The End: Germany, 1944-45 - Softcover

Kershaw, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141014210 ISBN 13: 9780141014210

Publisher: Penguin, 2012

Synopsis

Named Book of the Year by the Sunday Times, TLS, Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail and Scotland on Sunday, Ian Kershaw's The End is a searing account of the final months of Nazi Germany, laying bare the fear and fanaticism that drove a nation to destruction.

In almost every major war there comes a point where defeat looms for one side and its rulers 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 an almost unprecedented level of brutality.

Just what made Germany keep on fighting?
Why did its rulers not cut a deal to save their own skins?
And why did ordinary people continue to obey the Fuhrer's suicidal orders, with countless Germans executing their own countrymen for desertion or defeatism?

'Nuanced and sophisticated ... undoubtedly a masterpiece' - Mail on Sunday

'Gripping yet scholarly ... the best attempt by far to answer the complex question of why Nazi Germany carried on fighting to total self-destruction' - Antony Beevor, Telegraph

'Masterly ... Kershaw's gripping and boldly intelligent work of scholarship ... will surely become the standard account of the Nazi system's terrible final phase' - Financial Times

'Brilliant ... utterly terrifying' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year

About this title

Review:

A remarkable feat of historical scholarship and intelligent analysis (Jonathan Sumption Spectator)

Gripping yet scholarly ... the best attempt by far to answer the complex question of why Nazi Germany carried on fighting to total self-destruction. Kershaw, the author of the best biography of Hitler, is the finest sort of academic, for he combines impeccable scholarship with an admirable clarity of thought and prose (Antony Beevor Telegraph)

Masterly ... Kershaw's gripping and boldly intelligent work of scholarship ... will surely become the standard popularly accessible account of the Nazi system's terrible final phase (Financial Times)

Brilliant ... nuanced and sophisticated ... undoubtedly a masterpiece (Mail on Sunday)

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)

Sober, judicious, clearly written and superbly well researched - a definitive history of the last months of the Third Reich (Richard Bessel History Today)

Magisterial ... distinguished (Daily Mail, Book of the Week)

Kershaw is a sure-footed guide through the Hades of the final dark months of the war in Europe ... his is a thoughtful and thought-provoking account, which admirably combines analysis, historiography and commentary within a very readable narrative (Independent on Sunday)

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)

About the Author:

IAN KERSHAW is the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis; Making Friends with Hitler; and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-4. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. Until his retirement in 2008, Ian Kershaw was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. He was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was the winner of the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0141014210
• ISBN 13: 9780141014210
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 592