Download or read book The Weekend Crisis of May 1938 written by Guy Setton and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2005 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Weekend Crisis" during May 1938 presents a classic case-study in the strategy pre-emption. Czechoslovak intelligence was convinced that Hitler was on the verge of ordering the invasion of their country four months before the infamous Munich Conference. In response, President Eduard Benes ordered reservists to man the frontiers expecting war. The Nazi offensive never came. Did Hitler really plan to attack Prague in May 1938? Today, the lessons of the "Weekend Crisis" are all the more important. Following 9/11 the United States adopted a strategy of national defence based on pre-emption already applied in Iraq despite significant global opposition. The threat of terrorism combined with weapons of mass destruction means that Washington cannot risk waiting again to be attacked. It must strike first when a potentially catastrophic threat has been identified. Yet, what standard must our leaders apply when identifying and profiling such a threat? The "Weekend Crisis" of May 1938: Analyzing an Unsolved Mystery in Czechoslovakia--Nazi Germany Relations attempts to answer precisely that question by evaluating the decision-making of Benes. Was the Czechoslovak leader simply suffering from "bad nerves" when he ordered the reserve call-up?
Download or read book The Bell of Treason written by P. E. Caquet and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined material, this staggering account sheds new light on the Allies’ responsibility for a landmark agreement that had dire consequences. On returning from Germany on September 30, 1938, after signing an agreement with Hitler on the carve-up of Czechoslovakia, Neville Chamberlain addressed the British crowds: “My good friends…I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Winston Churchill rejoined: “You have chosen dishonor and you will have war.” P. E. Caquet’s history of the events leading to the Munich Agreement and its aftermath is told for the first time from the point of view of the peoples of Czechoslovakia. Basing his work on previously unexamined sources, including press, memoirs, private journals, army plans, cabinet records, and radio, Caquet presents one of the most shameful episodes in modern European history. Among his most explosive revelations is the strength of the French and Czechoslovak forces before Munich; Germany’s dominance turns out to have been an illusion. The case for appeasement never existed. The result is a nail-biting story of diplomatic intrigue, perhaps the nearest thing to a morality play that history ever furnishes. The Czechoslovak authorities were Cassandras in their own country, the only ones who could see Hitler’s threat for what it was, and appeasement as the disaster it proved to be. In Caquet’s devastating account, their doomed struggle against extinction and the complacency of their notional allies finally gets the memorial it deserves.
Download or read book The Munich Crisis 1938 written by Erik Goldstein and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of the works on the crises of the 1930s and especially the Munich Agreement in 1938 were written when it was virtually impossible to gain access to the relevant archive collections on both sides of the Iron Curtain. This text studies the Czechoslovak-German crisis and its impact from previously neglected perspectives and celebrates the post-Cold War openness by bringing in new evidence from hitherto inaccessible archives.
Download or read book Munich 1938 written by David Faber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back to London from his meeting in Munich with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As he disembarked from the aircraft, he held aloft a piece of paper, which contained the promise that Britain and Germany would never go to war with one another again. He had returned bringing “Peace with honour—Peace for our time.” Drawing on a wealth of archival material, acclaimed historian David Faber delivers a sweeping reassessment of the extraordinary events of 1938, tracing the key incidents leading up to the Munich Conference and its immediate aftermath: Lord Halifax’s ill-fated meeting with Hitler; Chamberlain’s secret discussions with Mussolini; and the Berlin scandal that rocked Hitler’s regime. He takes us to Vienna, to the Sudentenland, and to Prague. In Berlin, we witness Hitler inexorably preparing for war, even in the face of opposition from his own generals; in London, we watch as Chamberlain makes one supreme effort after another to appease Hitler. Resonating with an insider’s feel for the political infighting Faber uncovers, Munich, 1938 transports us to the war rooms and bunkers, revealing the covert negotiations and scandals upon which the world’s fate would rest. It is modern history writing at its best.
