1939 The War That Had Many Fathers

1939 - the War that Had Many Fathers

The Hitler Years: Triumph, 1933-1939

From historian Frank McDonough, the first volume of a new chronicle of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand. On January 30th, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the German Chancellor of a coalition government by President Hindenburg. Within a few months he had installed a dictatorship, jailing and killing his leftwing opponents, terrorizing the rest of the population and driving Jews out of public life. He embarked on a crash program of militaristic Keynesianism, reviving the economy and achieving full employment through massive public works, vast armaments spending and the cancellations of foreign debts. After the grim years of the Great Depression, Germany seemed to have been reborn as a brutal and determined European power. Over the course of the years from 1933 to 1939, Hitler won over most of the population to his vision of a renewed Reich. In these years of domestic triumph, cunning maneuvers, pitting neighboring powers against each other and biding his time, we see Hitler preparing for the moment that would realize his ambition. But what drove Hitler's success was also to be the fatal flaw of his regime: a relentless belief in war as the motor of greatness, a dream of vast conquests in Eastern Europe and an astonishingly fanatical racism.

Will We See Tomorrow?

This memoir of a Nazi cavalryman offers a rare glimpse at the frontlines of WWII—in Poland, France, and Russia—from the perspective of a German soldier. Throughout the Second World War, the German Army was regarded as the most organized and technologically advanced fighting force in the world. And yet, while much is written about its Luftwaffe and Panzer tanks, the German military was mostly horse-drawn. The memoir of German mounted cavalryman Max Kuhnert takes readers inside this vital yet often overlooked aspect of the conflict. Originally from Dresden, Kuhnert enlisted in the German Army in 1939, and was posted to a cavalry unit which would go on to provide mounted reconnaissance troops for infantry regiments. His account tells of mobilization, time spent in occupied Denmark, and the invasions of Poland, France, and Russia. He also recounts the retreat from Russia, as well as his return to Germany after being wounded