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Panzer Aces
''Panzer Aces'' is an English-language book series by the German author Franz Kurowski. Originally released in 1992 by J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, a Canadian publisher of militaria literature, it was licensed in 2002 by the firm to American publishers Ballantine Books and Stackpole Books. The series' books were a commercial success and enjoyed a wide readership among the American public. In the book ''The Myth of the Eastern Front'', historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies criticise ''Panzer Aces'' as ahistorical and misleading, presenting a picture of the German soldiers "without flaws or character defects". According to the authors, Kurowski's accounts, including ''Panzer Aces'', are intended "to act as a memorial to these men". Background Franz Kurowski (1923−2011) was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who is best known for producing apologist, revisionist and semi-fictional works on the history of World War II. His first publications appeared in the Naz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Myth Of The Eastern Front
''The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi–Soviet War in American Popular Culture'' (2008) by Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, is a historical analysis of the post-war myth of the "Clean Wehrmacht", the negative impact of the ''Wehrmacht'' and the ''Waffen-SS'' mythologies in popular culture, and the effects of historical negationism upon cultural perceptions of the Eastern Front of the Second World War. The book garnered largely positive reviews. It was commended for its thorough analysis of the creation of the myth by German ex-participants and its entry into American culture, as well as its compelling analysis of contemporary war-romancing trends. One reviewer described the book as a "tour de force of cultural historiography", and another observed that it "presents a discomforting portrait of the American views of the Eastern Front". Background At the time of the publication of ''The Myth of the Eastern Front'', the authors were colleagues in the history department at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joachim Von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's notice as a well-travelled businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis and as a perceived authority on foreign affairs. He offered his house Schloss Fuschl for the secret meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a close confidant of Hitler, to the disgust of some party members, who thought him superficial and lacking in talent. He was appointed ambassador to the Court of St James's, the royal court of the United Kingdom, in 1936 and then Foreign Minister of Germany in February 1938. Before World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel (an alliance with Fascist Italy) and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (the Nazi–Soviet non-aggr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ace (military)
Ace, when used in the context of military propaganda, denotes a successful military professional who has accumulated a meaningfully measurable statistic such as aircraft shot down, tonnage sunk, or a number of successful sniper shots. In a manner analogous to sport statistics, some military roles can be measured in terms of a quantifiable metric. Once said metric is established, military personnel (whether within the same force, in different forces, or in different eras) may be quantified versus the designated metric and compared in a tabular fashion. Such metrics may be used as a basis for military merit awards, such as Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by setting an arbitrary threshold. Likewise, a designation of "ace" ("double ace", "triple ace", etc.) may be applied, such as 5 aircraft shoot downs. The ace achieved success with "skill and luck, and if victorious won the accolades of the patriotic public". The usage of the term in popular culture evolved to include "tank aces" ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
"Panzer Ace" In Popular Culture
Panzer ace (tank ace) is a contemporary term used in English-speaking popular culture to describe highly decorated German tank ("panzer") commanders and crews during World War II. The ''Wehrmacht'' as well as British and American militaries did not recognise the concept of an "ace" during the war. The similar term, ''tank ace'' has been used post-war to describe highly regarded tanks commanders. The term "panzer ace" has become prominent in contemporary popular culture as part of the uncritical portrayal of the ''Waffen-SS'' in English-language militaria and popular history works, especially in the United States. English translations of German author Franz Kurowski's use the term in his ''Panzer Aces'' series, which focuses on highly decorated tank commanders such as Michael Wittmann and Franz Bäke. In the early 2000s, German historian Sönke Neitzel and American military historian Steven Zaloga, amongst others, began to examine the combat performance of highly decorated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clean Wehrmacht
The myth of the clean ''Wehrmacht'' is the negationist notion that the regular German armed forces (the ''Wehrmacht'') were not involved in the Holocaust or other war crimes during World War II. The myth, heavily promoted by German authors and military personnel after World War II, completely denies the culpability of the German military command in the planning and perpetration of war crimes. Even where the perpetration of war crimes and the waging of an extermination campaign, particularly in the Soviet Unionwhere the Nazis viewed the population as " sub-humans" ruled by " Jewish Bolshevik" conspiratorshas been acknowledged, they are ascribed to the "Party soldiers corps", the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), but not the regular German military. The myth began at the Nuremberg trials held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946. Franz Halder and other ''Wehrmacht'' leaders signed the Generals' memorandum entitled "The German Army from 1920 to 1945", which laid out its key eleme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia established it on 17 March 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars (EK 1813). The award was backdated to the birthday (10 March) of his late wife, Queen Louise. Louise was the first person to receive this decoration (posthumously). Recommissioned Iron Cross was also awarded during the Franco-Prussian War (EK 1870), World War I (EK 1914), and World War II (EK 1939). During the 1930s and World War II, the Nazi regime superimposed a swastika on the traditional medal. The Iron Cross was usually a military decoration only, though there were instances awarded to civilians for performing military functions, including Hanna Reitsch, who received the Iron Cross, 2nd class, and Iron Cross, 1st Class, and Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, who received ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sepp Dietrich
