In the dark days after the events in the book Gust Front, but before the primary invasion, the Chancellor of Germany faces a critical decision.

THE STORY: Concerns an idealistic German who, with his American wife and two children, flees Hitler's Germany and finds sanctuary with his wife's family in the United States. He hopes for a respite from the dangerous work in which he has been invol

In this viscerally exciting account, a paratrooper-turned-historian reveals the details of World War II’s largest airborne operation—one that dropped 17,000 Allied paratroopers deep into the heart of Nazi Germany. On the morning of March 24, 1945, more than two thousand Allied aircraft droned through a cloudless sky toward Germany. Escorted by swarms of darting fighters, the armada of transport planes carried 17,000 troops to be dropped, via parachute and glider, on the far banks of the Rhine River. Four hours later, after what was the war’s largest airdrop, all major objectives had been seized. The invasion smashed Germany’s last line of defense and gutted Hitler’s war machine; the war in Europe ended less than two months later. Four Hours of Fury follows the 17th Airborne Division as they prepare for Operation Varsity, a campaign that would rival Normandy in scale and become one of the most successful and important of the war. Even as the Third Reich began to implode, it was vital for Allied troops to have direct access into Germany to guarantee victory—the 17th Airborne secured that bridgehead over the River Rhine. And yet their story has until now been relegated to history’s footnotes. Reminiscent of A Bridge Too Far and Masters of the Air, Four Hours of Fury does for the 17th Airborne what Band of Brothers did for the 101st. It is a captivating, action-packed tale of heroism and triumph spotlighting one of World War II’s most under-chronicled and dangerous operations.

A thrilling tale of a war that might have been. Their Fhrer is dead, but a cadre of SS officers back Himmler to seize control of the Third Reich and attempt to change the course of the war. They first form an armistice with Russia, then appoint the legendary "Desert Fox" Erwin Rommel to lead the European theater into a confrontation with General George Patton that will determine the fate of Europe--and perhaps the free world. (June)

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

The Rhineland, scene of European conflict for generations, remained an intensely contentious area following the end of the hostilities of World War I. Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland remained German but was to be occupied by Allied troops for fifteen years - a controversial and uncomfortable situation that inevitably caused great friction between rival European powers."The Watch on the Rhine" deals with this eventful period of German history and the actions of the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission, which was set up to administer the Allied armies from its headquarters at Koblenz. The victorious allies - Britain, the USA, France and Belgium - were to occupy, respectively, the three bridgeheads of the Rhine at Cologne, Koblenz and Mainz and at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), with three High Commissioners, British, Belgian and French, but with no American as the USA had not signed the treaty. The author's father, James Herbertson, after serving with distinction in the trenches on the Western Front, was, as a skilled linguist, appointed to the High Commission as Political Officer to the British High Commissioner, whom he later succeeded.The High Commission was wound up following American withdrawal of support and final Allied evacuation by 1930. The reoccupation of the Rhineland by Hitler in 1936 was only a matter of time - as is foreshadowed in this insightful personal history.Drawing on personal memories of her own years spent in the British zone and on the Annual Reports of the High Commission, in which her father played a prominent part, Margaret Pawley provides a unique insider view of its work up to its disbandment. She vividly evokes the atmosphere of growing resentment at the continuing occupation of German soil and the rise of Hitler that was to lead inexorably to his re-militarisation of the Rhineland in 1936."The Watch on the Rhine" is the first book to examine fully the contributions of all four occupying forces and offers a compelling and comprehensive history of a critical phase of European history.

From the late 1930s to the early twenty-first century, European and American filmmakers have displayed an enduring fascination with Nazi leaders, rituals, and symbols, making scores of films from Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and Watch on the Rhine (1943) through Des Teufels General (The Devil’s General, 1955) and Pasqualino settebellezze (Seven Beauties, 1975), up to Der Untergang (Downfall, 2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and beyond. Probing the emotional sources and effects of this fascination, Sabine Hake looks at the historical relationship between film and fascism and its far-reaching implications for mass culture, media society, and political life. In confronting the specter and spectacle of fascist power, these films not only depict historical figures and events but also demand emotional responses from their audiences, infusing the abstract ideals of democracy, liberalism, and pluralism with new meaning and relevance. Hake underscores her argument with a comprehensive discussion of films, including perspectives on production history, film authorship, reception history, and questions of performance, spectatorship, and intertextuality. Chapters focus on the Hollywood anti-Nazi films of the 1940s, the West German anti-Nazi films of the 1950s, the East German anti-fascist films of the 1960s, the Italian “Naziploitation” films of the 1970s, and issues related to fascist aesthetics, the ethics of resistance, and questions of historicization in films of the 1980s–2000s from the United States and numerous European countries.