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Sword Beach : D-Day Baptism by Fire. by Hastings, Max.;

Between 1941 and 1944, the British army contributed relatively little to WWII. On D-Day, that changed - 35,000 British infantrymen, airmen, and special service operatives were sent headfirst into the whitest heat of war, almost overnight. In 'Sword Beach', Max Hastings tells the story of a handful of British soldiers and their critical role in D-Days parachute and seaborne offensive.Library Bound Incorporated

Subjects: HISTORY; HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century; HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century;

Stalin's curse : battling for communism in war and Cold War / by Gellately, Robert,1943-;

Includes bibliographical references (p. 398-456) and index.LSC

Subjects: Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953.; Communism;

© 2013., Alfred A. Knopf,

Victory '45 : the end of the war in eight surrenders / by Holland, James,1970-author.; Murray, Al,1968-author.;

Includes bibliographical references and index."On the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, two acclaimed historians chronicle the remarkable stories behind the surrenders that ended the world's most catastrophic global conflict. In May 1944 and then again in August and early September, the seemingly endless World War II finally came to a close in six dramatic surrender ceremonies, four in Europe and the last two in Japan. On the 80th anniversary of those historic events, celebrated historians James Holland and Al Murray chronicle them in turn, focusing especially on the human dramas behind each surrender and relating stories and perspectives on the end of the war that have not previously been told. Germany's armies submitted to the Allies in four ceremonies between May 2 and June 7, the latter after considerable delays by the Germans and threats from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander. Japan then finally conceded only after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, initially on August 15 and then in a formal ceremony aboard the USS Missouri on September 2. Holland and Murray focus on specific characters participating in each of these world-changing events-from ordinary servicemen and women and civilians to generals and political leaders. The saga of the first German surrender, in Italy, revolves around senior SS general Karl Wolff's personal battle to save his own neck and involves VIP prisoners locked up in a resort in South Tyrol, art theft, money laundering, and the resistance of other German commanders to give up. The German surrender to the Americans on May 5 follows the fortunes of private Alan Moskin from New Jersey, whose 6th Infantry Regiment found themselves liberating Gunskirchen, one of Mauthausen's sub-concentration camps, the terrible reality of which affected the rest of his life. The stories surrounding the war's end are in their own way as dramatic as the strategy and battles themselves. As Holland and Murray make clear, they add greatly to our understanding and appreciation of World War II and its legacy"--

Subjects: Capitulations, Military; Capitulations, Military; Capitulations, Military; Capitulations, Military; World War, 1939-1945;

Hitler's art thief : Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the looting of Europe's treasures / by Ronald, Susan,author.;

Includes bibliographical references and index."The world was stunned when eighty-year old Cornelius Gurlitt became an international media superstar in November 2013 on the discovery of over 1,400 artworks in his 1,076 square-foot Munich apartment, valued at around $1.35 billion. Gurlitt became known as a man who never was - he didn't have a bank account, never paid tax, never received social security. He simply did not exist. He had been hard-wired into a life of shadows and secrecy by his own father long before he had inherited his art collection built on the spoliation of museums and Jews during Hitler's Third Reich. The ensuing media frenzy unleashed international calls for restitution, unsettled international relations, and rocked the art world. Ronald reveals in this stranger-than-fiction-tale how Hildebrand Gurlitt succeeded in looting in the name of the Third Reich, duping the Monuments Men and the Nazis alike. As an "official dealer" for Hitler and Goebbels, Hildebrand Gurlitt became one of the Third Reich's most prolific art looters. Yet he stole from Hitler too, allegedly to save modern art. This is the untold story of Hildebrand Gurlitt, who stole more than art-he stole lives, too"--Provided by publisher.

Subjects: Gurlitt, Hildebrand.; Art thefts; Art treasures in war; Art; National socialism and art.; World War, 1939-1945;

The last palace : Europe's turbulent century in five lives and one legendary house / by Eisen, Norman L.,1961-author.;

Includes bibliographical references and index."A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa's greatest houses--and the lives of its occupants"--

Subjects: Schö̈nbornský palác (Prague, Czech Republic); Pražský hrad (Prague, Czech Republic);

Three words for goodbye : a novel / by Gaynor, Hazel,author.; Webb, Heather,1976 December 30-author.;

Two estranged sisters fulfill their dying grandmother's final wish by traveling across Europe and delivering three goodbye letters to those who she has not seen since traveling to Europe four decades earlier.

