Blood Steel Myth

"A revealing and unprecedented re-analysis of the II. SS-Panzer-Korps operations during the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. Makes extensive use of original German source material"--Inside cover.

This book is the first detailed and comprehensive account of the Kharkov counteroffensive, the operations of the SS divisions and the supporting actions of Armeeabteilung Fretter-Pico and 1. Panzerarmee, and is supported by over 210 photographs and maps. By the end of January of 1943, Hitler's armies had been dealt a series of defeats by the Russians, beginning with the disaster at Stalingrad. Successive Soviet offensives had destroyed the German 6. Armee and annihilated the armies of Germany's Axis allies, Italy, Rumania and Hungary. Germany teetered on the brink of defeat in World War II because the Soviet advance threatened to drive to the Dnepr River and encircle the remaining Germans armies in southern Russia. Stalin and the Russian high command believed that the war could be won with just one more great effort. Accordingly, they planned and launched two offensives, designated Operations "Star" and "Gallop." The focal points of the two offensives included the recapture of Kharkov, the industrial heart of the Ukraine and the destruction of Armeeabteilung Hollidt, 4. Panzerarmee and 2. Armee. Feldmarschall Erich von Manstein entered the picture in late 1942 when he was appointed commander of Heeresgruppe Don. Beginning in February he engineered a remarkable operation that changed the course of the war in Russia. Manstein's counteroffensive destroyed or severely damaged four Russian armies and regained much of the territory lost in January. The troops that played the most important role in the offensive were three divisions of the Waffen-SS. "Leibstandarte," "Das Reich" and "Totenkopf" were combined for the first time into a corps, which was commanded by SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Paul Hausser, the senior commander of the Waffen-SS. "Leibstandarte" and "Das Reich" participated in the defense of Kharkov, along with the elite Army division "Grossdeutschland" supported by three weak infantry divisions. This handful of divisions was attacked by four Soviet armies, but under command of Armeeabteilung Lanz, was able to hold the city for two weeks. On 14 February, 1943 the SS-Panzerkorps and the rest of Armeeabteilung Lanz withdrew from Kharkov under disputed circumstances that involved Hausser and his violation of a direct order from Hitler. Almost exactly a month later, the Germans had recaptured Kharkov and destroyed or crippled the four Soviet armies that had driven them out of the city in February. The divisions that played the key role in Manstein's counteroffensive were the three divisions of the Waffen-SS. While "Leibstandarte" defended the supply base of the SS-Panzerkorps from the entire Soviet 3rd Tank Army, "Das Reich" and "Totenkopf" conducted a complex series of operations that began with a 100 kilometer thrust to the south which saved the Dnepr bridges, thus securing supply lines for the armies of Heeresgruppe Don/Sud. Subsequent operations by the SS divisions drove the Russians away from the rail net south of Kharkov and wrested Kharkov from the Russians once again. During the recapture of the city, there was controversy regarding Hausser's command decisions. Hausser has been accused of disregarding his instructions from superior officers and throwing his divisions into costly combat in the city for reasons of personal and SS prestige, in order to regain Hitler's favor. This study has found that the records of the SS-Panzerkorps and 4. Panzerarmee provide a different explanation for Hausser's actions.

The box was large, cubic... Erick saw the glowing panel, symbols in green and gold flowing upward across its face. "Bryn", he thought. "Damnit." He recognized what those patterns meant, what must be inside... Erick is Executor of the Geneline Ollson; protector of trillions of the Empress's subjects. He has ruled for three centuries prepares his daughter to take his place-but that may happen sooner than he hoped. The target of a looming civil war, he must find a way to avert the bloodshed. But in his search, he uncovers a dark secret that makes him question the nature of his beliefs. Bryn is next in line for the Ollson seat. She is fiercely loyal to her father, and to her family. So when she and Erick are accused of treason and attacked by former allies, she glories in saving them. But her fight is just begun, for soon the Obershire ships will appear in her skies. And she must be ready for war. Bjorn Hafthor is the commander of the Second Company. He has seen combat from peacekeeping to planetary defense. His troops are second only to the Black Guard themselves. But nothing could prepare him for the strangeness they find in a station under siege. Narbutovskih has written a compelling vision of the future, grounded in the struggles that define us all. Steel in the Blood is a sweeping exploration of myth and mankind, in the tradition of Dune and The Expanse. The story continues in Iron on the Tongue...

An account of a World War II tank battle between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Werhrmacht that proved to be a critcal turning point on the Eastern Front.

