Photo, above:  The Lions of Carentan at St Martin de Varreville. Wartime history of one of the largest German paratrooper regiments, 6th Fallschirmjaeger, from its initial formation in the spring of 1943 to its last day at the end of the war.  Known as Lions of Carentan after ferocious battles in Normandy, these men were thereafter thrown into the thickest of fighting.  See: Lions of Carentan, by Volker Griesser, Hour Four, below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Villers-Bocage
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Sunday  6 Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings (Oct 2, 2012) 1 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block B:   Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings (Oct 2, 2012) 2 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: . Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings (Oct 2, 2012) 3 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 1, Block D:  Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings (Oct 2, 2012) 4 of 4
 
Hour Two
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  . Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Sonke Neitzel, Harald Welzer and Jefferson Chase (Sep 25, 2012) - Deckle Edge 1 of 4
In 2001, spurred by a nagging curiosity over a transcript of a secretly recorded conversation he had come across in his research on the German U-boat wars, historian Sönke Neitzel paid a visit to the British national archives. He had heard of the existence of recorded interrogations of German POWs, but never about covert recordings taken within the confines of the holding cells, bedrooms, and camps that housed the prisoners. What Neitzel discovered, to his amazement, were reams of untouched, recently declassified transcripts totaling nearly eight hundred pages. Later, Neitzel would find another trove of protocols twice as extensive at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. 

Though initially recorded by British intelligence with the intention of gaining information that might be useful for the Allied war effort, the matters discussed in these conversations ultimately proved to be limited in that regard. But for Neitzel and his collaborator, renowned social psychologist Harald Welzer, they would supply a unique and profoundly important window into the mentality of the soldiers in the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the German navy, and the military in general, almost all of whom had insisted on their own honorable behavior during the war. It is a myth these transcripts unequivocally debunk.   

Soldaten closely examines these conversations, and the casual, pitiless brutality omnipresent in them, from a historical and psychological perspective. What factors led to the degradation of the soldiers’ sense of awareness and morality? How much did their social environments affect their interpretation of the war and their actions during combat? By reconstructing the frameworks and situations behind these conversations, and the context in which they were spoken, a powerful, unflinching narrative of wartime experience emerges. The details of what these soldiers did, after all, are not filtered the way they might be in letters to family, or girlfriends and wives, or during interrogations by the enemy. In Soldaten, Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer offer an unmitigated window into the mind-set of the German fighting man, potentially changing our view of World War II. 
 
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  . Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Sonke Neitzel, Harald Welzer and Jefferson Chase (Sep 25, 2012) - Deckle Edge 2 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block C:  . Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Sonke Neitzel, Harald Welzer and Jefferson Chase (Sep 25, 2012) - Deckle Edge 3 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 2, Block D:  Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Sonke Neitzel, Harald Welzer and Jefferson Chase (Sep 25, 2012) - Deckle Edge 4 of 4
 
Hour Three
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block A:  Inside the Nazi War Machine: How Three Generals Unleashed Hitler's Blitzkrieg Upon the World by Bevin Alexander (Sep 6, 2011) 1 of 2
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block B:  . Inside the Nazi War Machine: How Three Generals Unleashed Hitler's Blitzkrieg Upon the World by Bevin Alexander (Sep 6, 2011) 2 of 2
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block C:  I Sleep in Hitler's Room - An American Jew Visits Germany by Tuvia Tenenbom (Oct 14, 2011); 1 of 2
[This book is both hilarious and alarming.  – ed.]  Traveling across Germany and seeking out that elusive quality that is the German character, playwright and journalist Tuvia Tenenbom wonders if he's identified it in any one of several striking social phenomena—the proclivity of Germans to join clubs and group activities; how their aptitude for visual design shapes their architecture and their daily life; how their daily life is suffused with soccer and beer, the omnipresent beverage for all occasions; how they proudly self-define themselves by their achievements in precision technology; and, what is most disturbing to this son of Holocaust survivors, how their crushing awareness of their dark history coexists with virulent anti-Semitism and a stubborn obsession with Israel.
Tenenbom integrates deep seriousness with the most lighthearted comic touch in this critical but affectionate look at both left and right in contemporary German politics and society. Listen in on his meetings with leaders in German industry and media, including former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, as well as with scores of private citizens whose everyday conversation Tenenbom ponders even as he gently teases them.
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 3, Block D:   I Sleep in Hitler's Room - An American Jew Visits Germany by Tuvia Tenenbom (Oct 14, 2011); 2 of 2
 
Hour Four
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block A:  LIONS OF CARENTAN, THE: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (Sep 2011) 1 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  LIONS OF CARENTAN, THE: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (Sep 2011) 2 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  LIONS OF CARENTAN, THE: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (Sep 2011) 3 of 4
Sunday 6  Jan 2013 / Hour 4, Block D:   LIONS OF CARENTAN, THE: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (Sep 2011) 4 of 4
Although it's known that Allied airborne forces landed into a German buzz saw on D-Day, far less is known about the troops they encountered in the dark night of June 6, 1944. One of the formations they encountered was a similarly elite group of paratroopers, who instead of dropping from the skies fought on the defensive, giving their Allied counterparts a tremendous challenge in achieving their objectives.
This is the complete wartime history of one of the largest German paratrooper regiments, 6th Fallschirmjäger, from its initial formation in the spring of 1943 to its last day at the end of the war. With numerous firsthand accounts from key members reporting on their experiences, they describe the events of 1943–45 vividly and without compromise.
These accounts reveal previously-unknown details about important operations in Italy, Russia, on the Normandy Front, Belgium, Holland, the last German Parachute drop in the Ardennes, and the final battle to the end in Germany.  With over 220 original photographs, many from private collections and never before published, this book fully illustrates the men, their uniforms, equipment and weapons. Also included is an appendix with maps, battle calendar, staffing plans, a list of field and post-MOB-numbers, and the Knight's Cross recipients of the regiment. Having earned the respect of the Allied forces who fought against it during World War II, this work will inform current readers of the full record of Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6, and why the Allied advance into German-held Europe was so painstaking to achieve.
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