Hitler's Ambivalent Attaché

Hitler's Ambivalent Attaché PDF Author: Alfred M. Beck
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 161234299X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
Friedrich von Boetticher was Germany's only military attaché accredited to the United States between the world wars. As such, he was Germany's official military observer in the capital of the nation whose potential as an ally of those powers arrayed against Adolf Hitler in the 1930s might have given the dictator pause in any predatory plans he harbored against his neighbors. Though von Boetticher produced a rich and detailed commentary on military and political affairs in Washington in the eight years prior to the outbreak of war between Germany and the United States in 1941, he was nonetheless accused after the war of misjudging America's productive potential and misleading Hitler with overly optimistic reports. As Alfred M. Beck points out, what he actually told German authorities in Berlin is strikingly different from what his detractors later claimed. Von Boetticher "permits a glimpse into the sociology of a conservative officer caste at once assailed by the politics of a regime and the impossibilities imposed on it, its weaknesses in resisting its evils, and its eventual failure to present an alternative to National Socialism's illusory attractions." A loyal German, von Boetticher had strong ties to America. His mother was American-born, he spoke English fluently, and he was enamored of American military history. He was also anti-Semitic and believed that "Jewish wire-pullers" had undue influence over the U.S. government and its policies. His professional ties to U.S. Army officers in the War Department were so strong--supplying them, for example, with details on German air strength and operations during the Battle of Britain in 1940--that they survived until August 1941 and long after the German ambassador himself had been recalled. Torn between his duty to Germany (though the Nazi regime had attempted to harm his son) and his deep affection for America, von Boetticher stood among the broad middle range of German officials who were neither perpetrator nor victim.

Hitler's Ambivalent Attaché

Hitler's Ambivalent Attaché PDF Author: Alfred M. Beck
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 161234299X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
Friedrich von Boetticher was Germany's only military attaché accredited to the United States between the world wars. As such, he was Germany's official military observer in the capital of the nation whose potential as an ally of those powers arrayed against Adolf Hitler in the 1930s might have given the dictator pause in any predatory plans he harbored against his neighbors. Though von Boetticher produced a rich and detailed commentary on military and political affairs in Washington in the eight years prior to the outbreak of war between Germany and the United States in 1941, he was nonetheless accused after the war of misjudging America's productive potential and misleading Hitler with overly optimistic reports. As Alfred M. Beck points out, what he actually told German authorities in Berlin is strikingly different from what his detractors later claimed. Von Boetticher "permits a glimpse into the sociology of a conservative officer caste at once assailed by the politics of a regime and the impossibilities imposed on it, its weaknesses in resisting its evils, and its eventual failure to present an alternative to National Socialism's illusory attractions." A loyal German, von Boetticher had strong ties to America. His mother was American-born, he spoke English fluently, and he was enamored of American military history. He was also anti-Semitic and believed that "Jewish wire-pullers" had undue influence over the U.S. government and its policies. His professional ties to U.S. Army officers in the War Department were so strong--supplying them, for example, with details on German air strength and operations during the Battle of Britain in 1940--that they survived until August 1941 and long after the German ambassador himself had been recalled. Torn between his duty to Germany (though the Nazi regime had attempted to harm his son) and his deep affection for America, von Boetticher stood among the broad middle range of German officials who were neither perpetrator nor victim.

The Ambivalent Attaché

The Ambivalent Attaché PDF Author: Alfred M. Beck
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 776

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Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation

Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation PDF Author: Klaus H. Schmider
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108890326
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 615

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Book Description
Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States has baffled generations of historians. In this revisionist new history of those fateful months, Klaus H. Schmider seeks to uncover the chain of events which would incite the German leader to declare war on the United States in December 1941. He provides new insights not just on the problems afflicting German strategy, foreign policy and war production but, crucially, how they were perceived at the time at the top levels of the Third Reich. Schmider sees the declaration of war on the United States not as an admission of defeat or a gesture of solidarity with Japan, but as an opportunistic gamble by the German leader. This move may have appeared an excellent bet at the time, but would ultimately doom the Third Reich.

Army History

Army History PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military history
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Zweites Buch

Zweites Buch PDF Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781548828486
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Zweites Buch is an unedited transcript of Adolf Hitler's thoughts on foreign policy written in 1928, it was written after Mein Kampf and was not published in his lifetime. Now, these historical documents give an insight into the mind (and intentions) of one of the most famous political figures of the 20th Century. A fascinating read and great source of material for students and history buffs alike.

Hitler's American Gamble

Hitler's American Gamble PDF Author: Brendan Simms
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541619080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
A riveting account of the five most crucial days in twentieth-century diplomatic history: from Pearl Harbor to Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States By early December 1941, war had changed much of the world beyond recognition. Nazi Germany occupied most of the European continent, while in Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese War had turned China into a battleground. But these conflicts were not yet inextricably linked—and the United States remained at peace. Hitler’s American Gamble recounts the five days that upended everything: December 7 to 11. Tracing developments in real time and backed by deep archival research, historians Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman show how Hitler’s intervention was not the inexplicable decision of a man so bloodthirsty that he forgot all strategy, but a calculated risk that can only be understood in a truly global context. This book reveals how December 11, not Pearl Harbor, was the real watershed that created a world war and transformed international history.

