This volume examines relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and socialist Eastern European states during the Cold War. The chapters take previous findings on government policy and China's role as a global player in the Cold War game as a starting point to locate the PRC in the socialist world and assess levels of interaction beyond diplomatic and governmental relations. By focusing on transfers and interconnections and the social dimension of governmental interactions, the primary goal of this book is to explore structures, institutions, and spaces of interaction between China and Eastern Europe and their potential autonomy from political conjunctures. The guiding question that the book raises is: To what extent did Chinese and Eastern European players, outside the range of the power centres, have room to manoeuvre beyond the agendas of the Kremlin, national governments, or party leaderships? The question of the relative autonomy becomes especially vibrant against the backdrop of the development of Sino-Soviet relations from alliance to split to reconciliation through the Cold War era. This book contributes to the growing scholarship on East-South and intra-bloc relations from the perspective of global and transnational history and will be of interest to researchers, students and policy makers in the fields of History, East European and Russian studies, International Relations and politics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Cold War History.

This book presents the remarkable personal journals of a German soldier who participated in Operation Barbarossa and subsequent battles on the Eastern Front, revealing the combat experience of the German-Russian War as seldom seen before. Hans Roth was a member of the anti-tank (Panzerjager) battalion, 299th Infantry Division, attached to Sixth Army, as the invasion of Russia began. Writing as events transpired, he recorded the mystery and tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in 1941. Then a firestorm broke loose as the Wehrmacht broke across the front. During the Kiev encirclement, Roth's unit was under constant attack as the Soviets desperately tried to break through the German ring. At one point, a friend serving with the SS led him to a site where he witnessed civilians being massacred (which may well have been Babi Yar). After suffering through a horrible winter against apparently endless Russian reserves, his division went on the offensive again, this time on the northern wing of 'Case Gelb', the German drive toward Stalingrad. In these journals, attacks and counterattacks are described in 'you are there' detail, as if to keep himself sane, knowing that his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass through Wehrmacht censors. When the Soviet counteroffensive of winter 1942 commences, his unit is stationed alongside the Italian 8th Army, and his observations of its collapse, as opposed to the reaction of the German troops sent to stiffen its front, are particularly fascinating. These journals, including original maps, some of which Roth himself helped compose, were recently discovered by his descendants, who arranged for the translation of their long-lost grandfather's journals. Roth was able to bring three of them back to his wife during the war, but never brought back a fourth journal, as his fate after the summer of 1943 in Russia is still unknown. What he did leave behind, now finally revealed, is an incredible first-hand account of the horrific war the Germans waged in Russia.

This is a history of one of the oldest and most important scientific societies, the German Physical Society, during the Nazi regime and immediate postwar period. When Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Physical Society included prominent Jewish scientists as members, including Fritz Haber and Albert Einstein. As Jewish scientists lost their jobs and emigrated, the Society gradually lost members. In 1938, under pressure from the Nazi Ministry of Science, Education, and Culture, the Society forced out the last of its Jewish colleagues. This action was just the most prominent example of the tension between accommodation and autonomy that characterized the challenges facing physicists in the society. They strove to retain as much autonomy as possible, but tried to achieve this by accommodating themselves to Nazi policies, which culminated in the campaign by the Society's president to place physics in the service of the war effort.

This book is the first major study of the blackout in the Second World War. Developing a comparative history of this system of civil defense in Britain and Germany, it begins by exploring how the blackout was planned for in both countries, and how the threat of aerial bombing framed its development. It then examines how well the blackout was adhered to, paying particular regard to the tension between its military value and the difficulties it caused civilians. The book then moves on to discuss how the blackout undermined the perception of security on the home front, especially for women. The final chapter examines the impact of the blackout on industry and transport. Arguing that the blackout formed an integral part in mobilising and legitimating British and German wartime discourses of community, fairness and morality, the book explores its profound impact on both countries.

