Book Reviews

A friend lent me two old books he had over the holidays.

The first one is The History of World War 2 by Lt-Colonel E.Bauer.
I originally thought it was a pictorial history but although it has a lot of pictures it also has a lot of writing. It is old but wonderful reading if you like your military history.
I found out a lot of Germans died in the Russian winter from their anuses freezing when going to the toilet!
Hitler was not bad in strategy when attacking but very poor when defence was needed. He loved the counter-attack way too much.

It is a very long read but worth it.

The other book was Berlin the Downfall 1945 by Anony Beevor.
Although this was compulsive reading it was horrific to read. It shows the moral depravity of the human race. We all knew the Nazis as racist murdering thugs but the Red army's exploits matched them.
The German let Russian POWs only have underwear in the winter. Few survived this.
The Red army looted like crazy once into Germany and were surprised just how much better it was in Germany compared to the 'workers paradise' they lived in. German women were gang raped no matter what their age with Female soldiers looking on sometimes!
German soldiers who were wounded and lying on the ground during the winter had their stomachs slit by a knife and died a long painful death. Few German soldiers who surrendered survived.

Delusion was around everywhere in the German high command. Armies were constantly given reinforcements of divisions etc that existed only on paper.
Hitler did not care how many Germans died in fighting the Red Army. The more the better. He would not countenance diverting most of his resources to fight the Red army and so let the Allies move much quicker into Germany. The 'exploits' of the Red army were well known and Germans attempted to flee from them. Fanatical Nazis murdered such Germans as they were 'cowards'!

Everyone should read this book.