Books - What are you reading?

[ESOG]

There I am at the fuel pump last week or so and I happened to notice a red book sitting on the edge of the garbage bin. I am an avid reader and above all I cannot bare to see any literature go to waste. So I picked it up and took it in. What a great read it has been so far. Not exactly my first choice in content but I have been finding myself drawn towards all the history I have never paid any attention to while in school.

I now find history fascinating and a welcomed break from all my other reading interests which have been comprised of topics and subjects such as quantum mechanics, near death experience studies, and law of attraction...

This book, How Great Generals Win is a very interesting read and I just covered the Punic War and am now starting the chapter on Ghengis Kahn (sp?).

Anyhow, I just wanted to say that I recommend this book for those interested. It covers many great generals from Stonewall Jackson to Napolean and many others. It provides an awesome insight into the way wars have ben fought and mostly how were it not for the insight and sheer brilliance of specific Generals at just the right time, well, put bluntly, it is fascinating to read how the tides of destiny and the fate of some of the greatest nations/empires have been shaped ushering in the future and the world as we now know it if it had been done any other way there is simply no telling how vastly different the world would be today...

Which by the way brings me to ask you history buffs a question. Please take in mind that I never paid much attention to history when i was in school and my naivety I am sure will show by asking this; I have just finished watching the film THE DARKEST HOUR, about Churchill and WW2.

My question is; if Germany were to have won the war, exactly what would have been the final outcome in terms of the desires of Hitler? What would Europe look like today had the Germans successfully subjugated the United Kingdom and with it of course France, Belgium, and so on?

[grumbledoak]

ESOG said:

My question is; if Germany were to have won the war, exactly what would have been the final outcome in terms of the desires of Hitler? What would Europe look like today had the Germans successfully subjugated the United Kingdom and with it of course France, Belgium, and so on?

Much like the EU, only better run.

[Goaty Bill 2]

grumbledoak said:

ESOG said:

My question is; if Germany were to have won the war, exactly what would have been the final outcome in terms of the desires of Hitler? What would Europe look like today had the Germans successfully subjugated the United Kingdom and with it of course France, Belgium, and so on?

Much like the EU, only better more efficiently run.

FTFY

Without researching to find specific threads, I recall this being or becoming the topic of several quite long threads in the lounge over time.
It might be worth some careful forum/google searches to see what pops up.

Certainly it is a contentious subject when the well read amateur history buffs (of which PH seems to have quite a few) get going on it.
Opinion will vary considerably depending on the individual's reading and documentary lists.

[droopsnoot]

Welshbeef said:

Any fans of Val McDermit?

Or does her YeSNP Indy supporting views detract from her stories?

I've read quite a lot of her stuff, and most of it's very enjoyable. I went off the Tony Hill / Carol Jordan ones for a while, but they seem to have got back on track, or I've just had a change of taste.

[Welshbeef]

droopsnoot said:

Welshbeef said:

Any fans of Val McDermit?

Or does her YeSNP Indy supporting views detract from her stories?

I've read quite a lot of her stuff, and most of it's very enjoyable. I went off the Tony Hill / Carol Jordan ones for a while, but they seem to have got back on track, or I've just had a change of taste.

How does she compare to say Tim Weaver or Mo Hayder?

[Levin]

ESOG said:

My question is; if Germany were to have won the war, exactly what would have been the final outcome in terms of the desires of Hitler? What would Europe look like today had the Germans successfully subjugated the United Kingdom and with it of course France, Belgium, and so on?

As Goaty Bill has already said, any answer you'll get will vary depending on what someone has read and watched. Books like Len Deighton's 'SS-GB' and Robert Harris's 'Fatherland' may appeal to you, so that you might experience another author's interpretation of alternate history.

Timing is, in my opinion, absolutely key to any image of a Third Reich victory. A victory in 1939 would look very different to a victory in 1942, which would look very different to a victory in 1945 (one wonders how a victory in 1945 could have even happened). I think anyone with an interest in the subject could weave entire worlds, and you could ask very different questions if you wanted. Suppose Germany didn't invade Poland but the USSR did; would Chamberlain's appeasement be remembered as a masterstroke of diplomacy, allowing Germany to stand as a remilitarised bulwark against the expansion of Communism? What if war broke out because of the Anschluss?

