Reddit mentions: The best workd war ii history books

I know the feeling. I remeber when I was a kid in the 90's there wasn't much in terms of easily accessible and accurate info on camo schemes and unit data for German units. There's a lot out there now but a lot of junk too.

My first crash course in panzer markings and camo were the 'Panzer Colors'. They're a great place to begin because it's mostly camo schemes that give you an idea of what was used where and when. They're old school but good school and they still float around online. From there I would look at some books from Oliver Publishing. These are awesome books for inspiration and studying what was used in different campaigns. I have 'Panzer in the Bocage' which is a fantastic camo reference for Normandy, 'Westwall' and 'Last Bullet' which are about the final months and the camo used then, and 'Onslaught' which is on the invasion of russia in 1941 but is good through stalingrad in terms of paint schemes. I will say that these are limited run books and I was lucky to buy them as soon as they released (more on that later), and they can bring high prices on ebay now. The best color template books I own are the new ones form AK Interactive 1945 German Colors and Waffen SS Colors. These are very modern books with incredible printing and color templates. They go into detail about the different paints used and their RLM number codes, and even how they appear in dim light, standard, and shadowy situations. They also cover how dust affects the tones very well and why it's difficult to colorize a lot of the early war photos accurately. These are a must, you'd love the schemes here because they're very interesting and aesthetically pleasing. From here I would recommend books that have lots of data about units strengths and availabilities during particular campaigns. I really like books like Death of the Leaping Horseman,1st SS Panzer Corps at Villers Bocage and almost anything with "The combat History of..." or "Combat Memoirs of..' in their title. These are awesome for their excellent research and citable sources. Books like these will allow you to understand exactly what equipment was used where what equipment and weaponry could realistically be depicted together. I get a lot of inspiration from them.

Finally, I highly recommend joining Armorama.com and Axis History Forum. Many questions I've had have been answered here. Armorama will also allow you to check out the latest projects by many of the best WW2 modellers in the world and their news section allows you to see what the latest products and publications are.

I hope that helps, I know it's a lot but that's what I would have wanted to know when I was starting out. Best of luck!


EDIT: I thought I'd make an amendment for anyone else reading this. Video games have brought a good number of people into the subject of WW2. There's some excellent games out here that do justice to the conflict, but there's also some some trash. This is JUST my opinion and counts for zilch. This is not meant to offend any fans of a particular game.When it comes to accuracy in terms of WW2 German gear, tone, setting, camouflage, uniforms and equipment;

-Medal of Honor Allied Assault: Very good, complex camos and gear were attempted even with the limited resources of PC's at the time. 8/10

-Battlefield 1942: Excluding it's "Secret Weapons of WW2" expansion, this game was exceptable. The details and accuracy were well researched. There were a few embellishments, (Late war armor and guns showing up in early war scenarios), but these embellishments didn't detract from the tone and setting. The overall direction was definitely acceptable. The expansion "Road to Rome" was great. 5/10

-Call of Duty (first release in 2003 and its expansion 'United Offensive'): Excellent. Perfect uniforms and gear 9/10

-Call of Duty 2: Mixed, tone and setting are superb but incorrect uniforms plague it. 6/10

-Call of Duty World at War: Mixed, mis-assigning of weapons, incorrect uniforms and vehicles. 5/10

-Red Orchestra Ost-Front 41-45- Excellent, spot on with uniforms, gear, equipment and camouflage 9/10

-Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30: Good, but the German camo is early war and incorrect for 44. 7/10

-Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway: Very good, excellent depiction of gear and camo. 8/10

-Red Orchestra 2 Heroes of Stalingrad: Perfect depiction of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad: 10/10

-Call of Duty WW2: Poor. a mixed bag of anything goes, incorrect everything. 4/10

-Battlefield 5: The worst of the worst and the heartbreak WW2 buffs will never recover from. Uniforms, weapons, equipment and gear are completely made up with just enough factual subjects to qualify it as "technically WW2". Very few things are accurate. 0/10

Actually the front of this turret is 152mm of armour with several sections of the internal mantlet being another 100mm's (similar to the Challenger in WT however it's still missing a lot of plates...).

That and it is (if facing a target directly) slightly angled at around 15 degrees making it effectively more closer to 160 to 170mm~ everywhere but the vertical middle, making it a more annoying target then a Black Prince with you having to try to shoot for it's internal mantlet frontally between the slit to try and hit the ~100mm area. The sides of the turret isn't 76

[BEFORE POST EDIT: See annotation at the bottom]

The hull is 101mm of armour with 12.7mm of armour right behind it so it is at least on par with the Tiger I's armour with the angled parts being closer to ~120mm effective armour with the current angling calculations roughly and the secondary plate will take some shrapnel away from AP rounds since that's how WT's armour works apparently so using APCR on this would be a nightmare.

