Eagles of the Third Reich


Book Description

Originally published under the title "Men of the Luftwaffe", "this insightful, well-researched book traces the rise and fall of Hitler's air force from the perspective of its top leaders, concentrating on problems of organization, policy and aircraft production rather than battles and campaigns" ("Publishers Weekly").




Eagles of the Third Reich


Book Description

Character-based study of why the German air force was defeated. Recounts the Luftwaffe in combat from the blitzkrieg of 1939-40 and the Battle of Britain to the Eastern Front and the Normandy campaign.




Fallen Eagle


Book Description




Storming the Eagle's Nest


Book Description

From the Fall of France in June 1940 to Hitler's suicide in April 1945, the swastika flew from the peaks of the High Savoy in the western Alps to the passes above Ljubljana in the east. The Alps as much as Berlin were the heart of the Third Reich.'Yes,' Hitler declared of his headquarters in the Bavarian Alps, 'I have a close link to this mountain. Much was done there, came about and ended there; those were the best times of my life . . . My great plans were forged there.'With great authority and verve, Jim Ring tells the story of how the war was conceived and directed from the Fuhrer's mountain retreat, how all the Alps bar Switzerland fell to Fascism, and how Switzerland herself became the Nazi's banker and Europe's spy centre. How the Alps in France, Italy and Yugoslavia became cradles of resistance, how the range proved both a sanctuary and a death-trap for Europe's Jews - and how the whole war culminated in the Allies' descent on what was rumoured to be Hitler's Alpine Redoubt, a Bavarian mountain fortress.




Hitler’s Berchtesgaden


Book Description

In 1925, Adolf Hitler chose a remote mountain area in the south-east corner of Germany as his home. Hitler settled in a small house on the Obersalzberg, a district overlooking the picturesque town of Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Obersalzberg area was transformed into the southern seat of power for the Nazi Party. Eventually, the locale became a complex of houses, barracks and command posts for the Nazi hierarchy, including the famous Eagle’s Nest, and the mountain was honeycombed with tunnels and air raid shelters. A bombing attack at the end of the Second World War damaged many of the buildings and some were later torn down, but several of the ruins remain today, hidden in woods and overgrown. Hitler’s Berchtesgaden: A Guide to Third Reich Sites in the Berchtesgaden and Obersalzberg Area will help history-minded explorers find these largely-forgotten sites, both on the Obersalzberg and in Berchtesgaden and the surrounding area, with detailed directions for driving and walking tours. Illustrations: 100 colour photographs




Hitler's Girls


Book Description

The “frank, tragic, bittersweet, brutal, emotional” true story of the Third Reich’s so-called she-devils of the League of German Girls (Gerry Van Tonder, author of Berlin Blockade). They were ten to eighteen years old: German girls who volunteered for the war effort, and were indoctrinated into the Nazi youth organizations, Jungmädelbund and Bund Deutcscher Mädel. At first they were schooled in a very narrow education: how to cook, clean, excel at sports, birth babies, and raise them. But when Hitler called, they were trained, militarized, and exploited for the ultimate goal of the Third Reich. From the prosperous beginnings of the League of German Girls in 1933 to the cataclysmic defeat of 1945, Hitler’s Girls is an insightful, disturbing, and revealing exploration of their specific roles: what was expected of them, and how they delivered, as defined by the Nazi state. Were they unwitting pawns or willing accessories to genocide? Historian Tim Heath searches for the answers and provides a definitive voice for this unique, and until now, unheard generation of German females. “An essential account of the women who served Hitler during his years of power. Stunning photographs but a chilling narrative, in view of what they were required to do.” —Books Monthly




War Eagles


Book Description

Just prior to WWII, a publicly-humiliated Air Force test pilot, court-martialed for a stunt that endangered President Roosevelt, takes the only job he can get: flying an experimental plane from the South to North poles. When his plane is attacked and crashes in the Artic, he finds himself in an undiscovered land with an ancient people.




With Eagles to Glory


Book Description

When Napoleon’s Grand Armee went to war against the might of the Habsburg empire in 1809, its forces included more than 100,000 allied German troops. From his earliest imperial campaigns, these troops provided played a key role as Napoleon swept from victory to victory and in 1809 their fighting abilities were crucial to the campaign. With Napoleon’s French troops depleted and debilitated after the long struggle in the Spanish War, the German troops for the first time played a major combat role in the centre of the battle line. Aiming at a union of German states under French protection to replace the decrepit Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon sought to expand French influence in central Germany at the expense of the Austrian and Prussian monarchies, ensuring France’s own security. The campaign Napoleon waged in 1809 was his career watershed. He suffered his first reverse at Aspern. Victory was achieved at Wagram was not the knock-out blow he had envisaged. In this epic work, John Gill presents an unprecedented and comprehensive study of this year of glory for the German soldiers fighting for Napoleon, When combat opened they were in the thick of the action, fighting within French divisions and often without any French support atall. They demonstrated tremendous skill, courage and loyalty.




Invisible Eagle


Book Description

This work provides a comprehensive history of the curious occult belief systems that influenced the architects of National socialism and which became central to Nazi philosophy and propaganda. It also shows how these theories continued to flourish after World War II.




Hitler's Engineers


Book Description

“An intriguing account of two of Nazi Germany’s top architects” and how their work prolonged the war for months—includes hundreds of photos (WWII History). A Selection of the Military Book Club. While Nazi Germany’s temporary ascendancy owed much to military skill, the talent of its engineers not only buoyed the regime but allowed it to survive longer than would normally be expected. This unique work focusing on Fritz Todt and Albert Speer is based on many previously unpublished photographs and artwork from captured Nazi records. Todt was the brilliant builder of the world’s first superhighway system, the Autobahn, and the architect of the German West Wall, the Siegfried Line, that predated the later Atlantic and East Walls. The builder of each of the wartime “Führer Headquarters,” as well as the submarine pens, Todt was killed in a still-mysterious airplane crash that may well have been a Nazi death plot, though he was given a state funeral by Hitler. Todt was succeeded as German Minister of Armaments and War Production by the Führer’s longtime personal architect, Albert Speer, who was described by the Allies after the war as having prolonged the conflict by at least a year. Called a genius by Hitler, Speer designed and built the prewar Nuremberg Nazi Party Congress rally stands and buildings. More importantly, amid the constant rain of Allied bombs and the Soviet advances from the East, Speer managed to keep the German industrial machine running until the spring of 1945, though it was driven ever further underground. He also allocated resources to fortifications and counterattacks, like the V-missile installations, against both West and East, in attempts to stave off defeat. Convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg, Speer served twenty years at Spandau Prison and remained a Nazi apologist who died in London in 1981 on the anniversary of the German invasion of Poland. Together, Todt and Speer were the pillars that propped up the Third Reich through the vicissitudes of battlefield fortune. With over three hundred photographs, this is the first work that examines their role in history’s most terrible war.