Word: hitler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...HITLER AND His ADMIRALS (275 pp.)-Anthony K. Martienssen-Dutton...
...Winston Churchill admiringly called it an "incredible . . . feat of arms." This book is a selection of the papers from some 60,000 files of German naval archives, containing practically all the official ships' logs, diaries and memoranda relating to the German navy up to April 1945. Hitler and His Admirals, unlike Liddell Hart's The German Generals Talk, contains no postwar interviews with German officers. Nor does it primarily concentrate on their differences with Hitler or their opinions of the Führer's strategy. It consequently lacks the provocative, meaty, unexpected characterizations and anecdotes of Liddell...
...Hitler at Sea. Through the battle of the Atlantic, the invasion of Norway, the preparations for the invasion of Britain, this mood persisted. Hitler told Raeder: "On land I am a hero, but at sea I am a coward." He consequently gave the admirals a freedom of action that the generals never had. Author Martienssen (a South African, who is assistant foreign editor of the Economist) believes that Raeder made the most of it, used his small forces effectively, and was individually superior to the run of German officers...
...Hitler and His Admirals is a compact and interesting book. It is particularly valuable for its underlining of German attitudes quite apart from the naval war: Hitler's fury at Italy's untimely invasion of Greece, his fear of U.S. opinion, the lack of understanding in Germany of what was happening in other countries...
...seems clear that Hitler had no consistent program for the navy and that he had a far less coherent plan for the war than he is generally credited with. The most striking revelation of his weakness is in the figures on U-boat losses. When the U.S. entered the war, nearly 250 U-boats were available; in the single month of June 1942, the Germans sank 145 ships. But in the months to come, the tide turned, as anti-submarine measures became effective. In the last four months of the war, with Doenitz running the navy (after Raeder...