Rupert Butler Bücher

Das vorliegende Werk zeichnet ein genaues Bild von Heinrich Himmlers Gestapo, deren 20.000 Mitarbeiter für die innere Sicherheit im Reich verantwortlich waren. Unter ihrer Schirmherrschaft wurden im besetzten Europa hunderttausende Zivilisten, Widerstandskämpfer und Spione brutal verfolgt, gefoltert und ermordet. Eine noch viel größere Zahl wurde in Konzentrationslager deportiert, wo sie fast immer der Tod erwartete. Die Gestapo mit Hauptquartier in der Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8, eine der gefürchtetsten Adressen im Reich, entwickelte sich zu einem wesentlichen Element des NS-Regimes. Basierend auf Gestapo-Archiven und Augenzeugenberichten werden die Entwicklung der Gestapo, zentrale Figuren wie Reinhard Heydrich und Heinrich Müller sowie ihre brutalen Methoden zur Aufrechterhaltung der inneren Sicherheit beleuchtet, darunter auch die verschiedenen fehlgeschlagenen Attentatsversuche auf Hitler. Das vorliegende Werk ist eine anschauliche und fundierte Darstellung dieses berüchtigten und mysteriösen Machtapparats, der in ganz Europa hunderttausende Menschen terrorisierte. Mit 120 Schwarzweißfotos von bedeutenden Charakteren, Schlüsselereignissen und Opfern der zwölfjährigen Schreckensherrschaft der Gestapo.

For twelve years, Hitler's secret state police--the Geheime Staats Polizei, better known as the Gestapo--spread a reign of fear and terror over Europe. Spoken of in whispers, a law unto themselves, the Gestapo was the power behind the power. Torture, betrayal, execution, utter ruthlessness, were the stepping stones by which the Gestapo under Göring, Himmler, and Heydrich climbed to the top of the Nazi bureaucratic pile. As Nazi power spread, so did the evil reputation of the Gestapo, spying into every compartment of the individual's life, backed by concentration camps and the state-sanctioned right to extract confessions under torture. As the war ended, the Gestapo tried to eradicate all trace of its crimes. In this, it failed. It left photographs; it left witnesses; it left records. From these it is possible for us to be eyewitnesses to the Gestapo in its grisly heyday.--From publisher description.

The divisions of the Waffen-SS were the elite of Hitler's armies in World War II. SS-Leibstandarte is an in-depth examination of the first Waffen-SS unit to be formed, the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.

Rupert Butler is the foremost chronicler of the horrifying story of Hitler's plans to extinguish the nations of Europe. He reveals, in chilling detail, the plans for the wholesale killings and subjection of Eastern Europe, including the Final Solution of the gas chambers. Yet along with the persecution came not only the canker of collaboration, but also the burning zeal of resistance. This is a story not only of subjugation but also of heroism, of unshakeable and dauntless faith in the ultimate liberation from the most evil tyranny the world has ever known.

The use of terror has been a characteristic of Russia from the days of the Tsars. The Okhrana was the oppressive police force of the Romanovs. Then came the Cheka, the OGPU, SMERSH and the NKVD-organizations that used terror to control every aspect of military and civilian life.As a result, during ‘the Great Patriotic War’, Soviet soldiers and citizens feared not only the Germans but the tentacles of the secret police. To maintain iron discipline in the face of the German onslaught, to root out dissent and defeatism and to counter the threat of treachery and collaboration, the agents of the NKVD waged a merciless campaign against their own people. The full extent of this extraordinary wartime operation is told in Rupert Butler's compelling study.

Drawing on contemporary records the author reveals for the first time in a single book the appalling record of collaboration and aggression that occurred in middle European countries during the Second World War, together with gripping accounts of their exploits as fighting troops.

SS-Hitlerjugend is an in-depth examination of the unit formed in 1943 from veterans of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Division and members of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) organization. The majority of the recruits were 17-year-old volunteers who were fanatically devoted to the Nazi cause and to Hitler personally.

Illustrated with more than 100 black-and-white photographs and expertly written, Stalin's Secret Police is a chilling history of the Soviet secret police from 1917 to the fall of Communism.