Download or read book Checkmate in Berlin written by Giles Milton and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a master of popular history, the lively, immersive story of the race to seize Berlin in the aftermath of World War II as it’s never been told before BERLIN’S FATE WAS SEALED AT THE 1945 YALTA CONFERENCE: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up among the victorious powers— the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, once the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating Germany, they wasted little time reverting to their prewar hostility toward—and suspicion of—one another. The veneer of civility between the Western allies and the Soviets was to break down in spectacular fashion in Berlin. Rival systems, rival ideologies, and rival personalities ensured that the German capital became an explosive battleground. The warring leaders who ran Berlin’s four sectors were charismatic, mercurial men, and Giles Milton brings them all to rich and thrilling life here. We meet unforgettable individuals like America’s explosive Frank “Howlin’ Mad” Howley, a brusque sharp-tongued colonel with a relish for mischief and a loathing for all Russians. Appointed commandant of the city’s American sector, Howley fought an intensely personal battle against his wily nemesis, General Alexander Kotikov, commandant of the Soviet sector. Kotikov oozed charm as he proposed vodka toasts at his alcohol-fueled parties, but Howley correctly suspected his Soviet rival was Stalin’s agent, appointed to evict the Western allies from Berlin and ultimately from Germany as well. Throughout, Checkmate in Berlin recounts the first battle of the Cold War as we’ve never before seen it. An exhilarating tale of intense rivalry and raw power, it is above all a story of flawed individuals who were determined to win, and Milton does a masterful job of weaving between all the key players’ motivations and thinking at every turn. A story of unprecedented human drama, it’s one that had a profound, and often underestimated, shaping force on the modern world – one that’s still felt today.
Download or read book Checkmate in Berlin written by Giles Milton and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Brilliantly written and completely absorbing, this is Milton's masterpiece' ANTHONY HOROWITZ BERLIN'S FATE WAS SEALED AT THE 1945 YALTA CONFERENCE. The city was to be carved up between the victorious powers - British, American, French and Soviet - with four all-powerful commandants ruling over their sectors. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution; in reality, it marked the start of a ferocious battle of wits. As relations between east and west broke down, these rival commandants fought a desperate battle for control. In doing so, they fired the starting gun for the Cold War. From America's explosive Frank 'Howlin' Mad' Howley, a sharp-tongued colonel with a loathing for Russians, to his nemesis, Russia's charmingly deceptive General Alexander Kotikov, CHECKMATE IN BERLIN tells the exhilarating, high-stakes story of kidnap, skullduggery, sabotage, murder and the greatest aerial operation in history. This is the epic story of the first battle of the Cold War and how it shaped the modern world. 'An excellent storyteller' ANDREW ROBERTS 'A book full of heroes' THE TIMES
Download or read book Berlin Command written by Frank L. Howley and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berlin Command, first published in 1950, is Brig. General Frank Howley's account of his four-year tenure in post-World War II Berlin with the U.S. Military Government. Filled with stories of Soviet complicity in undermining Allied efforts to rebuild the city, the book is throughout a testament to the ideals of freedom and democracy and the American determination to remain in Berlin, even though surrounded by a hostile opponent willing to lie, cheat, kidnap, rape, and steal to achieve its ends. Howley oversaw Allied efforts to counter the Soviets, and was instrumental in organizing massive airlifts of food, heating fuel, and other supplies that meant survival for the hungry, cold Berliners. General Howley was an unsung hero of the early Cold War period, and Berlin Command is a fascinating account of this historic period when Europe's fate was still being decided.
Download or read book Soldier Sailor Frogman Spy Airman Gangster Kill or Die written by Giles Milton and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ground-breaking account of the first 24 hours of the D-Day invasion told by a symphony of incredible accounts of unknown and unheralded members of the Allied – and Axis – forces. An epic battle that involved 156,000 men, 7,000 ships and 20,000 armoured vehicles, D-Day was, above all, a tale of individual heroics – of men who were driven to keep fighting until the German defences were smashed and the precarious beachheads secured. This authentic human story – Allied, German, French – has never fully been told. Giles Milton’s bold new history narrates the events of June 6th, 1944 through the tales of survivors from all sides: the teenage Allied conscript, the crack German defender, the French resistance fighter. From the military architects at Supreme Headquarters to the young schoolboy in the Wehrmacht’s bunkers, Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die lays bare the absolute terror of those trapped in the front line of Operation Overlord. It also gives voice to those who have hitherto remained unheard – the French butcher’s daughter, the Panzer Commander’s wife, the chauffeur to the General Staff. This vast canvas of human bravado reveals “the longest day” as never before – less as a masterpiece of strategic planning than a day on which thousands of scared young men found themselves staring death in the face. It is drawn in its entirety from the raw, unvarnished experiences of those who were there.
