Hitler's Preemptive War
The Battle for Norway, 1940
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Narrated by:
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Tom Parks
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By:
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Henrik Lunde
About this listen
This book describes the often overlooked World War II campaign for Norway - a complex series of battles in which Hitler out-gambled Churchill in order to secure a vital resource lifeline for the Third Reich.
After Hitler conquered Poland and was still fine-tuning his plans against France, the British began to exert control of the coastline of neutral Norway, an action that threatened to cut off Germany’s iron-ore conduit to Sweden and outflank from the start its hegemony on the Continent. The Germans responded with a dizzying series of assaults, using every tool of modern warfare developed in the previous generation. Airlifted infantry, mountain troops and paratroopers were dispatched to the north, seizing Norwegian strongpoints while forestalling larger but more cumbersome Allied units.
The German navy also set sail, taking a brutal beating at the hands of Britannia, while ensuring with its sacrifice that key harbors could be held open for resupply. As dive-bombers soared overhead, small but elite German units traversed forbidding terrain to ambush Allied units trying to forge inland. At Narvik, some 6,000 German troops battled 20,000 French and British, until the Allies were finally forced to withdraw by the great disaster in France, which had then gotten underway.
Henrik Lunde, a native Norwegian and former U.S. Special Operations colonel, has written the most objective account to date of a campaign in which 20th-century military innovation found its first fertile playing field.
©2009 Henrik O. Lunde (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
One American soldier called it "a green hell on Earth". Monsoon-soaked wilderness, debilitating heat, impassable mountains, torrential rivers, and disease-infested swamps - New Guinea was a battleground far more deadly than the most fanatical of enemy troops. Japanese forces numbering some 600,000 men began landing in January 1942, determined to seize the island as a cornerstone of the empire's strategy to knock Australia out of the war.
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The WW2 New Guinea Campaign
- By William R. Todd-Mancillas (Name includes hyphen and capitalized M). on 09-26-18
By: James P. Duffy
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Hell to Pay
- Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947
- By: D. M. Giangreco
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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U.S. planning for the invasion and military occupation of Imperial Japan began two years before the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hell to Pay brings to light the political and military ramifications of the enormous casualties and loss of material projected by both sides in the climatic struggle to bring the Pacific War to a conclusion through a brutal series of battles on Japanese soil.
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This is a good piece of history.
- By David on 08-09-14
By: D. M. Giangreco
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When Britain Saved the West
- The Story of 1940
- By: Robin Prior
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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From the comfortable distance of seven decades, it is quite easy to view the victory of the Allies over Hitler's Germany as inevitable. But in 1940 Great Britain's defeat loomed perilously close, and no other nation stepped up to confront the Nazi threat. In this cogently argued book, Robin Prior delves into the documents of the time - war diaries, combat reports, Home Security's daily files, and much more - to uncover how Britain endured a year of menacing crises.
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Very detailed; a bit dry in spots
- By No on 09-07-15
By: Robin Prior
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Blitzkrieg
- Myth, Reality, and Hitler's Lightning War: France 1940
- By: Lloyd Clark
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1940, the Germans launched a military offensive in France and the Low Countries that married superb intelligence, the latest military thinking, and new technology. It was a stunning victory, altering the balance of power in Europe in one stroke, and convincing the entire world that the Nazi war machine was unstoppable. But as Lloyd Clark, a leading British military historian and academic, argues, much of our understanding of this victory, and blitzkrieg itself, is based on myth.
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Very good and detailed about the Fall of France
- By Arthur on 03-15-17
By: Lloyd Clark
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Case Red
- The Collapse of France
- By: Robert Forczyk
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Even after the legendary evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940 there were still large British formations fighting the Germans alongside their French allies. After mounting a vigorous counterattack at Abbeville and then engaging a tough defense along the Somme, the British were forced to conduct a second evacuation from the ports of Le Havre, Cherbourg, Brest, and St. Nazaire. Case Red captures the drama of the final three weeks of military operations in France in June 1940.
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Not Forczyk's best offering
- By S.C. James on 01-30-18
By: Robert Forczyk
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Inside the Nazi War Machine
- How Three Generals Unleashed Hitler's Blitzkrieg Upon the World
- By: Bevin Alexander
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Under orders of the Fuhrer, the German General Staff reluctantly drew up a lackluster plan of invasion for France. Yet it was the audacious scheme of three of Hitler’s top generals that brought down France’s military force, Rather than simply move troops to engage the enemy, for the first time they would unleash the tank and drive straight into the heart of their foe.
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Good listen ..... however...
- By Alan on 06-10-13
By: Bevin Alexander
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Hitler's Final Push
- The Battle of the Bulge from the German Point of View
- By: Danny S. Parker - editor
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Notes on one of the most infamous and bloody battles of World War II - from the German perspective. As the Allied armies swept toward the Reich in late 1944, the German high command embarked on an ambitious plan to gain the initiative on the western front and deal a crippling blow to the Allied war effort. As early as August 1944, when the Germans were being crushed in the east and hammered in Normandy, Hitler was talking of an offensive aimed at destroying as many American and British divisions as possible in a massive surprise assault.
