[mayankk]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Kicking off a new (old) book - The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer.

Extremely excited to get busy with this book - although I paid more than what I would have to for a new one via Amazon, I got a used one from Blooms (Bangalore) just because it felt the right thing to do

Unsurprisingly, no matter where a ww2 buff begins, whether at commando, or school books, they always encounter Shirer at some point. It's very engaging, I'm also looking for a fresh copy.

[Amrik Singh]

Originally Posted by mayankk

Ditto!
I used to yearn for the ones with ariel combat. The spitfire, hurricane, p51, mustangs, the mosquito, and of course the stuka!

We used to exchange Comics in School. Bags were searched by Teachers on suspicion of carrying Comics.
If studying with a Large book and Teacher sitting on chair, Comics were hidden and read hidden in the Text Books.
Mostly War Comics as it was Air Force School and students from Defense Services Officers families.

[dpat17]

Originally Posted by amikacin

No one here had yet mentioned The World at War. I got it during my days at BITS, Pilani. Its a 26 episode documentary series, and was claimed to be the most expensive series produced till date. It chronicles the events of WW II in an orderly fashion and provides much insight into the things as they happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War


Unfortunately, my hard disk crashed and I lost it.

I would highly recommend this series to anyone who's interested in WW II. It contains actual footage and superb narration by Laurence Olivier.

I downloaded it long back via torrent. Made sure to take multiple backups to mitigate the risk of HDD failure.

Not sure on if it's available for streaming on any of the platforms. Do try you luck your luck with torrents if you must.

[hothatchaway]

Originally Posted by dpat17

I would highly recommend this series to anyone who's interested in WW II. It contains actual footage and superb narration by Laurence Olivier.

I dst.

I found this on YouTube, searching by The world at war throws up several results. It's a real gem full of original footage.

[ninjatalli]

This upcoming documentary is on how almost 1 million Nazi (/supporting people) in 22 countries carried out the unprovoked murder of 11 million innocent men, women and children (Jews). But post the war, after the late 1940s, the Allies did almost nothing, prosecuting only ~1% of the lot. But 99% of those responsible were never prosecuted; most were never even questioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cGnpj24-oU

Releasing Oct 1st. Should be really interesting - I always have only heard good 'notes' about the Nuremberg trials. This might give a completely different lens to look at the same.

[PGA]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfC...1-fxyotS1ONgww

Can't help sharing a wonderful You Tube Channel dedicated to WW II, the stories are crisply narrated and covered apolitically.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by hserus

Putting this here now because its finally officially announced - I'm a new commando author and my first title will be published in early Feb 2022.

https://twitter.com/CommandoComic/st...625208838?s=20

Correction, its coming out next week - most likely the 14th or 15th.

Available on Amazon Kindle (or the Kindle app on your phone, computer, tablet etc).

Here's the cover, from a promo tweet by Commando Comics.

https://twitter.com/CommandoComic/st...26337025921029

[ninjatalli]

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer: 5 / 5

What a wonderful detailed book about Nazi Germany from the 20s when the Nazi campaign was still only a political concept among a very few limited individuals to the extreme levels it reached across Germany and its occupied territories to finally it's decline and end in late 40s.

Shirer sticks to the primary narrative while diverting/sideline stories (e.g. Jews genocide, Germany's failed attempt on a nuclear/atom bomb) are kept on a limited but just enough detailed view, with many detailed documents/books focusing on those sideline narratives added in the footnotes.

Clears up a lot of gaps in the overall storyline that otherwise are quite wrongly depicted in various movies and other mediums.

On a different note, one thing that came very clear is how important the German Russian war on the eastern front was critical and the main reason for Nazi Germany's downfall. Contrary to the usual narrative, if it wasn't for that offense, the US (and allies) attack on the western front probably would have gone done extremely bad and probably even a stalemate or a loss for the Allies on that front.

WW2 aficionados, is there any good book that you can suggest that gives the WW2 narrative from the Russian perspective? I'm sure there's a lot more information that is not very clear (even Shirer in his book clearly mentions it upfront on the lack of detailed information from that side).

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

WW2 aficionados, is there any good book that you can suggest that gives the WW2 narrative from the Russian perspective? I'm sure there's a lot more information that is not very clear (even Shirer in his book clearly mentions it upfront on the lack of detailed information from that side).