Download or read book Berlin 1961 written by Frederick Kempe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-05-10 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called Berlin "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War-and more perilous. It was in that hot summer that the Berlin Wall was constructed, which would divide the world for another twenty-eight years. Then two months later, and for the first time in history, American and Soviet fighting men and tanks stood arrayed against each other, only yards apart. One mistake, one nervous soldier, one overzealous commander-and the tripwire would be sprung for a war that could go nuclear in a heartbeat. On one side was a young, untested U.S. president still reeling from the Bay of Pigs disaster and a humiliating summit meeting that left him grasping for ways to respond. It would add up to be one of the worst first-year foreign policy performances of any modern president. On the other side, a Soviet premier hemmed in by the Chinese, East Germans, and hardliners in his own government. With an all-important Party Congress approaching, he knew Berlin meant the difference not only for the Kremlin's hold on its empire-but for his own hold on the Kremlin. Neither man really understood the other, both tried cynically to manipulate events. And so, week by week, they crept closer to the brink. Based on a wealth of new documents and interviews, filled with fresh-sometimes startling-insights, written with immediacy and drama, Berlin 1961 is an extraordinary look at key events of the twentieth century, with powerful applications to these early years of the twenty-first. Includes photographs
Download or read book Checkpoint Charlie written by Iain MacGregor and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-10-24 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'As convoluted and deadly as the plot of a novel by John le Carre, but all too real' Daily Mail, Must Reads 'With a gripping narrative and vivid interviews with those on all sides whose lives were directly affected by that grim symbol of the East-West divide that poisoned Europe for almost half a century, [MacGregor] has made an important contribution to the history of our times' Jonathan Dimbleby 'Captures brilliantly and comprehensively both the danger and exhilaration that I and other reporters, soldiers, and people experienced intersecting with the wall - a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Europe we have inherited' Jon Snow A powerful, fascinating, and ground-breaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and her allies confronted the USSR during the Cold War. As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the city throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union that contains never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; lovers who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost family trying to escape over it; German, British, French, and Russian soldiers who guarded its checkpoints; CIA, MI6 and Stasi operatives who oversaw secret operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie. A brilliant work of historical journalism, Checkpoint Charlie is an invaluable record of this period.
Download or read book Churchill s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare written by Giles Milton and published by Picador. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men—along with three others—formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Giles Milton's Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.
Download or read book Call Me Gorgeous written by Giles Milton and published by Boxer Books. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Call Me Gorgeous is a fun, stylish book about a very, very strange creature. It has a porcupine's spines and a crocodile's teeth, a chameleon's tail, and a cockerel's feet. What on earth could it be? Uncover this mysterious and fabulous beast through Alexandra Milton's stunning collage.
Download or read book Becoming Madam Chancellor written by Joyce Marie Mushaben and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English-language scholarly book to provide an overview of the Angela Merkel's career and influence.
Download or read book White Gold written by Giles Milton and published by John Murray. This book was released on 2012-04-12 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments, and forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few lived to tell the tale. Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow, Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing, little known chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his personal slave, he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of the imperial court, as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime. Gripping, immaculately researched, and brilliantly realised, WHITE GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.
Download or read book When Churchill Slaughtered Sheep and Stalin Robbed a Bank written by Giles Milton and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More addictive and mind-blowing true tales from history, told by Giles Milton—one of today’s most entertaining and accessible yet always intelligent and illuminating historians In When Churchill Slaughtered Sheep and Stalin Robbed a Bank, the second installment in his outrageously entertaining series, History’s Unknown Chapters, Giles Milton shows his customary historical flair as he delves into the little-known stories from history, like when Stalin was actually assassinated with poison by one of his inner circle; the Russian scientist, dubbed the “Red Frankenstein,” who attempted to produce a human-ape hybrid through ethically dubious means; the family who survived thirty-eight days at sea with almost no water or supplies after their ship was destroyed by a killer whale; or the plot that served as a template for 9/11 in which four Algerian terrorists attempted to hijack a plane and fly it into the Eiffel Tower.
Download or read book When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain written by Giles Milton and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published under the titles: When Hitler took cocaine and When Linin lost his brain.
