Americans, Germans, and War Crimes Justice: Law, Memory, and
Almost every war involves loss of life of both military personnel and civilians, but World War II involved an unprecedented example of state-directed and ideologically motivated genocide—the Holocaust. Beyond this horrific, premeditated war crime perpetrated on a massive scale, there were also isolated and spontaneous war crimes committed by both German and U.S. forces.
The Moon Is Down, a propaganda novella sponsored by the OSS and written by John Steinbeck, and for which he received a medal of honor, was published by Viking Press in March 1942. The story details a military occupation of a small town in Northern Europe by the army of an unnamed nation at war with England and Russia (much like the occupation of Norway by the Germans during World War II). A French language translation of the book was published illegally in Nazi-occupied France by Les Editions de Minuit, a French Resistance publishing house.
CODE NAME MULBERRY: The planning Building and Operation of the Normandy Harbours
Allied leaders and military planners realized early in preparations for the invasion of NW Europe that the massive forces required to defeat Hitler's armies needed constant re-supply of men, equipment, ammunition, fuel and other materials. These would have to come in by sea but it was known that the Germans would not only defend the few major ports but destroy them before withdrawing.
In the second installment (of four), Turtledove returns to the same characters, picking up the stories mere days after he left them in the first book (the first two books comprise just over a year's time). Without giving away too much, even after finishing this book it is difficult to say which way the balance is tilting. The Race is beginning to learn to cope with warfare on Earth (Tosev 3), and is waging victorious war against the Germans, Soviets, and Americans.
Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power
This new history rejects traditional, top-down approaches to Cold War politics, exploring instead how the border closure affected ordinary East Germans, from workers and farmers to teenagers and even party members, "caught out" by Sunday the Thirteenth. Party, police and Stasi reports reveal why one in six East Germans fled the country during the 1950s, undermining communist rule and forcing the eleventh-hour decision by Khrushchev and Ulbricht to build a wall along the Cold War's frontline.
