On 17 September 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the growing roar of aero engines. He went out on to his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the vast air armada of Dakotas and gliders, carrying the British 1st Airborne and the American 101st and 82nd Airborne…

Ian Kershaw's two volume biography, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, was greeted with universal acclaim as the essential work on one of the most malign figures in history, from his earliest origins to the final days of the Second World War. Now this landmark historical work is available in one single, abridged…

With extraordinary skill and vividness, drawing on a huge range of sources, Kershaw recreates the world which first thwarted and then nurtured Hitler in his youth, from early childhood to the first successes of the Nazi Party. As his seemingly pitiful fantasy of being Germany's saviour attracted more and more support, Kershaw…

No figure in twentieth century history more clearly demands a close biographical understanding than Adolf Hitler; and no period is more important than the Second World War. Beginning with Hitler's startling European successes in the aftermath of the Rhineland occupation, from Czechoslovakia to Poland; addressing crucial questions…

This book is the culmination of more than three decades of meticulous historiographic research on Nazi Germany by one of the period's most distinguished historians. The volume brings together the most important and influential aspects of Ian Kershaw's research on the Holocaust for the first time. The writings are arranged in three…

Germany's Nazi Party was remarkably implacable in the hostility it showed to the outside world, staunchly opposing both Communism and liberal democracy from the moment of its inception to that of its violent dissolution. The Nazis likewise showed steely, unwavering resolve in their lethal hatred of the Jews, the Slavs, and many…

On January 20, 1942, in a grand villa on the shore of Berlin's Lake Wannsee, a conference of Nazi officers produced a paper known as the "Wannsee Protocol," which laid the groundwork for a "final solution to the Jewish Question." This Protocol has always mystified us. How should we understand this calm, business-like discussion of…

In the Spring of 1941, having abandoned his plans to invade Great Britain, Hitler turned the might of his military forces on to Stalin's Soviet Russia. The German army quickly advanced far into Russia as the Soviet forces suffered defeat after defeat. With brutality and savagery displayed by both sides, this was literally a campaign…