Sonke Neitzel

Sönke Neitzel: Unveiling the Mind of a Leading Historian of Nazi Germany

Introduction:

Are you fascinated by the intricacies of the Third Reich and the complexities of its perpetrators? Do you crave a deeper understanding beyond the simplistic narratives often presented? Then you've come to the right place. This comprehensive exploration dives into the work and impact of Sönke Neitzel, a leading historian renowned for his groundbreaking research into the experiences and perspectives of ordinary soldiers in Nazi Germany. We will examine his key works, analyze his methodology, and delve into the controversies and significant contributions he's made to the field. Prepare to gain a nuanced and insightful perspective on a pivotal period in history, all through the lens of Neitzel's meticulous scholarship.

Understanding Sönke Neitzel's Approach:

Sönke Neitzel distinguishes himself through his unique approach to historical research. Unlike many historians who rely solely on official documents and top-down perspectives, Neitzel prioritizes the voices of ordinary individuals. His meticulous work incorporates extensive interviews and analysis of personal accounts from soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces. This "bottom-up" approach provides invaluable insights into the motivations, experiences, and moral ambiguities of those who participated in the Nazi regime, offering a perspective often missing from traditional historical narratives. He meticulously examines the everyday realities of war, moving beyond grand strategies and focusing on the lived experiences of individual soldiers. This allows for a more complex and nuanced understanding of the era, challenging conventional wisdom and forcing a reevaluation of historical interpretations.

Key Works and Their Significance:

Neitzel's body of work has significantly impacted the understanding of Nazi Germany. Some of his most acclaimed books include:

Soldiers: On Fighting, Killing and Dying in the Second World War: This groundbreaking work, co-authored with Harald Welzer, utilizes interviews with German veterans to paint a powerful and often unsettling picture of the psychological toll of war and the normalization of violence. It challenges the myth of the “clean Wehrmacht” and exposes the widespread brutality and complicity in the Nazi regime's atrocities.

The Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Armed Forces in World War II: This book explores the disintegration and eventual collapse of the German military, offering a deep analysis of the factors contributing to its defeat. It goes beyond military strategy, focusing on the changing dynamics within the army, the impact of Allied advances, and the moral and physical exhaustion of the soldiers.

Hitler's Soldiers: The German Army in the Third Reich: In this seminal work, Neitzel examines the complex relationship between the German army and the Nazi regime. He exposes the complicity of the Wehrmacht in the Holocaust and other atrocities, while also exploring the internal divisions and resistance within the military. He deftly avoids simplistic narratives, showing how the army was both a tool of Nazi power and a space of resistance, albeit often limited and fragmented.

Controversies and Criticisms:

Despite his significant contributions, Neitzel's work has not been without its critics. Some historians question the representativeness of his sample groups and the potential for bias in the recollection of memories from decades past. The inherent subjectivity of oral histories is a valid concern that must be addressed, and Neitzel is careful to acknowledge the limitations of his methodology, emphasizing the need for cross-referencing and contextualization. However, this doesn't diminish the value of his work, which often provides insights unavailable through traditional archival research.

Sönke Neitzel's Lasting Legacy:

Sönke Neitzel's contributions to the field of history are undeniable. His focus on the experiences of ordinary soldiers has revolutionized our understanding of the Second World War and the Nazi regime. His meticulous research, coupled with his willingness to challenge established narratives, has opened up new avenues for historical inquiry. His work compels us to move beyond simplistic narratives of good versus evil, encouraging a more nuanced and complex appreciation of the historical forces at play during this pivotal period. He challenges readers to confront the uncomfortable realities of the past, forcing a more critical and self-aware approach to understanding the human capacity for both good and evil.

Book Outline: A Deeper Dive into the Wehrmacht

I. Introduction:

Brief biographical sketch of Sönke Neitzel.
Overview of his research methodology and focus.
Setting the historical context: The Nazi regime and the Wehrmacht.

II. The Wehrmacht's Complicity:

Evidence of Wehrmacht involvement in war crimes and atrocities.
Analysis of the orders and actions of individual soldiers.
Discussion of the role of ideological indoctrination and obedience.

III. The Everyday Experiences of Soldiers:

The psychological impact of combat and violence.
The challenges of survival and adaptation in extreme circumstances.
The relationships between soldiers and their superiors and peers.

IV. Resistance and Dissent within the Wehrmacht:

Examination of instances of resistance to Nazi orders.
Analysis of the limitations and challenges faced by internal opposition.
Assessment of the impact of resistance on the war effort.

V. Conclusion:

Summary of key findings and conclusions.
Assessment of Sönke Neitzel's contribution to the understanding of WWII.
Suggestions for future research and exploration.

(Each point in the outline would be elaborated upon in a full-length article, expanding upon the information presented earlier in this blog post. This would involve detailed analysis of specific historical events, primary source material, and scholarly interpretations.)

FAQs:

1. What makes Sönke Neitzel's work unique? His unique approach emphasizes the experiences of ordinary soldiers, moving beyond grand narratives and offering a bottom-up perspective.

2. What are the main criticisms of Neitzel's work? Some critics question the representativeness of his sample groups and the reliability of oral histories gathered decades after the events.

3. How does Neitzel address the issue of memory and bias in his research? He acknowledges the limitations of memory and carefully contextualizes his sources, cross-referencing information where possible.

4. What is the significance of Soldiers: On Fighting, Killing and Dying in the Second World War? This book revolutionized the understanding of the psychological impact of war and the normalization of violence among German soldiers.

5. Did Neitzel find evidence of widespread resistance within the Wehrmacht? While widespread organized resistance was rare, Neitzel documents instances of individual and small-group dissent against Nazi orders.