Download or read book Germany Czechoslovakia and the Grand Alliance in the May Crisis 1938 written by Henderson B. Braddick and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hitler and His Generals written by Harold C. Deutsch and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1974 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hitler and His Generals was first published in 1974. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The author, who told the story of second of four conspiratorial rounds in his earlier book The Conspiracy against Hitler in the Twilight War,describes here the situations and events leading up to the first round of conspiracy. The present volume deals with the virtual coup d'etat by which Hitler sought to establish ascendancy over the Wehrmacht early in 1938. The account focuses on sensational events centering about Hitler's successful efforts to oust Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, the War Minister, and Colonel General Baron von Fritsch, the Army commander in chief, in order to consolidate control of the military in his own hands. Using as an excuse Blomberg's marriage to a woman with a discreditable past, he forced Blomberg's resignation. He accomplished Fritsch's resignation through charges of homosexuality which were trumped up by Himmler, Heydrich, and Goering. He then appointed Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch, who was under personal obligation to him, as commander in chief. Through these moves, as Dr. Deutsch shows, Hitler closed the door to all means other than conspiracy for the active Opposition movement to express itself against his aggressive policies. The story of the first round of conspiracy will be the subject of another book by Professor Deutsch, to be published later.
Download or read book Goebbels written by Peter Longerich and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 993 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this comprehensive volume, Peter Longerich documents Goebbels' descent into antisemitism and ideology and ascent through the ranks of the Nazi party, where he became an integral member of Hitler's inner circle and where he shaped a brutal campaign of Nazi propaganda"--
Download or read book Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler written by Igor Lukes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-05-23 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Munich crisis of 1938, in which Great Britain and France decided to appease Hitler's demands to annex the Sudentenland, has provoked a vast amount of historical writing. The era has been thoroughly examined from the perspectives of Germans, French, and British political establishments. But historians have had, until now, only a vague understanding of the roles played by the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, the country whose very existence was at the very center of the crisis. In Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler, Igor Lukes explores this turbulent and tragic era from the new perspective of the Prague government itself. At the center of this study is Edvard Benes, a Czechoslovak foreign policy strategist and a major player in the political machinations of the era. The work looks at the first two decades of Benes's diplomacy and analyzes the Prague Government's attempts to secure the existence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia in the treacherous space between the millstones of the East and West. It studies Benes's relationship with Joseph Stalin, outlines the role assigned to Czechoslovak communists by the VIIth Congress of the Communist International in 1935, and dissects Prague's secret negotiations with Berlin and Benes's role in the famous Tukhachevsky affair. The work also brings evidence regarding the so-called partial mobilization of the Czechoslovak army in May 1938, and focuses on Stalin's strategic thinking on the eve of the World War II. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was difficult for Western researchers to gain access to the rich archival collections of the East. Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler makes ample use of these secret archives, both in Prague and in Russia. As a result, it is an accurate and original rendition of the events which eventually sparked the Second World War.
Download or read book The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War written by Geoffrey C. Roberts and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 1995-08-07 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have heatedly debated the Soviet role in the origins of the Second World War for more than 50 years. At the centre of these controversies stands the question of Soviet relations with Nazi Germany and the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939. Drawing on a wealth of new material from the Soviet Archives, this detailed and original study analyses Moscow's response to the rise of Hitler, explains the origins of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and charts the road to Operation Barbarossa and the disaster of the surprise German attack on the USSR in June 1941.
Download or read book Reappraising the Munich Pact written by Maya Latynski and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 1992-05 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reappraising the Munich Pact brings the other players back onto the stage by examining German, French, and Soviet policies before, during, and after the pact.