Instead, I give you one of the clearest images of a small part of a victorious Third Reich: Welthauptstadt Germania. Berlin was to be completely remodelled to create this city, Hitler's 'World Capital'. The name isn't Hitler's own; Speer coined it after the war, but it hopefully goes some way to explaining the overall vision. Germania was a name Hitler liked, though.

Germania was to be filled with landmarks, each of them far bigger than what existed elsewhere in the world. There was an 'Arch of Triumph' planned, three times bigger than the Parisian landmark. By design it was going to be so heavy that the Schwerbelastungskörper was built in Berlin and stands to this day. All it is, is a cylinder. An absurdly heavy cylinder, no less, built to test if Berlin's ground could hold the actual Arch. It's so heavy the German government couldn't safely blow it up. It still stands. There's also the Volkshalle, a massive hall meant to hold 150,000 people. Unsurprisingly it wasn't built.

I'll finish off by saying that there was an obsession with building big things in the Third Reich. The Panzer VIII 'Maus' weighed 188 tons. They built two in 1944 and the surviving tank is a hybrid of bits from both. If you thought a tank weighing 188 tons was idiotic, you're right!

But that didn't stop plans to build a 1000 ton tank.

Oh no.

Enter the P.1000 'Ratte', an utter monstrosity that never saw the light of day and was cancelled in 1943. Speer, apparently, was the only person to question the value of a tank that couldn't cross any bridge in Europe without bringing it down.

For reference:

Ha. You thought a 1000 ton tank was the height of Nazi gigantism, didn't you?

Try the P.1500 Monster on for size. A self-propelled gun rather than a tank, it would've fired an 800mm shell if it had been built. Surprise, it wasn't.

I had a bit of fun writing this reply, if only to capitalise on the sheer absurdity of Third Reich plans. Any and all of them could crop up in a war the Nazis won, or a Europe dominated by the Third Reich. It's impossible to write a conclusive list of things that would have happened but given the propensity for enormous architecture meant to awe the world, I thought some context on super-heavy vehicles they mused about might be enjoyable.

[ESOG]

Levin said:

As Goaty Bill has already said, any answer you'll get will vary depending on what someone has read and watched. Books like Len Deighton's 'SS-GB' and Robert Harris's 'Fatherland' may appeal to you, so that you might experience another author's interpretation of alternate history.

Timing is, in my opinion, absolutely key to any image of a Third Reich victory. A victory in 1939 would look very different to a victory in 1942, which would look very different to a victory in 1945 (one wonders how a victory in 1945 could have even happened). I think anyone with an interest in the subject could weave entire worlds, and you could ask very different questions if you wanted. Suppose Germany didn't invade Poland but the USSR did; would Chamberlain's appeasement be remembered as a masterstroke of diplomacy, allowing Germany to stand as a remilitarised bulwark against the expansion of Communism? What if war broke out because of the Anschluss?

Instead, I give you one of the clearest images of a small part of a victorious Third Reich: Welthauptstadt Germania. Berlin was to be completely remodelled to create this city, Hitler's 'World Capital'. The name isn't Hitler's own; Speer coined it after the war, but it hopefully goes some way to explaining the overall vision. Germania was a name Hitler liked, though.

Germania was to be filled with landmarks, each of them far bigger than what existed elsewhere in the world. There was an 'Arch of Triumph' planned, three times bigger than the Parisian landmark. By design it was going to be so heavy that the Schwerbelastungskörper was built in Berlin and stands to this day. All it is, is a cylinder. An absurdly heavy cylinder, no less, built to test if Berlin's ground could hold the actual Arch. It's so heavy the German government couldn't safely blow it up. It still stands. There's also the Volkshalle, a massive hall meant to hold 150,000 people. Unsurprisingly it wasn't built.

