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 Harry Elmer Barnes ∙ July 1, 1967
Every American citizen has much more at stake in understanding how and why the U.S. was drawn into World War II than in perusing the Warren Report, its supplementary volumes, and the controversial articles and books of the aftermath, or the annals of any isolated public crime, however dramatic. However tragic and regrettable, the assassination…
By Lewis Brandon ∙ October 1, 1980
Oradour: Village Of The Dead, by Philip Beck, Leo Cooper Ltd., 196 Shaftsbury Avenue, London WC2; 88pp, hardback, t 5.25. ISBN: 0-85052-252-8. On reading this concise little book, one is struck by the tremendous contrast between descriptions of alleged German atrocities against Jews, and descriptions of alleged German atrocities against non-Jews. Most of the former…
By Louis Fitzgibbon ∙ April 1, 1980
In his magnum opus, Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn says: “They took those who were too independent, too influential, too noteworthy; they took particularly many Poles from former Polish provinces. (It was then that ill-fated Katyn was filled up; and then too that in the northern camps they stockpiled fodder for the future army of Sikorski and…
By David Wilson ∙ August 1, 2009
In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War Two and the War on Terror, by Michelle Malkin. Regnery, Washington, DC, 2004. 376pp. Michelle Malkin is a conservative columnist and blogger who, since 9-11, has become a strident advocate of enhanced scrutiny of foreigners in the United States, particularly those of Muslim…
By Joseph Bishop ∙ October 1, 2009
The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, by Viktor Suvorov Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2008, 328pp., illustrated, with notes, bibliography, indexed. The post-1945 war crimes trials in Nuremberg are underway and the international press excitedly covers the proceedings. The tribunal itself consists of justices not from victor powers but from wartime…
By Joseph Bishop ∙ April 1, 2010
The further one seriously studies history, and particularly the World War Two period, the more striking is the disconnect between what is popularly believed and what actually happened. Perhaps the reading public continues to shrink, not only in the United States but around the world, while information and opinion are generally retrieved from television and…
By Chip Smith ∙ August 1, 2009
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, by Nicholson Baker. Simon & Schuster Inc., New York, 2008. 576 pp. bibliography, indexed. Nested near the end of Nicholson Baker’s first book, The Mezzanine, is an oddly memorable scene. Set apart from the novel’s famously annotated escalator ascent, the scene finds Howie…
By Carlos Whitlock Porter ∙ September 20, 2012
Document 343-USSR, OKW Decree, 20 July 1942: All Soviet Prisoners of War Are to Be Tattooed for Identification Purposes. IMT Vol. 39, pp. 488-491 Document 343, OKW Decree, 20 July 1942: Photocopy of a mimeograph, certified by the Soviet prosecutors, in two parts. First page: 1 next to “Certified True Copy” at *; round stamp…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Constantine Pleshakov. Stalin’s Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 2005, 312 pp. As the title of Constantine Pleshakov’s book implies, the author, a Russian historian,[1] holds Stalin personally responsible for the debacle that befell the Red Army at the outbreak…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Yuri Rubtsov, Alter Ego Stalina (Based on declassified archival documents), Svonnitsa-MG, Moscow, 1999, 302 pp. Yuri Rubtsov, Iz-za spiny vozhdya: poli ticheskaya i voyennaya deyatel’nost L. Z. Mekhlisa (Behind the Leader’s Back; The Political and Military Activities of L. Z. Mekhlis), Kompaniya Ritm, Moscow, 2003, 253 pp. Until the appearance of two recent Russian political…
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