On 8 May 1995, the British prime minister, John Major, referred to the end of World War II as the end of a thirty years’ war; in this, he was correct: both sides saw this war as an attempt to complete a task left undone at the close of the First World War – the show-down which ended European global domination. The Second World War was, however, the ultimate catastrophe of modern history, laying waste the heart and soul of Europe. Here you will find contributions about this conflict, its prelude, conduct, and personalities – excluding non-military Nazi personalities, which are covered under the entry “Third Reich Era.” Also covered are contributions dealing with war crimes (and lies about alleged war crimes) committed in the course of the conflict. This does not include the “Holocaust,” which has a separate entry (and is not a war crime in the strict sense).
By Charles Lutton ∙ December 1, 1981
Dunkirk: The Patriotic Myth by Nicholas Harmon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980. 271 pp. with appendices, maps, photographs, annotated bibliography, index. $12.95 ISBN: 0-671-25389-1 Forty one years ago nearly 340,000 British and French troops were evacuated from the besieged port of Dunkirk. At the time the event was portrayed by the British government and…
By Ray Merriam ∙ July 1, 1981
In 1977, I received a newspaper clipping from a reader of my Own publication, The Military Journal. The clipping contained an interview with Paul Martin, a survivor of the so-called “Malmédy Massacre,” and had apparently been published on the previous anniversary of the incident. Martin's comments are quite interesting. It is readily apparent that he…
By Mark Weber ∙ October 1, 1983
One of postwar Germany's most influential writers has been Sebastian Haffner. This successful wordsmith has written half a dozen books on political and historical issues, several of which have been translated into English. His most recent is a highly critical review of Adolf Hitler's life and place in history. The American edition, The Meaning of…
By Mark Weber ∙ October 1, 1983
Virtually every major biography of Adolf Hitler or history of the Third Reich quotes from the memoir of Hermann Rauschning, a former National Socialist Senate President of Danzig. In the book published in Britain as Hitler Speaks (London, 1939) and in America as The Voice of Destruction (New York, 1940) Rauschning presents page after page…
By Keith Stimely ∙ December 1, 1983
The latest furious round of publication and ensuing controversy about Pearl Harbor erupted at the end of 1981, and has not simmered down yet. The opening shot was the release in November that year of Gordon W. Prange’s massive At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. Prange had been working on the…
By Anonymous ∙ October 1, 1982
On 10 May 1941, Rudolf Hess made his daring flight from Germany to Britain in a vain bid to stop the tragic conflict between two nations he admired and loved. When Hitler's Deputy parachuted to earth from a Messerschmitt fighter over south Scotland, Germany and Britain had already been at war with each other for…
By Mark Weber ∙ October 1, 1983
Das Hossbach-'Protokoll': Die Zerstörung einer Legende (The Hossbach 'Protocol': The Destruction of a Legend) by Dankwart Kluge. Leoni am Starnberger See: Druffel Verlag, 1980, 168pp, DM 19.80, ISBN 3-80611003-4. Hitler, we're told over and over again, set out to conquer the world, or at least Europe. At the great postwar Nuremberg Tribunal the victorious Allies…
By Tyler Kent ∙ July 1, 1983
Indroduction In May 1940, a 29-year-old American code clerk at the U.S. embassy in London was arrested by British authorities in his apartment. Tyler Kent was charged with having violated the British Official Secrets Act. “For a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state,” the charge stated, Kent had “obtained a document…
By Richard Landwehr ∙ April 1, 1981
They called themselves the “assault generation” and they had largely been born in the years during and after World War I. Coming from every nation of Europe, they had risen up against the twin hydra of communism and big capitalism and banded together under one flag for a common cause. Fully a million of them…
By Andreas R. Wesserle ∙ December 1, 1982
President François Mitterand of France, in a message at the start of 1982, rightly and roundly condemned the Conference of Yalta. France, excluded from the tete-a-tete of the Big Three World Conquerors on 4-12 February 1945, thus once again has challenged the Western nations not to recognize the judgments and the boundaries there agreed upon…
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