6. How does Neitzel's work challenge traditional narratives about the Second World War? He challenges the myth of a "clean Wehrmacht" and reveals the complicity of many soldiers in war crimes and atrocities.

7. What are the implications of Neitzel's findings for our understanding of collective responsibility? His work forces us to confront the complexities of collective responsibility and the ways in which individuals can participate in atrocities even without direct orders.

8. Is Neitzel's work primarily focused on German soldiers? While primarily focused on the German army, his work offers broader implications for understanding the psychology of war and the nature of collective violence.

9. Where can I find more information about Sönke Neitzel and his work? His books are readily available, and scholarly articles and reviews can be found through academic databases.

Related Articles:

1. The Wehrmacht's Role in the Holocaust: An analysis of the German army's participation in the systematic extermination of Jews.

2. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution: A comparative study exploring the actions of ordinary men involved in the Holocaust.

3. The Psychology of Killing in War: An exploration of the psychological factors that contribute to violence in armed conflict.

4. The Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht: A debunking of the common misconception that the German army was largely untouched by Nazi atrocities.

5. German Resistance to Nazism: A review of different forms of opposition to the Nazi regime, including within the military.

6. The Collapse of the Third Reich: An examination of the military and political factors leading to Germany's defeat in World War II.

7. The Eastern Front in World War II: A detailed account of the brutal fighting on the Eastern Front and its impact on German soldiers.

8. The Nuremberg Trials and the Accountability of War Criminals: An examination of the legal proceedings following World War II and the pursuit of justice.

9. Oral Histories and the Study of the Past: A discussion of the challenges and opportunities associated with using oral histories in historical research.

