Fascinating study of the final 18 months of the Nazi regime and the forces of politics, culture and terror that kept the state functioning until the final days of the war. Deep look at the tremendous human tragedy that was perpetrated in that final period as Hitler's cult of personality and Goebbels, Himmler and Bormann maintained the regime.

The End is a meticulous survey of the collapse of Nazi Germany, from the July Plot on Hitler's life to the final surrender.

There's not much variation in what happens. The military situation lurches from bad to worse against the implacable weight of the Red Army, the Allied bombing campaign, and the invasion in the west. Hitler sought an increasingly delusional victory, based on superweapons, the volkssturm militia, and a heroic mobilization of an exhausted population. Many senior leaders, both Nazi Party members and the "apolitical" generals and bureaucrats who had no problems with fascism, knew that the war was lost but were too scared to do anything to shorten it. And ordinary people, both civilian and military, did their best to survive under increasingly bad conditions.

As the war closes in on it's end, faith in the Nazi Party and Hitler collapse. True believers carried out punitive executions against deserters and traitors, while concentration camp victims were sent on purposeless death marches across Europe. Even so, German soldiers kept fighting, motivated by terror of reprisals under Soviet occupation, fear of their leaders, and a kind of bloody-minded obstinance.

This is a long, ugly book, and deeply researched, but I'm not sure any words can capture those final months of collapse.

Informative and rigorous account of the end of the Third Reich, painted as an office drama.

A study of the last futile 10 months of Nazi Germany, and how the country continued to function longer than it should have. The simple answer, that Hitler was delusional and could never surrender, is only part of the story. A thorough analysis of how a people, so beaten down by oppression, were left with literally no mechanism for rebellion.

Fascinating. Long. So relieved that the last 150 pages were notes etc.

Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!