Download or read book Paper Walls America and the Refugee Crisis 1938 1941 written by David S. Wyman and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Paper Walls was the first scholarly book to deal with the question of America’s response to the Nazi assault on the European Jews. A revised version of my Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard University, it was originally published in 1968... Those times were very different from these. There was little public receptivity to Holocaust studies then, and only limited academic interest... The scholarly reviews, of which there were several, were favorable. But the general press paid little attention to the book... A pioneer in its field, Paper Walls first established the thesis that three features of American society in the 1930’s and 1940’s were key to understanding the nation’s inadequate response to the refugee crisis. They were anti-Semitism, nativistic nationalism, and the unemployment problem of the Great Depression. This basic concept has been followed in all the succeeding scholarly literature on the topic. This concept is also the main legacy from Paper Walls to my more recent book, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (1984). AlthoughAbandonment stands as a complete study in its own right, it is in fact the sequel toPaper Walls. It is a continuation of the history of America’s reaction to the plight of the European Jews in the Nazi era.” — David S. Wyman, Preface to the 1985 paperback edition of Paper Walls “[A] thorough study of American refugee policy from 1938 to 1941... On the basis of Wyman’s book, the United States stands indicted for a tragic failure to live up to its nineteenth-century ideal of asylum... Though Wyman makes no effort to disguise his strong sympathy for the refugees, his book... gives a careful and well-documented history of American refugee policy... The state department — above all Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long — emerges from his pages as the primary culprit... The attitude displayed by... the foreign service... led to the creation of the paper walls that Wyman so honestly and tragically describes in this important book.” — Robert A. Divine, Journal of American History “The first scholarly examination of American refugee policy between 1938 and 1941... What Wyman sets out to do he does extremely well. Paper Walls is a worthwhile addition to our growing knowledge of the policy of those who bore witness to the Holocaust.” — Henry L. Feingold, American Jewish Historical Quarterly “No one who reads this book will be able to ignore the fact that blatant antisemitism in the United States — from the public, from Congress, and from within the State Department — prevented our government from giving more than minimal assistance to the Jewish refugees... Professor Wyman has done an immense amount of research in primary and secondary sources and Paper Walls is extraordinarily sound and superbly documented. It is tightly written, well-organized, and logically presented.” — Leonard Dinnerstein, Jewish Social Studies “The conclusions of the book are stark and simple: ‘The half-filled quotas of mid-1940 to mid-1941, when refugee rescue remained entirely feasible, symbolize 20,000 to 25,000 lives lost...’ In the eight years from 1933 to 1941, about 250,000 refugees found safety here. The total is not small, but neither is the country which received them.” — Raul Hilberg, Political Science Quarterly “Generally [President Roosevelt] left refugee policy to the disposition of a hostile Congress and the State Department. Yet, as the author points out, neither Roosevelt, the State Department, nor Congress can be blamed entirely for what happened. ‘Viewed within the context of its times, United States refugee policy from 1938 to the end of 1941 was essentially what the American people wanted.’ In December 1938 only 8.7 per cent of the respondents to a Roper poll favored entry of a larger number of European refugees than the quota law allowed; fully 83 per cent were flatly opposed. This book tells a dismal story. While it is dear where the author’s sympathies lie, he tells the story with restraint; if anything, his approach and writing style underplay the pathos involved... Wyman has given us a scholarly description and analysis of the first act of the tragedy, which he promises to carry on through the war and postwar years.” — J. Joseph Huthmacher, The American Historical Review “This thoroughly documented study of the United States policies in regard to the refugee crisis of 1938-1941 is the best available source in this field and on that period. Drawing on material from some well known as well as several previously untapped sources, Wyman discusses both the ambiguous role of particular figures and organizations and the underlying forces at work in American society which influenced governmental policy and practices; anti-semitism, nativism, fear of unemployment and of Nazi subversives are shown as the major pressure to which America’s people and leaders succumbed.” — Joseph S. Roucek, The International Migration Review “This is a depressing topic impressively researched. Professor Wyman has investigated almost all the relevant primary and secondary materials in order to recount the tragic story of America’s indifference to the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Hitler’s Europe... Over two-thirds of Americans desired to keep the Jewish refugees out of the United Stales. Wyman argues that this sentiment was due to three sources: ‘nativism, anti-Semitism, and economic insecurity’... There is enough evidence in Wyman’s book to cause the Statue of Liberty to collapse for lack of moral foundation.” — John P. Diggins, The Historian “Professor Wyman skillfully investigates and thoughtfully analyzes the complexities of the crisis and the reasons why more was not done to aid the refugees in the crucial period between 1938 and 1941... The author examines the problem thoroughly from a number of standpoints... The State Department, the Congress, and the President really were reflecting the attitudes of the American people, who, Wyman asserts, were indifferent and even antagonistic to the refugees [because of] the economic insecurity