Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his underground Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. While the final outcome of the war in Europe was no longer in doubt at that point, how it would play was still anybody's guess. With German diehards holding out in Breslau, fears of a hidden Nazi stronghold, concerns over which army would take over which territory, an uprising in Prague, the question of Hitler's successor and lots of behind the scenes political machinations, the last ten days of the war were filled with tragedy, heartbreak, intrigue, joy and a sense of accomplishment.

Michael Jones has woven together a fascinating tale of these last ten days, showing how the Grand Alliance between Russia, Britain and the United States was at times hanging by the slimmest of threads and how the final peace could have turned out much differently. With personal accounts from American, British, German, Russian, Commonwealth, Czech and Polish participants, this book gives the reader a really good look at how everything came together after nearly falling apart several times.

This is the fifth book by Michael Jones which I've read, and I think it's the best by far.favorites ww-ii-eastern-front ww-ii-western-front20 s Paul888 73

After Hitler – It lasted a little longer than people think.

After Hilter is a well written and researched history of the 10 days after the death of Hitler on April 30th 1945 and when the final surrender was made. This is a welcome addition to the cannon of historical research on the end of the war and in doing so reminds people that the war did not end immediately on the death of Hitler. What this book does do is make the case that Hitler’s death made the end of the war more ly even though there would be thousands of deaths before the surrender eventually came.

Michael Jones has given the book a structure that follows a countdown formula that makes things easier to read for the general reader, while at the same time he does take a thematic approach, which makes the complex international politics and the diplomacy more understandable when considering the ongoing war. Jones also shows why the West and East celebrate on different days the Victory in Europe, 8th May in the Western Europe and the 9th May in Eastern Europe and in particular Russia.

We also see the mutual mistrust amongst the Allies especially when the Big 3 had agreed upon the division of Germany at Yalta in February 1945 and then its implementation as they reached Berlin. The suspicion of the Soviet aims through came to the fore especially considering the Soviet’s Armies during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 while they watched the Germans destroy the Polish leaders who were opposed to the communist Soviets.

This book not only reminds us not only that after Hitler’s death in his will he appointed Admiral Dönitz, head of the navy, as Reichspräsident not Führer an avowed Nazi to the core who would later be sentenced to 10 yrs at Nuremburg. What Jones does is highlight is that the military commanders were not only having to lead their war machines they were also the front of their country’s diplomatic and acting as proconsul, not easy at the best of times even harder at this point in history.

The over arching theme of this book is the rivalries amongst all the allies which did not help the crisis and could have undermined their cooperation and the rivalry that grew from here would lead to the Cold War, as Churchill described the coming down of an Iron Curtain across Europe.

What Jones also does is show the final death throes of Germany, the millions of displaced people, the refugees the Red Army raping their way across Germany, which caused Stalin to step in to prevent the breakdown of order in his ranks. (The book overlooks that the Western Allies were also guilty of as much rape and pillage as their Russian counterparts but that is still part of current research.)

For those of us who enjoy historical research the notes and bibliography are excellent as is the scholarship and writing of Michael Jones. If I were to make a complain there is not enough discussion or exploration of the Soviet side of the war but that is pretty general across the board as most of that scholarship is in Poland, Germany and other countries that suffered at the Soviet Union’s hands, and as yet to be translated for the Western reader.

This is an exciting and interesting addition to the final days of the war in which many will learn some very interesting facts and broaden one’s knowledge further. An excellent read for all those interested on how the war finally ended and what was the basis for the Cold War.
history11 s Alex Sarll6,193 307 Read

Read between Christmas and New Year, a fine account of another, grimmer temporal perineum. You wouldn't think "the most harrowing day...ever experienced" at Allied HQ would come after the ceasefire was signed, but such were the political tensions, Stalin's self-regard and the delaying tactics of the Nazi rump that thus it was. There's such detail here, but also a brilliant grasp of the big picture; alongside usual suspects Ike and Monty, lesser known figures the doomed perpetual turncoat Vlasov get their moment in the sun. I'm off to Berlin and Prague soon, and after this I shall be seeing them through a new lens.2 s Craig35 1 follower

