Alex Kershaw

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Alex Kershaw (* 1966 in York ) is a British journalist and author of books on the history of World War II.

Life

Alex Kershaw studied Political Science, Philosophy and Economics at University College Oxford . He worked as a teacher at the Whitgift School and then became a freelance journalist for various British newspapers, including The Guardian , The Independent and The Sunday Times . Kershaw has published several biographical books on contemporary history, including biographical novels on Jack London and Robert Capa . He described the Battle of Britain and the Allied struggle in the German Ardennes offensive ( The Longest Winter ).

His biographical study The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau on the US Army officer Felix Sparks (1917–2007), based on interviews and sources, deals with the hostilities of Sparks European theater of war in World War II: the fighting for Sicily , the Allied bridgehead in Anzio , the conquest of the fortress city of Aschaffenburg . In the last one hundred out of four hundred pages it deals with the Dachau massacre , in which Sparks was involved as battalion commander of the US troop unit that liberated the Dachau concentration camp . According to the FAZ review by the German journalist Andreas Kilb , Kershaw's book does not help to shed light on what happened.

Kershaw lives in Williamstown , Massachusetts .

Works (selection)

  • The Bedford Boys: one American town's ultimate D-Day sacrifice . Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81167-7
  • Jack London: A Life . London: Harper Collins, 1997. ISBN 0-00-255585-9
  • Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa , Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006. ISBN 0-306-81356-4
    • Translation: Robert Capa: The Photographer of War . Translated from the English by Olaf Matthias Roth. Berlin: Ullstein, 2004. ISBN 3-550-07607-X
  • The Longest Winter - The Battle of the Bulge and the Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon . Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2004. ISBN 0-306-81304-1
  • The Few: The American "Knights of the Air" Who Risked Everything to Fight in the Battle of Britain . Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006. ISBN 0-306-81303-3
  • Escape from the Deep: A Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew . Philadelphia, Pa .: Da Capo Press 2008. ISBN 978-0-306-81519-5
  • The Envoy: The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe . Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-306-81557-7
  • The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau . New York: Crown Broadway, 2012. ISBN 978-0-307-88799-3
    • Translation: The Liberator: The Story of an American Soldier in World War II . Translated from the English by Birgit Brandau. Munich: DTV, 2014. ISBN 978-3-423-28030-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alex Kershaw: The Liberator , Pritzker Military, March 20, 2014
  2. ↑ Andreas Kilb: The trash knows the truth , review, in: FAZ , May 31, 2014, p. 10
  3. ↑ Tom Huntington: Review: The Liberator by Alex Kershaw , at historynet.com, March 4, 2013
  4. ↑ Del Wilber: The Liberator , Review, Washington Post , Jan. 26, 2013
  5. ↑ Norbert Zähringer : The longest year , review, in: The Literary World , May 31, 2014, p. 5
personal data
SURNAME Kershaw, Alex
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British journalist and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH York