapters provide an operational history of warfare on the northern sector of the eastern front and give evidence of the navy s demands that the Baltic coast be protected in order to preserve U-boat training areas. The next three chapters look at possible reasons for Hitler's defense of the Baltic coast, concluding that the most likely reason was Hitler's belief in Donitz's ability to turn the tide of war with his new submarines. A final chapter discusses Donitz's personal and ideological relationship with Hitler, his influence in shaping overall strategy, and the reason Hitler selected the admiral as his successor rather than a general or Nazi Party official. With Grier's thorough examination of Hitler's strategic motives and the reasons behind his decision to defend coastal sectors in the Baltic late in the war, readers are offered an important new interpretation of events for their consideration.
Download or read book Corps Commanders of the Bulge written by Harold R. Winton and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2016-07-10 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the Battle of the Bulge was Germany's last gasp, it was also America's proving ground-the largest single action fought by the U.S. Army in World War II. Taking a new approach to an old story, Harold Winton widens our field of vision by showing how victory in this legendary campaign was built upon the remarkable resurrection of our truncated interwar army, an overhaul that produced the effective commanders crucial to GI success in beating back the Ardennes counteroffensive launched by Hitler's forces. Winton's is the first study of the Bulge to examine leadership at the largely neglected level of corps command. Focusing on the decisions and actions of six Army corps commanders—Leonard Gerow, Troy Middleton, Matthew Ridgway, John Millikin, Manton Eddy, and J. Lawton Collins—he recreates their role in this epic struggle through a mosaic of narratives that take the commanders from the pre-war training grounds of America to the crucible of war in the icy-cold killing fields of Belgium and Luxembourg. Winton introduces the story of each phase of the Bulge with a theater-level overview of the major decisions and events that shaped the corps battles and, for the first time, fully integrates the crucial role of airpower into our understanding of how events unfolded on the ground. Unlike most accounts of the Ardennes that chronicle only the periods of German and American initiative, Winton's study describes an intervening middle phase in which the initiative was fiercely contested by both sides and the outcome uncertain. His inclusion of the principal American and German commanders adds yet another valuable layer to this rich tapestry of narrative and analysis. Ultimately, Winton argues that the flexibility of the corps structure and the competence of the men who commanded the six American corps that fought in the Bulge contributed significantly to the ultimate victory. Chronicling the human drama of commanding large numbers of soldiers in battle, he has produced an artful blend of combat narrative, collective biography, and institutional history that contributes significantly to the broader understanding of World War II as a whole. With the recent modularization of the U.S. Army division, which makes this command echelon a re-creation of the corps of World War II, Corps Commanders of the Bulge also has distinct relevance to current issues of Army transformation.
Download or read book Battle for the Ruhr written by Derek S. Zumbro and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Derek Zumbro chronicles this key military campaign from a unique and fresh perspective - that of the defeated German soldiers and civilians caught in the final maelstrom of the war's western front." "Zumbro chronicles the relentless assault on the Ruhr Pocket through German eyes, as the Allied juggernaut battered the region's cities, villages, and homes into submission. He tells of children pressed into service by a desperate Nazi regime - and of even more desperate parents trying to save their sons from sacrifice at the eleventh hour. He also tells of unspeakable conditions suffered by foreign laborers, POWs, and political opponents in the Ruhr Valley and of the mass graves that gave Allied soldiers a grisly new understanding of their enemy." "Zumbro also recounts the story of Field Marshal Walter Model's final hours. His eventual suicide effectively ended the existence of the Wehrmacht's once-formidable Army Group B after being pursued, methodically encircled, and finally destroyed by U.S. and British forces. Through interviews with surviving members of Model's former staff, Zumbro has uncovered the attitudes of beleaguered officers that official records could never convey." "Other interviews with former soldiers reveal the extent to which Allied bombing contributed to the rapid deterioration of German combat effectiveness and tell of civilians begging soldiers to abandon the war. Zumbro's research reveals the identities of specific characters discussed in previous works but never identified, describes the final hours of German officers executed for the loss of the bridge at Remagen, and offers new insight into Model's acquiescence to Hitler in military affairs."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Snow Steel written by Peter Caddick-Adams and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 929 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new assessment of the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle fought by U.S. forces in World War II, offers a balanced perspective that considers both the German and American viewpoints and discusses the failings of intelligence; Hitler's strategic grasp; effects of weather and influence of terrain; and differences in weaponry, understanding of aerial warfare, and doctrine.