It is hard to get accurate picture because USSR was not exactly forthcoming about how cruel their own side was...

But this one is a heartwarming story: https://www.history.com/news/meet-th...nazis-by-night

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by Samurai

It is hard to get accurate picture because USSR was not exactly forthcoming about how cruel their own side was...

But this one is a heartwarming story: https://www.history.com/news/meet-th...nazis-by-night

What a wonderful story. Kind of remotely mirrors on the Tuskegee Airmen aviators in the US armed forces during the war. Thanks - I'm going to dig deeper into the Russian angle for sure. Starting off on a small note with the below Timeline documentary video. Need a war correspondent/documentarian's perspective though - that's homework for me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruUe7fv8jG0

[Samurai]

Many here may remember James Doohan who played Montgomery Scott, the chief engineer in the Original Star Trek cast. The phrase Beam me up Scotty is based on him.

What is his connection to WW-II?

He was part of the Normandy Landing on D-Day.

He first saw combat landing at Juno Beach on D-Day. Shooting two snipers, Doohan led his men to higher ground through a field of anti-tank mines, where they took defensive positions for the night. Crossing between command posts at 23:30 that night, Doohan was hit by six rounds fired from a Bren gun by a nervous Canadian sentry:[2] four in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his right middle finger. The bullet to his chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case given to him by his brother.

So he became a pilot after that, in the same war.

Doohan graduated from Air Observation Pilot Course 40 with eleven other Canadian artillery officers[11] and flew Taylorcraft Auster Mark V aircraft for 666 (AOP) Squadron, RCAF as a Royal Canadian Artillery officer in support of 1st Army Group Royal Canadian Artillery.
....
Doohan was once labelled the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force". In the late spring of 1945, on Salisbury Plain north of RAF Andover, he slalomed a plane between telegraph poles "to prove it could be done"—earning himself a serious reprimand.

And I used to think he was just a funny actor.

[ninjatalli]

Stalingard (by Anthony Beevor) : 4 / 5

A wonderful book detailing the horrors of the 1+ year long fight that happened for a city that had (relatively) lower importance for both Russia and Germany (as compared to the oil fields at Cancuns down south). Primarily a fight between two dictators just for an ego-istic purpose and one that first signaled a worldwide shift about the confidence and power of the German war machine. Basically the German war machine only went down after the Stalingard episode.

While Anthony goes into the nitty-gritty details of the fight, what he lacks (as compared to the amazing William Shirer) is consistency of the numbers/stats and enabling a consistent narrative while using the foot-note to give supporting/side track information.

Still a good book to give a perspective of *one* of the fights in Russia with a somewhat Russian perspective. Now to figure out a more better option (e.g. Vasily Grossman's book) to get a more nuanced view of the war from Russia's perspective.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

WW2 aficionados, is there any good book that you can suggest that gives the WW2 narrative from the Russian perspective? I'm sure there's a lot more information that is not very clear (even Shirer in his book clearly mentions it upfront on the lack of detailed information from that side).

[PGA]

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...-b1993176.html

Twenty best, seen 12 eight to go

[NG_EV]

Do watch "The Liberator" on Netflix. Its a good animated series.

https://www.netflix.com/in/title/81019775

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

This upcoming documentary is on how almost 1 million Nazi (/supporting people) in 22 countries carried out the unprovoked murder of 11 million innocent men, women and children (Jews). But post the war, after the late 1940s, the Allies did almost nothing, prosecuting only ~1% of the lot. But 99% of those responsible were never prosecuted; most were never even questioned.

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=7cGnpj24-oU

Releasing Oct 1st. Should be really interesting - I always have only heard good 'notes' about the Nuremberg trials. This might give a completely different lens to look at the same.

I too hope that this documentary brings out hitherto undisclosed facts. And doesn't turn out to be another potboiler to keep interest in the "Holocaust" alive. The work of individual Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal and his network (and others like him) needs to be highlighted more.

The fact that both post war super powers welcomed & protected prominent Nazis (Wernher Von Braun and Reinhard Gehlen among many others) and South American leaders (Juan Peron of Argentina) helped actual war criminals to escape Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODESSA) indicates the degree of protection that Nazi war criminals continued to enjoy after the war.

Repeated efforts over the years to deny the reality of the holocaust (by interested lobbies) is an indication of what we as a civilization are up against.