Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 10:33 am Post subject: Ya
Pansarslaget vid Praga : juli-september 1944 : IV./SS-Panzer-Korps mot 1:a vitryska fronten
- Much good images,
- Good about the lend lease vehicles in RKKA, units they are in etc. Russ author, Russ angle.
And a Swede mil analyze (Printed 1922) of Gas War during WW1, statistic analysis, chemical-combat combined effectiveness, chemical descriptions, etc. VG...
I'm reading "Kokoda" by Peter Fitzsimons. The story of the battle in New Guinea between the 39th Australian miltia and the 144 Japanese. It's a bit slow at the start, as the characters are introduced, but the battle descriptions are gripping. The author savages MacArthur and also Blamey, the Australian general but the book is mostly focused on the troops.
Also, I am landscaping my backyard so I read lots of gardening books - A sure sign of getting old!
I am now reading Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps by Yitzhak Arad. Its a very factual look at all aspects of the Jewish extermination. Coupled with tons of 1st person accounts and testimony from the Nuremburg trials. Its really really interesting.
The author describes how many Jews were taken from town, experiences of the train conductors, train guards, SS men. Just about everyone involved in the extermination process is represented here.
Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949 by Siegfried Knappe
This was a good book. The most interesting parts were his constant retreating battles vs the Russians, and captivity in a Russian prison camp. The part I looked forward to the most was his reunitment with his wife and two children.
The constant retreating was described as constant crisis. Like a running retreat while being attacked the entire time. Was very interesting.
Now I have just started....
Black Edelweiss: A Memoir of Combat and Conscience by a Soldier of the Waffen-SS by Johann Voss
Just finished the 1st chapter. Its about a very young honourable Waffen-SS soldier who has to come to grips with the war crimes other SS committed. He learned about all the atrocites while in an American POW camp. The book is also baout his time in Karelia, Norway and fighting Americans.
When I am done this one... My last one is...
Seven Days in January: With the 6th SS-Mountain Division in Operation NORDWIND by Wolf T. Zoepf
Looks good.
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:27 am Post subject: Hermann Rauschnings book
Hermann Rauschnings book “Hitler speaks” –Samtal med Hitler Swed edition 1940-
The book was written in 1937-38, by a defecting Nazi.
It tells about Hitler and his plans etc. It tells how he will make any treaty for the good of his cause, and he will break it with out hesitation for the good of his cause. Morale is not for him. He say, Hitler will make treaty even with the arch enemy the communist Soviet , but brake it when it’s in his interest and the time have come. Etc.. His wiev on diff people, and what they are "good for".. He describe the comming holocaust already in 1937-38 though it dint start untill march 1942, -20 millions is planed to be murderd-, "exterminated", slave labours etc...
I feel the book is not actually what Hitler told directly to Rauschning, rather information that has come to Rauschning from his friends or partly from meeting with Hitler.
I can really recommend this book, it’s a scary insight before the actually action begun, and its clear that no matter where Rauschning got the info from, he was well informed.
W. Balck, Entwicklung der Taktik im Weltkriege, Berlin 1920 (Tactical Developement during the Great War) . A german point of view of the tactical lesson learned in WWI. Today scholarly reflections about the military aspects in depth are mostly anglophone, since in Germany there are very few interested in that matter. So you have to dig out contemporary sources. This book is a first hand account of a prussian militarian, who was an observer of tactical international developements before, during and after the war. It proves the german militery machine´s art of war and it´s ability to react to the envolving demands of an early 20th battle, something which caused the allies much headdache and hundred thousands of men.
Beside this I read the Canadian Official History of WWI (ebook) and Osprey´s book about Vimy Ridge 1917 and a german wartime account on that. For what? We´ll see...
As for international literature, I’m just finished re-reading 1) Alan’s Bullock three books on Hitler (all three: “A study in tyranny”), they still today they are so accurate, 1952. I do recomend Bullocks work.
And also 2) “The Revolution of Nihilism, Warning to the West” by the ex nazi Rausching, 1939.
Apart from international, on national literature the last relaxed month has given much time to read, the 1939-45 FM,s speeches (C Günther), a time travel as one read what exact is said when it happens.
And the book (written and printed as the winter war was in the midds dec 1939 -jan 1940) about warning of communist aims and plans for takes over in Sweden.
Little book I picked up just recently....'Hurricanes over Murmansk' by John Golley......first published in 1987...
Tells the facinating and almost unknown story of the RAF fighter wing which was sent to Murmansk in 1941.......dispatched there soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union it tells in a very readable form the story of the men and the conditions in which they served, drawing on mainly the personal diaries and memories of the men involved.
What comes out very strongly in this book is the hospitality of the Russian people and the close co-operation between them and the RAF....something often blurred over or ignored during the post war period.
I can 100% recommend "iron coffins" by Herbert A Werner, its a fantastic book on the perils of U-Boat warfare during the last years of the war. also as follow up reading to expand on that you may enjoy "torpedo Junction" by Homer H Hickman, this book tells the story from all sides of the U-Boat war off the coast of America.
Two on the go at the moment
The Grey Goose of Arnhem - only just started it
The End of War - Fair way in; 3 stories in one is sort of what this book is about:- American war correspondent; Russian hero in a penal battalion and a female german celloist trapped in the crumbling fortress of berlin
Pzt_Rasalom
21st PD
Any fool with a fast pair of hands can take a tiger by the balls. But it takes a hero to keep squeezing....
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