PICTURES FROM HISTORY: Rare Images Of War, History , WW2, Nazi Germany: Winston Churchill: Some Rare Pictures

The bowler hat momentarily replaced by a steel helmet Churchill is relaxed and smiling in a bomb shelter as the RAF and the Luftwaffe battled over Dover.

In the harsh summer of 1940 few nations were blessed as Britain was in difficult times. In new Prime Minister Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the country had a leader whose style, temperament and experience made him the ideal leader for times of war, the most suitable man to take charge of a country badly beaten, at a time when Luftwaffe's Reich Marshal Hermann Goring was preparing to attack Britain to force it to surrender.

Churchill loved the power and control and also a good fight. He was extremely energetic and competitive and always kept up with a variety of hobbies such as painting, polo, hunting and writing. As a boy at Harrow, he stubbornly refused to learn Latin and mathematics. Then he went to the Sandhurst military academy, served as an officer enthusiast in India and occupied a seat in parliament at the age of 26. In 1911 when he was just 37 years old Churchill became the top leader of the Royal Navy.

Churchill was also a shrewd opportunist who during his political career, who did not care to switch parties . Finally he was selfish and extravagant, lover of elegant clothes and bright hats, for whom the megalomania was the only way to protect his sanity.

In part as he liked to draw attention, as Prime Minister Churchill frequently and deliberately took personal risks. But people admired him for it, and admired his disdain toward the danger. Once when a German bomb fell near his car and was about to overturn it he managed to joke, "That should be my kilos which kept the car straight."

In 1889 a student from Harrow, Winston Churchill then 15 years of age is portrayed with mandatory school uniform, jackets, cane and all.

An unflappable Lt. Churchill poses astride his favorite horse during his time of military service in India 1896, with the Hussars of the Queen.

Member of the government at the age of 35 years Churchill (with white cap) shakes hands with his host, Kaiser Wilhelm during military maneuvers in Germany in 1909

Churchill stands next to Allied officers in France in 1915. He was a infantry battalion commander there

Churchill poses next to a biplane after completing a flight of 200 miles in 1914. An impetuous and extremely lucky pilot, he once crashed but escaped unhurt.

With Clementine his wife, Churchill doffs his hat during an unsuccessful campaign for Parliament as an independent candidate in 1924

On holiday in France in 1927 as finance minister Churchill drinks some brandy before a wild boar hunt

Churchill rides against the Prince of Wales during a polo match in 1924. While serving as a trooper in India he won a trophy with his team and remained an excellent polo player even in his fifties.

With his white hat and overall Churchill the artist paints a picture at the French Riviera in 1935.

At the beginning of World War II, as First Lord of Admiralty, Churchill talks with army officers of the British expeditionary force.

Recently appointed Prime Minister Churchill studies maps of war with Admiral Ramsay Bretram in September 1940, during an inspection tour of the defenses along the south coast of Great Britain.

Churchill with British soldiers in southern coastal area of Britain which was expected to face the brunt of the German attack

Officers and sailors of a battle cruiser anchored at a port in northern Britain give three cheers to their prime minister

RELATED
Quotes By WINSTON CHURCHILL

Quotes about war....

"War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man."
--Napoleon Hill

"We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide."
--Havelock Ellis

'Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
--Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."
--George McGovern

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
--Joseph Stalin

In war, truth is the first casualty.
-- Aeschylus

"The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery."
--Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
--Adolf Hitler

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization."
--George Orwell

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."
--Bertrand Russell

Men are at war with each other because each man is at war with himself.
--Francis Meehan

Snippets From History

German Soldiers in Russia: Part 1

Hubert Menzel was a major in the General Operations Department of the OKH (the Oberkommando des Heers, the German Army headquarters), and for him the idea of invading the Soviet Union in 1941 had the smack of cold, clear logic to it: 'We knew that in two years' time, that is by the end of 1942, beginning of 1943, the English would be ready, the Americans would be ready, the Russians would be ready too, and then we would have to deal with all three of them at the same time.... We had to try to remove the greatest threat from the East.... At the time it seemed possible.'

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Battle for Berlin, 1945

'We started to fire at the masses,' says one former German machine gunner. 'They weren't human beings for us. It was a wall of attacking beasts who were trying to kill us. You yourself were no longer human.'

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Berlin after it fell to the Russians, 1945

"Vladlen Anchishkin, a Soviet battery commander on the 1st Ukrainian Front, sums up the horror of the whole event, when he tells how he took personal revenge on German soldiers: 'I can admit it now, I was in such a state, I was in such a frenzy. I said, 'Bring them here for an interrogation' and I had a knife, and I cut him. I cut a lot of them. I thought, 'You wanted to kill me, now it's your turn.'
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Dramatic Pictures: Battle For Stalingrad

"...Effective command no longer possible... further defense senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops."
General Paulus' radio message to Hitler on January 24, 1943
"...Capitulation is impossible. The 6th Army will do its historic duty at Stalingrad until the last man, the last bullet..."
Hitler's response to General Friedrich Paulus' request to withdraw from the city