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Published Oct 2014
432 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
History remembers the Soviets and the Nazis as bitter enemies and ideological rivals, the two mammoth and opposing totalitarian regimes of World War II whose conflict would be the defining and deciding clash of the war. Yet for nearly a third of the conflict's entire timespan, Hitler and Stalin stood side by side as partners. The Pact that they agreed had a profound - and bloody - impact on Europe, and is fundamental to understanding the development and denouement of the war.
In The Devils' Alliance, acclaimed historian Roger Moorhouse explores the causes and implications of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, an unholy covenant whose creation and dissolution were crucial turning points in World War II. Forged by the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, the nonaggression treaty briefly united the two powers in a brutally efficient collaboration. Together, the Germans and Soviets quickly conquered and divided central and eastern Europe - Poland, the Baltic States, Finland, and Bessarabia - and the human cost was staggering: during the two years of the pact hundreds of thousands of people in central and eastern Europe caught between Hitler and Stalin were expropriated, deported, or killed. Fortunately for the Allies, the partnership ultimately soured, resulting in the surprise June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union. Ironically, however, the powers' exchange of materiel, blueprints, and technological expertise during the period of the Pact made possible a far more bloody and protracted war than would have otherwise been conceivable.
Combining comprehensive research with a gripping narrative, The Devils' Alliance is the authoritative history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact - and a portrait of the people whose lives were irrevocably altered by Hitler and Stalin's nefarious collaboration.
"Starred Review. A well-researched work offering new understanding of the pact's pertinence to this day." - Kirkus
"Riveting… Readers of military and diplomatic history as well as those interested in the Holocaust will find this book immensely interesting and informative." - Publishers Weekly
"Moorhouse tells a good story and… he is able to add interesting new details. His account of the negotiation and signing of the pact, finalised by Ribbentrop and Molotov, two men who had become foreign ministers of their respective countries through fawning sycophancy towards their respective leaders, is masterly." - Guardian, UK
"Meticulous and vividly readable… At a time when tensions are once again simmering in the same Eastern European badlands where the "devils' alliance" was forged, Moorhouse's grim and compelling book could not be more topical." - Telegraph, UK
"Moorhouse makes an elegant plea for retrieving the Pact from its "place too often in the footnotes", to disentangle the myths from facts and recast erroneous readings." - Independent, UK
"Moorhouse provides a vivid account, full of primary source material, of the pact's origins and explains how Berlin and Moscow co-operated for almost two years before the partnership collapsed with Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941…The Devils' Alliance is a highly enjoyable history written with verve and attention to detail." - Financial Times, UK
"A detailed, up-to-date and highly readable account." - Literary Review, UK
"Superbly detailed and well-written… Moorhouse, an expert in modern German history uses first-hand and eyewitness testimony to tell a compelling story." -
Daily Express, UK
This information about The Devils' Alliance was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Roger Moorhouse studied history at the University of London and is a regular contributor to BBC History Magazine. He is the award-winning author of Berlin at War and Killing Hitler: The Plots, The Assassins, and the Dictator Who Cheated Death and is co-author with Norman Davies of Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City.
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