"Insightful commentary on the tangible relics of the Third Reich . . . Tells the history of the Nazi regime from a fascinating new perspective" ( Military History Monthly).Hitler's Third Reich is covered in countless books and films: no conflict of the twentieth century has prompted such interest or such a body of literature. Here, two leading World War II historians offer a new way to look at the subject—through objects that come from this time and place,...

J. R. D. 'Bob' Braham was Britain's most-decorated fighter pilot and one of the most successful fighter pilots of World War II. Joining the RAF in 1938 at the age of 18, he was posted to No. 29 Squadron at Debdon, where he learned to fly the Hawker Hurricane and Bristol Blenheim. By 1939, the squadron had become a specialised night fighting unit and Braham gained his first victory in August 1940. From that point on, he was constantly in action. Famed for his individual night-time intruder ...

A unique glimpse of the deadliest profession of the Second World War.In June 1941, Flight Sergeant Leslie Mann, a tail gunner in a British bomber, was shot down over Düsseldorf and taken into captivity. After the war, wanting to record the experiences of the RAF's 'Bomber Boys', he gave voice to his private thoughts and feelings in a short novella, uncovered only after his death.Visceral, shocking and unglamorous, this compelling story transmits as rarely be...

The memoir of a man who was a member of the Nazi Party—and ultimately became a martyr to the resistance.Ulrich von Hassell began working for the German Foreign Office in 1909, then aged twenty-eight. Two years later, he married Ilse von Tirpitz, the daughter of Grand Adm. Alfred von Tirpitz. After being wounded in the First Battle of the Marne, he worked as the admiral's advisor and private secretary.Hassell joined the Nazi Party in 1933, but strongly oppos...

Above the mud and misery of the trenches and the endless slugging matches of the First World War another contest was played out with all the military glamor, chivalric values and deadly outcome of a medieval, knightly tournament. This was the battle in the air between the first primitive aircraft and the intrepid aviators who flew them. This image of air war is brought nobly to light in the memoirs of Ernst Udet, the German ace of aces, whose impressive wartime record was second only to th...

The first English translation of one German military pilot's experience before, during, and after World War II flying for the Third Reich.Johannes Kaufmann's career was an exciting one. He may have been an ordinary Luftwaffe pilot but he served during an extraordinary time with distinction. Serving for a decade through both peacetime and wartime, his memoir sheds light on the immense pressures of the job.In this never-before-seen translation of a rare accou...

"A brilliant first-hand account of the life of a fighter pilot" in World War II ( The Spectator).Spitfire Pilot was written in 1940 in the heat of battle, when the RAF stood alone against the might of Hitler's Third Reich. It is a tremendous personal account of one of the fiercest and most idealized air conflicts—the Battle of Britain—seen through the eyes of a pilot of the famous 609 Squadron, which shot down over one hundred planes in that epic ...

Formally inaugurated in Potsdam in 1933, the Third Reich was regarded by Hitler as the greatest in a line of might German empires. His mystical belief that this empire would last a thousand years proved unfounded, but not before a world war which resulted in the loss of at least 70 million lives.This atlas charts the rise and fall of Hitler's Nazi state, from the first mass meeting of the NSDAP in Munich in 1920, through the relentless territorial aggression and anti0Jewish atrocit...

**A remarkable account of the terrible climax of the Second World War in AsiaA Telegraph Book of the Year 2025**'A short but quietly devastating book, in which Overy adds new perspectives to a subject that has often been approached from a narrowly American angle... Overy's book is a sombre reminder that the border between civilisation and savagery is wafer-thin.' - Philip Snow, Literary ReviewIn the closing months of the Second World War h...

**A remarkable account of the terrible climax of the Second World War in AsiaA Telegraph Book of the Year 2025**'A short but quietly devastating book, in which Overy adds new perspectives to a subject that has often been approached from a narrowly American angle... Overy's book is a sombre reminder that the border between civilisation and savagery is wafer-thin.' - Philip Snow, Literary ReviewIn the closing months of the Second World War h...

The ultimate history of the Blitz and bombing in the Second World War, from Wolfson Prize-winning historian and author Richard OveryThe use of massive fleets of bombers to kill and terrorize civilians was an aspect of the Second World War which continues to challenge the idea that Allies specifically fought a 'moral' war. For Britain, bombing became perhaps its principal contribution to the fighting as, night after night, exceptionally brave men flew over occupied ...

A richly absorbing book... Overy is unquestionably one of our finest living historians - The Daily TelegraphWhy has warfare always been part of the human story?From biology to belief, what explains the persistence of violent conflict?What light can this shed on humanity’s past – and its future?There can be few more important but also more contentious issues than attempting to understand the human propensity for conflict. Our history i...