I'll finish off by saying that there was an obsession with building big things in the Third Reich. The Panzer VIII 'Maus' weighed 188 tons. They built two in 1944 and the surviving tank is a hybrid of bits from both. If you thought a tank weighing 188 tons was idiotic, you're right!

But that didn't stop plans to build a 1000 ton tank.

Oh no.

Enter the P.1000 'Ratte', an utter monstrosity that never saw the light of day and was cancelled in 1943. Speer, apparently, was the only person to question the value of a tank that couldn't cross any bridge in Europe without bringing it down.

For reference:

Ha. You thought a 1000 ton tank was the height of Nazi gigantism, didn't you?

Try the P.1500 Monster on for size. A self-propelled gun rather than a tank, it would've fired an 800mm shell if it had been built. Surprise, it wasn't.

I had a bit of fun writing this reply, if only to capitalise on the sheer absurdity of Third Reich plans. Any and all of them could crop up in a war the Nazis won, or a Europe dominated by the Third Reich. It's impossible to write a conclusive list of things that would have happened but given the propensity for enormous architecture meant to awe the world, I thought some context on super-heavy vehicles they mused about might be enjoyable.

Absurd, indeed. Interesting reply and information, thank you for taking the time to write it.
Another question, would it be safe to say that the German army was far superior to the rest of the developed world at the time? Because when you look at the strides the Germans made in sheer domination of opposing forces i have to wonder was it simply because they took the allies by surprise or was it in fact that the Germans were indeed so invoked and endowed with a feeling of superiority and a belief in their world view that they it took Russia, America, France, Great Britain and others to finally beat them... Or were they all simply trying to catch up?

Also, I have long wondered why was Hitler's body never displayed if he did in fact commit suicide? Or is this some sort of obscurity in the annuls of history? Did Hitler really die in that lonely bunker?

[glazbagun]

Dan Carling (google Hardcore History- Blueprint for Armageddon if you have time to kill) makes a compelling case that the WWII German army was a shadow of their WWI army which was the best army of it's time.

In WWI the Germans practically started the war on three fronts and fought that way for the whole war, knocked out Russia before it was over, left Frances massive army in a bad way and near bankrupted the richest empire in the world. The WWII guys won some stunning victories, but couldn't keep it up.

I also don't think the WWII germans were the masters of efficient political rule either. Maybe lower down the ranks they were good, but Hitlers power structure was chaotic, Goering was rubbish, and Hitler couldn't be sidelined. Their living space policy was logistical folly from the beginning.

[Marcia]

Detective, Kim Stone series by Angela Marsons, crime Thriller, currently on by 6 of 9.

[droopsnoot]

Welshbeef said:

droopsnoot said:

Welshbeef said:

Any fans of Val McDermit?

Or does her YeSNP Indy supporting views detract from her stories?

I've read quite a lot of her stuff, and most of it's very enjoyable. I went off the Tony Hill / Carol Jordan ones for a while, but they seem to have got back on track, or I've just had a change of taste.

How does she compare to say Tim Weaver or Mo Hayder?

I'm not sure I'd know how to do a decent comparison - see above for my in-depth reviews of recent books I've read, I'm far more at home reading than writing. I started off with her series about a Manchester PI (Kate Brannigan) which were enjoyable but a good deal lighter than the TH/CJ ones, and lighter than either of those two authors you mentioned. She's also got quite a few standalone novels, which have varied a bit. I recall enjoying "A Place of Execution" when I read it. If you do go for any of the Jordan / Hill series, I haven't found it a major issue to read them out of order - I've recently finished the book where they first meet, but have previously read much later ones in the series. You do sometimes get a bit of a major spoiler, but it only matters if you're going to avidly read one to the next - I try not to read stuff by the same author in sequence, usually. I haven't noticed much in the way of politics in them, or perhaps I'm so good at ignoring politics-related stuff it's just gone over my head.

Edited by droopsnoot on Monday 15th October 10:47

[droopsnoot]

I've just finished reading "Big Sky" by Gareth Creer - story of a small-time drug dealer trying to make one last big deal to emigrate to the sun. Not a bad story, but I found the writing style quite difficult to get along with.

