SS-Hitlerjugend is an in-depth examination of the unit formed in 1943 from veterans of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Division and members of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) organization. The majority of the recruits were 17-year-old volunteers who were fanatically devoted to the Nazi cause and to Hitler personally.
The divisions of the Waffen-SS were the elite of Hitler's armies in World War II. SS-Leibstandarte is an in-depth examination of the first Waffen-SS unit to be formed, the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.
Illustrated with more than 100 black-and-white photographs and expertly written, Stalin's Secret Police is a chilling history of the Soviet secret police from 1917 to the fall of Communism.
The divisions of the Waffen-SS were the elite of Hitler's armies in WWII. SS-Wiking is an in-depth examination of one of the most notorious, the Wiking division, which was largely recruited from foreign volunteers from German-occupied countries in Europe after 1940.
The use of terror has been a characteristic of Russia from the days of the Tsars. The Okhrana was the oppressive police force of the Romanovs. Then came the Cheka, the OGPU, SMERSH and the NKVD-organizations that used terror to control every aspect of military and civilian life.As a result, during ‘the Great Patriotic War’, Soviet soldiers and citizens feared not only the Germans but the tentacles of the secret police. To maintain iron discipline in the face of the German onslaught, to root out dissent and defeatism and to counter the threat of treachery and collaboration, the agents of the NKVD waged a merciless campaign against their own people. The full extent of this extraordinary wartime operation is told in Rupert Butler's compelling study.
" ... Detailed history of Heinrich Himmler's evil organization, whose 20,000 members were responsible for the internal security of the Reich ... Based upon the Gestapo's own archives and eye-witness accounts ..."--Jacket
This work provides an in-depth examination of the unit formed in 1943, exploring the type of young men it recruited, its organisation, uniforms, insignia plus a full combat record of the division which fought on both fronts in World War II.
"SS-Leibstandarte also provides a full combat record of the division, which fought on both fronts during World War II. The book outlines the unit's involvement in the fall of France, and its service on the Eastern Front, from the invasion of Russia, the battle of Kharkov, and the relief of the Cherkassy pocket. There follow the desperate attempts to throw the Allies out of Normandy after D-Day, the atrocities committed during the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, and the final, fruitless attempts to relieve Budapest and save Vienna from the Red Army. Illustrated with rare photographs, and with an authoritative text, SS-Leibstandarte is a definitive history of one of Germany's top fighting units of World War II."--BOOK JACKET.
Drawing on contemporary records the author reveals for the first time in a single book the appalling record of collaboration and aggression that occurred in middle European countries during the Second World War, together with gripping accounts of their exploits as fighting troops.
For twelve years, Hitler's secret state police--the Geheime Staats Polizei, better known as the Gestapo--spread a reign of fear and terror over Europe. Spoken of in whispers, a law unto themselves, the Gestapo was the power behind the power. Torture, betrayal, execution, utter ruthlessness, were the stepping stones by which the Gestapo under Göring, Himmler, and Heydrich climbed to the top of the Nazi bureaucratic pile. As Nazi power spread, so did the evil reputation of the Gestapo, spying into every compartment of the individual's life, backed by concentration camps and the state-sanctioned right to extract confessions under torture. As the war ended, the Gestapo tried to eradicate all trace of its crimes. In this, it failed. It left photographs; it left witnesses; it left records. From these it is possible for us to be eyewitnesses to the Gestapo in its grisly heyday.--From publisher description.