engendered by the depression, nativistic nationalism, and anti-Semitism. A well-researched and lucidly, if not dispassionately, written book, Paper Walls is a sound, workmanlike study of a significant episode in our nation’s recent past.” — E. Berkeley Tompkins, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Download or read book Failure of a Mission written by Nevile Henderson and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-02 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THIS UNIQUE PERSONAL NARRATIVE REVEALS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DRAMATIC DETAILS THE ENTIRE STORY OF THE COMING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR The thousands of Americans who read the spirited account of Sir Nevile Henderson’s conversation with Ribbentrop in the fateful hours before the German invasion of Poland will realize the importance and guess at the interest of this book. Henderson, a British diplomat of long experience and proven character, was ambassador for his country in Berlin from 1937 to 1939. This is the story of his attempt, and his failure, to avert the calamity of European war... “Sir Nevile Henderson’s book is the first personal memoir we have had of the beginnings of the second world war. This would in itself ensure its importance. But quite aside from this it is a book of exceptional quality. It tells things that very few other people in the world could tell with such detachment. Henderson describes in detail his allegedly ‘pro-German’ course at the beginning, and then his swiftly rising disillusion, until—step by excruciating step—the grisly business was complete. It is not an indiscreet book—no one of the type of Sir Nevile Henderson could ever be more than mildly indiscreet—but there are sidelights on the Nazi leaders of the utmost value. I read these pages with complete fascination. They are indispensable to the student of the contemporary world tragedy.”—JOHN GUNTHER, Authority on World Affairs “Upon his recollections of those last stirring days of peace historians will base much.”—THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE “Failure of a Mission reveals the failure of diplomacy when faced by brute force....Here is history itself recorded by one of its helpless human instruments. It is not often that a diplomat records his failure with such engaging frankness. This is the first source book on the second World War. It will remain one of the most important.”—H. V. KALTENBORN, Radio News Commentator
Download or read book 1938 written by Giles MacDonogh and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-05 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterful narrative, acclaimed historian Giles MacDonogh chronicles Adolf Hitler's consolidation of power over the course of one year. Until 1938, Hitler could be dismissed as a ruthless but efficient dictator, a problem to Germany alone; after 1938 he was clearly a threat to the entire world.
Download or read book France and the Coming of the Second World War 1936 1939 written by Anthony Adamthwaite and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1977, France and the Coming of the Second World War investigates the policies that led to the collapse of French power. The book argues that this collapse was the result of social, political, and economic troubles that buffeted French leaders. It uses a wealth of documents to explore common debates, such as Britain’s culpability for France’s inability to prevent Germany’s reoccupation of the Rhineland. It also puts forward the threat of Italy and the Mediterranean as France’s main preoccupation, rather than Germany and central Europe. France and the Coming of the Second World War uses an extensive range of archival material and includes the private papers of Daladier, Bonnet, and a number of other prominent figures. It will appeal to those with an interest in the history of the Second World War, political history, and social history.
Download or read book Appeasement written by Tim Bouverie and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A new history of the British appeasement of the Third Reich on the eve of World War II"--
Download or read book The Nazi Menace written by Benjamin Carter Hett and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A panoramic narrative of the years leading up to the Second World War—a tale of democratic crisis, racial conflict, and a belated recognition of evil, with profound resonance for our own time. Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history. Benjamin Carter Hett takes us behind the scenes in Berlin, London, Moscow, and Washington, revealing the unsettled politics within each country in the wake of the German dictator’s growing provocations. He reveals the fitful path by which anti-Nazi forces inside and outside Germany came to understand Hitler’s true menace to European civilization and learned to oppose him, painting a sweeping portrait of governments under siege, as larger-than-life figures struggled to turn events to their advantage. As in The Death of Democracy, his acclaimed history of the fall of the Weimar Republic, Hett draws on original sources and newly released documents to show how these long-ago conflicts have unexpected resonances in our own time. To read The Nazi Menace is to see past and present in a new and unnerving light.
Download or read book The Wages of Destruction written by Adam Tooze and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-02-26 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Masterful . . . [A] painstakingly researched, astonishingly erudite study…Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism." —Financial Times An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period to explore how Hitler's surprisingly prescient vision--ultimately hindered by Germany's limited resources and his own racial ideology--was to create a German super-state to dominate Europe and compete with what he saw as America's overwhelming power in a soon-to- be globalized world. The Wages of Destruction is a chilling work of originality and tremendous scholarship that set off debate in Germany and will fundamentally change the way in which history views the Second World War.
