Killing Hitler's Reich: The Battle for Austria 1945

In the dying days of World War Two, when the fate of nations was being decided by the triumvirate of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin, Hitler’s Austrian homeland provided a scenic backdrop for the last stand of Army Group South. Killing Hitler’s Reich, The Battle For Austria 1945, is the history of the bloody Battle for Austria in 1945. Austria’s fate held major ramifications for postwar Europe and the entire free world, yet there is no complete account of the campaign written in English.

Given the scale of the fighting and the scope of the consequences, this book fills a major gap in the literature of World War Two. On VE Day Army Group South listed 450,000 men still under arms in four armies. It was this massive force that made General Dwight Eisenhower change the entire focus of American ground operations to cut off Germans from retreating into the National Redoubt.

Moreover, it was Austria not Berlin, that proved to be the graveyard of the Waffen SS. No less than 15 of Himmler’s divisions ended the war there. And as the German war effort disintegrated into chaos, high ranking Nazis fled the dying Reich through Austria and into Italy. Some made it, many didn’t. Killing Hitler’s Reich follows the chase and capture of some of the most notorious, such as Himmler’s Second in Command, Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Long overlooked by historians, Killing Hitler’s Reich finally places this critical campaign in its proper historical place.

Available from:
Casemate Publishing

Voices from the Arctic Convoys

With the invasion of Russia by Germany in 1941, Britain gained a new ally and a responsibility to provide material for the new front. More than four million tonnes of supplies such as tanks, fighters, bombers, ammunition, raw materials and food were transported to Russia during a four-year period. The cost was high and by May 1945, the campaign had seen the loss of 104 merchant ships and sixteen military vessels, and the thousands of seamen they carried.

The Arctic route was the most arduous of all convoy routes. The ever-present threat of attack from German U-boats and Luftwaffe bombers such as the dreaded Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor were not all the Arctic convoys had to contend with. They had to deal with severe cold, storms, fog, ice floes and waves so huge they tore at the ships’ armour plating.

It is to the memory of these brave men that this book is dedicated and the stories of the immeasurable contribution they made to the Allied efforts during the Second World War have been collected for this book by their veteran comrades.

Voices from the Arctic Convoys contains the personal stories of 28 veterans, who served on ships including: 

• HMS Ledbury
• HMS Nabob
• HMS Sheffield
• HMS Swift
• HMS Javelin
• HMS Bulldog
• HMS Shera
• HMS Belfast
• HMS Bluebell
• HMS Nigeria
• HMS Keppel
• HMS Malcolm
• HMS Milne
• HMS Wren
• HMS Apollo
• HMS Magpie
• HMS Berwick
• HMS Zephyr
• HMS Achates 
• HMS Bermuda
• SS Induna
• SS Empire Baffin
• SS Empire Elgar
• SS Soborg
• SS Charlbury
• Northern Wave

Available from:
Fonthill Media