War And The Image Of Germany

A groundbreaking history of what drove the Germans to fight -- and keep fighting -- for a lost cause in World War II In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of firsthand testimony -- personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence -- to explore how the German people experienced the Second World War. When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war the Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict -- the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of German cities -- alter their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realize they were fighting a genocidal war? Told from the perspective of those who lived through it -- soldiers, schoolteachers, and housewives; Nazis, Christians, and Jews -- this masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs and fears of a people who embarked on and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.

“Smith has done a fantastic job of explaining the minutiae of German uniforms and equipment and the places the soldiers found themselves in.” —War History Online These amazingly well preserved photographs originate from German collection. They cover the full gamut of the dreadful conditions that all troops involved in that ghastly war experienced between 1914 and 1918. The collection portrays life and conditions in the German trenches, the carnage of the wrecked villages and buildings in which they lived and fought and views of the destruction wrought by the Allied offensives. Many of the photos show downed British and French aircraft and often with their crew, dead or alive. Captured British and French troops are seen being held before shipment to PoW camps well behind the lines. The utter destruction of the country surrounding the Front is difficult to comprehend. This is not a book for the feint hearted since it clearly portrays the true horror of World War One as experienced by the German Army. “This work features images from an album belonging to an unnamed German infantry soldier portraying life and conditions in the German trenches in all its varied aspects. Well worth a look 9/10.” —The Great War Magazine “A pictorial history of German Experiences on the Western Front. It contains over 1000 good quality black and white photographs with notes and annotations by the author. Overall this is an interesting book for the World War One enthusiast.” —Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

In 1945, amidst the ruins of a bomb-damaged German home a tattered book, Deutschland Erwache, was recovered as a souvenir by a British soldier. This rare and invaluable primary resource now forms the basis of The Rise of Hitler Illustrated, which is a photographic record of Hitlers' rise to power from when he was born in 1889, as he took over the hearts and minds of the German people, and his eventual arrival at the top.??The original book is typical of the propaganda of the time, with the obvious non-critical acceptance of everything that Adolf Hitler was and what he stood for. It attempts to present him as a peace–loving man, who wanted nothing other than quiet in his 'beloved Alps', who dearly loved children and was kind to all. But as we all know, the truth was completely different. He was a man who, despite his unbounded evilness, was able to assert limitless power over a nation before creating maximum misery for millions.??When found, the original book was divest of its cover and all the worse for wear, but Trevor Salisbury has gone to every effort to salvage some of the images, the result – a fresh and new perspective that sheds light on Hitler's control of Germany. It is a welcome addition to Pen & Sword's highly acclaimed Images of War series.

"This study examines the force of tradition in conservative German visual culture. It explores thematic continuities in the post-conflict representation of battlefield identities, from the 25th anniversary of the Franco-Prussian War in 1895 to the demise of the Weimar Republic in 1933. Using 40 carefully chosen images from both high and low culture, Paul Fox discusses complex and interdependent responses in German visual culture to a wide spectrum of operational military experience. These include regional conflict, total war, internal security operations and border skirmishes during the period. The book demonstrates how conservative artists, illustrators, photographers, and sculptors engaged in representing this full spectrum of conflict were preoccupied with the inequalities of battlefield encounters and the consequential quest for moral advantage. They furnished material that exemplified everything positive the ideal German male could hope to be when at war - even when the outcome was defeat. Their construction of an imagined martial masculinity based on an aggressive moral superiority was so deeply rooted that the continuities taken forward eventually provided a basis for a programmatic imagining of how Germany might again exert its political presence as a great military power in Central Europe after 1918. The Image of the Soldier in German Culture, 1871--1933 is an important volume for any historian interested in cultural history, the history of modern Germany or the First World War."--Provided by publisher.

This study examines the force of tradition in conservative German visual culture, exploring thematic continuities in the post-conflict representation of battlefield identities from the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71 to the demise of the Weimar Republic in 1933. Using over 40 representative images sampled from both high and popular culture, Paul Fox discusses complex and interdependent visual responses to a wide spectrum of historical events, spanning world war, regional conflict, internal security operations, and border skirmishes. The book demonstrates how all the artists, illustrators and photographers whose work is addressed here were motivated to affirm German moral superiority on the battlefield. They produced images that advanced dominant notions of how the ideal German man should behave when at war – even when the outcome was defeat. Their construction of an imagined martial masculinity based on aggressive moral superiority became so deeply rooted in German culture that it eventually provided the basis for a programmatic imagining of how Germany might again recover its standing as a great military power in Central Europe in the wake of defeat in 1918. The Image of the Soldier in German Culture, 1871-1933 is an important volume for any historian interested cultural history, the representation of armed conflict in European culture, the history of modern Germany, the Franco-Prussian War, and the First World War.

This volume examines the mutual images formed between Japan and Germany from the mid-nineteenth to early twenty-first centuries. Exploring previously untapped historical sources, the contributions by seventeen leading scholars create a more nuanced picture of Japanese-German relations.

A pictorial history of the German Army retreating west from the Soviet Army in the final stages of World War II. After the defeat at Stalingrad in January 1943, the German Army’s front lines were slowly smashed to pieces by the growing might of the Soviet Army. Yet these soldiers continued to fight. Even after the failed battle of the Kursk in the summer of 1943, and then a year later when the Russians launched their mighty summer offensive, code names Operation Bagration, the German Army continued to fight on, withdrawing under constant enemy ground and air bombardments. As the final months of retreat were played out on the Eastern Front in early 1945, it depicts how the once vaunted German Army, with diminishing resources, withdrew back across the Polish/German frontier to Berlin itself.