A good book, but not a brilliant book. I'd definitely recommend it for the many interesting facts I've since learned, and in a way, the pace it set over the nine days, from 30th April to 8th May 1945, was well thought out. I don't have any criticisms whatsoever, with the exception that my attention wandered in places. Well worth the read though.2 s Liam Ostermann2,452 58

A really fine history of the last ten days of WWII in the west - a surprisingly narrow focus and timeline provides a very vivid examination of the time and helps to understand everything that was to come post WWII.history-post-wwii history-wwii2 s Translator Monkey570 12

Remarkable. This gave me a true appreciation of the final 10 days of the war involved, and why fighting continued well beyond the declaration of the unconditional surrender. And a better understanding of the hurt feelings when the Allied forces had two, not one, V-E Day on their hands. Great read.1 Martin44 7

History accounting often blends the end of the European Theater of WWII as roughly: Hitler dies, the Russians take Berlin, the Brits and Americans move in from the West and after a few days, the Germans surrender.

What this book does is to uncover the truly nip-and-tuck events of those final 10 days or so. Armies jockeyed to get territory, politicians east and west worry about the future of Europe and distrust the intentions of the other side. The German "government" tries to buy time to allow the race of their armies and citizens to flees west to avoid capture by the Soviets. There is back room dealing and back door negotiations, accusations point at foe and friends a. Even up to the last day, the whole process is on the verge of collapse. Is the war over? On what day? Will any one one either side honor it? What do we do with the millions of displaced persons in a shattered Europe?

A great book to fill in the gaps for many of us. A great reminder of the sacrifice made by so many tosecure freedom for so many more. 1 Thomas14

Well-written, informative and accessible account of the ten days or so following Hitler's suicide to the end of the war in Europe. Worth a read if you have an interest in the second world war or twentieth century history. Shows the Russians and Red Army in a more positive light than is more normally attributed to them and helps to explain how the postwar map of /europe looked the way it did.2nd-world-war history non-fiction1 Marianne263 4

An interesting focus on the ten or so day period from Hitler's suicide to the end of hostilities.1 Jim Blessing1,157 11

This book started out OK and then I lost interest and stopped reading it.history1 Marin171 8

A short history of the last ten days of the war in a well-documented and easy to read compelling book.

Hitler did not see any future for the German people, and he was happy for the killings to continue after his death.
As he did not trust Himmler and Göring any longer, and Goebbels was committed to die in the bunker with him, Hitler named Admiral Dönitz as his successor, and thus his will and the war continued for another ten bloody days.
Donitz, a Nazi fanatic himself, tried to continue the fight against the Russians for as long as possible in order to surrender only to the Americans and the British. As the allies were in agreement to accept only a total and unconditional surrender, his delaying tactics only produced more deaths.
It is understandable they wanted to get some more time to move to the west as many as possible troops to surrender to the allies instead to the Russians (who were treated with bestiality by the Germans during the first part of the war) but it is not acceptable they kept fighting in places where there was no hope in reaching a stalemate, Breslau or Lithuania, and more horribly, the death marches kept going on, and the exterminations camps functioned until the allies reached the wretched prisoners.
Some SS troops continued to commit atrocities until they surrendered and many of the German troops were so indoctrinated that they willingly fought even when they knew they will die without achieving anything, some even after the armistices were signed. Civilians and troops who wanted to surrender were pressed in to battle or summary executed by local commanders until the last day of the war.

Eisenhower, The Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe was a remarkable leader and diplomat. He did not let personal or national ambition affect the achievement of the main objective - the defeating of the Nazis with the least casualties possible and in a as friendly as possible alliance with the Russians until the war was finished.
He let the Russians to encircle Berlin and conquer it, thus saving allies’ lives, stopped Patton liberating Prague which could have resulted in the breaking of the alliance with Stalin, and ensured the final surrender will be signed twice in order to alleviate the Russians fears that the west will make a separate peace with the Germans.

At the last stage of the war, Churchill, knowing the Russians will try to impose communism on all the conquered territories, asked Montgomery to rush up to Lübeck in order to seal the border and keep Denmark outside the reach of the Red Army and even asked his army commanders if the “operation unthinkable” ( the using of the German army to push the Russians back after the war) was possible. He was told it was not, so he did not do anything about it.

