Search results for ""author kevin prenger""

The war in Europe was reaching its cataclysmic final months with Germany surrounded on all sides. Most of Hitler's forces had been driven from Poland by the Red Army and the Soviets were poised a short distance from Berlin, while the Western allies, having repulsed the Fuhrer's Ardennes offensive, were preparing to cross the Rhine. More than ever Hitler needed his people to stiffen their resolve for the coming onslaught. To demonstrate what will be expected of the German people, and what they could achieve if they refused to acknowledge defeat, a major feature film would be shown, featuring the legendary place which held out against Napoleon when he invaded Prussia in 1806 - the city of Kolberg. After crushing the Prussian Army in 1806, French forces swept into the Prussian province of Pomerania. One by one most Prussian fortresses surrendered, mostly without offering any resistance, but Kolberg stood firm. The small and weakly-fortified city held out for almost four months, despite being surrounded by Napoleon's forces, with Major von Gneisenau organising a citizen's militia to aid the army in its defence. Though much of the city was blasted into ruin, Kolberg remained in Prussian hands until the war with France ended with the signing of the Peace of Tilsit, by which time its defence had become legendary. Even though the Third Reich was literally entering its death-throes, in attempting to reproduce the siege of Kolberg on film, thousands of experts, extras and horses were taken from the war effort by the Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. The film's emphasis was to show how civilians and the military can work together to save Germany - just as Kolberg had been saved from the French. The result has been stated to be the most expensive feature film ever made in Germany. This book examines the dramatic conditions under which the film was produced, and the scale of the resources needed to do so, followed by its first showing on 30 January 1945. All Goebbels' efforts, though, were to no avail, as the film never went on general release. A month later, as the author reveals, Kolberg found itself under siege once again, but this time, after bitter house-to-house fighting, it fell to the Soviets in just two weeks.

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In autumn 1943, SS judge Konrad Morgen visited Auschwitz concentration camp to investigate an intercepted parcel containing gold sent from the camp. While there Morgen found the SS camp guards engaged in widespread theft and corruption. Worse, Morgen also discovered that inmates were being killed without authority from the SS leadership. While millions of Jews were being exterminated under the Final Solution programme , Konrad Morgen set about gathering evidence of these illegal murders'. Morgen also visited other camps such as Buchenwald where he had the notorious camp commandant Karl Koch and Ilse, his sadistic spouse, arrested and charged. Found guilty by an SS court, Koch was sentenced to death. Remarkably, the apparently fearless SS judge also tried to prosecute other Nazi criminals including Waffen-SS commanders Oskar Dirlewanger and Hermann Fegelein and Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoss. He even claimed to have tried to indict Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible for organising the mass deportation of the Jews to the extermination camps. This intriguing work reveals how the lines between justice and injustice became blurred in the Third Reich. As well as describing the actions of this often contradictory character the author questions Morgen's motives.

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