Subjects: Historical fiction.; Sisters; Letters; Grandmothers; Voyages and travels; Estranged families;

The last million : Europe's displaced persons from World War to Cold War / by Nasaw, David,author.;

Includes bibliographical references and index."In May of 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, effectively putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of this global military conflict did not cease with the signing of truces and peace treaties. Millions of lost and homeless POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and concentration camp survivors overwhelmed Germany, a country in complete disarray. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate foreigners, and attempted to repatriate them to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the USSR. But after exhaustive efforts, there remained over a million displaced persons who either refused to go home or, in the case of many, had no home to which to return. They would spend the next three to five years in displaced persons camps, divided by nationalities, temporary homelands in exile, with their own police forces, churches, schools, newspapers, and medical facilities. The international community couldn't agree on the fate of the Last Million, and after a year of fruitless debate and inaction, an International Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from labor shortages. But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last countries to accept anyone for resettlement, finally passed a Displaced Persons Bill - but as Cold War fears supplanted memories of WWII atrocities, the bill only granted visas to those who were reliably anti-communist, including thousands of former Nazi collaborators, Waffen-SS members, and war criminals, while barring the Jews who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the passage of the controversial UN resolution for the partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining Jewish survivors finally able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany."--

Subjects: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.; International Refugee Organization.; World War, 1939-1945; Refugees; Refugees; Jewish refugees; Political refugees; Jews; Humanitarianism; World War, 1939-1945;

The CIA book club : the secret mission to win the Cold War with forbidden literature / by English, Charlie,author.;

Includes bibliographical references and index."For almost five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, standing as the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. With the risk of nuclear annihilation too high for physical combat, conflict was reserved for the psychological sphere. No one understood this battle of hearts, minds, and intellects more clearly than Bucharest-born George Minden, the head of a covert intelligence operation known as the "CIA books program." This initiative aimed to win the Cold War with literature: to undermine the censorship of the Soviet bloc and inspire revolt by offering different visions of thought and culture to the people. From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden's global CIA "book club" would infiltrate millions of banned titles into the Eastern Bloc, written by a vast and eclectic list of authors. Volumes were smuggled on trucks and aboard yachts, dropped from balloons, and hidden in the luggage of hundreds of thousands of individual travelers. Once inside Soviet bloc, each book would circulate secretly among dozens of like-minded readers, quietly turning them into dissidents. Soon, underground print shops began to reproduce the books, too. By the late 1980s, illicit literature in Poland was so pervasive that the system of communist censorship broke down, and the Iron Curtain soon followed. Former head of international news at the Guardian, Charlie English is the first to uncover this true story of Cold War spy craft, smuggling and secret printing operations, highlighting the work of a handful of extraordinary people who risked their lives to stand up to the intellectual strait-jacket Stalin created. People like Miroslaw Chojecki, an underground Polish publisher who endured beatings, force-feeding and exile in service of this mission and Minden, the CIA's mastermind, who didn't waver in his belief that truth, culture, and diversity of thought could help free the "captive nations" of Eastern Europe. This is a story about the power of the printed word as a means of resistance and liberation. Books, it shows, can set you free"--

Subjects: United States. Central Intelligence Agency; Books and reading; Cold War; Information warfare; Information warfare; Publishers and publishing;

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare : the mavericks who plotted Hitler's defeat / by Milton, Giles,author.; Milton, Giles.Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.;

Includes bibliographical references and index."Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine. In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men--along with three others--formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War"--

Subjects: Biographies.; Gubbins, Colin, Sir, 1896-1976.; Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945; Intelligence officers; Espionage, British; Sabotage; Guerrilla warfare;

The book thieves : the Nazi looting of Europe's libraries and the race to return a literary inheritance / by Rydell, Anders,1982-author.; Koch, Henning,1962-translator.; translation of:Rydell, Anders,1982-Boktjuvarna.English.;

Includes bibliographical references and index.While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves - Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin's public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.

Subjects: Book thefts; Libraries and national socialism; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;

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