Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School
Book
This brilliant group biography asks who were the Frankfurt School and why they matter today In 1923,...
Ernst Toller and German Society: Intellectuals as Leaders and Critics, 1914-1939
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During the years of Weimar and the Third Reich, Toller was one of the more active of the "other...
When We Were Innocent
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“Dad, you have to tell me the truth. Are you who they say you are? Because I know you can’t be....
Awix (3310 KP) rated Third Reich Victorious: Alternate Decisions of World War II in Books
Feb 24, 2020
The what-ifs vary: what if Hitler served in the navy in the First World war, what if the Russians pre-empted Barbarossa and attacked Germany first, what if Turkey joined the Axis, what if the Germans got the atom bomb in 1944, what if Rommel defeated the D-day landings, deposed Hitler, and the war devolved into a one-front struggle with the Soviets? Most of these are interesting and seem to have been written with the general reader in mind; a few do suffer from getting bogged down with detail. On the whole it is engaging stuff, if recent military history is your thing, and you do come away with an improved awareness that the Second World War was a closer-run thing than most people realise nowadays.
Forgotten Hero of Bunker Valentin: The Harry Callan Story
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In 1943, thirty-two Irish POWs refused a Gestapo request to work for Germany. They were sent to a...
Michael Foot: A Life
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The authorised - but not uncritical - life of one of the great parliamentarians and orators of our...
Hitler at Home
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A revelatory look at the residences of Adolf Hitler, illuminating their powerful role in...
Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory
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In an absorbing work peopled with world leaders, generals, and ordinary citizens who fought on both...
From Exile to Washington: A Memoir of Leadership in the Twentieth Century
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In a life that has spanned nearly nine decades and has taken him across the world and back, W....
ClareR (5824 KP) rated The Dictator’s Muse in Books
Jan 10, 2023
Hitler is in power, and one of his most respected film makers, Leni Riefenstahl, has been tasked with filming the Berlin Olympics. She has to tread a fine line between the film-making she wants to create and that of the Nazi propaganda machine.
Meanwhile, back in England, Kit is training for the olympics whilst holding down a full time job and trying to impress his upper class girlfriend. He discovers he can get sponsorship through Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, even though he isn’t by any means a fascist.
Alun is a Welsh Communist, who has been tasked with infiltrating the Blackshirts.
Leni seems to be in a state of permanent dread, because even those who are staunch Nazis aren’t safe from being taken down by the SS.
There’s a lot going on in this book, and it sounds like it should be confusing. But it’s really not. It wasn’t fact, unputdownable.
There’s a great mystery threaded through this, introduced by a modern day character, an academic called Sigrun Meier.
Historical fiction AND a mystery - what’s not to like?!