Download or read book Last Days of the Reich written by James Lucas and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Third Reich collapsed, 70 million Germans were left bewildered and terrified, their leaders dead or incarcerated; the victors saw fully for the first time the unbearable legacy of death, atrocity, and destruction left by the Nazis. Here is the view from Hitler' s bunker, where news came of his troops surrendering on every front. An extraordinary story of ruin, retribution, sometimes courage and occasional suicide...and the ultimate rise from these ashes of a powerful, democratic republic.
Download or read book Eight Days in May The Final Collapse of the Third Reich written by Volker Ullrich and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[G]ripping, immaculately researched . . . In Mr. Ullrich’s account, the murderous behavior of the Reich’s last-ditch loyalists was not a reaction born of rage or of stubbornness in the face of defeat—common enough in war—but of something that had long ago tipped over into the pathological." —Andrew Stuttaford, Wall Street Journal The best-selling author of Hitler: Ascent and Hitler: Downfall reconstructs the chaotic, otherworldly last days of Nazi Germany. In a bunker deep below Berlin’s Old Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler and his new bride, Eva Braun, took their own lives just after 3:00 p.m. on April 30, 1945—Hitler by gunshot to the temple, Braun by ingesting cyanide. But the Führer’s suicide did not instantly end either Nazism or the Second World War in Europe. Far from it: the eight days that followed were among the most traumatic in modern history, witnessing not only the final paroxysms of bloodshed and the frantic surrender of the Wehrmacht, but the total disintegration of the once-mighty Third Reich. In Eight Days in May, the award-winning historian and Hitler biographer Volker Ullrich draws on an astonishing variety of sources, including diaries and letters of ordinary Germans, to narrate a society’s descent into Hobbesian chaos. In the town of Demmin in the north, residents succumbed to madness and committed mass suicide. In Berlin, Soviet soldiers raped German civilians on a near-unprecedented scale. In Nazi-occupied Prague, Czech insurgents led an uprising in the hope that General George S. Patton would come to their aid but were brutally put down by German units in the city. Throughout the remains of Third Reich, huge numbers of people were on the move, creating a surrealistic tableau: death marches of concentration-camp inmates crossed paths with retreating Wehrmacht soldiers and groups of refugees; columns of POWs encountered those of liberated slave laborers and bombed-out people returning home. A taut, propulsive narrative, Eight Days in May takes us inside the phantomlike regime of Hitler’s chosen successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, revealing how the desperate attempt to impose order utterly failed, as frontline soldiers deserted and Nazi Party fanatics called on German civilians to martyr themselves in a last stand against encroaching Allied forces. In truth, however, the post-Hitler government represented continuity more than change: its leaders categorically refused to take responsibility for their crimes against humanity, an attitude typical not just of the Nazi elite but also of large segments of the German populace. The consequences would be severe. Eight Days in May is not only an indispensable account of the Nazi endgame, but a historic work that brilliantly examines the costs of mass delusion.
Download or read book Hitler s Last Plot written by Ian Sayer and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealed for the first time: how the SS rounded up the Nazis' most prominent prisoners to serve as human shields for Hitler in the last days of World War II In April 1945, as Germany faced defeat, Hitler planned to round up the Third Reich's most valuable prisoners and send them to his "Alpine Fortress," where he and the SS would keep the hostages as they made a last stand against the Allies. The prisoners included European presidents, prime ministers, generals, British secret agents, and German anti-Nazi clerics, celebrities, and officers who had aided the July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler--and the prisoners' families. Orders were given to the SS: if the German military situation deteriorated, the prisoners were to be executed--all 139 of them. So began a tense, deadly drama. As some prisoners plotted escape, others prepared for the inevitable, and their SS guards grew increasingly volatile, drunk, and trigger-happy as defeat loomed. As a dramatic confrontation between the SS and the Wehrmacht threatened the hostages caught in the middle, the US Army launched a frantic rescue bid to save the hostages before the axe fell. Drawing on previously unpublished and overlooked sources, Hitler's Last Plot is the first full account of this astounding and shocking story, from the original round-up order to the prisoners' terrifying ordeal and ultimate rescue. Told in a thrilling, page-turning narrative, this is one of World War II's most fascinating episodes.
Download or read book Inside Hitler s Bunker written by Joachim Fest and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-03-15 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relates the final days of World War II in a study of Hitler's final days in the bunker and the torment in Germany's cities and towns as the Third Reich collapsed under the weight of American, British, French, and Russian forces.
