A fresh look at the decisive year 1941, when Hitler’s miscalculations and policy of terror propelled Churchill, FDR, and Stalin into a powerful new alliance that defeated Nazi Germany.
Now in Paperback
1941: The Year Germany Lost the War
In early 1941, Hitler’s armies ruled most of Europe. Churchill’s Britain was an isolated holdout against the Nazi tide, but German bombers were attacking its cities and German U-boats were attacking its ships. Stalin was observing the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and Roosevelt was vowing to keep the United States out of the war. Hitler was confident that his aim of total victory was within reach.
By the end of 1941, all that changed. Hitler had repeatedly gambled on escalation and lost: by invading the Soviet Union and committing a series of disastrous military blunders; by making mass murder and terror his weapons of choice, and by rushing to declare war on the United States after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Britain emerged with two powerful new allies—Russia and the United States. By then, Germany was doomed to defeat.
Nagorski illuminates the actions of the major characters of this pivotal year as never before. The Year Germany Lost the War is a stunning examination of unbridled megalomania versus determined leadership. It also reveals how 1941 set the Holocaust in motion, and presaged the postwar division of Europe, triggering the Cold War. 1941 was a year that forever defined our world.
"Andrew Nagorski’s vivid, incisive account shows how and why 1941 marked not just the beginning, but the beginning of the end, of World War II.”—William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era and Gorbachev: His Life and Times
"In 1941, the seemingly all-powerful… ...read more
Because Nazi Germany lacked the means to win a prolonged war, each year of the war could qualify as significant, but few readers will object to this expert history of 1941, a year when Hitler made a flurry of stupid decisions. Award-winning former Newsweek journalist Nagorski (The Nazi Hunters,… ...read more
OPC member Andrew Nagorski, an award-winning journalist who worked for more than three decades for Newsweek, has taken another deep dive into World War II, this time with a close look at the early days of Hitler’s campaign and its galvanizing affect on allies. 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War [… ...read more
In this successful history, journalist Nagorski isolates 1941 as a turning point in world history, persuasively arguing it was the year Adolf Hitler’s political and military decisions ensured the downfall of the Third Reich. A year that began with the Soviet Union and Germany carving up occupied… ...read more
“Nagorski provides a compelling narrative of the war’s major events, developments, and personalities in 1941.”
Military historians often identify key battles or events that in hindsight are deemed “turning points” of a war. The most commonly identified turning points of World War II are the Battle… ...read more
What a difference a year makes. Or so argues Andrew Nagorski in his newest book, 1941. That, in his view, was the year Germany lost World War II. Others might suggest 1944, when the Allied invasion of Normandy forced Hitler to fight on two fronts, or, ultimately, 1945, the year the Axis powers… ...read more
France may have fallen quickly, but war planners on both sides could see that Germany lacked the aerial or naval power to defeat Britain. Hitler invaded Russia to seize more resources, but soon was fighting unwinnable wars on two fronts
Viewed from the perspective of 1939, Germany’s defeat in World… ...read more
War is one human endeavor that invites us to play the irresistible but entirely imaginary game of singling out the turning points in history. The Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, for example, is commonly cited as the tipping point that signaled the inevitable defeat of Nazi… ...read more
We tend to think of D-Day as the turning point of WWII: the day the Allies landed in Normandy to liberate France, and the entire Europe, from the Nazi invaders. But Andrew Nagorski’s new book, 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War (New York, Simon & Schuster, 2019), persuasively argues that this… ...read more
Hitler nie spodziewał się, że wszystko pójdzie nie tak. Historyk opisał jak doszło do klęski Niemców
Na początku 1941 r. wojska niemieckie okupowały już niemal całą Europę. Hitler był przekonany, że lada dzień zwycięży.
A jednak pod koniec 1941 r. wszystko się zmieniło. Hitler podjął kilka ryzykownych decyzji, przede wszystkim napadł na ZSRR i pochopnie wypowiedział wojnę Stanom Zjednoczonym. Gdy… ...read more
To nie słynna bitwa o Stalingrad w 1943 roku zadecydowała o klęsce Niemiec w drugiej wojnie światowej. Według historyka Andrew Nagorskiego początkiem końca Trzeciej Rzeszy była porażka Wehrmachtu pod Moskwą w 1941 roku. Poniżej możecie przeczytać fragment wydanej właśnie książki "1941. Rok w którym… ...read more
Dlaczego to właśnie rok 1941 zaważył na losach II wojny światowej i późniejszym globalnym układzie sił? Kiedy Stalin zadecydował, że jednak nie ucieknie z atakowanej Moskwy? Czemu Hitler tak ochoczo przystąpił do wojny z USA? Między innymi te pytania zadaliśmy Andrew Nagorskiemu, autorowi książki „… ...read more
Gościem najnowszego odcinka programu „Twarzą w twarz” był wieloletni korespondent amerykańskiej edycji „Newsweeka” w Europie Wschodniej i pisarz Andrew Nagorski. Z gospodarzem programu Tomaszem Walczakiem rozmawiał o swojej najnowszej książce „1941. Rok, w którym Niemcy przegrały wojnę”.
Nagorski… ...read more
It might seem as though a historical episode as large and traumatic as World War II would be so momentous, so universally experienced, as to fix itself immutably in the cultural memory of the peoples who took part in it. But four new books by Amherst authors, all focused on the war or subjects near… ...read more
On Dec. 30, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the Canadian Parliament. Fresh from consultations with President Franklin Roosevelt, he presented a bold vision for the future course of the war. The boldness was not new, but there was a new assurance the outcome of the war was… ...read more
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