Germans Germany

To the Soviet Union, the sacrifices that enabled the country to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II were sacrosanct. The foundation of the Soviets’ hard-won victory was laid during the battle for the city of Stalingrad, resting on the banks of the Volga River. To Russians, it is a pivotal landmark of their nation’s losses, with more than two million civilians and combatants either killed, wounded, or captured during the bitter fighting from September 1942 to February 1943. Both sides endured terrible conditions in brutal, relentless house-to-house fighting.

As a child in the 1930s, Flora lived in a beautiful part of Germany, waking up daily to the fresh bread smells of her father's bakery and the fragrant delights from her mother's garden. But everything changed when the Nazis took control of every aspect of their lives. War took away their family and friends, and they had not imagined it could get even worse. But it did when their land was handed over to the Russians. Life became a living nightmare when they realized what they must do to survive. How to get through each day became an obsession, and Flora recalls the great challenges her ...

With Allied armies poised on the banks of the Rhine, Nazi Germany tottered on the brink of collapse. The ensuing battles on German soil - especially those in the so-called Ruhr Pocket - were as fierce and hard-fought as any in the European theater. Going well beyond previous accounts, Derek S. 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.

Who were the Gestapo officers? Were they merely banal paper shufflers, or were they recognizably evil? Were they motivated by an eliminationist anti-Semitism? Did the average German know about the mass murder of Jews and other undesirables while they were happening? Exactly how was Nazi terror applied in the daily lives of ordinary Jews and Germans? Eric A. Johnson answers these questions as he explores the roles of the individual and of society in making terror work.

In 1923, the Weimar Republic faced a series of crises, including foreign occupation of its industrial heartland, rampant inflation, radical violence, and finally Hitler’s infamous “beer hall putsch.” Fanning the flames of anti-government and anti-Semitic sentiment, the Nazis tried to violently seize power in Munich, only failing after they were abandoned by like-minded conservatives. In 1923, historian Mark William Jones draws on new research to offer a revealing portrait of German politics and society in this turbulent year.

This audiobook will transport you to the late 19th century, allowing you to “witness” one of the seminal moments of modern history. You’ll learn what events preceded the confrontation between the waning old European power of France and the up-and-coming Prussian state, and how a war led to the unification of Germany into an empire. Through this guide, you’ll find out how significant the famous “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck was in preparing the ground for a conflict, and how his political genius allowed Prussia to spearhead the German union.

The night of 16 May, 1943: Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge 9000-lb cylindrical bomb strapped underneath it. Their mission: to destroy three dams deep within the German heartland, which provide the lifeblood to the industries supplying the Third Reich's war machine.

An enthralling story that vividly resurrects the web of everyday Germans who resisted Nazi rule.

The Unification of Germany: The History and Legacy of the German Empire’s Establishment looks at the life and work of Germany’s most famous politician and how Germany was unified. You will learn about German unification like never before.

1938. Dr. Ho Fengshan, consul general of China, is posted in Vienna with his American wife, Grace. Shy and ill at ease with the societal obligations of diplomats’ wives, Grace is an outsider in a city beginning to feel the sweep of the Nazi dragnet. When Grace forms a friendship with her Jewish tutor, Lola Schnitzler, Dr. Ho requests that Grace keep her distance. His instructions are to maintain amicable relations with the Third Reich, and he and Grace are already under their vigilant eye.

Preußen stand stets in einem Spannungsfeld: seit seinem Aufstieg vom kleinen, an Bodenschätzen armen Territorium um Berlin bis zu seiner Blüte als der dominierenden Macht in Europa. Es verkörpert nicht nur Aufklärung und Toleranz, sondern steht auch für Militarismus, Maßlosigkeit, Selbstüberschätzung. Meisterhaft erzählt Christopher Clark die Geschichte Preußens von den Anfängen bis zur Auflösung des Staates im Jahr 1947. Dabei gelingt es ihm nicht nur, die äußerst ambivalente Geschichte dieser europäischen Großmacht lebendig zu schildern, sondern auch, sie von etlichen Mythen zu befreien.

