Eastern Europe

Imagine a society with no unemployment, zero inflation, free healthcare and education, free childcare, virtually no serious crime, and where women and men are treated with absolute equality. Such a society has existed: in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), popularly known as East Germany.

Father Patrick Desbois documents the daunting task of identifying and examining all the sites where Jews were exterminated by Nazi mobile units in the Ukraine in WWII. Using innovative methodology, interviews, and ballistic evidence, he has determined the location of many mass gravesites with the goal of providing proper burials for the victims of the forgotten Ukrainian Holocaust. Compiling new archival material and many eye-witness accounts, Desbois has put together the first definitive account of one of World War II's bloodiest chapters.

The first-born son of his generation, Peter Balakian grew up in a close, extended family, sheltered by 1950s and '60s New Jersey suburbia. He was immersed in an all-American boyhood defined by rock 'n' roll, adolescent pranks, and a passion for the New York Yankees that he shared with his beloved grandmother. But beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced: the Turkish government's extermination of more than a million Armenians.

How far would you go to keep a secret? In a quaint European city so old that Roman coins are still unearthed in the back gardens of trim little houses, the single, thirty-seven-year-old junior file clerk of the City Tax Department thought he knew every street, lane, boulevard, alley, thoroughfare, highway and byway within the city limits…until now. Stuck in the back corner of an ancient file cabinet, Andre Kosowicz finds an old, faded street record and discovers evidence of a neighborhood he has never heard of: Linden Court. With no taxes paid by residents since before the Nazi invasion, ...

A HIDDEN PAST A DANGEROUS LOVE AND A VOICE TO REACH ACROSS THE AGESAllenstein, East Prussia, 1939 - Charlotte von Datski's parents host a glittering ball to celebrate her eighteenth birthday and announce her engagement to a Prussian Count. But Hitler is about to plunge the world into a war that will wipe East Prussia from the map. 1946 Charlotte and her son seek refuge in England and struggle to adapt to their new life. Decades later, Charlotte's granddaughter, Laura, stumbles across Charlotte's history and persuades her to embark on a journey into her past. As Charlotte recalls the one ...

Despite the best efforts of a number of historians, many aspects of the ferocious struggle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during the Second World War remain obscure or shrouded in myth. One of the most persistent of these is the notion - largely created by many former members of its own officer corps in the immediate postwar period - that the German Army was a paragon of military professionalism and operational proficiency whose defeat on the Eastern Front was solely attributable to the amateurish meddling of a crazed former Corporal.

Hitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator's main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s, was not communism or the Soviet Union, but capitalism and the United States. Whereas most historians have argued that Hitler underestimated the American threat, Simms shows that Hitler embarked on a preemptive war with the United States precisely because he considered it such a potent adversary.

Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control, he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps, ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi) - South Korea's most famous actress - and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker.

In 1989 the people of Eastern Europe rose up and finally put an end to over forty years of subservience to their communist masters? However, the aftermath of those revolutions often brought to light tales of unimaginable poverty, degradation and suffering – heart-breaking tales that led thousands of people in Britain to feel sufficiently moved by what they saw on their television screens to do more than just give a little money to salve their consciences, often organising and manning up convoys of huge great trucks to head across the Continent bearing food, clothing and medicines. ...

"Bloodlands" ist eines jener seltenen Bücher, die mit einem Schlag den Blick auf die Geschichte verändern. Weltweit in mehr als vierzig Sprachen übersetzt, hat sein Titel sogar Eingang in die Alltagssprache gefunden. Timothy Snyder führt darin zusammen, was bis dahin getrennt betrachtet worden war und wenig miteinander zu tun zu haben schien: die Ermordung von 14 Millionen Menschen, die im Namen unterschiedlicher Ideologien sterben mussten, deren gewaltsamer Tod aber eine auffallende Gemeinsamkeit hatte.