This being said, here is where it sits in terms of armour for the hull...

• Churchill mk III (BR 4.0) has weaker hull armour.
  
• Churchill mk VIII (BR 4.7) has stronger hull armour.
  
• Black Prince (BR 6.0) has stronger hull armour.
  
• Centurion (BR 5.7) has stronger hull armour. [however the side armour is so thin you can't angle]
  
• KV-1 ZiS-5 (BR 4.3) has weaker hull armour.
  
• IS-1(IS-85) (BR 5.3) has similar hull armour, thicker at the driver area but is a 'piked' design, can't angle.
  
• Tiger 1 (BR 5.7) slightly weaker hull armour, doesn't have the 12.7mm plate behind.
  
  in terms of turret...
  
  
• Churchill mk III (BR 4.0) has weaker turret armour.
  
• Churchill mk VIII (BR 4.7) has ~slightly weaker turret armour.
  
• Black Prince (BR 6.0) has ~slightly weaker turret armour.
  
• Centurion (BR 5.7) has weaker turret armour.
  
• KV-1 ZiS-5 (BR 4.3) has weaker turret armour.
  
• IS-1(IS-85) (BR 5.3) has weaker turret armour.
  
• Tiger 1 (BR 5.7) has weaker turret armour, however it has a lot of geometry to it that can absorb shots into oblivion which is actually the design reasoning from memory for it to be like that.
  
  It is also armed with the 17pdr and I believe due to the fact it was intended to come out after the Challenger it would receive APDS for two main reasons;
  
  

1. being the fact it would've saw service very late into the war and all other vehicles (besides Tortoise and Avenger) has APDS in it's time period for Britainn.
   
2. the TOG II* was intended to have the heaviest firepower on a turret mount at the time, with some documents claiming it did have a 27pdr mounted before switching back to a 17pdr. While provisioned documents had everything from prototype 75mm "longs" to 37pdr's intended to be mounted. Not that I am asking for a 37pdr TOG (though a 27pdr TOG premium if we get more info won't be bad...) but it's just the general idea that this vehicle is meant to be heavy in firepower.
   
   That being said, the list of British tanks with APDS in ~Rank 3 are...
   
   

• Comet (BR 5.3), 77mm HV.
  
• Challenger (BR 5.3), 17pdr.
  
• Centurion 1 (BR 5.7), 17pdr.
  
• Black Prince (BR 6.0), 17pdr.
  
  Looking at this, we can imagine that with the armour similar to some rank 3 vehicles (Tiger, IS-1, etc) with a cannon that with APDS appears inn a similar BR range as just listed above, we can imagine the tank around BR ~5.3 to ~5.7.
  
  The only cons of the design is speed and size, the size makes it easy to spot especially from air so beware of CAS since UK doesn't have any super SPAA's like other nations (Germany) at the current moment and its speed is quiet slow...
  
  HOWEVER the TOG 2 had several engine tests and/or provisions as well as super chargers from memory able to increase the horsepower up to ~1000 hp, now that isn't too spectacular as we have tanks with far higher, however compared to Rank 3 heavy tanks it would have the highest... not that it would be the fastest mind you due to the tonnage, but it can be faster than the snails pace we had for the pilot version. We can assume that Gaijin would most likely choose the snail pace or one of the engines around 600 hp.
  
  The most likely speed we would see it at if Gaijin doesn't want it to be faster is 13.7 km/h. Not that bad if you are a Black Prince and Tortoise fanatic but it isn't exactly the speed of lightning either...
  
  A huge pro though is the TOG 2 can accelerate quickly, climb steep inclines, can turn quite well even in the thickest of mud, in fact in everything but speed it is considered the most mobile tank of WWII in testing as it is the only tank to pass every test and then extras. So the TOG won't be a fast tank but similar to the Black Prince it'll be hard not to have it go max speed the entire time you are going to battle.
  
  though so should the BP and Churchill and other infantry and cruiser tanks of the British.
  