sonke neitzel: Tapping Hitler's Generals Sönke Neitzel, 2013-07-19 These transcripts of wiretapped conversations between Nazi officers reveal “a fascinating—and chilling—insight into the German view of the war” (Financial Times). Between 1939 and 1942, the British Directorate of Military Intelligence created a number of POW interrogation camps in and around London where they secretly recorded private conversations between senior German staff officers. In this extraordinary work, historian Sonke Neitzel examines these transcripts in depth and presents the private thoughts, opinions, and secrets of Nazi officers during the Second World War. These transcripts address important questions regarding the officers’ attitudes towards the German leadership and Nazi policies: How did the German generals judge the overall war situation? From what date did they consider it lost? How did they react to the attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944? What knowledge did they have of the atrocities? By turns insightful and horrifying, this unprecedented research is a must for any serious scholar of the period. “A goldmine of information about what the German High Command privately thought of the war, Adolf Hitler, the Nazis and each other.” —Daily Mail
sonke neitzel: Soldaten - On Fighting, Killing and Dying Sonke Neitzel, Harald Welzer, 2012-09-25 In November 2001, as the world still reeled from the attack on the Twin Towers, German historian Sonke Neitzel discovered an extraordinary cache of documents from the Second World War. The documents were the transcripts of German prisoners of war talking among themselves in prisoner of war camps, and secretly recorded by the allies. In these apparently private conversations the soldiers talked freely and openly about their hopes and fears, their concerns and their day-to-day lives. With a banality and ease which to the modern reader can appear shocking, they also talked about the horrors of war -- about rape, death and killing. Sonke Neitzel shared the material with renowned and bestselling psychologist Harald Wezler and they set about trying to make sense of the vast piles of documents, the hours of transcripts. The result is SOLDATEN, a landmark book which will change the way we look at soldiers and war, and is as relevant to our modern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as it was to the soldiers of the German Army in 1945. Published to huge acclaim and controversy in Germany it was a number one bestseller there and reignited the debate about the banality of evil under the Nazi regime.
sonke neitzel: Soldiers Sonke Neitzel, Harald Welzer, 2012-09-25 On a visit to the British National Archive in 2001, Sonke Neitzel made a remarkable discovery: reams of meticulously transcribed conversations among German POWs that had been covertly recorded and recently declassified. Netizel would later find another collection of transcriptions, twice as extensive, in the National Archive in Washington. These were discoveries that would provide a unique and profoundly important window into the true mentality of the soldiers in the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the German navy, and the military in general -- almost all of whom had insisted on their own honourable behaviour during the war. Collaborating with renowned social psychologist Harald Welzer, Neitzel examines these conversations -- and the casual, pitiless brutality omnipresent in them -- from a historical and psychological perspective, and in reconstucting the frameworks and situations behind these conversations, they have created a powerful narrative of wartime experience.
sonke neitzel: What is Military History? Stephen Morillo, 2013-04-03 This clear, readable introduction to the popular field of military history is now available in a refreshed and updated second edition. It shows that military history encompasses not just accounts of campaigns and battles but includes a wide range of perspectives on all aspects of past military organization and activity. In concise chapters it explains the fundamental features of the field, including: The history of military history, showing how it has developed from ancient times to the present; The key ideas and concepts that shape analysis of military activity; it argues that military history is as methodologically and philosophically sophisticated as any field of history; The current controversies about which military historians argue, and why they are important; A survey of who does military history, where it is taught and published, and how it is practiced; A look at where military history is headed in the future. The new edition of What is Military History? provides an up-to-date bibliography and cutting edge new case studies, including counterinsurgency, and as such continues to be ideal for classes in military history and in historiography generally, as well as for anyone interested in learning more about the dynamics of a rich and growing area of study.
sonke neitzel: Operation Sealion Peter Schenk, 2019-07-26 An in-depth analysis of Nazi Germany’s unused strategy to invade the UK during the Battle of Britain in World War II. It is hard to believe that in the summer of 1940, neither the Allies nor the Axis powers had any experience of large amphibious operations. German planning for Operation Sealion was concerned with pioneering new techniques and developing specialized landing craft. Remarkably, in only two months they prepared an invasion fleet of 4,000 vessels. In Operation Sealion, Peter Schenk begins by examining the vessels that were developed and deployed for the operation: converted cargo vessels and steamers, more specialized landing craft, barges and pontoons, and auxiliary vessels such as tugs and hospital ships. He then goes on to outline the strategic preparations for the landing and looks at the operational plans of, in turn, the navy, army, and air force. The planned invasion is described in full detail so that the reader can follow the proposed sequence of events from loading, setting sail, and the crossing of the English Channel, to the landing and the early advances into southern England. Schenk uniquely estimates the chances of success. This absorbing account of Hitler’s abortive mission, more detailed than anything written before, is of interest not just to the naval historian but to anyone with an interest in World War II or military strategy.
sonke neitzel: Allen Dulles, the OSS, and Nazi War Criminals Kerstin von Lingen, 2013-09-30 Kerstin von Lingen shows how Nazi SS-General Karl Wolff avoided war crimes prosecution because of his role in Operation Sunrise, negotiations conducted by high-ranking American, Swiss, and British officials - in violation of the Casablanca agreements with the Soviet Union - for the surrender of German forces in Italy. Von Lingen suggests that the Cold War started already with Operation Sunrise, and helps us understand rollback operations thereafter: one was the failure of justice and selective prosecution for high ranking Nazi criminals. The Western Allies not only failed to ensure cooperation between their respective national war crimes prosecution organizations, but in certain cases even obstructed justice by withholding evidence from the prosecution.
sonke neitzel: War Stories Philip Dwyer, 2016-11-01 Although war memoirs constitute a rich, varied literary form, they are often dismissed by historians as unreliable. This collection of essays is one of the first to explore the modern war memoir, revealing the genre’s surprising capacity for breadth and sophistication while remaining sensitive to the challenges it poses for scholars. Covering conflicts from the Napoleonic era to today, the studies gathered here consider how memoirs have been used to transmit particular views of war even as they have emerged within specific social and political contexts.
