Soldaten - On Fighting, Killing and Dying

Soldaten - On Fighting, Killing and Dying PDF

Author: Sonke Neitzel

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-09-25

Total Pages: 651

ISBN-13: 1849839506

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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.

Soldiers

Soldiers PDF

Author: Sonke Neitzel

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2013-09-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0307948331

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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.]

Soldaten - on Fighting, Killing and Dying

Soldaten - on Fighting, Killing and Dying PDF

Author: Sönke Neitzel

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ome

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 9781471101038

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In November 2001, German historian Sönke Neitzel discovered a cache of documents from the Second World War. They 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 openly about their hopes and fears, their concerns and their day-to-day lives. They also talked about the horrors of war - about rape, death and killing. Sönke Neitzel shared the material with renowned psychologist Harald Wezler and they set about trying to make sense of the vast piles of documents. 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.

Tapping Hitler's Generals

Tapping Hitler's Generals PDF

Author: Sönke Neitzel

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 863

ISBN-13: 1783830557

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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

A Stranger to Myself

A Stranger to Myself PDF

Author: Willy Peter Reese

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2005-11-02

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 142999875X

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A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War, Russia 1941-44 is the haunting memoir of a young German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. Willy Peter Reese was only twenty years old when he found himself marching through Russia with orders to take no prisoners. Three years later he was dead. Bearing witness to--and participating in--the atrocities of war, Reese recorded his reflections in his diary, leaving behind an intelligent, touching, and illuminating perspective on life on the eastern front. He documented the carnage perpetrated by both sides, the destruction which was exacerbated by the young soldiers' hunger, frostbite, exhaustion, and their daily struggle to survive. And he wrestled with his own sins, with the realization that what he and his fellow soldiers had done to civilians and enemies alike was unforgivable, with his growing awareness of the Nazi policies toward Jews, and with his deep disillusionment with himself and his fellow men. An international sensation, A Stranger to Myself is an unforgettable account of men at war.

Soldat

Soldat PDF

Author: Siegfried Knappe

Publisher: Crown

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780517588956

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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.

Comrades

Comrades PDF

Author: Felix Römer

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019-06-20

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 0198797095

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Comrades is a new history of the mentalities of ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers, based on recently discovered intelligence records from the American interrogation camp Fort Hunt near Washington, where German prisoners of war were interned and secretly listened in on during the Second World War. US Military Intelligence captured tens of thousands of open conversations between Wehrmacht soldiers and recorded them in verbatim transcripts. The resulting collection offers new insights into the thinking and worldviews of ordinary members of Hitler's armed forces - their attitudes towards National Socialism and the 'Fuhrer', their views of the war and their experiences during the fighting, and their knowledge of and participation in war crimes and the Holocaust. The accompanying biographical information reveals how their mindsets were connected to their individual paths through the Third Reich, the Wehrmacht, and the war. The book offers a nuanced and realistic account of life in the Wehrmacht, based on unique source material, which allows us to see the Second World War through the eyes of the protagonists.