Book Recommendations!!!

[dbsapp]

2 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

After 1937 Chamberlain made sure the British military at least partly recovered from years of neglect in a time that most left wing politicians were against his policy of appeasement, but also against spending more money on arms. No Spitfires without Chamberlain.

No politician did more to delay the commitment to send a British expeditionary force to the continent than Neville Chamberlain, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1931 to 1937 and Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. There was no Ministry of Defence in the 1930s, and policy was laid down by the Cabinet after discussions by ministers in Cabinet committees or in the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), which brought together ministers and the professional heads of the armed forces (the Chiefs of Staff) and senior civil servants. It was Chamberlain who persuaded the Cabinet in 1934 to give a lower priority to the army than to the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was he who initiated a review of the defence departments’ programmes that resulted in a Cabinet decision at the end of 1937 that the army’s first priority should be the air defence of Great Britain, and that the expeditionary force, or field force, as it was then known, should be equipped on a scale sufficient only for operations in defence of British territories and interests outside Europe.

In fact, from the early 1930s, British leaders, fearful of further damaging their Depression-afflicted economy, fought to keep military spending to a minimum. They then used the country’s military deficiencies as an excuse to turn a blind eye to Germany’s increasing aggression and explosive rearmament, a flagrant violation of the 1919 Versailles Treaty. Although Britain’s appeasement toward Germany began before Chamberlain became prime minister in 1937, he was its high priest throughout. As chancellor of the Exchequer for most of the 1930s, he oversaw the government’s strict budgetary limits on rearmament. According to one associate, Chamberlain, a former businessman who had spent two years as mayor of Birmingham, thought of Europe as simply “a bigger Birmingham.” 

 

[dbsapp]

2 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Not sure what you mean by so-called occupation. Are you by any chance Russian? The Russian attack on Poland was part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Stalin was smart enough to wait until the Germans had done most of the fighting. 

 

In this regard I've made myself clear already:

2 hours ago, dbsapp said:

"occupation" of Poland began only on 17 of September, when Poland as a state ceased to exist. There were basically 2 options: either leave the territory to Hitler, or take it yourself (as Molotov rightly pointed out in 1970s interview)

 

[Aragorn2002]

59 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

In this regard I've made myself clear already:

 

Yeah, that's pretty clear. For Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania etc only the last option remained. As Molotov must have thought during 1970s interview.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Aragorn2002

[Erwin]

Am not a historian, but my understanding is that it was only Churchill who was warning about the rise of Germany through the 20's and 30's when he was essentially in exile and laughed at, his "dark dog days".  Whatever was done by Chamberlain and any other towards the end of the 30's was largely due to the acknowledgement that Churchill was correct in his warnings.  Churchill had been on the "outs" and disregarded for most of the previous years.  It was an acknowledgement of that his proposed policies had been right for the previous 15+ years that made him PM instead of Halifax.  

Churchill was also the main guy who warned about Stalin and how he could not be trusted all through WW2 - but the naive Roosevelt bought Stalin's promises.  It was fortunate for Roosevelt's legacy that he died at the end of WW2 otherwise we would be re-evaluating his delusions about Stalin which helped the USSR to take over most of Eastern and some of Central Europe.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Erwin

[dbsapp]

48 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Yeah, that's pretty clear. For Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania etc only the last option remained. As Molotov must have thought during 1970s interview.

If you don't like Molotov I can quote Churchill on the subject of his pact with  Ribbentrop:

"What is the second event of this first month? It is, of course, the assertion of the power of Russia. Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian Armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.

At any rate the line is there, and an Eastern Front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When Herr von Ribbentrop [German Foreign Minister] was summoned to Moscow last week, it was to learn the fact, and to accept the fact, that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic states and upon the Ukraine must come to a dead stop.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a middle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest or safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan states and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of Southeastern Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life interests of Russia.

But here these interests of Russia fall into the same channel as the interests of Britain and France. None of these three powers can afford to see Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and above all Turkey, put under the German heel".