sonke neitzel: German Atrocities, 1914 John Horne, Alan Kramer, 2001-01-01 Is it true that the German army, invading Belgium and France in August 1914, perpetrated brutal atrocities? Or are accounts of the deaths of thousands of unarmed civilians mere fabrications constructed by fanatically anti-German Allied propagandists? Based on research in the archives of Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, this pathbreaking book uncovers the truth of the events of autumn 1914 and explains how the politics of propaganda and memory have shaped radically different versions of that truth. John Horne and Alan Kramer mine military reports, official and private records, witness evidence, and war diaries to document the crimes that scholars have long denied: a campaign of brutality that led to the deaths of some 6500 Belgian and French civilians. Contemporary German accounts insisted that the civilians were guerrillas, executed for illegal resistance. In reality this claim originated in a vast collective delusion on the part of German soldiers. The authors establish how this myth originated and operated, and how opposed Allied and German views of events were used in the propaganda war. They trace the memory and forgetting of the atrocities on both sides up to and beyond World War II. Meticulously researched and convincingly argued, this book reopens a painful chapter in European history while contributing to broader debates about myth, propaganda, memory, war crimes, and the nature of the First World War.
sonke neitzel: The Global Chancellor Kristina Spohr, 2016 Helmut Schmidt is the neglected chancellor of modern German history, overshadowed by 'the greats' - Bismarck, Adenauer, Brandt and Kohl. This volume retrieves Schmidt's true significance as a pivotal figure who helped reshape the global order during the crisis-ridden 1970s. This major reinterpretation, based on detailed research in Schmidt's private papers and numerous archives in Europe and America, reveals him as a leader equally skilled in economics and security, and adept at personal diplomacy, who dared to act as a 'double interpreter' between the superpowers during the nadir of the Cold War. Schmidt was no mere 'crisis-manager': in fact he brought to the chancellorship a depth of reflection, evident in two decades of writings and speeches that justifies considering him an intellectual statesman on a par with Henry Kissinger. His achievements were prodigious. Hailed as the 'world economist', Schmidt helped create the G7 forum for global economic governance and the European Monetary System at a time when capitalism seemed on the rocks. And as the 'strategist of balance', he designed NATO's 'dual-track' response to the crisis caused by the massive Soviet arms buildup of Euro-missiles. This decision, Kristina Spohr argues, played a crucial part in holding together the Western alliance and paved the way to defusing the Cold War in Europe. Schmidt brought his country to the top table of world politics - what he unashamedly called Weltpolitik - as an equal of the wartime victor powers. It was through his Chancellorship that West Germany came of age on the global stage.
sonke neitzel: Soldiers Sonke Neitzel, Harald Welzer, 2012-09-25 On a visit to the British National Archive in 2001, Sönke Neitzel made a remarkable discovery: reams of covertly recorded, meticulously transcribed conversations among German POWs during World War II that recently had been declassified. Neitzel would later find another collection of transcriptions, twice as extensive, in the National Archive in Washington, D.C. These discoveries, published in book form for the first time, would provide a unique and profoundly important window into the true mentality of the soldiers in the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the German navy, and the military in general—almost all of whom had insisted on their own honorable behavior during the war. Collaborating with renowned social psychologist Harald Welzer, Neitzel examines these conversations—and the casual, pitiless brutality omnipresent in them—to create a powerful narrative of wartime experience. [Originally published as Soldaten.]
sonke neitzel: Harvest of Despair Karel C. Berkhoff, 2009-07-01 “If I find a Ukrainian who is worthy of sitting at the same table with me, I must have him shot,” declared Nazi commissar Erich Koch. To the Nazi leaders, the Ukrainians were Untermenschen—subhumans. But the rich land was deemed prime territory for Lebensraum expansion. Once the Germans rid the country of Jews, Roma, and Bolsheviks, the Ukrainians would be used to harvest the land for the master race. Karel Berkhoff provides a searing portrait of life in the Third Reich’s largest colony. Under the Nazis, a blend of German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and racist notions about the Slavs produced a reign of terror and genocide. But it is impossible to understand fully Ukraine’s response to this assault without addressing the impact of decades of repressive Soviet rule. Berkhoff shows how a pervasive Soviet mentality worked against solidarity, which helps explain why the vast majority of the population did not resist the Germans. He also challenges standard views of wartime eastern Europe by treating in a more nuanced way issues of collaboration and local anti-Semitism. Berkhoff offers a multifaceted discussion that includes the brutal nature of the Nazi administration; the genocide of the Jews and Roma; the deliberate starving of Kiev; mass deportations within and beyond Ukraine; the role of ethnic Germans; religion and national culture; partisans and the German response; and the desperate struggle to stay alive. Harvest of Despair is a gripping depiction of ordinary people trying to survive extraordinary events.
sonke neitzel: Cultures of Intelligence in the Era of the World Wars Simon Ball, Philipp Gassert, Andreas Gestrich, Sönke Neitzel, 2020-08-06 Cultures of Intelligence analyses the intelligence services of Germany, Britain, the USA, and France in the first half of the twentieth century. It asks whether there were national traditions in intelligence, or whether each of the sophisticated Western intelligence powers was part of a transnational intelligence culture? The book is a contribution to the cultural turn in intelligence studies. Its underlying purpose is to place intelligence in its proper historical and comparative context. As such it is also a contribution to the history of political culture and its study.
sonke neitzel: Conduct Unbecoming Howard Margolian, 2000-01-01 More than 150 Canadian soldiers were brutally murdered in 1944 after capture by the 12th SS Division 'Hitler Youth.' Despite months of investigation by Allied courts, however, only two senior officers of the 12th SS were ever tried for war crimes.
sonke neitzel: Six Months in 1945 Michael Dobbs, 2012-10-16 When Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler’s armies were on the run, and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace—but instead they set the stage for a forty-four year division of Europe into Soviet and Western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was beginning to fracture. Although the most dramatic Cold War confrontations such as the Berlin airlift were still to come, a new struggle for global hegemony had got underway by August 1945 when Truman used the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Six Months in 1945 brilliantly captures this momentous historical turning point while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants.
