Table of Contents

1. HITLER'S WAR. The Legacy of World War I. The Rise of the Nazis: The New German Republic; Adolf Hitler: The Early Years; Hitler's Worldview. The Nazis in Power. The Breakdown of Peace: Hitler's Foreign Policy Aims; Tearing Up the Versailles Treaty; Czechoslovakia: The Apex of Appeasement; Poland: The Final Crisis. 2. THE GERMAN BLITZKRIEG, 1939-1940. The Invasion of Poland: Mechanized Warfare: A New Military Tactic; The Defeat of Poland. The Conquest of Denmark and Norway. The Low Countries and France: Prewar French Strategy; The German Offensive; Through the Ardennes; The French in a Rout; "The Miracle of Dunkirk"; The Fall of France; Reasons for France's Defeat. The Battle of Britain: Fighter Command and Britain's Air Defense; Nazi Germany's First Defeat. 3. OPERATION BARBAROSSA. The Balkans First. The Opening Phase: A War of Annihilation; German Successes. Soviet Resilience and German Miscalculations: Russian Tenacity and Courage; Unforeseen Challenges; Stalin's Continued Terror. The Wehrmacht Thwarted: Moscow and Leningrad: At the Gates of Moscow; A Soviet Counterattack; The Epic Siege of Leningrad. The Tide Turns: Stalingrad: More German Conquests; Operation Blue; Urban Warfare; The Death of the Sixth Army. Kursk: Germany's Last Offensive on Soviet Soil: Soviet Preparations; A Stalled German Offensive; No Prospect of A German Victory; Hitler and His Generals; The Momentum Changes. 4. THE RACIAL EMPIRE: EXPLOITATION, ENSLAVEMENT, EXTERMINATION. Exploitation and Terror: Forced Labor; Occupied Poland; Occupied Soviet Union. Extermination: Porajmos "The Devouring" of Gypsies and Shoah "The Devastation" of Jews: The SS Mentality; Mobile Death Squads; Extermination Camps; The Uniqueness of the Holocaust. The German People and the Holocaust: Germany; Austria. Europe, America, and the Holocaust: Complicity; Righteous Gentiles; Bombing of Auschwitz Controversy; The Vatican's Policy of Silence. Collaboration with the Nazis in Occupied Europe. Resistance Movements. 5. WAR ON OTHER FRONTS. Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1943: The U-Boats' "Happy Time"; Coping with the Threat. The North-African Campaign: Rommel and the Afrika Korps; Containing the Desert Fox; American Entry; Driving the Axis from North Africa. The Italian Campaign: Invasion of Sicily; Rome under Nazi Occupation; Invasion of the Mainland: Salerno; Anzio: Bloody Stalemate; Cassino: Costly Breakout; The Italian Campaign: A Wasteful Diversion?. The Air War: 1941 to D-Day: Precision and Area Bombing; Was It Worth It?; The Home Front; Sustaining Morale and Coping with Hardship; The "Blitz"; The War and Women. 6. INVASION: FROM THE ATLANTIC WALL TO THE SIEGFRIED LINE. The Landing At Normandy: Preparation; D-Day; Rommel and the Atlantic Wall; Omaha Beach: A Near Disaster; Allied Success. Struggling to Break Out: Cherbourg and Bocage Country; Caen; The Falaise Gap; Liberation. Temporary Stalemate on the Western Front: German Recovery; German Military Resurgence: Market Garden, Aachen, Huertgen Forest, Metz. Battle of the Bulge: Hitler's Last Gamble: Hitler's Goals and Strategy; Initial Success; American Resistance and German Defeat. 7. THE END OF THE THIRD REICH. Red Army on the Offensive: Operation Bagration; Beyond the Soviet Union's Borders. The Drive into Germany from the West: The Rhineland; Montgomery's Crossing of the Rhine; Saturation Bombing; The Ruhr and Beyond; Victory in Italy; Unconditional Surrender: Prolonging the War?. Liberating Concentration Camps. The Drive into Germany from the East: The Vistula Offensive: Poland and the Reich; Soviet Retribution and German Flight. To the Bitter End: Soviet Advance and Goebbels' Desperate Appeals; Nazi Terror; The Bunker: A Delusional Hitler; The Storming of Berlin: The Last Battle; The End of Hitler and His Third Reich. 8. THE AFTERMATH, LEGACY, AND MEANING OF THE WAR. Death Toll. Material Damage. Population Transfers and Ethnic Cleansing. Retribution for Collaborators. War Crimes Trials. Jewish Survivors. The New Germany: Overcoming the Past: The Reality of Total Defeat; Konrad Adenauer: Architect of the New West Germany; Facing Responsibility; Enduring Myths: A Defensive War and the Wehrmacht's Clean Hands; The German Clergy in the Confession Booth. Emergence of the Cold War. European Unity. The Demise of European Imperialism. The War and Western Consciousness.