[dbsapp]

26 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Am not a historian, but my understanding is that it was only Churchill who was warning about the rise of Germany through the 20's and 30's when he was essentially in exile and laughed at, his "dark dog days".  Whatever was done by Chamberlain and any other towards the end of the 30's was largely due to the acknowledgement that Churchill was correct in his warnings.  Churchill had been on the "outs" and disregarded for most of the previous years.  It was an acknowledgement of that his proposed policies had been right for the previous 15+ years that made him PM instead of Halifax.  

Churchill was also the main guy who warned about Stalin and how he could not be trusted all through WW2 - but the naive Roosevelt bought Stalin's promises.  It was fortunate for Roosevelt's legacy that he died at the end of WW2 otherwise we would be re-evaluating his delusions about Stalin which helped the USSR to take over most of Eastern and some of Central Europe.

Lets put it in this way: this understanding is rather far from reality.

This thread is called "Book Recommendations", so I will follow the thread's name. 

If you are interested in what actually happened in 30s and why it all became what it became I highly recommend to read:

"1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II" by Michael Jabara Carley. 

 

 

[Aragorn2002]

11 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

If you don't like Molotov I can quote Churchill on the subject of his pact with  Ribbentrop:

"What is the second event of this first month? It is, of course, the assertion of the power of Russia. Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian Armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.

At any rate the line is there, and an Eastern Front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When Herr von Ribbentrop [German Foreign Minister] was summoned to Moscow last week, it was to learn the fact, and to accept the fact, that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic states and upon the Ukraine must come to a dead stop.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a middle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest or safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan states and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of Southeastern Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life interests of Russia.

But here these interests of Russia fall into the same channel as the interests of Britain and France. None of these three powers can afford to see Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and above all Turkey, put under the German heel".

I don't like Churchill either. I think Chamberlain had a lot more decency. But a lot less luck.

[Aragorn2002]

2 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

Lets put it in this way: this understanding is rather far from reality.

This thread is called "Book Recommendations", so I will follow the thread's name. 

If you are interested in what actually happened in 30s and why it all became what it became I highly recommend to read:

"1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II" by Michael Jabara Carley. 

 

 

Better read 'The war that had many fathers' instead.

[dbsapp]

1 minute ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I don't like Churchill either. I think Chamberlain had a lot more decency. But a lot less luck.

Chamberlain was all along in favor of alliance with Hitler and never hid the sympathy for mad Andy, so I'm not surprised.  

[Aragorn2002]

8 minutes ago, dbsapp said:

Chamberlain was all along in favor of alliance with Hitler and never hid the sympathy for mad Andy, so I'm not surprised.  

Neither am I by your comment. 

[Aragorn2002]

2 hours ago, dbsapp said:

Chamberlain was all along in favor of alliance with Hitler and never hid the sympathy for mad Andy, so I'm not surprised.  

Here's what Peter Hitchen has to say on that;

"But it is still true that an important part of the war myth, that the Left wanted to fight the Nazis, and the Right wished to appease Hitler, not just because he was strong, but because they actively liked his regime, is unsound. This view, well articulated in the Left Book Club’s 1940 bestseller Guilty Men, simply is not accurate, though it is still quite widely believed. By 1938, only a few eccentrics and wild men on the Right actively sympathised with Hitler or Mussolini. Many more (and they were not confined to the British upper class) originally saw Hitler as a possible ally against Stalin. But Stalin was no direct threat to British interests, and that fantasy finally dissolved with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Left was a ‘hero in safety’, demanding a policy for which it would not provide the men or the weapons. In the end, Halifax’s Polish guarantee forced that Left into support for a war it would once have despised. It did this through a series of very clever chess moves. First, it encouraged Poland to resist what might otherwise have been a workable compromise with Germany. Next, it manoeuvred Germany into an unwanted but unavoidable confrontation with Poland, a former ally. Finally, it obliged Britain to declare war on Germany, and Germany alone, if Poland did then (predictably) resist, and if Germany (predictably) reacted by attacking Poland. The manoeuvre made an entirely voluntary war look like a response to aggression and a matter of honour. Had Halifax or Chamberlain known that a Nazi–Soviet pact would be made in August 1939 or that France would collapse in weeks once attacked, they would never have done this. But they did not know, and so an attempt to reassert our position as a Great Power in Europe ended in a world war. And at the end of that world war, we were no longer a Great Power in Europe or anywhere else, and very lucky to have escaped having to sign a humiliating peace with Hitler. But the chess game worked well on its own terms. Opinion in Britain moved from reluctance to go to war to a grudging but definite feeling that Germany must be fought. The transformation was very extensive. Some of those who had been near-pacifists in early 1939, such as George Orwell, became warlike patriots, drilling with the Home Guard in the summer of 1940. Orwell was perhaps quicker than some on the Left to do so, because his experiences in Spain had alerted him to the real, cynical nature of pro-Soviet Communism. Those whose main concern had been the survival of the USSR became patriots a little later, in the summer of 1941, when Hitler invaded the USSR and turned Stalin, whether he or we liked it or not, into our gallant ally.

