Igor Nebolsin does it again. My latest review covers his most recent work - Tank Battles in East Prussia and Poland 1944-1945. This is a must read for armored enthusiasts. Check out my review and see why.
Hello, just published my latest book review. This book offers a must read for enthusiasts of armored operations during the Second World War, and comes to us from historian Douglas E. Nash - in a work titled From the Realm of a Dying Sun. This book offers readers a detailed look at the IV-SS Panzerkorps formation and subsequent combat operations in Poland from August to November of 1944. Check out the review here.
Last month I posted a short write-up on Auschwitz, which I visited in September of last year. In addition, at the website's World War II gallery I posted fourteen photo's I took at Auschwitz, and corresponding detailed descriptions amply illustrating these German initiated crimes against humanity. In addition, I have also published a detailed look at the former German concentration camp at Terezin in the Czech Republic (which I visited in 2013) and repeated articles, book reviews, and pictures amply detailing the horrors of the Holocaust, the individuals who suffered or fought against the
The Michigan War Studies Review (MiWSR) has just published my latest book review. This is my second review for MiWSR (an online scholarly journal affiliated with the Michigan War Studies Group) and it is of Matthew Brzezinski's Isaac's Army: A Story of Courage and Survival in Nazi-Occupied Poland.
My first review for MiWSR was of Nathan N. Prefer's The Battle for Tinian: Vital Stepping Stone in America's War Against Japan. I was able to recommend the book, and enjoyed it quite a bit. That said, and taking nothing away from Prefer's book, I found Brzezinski's work to be a tremendously
Antoni Dobrowolski, the oldest known survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp died today in Debno, Poland. Born on October 8, 1904 Dobrowolski was 108 years old when he died. In a world where today the word "hero" is almost casually applied Dobrowolski truly was one.
A teacher, Dobrowolski practiced his profession during the World War II German occupation of Poland. What made him so memorable was that he continued to teach in spite of the fact that the Germans had banned education of most Poles past four years of elementary school.
During World War II Nazi Germany primarily encoded its messages through the use of what was known as the "Enigma" machine. Enigma’s use by the Wehrmacht stretched back to the early 1930s and originated from a design created by Hugo Alexander Koch in the Netherlands.
Although heavily modified prior to the Second World War’s onset, the Enigma machines used in 1939-1945 remained similar to Koch’s prototypes from two decades prior. For a variety of reasons the Enigma machine was extraordinarily difficult to crack.
This is the second in a series of posts detailing the human cost of the Second World War in Europe. Today we take a closer look at the toll in Eastern Europe.
In spite of the staggering human loss and destruction across all of Western and Southern Europe it could barely compare to the horror of Eastern Europe’s devastation. For example, Romania lost 500,000 people, 200,000 of which were civilians, or more people than the United States lost during the entire war but with a population a fraction of the American's size.
During the spring of 1944 the Red Army finally began wrapping up its enormously expensive eight month campaign to evict German forces from the Ukraine. The linchpin of this effort came against Army Group South's left wing - defended by its First and Fourth Panzer Armies. On March 4th Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov's 1st Ukrainian Front, spearheaded by the 3rd Guards Tank Army and 4th Tank Army, attacked German Army Group South's left wing. Zhukov's men forged numerous penetrations in German defensive lines already heavily weakened following the battle for the Korsun pocket.
Though the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942 is often remembered as the seminal planning event of the Third Reich's genocidal strategic goals; in reality it represented a part of a much larger and horrific plan for mass murder. For on June 21, 1941, Heinrich Himmler had ordered planning to begin for a massive demographic reorganization of Eastern Europe, including the territories of the western Soviet Union. Professor Konrad Meyer authored this plan; labeled Generalplan Ost. Meyer’s genocidal plan went far beyond eliminating Europe’s Jews.
Polish authorities have ordered a new investigation into the crimes against humanity committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The Germans murdered an estimated 1.5 million people at Auschwitz, located near Krakow, until the Red Army libereated the camp late in January 1945.
The crimes committed at Auschwitz were central to Nazi Germany's plans to create lebensraum in Eastern Europe - to be done mostly at the expense of the Slavic and Jewish people, though hundreds of thousands of Roma and other peoples characterized as "sub-human" were also murdered.
