WORLD WAR II THROUGH THE EYES OF ITS LEADERS, COMMANDERS AND PERPETRATORS
World War II: Six Years That Changed World History, a short history of the most violent conflict in human history, is more than a regular overview. Rather than trying to cover every major event of the Second World War, it alternates between telling the general story and zooming in on specific, game-changing events, the reasons behind key decisions and the thinking of leaders, commanders and perpetrators.
Some of the major battles discussed:
• The Battle of Britain
• Operation Barbarossa
• The Battle of Stalingrad
• The Attack on Pearl Harbor
Apart from the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific, the Holocaust and the building of the atom bomb are also more extensively covered.
How and why the Nazi persecution of the Jews went from isolation, oppression and emigration, to concentration and finally extermination is told by looking at:
• Nazi ideology
• Nazi laws
• The attitude of other countries in the 1930s
• Quotes from books, memos and remarks by some of the main perpetrators, such as Adolf Hitler, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss and SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, who ran the Einsatzgruppen, a.k.a. SS death-squads.
The creation of the atom bomb follows the path from the discovery of nuclear fission to the early British research to develop a nuclear weapon, code-named Tube Alloys, the American Manhattan Project and finally the decision to drop the bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
Word War II: Six Years That Changed World History is a well-sourced, gripping and at times chilling overview of a war that forever changed who we are and how we view ourselves. If you are looking for a compelling read about those pivotal six years between 1939-1945, this book is for you.