In 1921 a small group of self-appointed patriots set out to avenge the deaths of almost one million victims of the Armenian Genocide. They named their operation Nemesis after the Greek goddess of retribution. Over several years the men tracked down and assassinated former Turkish leaders. The story of this secret operation has never been fully told until now.

General Erhard Raus was one of the German Army's finest panzer generals and a leading exponent of blitzkrieg in the east. German panzers were witnesses to the incredible onslaught that was the first few months of Barbarossa, then the gradual strengthening of Russian resistance, counterattack and, ultimately, the long and drawn-out German retreat. Raus and his panzers were tested in every conceivable tactical situation and, inevitably, Raus became highly versed in all aspects of mobilized warfare.

Written with a thrilling narrative pull, The Butcher's Trail chronicles the pursuit and capture of the Balkan war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Borger recounts how Radovan Karadžic and Ratko Mladic - both now on trial in The Hague - were finally tracked down and describes the intrigue behind the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president who became the first head of state to stand before an international tribunal for crimes perpetrated in a time of war.

1945, and the overwhelming might of the Soviet Armies force their way across a defeated Germany. In their path, the Wehrmacht and the SS attempt to stem the tide, but the task is hopeless. All that remains is to escape the vengeful wrath of the Red Army. Obersturmfuhrer Leo Speer, a reluctant recruit to the SS, is escorting a group of civilians and soldiers to safety in the west. Keeping ahead of the Russian juggernaut is a monumental task. Keeping ahead of other predators stalking the savage country is even more fraught with danger. Looters, seeking to profit from the chaos. SS Special ...

In September 1914, just a month into World War I, the Russian army laid siege to the fortress city of Przemysl, the Hapsburg Empire's most important bulwark against invasion. For six months, against storm and starvation, the ragtag garrison bitterly resisted, denying the Russians a quick victory. Only in March 1915 did the city fall, bringing occupation, persecution, and brutal ethnic cleansing. In The Fortress, historian Alexander Watson tells the story of the battle for Przemysl, showing how it marked the dawn of total war in Europe.

A partir de estudios, memorias editadas tras la caída de la URSS y algunos archivos que se mantuvieron ocultos durante décadas, Anne Applebaum realiza en este libro una reconstrucción histórica del origen y la evolución de los campos de concentración soviéticos que devuelve este infausto e inolvidable episodio al centro de la tormentosa historia del siglo XX.

In the gripping narrative of "Operation BBB," readers embark on a visionary journey alongside Ethan, a geopolitics student whose quest for peace leads him to the untapped potential of artificial intelligence. Amidst the backdrop of a world teetering on the edge of conflict, with tensions escalating in Ukraine, Ethan engages with advanced AI to forge a path toward resolving intractable geopolitical crises with minimal force. This bold exploration offers a glimpse into a future where AI is not just a tool but a revolutionary architect of peace, capable of crafting strategies that sidestep the...

Modern taste of Slovakia is a cook book created by working mother with family, which is making her meals every day fresh. Slovakia does not have a long history of restaurants and catering outside the house. Most of the families prepare their meals traditionally home. Eating out is a special family event happening maybe once a week – depends of the country part. Restaurants and hotels also offering mostly quality cooking. Fresh ingredients are used from the local farms and producers. Modern Slovakian woman and men are working, taking care of family and cooking at home. With children ...

Jan Gross' hugely controversial Neighbors was a historian's disclosure of the events in the small Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10, 1941, when the citizens rounded up the Jewish population and burned them alive in a barn. The massacre was a shocking secret that had been suppressed for more than 60 years, and it provoked the most important public debate in Poland since 1989. Part history, part memoir, The Crime and the Silence is the journalist's account of these events.

Vlad III, known as Vlad the Impaler was voivode of Wallachia three times. The tales about the burning of the lazy, the poor, and the lame at Vlad's order and the execution of the woman who had made her husband too short a shirt can also be found among the German and Slavic anecdotes. Books describing Vlad's cruel acts were among the first best sellers in the German-speaking territories.