Harald Jähners große Mentalitätsgeschichte der Nachkriegszeit zeigt die Deutschen in ihrer ganzen Vielfalt: etwa den "Umerzieher" Alfred Döblin, der das Vertrauen seiner Landsleute zu gewinnen suchte, oder Beate Uhse, die mit ihrem "Versandgeschäft für Ehehygiene" alle Vorstellungen von Sittlichkeit infrage stellte; aber auch die namenlosen Schwarzmarkthändler oder die stilsicheren Hausfrauen am Nierentisch der anbrechenden Fünfziger. Das gesellschaftliche Panorama eines Jahrzehnts, das entscheidend war für die Deutschen und in vielem ganz anders, als wir oft glauben.

Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of our continent. Focussing on nine cities (only six of which are in the Germany of today), he takes us on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars and the patchwork states of the Middle Ages to the splendour of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome.

Now an esoteric of legal and criminal history, A Hangman's Diary gives a year-by-year breakdown on all of Master Franz Schmidt's executions, which included hangings, beheadings, and other methods, as well as details of each capital crime and the reason for the punishment.

A holiday is a time to relax, unwind and see the sights. But for two adventurous sexagenarians, the sights have a tendency to include dead bodies. Etta and Dora, both newly retired teachers, travel from their home in Southern Italy to a fairy-tale German town for their first home swap holiday, delighted by their neighbours’ warm welcome. But the welcome turns sour when the Night Watchman of Rothenburg is brutally murdered while his tour group takes photographs nearby, a halberd buried in his chest and a peculiar iron mask by his side. When the murderer claims a second victim and the son ...

Regimen Books Christian Classics publishes high-quality texts of important books. Each includes an informative, insightful introduction written today by an expert. / Martin Luther Luther wrote To the Christian Nobility in 1520 to rouse Germany’s princes to reform the Church. The first 4,000 copies sold out in just two weeks. “In this treatise we meet Luther the German. His heart is full of grief for the affliction of his people.... [The book] is of absorbing interest and priceless historical value.” Luther argued that the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt, and he contended that, since...

Fueled by hate, incapable of forming normal human relationships, unwilling to listen to dissenting voices, Adolf Hitler seemed an unlikely leader, and yet he commanded enormous support and was able to exert a powerful influence over those who encountered him. How did Hitler become such an attractive figure to millions of people? That is the question at the core of Hitler's Charisma. Acclaimed historian and documentary filmmaker Laurence Rees examines the nature of Hitler's appeal and reveals the role his supposed "charisma" played in his success.

Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between twelve and fourteen million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless.

Stefan Austs Buch ist keine Anklageschrift und nicht das Plädoyer eines Verteidigers, es ist auch kein Urteil, weder in juristischer noch in moralischer Hinsicht. Es soll ein Protokoll sein, eine Chronik der Ereignisse vom Juni 1967, als der Student Benno Ohnesorg von einem Polizisten erschossen wurde, bis zum "Deutschen Herbst" 1977, der Entführung und späteren Ermordung des Arbeitgeberpräsidenten Hanns Martin Schleyer, der Entführung und Befreiung der Passagiere und Besatzungsmitglieder der Lufthansa-Maschine "Landshut" und den Selbstmorden im Hochsicherheitstrakt von Stammheim.

The Brandenburgers were Hitler's Special Forces, a band of mainly foreign German nationals who used disguise and fluency in other languages to complete daring missions into enemy territory. Overshadowed by stories of their Allied equivalents, their history has largely been ignored. First published in 1984, de Giampietro's highly-personal and eloquent memoir is a vivid account of his experiences. In astonishing detail, he delves into the reality of life in the unit from everyday concerns and politics to training and involvement in Brandenburg missions.