Download or read book Samurai William written by Giles Milton and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2003-01-18 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening account of the first encounter between England and Japan, by the acclaimed author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg In 1611, the merchants of London's East India Company received a mysterious letter from Japan, written several years previously by a marooned English mariner named William Adams. Foreigners had been denied access to Japan for centuries, yet Adams had been living in this unknown land for years. He had risen to the highest levels in the ruling shogun's court, taken a Japanese name, and was now offering his services as adviser and interpreter. Seven adventurers were sent to Japan with orders to find and befriend Adams, in the belief that he held the key to exploiting the opulent riches of this forbidden land. Their arrival was to prove a momentous event in the history of Japan and the shogun suddenly found himself facing a stark choice: to expel the foreigners and continue with his policy of isolation, or to open his country to the world. For more than a decade the English, helped by Adams, were to attempt trade with the shogun, but confounded by a culture so different from their own, and hounded by scheming Jesuit monks and fearsome Dutch assassins, they found themselves in a desperate battle for their lives. Samurai William is the fascinating story of a clash of two cultures, and of the enormous impact one Westerner had on the opening of the East.
Download or read book Children of the Wild written by Giles Milton and published by New World Books. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is spring, 1585, and four English children are setting off on an adventure that will change their lives forever. Two sisters and two brothers, aged between 9 and 13, are taking part in an historic mission to colonise the New World. Together, they will experience the brutal realities of building a new life in a land that is already inhabited. On arriving, the children befriend two native girls, Keetam and Oakee, and start learning the strange new language. Soon, the children become the only means by which the grown ups can communicate with Chief Wingina and his tribe. When the colonists’ evil leader, Master Ralph, leads an attack on the native Indians, Wingina has his brutal revenge. He destroys the English settlement, captures all the adults and holds them prisoner. Only the children escape. Suddenly, the four youngsters have to learn how to survive in the wild. Their goal is to rescue the grown ups. But further disaster stands in their way. First, Eliza is kidnapped by the Indians. Soon after, John is also captured. They are tied to a stake and await an unknown fate. But John has a trick up his sleeve. The Indians have long believed that his compass has magical powers. Now, with pluck and daring, John uses a series of dazzling tricks in order to gain his and Eliza’s release.
Download or read book Geniuses at War written by David A. Price and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic, untold story of the brilliant team whose feats of innovation and engineering created the world’s first digital electronic computer—decrypting the Nazis’ toughest code, helping bring an end to WWII, and ushering in the information age. • Winner, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Middleton Award for "a book ... that both exemplifies exceptional scholarship and reaches beyond academic communities toward a broad public audience." • A Kirkus Best Book of 2022 • Planning the invasion of Normandy, the Allies knew that decoding the communications of the Nazi high command was imperative for its success. But standing in their way was an encryption machine they called Tunny (British English for “tuna”), which was vastly more difficult to crack than the infamous Enigma cipher. To surmount this seemingly impossible challenge, Alan Turing, the Enigma codebreaker, brought in a maverick English working-class engineer named Tommy Flowers who devised the ingenious, daring, and controversial plan to build a machine that would calculate at breathtaking speed and break the code in nearly real time. Together with the pioneering mathematician Max Newman, Flowers and his team produced—against the odds, the clock, and a resistant leadership—Colossus, the world’s first digital electronic computer, the machine that would help bring the war to an end. Drawing upon recently declassified sources, David A. Price’s Geniuses at War tells, for the first time, the full mesmerizing story of the great minds behind Colossus and chronicles the remarkable feats of engineering genius that marked the dawn of the digital age.
Download or read book Case White written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German invasion of Poland on 1 September, 1939, designated as Fall Weiss (Case White), was the event that sparked the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The campaign has widely been described as a textbook example of Blitzkrieg, but it was actually a fairly conventional campaign as the Wehrmacht was still learning how to use its new Panzers and dive-bombers. The Polish military is often misrepresented as hopelessly obsolete and outclassed by the Wehrmacht, when in fact it was well-equipped with modern weapons and armour. Indeed, the Polish possessed more tanks than the British and had cracked the German Enigma machine cipher. Though the combined assault from Germany and the Soviet Union defeated Poland, it could not crush the Polish fighting spirit and thousands of soldiers and airmen escaped to fight on other fronts. The result of Case White was a brutal occupation, as Polish Slavs found themselves marginalized and later eliminated, paving the way for Hitler's vision of Lebensraum (living space) and his later betrayal and invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Using a wide array of sources, Robert Forczyk challenges the myths of Case White to tell the full story of the invasion that sparked history's greatest conflict.
Download or read book Chess Fundamentals written by José Raúl Capablanca and published by Mundus Publishing. This book was released on 1921 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
