Michael Burleigh's recent work "The Third Reich - A New History" was widely praised for its novel explanation of Nazism in the context of religion. Anyone who has read Joachim Fest's excellent book however will, among other things, know that this particular analysis was hardly new or innovative. In form, The Face of the Third Reich is a psychological profile of both individual Nazi leaders and various sections of German society at the time. Through this approach though, the main causes of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis are explained. Among other things, Fest lucidly illustrates the essential nihilism of the Nazi movement, whose ideology as such was based on the acquisition of power as as end rather than a means. The vacuous adoration of and devotion to Hitler was in itself a cornerstone of Nazi philosophy, the Fuhrer cult providing the basis for Fest's religious analogies. He also discusses how initially vague assertions of Aryan superiority and Semitic evil were later focused after the seizure of power and developed and expanded on by Himmler and the SS. The portraits of the main personalities are fascinating. Fest is invariably amazed by how such unremarkable individuals were able to attain such immense power and commit such extravagent atrocities. He shows how almost all were linked by a moral corruption and a cynical lust for power. The chapter on Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz is particularly arresting. Reading this, one is reminded of Orwell's 1984 and the ability of man to subjugate himself to authority and in turn to deceive himself into committing the most unfathomable crimes. Fest is one of the foremost German authorities on Nazism and the book throughout is filled with an intellectual disgust and contempt of the regime. For anyone trying to make sense of that period, this book must be read.

Book with 35 Superb Pull Out Gatefolds

The Harcover book I read was the Original Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 20-255 published 18 April 1956. This book is of great value to anyone who is interested in military affairs of this era. The German attack on Poland precipitated the conflict of 1939-1945, World War II. This book starts off explaining the geo-political situation that existed from the Versailles Treaty and the Rise of Hitler. And how he bluffed his way into the perfect position for an invasion of Poland. It's main focus is to show us the German military operations against Poland, based on source material from captured records, monographs prepared by a number of former German general officers and such Polish accounts as were available. This book has three main parts: The Background of the Conflict, Poland's Position and Germany's Preperations for the Attack, and Operation sin Poland. There are many charts, maps and illustrations contained within the book to reference. This is a must read book. I plan to get a hold of the other books in the German Report Series the Department of the Army published.

One of the painfully riveting books of our time. A first hand account of the greatest mass murder in history as told by the active and passive participants in genocide. What is different about this book is that it contains carefully compiled letters, journal entries and voluminous correspondence that prove beyond doubt that more members of the German population than ever before admitted to knew about the Holocaust while it was happening. With over 90 photographs

If you need the facts about World War II, and you need them quick, The Historical Encyclopedia of World War II is a great source to get your info from! Although, the pieces in this book are fairly short, the point is made, and the facts are given, making this a great choice for students to use in those pesky research papers! I would definatly recommend this book to the avid fact-finder. However, if you're a history scholar of some kind, or if your planning to read for the pleasure factor, this book is probably not the greatest choice. Like I said earlier, this is the book to have for finding out the facts about WWII. I think it's also a great choice for history teachers to have in the class room for their students to have access to.

The men and women of Bletchley Park, who repeatedly broke German military cyphers throughout the Second World War, made an incalculable contribution to the allied success. This book, written by one of the code-breakers provides a fascinating insight into the process. Despite the core subject, this is not really a book about cryptography, but about how to manage people and technology to solve complex, important problems. Welchman was the "glue" between the pure ideas men like Alan Turing, and the code-breaking production line. His talents were clearly in building the organisation, and liaising between the different parties so that interception, decoding, understanding and using the intelligence became a repeatable success. Welchman's insights into British wartime society and bureaucracy are keen and frequently very humourous. Many of his insights are equally applicable today, in business as well as military circles. For example an individual's promotion, prestige and salary should not depend solely on the number of subordinates. Although he was very modest about it, it is clear that Welchman was no mean cryptologist himself. The book does attempt to explain several of the ways in which Enigma was cracked, but I found the primarily verbal explanations difficult to follow. However, this doesn't prevent an understanding of the principals, and how different methods were applied at different points during the war. The book does have some limitations. Because he was not personally involved, he explicitly refuses to discuss the effort focused on the German naval codes so important to the Battle of the Atlantic, and generally says little about the use of the intelligence information. Sadly, the current edition of the book omits much of Welchman's advice on the analysis of battlefield communications, and how to keep such communications secure. However, one observation has been retained - it was a fundamental mistake to believe Enigma was secure simply because of the enormous computing power required for a brute-force attack. This should perhaps be noted in our Internet age, when so much depends on the assumed difficulty of factoring large numbers. If I have a criticism of the book, it's the rather poor production in places, with very faded photographs and occasionally blurred text. Figures are sometimes absent when they are most needed, e.g. when first explaining the Enigma machine. I read this book having only recently attended an excellent lecture and actually seeing an Enigma - otherwise I would have struggled at such points. Nonetheless this is an excellent, insightful and inspiring book, containing a range of lessons relevant today, and I thoroughly recommend it. ...

The popular view of interrogation, particularly at the hands of the Axis powers during world war two, is that POW's were brutalised, beaten, and given frequent electric shocks of the gonads. While these things may have happened to some, and probably do happen in some countries today, it is also misleading. Raymond Toliver's work chronicles the wartime experiences of his friend, Hans Scharff, the Luftwaffe's so-called "master interrogator." In so doing, he exposes this popular view of interrogation as often mythical, and also gives a human face to the enemy many thought they knew. If this book is to be relied upon - and there are many positive accounts of Scharff from former POW's - then Scharff was a compassionate and civilised man fighting for his country and doing his best to ensure that POW's divulged their secrets without resorting to violence or abuse. Now, there are serious flaws to this book. The first is the appalling standard of proof reading, which points to a small run publisher. For example, some of the German was so badly spelled as to be literally incomprehensible, and I speak reasonable German. Similarly, every time the word "us" was present in the text, it appeared as "U.S." There are numerous similar faux pas. The other flaw, from a strict sense, is that the author was writing about someone whom he considered his friend, and this clearly colours some of the judgments, and impacts on the way the book was written. The book was actually taken from tape recordings of conversations between the author and his subject, but written after the latter's death. The way comments by Scharff are interspersed with the narrative should be compelling reading, but it is not. For the first half of the book, these comments are irritating, but eventually the reader is numbed into accepting them for what they are, and how they are presented. As for Scharff, the personal accounts given by former POW's could point to a mass occurrence of Stockholm syndrome, but I don't accept it. Germans in the second world war weren't all Nazis, and they weren't all evil. Many were decent folk fighting for their country, and trying to remain civilised notwithstanding all that was happening to them. Scharff was one of these men. In spite of the fact he was interrogating men accused by the Nazis of atrocities against women and children, he managed to treat his subjects with kindness and courtesy. In working their way through this book, the reader has many preconceptions challenged, not the least of which is how POW's are most effectively interrogated. It also asks the reader to consider as well, how humanity can survive in war. For this it is worth reading, but the book's presentation seriously lets it down.