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Scars: The Third Reich In Ruins is a photographic exploration of the derelict remains of Hitler’s campaign across western Europe and his vision of a Thousand Year Reich.
The legacy left by the demise of Nazi Germany in 1945 is not simply imprinted on the world's psyche. Its physical remains still scar the European landscape. Today they lie decaying and often ignored, their purpose drifting out of memory as nature slowly reclaims them.
Historian Lawrence Paterson and film-maker Kris McManus will travel across Europe, locating and documenting these extraordinary sites from the South of France, along the treacherous coastlines of the Atlantic Wall that protected the western coasts of German occupied Europe, into the dense forests of the Ardennes and finally into Germany and the dark heart of Hitler's project at the Eagle's Nest.
En-route they will uncover castles appropriated by Himmler’s SS, the excavated caves and tunnels used to build Germany's Vengeance weapons, the U-boat pens, the monumental defences of the Atlantic coast and the remains of concentration camps - the crumbling ruins of the apparatuses of state terror that enabled the Third Reich to function unhampered, for a time.
The essence of this book is to pair Kris's evocative photography with Lawrence's historical analysis. Not a straight forward military account, or holocaust history but an historical road trip examining the scars the Third Reich left on the landscape and the psyche.
Photographer and filmmaker Kris McManus met historian and heavy metal drummer Lawrence Paterson on a music video shoot, filming in the remains of the Palmerston Napoleonic Forts in Portsmouth. Both men, as well as being keen motorcycle enthusiasts also share a passion for military history. Lawrence is an internationally respected expert on Germany's Second World War U-boat service and has written ten books on the subject which have been translated into German, Finnish, Italian, Polish and Japanese.
Kris was the youngest photographer (then aged 17) to have ever been employed by the US portrait company Olan Mills in their 120 year history. He has had various photography published (although this will be his first full book of images). He has also directed and photographed various documentaries, including shooting in Rwanda and has made two successfully distributed feature films.
Both men will set out on a documented journey, camera and pen in hand respectively, to explore the monolithic ruins of the Third Reich.
All supporters get their name printed in every edition of the book. All levels include the e-book and immediate access to the author's shed. Supporters of books that don't reach their target receive a FULL refund.
£10
DIGITAL
e-book edition, access to the author's shed and your name in the back of the book
£30
SIGNED HARDBACK
Limited 1st edition signed hardback e-book edition, access to the author's shed and your name in the back of the book
£60
DVD/ BLURAY
£750
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