The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45
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The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45
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Narrated by:
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David Timson
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By:
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Ian Kershaw
About this listen
The unabridged, downloadable audiobook of Ian Kershaw's The End, a searing account of the last days of the Nazi Regime and the downfall of a nation. Read by David Timson.
The last months of the Second World War were a nightmarish time to be alive. Unimaginable levels of violence destroyed entire cities. Millions died or were dispossessed. By all kinds of criteria it was the end: the end of the Third Reich and its terrible empire but also, increasingly, it seemed to be the end of European civilization itself.
In his gripping, revelatory new book Ian Kershaw describes these final months, from the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944 to the German surrender in May 1945. The major question that Kershaw attempts to answer is: what made Germany keep on fighting? In almost every major war there has come a point where defeat has loomed for one side and its rulers have cut a deal with the victors, if only in an attempt to save their own skins. In Hitler's Germany, nothing of this kind happened: in the end the regime had to be stamped out town by town with a level of brutality almost without precedent.
Both a highly original piece of research and a gripping narrative, The End makes vivid an era which still deeply scars Europe. It raises the most profound questions about the nature of the Second World War, about the Third Reich and about how ordinary people behave in extreme circumstances.
©2011 Ian Kershaw (P)2012 Penguin AudioCritic Reviews
"Well-written, penetrating...and ground-breaking." (Andrew Roberts, Evening Standard)
"No one is better qualified to tell this grim story than Kershaw.... A master of both the vast scholarly literature on Nazism and the extraordinary range of its published and unpublished record, Kershaw combines vivid accounts of particular human experiences with wise reflections on big interpretive and moral issues.... No one has written a better account of the human dimensions of Nazi Germany's end." (New York Times Book Review)
"A compelling account of the bloody and deluded last days of the Third Reich...this is far from being of mere academic interest.... The greatest strength of Kershaw's narrative is that he gives us much more than the view from the top.... Interwoven are insights into German life and death at all levels of society." (The Times)
What listeners say about The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr Denis M McPhillips
- 02-04-2020
Kershaw the Master
What a brilliant work. Ian Kershaw takes his time in the build up to the Nazi catastrophe
and its denouement. A stirring read by David Timson brings it to life.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- steve
- 23-04-2018
Well researched.
A very thorough and and well presented account of the final part of the war. But if you're looking for something that captures the drama, the desperation etc. then this isn't it.
This book is mostly about the Nazi's mechanisms of control over the military, the population and their own party and how they forced the 'fight to the death' as Germany was conquered. It gets a bit dry and boring (sorry!) in places unless you are really interested in Nazi personalities jockeying for position and favour within the party. It's a really valuable book if you're interested in knowing a lot about this fairly narrow aspect but it's not what the title suggests.
It's not exclusively about these themes but the title probably suggests a broader view of the german downfall than it delivers. Still, it is a good book.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 09-10-2022
Outstanding!
As a person that likes to read political history this book gave everything and more. So well researched and put together. All the moving parts of which there were many are inter grated into the timeline so very well.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Anu
- 07-10-2022
Surface level reading of events
Got about a third of the way through it and couldn't finish it. The book is basically just a chronological tour de force (of which such WW2 literature there already exist tons of) with a sort of melodramatic spray of adjectives to illustrate the nazis as dastardly, unintelligent and malignantly inclined. While I certainly would agree that the nazi's actions were dispicable, I feel that the book lacks a certain indepth analysis or explanation about how ideological fascist tyranny managed to sustain its grip on the nation, particularly after it became obvious that Germany was sliding down the J curve of military defeat.. .... as such, the portarait of the nazi's appear almost like a caricature. Rather than providing a reading experience that illuminates something of the dark extremes of human politics, it is more like an expose of the social life of Tyrannosauruses ....as in the nazis are illustrated as so "other" by dint of their moral ambivalence, that the subject of their core connection to modernism is so completely absent, that it is like one is reading of the gruesome antics of animals of some long, distant eon.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Rowey555
- 11-02-2024
Buy a different book
Cliche, poor research, figments of imagination and just plain hearsay make up this very bland, underwhelming ww2 history on the German 6th army from Russia, the arrival of the Russians and allied services. I recommend Anthony beevor or max hastings for anyone looking for more on this subject. They’re the best.
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