Hitler's Bandit Hunters

Hitler's Bandit Hunters PDF Author: Philip W. Blood
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597974455
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 761

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Book Description
In August 1942, Hitler directed all German state institutions to assist Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS and the German police, in eradicating armed resistance in the newly occupied territories of Eastern Europe and Russia. The directive for "combating banditry" (Bandenbekämpfung), became the third component of the Nazi regime's three-part strategy for German national security, with genocide (Endlösung der Judenfrage, or "the Final Solution of the Jewish Question") and slave labor (Erfassung, or "Registration of Persons to Hard Labor") being the better-known others. An original and thought-provoking work grounded in extensive research in German archives, Hitler's Bandit Hunters focuses on this counterinsurgency campaign, the anvil of Hitler's crusade for empire. Bandenbekämpfung portrayed insurgents as political and racial bandits, criminalized to a greater degree than enemies of the state; moreover, violence against them was not constrained by the prevailing laws of warfare. Philip Blood explains how German forces embraced the Bandenbekämpfung doctrine, demonstrating the equal culpability of both the SS police forces and the "heroic" Waffen-SS combat arm and shattering the contrived postwar distinctions between them. He challenges the traditional view of Himmler as an armchair general and bureaucrat, exposing him as the driving force behind one of the most successful security campaigns in history, and delves into the contentious issue of the complicity of ordinary German police, soldiers, and citizens, as well as the citizens of occupied territories, in these state-sponsored manhunts. This book provokes new debates on the Nazi terrorization of Europe, the blind acquiescence of many, and the courageous resistance of the few.

Hitler

Hitler PDF Author: Brendan Simms
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541618203
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 704

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Book Description
From a prize-winning historian, the definitive biography of Adolph Hitler Hitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator's main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s, was not communism or the Soviet Union, but capitalism and the United States. Whereas most historians have argued that Hitler underestimated the American threat, Simms shows that Hitler embarked on a preemptive war with the United States precisely because he considered it such a potent adversary. The war against the Jews was driven both by his anxiety about combatting the supposed forces of international plutocracy and by a broader desire to maintain the domestic cohesion he thought necessary for survival on the international scene. A powerfully argued and utterly definitive account of a murderous tyrant we thought we understood, Hitler is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the origins and outcomes of the Second World War.

German Foreign Intelligence from Hitler's War to the Cold War

German Foreign Intelligence from Hitler's War to the Cold War PDF Author: Robert Hutchinson
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 070062757X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In the Allies' post-war analyses of the Nazis' defeat, the "weakness and incompetence" of the German intelligence services figured prominently. And how could it have been otherwise, when they worked at the whim of a regime in the grip of "ignorant maniacs"? But what if, Robert Hutchinson asks, the worldviews of the intelligence services and the "ignorant maniacs" aligned more closely than these analyses—and subsequent studies—assumed? What if the reports of the German foreign intelligence services, rather than being dismissed by ideologues who "knew better," instead served to reinforce the National Socialist worldview? Returning to these reports, examining the information on enemy nations that was gathered, processed, and presented to leaders in the Nazi state, Hutchinson's study reveals the consequences of the politicization of German intelligence during the war—as well as the persistence of ingrained prejudices among the intelligence services' Cold War successors. Closer scrutiny of underutilized and unpublished reports shows how during the World War II the German intelligence services supported widely-held assumptions among the Nazi elite that Britain was politically and morally bankrupt, that the Soviet Union was tottering militarily and racially inferior, and that the United States' vast economic potential was undermined by political, cultural, and racial degeneration. Furthermore, Hutchinson argues, these distortions continued as German intelligence veterans parlayed their supposed expertise on the Soviet Union into positions of prominence in Western intelligence in the early years of the Cold War. With its unique insights into the impact of ideology on wartime and post-war intelligence, his book raises important questions not only about how intelligence reports can influence policy decisions, but also about the subjective nature of intelligence gathering itself.

Hitler and America

Hitler and America PDF Author: Klaus P. Fischer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812204417
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
In February 1942, barely two months after he had declared war on the United States, Adolf Hitler praised America's great industrial achievements and admitted that Germany would need some time to catch up. The Americans, he said, had shown the way in developing the most efficient methods of production—especially in iron and coal, which formed the basis of modern industrial civilization. He also touted America's superiority in the field of transportation, particularly the automobile. He loved automobiles and saw in Henry Ford a great hero of the industrial age. Hitler's personal train was even code-named "Amerika." In Hitler and America, historian Klaus P. Fischer seeks to understand more deeply how Hitler viewed America, the nation that was central to Germany's defeat. He reveals Hitler's split-minded image of America: America and Amerika. Hitler would loudly call the United States a feeble country while at the same time referring to it as an industrial colossus worthy of imitation. Or he would belittle America in the vilest terms while at the same time looking at the latest photos from the United States, watching American films, and amusing himself with Mickey Mouse cartoons. America was a place that Hitler admired—for the can-do spirit of the American people, which he attributed to their Nordic blood—and envied—for its enormous territorial size, abundant resources, and political power. Amerika, however, was to Hitler a mongrel nation, grown too rich too soon and governed by a capitalist elite with strong ties to the Jews. Across the Atlantic, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had his own, far more realistically grounded views of Hitler. Fischer contrasts these with the misconceptions and misunderstandings that caused Hitler, in the end, to see only Amerika, not America, and led to his defeat.