This little-known story of Australia's M/Z Unit commandos, and the part they played in the Southwest Pacific during World War II, is a fascinating account of daring, clandestine operations conducted by the Allies deep into enemy-held territory. M Unit personnel were secretly landed to set up coastwatching posts and radio stations to report on Japanese shipping movements and bombing flights heading to raid Allied positions. Members of the Z Unit carried out assigned raids into enemy controlled areas, and also attacked targets of opportunity. Many commandos were delivered on their missions by U.S. Navy submarines that sneaked into dangerously shallow waters to put the men ashore--and then returned to pick them up. Other operatives were inserted by PT boats, Catalina aircraft, parachute, and snake boats. Many of these operations are still classified.

This book contains essays on Fascism, Nazism and the Holocaust by distinguished scholar Professor Dan Stone. It examines issues such as race science and the racial state, Nazi race ideology, slave labour, concentration camps, British reaction to the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust, the search for missing persons in the chaos of postwar Europe and the postwar revival of fascism. Though mainly focused on Nazi Germany, it also makes comparisons with other fascist movements and regimes in Romania and elsewhere. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of antisemitism, fascism, Nazism, World War II, genocide studies and the Holocaust.

The cultural legacy of the air war on Germany is explored in this comparative study of two bombed cities from different sides of the subsequently divided nation. Contrary to what is often assumed, Allied bombing left a lasting imprint on German society, spawning vibrant memory cultures that can be traced from the 1940s to the present. While the death of half a million civilians and the destruction of much of Germany's urban landscape provided 'usable' rallying points in the great political confrontations of the day, the cataclysms were above all remembered on a local level, in the very spaces that had been hit by the bombs and transformed beyond recognition. The author investigates how lived experience in the shadow of Nazism and war was translated into cultural memory by local communities in Kassel and Magdeburg struggling to find ways of coming to terms with catastrophic events unprecedented in living memory.

During World War II, Axis prisoners of war received arguably better treatment in the U.S. than anywhere else. Bound by the Geneva Convention but also hoping for reciprocal treatment of American POWs, the U.S. sought to humanely house and employ 425,000 Axis prisoners, many in rural communities in the South. This is the first book-length examination of Tennessee's role in the POW program, and how the influx of prisoners affected communities. Towns like Tullahoma transformed into military metropolises. Memphis received millions in defense spending. Paris had a secret barrage balloon base. The wooded Crossville camp housed German and Italian officers. Prisoners worked tobacco, lumber and cotton across the state. Some threatened escape or worse. When the program ended, more than 25,000 POWs lived and worked in Tennessee.

In 1945, remnants of the Polish Home Army re-formed to counter brutal Soviet repressions. In July of that year, more than 7,000 HA freedom fighters were arrested in the northeastern Augustow region and held in barns, pigsties and warehouses where they were beaten and tortured. Two thousand of them were never seen again-their whereabouts remain a mystery. Seventy-five years later, their relatives still search for answers and the location of their mass burial. This book examines the fateful events of the Augustow Roundup (a.k.a. "little Katyn") through eyewitness testimonies.

With a preface by Lord Richard Attenborough, a collection of accounts from some of the 10,000 children rescued from the Nazi Regime and brought to the UK by the Kinderstransport scheme In November 1938, international public opinion was shocked by the news of Kristallnacht - the anti-Jewish pogrom that led to the burning of synagogues and the first mass arrests of Jewish men. Twelve days later, the British government implemented the Kindertransport plan, which allowed many children to leave the horrors of the Nazi regime and find temporary refuge within British families and hostels. By the time war was declared in September 1939, this brave undertaking had saved 10,000 lives.This book, based on the Academy Award-winning feature documentary of the same name, reveals what it was like to grow up in the shadow of the Nazi threat, to escape danger and fear, but also to leave family and friends, perhaps for ever. It is poignantly told in the words of those directly involved. It is both an astonishing insight into a remarkable moment of history and a timely reminder of how welcoming our country has been in the past to those who need welcome, shelter and hope.

The book explores how Churchill was portrayed in the UK press during the Second World War, comparing his depictions in Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and provincial English newspapers. By using a variety of newspapers from these areas, it examines local opinions about Churchill at the time he was the wartime prime minister. It analyses how Churchill was received and depicted by newspapers in the UK and why differences in these depictions emerged in each area. It contributes to the study of public opinion in the war and of Churchill's reputation, of the British media, as well as to the study of the notion of Britishness, focusing on local perspectives.