Download or read book The Last Battle written by Cornelius Ryan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.
Download or read book Hitler s First Hundred Days written by Peter Fritzsche and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how Germans came to embrace the Third Reich.Germany in early 1933 was a country ravaged by years of economic depression and increasingly polarized between the extremes of left and right. Over the spring of that year, Germany was transformed from a republic, albeit a seriously faltering one, into a one-party dictatorship. In Hitler's First Hundred Days, award-winning historian PeterFritzsche examines the pivotal moments during this fateful period in which the Nazis apparently won over the majority of Germans to join them in their project to construct the Third Reich. Fritzsche scrutinizes the events of theperiod - the elections and mass arrests, the bonfires and gunfire, the patriotic rallies and anti-Jewish boycotts - to understand both the terrifying power that the National Socialists came to exert over ordinary Germans and the powerful appeal of the new era that they promised.
Download or read book Until the Final Hour written by Gertraud Junge and published by Arcade Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering an insider's perspective on the final days of the Third Reich, the recollections of a woman who became Hitler's secretary in 1942 sheds new light on his day-to-day life, character, and habits.
Download or read book Endkampf written by Stephen G. Fritz and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2004-10-08 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This thoroughly researched and superbly written study” examines the final days of WWII combat within Germany during the occupation of Franconia (WWII History). At the end of World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower turned US forces toward the Franconian region of Germany, ordering them to cut off and destroy German units before they could escape into the Alps. Opposing this advance were German forces headed by SS-Gruppenführer Max Simon, a committed National Socialist who advocated merciless resistance. Caught in the middle were the people of Franconia. Historians have largely overlooked this period of violence and terror, but it provides insight into the chaotic nature of life while the Nazi regime was crumbling. Neither German civilians nor foreign refugees acted simply as passive victims caught between two fronts. Throughout the region people pressured local authorities to end the senseless resistance. Others sought revenge for their tribulations in the “liberation” that followed. Stephen G. Fritz examines the predicament and perspective of American GI's, German soldiers and officials, and the civilian population. Endkampf is a gripping portrait of the collapse of a society and how it affected those involved, whether they were soldiers or civilians, victors or vanquished, perpetrators or victims.
Download or read book Hitler s Last Days written by Bill O'Reilly and published by Henry Holt and Company (BYR). This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By early 1945, the destruction of the German Nazi State seems certain. The Allied forces, led by American generals George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower, are gaining control of Europe, leaving German leaders scrambling. Facing defeat, Adolf Hitler flees to a secret bunker with his new wife, Eva Braun, and his beloved dog, Blondi. It is there that all three would meet their end, thus ending the Third Reich and one of the darkest chapters of history. Hitler's Last Days is a gripping account of the death of one of the most reviled villains of the 20th century—a man whose regime of murder and terror haunts the world even today. Adapted from Bill O'Reilly's historical thriller Killing Patton, this book will have young readers—and grown-ups too—hooked on history. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.
Download or read book Death Was Our Companion written by Tony Le Tissier and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Hitler's dreams of a Thousand Year Reich crumbled in the face of overwhelming assaults from both East and West in the first months of 1945 the heavily out numbered German armed forces were still capable of fighting with a tenacity and professionalism at odds with the desperate circumstances. While Hitler fantasized about deploying divisions and armies that had long since ceased to exist, boys of fifteen, officer cadets, sailors and veterans of the Great War joined the survivors of shattered formations on the front line. Leading historian Tony Le Tissier gives a German perspective to the mayhem and bloodshed of the last months of the Second World War in Europe. Teenaged Flak auxiliaries recount their experiences alongside veteran Panzergrenadiers attempting to break out of Soviet encirclement. Struggles between the military, industry and the Nazi Party for influence over the defenders of Berlin contrast with a key participant's account of Goebbel's abortive attempt to conclude a cease-fire with the Soviets. This is fascinating reading for anybody interested in the ordinary soldier's experience of the culminating battles in central Europe in 1945.