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Not what was expected
- By S.C. James on 05-30-16
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Korsun Pocket
- The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944
- By: Niklas Zetterling, Anders Frankson
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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During the second half of 1943, after the failure at Kursk, Germany’s Army Group South fell back from Russia under repeated hammer blows from the Red Army. Under Erich von Manstein, however, the Germans were able to avoid serious defeats, while at the same time fending off Hitler’s insane orders to hold on to useless territory. Then, in January 1944, a disaster happened.
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A wonderful historical narative
- By Joseph on 04-16-13
By: Niklas Zetterling, and others
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Intelligence in War
- Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about military intelligence. In his characteristically wry and perceptive prose, Keegan offers us nothing short of a new history of war through the prism of intelligence.
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Military history more than history of intelligence
- By D. Littman on 01-10-04
By: John Keegan
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Dunkirk
- The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler
- By: Norman Gelb
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1940, the last patch of resistance to the Nazi war machine was a little strip of beach whose name would soon be famous around the world: Dunkirk. Over 300,000 Allied soldiers crowded into the little harbor. If Hitler destroyed them, Britain would be left defenseless, and the war would almost be over. The British had other ideas. Over the next ten days, the people of Britain launched an unprecedented rescue effort. Countless little ships steamed forth from every port in England to bring the boys back home.
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The Real Dunkirk Story: Not the Movie Version
- By William R. Todd-Mancillas (Name includes hyphen and capitalized M). on 08-09-17
By: Norman Gelb
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MacArthur at War
- World War II in the Pacific
- By: Walter R. Borneman
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 19 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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World War II changed the course of history. Douglas MacArthur changed the course of World War II. Macarthur at War goes deeper into this transformative period of his life than previous biographies, drilling into the military strategy that Walter R. Borneman is so skilled at conveying and exploring how personality and ego translate into military successes and failures.
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An interesting, but flawed, history
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-29-16
What listeners say about Hitler's Preemptive War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- G. Bruce Greer
- 07-06-14
Excellent history of am interesting campaign
What made the experience of listening to Hitler's Preemptive War the most enjoyable?
Deep research on the subject
What did you like best about this story?
Balanced approach and context
What didn’t you like about Tom Parks’s performance?
Ok, but audible should help reader with German and Norwegian names.
Any additional comments?
One of series of interesting books on Northern campaigns by this author
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1 person found this helpful
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- Long Story
- 07-20-13
Fine history; narration not so good
Would you listen to Hitler's Preemptive War again? Why?
I probably wouldn't listen to "Hitler's Preemptive War" again . . . but, I would read a hard-copy edition.
What didn’t you like about Tom Parks’s performance?
Tom Parks would be a good narrator for a young adult novel, but lacked the "gravitas" for this material. His pronunciation of words (even English) was odd, idiosyncratic. His word emphasis was off-putting.
Any additional comments?
Very fine example of military history on the more-or-less "micro" level. Excellent research went into this book!
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5 people found this helpful
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- KoogT
- 07-05-24
Very detailed
Enjoyed the book. Enunciation was in correct in several instances. Well organized book. I would recommend it.
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- Lasse Hovlandsdal
- 07-24-17
Interesting tale of a narrow part of WW2
I found this to be a fairly interesting recounting of history that is generally not well known, although to some it may be a too narrow bit of history. Some of the reflections or opinions expressed in the book might favour the Norwegian point of view, but it appears generally to stay fair to all sides.
Given the frequency of Norwegian and German names in the book, especially in the early parts, it would have been nice if they had found a narrator more familiar with one of, if not both of, the languages; but this became less of a problem after the introductory chapters. Apart from that, I felt that the narrator did a good job.
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- J. Acosta
- 05-06-21
Thorough treatment of the 1940 Norwegian war
This extensively researched and detailed account of the Allies’ and Germany’s Norwegian campaigns is a must read for serious students of WWII. Although the narrative focuses largely on unit dispositions, tactics, and battles, it also provides a general overview of the combatants’ respective strategies and of Sweden’s position between the two sides. One recommendation: more maps. The narrative describes numerous land and sea engagements in different parts of Norway. Seeing those areas on a map or series of maps would greatly enhance understanding of the ebb and flow of the battle for Norway.
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- Kenneth M.
- 04-07-15
Great book hampered by poor narration
Where does Hitler's Preemptive War rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
The subject and quality of the research was excellent.
How could the performance have been better?
You would think that the narrator would have been pre-screened for his/her ability to pronounce German, names and words. The narrator's lack of ability to pronounce German names and terms makes the book difficult to listen to at times. This is a book about a German Campaign get a narrator that has the ability to pronounce German words and military terminology, both German and English correctly. I will give him a pass on the Norwegian words and names.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Not to harp on the narrator but there are times I wanted to stop listening because of his terrible pronunciations.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Bobbi
- 10-13-17
Good but dry
A good book full of information but very dry at times and the Audible version would be better when bought with the book to better understand where everything is happening with the maps provided.
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- Matt Lovett
- 05-05-15
Interesting and yet...
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Only for the serious military historian,
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
More details about the people involved, rather than just the recitation of unit placement. FOr instance what were the Norwegian civilians faring with all of this ? We arent getting the story from the soldiers, sailors and airmen that were there only a very sterile view from official sources.
Did Tom Parks do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
Tom Parks delivery not as bad as some others' reviews would have you believe, but it isnt that great either. There are few characters for Tom to differentiate in any case,
Do you think Hitler's Preemptive War needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
The subject needs a DIFFERENT book.
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