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (28 May 1892 – 21 April 1966) was a German politician and SS commander during the Nazi era. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was elected to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in 1930. Prior to 1929, Dietrich was Adolf Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard. Despite having no formal staff officer training, Dietrich was, along with Paul Hausser, the highest-ranking officer in the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS. Reaching the rank of '' Oberst-Gruppenführer'', he commanded units up to army level during World War II. As commanding officer of the 6th Panzer Army during the Battle of the Bulge, Dietrich bore responsibility for the Malmedy massacre, the murder of U.S. prisoners of war in December 1944. After the war, Dietrich was convicted of war crimes at the Malmedy massacre trial, conducted by the U.S. military tribunal. Upon his release from Landsberg Prison, which was then under U.S. military jurisdiction, he became active in HIAG, a lobby g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Popular History
Popular history is a broad genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis. The term is used in contradistinction to professional academic or scholarly history writing which is usually more specialized and technical and, thus, less accessible to the general reader. Conceptualizations It is proposed that popular history is a "moral science" in the sense that recreates the past not only for its own sake but also to underscore how history could facilitate an ethically responsible present. Some view it as history produced by authors who are better interlocutors capable of translating the language of scientificity to ordinary everyday language. Some scholars partly attributed the development of popular history to the increase of writers-turned-historians such as Benson Lossing, David Pae, and Mary Botham Howitt, who wrote historical events "in good style" and, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infantry Aces
''Infantry Aces'' is an English-language book by the German author Franz Kurowski. Originally released by the Canadian publisher of militaria literature J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, it was later licensed by Fedorowicz to the American publishers Ballantine Books and Stackpole Books. The book was a commercial success and enjoyed a wide readership among the American public. ''Infantry Aces'' has been criticised in the book ''The Myth of the Eastern Front'' by the historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies as ahistorical and misleading, presenting a picture of the German soldiers "without flaws or character defects". According to Smelser and Daivies, Kurowski's accounts, including ''Infantry Aces'', are intended "to act as a memorial to these men". Background Franz Kurowski (1923 − 2011) was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who is best known for producing apologist, revisionist and semi-fictional works on the history of the World War II. Kurowski's first publicatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
6th Army (Wehrmacht)
The 6th Army was a field army unit of the German Wehrmacht during World War II (1939–1945). It was widely remembered for being the most highly decorated German army unit until its defeat by the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943. It also acquired a reputation for the war crimes (such as the massacre of more than 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar in September 1941) that it committed under the command of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau during Operation Barbarossa. Western campaigns Originally numbered as the 10th Army, this Army formed on 10 October 1939 with General Walther von Reichenau in command. Its primary mission was to guard the western defenses of Germany against British and French attacks during the Polish campaign. During the invasion of the Low Countries the 6th Army saw active service linking up with paratroopers and destroying fortifications at Eben Emael, Liège, and Namur during the Battle of Belgium. The 6th Army was then involved in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established in January 1918. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations (especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army) of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Starting in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in 1991. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. During operations on the Eastern Front, it accounted for 75–80% of casual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cherkassy Pocket
Cherkasy ( uk, Черка́си, ) is a city in central Ukraine. Cherkasy is the Capital city, capital of Cherkasy Oblast (Oblast, province), as well as the administrative center of Cherkasky Raion (Raion, district) within the oblast. The city has a population of Cherkasy is the cultural, educational and industrial center of Cherkasy Oblast and Central Economical Region of Ukraine. Cherkasy has been known since the 13th century and played a great role in the history of Ukraine. The city was the center of the land of the Cossacks; its citizens took part in Khmelnytsky Uprising, Khmelnychchyna and Koliyivschyna (cossacks' and peasants' rebellions). The city is located on the right bank of Dnieper River (specifically at the Kremenchuk Reservoir), about south of the nation's capital, Kyiv. Cherkasy is divided into 2 boroughs (''raions''): Sosnivskiy (with Orshanets village) and Pridniprovskiy. It hosts the administration of Cherkasy urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukrai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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