Новинки Роджера Мурхауса

Они обещали друг другу мир. И вскоре начали войну.

Глобальное и всестороннее исследование документа, коренным образом повлиявшего на мировую историю XX века.

23 августа 1939 года Советский Союз и нацистская Германия подписали Договор о ненападении, известный как пакт Молотова – Риббентропа. Секретный дополнительный протокол к этому договору, фактически очертивший «территориально-политическое переустройство» Прибалтийских государств и Польши, предопределил дальнейшее развитие истории в XX веке. Через 8 дней после подписания договора вооружённые силы Германии перешли границы Польши, через несколько дней Англия, Франция, Австралия и Новая Зеландия объявили Германии войну, а 17 сентября 1939 года на территорию Польши вошли советские войска. Британский историк Роджер Мурхаус анализирует предпосылки и последствия этого «дьявольского союза» и пытается найти ответ на вопрос: действительно ли Гитлер и Сталин верили в возможность совместного существования двух поделивших Европу держав или же это изначально было лишь тактической уловкой, призванной потянуть время перед неминуемым военным ударом?

23 августа 1939 года Советский Союз и нацистская Германия подписали Договор о ненападении, известный как пакт Молотова – Риббентропа. Секретный дополнительный протокол к этому договору, фактически очертивший ""территориально-политическое переустройство"" Прибалтийских государств и Польши, предопределил дальнейшее развитие истории в XX веке. Через 8 дней после подписания договора вооружённые силы Германии перешли границы Польши, через несколько дней Англия, Франция, Австралия и Новая Зеландия объявили Германии войну, а 17 сентября 1939 года на территорию Польши вошли советские войска. Британский историк Роджер Мурхаус анализирует предпосылки…

Drawing for the first time on Polish, German and Soviet sources, First to Fight is the definitive history of the German invasion of Poland, which opened the war in September 1939. Roger Moorhouse provides a dramatic narrative of military events, brought to life by a select cast of generals and politicians, soldiers and civilians from all sides. In the process, First to Fight explodes many of the myths that still surround the campaign and challenge our understanding of how Britain and France entered the war.

Did Britain and France assist their Polish ally to the best of their abilities when the German armies crossed the border on 1 September 1939? While they went to war with Germany, why did they not declare war on the Soviet Union when its troops invaded Poland from the east later in the month? And if the violation of Poland had been the reason to go to war in 1939, how could the Western Allies justify handing the country over on a plate to Stalin in 1945?

Published to tie in with the eightieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, First to Fight explodes many of the myths around what is a shameful chapter in both British and French history, and forensically examines a pivotal moment in the war’s history.

Hitler's Titanic - the deadliest and most secret catastrophe in the history of maritime warfare.

When the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a Soviet submarine, with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives in January 1945, it wrote itself an unenviable record in the history books as the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.

Yet, aside from its grim fate in the icy waters of the Baltic, the story of the Gustloff is a fascinating one, which sheds light on a number of little-known aspects of the wider history of the Third Reich.

Launched in Hamburg in 1937, the luxury liner Wilhelm Gustloff was originally to be christened the “Adolf Hitler”, but instead was named after the Swiss Nazi leader, who had been assassinated by a Jewish gunman the previous year.

The ship was the pride of the Nazi Labour Movement, and would be run as a cruise liner by the subsidiary KdF, an organisation responsible for German workers’ leisure time, cruising the Baltic and Scandinavian coast, seducing its passengers with the apparent benefits of belonging to the Nazi ‘national community’.

The Gustloff also served a vital propaganda function for Hitler’s Reich.

It was moored in London in 1938 to allow Austrian citizens in the city to participate in the plebiscite over Hitler’s annexation of the country and the following year, it brought the elite German ‘Condor Legion’ home from service alongside Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War.

When war came in 1939, the Gustloff was used as a hospital ship and ferried wounded soldiers and sailors home from the 1940 campaign in Narvik.

Later, moored in the harbour at Gdynia, it served as a floating barracks for U-Boat crews undergoing training.

In 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff would meet its nemesis.

That spring, it would be requisitioned for “Operation Hannibal”, the attempt to evacuate civilians, soldiers and officials westwards from the German eastern provinces threatened by the Soviet advance.

While many ships made numerous crossings, the Gustloff would not survive her first voyage.

Packed to the gunnels with desperate evacuees, she was torpedoed off the Pomeranian coast on January 30 – ironically the twelfth anniversary of Hitler coming to power – with the loss of almost 10,000 lives.

The story of the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking in the freezing waters of the Baltic is dramatic and it has rarely been satisfactorily told in the English language.

This gripping Kindle Single will explore the history of the German ship that suffered the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.

Roger Moorhouse is a critically-acclaimed freelance historian specialising in modern German and Central European history. Published in 15 languages, he is the author of the international bestseller 'Berlin at War' and 'The Devils’ Alliance' which was published in the UK & US in the autumn of 2014. He is also author of 'His Struggle: Hitler in Landsberg, 1924.'

Killing Hitler

Berlin was the city at the very center of World War II. It was the launching pad for Hitler's empire, the embodiment of his vision of a world metropolis. Berlin was also the place where Hitler's Reich would ultimately fall. Berlin suffered more air raids than any other German city and endured the full force of a Soviet siege. In Berlin at War, historian Roger Moorhouse uses diaries, memoirs, and interviews to provide a searing first-hand account of life and death in the Nazi capital -- the privations, the hopes and fears, and the nonconformist tradition that saw some Berliners provide underground succor to the city's remaining Jews. Combining comprehensive research with gripping narrative, Berlin at War is the incredible story of the city -- and people -- that saw the whole of World War II.