Recommendations based on "The Oppermanns"

The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination?In 'The Sleepwalkers', Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Above all, it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic, near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania“Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly“Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR“Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. MartinOn May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo

'The feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world ... this prospect frightens me much more than bombs'On the 70th anniversary of George Orwell's death, a new collection of his brilliant essays written during the Second World WarFascism and Democracy collects five brilliant examples of Orwell's writing during the darkest days of World War Two. Grappling with the principles of democracy and the potential of reform, the meaning of literature and free speech in times of violence, and the sustainability of objective truth, Orwell offers a compelling portrayal of a nation where norms and ideals can no longer be taken for granted. Like the best of Orwell's writing, these essays also serve as timeless reminders of the fragility of freedom.

'you Wanted To See Some Action - Well You're Going To Get It Now. You're Going To Get It Now All Right.' Friday 24th May, 1940 Private Johnny Hawke, Aged Sixteen, Awakens To Artillery Fire. Hours Later, Stukas Scream Down From The Sky. Messerschmit Fighters Roar Towards His Regiment. Trucks Burst Into Flames. Now Men And Mules Lay Dead And Dying, Severed Limbs Twisted Grotesquely As Blood Soaks The Cobbled Streets. Young Private Hawke Just Wants To Do His Duty And Serve His Country. But As He - And His Fellow Soldiers - Prepare To Stop The German Advance, There's Only One Question On Everyone's Lips. How Will They Survive?

Partly autobiographical, this is the second title in Judith Kerr’s internationally acclaimed trilogy of books following the life of Anna through war-torn Germany, to London during the Blitz and her return to Berlin to discover the past…It is hard enough being a teenager in London during the Blitz, finding yourself in love and wondering every night whether you will survive the bombs. But it is even harder for Anna, who is still officially classified as an “enemy alien”. Those bombs are coming from Germany – the country that was once her own. If Hitler invades, can she and her beloved refugee family possibly survive?This was previously published as The Other Way Round.

At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train'. Spike Milligan's on the march, blitzing friend and foe alike with his uproarious recollections of army life from enlistment to the landing at Algiers in 1943. Bathos, pathos and gales of drunken laughter, and insane military goonery explode in superlative Milliganese.

This masterful biography by one of Germany's best known journalists was the leading nonfiction best seller in Germany. Fest shows Hitler as the receptacle of the dreads and resentments of a shaken social order, gifted with an uncanny instinct for all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Though a warped human being, he was neither clown nor puppet, as many liked to think; Hitler appears here as an enormously astute politician, impressing and hypnotizing Germans and foreigners alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. In the last analysis, however, Fest uncovers in Hitler a constantly destructive personality, which aimed at and achieved destruction on an unprecedented scale, not least because an insecure world gave him his opportunities.

Discover the key battles, tactics, technologies and turning points of the Second World War - the epic conflict that shaped the modern world.Combining authoritative, exciting text and bold explanatory graphics The World War II Book explores the causes, key events, and lasting consequences of the Second World War.Using the original, graphic-led approach of the series, entries profile more than 90 of the key ideas and events during and surrounding the conflict - from the rise of Hitler and Fascism in the 1930s to Pearl Harbor, the D-Day landings, and the bombing of Hiroshima to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.Offering a uniquely compelling, accessible, and immediate history of the war, The World War II Book shows how key battles, political and economic forces, individual leaders, and technological advances influenced the course of the conflict.

'Laurence Rees brilliantly combines powerful eye-witness testimony, vivid narrative and compelling analysis in this superb account' Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler: Hubris and Hitler: Nemesis'In this fascinating study of two monsters, Rees is extraordinarily perceptive and original' Antony Beevor_____________________Two tyrants. Each responsible for the death of millions.This compelling book on Hitler and Stalin - the culmination of thirty years' work - examines the two leaders during the Second World War, when Germany and the Soviet Union fought the biggest and bloodiest war in history.Hitler's charismatic leadership may contrast with Stalin's regimented rule by fear; and his intransigence later in the war may contrast with Stalin's change in behaviour in response to events. But as bestselling historian Laurence Rees shows, at a macro level, both were prepared to create undreamt-of suffering - in Hitler's case, most infamously the Holocaust - in order to build the utopias they wanted.Using previously unpublished, startling eyewitness testimony from soldiers, civilians and those who knew both men personally, Laurence Rees - probably the only person alive who has met Germans who worked for Hitler and Russians who worked for Stalin - challenges long-held popular misconceptions about two of the most important figures in history. This is a master work from one of our finest historians._____________________'Coming from one of the world's experts on the Second World War, this is an important and original - and devastating - account of Hitler and Stalin as dictators. A must read' Professor Robert Service, author of Stalin: A Biography'Impressive . . . well paced and well informed with an eye for telling anecdotes and colourful character sketches . . . Rees' decision to add personal stories to his narrative adds an important layer to our understanding of both the dictators themselves and their victims' Robert Gerwarth, The Daily Telegraph

'of The Great Powers That Dominated Europe From The Eighteenth To The Twentieth Centuries, Prussia Is The Only One To Have Vanished ... Iron Kingdom Is Not Just Good: It Is Everything A History Book Ought To Be ... The Nemesis Of Prussia Has Cast Such A Long Shadow That German Historians Have Tiptoed Around The Subject. Thus It Was Left To An Englishman To Write What Is Surely The Best History Of Prussia In Any Language' Sunday Telegraph