  *my overall verdict is that I would like to see the Standard TOG II at BR 5.3 to 5.7 British as there is a huge void of heavy tanks both in reality and in WT that would be 'superior to the Churchill VII' but weaker than a Caernarvon to fit in the BR 4.7 to 6.7 gap, a huge problem since UK only has 2 tank lines instead of the 3-4 other nations do. It may not be the easiest tank to drive but I heavily enjoyed the Black Prince and her play style so a similar tank doesn't turn me off!**
  
  
• [Armour annotation]
  
  Okay, from my understanding we can have anywhere from 114mm of armour + 12.7mm too 152mm of armour on the hull depending on what TOG II we get in WT as the design has changed a bit from start to end. So the TOG II can end up as a tank with similar to slightly superior armour to the Black Prince instead of what I mentioned before and potentially anywhere between.
  
  -----------------------------------------------------------
  
  Tl;DR
  -----
  
  
  TOG 2 has better armour then known in public domain, with 152mm on the turret front and anywhere between 114mm too 152mm on the hull. though I am leaning on having 114mm. The TOG 2's gun isn't bad and there is a slight chance for a 27pdr armed TOG II. The Tank may be slow but it won't be slowed down as it has good traction, turn time, acceleration, etc.... however we may have the possibility to have a faster TOG II that will go above 13km/h similar to how we have a Tiger II Sla... that or have that as a premium version at .3 BR higher.
  
  EDIT
  
  The driver port area is 6" thick (152mm) and some areas around it, meaning the easiest place to hit that isn't angled will be a geometrical mess of thicknesses with most being 152mm, so it'll be pretty resistant overall to APCR and early German 75mm's.
  
  --------------
  
  Source^(...sauce?)
  -----
  
  Mostly a combination of the The Tanks of TOG: The work, designs, and tanks of the Special Vehicle Development Committee in World War II, a book written by Andrew Hills recently and me talking to Andrew Hills myself of which I have seen more primary documents scanned of the TOG then I have seen for any other tank. World of Tanks (surprisingly enough) butchered the TOG II, and David Fletcher does show a strong personal bias against the Tank which is why tank designs like the TOG 3 and 4, the TD's, etc of the TOG isn't heard of yet in the major public. It would be obvious to anyone who has heard him talk about the TOG when you realize the tank has been in development for a very long time with new innovations every so and so to the point that some produced British tanks borrowed them and the fact David has more praise for the Valiant over the TOG...
  
  If you want I can start linking the books sources themselves for certain sections though keep in mind that book is a few hundred pages long and I am not exactly the fastest reader out there.

Are you interested in books regarding this topic? If so, have you heard of the book called Soul Survivor? It was a great read and I hope it helps you as the topic appears to be similar.

Another great book is called The Boy Who Knew Too Much. This book deals with a little boy whose past life was a baseball player.

Good luck OP. I hope you are able to find answers to help you and your son ❤

https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Survivor-Reincarnation-World-Fighter/dp/0446509345

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1401952739/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1573329365&sr=8-2

I'm in the middle of Homo Deus currently. Its great so far, Yuval is a great writer and his books are a lot more accessible than traditional history books. I'm sure there are a lot of liberties taken with some of the history but I think Sapiens is a must-read. Homo Deus is more assumption based on current reality but its very interesting so far.

Gulag Archipelago is one I read based on the recommendation of Jordan Peterson. Awesome book if you are into WW1-WW2 era eastern europe. being an eastern european myself, i devour everything related to it so this book tickled my fancy quite a bit. good look into the pitfalls of what peterson warns against.

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning is another history book discussing that time period and how it all transpired and the lesser known reasons why WW2 went down the way it did. some surprising stuff in that book related to hitler modeling europe around how the united states was designed at the time.

apologies for inundating with the same topic for all my books so far but Ordinary Men is an amazing book chronicling the people that carried out most of the killings during WW2 in Poland, Germany and surrounding areas. The crux of the argument which I have read in many other books is that Auschwitz is a neat little box everyone can picture in their head and assign blame to when in reality most people killed during that time were taken to the outskirts of their town and shot in plain sight by fellow townspeople, mostly retired police officers and soldiers no longer able for active duty.

for some lighter reading i really enjoy jon ronson's books and i've read all of them. standouts are So You've Been Publicly Shamed and The Psychopath Test. Highly recommend Them as well which has an early Alex Jones cameo in it.

So building a huge Triumphant arch with an inscription, written in Latin hailing the city of Rome in the middle of the desert has nothing to do with Mussolini trying to reboot the Roman Empire and everything to do with a road connecting two parts of Libya?

The semantics of what you call the arch are irrelevant, it is clearly a reference to the Triumphant arches of ancient Rome, even if the Wikipedia article doesn't state that explicitly it doesn't mean that it's not the case. Calling it a "Triumphant Arch" or a "Victory Arch" is acceptable in my opinion and describes both the intention and the construction sincerely in the context of Fascist Italy and Italian Colonialism in the 20th Century.

