Cheating Hitler

For most, and particularly the injured and the wounded, being shot down over Occupied Europe during the Second World War meant that capture was immediate, that imprisonment was almost inevitable. For some, evasion was possible, but rarely for long. For a relative handful, however, their evasion saw them eventually reach home once again. In this fascinating insight into how some Allied aircrew achieved the almost impossible and evade capture, the renowned aviation historian Martin W. Bowman has drawn together a set of tales of just some of these individuals. They are stories that illustrate the bravery and resourcefulness that characterized their experiences. British, American, Canadian and other Allied testimonies all feature to provide an authentic sense of the times at hand and the reality of life as an evader during this tumultuous and incredibly dangerous time. The stories of some Allied airmen, faced with sudden leaps into that dangerous unknown and their subsequent attempts at evasion, are retold here, many for the first time. Those who successfully evaded and were ‘free to fight again’ were few. Some were forced to remain in hiding under the guiding hands of the likes of the French Resistance or the patriots of the Comète Line – a few of the many who risked their lives helping Allied airmen, either to escape or to remain hidden until liberation, on pain of imprisonment, torture and death by their Nazi oppressors. Despite the threat of such retaliation, it has been said that as many as 100,000 people may have assisted evaders on one or more occasions before the war in Europe was brought to an end. This series of intoxicating chapters of evasion and life under the constant threat of recapture by the Nazis goes one step further in the drama of the war fought in the skies over the Third Reich and the subjugated countries of France, Belgium and Holland, revealing the constant nagging, and very real, fear that was endured by evaders and rescuers alike.

In The Life And Death of Adolf Hitler, biographer Robert Payne unravels the tangled threads of Hitler’s public and private life and looks behind the caricature with the Charlie Chaplin mustache and the unruly shock of hair to reveal a Hitler possessed of immense personal charm that impressed both men and women and brought followers and contributions to the burgeoning Nazi Party. Although he misread his strength and organized an ill-fated putsch, Hitler spent his months in prison writing Mein Kampf, which increased his following. Once in undisputed command of the Party, Hitler renounced the chastity of his youth and began a sordid affair with his niece, whose suicide prompted him to reject forever all conventional morality. He promised anything to prospective supporters, then cold-bloodedly murdered them before they could claim a share of the power he reserved for himself. Once he became Chancellor, Hitler step by step bent the powers of the state to his own purposes to satisfy his private fantasies, rearming Germany, slaughtering his real or imaginary enemies, blackmailing one by one the leaders of Europe, and plunging the world into the holocaust of World War II. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER is the story of not so much a man corrupted by power as a corrupt man who achieved absolute power and used it to an unprecedented degree, knowing at every moment exactly what he was doing and calculating his enemies’ weaknesses to a hair’s breadth. It is the story of a living man.

On 8 December 2013, Ukraine’s central Lenin monument in Kyiv was pulled down. In the following months, in what became known as the “Leninfall,” Ukraine swept away hundreds of communist monuments, expressing an explicit desire to break away from the Soviet past and, implicitly, from Russia. This book examines the evolution of post-Euromaidan de-Sovietization beyond the issues of toppling of old statues and implementation of new anti-totalitarian laws. It explores decommunization as both a political and cultural phenomenon that exposes the multivocality of the Ukrainian population and involves various forms of dialogical interaction between ordinary citizens and the state. Posters, graffiti, or street names are physical and discursive canvases where old meanings are being contested and re-articulated, and where new political symbols that combine nationalist and democratic elements are being defined.

In modern times, the recruitment of children into a political organization and ideology reached its boldest embodiment in the Hitler Youth, founded in 1933 soon after the Nazi Party assumed power in Germany. Determining that by age ten children’s minds could be turned from play to politics, the regime inducted nearly all German juveniles between the ages of ten and eighteen into its state-run organization. The result was a potent tool for bending young minds and hearts to the will of Adolf Hitler. Baldur von Schirach headed a strict chain of command whose goal was to shift the adolescents’ sense of obedience from home and school to the racially defined Volk and the Third Reich. Luring boys and girls into Hitler Youth ranks by offering them status, uniforms, and weekend hikes, the Nazis turned campgrounds into premilitary training sites, air guns into machine guns, sing-alongs into marching drills, instruction into indoctrination, and children into Nazis. A few resisted for personal or political reasons, but the overwhelming majority enlisted. Drawing on original reports, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Michael H. Kater traces the history of the Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree, and impact of conversion, and the subsequent fate of young recruits. Millions of Hitler Youth joined the armed forces; thousands gleefully participated in the subjugation of foreign peoples and the obliteration of “racial aliens.” Although young, they committed crimes against humanity for which they cannot escape judgment. Their story stands as a harsh reminder of the moral bankruptcy of regimes that make children complicit in crimes of the state.

Recounts one of the greatest sea stories of World War II. It is the story of how George Binney, a 39 year-old civilian working in neutral Sweden when Norway was overrun by the Germans in 1940, set about running vital cargoes of Swedish ball-bearings and special steels to Britain through the blockaded Skagerrak, where German air strength was dominant and where the Royal Navy dare not trespass. Despite Admiralty gloom and in the face of political objections that were overcome by Binney's persistence, five ships carrying a year's supply of valuable materials for the expanding British war industries were successfully sailed to Britain in January 1941. A following attempt was not as successful and ended when six ships were sunk or scuttled. But then came the saga of the Little Ships, the motor gunboats flying the Red Duster that operated out of the Humber to and from the Swedish coast in the winter of 1943/44, defying the strengthened German defences and the wrath of severe weather.

From the time his Nazi regime launched World War II to the present, Adolf Hitler has frequently been depicted on film. He was largely ridiculed at first, since laughter was a powerful weapon and morale booster for nations at war. Later representations were more somber and realistic, yet Hitler’s image never escaped the undertone of scorn. This book concentrates exclusively on portrayals of Hitler in feature films and television miniseries. The filmography covers films with a factual historical storyline, fictional stories, alternate histories, parodies and films where actors playing Hitler have a cameo. Each entry provides production credits, an annotated cast list, an analysis and synopsis of the film, an evaluation of the actor playing Hitler in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of his portrayal, and representative quotations from the film.

In this remarkably well-written book, Dr. Price examines the epochal transformation of the United States from a largely isolationist nation, to one which has come to play a central role in world affairs, using its vast political resources and, in the final analysis, its military capabilities, to dramatically alter the world order in the twentieth century. This shift required the active promotion of internationalism by key political leaders such as Woodrow Wilson himself, Franklin Roosevelt, and others, often in response to the shifting facts of global power, and working tirelessly to sway American public opinion toward greater involvement in the global arena. When Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that the United States should make the world "safe for democracy," he was enunciating a vision of national duty, already latent in Americans' ideals, which would frame U.S. foreign policy for generations. The book provides a detailed account of one of the great turning points in American and world history, the American embrace of globalism.

A Vintage Contemporaries Original Includes: Jim Shepard's "Tedford and the Megalodon" Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter" Dan Chaon's "The Bees" Kelly Link's "Catskin" Elmore Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" Carol Emshwiller's "The General" Neil Gaiman's "Closing Time" Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium" Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick" Michael Crichton's "Blood Doesn’t Come Out" Laurie King's "Weaving the Dark" Chris Offutt's "Chuck’s Bucket" Dave Eggers's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" Michael Moorcock's "The Case of the Nazi Canary" Aimee Bender's "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers" Harlan Ellison's "Goodbye to All That" Karen Joy Fowler's "Private Grave 9" Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes" Michael Chabon's "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance" Sherman Alexie's "Ghost Dance"