What did the British or American soldier know about the German Army? Was this knowledge accurate - and just how did he know it? There have been several 'handbooks' of Second World War armies, but they never tell us exactly what the Allied soldier knew at the time, or how he was informed. This is of importance because it influenced both conduct on the battlefield, and the way in which the soldier thought about his enemy. The book explains the background history of the organisations involved, followed by short chapters based around a series of original documents. This puts the original into context and also discusses whether the document that follows was correct in the picture it painted, and what can be deduced about sources and the concerns of the intelligence officers who compiled the material. Most of the documents were produced at the time, by the British War Office or US War Department, and cover different aspects of the German Army, including tactics, weapons, and uniforms. Subjects include: Allied intelligence on the German Army from 1930 onwards, British SIS / MI6 and US Military Intelligence. The organisations responsible, how they worked, and how they changed very rapidly with the coming of war. The role of technology, modern – like the radio transmitter, ancient – as in scouring libraries and periodicals, reports on military manoeuvres and parades. Limitations of 'Ultra' The German army itself, from the tiny force left after Versailles, to the rapid expansion in the late 1930s. Innovation in tanks, tactics, machine guns, rocket weaponry. The problems of gathering intelligence, not just danger, but finance, asking the right questions and the limitations of reporting and distribution.

The first full account of Hitler's extensive intelligence network-and the dramatic story of how Germany lost the battle of the secret services in World War II.

This book lists all the important tanks used in the Second World War, both by the Allied (England, France, Russia and the USA) and Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). Thomas Anderson, an expert on the history of the Second World War, offers an in-depth volume detailing the vehicles, their use in battle and relevant technical specifications. This comprehensive survey is full of authentic eyewitness accounts as well as being profusely illustrated with many photographs having never been published before.

This official government publication investigates the impact of the Holocaust on the Western powers' intelligence-gathering community. It explains the archival organization of wartime records accumulated by the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service and Britain's Government Code and Cypher School. It also summarizes Holocaust-related information intercepted during the war years.

National Bestseller An enlightening and utterly convincing re-examination of the allied aerial bombing campaign and of civilian German suffering during World War II–an essential addition to our understanding of world history. During the Second World War, Allied air forces dropped nearly two million tons of bombs on Germany, destroying some 60 cities, killing more than half a million German citizens, and leaving 80,000 pilots dead. Much of the bombing was carried out against the expressed demands of the Allied military leadership. Hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly. Focusing on the crucial period from 1942 to 1945, and using a compelling narrative approach, Fire and Fury tells the story of the American and British bombing campaign through the eyes of those involved: military and civilian command in America, Britain, and Germany, aircrew in the sky, and civilians on the ground. Acclaimed historian Randall Hansen shows that the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was wedded to an outdated strategy whose success had never been proven; how area bombing not only failed to win the war, it probably prolonged it; and that the US campaign, which was driven by a particularly American fusion of optimism and morality, played an important and largely unrecognized role in delivering Allied victory.

Irish Secrets graphically tells the little-known history of German military espionage activity in Ireland - despite Ireland's neutral stance - before and during the Second World War. It details illicit contacts between officers of the Abwehr (German military intelligence) and leaders of the Irish Republican Army with the intent of co-ordinating actions against British targets and the Irish state. Irish Secrets also examines the extent of pro-German support in Ireland, the fledgling Nazi party in Ireland, and the activities of Irish civilians and diplomats abroad who offered to serve Hitler's Germany. It scrutinises the personalities and mission profiles of the eleven German agents (from both the Abwehr and the SD (the SS intelligence service), who operated with widely varying degrees of success on Irish soil, and unearths the stories of previously unknown German operatives and Irish supporters. Many of the most compelling scenarios revolve around the use of recruited Irish nationals for espionage work, some details of which are still classified by the British and Irish governments. This book explores why German intelligence ultimately failed, and proposes that the German effort represented a genuine threat to the Irish state and the Allies alike, which seriously threatened the official position of Irish neutrality. It makes for a gripping account of the intelligence war and highlights the brilliant, creative success of Irish military intelligence in waging a counter-espionage campaign that effectively neutralized the German threat. Drawing from newly released intelligence files in several countries, in-depth interviews conducted with the participants, and on other previously unpublished primary sources, Mark Hull conclusively rewrites what is presently known about a fascinating aspect of the Second World War.