I actually learned the arch existed from reading about it in these two books:

Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Facist Dictatorship by R J B Bosworth

Winged Dagger by Roy Farran

If you care about "learning things yourself" give those books a read, they're worth it. The Wikipedia article is practically a stub, and I honestly didn't read it past a glance before I posted this link as i'd read about it in the books above and thought it was interesting, you can't post a link to a page in a book. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion, i'm here to talk about history not the decline and fall of things I learned today or the lacklustre information of obscure subjects on wikipedia. if you have anything to add that relates to the subject then please post it.

First of all that is a very, very cool map. Wish I knew more russian but I can read it well enough. I can see that there are more rail lines going East and West, but the primary lines go through Moscow. I understand your point on tank production and Stalingrad. Allow me to brake each point down if you will, and please remember that we're dealing with a "what if" here, so conjecture based on known facts is never truly accurate.

To start with, soviet tank production for 1941 was ~2800 T-34's and 1121 KV-1's. I mention these two as these were the really the only tanks reliable to take on german armor with any kind of chance of parity. For total tanks built and lost, we can refer to The Red Army Handbook by Steve Zaloga. Can't link directly to the book page itself but here's a good break down. Now that's a lot of tanks but doesn't mean much if can't get them into combat. Yes they could be shipped east towards Moscow but with out the rail hubs and switching yards it would have extremely difficult to unload the trains and then send them back west.

But would Moscow have turned out to be another Stalingrad. Personally I don't know but I doubt it. For comparison here are two maps of Moscow and Stalingrad. The River provides a natural barrier in Stalingrad which is virtually straight north and south providing a natural barrier to rally and organize formations behind as well as move reinforcements in from. In Moscow, the river has too many twists and bends to provide the same natural barrier.

In 1941, the soviet air force had been virtually wiped out at the start of Barbarossa and didn't really recover until mid 1942. Soviet air power over Stalingrad helped turn the tide, no such ability would have been available over Moscow. At Stalingrad the German 6th army had over extended itself with lesser quality Italian, Romanian, and Hungarian formations protecting their flanks. The Russians were able to beat these units and then eventually surround the 6th army in the city. In 1941 around Moscow, the very best of German forces were deployed and the flanks would have been much less vulnerable. In the fall of '41 German forces were rolling through Soviet opposition and if not for the decision to trap Soviet armies towards the south instead of pushing forwards to Moscow, allowing the Soviet forces time to catch their breath and reorganize.

Again, this is all conjecture but I believe the German army would have had a better chance to take the city with some effort by the end of the year.

>Antony Beevor's excellent Stalingrad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_(book)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalingrad-Antony-Beevor/dp/0141032405 (the "bought together" is worth a look - I have all three)

" Antony Beevor is the renowned author of Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature, and Berlin, which received the first Longman-History Today Trustees' Award. His books have sold nearly four million copies."

I read finished Volume 5 of Churchill's WW2 memoirs, and then took a break and read the first three trades of The Wicked + The Divine and The Rise And Fall of D.O.D.O.

Churchill remains an extremely rewarding read, even though it's taken me ages, I'm really glad I've done it. It really gives a strong perspective on the period, supported by so many documents.

Wicked and Divine is fantastic from the stuff I've read so far. Definitely gonna continue reading it when I get a chance.

Rise and Fall of DODO was kind of disappointing, but it was a halfway decent novel. Just not as good as I was hoping. Having Stephenson co-write is probably a good idea, because there are actual coherent characters other than the Competent Nerd Dude. In point of fact, the Competent Nerd Dude is a super-minor character, and the book is actually written partially first person from a lady's perspective!

Definitely looking forward to August or so, when I finish up the Churchill memoirs and read a whole stack of novels for a break.

U-boat.net for a very good online source on German submarines in both World Wars, more encyclopedic than a book, however.

Wolfpack and Battle of the Atlantic are two very readable and good books for a general overview, but there are certainly more academic or exhaustive books as well.

The U-boat War is an oldie but a goodie, written by the same person who wrote das Boot, the fictional counterpart.

On the American side, several submariners wrote very good memoirs. Thunder Below by Eugene Fluckey gives a great overview of both life at sea in an American submarine in the Pacific, but also of operational details, how the patrols worked, etc.

I haven't read it myself, so I can't comment, but Winston Churchill himself wrote a six-part series called, simply, The Second World War. It is available on Amazon in a styling box-set for $75. Bit pricy but seems like a wonderful gift.

