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Richard Sorge
- The Life and Legacy of the German Journalist Who Became the Soviet Union’s Most Effective Spy During World War II
- Narrated by: Ryan Durham
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, three million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union with its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states–notably Hungary and Romania–stood poised to carry out Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's surprise attack against the country of his putative ally, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Since military secrets are typically the hardest to keep, Stalin soon began to hear rumors of the invasion. But even when Winston Churchill contacted him in April of 1941 warning him that German troops seemed to be massing on Russia’s border, Stalin remained dubious. Stalin felt even more secure in his position when the Germans failed to invade the following May.
What Stalin did not realize was that Hitler had simply overstretched himself in Yugoslavia and only planned to delay the invasion by a few weeks. Hitler aimed to destroy Stalin’s Communist regime, but he also hoped to gain access to resources in Russia--particularly oil. Throughout the first half of 1941, Germany dug in to safeguard against an Allied invasion of Western Europe as it began to mobilize millions of troops to invade the Soviet Union. Stalin even refused to believe the report of a German who informed the Soviets that the troops were massing on the Soviet border at that very moment.
Spies are a feature of countless works of fiction in which they often discover secrets on which the fate of nations hang in the balance. Reality is generally rather more mundane as spies often gather low-level intelligence that only makes sense when it is examined by analysts and compared to information from other sources. Espionage provides clues to what the enemy is planning, but on its own it rarely changes the course of a war. Moreover, real spies are generally anonymous and not the bold, swashbuckling action heroes depicted in fiction. Spies must hide in plain sight, and that is best achieved by being as innocuous as possible.
However, there are exceptions. Occasionally, a spy will be so successful that they are able to place themselves in a position where they have access to information at the highest levels and secrets that really can change the course of world events. Sometimes these spies may even be as handsome, charming, charismatic, and bold as their fictional counterparts.
One such spy was a man named Richard Sorge. Experiencing the horrors of World War I firsthand turned Sorge into an ardent communist, after which he worked as a spy for the USSR in Germany, China, and Japan before and during World War II. He obtained vital military and political secrets and maintained his cover for over nine years despite frantic searches for the spy who was leaking information to Russia. His effortless charm meant that he didn’t need to steal secrets because people told him willingly including the many women that he seduced.
Sorge was not, by most standards, a pleasant man. He was coldly intelligent, utterly ruthless, and extremely manipulative. He lied continually to his friends, his colleagues, and his lovers, but he was also one of the most successful spies ever, and the information he provided may have fundamentally changed the course of World War II--at least when heeded. Fittingly, his story also had almost unbelievable twists and turns producing one of the most complicated stories and legacies of any participant in the war.
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terror
- By Ed on 02-12-12
By: Michael Burleigh
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When France Fell
- The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance
- By: Michael S. Neiberg
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American response - a policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain.
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Proceeds from a faulty premise
- By Buretto on 12-11-21
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The Third Reich in History and Memory
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 70 years since the demise of the Third Reich, there has been a significant transformation in the ways in which the modern world understands Nazism. In this brilliant and eye-opening collection, Richard J. Evans offers a critical commentary on that transformation, exploring how major changes in perspective have informed research and writing on the Third Reich in recent years. Drawing on his most notable writings, Evans reveals the shifting perspectives on Nazism's rise to political power, its economic intricacies, and its subterranean extension into postwar Germany.
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each book is better than the first. your writing is genius
- By Anonymous User on 05-10-24
By: Richard J. Evans
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Hitler's Hangman
- The Life of Heydrich
- By: Robert Gerwarth
- Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the 20th century, an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership. Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, and the Gestapo, ruthless overlord of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia, and leading planner of the "Final Solution," Heydrich played a central role in Hitler's Germany.
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A different perspective on the Third Reich
- By Robyn on 11-18-16
By: Robert Gerwarth
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Forgotten Ally
- China's World War II, 1937 - 1945
- By: Rana Mitter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. The war began in China two full years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West.
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Bland
- By Rodney on 01-23-14
By: Rana Mitter
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Army of Evil
- A History of the SS
- By: Adrian Weale
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In Nazi Germany, they were called the Schutzstaffel. The world would know them as the dreaded SS - the most loyal and ruthless enforcers of the Third Reich...It began as a small squad of political thugs. Yet by the end of 1935, the SS had taken control of all police and internal security duties in Germany - ranging from local village "gendarmes" all they way up to the secret political police and the Gestapo.
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Got lost in the details.
- By Alan on 11-28-12
By: Adrian Weale
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Stalin
- New Biography of a Dictator
- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
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Vietnam War: A Captivating Guide to the Second Indochina War
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 2 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The Vietnam War represented a watershed not only in American and Vietnamese history but also internationally. It wasn’t just a battle between two nations, but between two ideologies, two military strategies, and a fight for the hearts and minds of two vastly different national populations.
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quick and accurate
- By BDG-ALPHA on 07-31-20
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The Korean War
- A History
- By: Bruce Cumings
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.
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A real eye-opener
- By Bookworm on 10-09-19
By: Bruce Cumings
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Last Hope Island
- Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War
- By: Lynne Olson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A groundbreaking account of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their continent from Hitler, from the New York Times best-selling author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days.
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Not What I Expected--More What I Needed to Know
- By DanD on 06-25-17
By: Lynne Olson
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The Cold War's Killing Fields
- Rethinking the Long Peace
- By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In this sweeping, deeply researched book, Paul Thomas Chamberlin boldly argues that the Cold War, long viewed as a mostly peaceful, if tense, diplomatic standoff between democracy and communism, was actually a part of a vast, deadly conflict that killed millions on battlegrounds across the postcolonial world. For half a century, as an uneasy peace hung over Europe, ferocious proxy wars raged in the Cold War’s killing fields, resulting in more than 14 million dead - victims who remain largely forgotten and all but lost to history.
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Interesting but Biased
- By Jonathan W Schneider on 08-13-18
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The Road to Dien Bien Phu
- A History of the First War for Vietnam
- By: Christopher Goscha
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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On May 7, 1954, when the bullets stopped and the air stilled in Dien Bien Phu, there was no doubt that Vietnam could fight a mighty colonial power and win. After nearly a decade of struggle, a nation forged in the crucible of war had achieved a victory undreamed of by any other national liberation movement. The Road to Dien Bien Phu tells the story of how Ho Chi Minh turned a ragtag guerrilla army into a modern fighting force capable of bringing down the formidable French army.
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Motley Crew History new, true...,
- By Anonymous User on 04-20-22