This an outstanding book of facts and data whose main scope is the German Army. Although the name of the book refers to the whole German armed forces in reality the coverage is wide for the Army, light for the Air Force and almost non-existent for the Navy. The information it contains is extremely detailed (in particular in tables of organization and equipment of many divisions) and on the whole very accurate (although not without the ocassional flaw: a schwärme is referred as a tactical unit of 5 airplanes but in reality was a 4 airplane unit). Although it provides information from 1939 to 1945 the information relating to the tables of organization, tactics, equipment and uniforms refers mainly to the period 1944-45. For example, you can find the TO&E of an army and SS panzerdivision in 1944 but not in 1939 or 1940. Also, it is important to note that due to the nature of the book it is mainly a WHAT and HOW book (provides data and factual information )but is not a WHY book. That is, you will notice that a motorized infantry battalion differs organizationaly from a regular infantry battalion but it is not explained WHY. Other books give the explanation. This is not a problem with the book, it is just its scope. Overall it is a highly recommended book for anyone interested in the details that are not covered in most WW2 books.

Although its not widely known, the October 1944 edition of the Handbook on Japanese Military Forces was completely revised, updated and lengthened in September of 1945 with more accurate information after the war ended.

The most outstanding attribute of this book is its honest depiction of Japan's atrocities. The description of these horrific onslaughts surpasses similar titles in some portions of the book. But the downside is the author's attempt to explain why the Japanese acted as they did, as if doing so will somehow make us view the Japanese army as something more than the monsters they were. Though Tanaka probaly doesn't mean to, he comes across as making excuses for the Japanese military's barbarism. Nevertheless, when he moves beyond fact description and into analysis, his intentions seem ambiguous at best. But overall, a good read.

"As the Indiana Jones films showed, Nazis, new age mumbo-jumbo and exotic locations are a formula that works. Christopher Hale's gripping and well-researched tale of an SS-sponsored scientific mission to Tibet in 1938-39 has the whole shebang: mad occult beliefs, mountains, strange charactors called Bruno or Ernst and stomach-churning concentration camp experiments to round things off." —"The Sunday Times" (London) A scientific expedition or a sinister mission? Why would the leader of the Nazi?s dreaded SS, the second-most-powerful man in the Third Reich, send a zoologist, an anthropologist, and several other scientists to Tibet on the eve of war? "Himmler?s Crusade" tells the bizarre and chilling story one of history?s most perverse, eccentric, and frightening scientific expeditions. Drawing on private journals, new interviews, and original research in German archives as well as in Tibet, author Christopher Hale recreates the events of this sinister expedition, asks penetrating questions about the relationship between science and politics, a nd sheds new light on the occult theories that obsessed Himmler and his fellow Nazis. Combining the highest standards of narrative history with the high adventure and exotic locales of "Raiders of the Lost Ark, Himmler?s Crusade" reveals that Himmler had ordered these men to examine Tibetan nobles for signs of Aryan physiology, undermine the British relationship with the ruling class, and sow the seeds of rebellion among the populace. Most strangely, the scientists?all SS officers?were to find scientific proof of a grotesque historical fantasy that was at the center of Himmler?s beliefs about race. Set against the exquisite backdrop of the majestic Himalayas, this fast-paced and engaging narrative provides new and troubling insight into one of the strangest episodes in the history of science, politics, and war.

This is the same book as Hitlers fatal sickness.

Anybody who wants to understand who Hitler really was should read this book. Still today people claim they do not know and do not understand the phenomenon, they should read this book to see the light. Hitler was nothing else than an ambitious tyran who lied, cheated and promised anything to get to supremer power. Gullible people like Wagner show you how the whole scam worked. Impressive. This book was written from notes made in prison after the war by Otto Wagener who was until 1933 Hitler's main economic advisor along with Gregor Strasser.

This devastating account of the ecclesiastical career of Eugenio Pacelli (1876-1958), who became Pope Pius XII in 1939, is all the more powerful because British historian John Cornwell maintains throughout a measured though strongly critical tone. After World War II, murmurs of Pacelli's callous indifference to the plight of Europe's Jews began to be heard. A noted commentator on Catholic issues, Cornwell began research for this book believing that "if his full story were told, Pius XII's pontificate would be exonerated." Instead, he emerged from the Vatican archives in a state of "moral shock," concluding that Pacelli displayed anti-Semitic tendencies early on and that his drive to promote papal absolutism inexorably led him to collaboration with fascist leaders. Cornwell convincingly depicts Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli pursuing Vatican diplomatic goals that crippled Germany's large Catholic political party, which might otherwise have stymied Hitler's worst excesses. The author's condemnation has special force because he portrays the admittedly eccentric Pacelli not as a monster but as a symptom of a historic wrong turn in the Catholic Church. He meticulously builds his case for the painful conclusion that "Pacelli's failure to respond to the enormity of the Holocaust was more than a personal failure, it was a failure of the papal office itself and the prevailing culture of Catholicism." "--Wendy Smith"

One of the most significant documents of recent history. This book records private,off the record,informal conversations of a man, who, more then anyone else, came close to destroying the western world.

From April through December of 1945, ten of Nazi Germany's greatest nuclear physicists were detained by Allied military and intelligence services in a kind of gilded cage at Farm Hall, an English country manor near Cambridge. The physicists knew the Reich had failed to develop an atomic bomb, and they soon learned, from a BBC radio report on August 6, that the Allies had succeeded in their own efforts to create such a weapon. But what they did not know was that many of their meetings and private conversations were being monitored and recorded by British agents. This book contains the complete collection of transcripts that were made from these secret recordings, providing an unprecedented view of how the German scientists, including two Nobel Laureates, thought and spoke about their roles during the war.