One example for example is Nick Cohen with books like this. He talks plenty about political correctness and censoriousness about Islam without having to call for collective punishment or dehumanising muslims to the actions of loonies. There's plenty of academic discussions on Islam and womens roles in it etc, but again they don't involve calling groups of people paedos based on their ethnic background so 'free speech advocates' aren't interested in it. This is why I'm another person taking this sudden desire to protect free speech from people who have historically always acted against free speech within moments of coming to power with a huge pinch of salt.

This will get buried, but read the book: "The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness"

Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Sunflower-Possibilities-Forgiveness-Paperback/dp/0805210601

You do not have to click it, but it is not a referral link. Basically the premise of the book is a Jewish man in a concentration camp was brought to an SS officer (this is a true story). The man was dying and wanted forgiveness. He wanted absolution from a Jew, and had one brought to him, who he then proceded to confess to. When asked for forgiveness, he said nothing.

He always wondered whether he did the right thing and wrote this book to explore that idea. Should he have forgiven him? Condemned him? It also has writings from others on the same topic. Anyway, it might be worth checking out.

This debate on whether you should forgive or even if you can forgive reminds me of a book on the same question. It's called The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness and is basically about Simon Wiesenthal; him being asked forgiveness by a Nazi officer on his deathbed during his internment at a concentration camp, his response, and various other notable people's opinions on how he should have responded.

It's a fantastic book on the nature of forgiveness, might help you on your decision.

A couple that I've read from Antony Beevor:

Stalingrad, and its follow up book The Fall of Berlin 1945. Beevor has also written books on the Ardennes, D-Day, and an all encompassing book on WWII. I have yet to read those but can attest that his two Eastern Front focused books are fantastic

I would also highly recommend The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison Salisbury. Absolutely haunting stuff.

Anyone out there interested in Stalingrad should read Antony Beevors book of the same name. One of the best WW2 history books ever written, plenty of first person accounts mixed with excellent historical information and detailed analysis. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalingrad-Antony-Beevor/dp/0141032405

As for love stories in Stalingrad LOL! Some soldiers did have relations with local women there, but it was of a more brief, commercial nature...

This guys biography Fly For Your Life is hands down one of the best books I've ever read. His account of the Battle of Britain is exceptionally interesting. Definitely worth a read if you can find a copy.

One of my favorites on the US side is Thunderbolt! by Robert Johnson. If you're interested in the China-Burma theater (or want to start learning) I'd recommend Into the Teeth of the Tiger and God is My Copilot.
Bader's book mentioned by /u/thebroadwayflyer is a biography and not an autobigraphy, for what it's worth. If you're not 100% set on autobiographies then Bader's Reach for the Sky and Robert Tuck's Fly For Your Life are good. One RAF autobiography I enjoyed was To War in a Stringbag by a pilot who flew Swordfish during some big and important events during the war.

Wait, wait, wait.

So The American Spectator is reporting that Michelle Malkin started this or was one of the first people out of the gate on it.

Yes, that Michelle Malkin, friend of Asian-Americans Everywhere.

And there are Social Justice people fucking supporting her?

These people seriously need to pack it in.

Oh man. There's an interesting passage about Lenin's body in a book about the siege of Leningrad and the extreme measures they took to ensure its safety.

https://www.amazon.com/900-Days-Siege-Leningrad/dp/0306812983/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483886332&sr=8-1&keywords=900-Days-Siege-Leningrad%2F

No, it was pretty much the whole book "Partisans and Guerrillas" http://www.amazon.com/World-War-II-Volume-Set/dp/B000MC7H4I

He really was pretty cool, IMO.

Fiction-wise: The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer is generally considered a classic and perhaps the first novel to come out of the Second World War. I would also recommend James Jones' From Here to Eternity. As for the Korean War, the best two pieces of fiction I can suggest, from my experience, are Richard Hooker's MASH, yes, the the book that launched the television show. This book is enjoyable, and it's more informative than you think. Also, William Styron's novella The Long March.

As for non-fiction: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer, and Winston Churchill's The Second World War available here in a box set (a bit pricey but worth it).

There's some cool stuff in "The Sunflower". It's a collection of essays and short stories written by average people as well as some famous ones. I think the Dalai Lama wrote one of the essays. It might give you some inspiration.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sunflower-Possibilities-Forgiveness-Paperback/dp/0805210601

There's this great documentary about his life, absolutely insightful. Also his books are interesting to read, e.g.

• The Second World War
  
• A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

There are thousands of images from this time - too name all the sources on the internet and books would be impossible. The best site if you want to browse is http://www.yadvashem.org/

Just an FYI : It does not include any images - and is not a book about the facts of the Holocaust - but it is something I would recommend everyone read The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal.

