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Hitler's Preemptive War
- The Battle for Norway, 1940
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
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Hitler's Preemptive War
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Summary
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.
What listeners say about Hitler's Preemptive War
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Hugo.A.Gons
- 12-01-20
Great book, but maybe not an audio book
De writer gives us a detailed story about the Norway campaign in april - june 1940. Hé adresses all sides in the conflict, and using a lot of source material. Although I really enjoyed the book, two things made it hard to follow. First you need a number of detailed maps, without them, Google maps helps a bit, but not enough. The narator has a nice clear voice, but he struggles with all non-english namens.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mr. Alan R. Jenkins
- 24-06-16
Pre-emptive War woes
The subject is of great interest to some military historians, but the story is lost in the narration! It is heavily critical of certain participants in the short conflict, which due to its proximity of location at its point in the early war years is clearly missed!
The narration is very poor, and it became annoying that pronunciation of names (particularly English) was appalling.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Roger Pitfield
- 17-01-19
Excellent!
A nicely presented and detailed account. The narrator is very easy to listen to and does a great job.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- susan
- 01-07-20
A true military history of a little known campaign
An incredibly detailed history of this little known campaign which could (should) have led to Hitler’s first defeat of WW2, but in which the allies managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Full of fascinating details but also perceptive analysis of the military and political shortcomings of all sides.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Stuart Clark
- 07-03-22
The narrator was not great
This was a real struggle to listen to. My issues with this book can be broken by into the audio bit and the book.
I am interested in the history of Norway and particularly the conquest and occupation of Norway during WWII. However, this book is not for people looking for a narrative overview of the conquest of Norway (it is also not about the period of occupation). The book is very much more of a history textbook; it is overburdened with unnecessary tedious details, and somehow manages to be overly repetitive. Some expressions appeared so regularly that it became almost a distraction.
The single most distracting aspect of this audio book has to the narrators in ability to pronounce words. Railroad in particular is a surprisingly common word in this book and it was a garbled mess nearly every time. However, this pales into insignificance compared to the narrator's complete disinterested in learning how to pronounce place names. I get that Americans pronounce UK place-names, but if you are narrating an audio book you should try. At points I had to pause the book so I could try and work out what place the narrator had said before continuing.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Tommy Two-sheds
- 23-10-20
Interesting history badly read
What a shame Such an interesting period of WW2 history ruined by bad pronunciation. All hail Sean Barrett !!!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Eskimo John
- 06-11-19
Disappointing
This work on the Battle for Norway in World War Two tries to draw some new conclusions from the actions of all participants. I think it does badly, with some dubious ideas.
Further, the narration is very poor. The reading is full of the most awful mispronunciations and it quickly becomes very irritating.
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