'His book is timely and a triumph. Roberts manages to convey all the reader needs to know about two men to whom battalions of biographies have been devoted' EVENING STANDARD Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were two totally opposite leaders - both in what they stood for and in the way in which they seemed to lead. Award-winning historian Andrew Roberts examines their different styles of leadership and draws parallels with rulers from other eras. He also looks at the way Hitler and Churchill estimated each other as leaders, and how it affected the outcome of the war. In a world that is as dependent on leadership as any earlier age, HITLER AND CHURCHILL asks searching questions about our need to be led. In doing so, Andrew Roberts forces us to re-examine the way that we look at those who take decisions for us.
Were World Wars I and II inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Or were they products of calamitous failures of judgment? In this monumental and provocative history, Patrick Buchanan makes the case that, if not for the blunders of British statesmen– Winston Churchill first among them–the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust might have been avoided and the British Empire might never have collapsed into ruins. Half a century of murderous oppression of scores of millions under the iron boot of Communist tyranny might never have happened, and Europe’s central role in world affairs might have been sustained for many generations. Among the British and Churchillian errors were: • The secret decision of a tiny cabal in the inner Cabinet in 1906 to take Britain straight to war against Germany, should she invade France • The vengeful Treaty of Versailles that mutilated Germany, leaving her bitter, betrayed, and receptive to the appeal of Adolf Hitler • Britain’s capitulation, at Churchill’s urging, to American pressure to sever the Anglo-Japanese alliance, insulting and isolating Japan, pushing her onto the path of militarism and conquest • The greatest mistake in British history: the unsolicited war guarantee to Poland of March 1939, ensuring the Second World War Certain to create controversy and spirited argument, Churchill, Hitler, and “the Unnecessary War” is a grand and bold insight into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European rule and guaranteed a future no one who lived in that vanished world could ever have envisioned.
The legacies of Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill stand in stark contrast. While Churchill is touted as the tenacious hero who refused to let Great Britain fall to the enemy, Hitler will forever be reviled for his oppressive dictatorship of Germany. Readers will learn what happened when these two leaders came head-to-head during World War II. Astonishing historic photographs underscore the biographical information included in the text as well as the effects of the war on Europe and the rest of the world. This valuable volume, which includes a timeline of the war's key moments, is an engaging examination of this era.
Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill clashed for years in public as their opinions of each other and feuding helped determine the course of World War II. Based on three years of research in archives across Britain, Germany, and the United States, John chronicles the war through the protagonists' speeches, writings, and private conversations, and includes revealing perspectives from other major figures.
Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men—along with three others—formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Giles Milton's Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.
The Second World War was caused by one man--Adolph Hitler. This tormented personality brought death and destruction over most of the world. Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin were called on by history to stop this menace.In this book, which includes new material, the background, attitude and personalities of these men are explored in detail: Hitler, the penniless artist of 25 in Vienna; Churchill, the young prisoner of war in South Africa; Roosevelt, stricken and crippled by polio in the prime of his life; and Stalin the seminarian of fourteen studying for the priesthood.By his attack on Poland in September 1939, Hitler brought Churchill against him. Stopped by Churchill and the R.A.F., Hitler moved east to strike Stalin and the Red Army. Not satisfied, he then took on Roosevelt, the leader of the largest industrial power in the world. In spite of all this Hitler, backed by the strongest armed forces of any country in the history of the world, came close to winning. This book tells the story of these incredible events.
An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis “One of [Erik Larson’s] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.”—Time • “A bravura performance by one of America’s greatest storytellers.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • The Globe & Mail • Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMatters On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.
This WWII history exposes a shocking episode of treason among the highest levels of British leadership in a conspiracy with Nazi High Command. At the outbreak of the Second World War, a number of Fascist groups were active in Britain, all plotting to overthrow the British government. When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he had the leaders of these groups arrested, including Member of Parliament Archibald Ramsey. When these men were released years later, they were just as determined to install a fascist government in Britain—and all the more embittered toward Churchill. In the autumn of 1944, Adolf Hitler’s military gains were eroding across the map. In a desperate plan to avoid total defeat, he sought the simultaneous assassination of both Churchill and Eisenhower. This was the opportunity Ramsay and his cohorts had been waiting for. They planned a massive outbreak of British POW camps, the seizure of tanks and armored vehicles, and an advance on London. Ramsey himself would be perfectly placed to aid the coup—within yards of his greatest enemy, Winston Churchill, in the House of Commons. This is the incredible, disturbing story of how close British Fascists came to impacting the outcome of the Second World War. It is also a comprehensive investigation into the Break Out Plot as it unfolded across Britain: how it came to fruition and how it was quashed, its repercussions and the many little-known stories of escape and recapture which took place throughout the country.
