In early 1945, the Red Army plunged into the Third Reich from the east, rolling up territory and crushing virtually everything in its path, with one exception: the city of Breslau, which Hitler had declared a fortress-city, to be defended to the death. This book examines in detail the notorious four-month siege of Breslau. • The first full-length English-language account of the bloody siege • Chronicles the bitter struggle as the Red Army encircled Breslau and eventually pillaged the city, taking savage retribution on the survivors • Details the brutal methods used by the city's Nazi leaders to keep German troops fighting and maintain order
Breslau 1933: the mutilated body of a young woman and her lady's maid are found sprawled in a train, scorpians writhing in their slashed and naked stomachs. An indecipherable note in an apparently oriental language lies next to the lifeless bodies. Inspector Mock is called to head the investigation. With his young assistant, Herbert Anwaldt, he must discover the perpetrator of this most macabre of crimes.
Introducing one of the most stylish and moody historic detective series ever: The Inspector Eberhard Mock Quartet Occupied Breslau, 1933: Two young women are found murdered on a train, scorpions writhing on their bodies, an indecipherable note in an apparently oriental language nearby ...Police Inspector Eberhard Mock's weekly assignation with two ladies of the night is interrupted as he is called to investigate. But uncovering the truth is no straightforward matter in Breslau. The city is in the grip of the Gestapo, and has become a place where spies are everywhere, corrupt ministers torture confessions from Jewish merchants, and Freemasons guard their secrets with blackmail and violence. And as Mock and his young assistant Herbert Anwaldt plunge into the city's squalid underbelly the case takes on a dark twist of the occult when the mysterious note seems to indicate a ritual killing with roots in the Crusades ...
The second installment in the darkly intelligent series that The Independent called “As noir as they get.” 1927, Breslau, Poland: Two elaborate and sadistic murders are discovered within days of each other. The body of an unknown musician, bound and gagged, is found behind a false wall in a shoemaker’s workshop. The victim had been sealed in alive. Elsewhere in the city, the horrifically mutilated body of a locksmith is found. Next to each victim is a torn-out calendar page, with the day of the death marked in blood. Nothing else seems to connect the cases. It falls to Criminal Councillor Eberhard Mock to solve the case, the mystery taking him still further into the Breslau underworld he knows only too well. Meanwhile, his hard-drinking nocturnal habits soon threaten his volatile marriage, and prompt some strange behavior from his wife ... and before long, Mock and his team will be investigating not only two of the grisliest murders in the city’s history, but the councillor’s own wife.
Written by leading statisticians and probabilists, this volume consists of 104 biographical articles on eminent contributors to statistical and probabilistic ideas born prior to the 20th Century. Among the statisticians covered are Fermat, Pascal, Huygens, Neumann, Bernoulli, Bayes, Laplace, Legendre, Gauss, Poisson, Pareto, Markov, Bachelier, Borel, and many more.
From the Ice Age to the Cold War and beyond, from Reykjavik to Riga, from Archimedes to Einstein, Alexander to Yeltsin, here between the covers of a single volume Norman Davies tells the story of Europe, East and West, from prehistory to the present day. The book's absorbing narrative lays down the chronological and geographical grid on which the dramas of European history have been played out. It zooms in from the distant focus of Chapter One, which explores the first five million years of the continent's evolution, to the close focus of the lasttwo chapters, which cover the twentieth century at roughly one page per year. In between, Norman Davies presents a huge and sweeping canvas packed with fascinating detail, analysis, and anecdote. Alongside Europe's better-known stories - human, national, and continental - he brings into focus areasoften ignored or misunderstood, remembering the stateless nation as well as the nation-state. Minority communities, from heretics and lepers to Jews, Romanies, and Muslims have not been forgotten. This masterly history reveals not only the rich variety of Europe's past but also the many and rewarding prisms through which it can be viewed. Each chapter contains a selection of telephoto 'capsules', illustrating narrower themes and topics that cut across the chronological flow. Davies thenconcludes with a wide-angle 'snapshot' of the whole continent as seen from one particular vantage point. The overall effect is stunning: a kind of historical picture album, with panoramic tableaux interspersed by detailed insets and close-ups. Never before has such an ambitious history of Europe been attempted. In range and ambition, the originality of its structure and glittering style, Norman Davies's Europe represents one of the most important and illuminating history books to be published by Oxford. Time Capsules 201 fascinating articles interspersed throughout the narrative focus on incidents or topics as various as The Iceman of the Alps, Erotic Graffiti at Pompeii, Stradivarius, and Psychoanalysing Hitler. Each capsule can be tasted as a separate self-contained morsel; or can be read in conjunction withthe narrative into which it is inserted. Snapshots 12 panoramic overviews across the changing map of Europe freeze the frames of the chronological narrative at moments of symbolic importance, such as Knossos 1628 BC, Constantinople AD 330, and Nuremberg 1945. A fully illustrated history Incorporates over 100 superbly detailed maps and diagrams, and 32 pages of black and white plates.
