Le 23 juin 1939, le ministre des Affaires étrangères allemand, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, mène une délégation diplomatique jusqu'à Moscou.
Il y signe un accord avec son homologue soviétique. Il s'agit du fameux pacte Ribbentrop-Molotov baptisé aussi pacte Germano-soviétique qui donne le coup d'envoi à la Seconde Guerre mondiale.
Pendant près de deux ans, les deux régimes cohabitent dans cette alliance qui leur permet d'étendre leur pouvoir sur la Pologne, les Pays Baltes, la Finlande et la Roumanie.
Mais à l'aube de 22 juin 1941, l'idylle prend fin. L'Allemagne envahit l'Union soviétique. Caduc, le pacte continue pourtant à laisser des traces. Il aura finalement bouleversé l'équilibre européen jusqu'à la chute du mur de Berlin en 1989.

Hitler's would-be assassins ranged from simple craftsmen to high-ranking soldiers, from the apolitical to the ideologically obsessed, and from enemy agents to his closest associates. This title presents their story - of their plans, their motives and their failures. It also offers a different perspective on the history of the Third Reich.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact stunned the world when it was announced, the Second World War was launched under its auspices with the invasion and division of Poland, and its eventual collapse led to the war's defining and deciding clash. This book tells the full story of the pact between Hitler and Stalin.

Berlin was the nerve-centre of Hitler's Germany - the backdrop for the most lavish ceremonies, it was also the venue for Albert Speer's plans to forge a new 'world metropolis' and the scene of the final climactic bid to defeat Nazism. Yet while our understanding of the Holocaust is well developed, we know little about everyday life in Nazi Germany. In this vivid and important study Roger Moorhouse portrays the German experience of the Second World War, not through an examination of grand politics, but from the viewpoint of the capital's streets and homes.He gives a flavour of life in the capital, raises issues of consent and dissent, morality and authority and, above all, charts the violent humbling of a once-proud metropolis.
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Most people have heard of the Stauffenberg Plot but it is not widely known that this was only one of a long series of attempts on the life of Adolf Hitler. The Germans, Soviets, Poles and British all made plans to kill the Fuhrer. Lone gunmen, disaffected German officers and the Polish Underground, the Soviet NKVD and the British Special Operations Executive were all involved. Their methods varied from bombing, poisoning or using a sniper, to infiltrating the SS, or even sending Rudolf Hess back to Germany under hypnosis. Many of the plans did not make it beyond the drawing board, some were carried out. All of them failed.



Alongside the dramatic and largely unknown stories of Hitler's numerous assassins, this book presents a fascinating investigation of a number of broader issues, such as the complex motives of the German Resistance, the curious squeamishness of the British, and the effectiveness of the Nazi security apparatus.



Drawing on memoirs and original archival sources in Poland, Germany, Russia and Britain, Killing Hitler offers a unique perspective on the history of the Third Reich.
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For nearly two years the two most infamous dictators in history actively collaborated with one another. The Nazi-Soviet Pact stunned the world when it was announced, the Second World War was launched under its auspices with the invasion and division of Poland, and its eventual collapse led to the war's defining and deciding clash.



It is a chapter too often skimmed over by popular histories of the Second World War, and in The Devils' Alliance Roger Moorhouse tells the full story of the pact between Hitler and Stalin for the first time, from the motivation for its inception to its dramatic and abrupt end in 1941 as Germany declared war against its former partner.



Using first-hand and eye-witness testimony, this is not just an account of the turbulent, febrile politics underlying the unlikely collaboration between these two totalitarian regimes, but of the human costs of the pact, as millions of eastern Europeans fell victim to the nefarious ambitions of Hitler and Stalin.
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" Ce livre ambitieux et exigeant balaye non seulement l'ensemble de l'histoire allemande et polonaise, mais réussit à saisir celles de l'Europe centrale et de l'Est, en les rassemblant. Breslau apparaît comme le théâtre d'une lutte perpétuelle entre Allemands et Polonais, Habsbourg et Hohenzollern, hussites hérétiques et catholiques, catholiques et luthériens, juifs et anti-sémites, nobles et marchands, socialistes et capitalistes, nazis et soviétiques, apparatchiks et résistants. Et pourtant, comme le montrent si bien Davies et Moorhouse, ce récit est autant le témoin de co-opérations et de coexistences que de conflits et de destructions. Microcosm n'est pas un ouvrage succinct, mais l'incroyable ampleur des années et des bouleversements qui le traverse justifie chacunes des lignes. " Brendan Simms - Even the stones spoke German - London Review of Books (28/11/02) " Pour Norman Davies et Roger Moorhouse le Diable est bel et bien dans le détail, grâce à leur chronique minutieuse d'une ville européenne, baptisée Microcosm (.). L'incontrôlable Norman Davies est de retour, de nouveau avec un volumineux ouvrage. Cette fois encore, ses formidables recherches sont ordonnées dans une prose claire sans se départir de cette impartialité historique qui le caractérise. " James Hopkin - The Pole truth - The Observer (28/04/02) " Microcosme retrace l'histoire de la ville à travers les siècles. Sans occulter les hostilités et égarements ethniques, le livre est un hymne à la diversité et la réussite culturelle. " The staff - Seriousness, the new black - books of the year 2002 - The Economist (12/12/02)
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The story of Central Europe is anything but simple. As the region located between East and West, it has always been endowed with a rich variety of migrants, and has repeatedly been the scene of nomadic invasions, mixed settlements and military conquests. In order to present a portrait of Central Europe, Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse have made a case study of one of its most colourful cities, the former German Breslau, which became the Polish Wroclaw after the Second World War.



The traditional capital of the province of Silesia rose to prominence a thousand years ago as a trading centre and bishopric in Piast Poland. It became the second city of the kingdom of Bohemia, a major municipality of the Habsburg lands, and then a Residenzstadt of the kingdom of Prussia. The third largest city of nineteenth-century Germany, its population reached one million before the bitter siege by the Soviet Army in 1945 wrought almost total destruction. Since then Wroclaw has risen from the ruins of war and is once again a thriving regional centre.



The history of Silesia's main city is more than a fascinating tale in its own right. It embodies all the experiences which have made Central Europe what it is - a rich mixture of nationalities and cultures; the scene of German settlement and of the reflux of the Slavs; a Jewish presence of exceptional distinction; a turbulent succession of imperial rulers; and the shattering exposure to both Nazis and Stalinists. In short, it is a Central European microcosm.
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