Darkness Falling

Darkness Falling

Author: Peter Walther

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-08-05

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 180024228X

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'Gripping and all too timely' James Hawes 'A brilliant mix of detailed research and vivid storytelling' Julia Boyd 'History at its very best – and a fabulous translation, too' Graham Hurley In March 1930, after the collapse of the coalition that had ruled Germany since 1928, President Hindenburg asked Heinrich Bruning, bespectacled and scholarly leader of the Catholic Centre Party, to form a government. Some three years later, in January 1933, Hindenburg appointed as chancellor the demagogic, virulently anti-Semitic leader of the National Socialist party. Within weeks, Adolf Hitler has begun the process of dismantling the flawed democracy of the Weimar Republic and replacing it with a one-party totalitarian state. Darkness Falling depicts in compelling fashion the serial crises and mounting violence of a febrile era. Peter Walther examines the slow death of Weimar through the prism of nine colourful protagonists, including leading German politicians of right, left and centre, the clairvoyant and occultist, Erik Jan Hanussen and the formidable American journalist Dorothy Thompson. He profiles these heterogeneous characters in intriguing detail, pulling together the threads of their lives to chart the demise of German parliamentary democracy and the rise of National Socialist tyranny. Along the way we gain fascinating insights into the machinations in the corridors of power to keep the 'Bohemian corporal' from the chancellorship, and the venality of the Nazi elite and its fellow travellers from the demi-monde of early 1930s Berlin. Walther evokes the louche nightlife of the German capital – 'a playground for charlatans and prophets, madmen and crooks' – memorably and atmospherically. A masterly fusion of meticulously researched historical writing and vividly propulsive storytelling, Darkness Falling is a distinctive and enthralling account of Germany's slide from democracy to dictatorship. Translated by Dr Peter Lewis.


What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler

What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler

Author: Robert J. Hutchinson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-08-04

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 1621578895

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Think You Know Everything about the death of Hitler? Think Again. After World War II, 50 percent of Americans polled said they didn’t believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker in 1945, as captured Nazi officials claimed. Instead, they believed the dictator faked his death and escaped, perhaps to Argentina. This wasn’t a crazy opinion: Joseph Stalin told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler’s body and that he personally believed the Nazi leader had escaped justice. At least two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Argentina in July 1945. Plus, there were numerous reports of top Nazi officials successfully fleeing to South America where there was a large German colony. Incredible as it sounds, the mystery surrounding Adolf Hitler’s final days only deepened in 2009 when a U.S. forensic team announced that a piece of Hitler’s skull held in Soviet archives was not actually Hitler’s. International interest increased further in 2014 when the FBI released previously classified files detailing investigations surrounding Hitler’s possible escape. And the following year, The History Channel launched a three-year reality TV series investigating if it was possible Hitler did somehow survive. So what really happened? Popular history writer Robert J. Hutchinson, author of What Really Happened: The Lincoln Assassination, takes a fresh look at the evidence and discovers, once and for all, the truth about Hitler’s last week in Berlin. Among the questions the book explores are... * What did surviving Nazi eyewitnesses really say about the Führer’s final days in the bunker—and could they have been lying to aid Hitler’s escape? * If Hitler didn’t escape, why did the Allies not find his body? * What about Hitler’s proven use of body doubles? Could Hitler have used a body double in the bunker while he and Eva Braun flew to safety in a long-range aircraft that took off from a runway in Berlin’s Tiergarten? * Why did the FBI continue to investigate reports of Hitler’s survival for more than a decade after World War II—reports that were only declassified in 2014? * What about sensational claims in books such as The Grey Wolfthat Hitler and Eva Braun lived in an isolated chalet in the Andes – and that Hitler died in 1962? * Why were forensic tests on crucial physical evidence only conducted in 2016, more than 70 years after World War II ended? * And lots MORE.