Both of their actions should be appreciated.

People should be commended for owning up to their mistakes and for forgiving others.

While I'm here, linking this book on forgiveness

Will check it out. I've heard of Nawaz through reading Nick Cohen, who BTW also wrote a very good book on free speech.

I liked Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949 by Siegfried Knappe, and Red Road from Stalingrad by Mansur Abdulin.

Edit: Sorry, I gave you the Canadian Amazon links. I'm sure you can find them on the regular Amazon.

I highly recommend Black Earth by Timothy Snyder.

It's mainly concerned about the Holocaust, but it also details very nicely the aspects of Nazism that generated German expansion into Eastern Europe, and their subsequent attempt to exterminate everyone who was already there.

Yes! This case has always fascinated me. I need to read this book

I think what u/Stnq may have been referring to is that there were six million other camp victims that were non-Jews such as homosexuals, Catholic priests, and the Roma.

I don't know if you're familiar with it it but Martin Gilbert's The Holocaust: A History Of The Jews Of Europe During The Second World War is absolutely amazing.

Read a book, learn about those who profit from others' misfortune.

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering

>This iconoclastic study was one of the most widely debated books of 2000. Finkelstein indicts with both vigor and honesty those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own personal political and financial gain.

Now, maybe, you'll also understand the wording in the title?

If you haven't read the book, I'd highly recommend it. Also, the book's author, Lothar-Günther Buchheim, was a journalist / artist who served on a u-boat and his photographs were collected in a very interesting book.

Bluntly stated, not really. As /u/TheGuineaPig21 stated, the closest thing to a "kernel of truth" the myth has is that Jews were overrepresented among the Communists, simply because they had been oppressed by the former Russian Empire. However, the same applied to many other ethnic groups as well--there were more Jews than you'd expect in the NKVD, but there were also more Latvians, for instance.

Indeed, Timothy Snyder has pointed out that the USSR became more anti-semitic, not less, as its persecutions heated up. Check out Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Earth-Holocaust-History-Warning/dp/1101903473/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479164517&sr=8-1&keywords=black+earth

And read chapters 5, 6, and 7. Here's an ace quote from page 119:

>In 1938, Stalin was able to turn the Soviet communist party, an early target of the purges, against the NKVD...As a consequence, the nationality structure of the NKVD was altered. It was no longer an exceptionally cosmopolitan elite with revolutionary prestige in which Jews (and Latvians and Poles) were highly represented. Polish officers were removed and often executed in the Polish Operation...By the end of 1938, the NKVD had become an organization dominated by Russians (65 percent of high officers) and Ukrainians (17 percent of high officers). Russians were now overrepresented in the NKVD by comparison to their share in the general Soviet population. The percentage of Jews was down from nearly forty percent to less than four percent. (my emphasis added) There were no longer any Poles at all.

As we can see, if the NKVD ever was a "Jewish" organization (spoiler: it wasn't), Stalin made it as Gentilicious as you could want by the end of the 1930s. Guess all our Wehraboo and neo-Nazi bonehead friends ought to start defending it as a bulwark against da joos, eh? Top lel.

Some nice books for you to read describing the russian side:

• Red Road from Stalingrad: Reflections of a Soviet Infantryman
  
• T-34 in Action
  
• Panzer Destroyer: Memoirs of a Red Army Tank Commander
  
• Guns Against the Reich: Memoirs of an Artillery Officer on the Eastern Front
  
  On of the best documentaires i have seen about the eastern front is BBC's war of the Centrury, with interviews with russian and german veterans
  
  Enjoy
  

Agree. Why, when I had history in high school, did no one think to mention that one of the primary figures of WWII wrote a history that earned him the Nobel prize in LITERATURE??? http://www.amazon.com/Second-World-War-Winston-Churchill/dp/039541685X

I've heard great things about 900 Days.

Can you do a better job summing up WWII in one pithy sentence? If you want the more detailed version here you go.

Was gonna point that out. Last Team Standing is an excellent book about that team and football during WWII.

There are parallels to discuss for sure. Interestingly a lot what is being said in this thread, in defense of blanket surveillance sounds a lot like Michelle Malkin and her book In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II. Even if they aren't rounding up muslims to be put into camp, they're still infringing on an entire group's civil rights because they share the same religion as many other terrorists in the world. Keep in mind there were far more actually armed and trained Japanese who were at war with America back then than there are radical islamists serving in the same capacity today. So, it was wrong to target innocent ethnic Japanese citizens then without cause but somehow it's ok now to target innocent muslims today? Go figure.