The remarkable story of a championship college football team that achieved perfection in 1941 as America drew closer and closer to World War II and the sacrifices the young athletes made when Pearl Harbor turned their fears into reality. As the United States veered towards war during the fall of 1941, the University of Minnesota football team completed an undefeated national championship season just fifteen days before the strike on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, players left behind college football stardom to command PT boats in the South Pacific, sweep mines on the beaches of Normandy, and join the invasion of Iwo Jima along with so many others from the Greatest Generation. In From the Gridiron to the Battlefield, Danny Spewak shares the struggles and triumphs of the Golden Gophers' national championship season. He recounts how players from the University of Minnesota battled on the field even with the threat of war hanging over their heads, bringing to life the tensions Americans felt in their daily lives during a time when the country was bitterly divided about whether to aid the Allies. When the United States finally entered the war, every member of the team participated in the war effort in one way or another. Some, including team captain and Heisman Trophy winner Bruce Smith, remained stateside in the U.S. Navy. Others set sail for the Pacific Theater. Some saw more direct combat: reserve fullback Mike Welch earned a Purple Heart for saving five shipmates on the USS Tide at Normandy, halfback Gene Bierhaus fought with the Marines at Iwo Jima, and backfield mate Joe Lauterbach lost his left leg during the same invasion. In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, From the Gridiron to the Battlefield reveals the sacrifices and courage of the Greatest Generation through the eyes of the 1941 Golden Gophers.

"Few ships in American history have had as illustrious a history as the heavy cruiser USS Portland (CA-33), affectionately known by her crew as 'Sweet Pea.' With the destructionof most of the U.S. battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor, cruisers such as Sweet Pea carried the biggest guns the Navy possessed for nearly a year after the start of World War II. Sweet Pea at War describes in harrowing detail how Portland and her sisters protected the precious carriers and held the line against overwhelming Japanese naval strength. Portland was instrumental in the dramatic American victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the naval battle of Guadalcanal--conflicts that historians regard as turning points in the Pacific war. She rescued nearly three thousand sailors from sunken ships, some of them while she herself was badly damaged. Only a colossal hurricane ended her career, but she sailed home from that, too. Based on extensive research in official documents and interviews with members of the ship's crew, Sweet Pea at War recounts from launching to scrapping the history of USS Portland, demonstrating that she deserves to be remembered as one of the most important ships in U.S. naval history.

This book investigates cinematic representations of the murder of European Jews and civilian opposition to Nazi occupation from the war up until the twenty-first century. The study exposes a chronology of the conflict's memorialization whose geo-political alignments are demarcated by vectors of time and space-or 'chronotopes', using Mikhail Bakhtin's term. Camino shows such chronotopes to be first defined by the main allies; the USA, USSR and UK; and then subsequently expanding from the geographical and political centres of the occupation; France, the USSR and Poland. Films from Western and Eastern Europe and the USA are treated as primary and secondary sources of the conflict. These sources contribute to a sentient or emotional history that privileges affect and construct what Michel Foucault labels biopolitics. These cinematic narratives, which are often based on memoirs of resistance fighters like Joseph Kessel or Holocaust survivors such as Primo Levi and Wanda Jakubowska, evoke the past in what Marianne Hirsch has described as 'post-memory'.

Situated on Europe's northern periphery, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden found themselves caught between warring powers during World War II. Ultimately, these nations survived the conflict as sovereign states whose wartime experiences have profoundly shaped their historiography, literature, cinema and memory cultures. Nordic War Stories explores the commonalities and divergences among the five Nordic countries, examining national historiographies alongside representations of the war years in canonical literary works, travel writing, and film media. Together, they comprise a valuable companion that challenges the myth of Scandinavian homogeneity while demonstrating the powerful influence that the war continues to exert on national identities.

Numerous books on the topic of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been published hitherto. Yet, no one has written about the fire and atomic bombings in the context of the U.S. justification of the crime of indiscriminate bombings and its relationship to Japan's political exploitation of the atomic bombing to cover up Hirohito's war responsibility. Further, no one has analyzed the fundamental contradiction in Japan's peace constitution between the concealment of Hirohito's war crimes and the responsibility of the U.S. Readers will learn how Japanese and U.S. official war memories were crafted to justify their respective wartime performances, exposing the flaws and failing of present-day democracy in Japan and the U.S. This book also explores how Japanese people could potentially create a truly powerful cultural memory of war, utilizing various forms of artwork including Japan's traditional performing art, Noh. It should appeal to many readers-historians (both modern American and Japanese history specialists), constitutional scholars, students, peace and anti-nuclear activists, intellectuals as well as general readers.