sonke neitzel: Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars Edward B. Westermann, 2016-10-13 As he prepared to wage his war of annihilation on the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler repeatedly drew parallels between the Nazi quest for Lebensraum, or living space, in Eastern Europe and the United States’s westward expansion under the banner of Manifest Destiny. The peoples of Eastern Europe were, he said, his “redskins,” and for his colonial fantasy of a “German East” he claimed a historical precedent in the United States’s displacement and killing of the native population. Edward B. Westermann examines the validity, and value, of this claim in Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars. The book takes an empirical approach that highlights areas of similarity and continuity, but also explores key distinctions and differences between these two national projects. The westward march of American empire and the Nazi conquest of the East offer clear parallels, not least that both cases fused a sense of national purpose with racial stereotypes that aided in the exclusion, expropriation, and killing of peoples. Westermann evaluates the philosophies of Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum that justified both conquests, the national and administrative policies that framed Nazi and U.S. governmental involvement in these efforts, the military strategies that supported each nation’s political goals, and the role of massacre and atrocity in both processes. Important differences emerge: a goal of annihilation versus one of assimilation and acculturation; a planned military campaign versus a confused strategy of pacification and punishment; large-scale atrocity as routine versus massacre as exception. Comparative history at its best, Westermann’s assessment of these two national projects provides crucial insights into not only their rhetoric and pronouncements but also the application of policy and ideology “on the ground.” His sophisticated and nuanced revelations of the similarities and dissimilarities between these two cases will inform further study of genocide, as well as our understanding of the Nazi conquest of the East and the American conquest of the West.
sonke neitzel: Empire of Destruction Alex J. Kay, 2021-09-28 The first comparative, comprehensive history of Nazi mass killing – showing how genocidal policies were crucial to the regime’s strategy to win the war Nazi Germany killed approximately 13 million civilians and other non-combatants in deliberate policies of mass murder, mostly during the war years. Almost half the victims were Jewish, systematically destroyed in the Holocaust, the core of the Nazis’ pan-European racial purification programme. Alex Kay argues that the genocide of European Jewry can be examined in the wider context of Nazi mass killing. For the first time, Empire of Destruction considers Europe’s Jews alongside all the other major victim groups: captive Red Army soldiers, the Soviet urban population, unarmed civilian victims of preventive terror and reprisals, the mentally and physically disabled, the European Roma and the Polish intelligentsia. Kay shows how each of these groups was regarded by the Nazi regime as a potential threat to Germany’s ability to successfully wage a war for hegemony in Europe. Combining the full quantitative scale of the killings with the individual horror, this is a vital and groundbreaking work.
sonke neitzel: Black April George Veith, 2013-09-17 The defeat of South Vietnam was arguably America’s worst foreign policy disaster of the 20th Century. Yet a complete understanding of the endgame—from the 27 January 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords to South Vietnam’s surrender on 30 April 1975—has eluded us. Black April addresses that deficit. A culmination of exhaustive research in three distinct areas: primary source documents from American archives, North Vietnamese publications containing primary and secondary source material, and dozens of articles and numerous interviews with key South Vietnamese participants, this book represents one of the largest Vietnamese translation projects ever accomplished, including almost one hundred rarely or never seen before North Vietnamese unit histories, battle studies, and memoirs. Most important, to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of South Vietnam’s conquest, the leaders in Hanoi released several compendiums of formerly highly classified cables and memorandum between the Politburo and its military commanders in the south. This treasure trove of primary source materials provides the most complete insight into North Vietnamese decision-making ever complied. While South Vietnamese deliberations remain less clear, enough material exists to provide a decent overview. Ultimately, whatever errors occurred on the American and South Vietnamese side, the simple fact remains that the country was conquered by a North Vietnamese military invasion despite written pledges by Hanoi’s leadership against such action. Hanoi’s momentous choice to destroy the Paris Peace Accords and militarily end the war sent a generation of South Vietnamese into exile, and exacerbated a societal trauma in America over our long Vietnam involvement that reverberates to this day. How that transpired deserves deeper scrutiny.
sonke neitzel: A Companion to Nazi Germany Shelley Baranowski, Armin Nolzen, Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann, 2018-06-18 A Deep Exploration of the Rise, Reign, and Legacy of the Third Reich For its brief existence, National Socialist Germany was one of the most destructive regimes in the history of humankind. Since that time, scholarly debate about its causes has volleyed continuously between the effects of political and military decisions, pathological development, or modernity gone awry. Was terror the defining force of rule, or was popular consent critical to sustaining the movement? Were the German people sympathetic to Nazi ideology, or were they radicalized by social manipulation and powerful propaganda? Was the “Final Solution” the motivation for the Third Reich’s rise to power, or simply the outcome? A Companion to Nazi Germany addresses these crucial questions with historical insight from the Nazi Party’s emergence in the 1920s through its postwar repercussions. From the theory and context that gave rise to the movement, through its structural, cultural, economic, and social impacts, to the era’s lasting legacy, this book offers an in-depth examination of modern history’s most infamous reign. Assesses the historiography of Nazism and the prehistory of the regime Provides deep insight into labor, education, research, and home life amidst the Third Reich’s ideological imperatives Describes how the Third Reich affected business, the economy, and the culture, including sports, entertainment, and religion Delves into the social militarization in the lead-up to war, and examines the social and historical complexities that allowed genocide to take place Shows how modern-day Germany confronts and deals with its recent history Today’s political climate highlights the critical need to understand how radical nationalist movements gain an audience, then followers, then power. While historical analogy can be a faulty basis for analyzing current events, there is no doubt that examining the parallels can lead to some important questions about the present. Exploring key motivations, environments, and cause and effect, this book provides essential perspective as radical nationalist movements have once again reemerged in many parts of the world.
sonke neitzel: Amiens to the Armistice J. P. Harris, Niall Barr, 1998 A study of the '100 Days' campaign of the British Expeditionary Force, from 8 August to 11 November 1918. The author's aim is to rescue the campaign from the relative obscurity into which it has fallen and give it a central place in British military history and the development of the art of war.