Download or read book World War II Battle of the Bulge written by C. North and published by . This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Bulge was arguably the most pivotal - and bloodiest - battle of World War II.From the middle of December 1944 to January 25, 1945, more than a million Allied and German troops fought for control of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. The bitter conflict ended with more than 200,000 dead and wounded on both sides. The German counteroffensive was Adolf Hitler's last gasp, born out of desperation as he came to grips with reports that the Third Reich was losing ground in battlefields across Europe.Even in its weakened state, Germany's assault took Allied leaders by surprise. Hitler had correctly calculated that the Allied armies had moved too rapidly: The troops were not only undersupplied but unprepared for a surprise attack.Hitler was betting that a victory would allow Germany to negotiate for peace on its terms. He was almost right. If not for the bravery of American troops, who against all odds held up the German attack - and quick decisions made by General Dwight B. Eisenhower - history may have taken a much different turn.This is the story of World War II's final showdown.
Download or read book General Lesley J McNair written by Mark T. Calhoun and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George C. Marshall once called him "the brains of the army." And yet General Lesley J. McNair (1883-1944), a man so instrumental to America's military preparedness and Army modernization, remains little known today, his papers purportedly lost, destroyed by his wife in her grief at his death in Normandy. This book, the product of an abiding interest and painstaking research, restores the general Army Magazine calls one of "Marshall's forgotten men" to his rightful place in American military history. Because McNair contributed so substantially to America's war preparedness, this first complete account of his extensive and varied career also leads to a reevaluation of U.S. Army effectiveness during WWII. Born halfway between the Civil War and the dawn of the 20th century, Lesley McNair–"Whitey" by his classmates for his blond hair–graduated 11th of 124 in West Point's class of 1904 and rose slowly through the ranks like all officers in the early twentieth century. He was 31 when World War I erupted, 34 and a junior officer when American troops prepared to join the fight. It was during this time, and in the interwar period that followed the end of the First World War, that McNair's considerable influence on Army doctrine and training, equipment development, unit organization, and combined arms fighting methods developed. By looking at the whole of McNair's career–not just his service in WWII as chief of staff, General Headquarters, 1940-1942, and then as commander, Army Ground Forces, 1942-1944–Calhoun reassesses the evolution and extent of that influence during the war, as well as McNair's, and the Army's, wartime performance. This in-depth study tracks the significantly positive impact of McNair's efforts in several critical areas: advanced officer education; modernization, military innovation, and technological development; the field-testing of doctrine; streamlining and pooling of assets for necessary efficiency; arduous and realistic combat training; combined arms tactics; and an increasingly mechanized and mobile force. Because McNair served primarily in staff roles throughout his career and did not command combat formations during WWII, his contribution has never received the attention given to more public–and publicized–military exploits. In its detail and scope, this first full military biography reveals the unique and valuable perspective McNair's generalship offers for the serious student of military history and leadership.
Download or read book Given Up For Dead written by Flint Whitlock and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-04-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1944, the Ardennes Forest on the German-Belgium border was considered a "quiet" zone where new American divisions, fresh from the States, came to get acclimated to "life at the front." No one in Allied headquarters knew that the Ardennes had been personally selected by Hitler to be the soft point through which over 250,000 men and hundreds of Panzers would plunge in the Third Reich's last-gasp attempt to split the Americans and British armies and perhaps win a negotiated peace in the West. When the Germans crashed through American lines during what became known as the "Battle of the Bulge," in December 1944, thousands of stunned American soldiers who had never before been in combat were taken prisoner. Most were sent to prisoner-of-war camps, where their treatment was dictated by the Geneva Convention and the rules of warfare. For an unfortunate few - mostly Jewish or other "ethnic" GIs - a different fate awaited them. Taken first to Stalag 9B at Bad Orb, Germany, 350 soldiers were singled out for "special treatment," segregated from their buddies, and transported by unheated railroad boxcars with no sanitary facilities on a week-long journey to Berga-an-der-Elster, a picturesque village 50 miles south of Leipzig. Awaiting them at Berga was a sinister slave-labor camp bulging with 1,000 inmates. The incarceration at Berga is the only known instance of captured American soldiers being turned into slave laborers at a Nazi concentration camp. Given Up for Dead is the story of their survival. For over three months, the American soldiers worked under brutal, inhuman conditions, building tunnels in a mountainside for the German munitions industry. The prisoners had no protective masks or clothing; were worked for 12 hours per shift with no food, water, or rest; were beaten regularly for the most minor infractions (or none at all); were fed only starvation rations; slept two to a bed in ghastly, lice-infested bunks; and were never allowed a bath or a change of clothing. Of the 350 GIs in the original contingent, 70 of them died within the first two months at Berga; the others struggled to survive in a living nightmare. As the Allies' front lines moved inexorably closer to Berga, the Nazi guards forced the inmates to endure a death march as a way of keeping them from being liberated; many died along the route. Only the timely arrival of an American armored division at war's end saved them all from certain death. Strangely, when the war was over, many of the Americans who had survived Berga were required to sign a "security certificate" which forbade them from ever disclosing the details of their imprisonment at Berga. Until recent years, what had happened to the American soldiers at Berga has been a closely guarded secret.
Download or read book The Siegfried Line Campaign written by Charles Brown MacDonald and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
