Showing titles in World War II

Stan was aged 15 when war broke out. Over a period of 5 years, he dodged death as he travelled thousands of kilometres from Poland to the UK, via Soviet gulags, Uzbekistan, the Middle East and India. He then trained as a paratrooper in Scotland. He met a local girl and was going to get married, but had to leave her behind when he was dropped into battle at Arnhem. He was trapped behind enemy lines and captured by the Nazis. Only the Dutch underground might be able to help him escape.

In his critically acclaimed account of one of Europe’s most important but often forgotten figures, former BBC foreign correspondent and EU insider Martyn Bond tells the extraordinary story of Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi. Known as “The Grandfather of Europe”, he was a personal friend of Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer and also served as the model for the fictional resistance hero Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca. Actor Christopher Kent narrates this compelling new audiobook version of Martyn Bond’s original biography.

Very few British soldiers could lay claim to such a full war as Leslie Young. Having survived the retreat to and evacuation from Dunkirk, he volunteered for the newly formed commandos and took part in their first operation: the raid on the Lofoten Islands. He fought and was captured in Tunisia. He went on the run before his POW camp at Fontanellato was taken over by the Nazis after the September 1943 Italian armistice. He spent six months on the run in the Apennine mountains aided by brave and selfless Italians, many of whom were actively fighting their occupiers.

July, 1942. The North African campaign rages. The Allies have been forced to retreat from Gazala, and are being pursued through the sandy wastes by 'The Desert Fox' – Field Marshal Rommel and his Panzerarmee. The target of the enemy is Cairo – if taken, the Axis powers will control the Suez Canal and be within striking distance of the oil fields of the Middle East, tipping the war in Hitler's favour. In their way is the Eighth Army, spearheaded by the battle-hardened troops of the Ninth Australian Division and the Second New Zealand Division.

In 1943 Polish underground fighter John Wiernicki is captured and beaten by the Gestapo, then shipped to Auschwitz. In this chilling memoir, Wiernicki, a Gentile, details life in the infamous death camp, and his battle to survive, physically and morally, in the face of utter evil. The author begins by remembering his aristocratic youth, an idyllic time shattered by German invasion.

Until recent years, very little was known of the tens of thousands of foreign nationals from Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and Spain who served voluntarily in the military formations of the German army and the German Waffen-SS. In Kaisergruber's book, the listener discovers important issues of collaboration, the apparent contributions of the volunteers to the German war effort, their varied experiences, their motives, the attitude of the German High Command and bureaucracy, and the reaction to these in the occupied countries.  

In Fire and Fortitude—winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History—John C. McManus presented a riveting account of the US Army's fledgling fight in the Pacific following Pearl Harbor. Now, in Island Infernos, he explores the Army’s dogged pursuit of Japanese forces, island by...

Ernest "Andy" Andrews's company, part of the 1st Infantry Division, departed England on the evening of June 5. Fighting in Normandy, Andy was nicked by a bullet and evacuated to England in late July when the wound became infected. He rejoined H Company in time to fight in the Battle of the Bulge. Andy's outfit ends the war fighting in Czechoslovakia, where Andy witnesses the German surrender in early May. The war shaped Andy's postwar life in countless ways. This vivid firsthand account takes the listener along from Normandy to victory with Andy and his machine-gun crew.

"The Furhrer" delves into the complex and disturbing life of Adolf Hitler, a man who became synonymous with hatred and fear. Beginning with his early days in Linz, following his path through the Bavarian Army and the failed Putsch, and culminating in his death, the film seeks to understand the psychological trajectory of his descent into tyranny.

Ce livre retrace de façon exhaustive la vie hors du commun d'un médecin nazi particulièrement cruel, Josef Mengele. Soldat au service de Hitler à partir de 1940, c'est comme médecin qu'il entame sa funeste carrière de bourreau, en 1943. D'abord à Auschwitz, puis au camp des Tsiganes, et enfin à Birkenau, orchestrant des expériences atroces et souvent létales sur les prisonniers. À la fin de la guerre, commence pour Mengele une longue cavale qui va le conduire de tanière en tanière, depuis Munich jusqu'au Brésil, en passant par l'Argentine et le Paraguay.

This is Michael Krupa’s story of how in 1939 he escaped the German invasion of Poland only to be captured by the Red Army, accused of espionage and interrogated in the notorious Lubianka prison. He was then sent to the infamous Pechora Gulag, where most inmates died of overwork and starvation within a year. Amazingly, Kupra then escaped and made the gruelling journey from Siberia to Afghanistan. This is a remarkable true story of survival and also gives a chilling insight into the brutality of Stalinist Russia.

Stanley Aylett's remarkable account of six years' service as a front-line surgeon with the British Army is that rare thing: a complete narrative from the first week of the Second World War until months after the final capitulation of Nazi Germany. That war was the last Western conflict in which military surgeons performed operations immediately behind the front line, often in makeshift theatres set up in tents or abandoned, battle-scarred buildings. Surgeon at War records the resilience and resourcefulness of the medical teams.

Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz Guderian, are largely unknown. This biographical study of four German panzer army commanders serving on the Eastern Front is based upon their unpublished wartime letters to their wives. David Stahel offers a complete picture of the men conducting Hitler's war in the East, with an emphasis on the private fears and public pressures they operated under.

AN EXTRAORDINARY AND UNFORGETTABLE NEW FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF D-DAY Seventy-five years ago, he hit Omaha Beach with the first wave. Now Ray Lambert, ninety-eight years old, delivers one of the most remarkable memoirs of our time, a tour-de-force of remembrance evoking his role as a decorated World...

Wilhelm Canaris was appointed by Hitler to head the Abwehr (the German secret service) 18 months after the Nazis came to power. But Canaris turned against the Fuhrer and the Nazi regime, believing that Hitler would start a war Germany could not win. In 1938 he was involved in an attempted coup, undermined by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In 1940 he sabotaged the German plan to invade England, and fed General Franco vital information that helped him keep Spain out of the war.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut fictionalised his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden in 1945. Vonnegut was imprisoned in a cellar while the firestorm raged through the city, wiping out generations of innocent lives. Victor Gregg remained aboveground throughout the firebombing. This is his true eyewitness account of that week in February 1945. Already a seasoned soldier with the Rifle Brigade, Gregg joined the 10th Parachute Regiment in 1944. He was captured at Arnhem, where he volunteered to be sent to a work camp rather a POW camp.

The remarkable true story of a Canadian paratrooper’s escape from behind enemy lines following the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944. Ideal for listeners of James Holland, Anthony Beevor and Cornelius Ryan. On September 17, 1944, over 8,000 men of the British 1st Airborne Division landed in German-occupied Netherlands as part of the largest airborne invasion ever undertaken. Twenty-two-year-old Canadian paratrooper Leo Heaps was one of them.

A powerful true story, Until We Meet Again: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Holocaust recounts the harrowing journey of two young lovers and their families in Nazi-occupied Hrubieszow. Facing impossible choices, they rely on courage, faith, and compassion to survive, offering a deeply moving testament to love, resilience, and hope in humanity’s darkest time.

In celebration of the 75th anniversary, a riveting first-hand account of the Battle of Okinawa—the Pacific War’s "bloodiest battle of all" (New York Times)—from the first officer ashore, who served at the front for the battle’s entire 82-day duration, heroism that earned him a Bronze...

From the bestselling author of Shoot for the Moon and A Terrible Glory comes the dramatic story of the courageous paratroopers and glidermen of the 82nd Airborne, who risked their lives to seize and secure a small, centuries-old bridge in France that played a pivotal role in the success of D-Day...