sonke neitzel: Churchill's Wizards Nicholas Rankin, 2008-09-18 The real story of how Winston Churchill and the British mastered deception to defeat the Nazis - by conning the Kaiser, hoaxing Hitler and using brains to outwit brawn. By June 1940, most of Europe had fallen to the Nazis and Britain stood alone. So, with Winston Churchill in charge the British bluffed their way out of trouble, drawing on the trickery which had helped them win the First World War. They broadcast outrageous British propaganda on pretend German radio stations, broke German secret codes and eavesdropped on their messages. Every German spy in Britain was captured and many were used to send back false information to their controllers. Forged documents misled their intelligence. Bogus wireless traffic from entire phantom armies, dummy airfields with model planes, disguised ships and inflatable rubber tanks created a vital illusion of strength. Culminating in the spectacular misdirection that was so essential to the success of D-Day in 1944, Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945 is a thrilling work of popular military history filled with almost unbelievable stories of bravery, creativity and deception. Nicholas Rankin is the author of Dead Man's Chest, Telegram From Guernica and Ian Fleming's Commandos. 'This is a story clamouring to be told. We could not have imagined the scope of the inventiveness, the daring of these people's imaginations . . . I could not stop reading this book.' Doris Lessing
sonke neitzel: In Deadly Combat Gottlob Herbert Bidermann, 2000-06-07 In the hell that was World War II, the Eastern Front was its heart of fire and ice. Gottlob Herbert Bidermann served in that lethal theater from 1941 to 1945, and his memoir of those years recaptures the sights, sounds, and smells of the war as it vividly portrays an army marching on the road to ruin. A riveting and reflective account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, In Deadly Combat conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail never before available in English. It offers a ground soldier's perspective on life and death on the front lines, providing revealing new information concerning day-to-day operations and German army life. Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war in the Courland Pocket. He shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape. He recalls a Christmas gift of gingerbread from home that overcame the stench of battle, an Easter celebrated with a basket of Russian hand grenades for eggs, and his miraculous survival of machine gun fire at close range. In closing he relives the humiliation of surrender to an enemy whom the Germans had once derided and offers a sobering glimpse into life in the Soviet gulags. Bidermann's account debunks the myth of a highly mechanized German army that rolled over weaker opponents with impunity. Despite the vast expanses of territory captured by the Germans during the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the war with Russia remained tenuous and unforgiving. His story commits that living hell to the annals of World War II and broadens our understanding of its most deadly combat zone. Translator Derek Zumbro has rendered Bidermann's memoir into a compelling narrative that retains the author's powerful style. This English-language edition of Bidermann's dynamic story is based upon a privately published memoir entitled Krim-Kurland Mit Der 132 Infanterie Division.The translator has added important events derived from numerous interviews with Bidermann to provide additional context for American readers.
sonke neitzel: Für Volk and Führer Erwin Bartmann, 2013-10-19 Like many Germans, Berlin schoolboy Erwin Bartmann fell under the spell of the Zeitgeist cultivated by the Nazis. Convinced he was growing up in the best country in the world, he dreamt of joining the Leibstandarte, Hitler's elite Waffen SS unit. Tall, blond, blue-eyed, and just seventeen-years-old, Erwin fulfilled his dream on Mayday 1941, when he gave up his apprenticeship at the Glaser bakery in Memeler Strasse and walked into the Lichterfelde barracks in Berlin as a raw, volunteer recruit. On arrival at the Eastern Front in late summer 1941, Erwin was assigned to a frontline communications squad attached to 4.Kompanie and soon discovered that survival was a matter of luck - or the protection of a guardian angel. Good fortune finally deserted Erwin on 11 July 1943 when shrapnel sizzled through his lung during the epic Battle of Kursk-Prokhorovka. Following a period of recovery, and promotion to Unterscharführer, Erwin took up a post as machine-gun instructor with the Ausbildung und Ersatz Bataillon, a training unit based close to the eastern section of the Berliner Ring Autobahn. When the Red Army launched its massive assault on the Seelow Heights, Erwin's unit, now incorporated into Regiment Falke, was deployed to the southern flank of the Berlin-Frankfurt Autobahn, close to the River Oder. The German defenses soon crumbled and with the end of the Reich inevitable, Erwin was forced to choose between a struggle for personal survival and the fulfillment of his SS oath of 'loyalty unto death. From the war on the southern sector of the Eastern Front to a bomb-shattered Berlin populated largely by old men and demoralized lonely women, this candid eyewitness account offers a unique and sometimes surprising perspective on the life of a young Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler volunteer.
sonke neitzel: The Candy Bombers Andrei Cherny, 2008-04-17 In the tradition of the great narrative storytellers, Andrei Cherny recounts the exhilarating saga of the unlikely men who made the Berlin Airlift one of the great military and humanitarian successes of American history. “What an exciting, inspiring, and wonderfully-written book this is....Each page has lessons for today, and it is also a thrilling narrative to read.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Steve Jobs The Candy Bombers is a remarkable story with profound implications for our own time. Cherny tells the tale of the ill-assorted group of castoffs and secondstringers who not only saved millions of desperate people from a dire threat, but also won the hearts of America’s defeated enemies, inspired people around the world to believe in America’s fundamental goodness, avoided World War III, and won the greatest battle of the Cold War without firing a shot. With newly unclassified documents, unpublished letters and diaries, and fresh primary interviews, The Candy Bombers takes readers along as American pilots, with only a few small rickety planes, manage to feed and supply West Berlin completely by air for nearly a year; as Harry Truman exploits the very real threat of war to win an upset reelection campaign; as America’s first secretary of defense descends into madness in the midst of a dangerous military crisis; and as a lovesick American pilot shows that acts of basic human kindness can send powerful ripples through the course of history.
sonke neitzel: A Literary Tour de France Robert Darnton, 2018 The publishing industry in France in the years before the Revolution was a lively and sometimes rough-and-tumble affair, as publishers and printers scrambled to deal with (and if possible evade) shifting censorship laws and tax regulations, in order to cater to a reading public's appetite for books of all kinds, from the famous Encyclop die, repository of reason and knowledge, to scandal-mongering libel and pornography. Historian and librarian Robert Darnton uses his exclusive access to a trove of documents-letters and documents from authors, publishers, printers, paper millers, type founders, ink manufacturers, smugglers, wagon drivers, warehousemen, and accountants-involving a publishing house in the Swiss town of Neuchatel to bring this world to life. Like other places on the periphery of France, Switzerland was a hotbed of piracy, carefully monitoring the demand for certain kinds of books and finding ways of fulfilling it. Focusing in particular on the diary of Jean-Fran ois Favarger, a traveling sales rep for a Swiss firm whose 1778 voyage, on horseback and on foot, around France to visit bookstores and renew accounts forms the spine of this story, Darnton reveals not only how the industry worked and which titles were in greatest demand, but the human scale of its operations. A Literary Tour de France is literally that. Darnton captures the hustle, picaresque comedy, and occasional risk of Favarger's travels in the service of books, and in the process offers an engaging, immersive, and unforgettable narrative of book culture at a critical moment in France's history.