This historical analysis of the 1937 Chicago Steel Strike demonstrates how it revealed systemic oppression and inspired the larger progressive movement. On Memorial Day 1937, thousands of steelworkers and labor rights supporters gathered on the Southeast Side of Chicago to protest Republic Steel. By the end of the day, ten marchers had been mortally wounded and more than one hundred badly injured, victims of a terrifying police riot that came to be known as the Memorial Day Massacre. In Blood on Steel, historian Michael Dennis identifies this tragic landmark in the fight for labor rights as a focal point in the larger movement for American equality during the New Deal. Dennis shows how the riot—captured on film by Paramount newsreels—validated the claims of labor activists and catalyzed public opinion in their favor. Senate hearings about the massacre revealed patterns of anti-union aggression among management, ranging from blacklists to harassment and vigilante violence. The following year, Congress would pass the Fair Labor Standards Act. Dennis’s wide-angle perspective reveals the Memorial Day Massacre as more than another bloody incident in the long story of American labor-management tensions. It was an all-too graphic illustration of the need for a broad-based social democracy movement.

As her children begin lives of their own, Victory struggles with the loneliness of an empty nest. Just when the city of Limani could not seem smaller, an old friend requests that she come out of retirement for one final mercenary contract—to bodyguard his granddaughter, a princess of the Qin Empire. For the first time in a century, the Qin and British Empires are reopening diplomatic relations. Alongside the British delegation, Victory and her daywalker Mikelos arrive in the Qin colony city of Jiang Yi Yue. As the Qin weredragons and British werewolves take careful steps toward a lasting peace between their people, a connection between the Qin princess and a British nobleman throw everyone’s plans in disarray. Meanwhile, a third faction stalks the city under the cover of darkness. This is not a typical romance. It’s a good thing Victory is not a typical vampire.

Athos, the famed Musketeer, has become a Paris sideshow. His antics mask a menacing heartache from cruel memories of his first true love, Milady, and he is driven to attempt a suicidal dare that he believes will end his suffering. But his plan backfires, and Athos finds himself at the country château of the Comtesse de Rochefort, a woman he must seduce to save his crumbling reputation. But Nicole, a pious and married woman, shows him compassion and sees through his pain, and love builds between them. Now, tested by both God and the sword, Athos must fight for her love to seek his own redemption.

When South Vietnam was abandoned by its American allies and consequently defeated by the North Vietnamese in 1975, all its military records were lost to the enemy. This has led to a paucity of factually based analyses of the war by South Vietnamese authors. In a project lasting some ten years, and financed by his own hard-earned resources, Colonel Viet has researched, documented, and analyzed the Vietnam War from the perspective of South Vietnamese armor forces, elements in which he himself played an important role as leader, teacher, and innovator. His travels to interview hundreds of people with first-hand knowledge of these matters took him back and forth across the United States (and to Canada, France and Australia) and enabled him to piece together the story as recalled by virtually every senior South Vietnamese who was involved, along with many of lesser rank but important experience, and many Americans as well. The result is a unique and invaluable work, one recounting from the early days of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam its organization and development, its combat operations, and its interaction with American advisors and then later with deployed American units. Viet tells this story as an historian would, not glossing over the shortcomings and failures of his fellow Vietnamese soldiers (or of the Americans), but also providing definitive accounts of their successes, their innovations, their courage and determination, and the hardships experienced and survived in the course of a long, difficult, and ultimately unsuccessful struggle. In Colonel Viet's words: "In order to give the truth back to history, we did not hide anything, whether it be victory or defeat." Finally, in a very touching portion of the work, Colonel Viet memorializes his fallen comrades of the armored force and commemorates the service of all the American advisors to the armored force he was able to identify.

The author of Case White offers an extensive history of German and Soviet armored warfare toward the end of World War II. By 1943, after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht’s panzer armies gradually lost the initiative on the Eastern Front. The tide of the war had turned. Their combined arms technique, which had swept Soviet forces before it during 1941 and 1942, had lost its edge. Thereafter the war on the Eastern Front was dominated by tank-led offensives and, as Robert Forczyk shows, the Red Army’s mechanized forces gained the upper hand, delivering a sequence of powerful blows that shattered one German defensive line after another. His incisive study offers fresh insight into how the two most powerful mechanized armies of the Second World War developed their tank tactics and weaponry during this period of growing Soviet dominance. He uses German, Russian, and English sources to provide the first comprehensive overview and analysis of armored warfare from the German and Soviet perspectives. This major study of the greatest tank war in history is compelling reading.