I SAID GOOD DAY

P.S. You're thinking of The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War

Why is it that what you consider the most authoritative histories of the holocaust don't mention Gypsies, gays, homosexuals, or the disabled?

Churchill wrote a set of books about WW2. I don't know if you're looking for fiction or non fiction, but you might be interested in these.

When I say they had a pretty good idea, I'm not implying that this was from experience, rather that they were more likely to have been aware of the realities of the awfulness of the eastern front due to the lack of cold war attitudes that were prevalent in the west. When I was a kid, the history books over here didn't want to portray the USSR as a victim.

Since the USSR dissolved, things are a bit more objective. And even before then, some of us did go out and find books that were more accurate than say, the works of 'Sven Hassel' which when I was younger, were some of the only first-hand (at least the first 2 books) accounts published in English. Apart from Harrison Salisbury's account of the Siege of Leningrad, it's difficult to think of a book about the eastern front that was written by Russian eye-witnesses and then translated into English before the collapse of the USSR. In more recent years, English speaking historians have been making a point of getting interviews with the few remaining eye witnesses. Part of the problem in this is, as you point out, that for many of the instances, there were no survivors to give an account.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make, was that it is possible for people to know how grim a series of events was, without having to have experienced it first-hand, as long as they've access to accounts from those who did get direct experience, like your great grandpa. And some of the more recent western authors have been putting the record straight, so some of us do have more of an idea than would have been the case a couple of decades ago.

I'll try and get a copy of When Titans Clashed, cheers for the reccomendation. By way of return, can I suggest Catherine Merridale's Ivan's war.

For Leningrad stuff, also of interest might be an online copy of Glantz's 900 Days, but I'd also say Salisbury's The 900 days is well worth a read.

she's been a fighter on the right for 2 decades; started journalism in '92; part of CRTV these days; been a regular on Foxnews since its early days.

some books:

https://www.amazon.com/Invasion-America-Welcomes-Terrorists-Criminals/dp/0895261464

https://www.amazon.com/Defense-Internment-Racial-Profiling-Terror-ebook/dp/B00AXS5EEQ

https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Corruption-Cheats-Crooks-Cronies/dp/1596986204

https://www.amazon.com/Sold-Out-Billionaires-Bipartisan-Crapweasels-ebook/dp/B00VBW3SYQY

You should be able to youtube her appearances on Fox with Hannity or Oreilly and others.

CRTV: https://www.crtv.com/category/michelle-malkin-investigates

There are very few happy warriors that have fought as long as she has for what we call the Trump movement, MAGA, KAG, Trump Train, America 1st, etc

Leningrad: State of Siege by Michael Jones and The 900 Days: The Siege Of Leningrad by Harrison Salisbury would be a good start.

There's actually some really good history about that.

The 900 Days: The Siege Of Leningrad by Harrison Salisbury. This was one of the most compelling history books I've ever read. Beautifully written.

If you want to get close to imagining the horrific devastation that the nazis delivered, this book will get you closer. extremely well researched, etc, and explains why the soviets were so ill prepared. highly recommend.

http://www.amazon.com/900-Days-Siege-Leningrad/dp/0306812983
isbn 0306812983

I personally cannot give you advice on what you should do. But you might find it helpful in the long term to read The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal .

In another Eiffel Tower thread it is mentioned that the tower's designer was also the principal designer of the Statue of Liberty which was prominently featured in the first film. I have two ideas. It might have something to do with the recurring airplane theme (Cannibal Airlines VHS, Tom Clancy's Threat Vector on the bookshelf and the framed picture of a plane in the barrel shot). From Gustave Eiffel's Wikipedia page:

"...his writings upon the resistance of the air have already become classical. His researches, published in 1907 and 1911, on the resistance of the air in connection with aviation, are especially valuable. They have given engineers the data for designing and constructing flying machines upon sound, scientific principles"

So this guy had a lot to do with airplanes. Or his research led to the principles on which airplanes were developed.

Or, as Eiffel stated when asked of the Towers Symbolism:

"Not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude."

So the tower symbolized enlightenment, science and discovery. So maybe we created something led to whatever is out there. Could be the atom bomb (there is a Time Life World War 2 encyclopedia set on the same self as the Clancy novel).

Well, there's always Winston Churchill's six-volume work on the subject, The Second World War: https://www.amazon.com/dp/039541685X/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_-ovzybAE3R3F1

Take a few hours and read 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad.

It's worth it.