sonke neitzel: War and Education Sebastian Engelmann, Bernhard Hemetsberger, Frank Jacob, 2022 This book shows that education does not only prepare war, but defines its character for future generations. Pointing out the intricate interconnetion with the various practices of education this volume offers in-depth studies of war and education in several chronological and geographical contexts. Tying in with the latest state of the art the authors offer examples for education for war, education in war and education for reconciliation in the aftermath of wars from a global perspective.
sonke neitzel: The Night of Broken Glass Uta Gerhardt, Thomas Karlauf, 2021-09-11 November 9th 1938 is widely seen as a violent turning point in Nazi Germany’s assault on the Jews. An estimated 400 Jews lost their lives in the anti-Semitic pogrom and more than 30,000 were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps, where many were brutally mistreated. Thousands more fled their homelands in Germany and Austria, shocked by what they had seen, heard and experienced. What they took with them was not only the pain of saying farewell but also the memory of terrible scenes: attacks by mobs of drunken Nazis, public humiliations, burning synagogues, inhuman conditions in overcrowded prison cells and concentration camp barracks. The reactions of neighbours and passersby to these barbarities ranged from sympathy and aid to scorn, mockery, and abuse. In 1939 the Harvard sociologist Edward Hartshorne gathered eyewitness accounts of the Kristallnacht from hundreds of Jews who had fled, but Hartshorne joined the Secret Service shortly afterwards and the accounts he gathered were forgotten – until now. These eyewitness testimonies – published here for the first time with a Foreword by Saul Friedländer, the Pulitzer Prize historian and Holocaust survivor – paint a harrowing picture of everyday violence in one of Europe’s darkest moments. This unique and disturbing document will be of great interest to anyone interested in modern history, Nazi Germany and the historical experience of the Jews.
sonke neitzel: Castaways of the Kriegsmarine Derek Nudd, 2017-08-05 December 1943 brought little cheer to Hitler's Kriegsmarine, . As Mediterranean U-boats threw themselves into ever more desperately hopeless sorties against allied convoys a short, vicious battle in the Bay of Biscay sank a German blockade runner and three of the escorts trying to bring her in. On Boxing Day the battlecruiser Scharnhorst met her lonely end in the heaving, freezing waters of the Barents Sea off North Cape. Some of the survivors claimed they sang the U-boat anthem, No Roses Grow on a Seaman's Grave, as they awaited rescue or death. Only the most wilfully myopic of the exhausted, disoriented castaways brought to the Latimer House and Wilton Park interrogation centres could believe in ultimate victory, a gift for the experienced interviewers awaiting them. They knew how to adapt their approach to the individual prisoner, work patiently toward a result. And they had a secret weapon. Every word the prisoners said in their cells was overheard and, when interesting, recorded by secret listeners eavesdropping from another part of the site. This tale follows the interwoven fates of the bedraggled captives and the Naval Intelligence team coping with an unprecedented surge of subjects. It looks at how raw data and rumour became useful intelligence for strategists and fighting sailors, and highlights the contribution of this small, eclectic, irreverent band of reservists and Wrens to ultimate victory. This compelling story casts new light on the personalities involved on both sides, the pace and processes involved, the role of stool-pigeons, and the psychologists trying to see through the captives' eyes into Germany's deepest fears.
sonke neitzel: The Emperor of Lies Steve Sem-Sandberg, 2011-07-07 In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second largest Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Lódz. Its chosen leader: Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director, and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto's very existence. From one of Scandinavia's most critically acclaimed and bestselling authors, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski's monarchical rule over a quarter of a million Jews. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it - and himself - indispensable to the Nazi regime. Drawing on the chronicles of life in the Lódz ghetto, Steve Sem-Sandberg captures the full panorama of human resilience, and questions the nature of evil. He asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime driven by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatic strategist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies?
sonke neitzel: Comrades Felix Römer, 2019 During WWII, US Military Intelligence secretly recorded thousands of conversations between ordinary German soldiers held in a US interrogation camp. These recordings shed light on the Wehrmacht and its soldiers - their attitudes about Hitler and National Socialism, their wartime experiences, and their participation in war crimes and the Holocaust.
sonke neitzel: Soldat Siegfried Knappe, Charles T. Brusaw, Susan Davis McLaughlin, 1992 From the Russian front to Hitler's bunker during the Battle of Berlin, this first-hand memoir offers stunning insight into the life of a soldier in Hitler's army.
sonke neitzel: Sassoon Peter Stansky, Professor Peter Stansky, 2003-01-01 Using the lives of the Sassoon siblings as a lens through which to view English life, particularly in its highest reaches, Stansky offers new insights into British attitudes toward power, politics, old versus new money, homosexuality, war, Jews, taste and style.--BOOK JACKET.
sonke neitzel: The Secrets of the Anzacs Raden Dunbar, 2014-11-01 Here is a truly astonishing statistic: during World War I, about 60,000 soldiers in the Australian army were treated by army doctors in Egypt, Europe, and Australia for venereal diseases — almost the same number of diggers who were killed during the war. This silent, secret scourge took hold in Cairo in 1914, and continued until 1919 when survivors of the war waited in Europe to be repatriated. Nobody wanted to know about it, at first — and the general public back home was, of course, kept in the dark. Moralistic commanders in Egypt ordered strict punishments for men with VD, and the young victims were sent back to Australia in disgrace, most of them inventing amazing excuses for their inexplicable return. Many of them re-enlisted, but some felt they had to change their names to do so. Medical officers couldn’t afford to be puritanical, though. They tried to prevent the diseases, as well to cure them with toxic drugs in army VD hospitals in Cairo, in England, and at Langwarrin, near Melbourne. Eventually, even the army had to face facts, and, after the AIF arrived in Europe in 1916, commanders ordered that huge quantities of prophylactics be distributed, and that safe-sex education be given as well. The Secrets of the Anzacs reveals all these secrets, and more. But perhaps the most remarkable revelation it contains is that many of the re-enlisted men went on to perform deeds of battlefield bravery — even, in one case, to the extent of being awarded a Victoria Cross under a false name. This fascinating book also contains numerous original photographs, artworks, and documents, most of which have never been published before.