Download or read book The Final Archives of the F hrerbunker written by Paul Villatoux and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2020-10-28 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collected documents offering a look into the minds of the Third Reich’s leaders in their final days, and at Berlin following the end of World War II. In November 1945, two French officers secretly entered the Führerbunker, the air raid shelter near the Chancellery in Berlin. The bunker was the last home of Adolf Hitler; the background of the last months of his life and the war; where he married Eva Braun on April 29, 1945; and where he killed himself less than two days later. In the middle of a heap of furniture and broken objects, the two officers found hundreds of documents littering the ground. Among the documents that they retrieved were a dozen telegrams of historic importance that allow us to understand the spirit of the last leaders of the Third Reich as well as the events that took place between April 23 and 26, 1945. These and other documents are presented for the first time in this book, shown in their proper context with an expert commentary. “But although the building may have gone, troves of historic documents survived. Now, many have been published for the first time in this new visual history, an excellent guide to the horrendous final days, hours, and minutes of the Third Reich.” —Military History Matters
Download or read book Berlin Soldier written by Helmut Altner and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an explosive memoir of a 17 year old German boy called up to fight in the last weeks of the Second World War. This is a teenager's vivid account of his experiences as a conscript during the final desperate weeks of the Third Reich, during which he experienced training immediately behind the front line east of Berlin, was caught up in the massive Soviet assault on Berlin from the Oder, retreated successfully and then took part in the fight for the western suburb of Spandau, where he became one of the only two survivors of his company of seventeen year-olds.
Download or read book Swansong 1945 A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich written by Walter Kempowski and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-04-13 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A monumental work of history that captures the last days of the Third Reich as never before. Swansong 1945 chronicles the end of Nazi Germany through more than 1,000 extracts from letters, diaries, and autobiographical accounts, written by civilians and soldiers alike. Together, they present a panoramic view of four tumultuous days that fateful spring: Hitler’s birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler’s suicide on April 30, and the German surrender on May 8. An extraordinary account of suffering and survival, Swansong 1945 brings to vivid life the end of World War II in Europe.
Download or read book Downfall 1945 written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the final month of fighting in Europe in 1945 dawned the Allies embarked upon a series of mopping up operations, destroying the last centres of German resistance as the essentially defeated Wehrmacht fought on in increasingly desperate conditions, driven on by the explicit no surrender order issued by Hitler. Yet at the same time, the Allied alliance was already on shaky ground, as German resistance was crushed the Allies began to eye each other nervously across a battletorn Europe, with the politically driven military decisions to have a huge impact on the future of the continent. This book traces the final operations of the war, from the liberation of Denmark, the Allied drive towards the Baltic straits, incursions in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and engagements in Eastern and Western Germany, whilst also analyzing how the Allied strategies in the final days of the war were a hint of the future difficulties that would drive the Cold War.
Download or read book Eight Days in May written by Volker Ullrich and published by Allen Lane. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Third Reich written by Roberto Bolaño and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-11-22 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On vacation with his girlfriend, Ingeborg, the German war games champion Udo Berger returns to a small town on the Costa Brava where he spent the summers of his childhood. Soon they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, who introduce them to a band of locals—the Wolf, the Lamb, and El Quemado—and to the darker side of life in a resort town. Late one night, Charly disappears without a trace, and Udo's well-ordered life is thrown into upheaval; while Ingeborg and Hanna return to their lives in Germany, he refuses to leave the hotel. Soon he and El Quemado are enmeshed in a round of Third Reich, Udo's favorite World War II strategy game, and Udo discovers that the game's consequences may be all too real. Written in 1989 and found among Roberto Bolaño's papers after his death, The Third Reich is a stunning exploration of memory and violence. Reading this quick, visceral novel, we see a world-class writer coming into his own—and exploring for the first time the themes that would define his masterpieces The Savage Detectives and 2666.
Download or read book Final Days of the Reich written by Ian Baxter and published by Images of War. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Final Days of the Reich is the latest in the popular Images of War series by Ian Baxter. Drawing on rare and previously unpublished photographs accompanied by in-depth captions and text, this book is a compelling account of the final weeks of the Nazis' struggle for survival against overwhelming odds. Each photograph fully captures the tension, turmoil and tragedy of those last, terrible days of war as Wehmacht, Waffen SS, Luftwaffe, Hitlerjungend, Volkssturm and other units, some of which where comprised of barely trained conscripts, fought out their last battles. Exhausted and demoralized skeletal units must have been aware of the impending defeat. Yet the German General Staff was still resolved to fight at all costs. By late March 1945, less than 100 miles east of Berlin, some 250,000 German troops had slowly withdrawn to the Oder, and what followed was a series of fierce and determined defensive actions that would finally see the Germans encircled and fighting the last desperate battle within Berlin itself against overwhelming odds.