The Left still like to think that the 1939 war belongs to them, that it was their outrage at Hitler which finally drove the appeasers into action. This is one of the reasons why they have since sentimentalised the war and falsified its history. But it is not true. It was in fact Neville Chamberlain’s Tories who rearmed the country and manoeuvred Britain into its first People’s War."

Edited August 10, 2021 by Aragorn2002
Getting older

[StieliAlpha]

Sorry to disturb, but I stumbled over an extremely good looking book today. “Panzers in Berlin 1945” Basically about tank wrecks in Berlin. Loads of execellent pic‘s and paintings. I have not seen it physically, but what one can see in some „unpacking“ videos looks gorgeous. Perfect inspiration for flavor object and map designers. Unfortunately, it is not only a pretty hefty book, but has a pretty hefty price tag, too.

Otherwise, for once I refrain from commenting @Aragorn2002 ‘s comments.

[Lucky_Strike]

14 minutes ago, StieliAlpha said:

Sorry to disturb, but I stumbled over an extremely good looking book today. “Panzers in Berlin 1945” Basically about tank wrecks in Berlin. Loads of execellent pic‘s and paintings. I have not seen it physically, but what one can see in some „unpacking“ videos looks gorgeous. Perfect inspiration for flavor object and map designers. Unfortunately, it is not only a pretty hefty book, but has a pretty hefty price tag, too.

Definitely a sound investment, superbly researched and IMHO, probably definitive. I actually got this when originally released, I believe it's in a second or third reprint run now. Worth scouting around for it as it might pop up at a discount somewhere, or possibly secondhand. Panzerwrecks do also have discounts and sales every now and then, though postage is always going to be on the high side cos of the bulk of the thing.

[Aragorn2002]

18 minutes ago, StieliAlpha said:

 

Otherwise, for once I refrain from commenting @Aragorn2002 ‘s comments.

That's okay, but don't make a habbit of it!

[Aragorn2002]

On 8/10/2021 at 8:59 PM, Lucky_Strike said:

Definitely a sound investment, superbly researched and IMHO, probably definitive. I actually got this when originally released, I believe it's in a second or third reprint run now. Worth scouting around for it as it might pop up at a discount somewhere, or possibly secondhand. Panzerwrecks do also have discounts and sales every now and then, though postage is always going to be on the high side cos of the bulk of the thing.

More and more it seems wise to buy expensive books like this in an early stage. When such books become scarce the prices are going through the roof. By buying often cheaper kindle books I save money so I can buy expensive books from time to time. Also saves a lot of room in my study. And in my suitcase during holidays.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Aragorn2002

[Lucky_Strike]

10 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

More and more it seems wise to buy expensive books like this in an early stage. When such books become scarce the prices are going through the roof. By buying often cheaper kindle books I save money so I can buy expensive books from time to time. Also saves a lot of room in my study. And in my suitcase during holidays.

Me, I like big pictures well organised on nice paper!