By analyzing some of the most controversial topics related to the Second World War in south-eastern Europe: the Holocaust, the genocide of Serbs and Roma, the issue of political prisoners and state-sponsored crimes, censorship during Communist Yugoslavia, the use of memory in war propaganda, and representation of tragedies in museums and art, this book allows for a greater understanding of the development of intergroup violence in the former Yugoslavia.

Drawing on historiography of the Japanese occupation in the Chinese, Japanese, and English languages, this book examines the politics of the Manchukuo puppet state from the angle of notable Chinese who cooperated with the Japanese military and headed its government institutions. The war in Asia between 1931 and 1945, and particularly the early years of the conflict from 1931 to 1937, is a topic of world history that is often glossed over or misinterpreted. Much of the research and public opinion on this period in China, Japan, and the West deem these Chinese figures to be traitors, particles of Japanese colonialism, and collaborators under occupation. In contrast, this book highlights the importance of analyzing the national ideas of Manchukuo's Chinese government leaders as a method of understanding Manchukuo's operating mechanisms, Sino-Japanese interactions, and China's turbulent history in the early twentieth century. Chinese Government Leaders in Manchukuo, 1931-1937 fills a gap in this research and is an ideal resource for scholars studying wartime Asia and Europe, as well as non-specialist readers who are interested in collaboration in general.

Micronesians often liken the Pacific War to a typhoon, one that swept away their former lives and brought dramatic changes to their understandings of the world and their places in it. Whether they spent the war in bomb shelters, in sweet potato fields under the guns of Japanese soldiers, or in their homes on atolls sheltered from the war, Micronesians who survived those years know that their peoples passed through a major historical transformation. Yet Pacific War histories scarcely mention the Islanders across whose lands and seas the fighting waged. Memories of War sets out to the fill that historical gap by presenting the missing voices of Micronesians and by viewing those years from their perspectives. The focus is on Micronesian remembrances-the ritual commemorations, features of the landscape, stories, dances, and songs that keep their memories of the conflict alive. The inclusion of numerous and extensive interviews and songs is an important feature of this book, allowing Micronesians to speak for themselves about their experiences. In addition, they also reveal distinctively Micronesian cultural memories of war. Memories of War preserves powerful and poignant memories for Micronesians; it also demonstrates to students of history and culture the extent to which cultural practices and values shape the remembrance of personal experience.

Air-dropped supplies were a vital part of the Allied campaign in Burma during World War II. The transportation of munitions, food and medical supplies was undertaken in the most difficult situations, both on the land where the air bases were often situated in remote tropical jungle terrain and in the air when hazardous flying conditions were met in the steamy airs above the carpet of forest treetops. This book is based upon the memories of nine veterans of the campaign: John Hart, an air-dispatcher with 194 Squadron; Peter Bray, a Dakota pilot with 31 Squadron; Arthur Watts, a fitter with both 31 and 194 Squadrons; Colin Lynch an Observer on 31 Squadron; Norman Currell, a Dakota pilot with 31 Squadron; George Hufflett, 1st Queens Infantry; Ken Brown, Royal Signals; Eric Knowles, the Buffs and Dame Vera Lynn who was with ENSA during the campaign. It describes how they arrived in Burma and their previous wartime experiences and then explains there parts in the famous actions such as The Defence of Arakan, The Sieges of Imphal and Kohima, the Allied Counter-attack, the Advance to Mandalay and the Race to Rangoon. The author explains the background to this theatre of war and then puts the veterans memories into context as the campaign progresses.

Soldiers disguised as a herd of cows, cork bath mats for troops crossing streams and a tank with a piano attachment for camp concerts are just some of the absurd inventions to be found in this book of cartoons designed to keep spirits up during the Second World War. These intricate comic drawings poke gentle fun at both the instruments of war and the indignity of the air-raid shelter in Heath Robinson's inimitable style.