[lowdrag]

I've just finished "Unlucky in Law" by Perri O'Shaughnessy and it is an interesting novel, unlike your usual pot-boiler. It interweaves historical facts of the Romanoffs with current day life, and makes for a good read. Well, it does after a while but takes a long time to get going. It is almost, in the beginning, like a boring court-action déjà vu and the plot takes some time to get going. But it is worth it, and it is a book that will find itself left in a café or train station and not the waste bin.

Edited by lowdrag on Wednesday 24th October 03:57

[havoc]

ESOG said:

Another question, would it be safe to say that the German army was far superior to the rest of the developed world at the time? Because when you look at the strides the Germans made in sheer domination of opposing forces i have to wonder was it simply because they took the allies by surprise or was it in fact that the Germans were indeed so invoked and endowed with a feeling of superiority and a belief in their world view that they it took Russia, America, France, Great Britain and others to finally beat them... Or were they all simply trying to catch up?

In 1939 yes, but then they'd had a few years head-start. You also can't understate the impact that the Blitzkrieg combined-arms tactics had on the way of waging war. But that's an easy thing to copy...

As the war progressed, yes they were ahead (and remained so) in pure technical terms*, but many of these had practical problems**, so failed to deliver on the promise. Compare vs the Soviet army - cheaper-but-more-reliable firearms, the T34 (arguably the best tank of the war), simple unit-level tactics supported by some very astute strategic-level direction.

So in reality what you had was men that were (by 1942) no better trained or better-led (on average) than the Western forces, that were fighting on at least 2 fronts at any time, and whose leaders were being second-guessed and overruled by a second-rate corporal in a Berlin bunker. And who were, for the second half of the war, massively constrained by resource issues caused by the political overruling of the armed forces.

Ultimately it was those resource issues that lost them the war (among several other things, but logistics is fundamental in any war).




* The MG42 was about as good as GPMGs got, and I believe plagiarised to some degree when designing the US M60, which is still a mainstay today, and I'm told there's truth in the possibly-apocryphal story about Rolls Royce telling someone (in the 1980s IIRC) restoring a Bf109 not to break the crank as some of the metallurgy was ahead of current Rolls Royce tech. And then there's the Me262, which if not for political interference could have been a much bigger problem. And then there's spaced armour, shaped charge anti-tank warheads, the earliest guided missiles, the V-weapons...

• MG42 barrel temperatures, Panther and Tiger tank wheel design issues and engine reliability, the whole concept of the Me163) or political problems (Me262 vs Hitler, scarce resources all-round (vs far too many pet-projects being pursued and sponsored, esp. with the Luftwaffe), Wehrmacht jackboots vs Russian winter).

And then (as a very major side issue) there's political interference in the pursuit of the war - Stalingrad, for example. Or Moscow, arguably...the Wehrmacht should really have swung south and taken the oilfields...that could well have changed the entire Eastern front as the Wehrmacht wouldn't have been defeated by the winter of 1941.

[unrepentant]

[ESOG]

unrepentant said:

Oh God, I can only imagine the left wing paranoia spouted within those pages.

[DoctorX]

Enjoying this. Not for the squeamish but some fascinating insights into forensic pathology. Discussion of Hungerford, Marchioness, Princess Di etc.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N3S0OM4?_encoding=U...

[Prolex-UK]

DoctorX said:

Enjoying this. Not for the squeamish but some fascinating insights into forensic pathology. Discussion of Hungerford, Marchioness, Princess Di etc.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N3S0OM4?_encoding=U...

will give this a go

[Perseverant]

I've certainly enjoyed Val McDermid's writing. Yes, it does help to read them in order. She's also an excellent and witty speaker. I'm currently re reading Linsey Davis's "Falco" series set in Rome around the reign of Vespasian - good fun and also a sequence.

[p1doc]

just finished tripods trilogy by john Christopher and camel club by david Baldacci- both vgood

[droopsnoot]

p1doc said:

just finished tripods trilogy by john Christopher and camel club by david Baldacci- both vgood

I think I've enjoyed most of the "Camel Club" series, I don't recall anything terrible about them. Same for any of his, really.