I always try to get in at the off on these big production numbers. They are always going to be limited run as with any niche luxury item. Preordering on Amazon is a good way to track the progress, they will always give one a heads-up if the pub date slips, and it's easy to keep a track of once pub dates are confirmed. Otherwise folks like Panzerwrecks have very effective emailing lists and early adopters notifications. 

[Aragorn2002]

6 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Me, I like big pictures well organised on nice paper!

I always try to get in at the off on these big production numbers. They are always going to be limited run as with any niche luxury item. Preordering on Amazon is a good way to track the progress, they will always give one a heads-up if the pub date slips, and it's easy to keep a track of once pub dates are confirmed. Otherwise folks like Panzerwrecks have very effective emailing lists and early adopters notifications. 

LS, what I meant is that I buy smaller, cheaper books in the Kindle version and big, expensive books in the paper version. A book like "Panzers in Berlin 1945" would be pretty wasted as Kindle version. Don't know whether there is a Kindle version actually.

[jtsjc1]

14 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Me, I like big pictures well organised on nice paper!

I always try to get in at the off on these big production numbers. They are always going to be limited run as with any niche luxury item. Preordering on Amazon is a good way to track the progress, they will always give one a heads-up if the pub date slips, and it's easy to keep a track of once pub dates are confirmed. Otherwise folks like Panzerwrecks have very effective emailing lists and early adopters notifications. 

I preordered this one myself when it was released. I figured this would sell out quickly and triple in price at least. Beautiful book worth every penny. Unique titles like this are a must in my collection.

[Lucky_Strike]

12 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

LS, what I meant is that I buy smaller, cheaper books in the Kindle version and big, expensive books in the paper version. A book like "Panzers in Berlin 1945" would be pretty wasted as Kindle version. Don't know whether there is a Kindle version actually.

Yes I get what you were saying Aragorn . I do think the Kindle is a very well implemented device, but having spent the best part of the last huhhum years designing books to look as good as possible, even the humble paperback, I can't abide how the text can be so mushed. But each to their own and far be it for me to criticise another's choice.

[Lucky_Strike]

4 hours ago, jtsjc1 said:

I preordered this one myself when it was released. I figured this would sell out quickly and triple in price at least. Beautiful book worth every penny. Unique titles like this are a must in my collection.

Yes, it's now out of stock on Panzerwrecks, don't know if it's available elsewhere. Panzerwrecks stock some very serious books and it's nice to see a small publisher/distributor thriving in these tough times.

[Aragorn2002]

I've recieved Battle for the Bocage, Normandy 1944: Point 103, Tilly-sur-Seulles and Villers Bocage by Tim Saunders today. Doesn't contain much news, but well done like all his books. I would like to see Saunders widen his scope to other theaters of war though.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Aragorn2002

[Aragorn2002]

Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War by R.M. Douglas

The award-winning history of 12 million German-speaking civilians in Europe who were driven from their homes after WWII: “a major achievement” (New Republic).

Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized the forced relocation of ethnic Germans from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable: between 12 and 14 million civilians, most of them women and children. And the losses were horrifying: at least five hundred thousand people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, locked in trains, or after arriving in Germany malnourished, and homeless.

This is an important book, deserving of the widest readership.--Max Hastings, Sunday Times

[slippy]

Can anyone recommend books on Operation Bagration please? Finding it difficult to find much at all with good reviews.

Looking for a general overview book,  along with individual units/battles if possible. My only reading so far has been the Osprey title.

 

Cheers all

[Aragorn2002]

8 minutes ago, slippy said:

Can anyone recommend books on Operation Bagration please? Finding it difficult to find much at all with good reviews.

Looking for a general overview book,  along with individual units/battles if possible. My only reading so far has been the Osprey title.

 

Cheers all

Hitler's Greatest Defeat by Paul Adair is a good start. Easy to find, cheap and very informative. 

[slippy]

6 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Hitler's Greatest Defeat by Paul Adair is a good start. Easy to find, cheap and very informative. 

Thanks Aragorn, I did look at this, but a lot of the online reviews give it a bit of a slating as being quite basic, but I'll take your advice mate cheers