VE Day (Victory in Europe) marks the end of the Second World War in Europe following Germany's surrender. Check out these titles from the KFPL collection to learn about the lead up to this momentous day in history!
The Bitter Taste of Victory: Life, Love, and Art in the Ruins of the Reich by Lara Feigel
The Allies were anxious to indoctrinate the German people in the ideas of peace and civilization. Denazification and reeducation would be key to future peace, and the arts were crucial guides to alternative, less militaristic ways of life. In an extraordinary extension of diplomacy, over the four years after VE Day, many writers, artists, actors, and filmmakers were dispatched by Britain and America to help rebuild the country their governments had spent years bombing. This title looks at Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Marlene Dietrich, George Orwell, Lee Miller, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Billy Wilder, and others who undertook the challenge of reconfiguring German society.
1945: The Year That Made Modern Canada by Ken Cuthbertson
Ken Cuthbertson has written a highly readable narrative that commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the end of WWII and chronicles the events and personalities of a critical year that reshaped Canada. 1945: The Year That Made Modern Canada showcases the stories of people--some celebrated, some ordinary--who left their mark on the nation and helped create the Canada of today.
The Third Man: Churchill, Roosevelt, Mackenzie King, and the Untold Friendships that Won WWII by Neville Thompson
Mackenzie King was determined, as leader of the largest British Dominion and America's closest neighbour, to serve as a lynchpin between the great powers. Churchill and Roosevelt both came to rely upon him as their next most important ally, routinely confiding in him and never suspecting that he was meticulously recording every word, prayer, slight, and tic from their countless interactions in his voluminous unpublished diary.
Fight to the Finish: Canadians in the Second World War, 1944-1945 by Tim Cook
Whether it's a minute-by-minute account of a gruelling artillery battle, vicious infighting among generals, the scene inside a medical unit, or the small details of a soldier's daily life, Tim Cook creates a compelling narrative. He recounts in mesmerizing detail how the Canadian forces figured in the Allied bombing of Germany, the D-Day landing at Juno beach, the taking of Caen, and the drive south.
Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal After World War II by Francine Hirsch
Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg reveals the pivotal role the Soviet Union played in the Nuremberg Trials of 1945 and 1946. As Francine Hirsch reveals in this history of the trials, a central part of the story has been ignored or forgotten: the critical role the Soviet Union played in making them happen in the first place. The Soviet Union was regarded by its wartime Allies not just as a fellow victor but a rival, and it was not in the interests of the Western powers to highlight the Soviet contribution to postwar justice.
Battle Diary: From D-day and Normandy to the Zuider Zee and VE by Charles Cromwell Martin
A fast-paced account by a soldier who was twice decorated. Charlie Martin, company sergeant-major in the Queen's Own, was with his beloved A Company in all of the significant Normandy actions.
On to Victory: The Canadian Liberation of the Netherlands, March 23-May 5, 1945 by Mark Zuelke
On to Victory is the little-told story of the tense final days of World War II, remembered in the Netherlands as "the sweetest of springs," which saw the country's liberation from German occupation. The Liberation Campaign, a series of fierce, desperate battles during the last three months of the war, was bittersweet. A nation's freedom was won and the war concluded, but these final hostilities cost Canada 6,298 casualties, including 1,482 dead.
The Best Little Army in the World: The Canadians in Northwest Europe, 1944-1945 by J.L. Granatstein
This is the story of the Canadian First Army that fought its way from Juno Beach at D-Day in June, 1944, through Normandy, into the Netherlands to liberate that country, to the terrible battles in the Scheldt area, and finally into Germany in 1945. This is also the story of how Canada, which had no army to speak of in 1939, raised a citizen army and turned it into one of the very best fighting armies in World War II.
Sicily '43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe by James Holland
On July 10, 1943, the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted took place, larger even than the Normandy invasion eleven months later: 160,000 American, British, and Canadian troops came ashore or were parachuted onto Sicily, signaling the start of the campaign to defeat Nazi Germany on European soil. Operation HUSKY, as it was known, was enormously complex, involving dramatic battles on land, in the air, and at sea.
Downfall directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (film)
It's the last days of Adolf Hitler, April 1945, and Hitler's personal secretary Traudl Junge finds herself in the Fuhrer's bunker and witnesses how Hitler and Eva lived their last hours.
