Germany
The Pour le Mérite
By Robert WhiterIt was early in the year 1917, and a member of the Luftstreiknafte (German Army Air Service), Freiherr (Baron) Manfred von Richthofen, was feeling a trifle disgruntled. Read more
Germany
It was early in the year 1917, and a member of the Luftstreiknafte (German Army Air Service), Freiherr (Baron) Manfred von Richthofen, was feeling a trifle disgruntled. Read more
Germany
In the spring of 1940, as the German armed forces were sweeping across Western Europe, famed automobile designer Dr. Read more
Germany
“Bombs Away” rang out over the intercom static of the 29 aircraft of the 91st Bomb Group (Heavy). Read more
Germany
Just before six o’clock on the morning of October 15, 1917, a caravan of five rickety automobiles departed the prison at Saint-Lazare and proceeded to make its way post-haste through the gaslit streets of Paris. Read more
Germany
As the 1930s unfolded, Adolf Hitler sought to avoid having Great Britain join the war he intended to launch. Read more
Germany
The German mountain troops were dug into their shallow, frozen foxholes waiting for the enemy ski troops to appear across the horizon. Read more
Germany
War clouds gathered rapidly once Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Allied demands that Hitler withdraw his armies went unheeded. Read more
Germany
On the evening of October 29, 1943, a middle-aged man, innocuous in appearance but for his deep-set, penetrating eyes, appeared at the German embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara. Read more
Germany
Within his reinforced concrete bunker, 50 feet below the garden of the New Reichs Chancellery on Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse, German dictator Adolf Hitler, his soon-to-be bride Eva Braun, and several hundred friends, SS guards, and staff members could feel the concussion and hear the unending drumroll of thousands of Soviet artillery shells reducing the already-battered capital city of the Third Reich to unrecognizable rubble. Read more
Germany
Stripped of the regalia and high position of Reich Marshal in the Nazi regime and tried as a war criminal, the former Luftwaffe chief was by far the most colorful and outspoken defendant during the postwar proceedings. Read more
Germany
It was an impressive sight. Upon the reviewing stand as honored guest was General Dwight D. Read more
Germany
To their Russian enemies they were the “Spanish mercenaries of Hitler’s Fascist lackey, Franco.” To Hitler himself, “One can’t imagine more fearless fellows. Read more
Germany
By 1944, many top generals in Adolf Hitler’s army understood the war was lost and that they had better make arrangements to ensure their safety. Read more
Germany
Following the forced evacuation of Allied forces at Dunkirk in June 1940, British leaders viewed a dim future. Read more
Germany
By the spring of 1645, the open warfare between King Charles I and his rebellious Parliament had dragged on for nearly three years, with no apparent end in sight. Read more
Germany
On a hot, dusty September morning in 1631, the Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Emperor rested easily on the plains outside the village of Breitenfield, six miles north of Leipzig, Saxony. Read more
Germany
In the summer of 1916, America was an island of peace in an ocean of war. The guns of August 1914 had been blazing away in Europe for nearly two years now, primed by a booming American munitions industry that found itself growing rich on the long-distance suffering of others. Read more
Germany
One of the most precious resources in war, and the one most often in short supply, is sleep. Read more
Germany
Six days after the Allies’ D-Day landings on the coast of Normandy in June 1944, Germany retaliated by launching its first Vergeltungswaffe, or Vengeance Weapon, at the city of London. Read more
Germany
The fundamental pillars of war—strategy and tactics— inevitably depend on an imponderable and uncontrollable factor: the weather. With the increasing sophistication of weather data gathering, analysis, and forecasting in the early 20th century, predicting the weather became an integral part of World War II. Read more