sonke neitzel: All Hell Let Loose Max Hastings, 2012 A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children.
sonke neitzel: The Liberator Alex Kershaw, 2013-10-15 The untold story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War—now a Netflix original series starring Jose Miguel Vasquez, Bryan Hibbard, and Bradley James “Exceptional . . . worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers.”—Wall Street Journal Written with Alex Kershaw's trademark narrative drive and vivid immediacy, The Liberator traces the remarkable battlefield journey of maverick U.S. Army officer Felix Sparks through the Allied liberation of Europe—from the first landing in Italy to the final death throes of the Third Reich. Over five hundred bloody days, Sparks and his infantry unit battled from the beaches of Sicily through the mountains of Italy and France, ultimately enduring bitter and desperate winter combat against the die-hard SS on the Fatherland's borders. Having miraculously survived the long, bloody march across Europe, Sparks was selected to lead a final charge to Bavaria, where he and his men experienced some of the most intense street fighting suffered by Americans in World War II. And when he finally arrived at the gates of Dachau, Sparks confronted scenes that robbed the mind of reason—and put his humanity to the ultimate test.
sonke neitzel: Britain's War Machine David Edgerton, 2011-09-09 The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small. Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.
sonke neitzel: Thank You For Your Service David Finkel, 2013-09-30 No journalist is better situated to reckon with the psychology of war than David Finkel. In The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel shadowed the men of a US infantry battalion as they carried out a gruelling 15-month tour that changed all of them forever. Now, Finkel follows many of those same men back home, in a journey that is less about geography than of psychological terrain, undertaken by people trying to heal or at the very least survive. In Thank You for Your Service, Finkel writes with tremendous compassion about the soldiers, and about their partners and children: the heartbroken wife who wonders privately whether her returned husband is going to get better, or kill her; and the heroic victims, with the fresh taste of a gun in their mouths, who will either make the journey back to sanity or to final ruin. Finkel takes us everywhere that the war is seeping into as it infects America: to the courtrooms that are being filled with divorce and abuse cases, and worse; to bars; and to Fort Riley, in the mental-health clinic to which the army is outsourcing its post-traumatic stress disorder cases. Thank You for Your Service is an immense act of understanding — shocking but always riveting, unflinching but deeply humane.
sonke neitzel: Jacob's Courage Charles S. Weinblatt, 2015 In 1939, seventeen-year-old Austrians Jacob Silverman and Rachael Goldberg are bright, talented, and deeply in love. Because they are Jews, their families lose everything: their jobs, possessions, money, contact with loved ones, and finally their liberty. Jacob and Rachael and their families are removed from their comfortable Austrian homes into a decrepit ghetto where they are forced to live in squalor. From there, the families are sent to the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt, where Rachael and Jacob secretly become man and wife. Revel in their excitement as they escape through a harrowing tunnel and join local partisans to fight the Nazis. Ride the fetid train to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where only slavery, sickness, brutality, and death await. Stung by the death of loved ones, enslaved and starved, the young lovers have nothing to count on but faith, love, and courage.
sonke neitzel: Year Zero Ian Buruma, 2013-09-26 “Year Zero is a remarkable book, not because it breaks new ground, but in its combination of magnificence and modesty.” —Wall Street Journal A marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale: across Asia (including China, Korea, Indochina, and the Philippines, and of course Japan) and all of continental Europe. Out of the often vicious power struggles that ensued emerged the modern world as we know it. In human terms, the scale of transformation is almost impossible to imagine. Great cities around the world lay in ruins, their populations decimated, displaced, starving. Harsh revenge was meted out on a wide scale, and the ground was laid for much horror to come. At the same time, in the wake of unspeakable loss, the euphoria of the liberated was extraordinary, and the revelry unprecedented. The postwar years gave rise to the European welfare state, the United Nations, decolonization, Japanese pacifism, and the European Union. Social, cultural, and political “reeducation” was imposed on vanquished by victors on a scale that also had no historical precedent. Much that was done was ill advised, but in hindsight, as Ian Buruma shows us, these efforts were in fact relatively enlightened, humane, and effective. A poignant grace note throughout this history is Buruma’s own father’s story. Seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland, he spent much of the war in Berlin as a laborer, and by war’s end was literally hiding in the rubble of a flattened city, having barely managed to survive starvation rations, Allied bombing, and Soviet shock troops when the end came. His journey home and attempted reentry into “normalcy” stand in many ways for his generation’s experience. A work of enormous range and stirring human drama, conjuring both the Asian and European theaters with equal fluency, Year Zero is a book that Ian Buruma is perhaps uniquely positioned to write. It is surely his masterpiece.
sonke neitzel: Climate Wars Harald Welzer, 2015-02-12 Struggles over drinking water, new outbreaks of mass violence, ethnic cleansing, civil wars in the earth's poorest countries, endless flows of refugees: these are the new conflicts and forces shaping the world of the 21st century. They no longer hinge on ideological rivalries between great powers but rather on issues of class, religion and resources. The genocides of the last century have taught us how quickly social problems can spill over into radical and deadly solutions. Rich countries are already developing strategies to garner resources and keep 'climate refugees' at bay. In this major book Harald Welzer shows how climate change and violence go hand in hand. Climate change has far-reaching consequences for the living conditions of peoples around the world: inhabitable spaces shrink, scarce resources become scarcer, injustices grow deeper, not only between North and South but also between generations, storing up material for new social tensions and giving rise to violent conflicts, civil wars and massive refugee flows. Climate change poses major new challenges in terms of security, responsibility and justice, but as Welzer makes disturbingly clear, very little is being done to confront them. The paperback edition includes a new Preface that brings the book up to date and addresses the most recent developments and trends.
sonke neitzel: Out of the Mountains David Kilcullen, 2015-05-28 A leading expert on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism offers a comprehensive theory of competitive control that will apply to the future of conflict in a world of explosive population growth, increased urbanization, the movement of population centers to the coasts, and global connective networks.