> Ordinary German soldiers were massacring, raping and burning everything just like their SS brethren.

Tim Snyder, too, makes that point in his book and how the Nazis discovered non-SS Germans would behave in atrocious ways (soldiers, police) w/o special indoctrination (and non-German collaborators too). He goes on to point out that the staff who behaved OK in the Nazi-occupied West could get an Eastern assignment and turn into monsters.

The lesson from this is not about Germans, IMHO, but about human behaviour in general. Many people stress this about other occasions too, and for good reason. Civilization is fragile regardless of nationality or ethnicity.

Not wrong. Clear a village and shoot those you wish to get rid of at the edge of town.

About 10 years ago I started reading "The Holocaust" by Sir Martin Gilbert
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805003487/qid=1063220017/sr=1-1

Heavy going.

This is what I'm talking about: abridged version on Amazon vs. the six volume set on Amazon

This set is by the jukebox.

http://www.amazon.com/World-War-II-Volume-Set/dp/B000MC7H4I

Fly For Your Life

read "The Sunflower" by Simon Weisenthal

It might be these: https://www.amazon.com/World-War-II-39-Set/dp/B000MC7H4I

This NPR piece goes over the James Leininger story at some length: https://www.npr.org/2014/01/05/259886077/searching-for-science-behind-reincarnation

Also the podcast Skeptoid did an episode about it: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4612

And the family wrote a whole book about it:https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Survivor-Reincarnation-World-Fighter/dp/0446509345

My recollection of Churchill's account of this event from his (excellent) history of WW2 roughly matches your description.

I think the imminence of the fall of Singapore was far more evident to the commander on the scene than to Churchill, who seemed certain that the fortress city could withstand a long siege and was shocked when it fell so rapidly.

Much like the locals learnt to do during the Siege of Leningrad, you need to avoid the one side of each street that is vulnerable to artillery.

> Hitler and Mussolini had their first meeting in 1934 after the Italian Fascists had been in power for over a decade. Following the meeting Churchhill would quote Mussolini saying to an aide that he 'didn't like the look of him'. Whether there is any actual truth to this is questionable but it captures how Mussolini saw Hitler as a weak and 'unmanly' figure leading a nation of semi-barbarians.

From what I've read, it was Hitler who mimicked Mussolini (fascism, goose-stepping, Roman/Nazi salutes, and so on) up until September of 1937, when Mussolini visited Germany and was, as I recall, impressed with what he saw. Following that visit, Mussolini and Hitler had, more or less, switched roles of master and admirer.

Source: "Italy at War" from the Time-Life series on WWII

If you can find Churchill's chronicles of the World War II, they are thoroughly enjoyable. Maybe he read them already:

http://www.amazon.com/Second-World-War-Six-Boxed/dp/039541685X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324409954&sr=8-1

I read an abridged version (still 2000 pages long in 2 volumes) and felt I was missing out on the whole thing.

In Defense of Internment by Michelle Malkin

There was, indeed, substantial threat of sabotage, as well as collaboration with Imperial Japan.

I don't have an answer for you on the topic of forgiveness but I want to direct you to The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal which is a collection of essays on the topic. The moral dilemma of the book concerns a Nazi begging the forgiveness of a Jewish prisoner during the height of the holocaust and the Jewish prisoner refusing to give it. After setting up this tale the rest of the book is various writers, thinkers, religious and political leaders giving their two cents on the nature of forgiveness.

One common theme throughout the book is the idea that forgiveness is something that cannot be given on behalf of someone else. Who is this Jew to forgive the Nazi for what he has done to other Jews? Applied to this case, maybe direct family members have some standing to offer forgiveness, but the person who was killed is the person the killer should look to for forgiveness. Obviously the killer can't, murder is unforgivable with this logic.

However, the exact opposite opinion is also expressed by many writers. Rather than let the question languish in this paradox where the only person able to forgive is dead, these writers insist that the only way forward is to allow someone else to get the ball rolling. I don't know that I have an opinion on the issue, I just think if you are genuinely curious and want to be challenged on the issues by some of the best ethical theorists of our age - look into this book.

Hitler sincerely believed that the natural state was for all races be in conflict over limited resources, a collective Darwinian struggle, a view inspired by the starvation of roughly a half million Germans during WWI. If the German race could not seize and keep agricultural lands (lebensraum) in the East and was defeated, then in his view the German race was doomed to extinction in any case.

The first chapter of Tim Snyder's Black Earth clarified a lot of Nazi ideology that to me previously just seemed an incoherent dumpster full of racism, genocidal violence, pseudo-science and anti-intellectualism.