Hitler's Monsters

Hitler's Monsters

Author: Eric Kurlander

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 0300190379

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“A dense and scholarly book about . . . the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult . . . reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Daily Telegraph The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. “[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—The Washington Post “Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—The Spectator “A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—The Times “A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews “Kurlander provides a careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits.”—National Review


Strange Victory

Strange Victory

Author: Ernest R. May

Publisher: Hill and Wang

Published: 2015-07-28

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 1466894288

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Ernest R. May's Strange Victory presents a dramatic narrative-and reinterpretation-of Germany's six-week campaign that swept the Wehrmacht to Paris in spring 1940. Before the Nazis killed him for his work in the French Resistance, the great historian Marc Bloch wrote a famous short book, Strange Defeat, about the treatment of his nation at the hands of an enemy the French had believed they could easily dispose of. In Strange Victory, the distinguished American historian Ernest R. May asks the opposite question: How was it that Hitler and his generals managed this swift conquest, considering that France and its allies were superior in every measurable dimension and considering the Germans' own skepticism about their chances? Strange Victory is a riveting narrative of those six crucial weeks in the spring of 1940, weaving together the decisions made by the high commands with the welter of confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field. Why did Hitler want to turn against France at just this moment, and why were his poor judgment and inadequate intelligence about the Allies nonetheless correct? Why didn't France take the offensive when it might have led to victory? What explains France's failure to detect and respond to Germany's attack plan? It is May's contention that in the future, nations might suffer strange defeats of their own if they do not learn from their predecessors' mistakes in judgment.


Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Author: Simon Dunstan

Publisher: Union Square + ORM

Published: 2011-10-04

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1402789335

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Did Hitler—code name “Grey Wolf”—really die in 1945? Gripping new evidence shows what could have happened. The basis for the titular documentary. When Truman asked Stalin in 1945 whether Hitler was dead, Stalin replied bluntly, “No.” As late as 1952, Eisenhower declared: “We have been unable to unearth one bit of tangible evidence of Hitler’s death.” What really happened? Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams have compiled extensive evidence—some recently declassified—that Hitler actually fled Berlin and took refuge in a remote Nazi enclave in Argentina. The recent discovery that the famous “Hitler’s skull” in Moscow is female, as well as newly uncovered documents, provide powerful proof for their case. Dunstan and Williams cite people, places, and dates in over 500 detailed notes that identify the plan’s escape route, vehicles, aircraft, U-boats, and hideouts. Among the details: the CIA’s possible involvement and Hitler’s life in Patagonia—including his two daughters. “Describes a ghastly pantomime played out in the names of the Fuhrer and the woman who had been his mistress.” —The Sun “Grey Wolf is more than a conspiracy yarn . . . Its authors show Hitler’s escape was possible . . . a gripping read.” —South China Morning Post “Remarkable detail.” —Sir David Frost, Frost Over the World “Stunning saga of intrigue.” —Pravda “Stunning account of the last days of the Reich.” —Parapolitical.com “I thought the book was hugely thought-provoking and explores some of the untold, murky loose ends of World War Two.” —Dan Snow, broadcaster and historian, The One Show BBC 1 “Laid out in lavish detail.” —Daily Mail


Hitler's Last Days

Hitler's Last Days

Author: Bill O'Reilly

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)

Published: 2015-06-09

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1627793976

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By early 1945, the destruction of the German Nazi State seems certain. The Allied forces, led by American generals George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower, are gaining control of Europe, leaving German leaders scrambling. Facing defeat, Adolf Hitler flees to a secret bunker with his new wife, Eva Braun, and his beloved dog, Blondi. It is there that all three would meet their end, thus ending the Third Reich and one of the darkest chapters of history. Hitler's Last Days is a gripping account of the death of one of the most reviled villains of the 20th century—a man whose regime of murder and terror haunts the world even today. Adapted from Bill O'Reilly's historical thriller Killing Patton, this book will have young readers—and grown-ups too—hooked on history. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.


Hitler

Hitler

Author: Volker Ullrich

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 1034

ISBN-13: 038535438X

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Originally published: Germany: S. Fischer Verlag.


Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Author: Patrick Delaforce

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9781781550731

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This book is a masterly assessment of Adolph Hitler's life, career, and beliefs, drawn not only from the subject's personal writings and speeches, but also from accounts of those who knew him, loved him, and loathed him.