The Russians had a lot to pay back to the Germans and Stalin pressed for a quick final push, whatever the losses so they conquered Berlin, Prague, Vienna and most of the central and Eastern Europe.
They committed some rapes, killings and pillages but nothing compares with the scale of the atrocities the Germans did. Their high command tried to stop them in the final days of the war.

A renegade army made of former Russian prisoners of war fought with the Germans for a while, then they changed sides and helped the Czechs to liberate Prague. As the Red army was coming, they tried to escape to the west, but they couldn’t. The soldiers joined this army because they were dying of hunger in the German camps, and they did not have any idea what was happening in the war. Vlasov and their other commanders knew, and I cannot understand what was in their minds, but, as this excellent book shows, the war is messier than we can imagine.
We seem to think we know so much about the second world war. This informative and well written book about the last ten days of unnecessary loss of lives and horrors proves that there is still a lot we can learn about this war.

Bill Holmes62 4

“After Hitler” is a highly readable account of the last 10 days of World War II. Our collective memory of the denouement of the war in Europe often seems to revolve around D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the fall of Berlin. Books about the end of the war describe the bizarre world of Hitler’s bunker, the suicides of Hitler, Eva Braun and Josef Goebbels and the Soviet capture of Berlin. But Jones uses these events as his starting point and then carefully describes the complex events of the war’s last days.

Many have heard of the Warsaw Uprising, but fewer know of the uprising in Prague that occurred after Patton’s Third Army entered Czechoslovakia in early May: Jones recounts the desperate pleas of the leaders of the uprising, the ruthless reprisals by SS troops, the vital intervention of the Russian Liberation Army (which had previously joined the Wehrmacht as an anti-Bolshevik force) in support of the rebels, and the frustration that American soldiers felt at being ordered not to go to Prague’s rescue.

The rest of the complex, messy ending of the Second World War is addressed in a way that reads a novel, with lots of intrigues that are unexpected because the events have been forgotten or were swept under the rug in the name of Allied unity. The Donitz government in Flensburg, which claimed to govern Germany until it was dissolved by the Allies on May 23, stalls for time to allow German soldiers to surrender to the British and Americans instead of the understandably vengeful Soviets. Discord emerges between the Allies as Stalin fears the British and Americans are negotiating a separate peace with the Germans that will allow them to turn on the Russians. Eisenhower emerges as a skilled diplomat who saves the Grand Alliance with an arrangement that led to two separate V-E days—May 8 for the Americans and British, May 9 for the Soviets.

In the midst of all this, some surprising facts emerge. The war didn’t really end until May 20, when Canadian troops occupied the Dutch island of Texel, putting an end to fighting between the Wehrmacht and rebellious former members of a Russian Liberation Army unit. The phrase “iron curtain” didn’t originate with Churchill’s speech in Fulton, Missouri in 1946—it was coined by Josef Goebbels in February 1945 and used by the Nazi’s to describe the effect of the Soviet advance into Germany. Churchill, as Jones puts it, “was seduced by the power of the imagery, but perhaps should have thought more about its antecedents.” And, in August 1945, General Dwight D Eisenhower received the Order of Victory, the Soviet Union’s highest military honor, and was invited to stand with Stalin on the rostrum of Lenin’s Mausoleum to watch a parade in Red Square.

All in all, a well written and engaging history of a period about which more should be known.1940s military world-war-ii Andreia Valadares72 3

?Este magnífico livro é do escritor Michael Jones, o mesmo autor de "O Cerco de Leninegrado" e ambos editados pela @editorialbizancio
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? Uma só curiosidade antes de vos contar mais sobre o livro: sou Fã da escrita deste autor.
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? De uma forma geral, este livro aborda a morte (suicídio) de Hitler e, consequentemente os dias que se seguiram à morte, sendo os últimos dias da segunda guerra mundial.
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? Para além disso, o livro também se foca em aspetos políticos e estratégicos das investidas dos aliados durante os últimos dias da guerra. Por outro lado, o autor também quer referir o sentimento da população face ao fim da guerra e, ainda, de muita gente que viu o seu futuro tornar - se incerto devido às consequências da guerra.
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? Este é um livro extraordinário sobre o fim da segunda guerra mundial. Livro este, cheio de conteúdo (o que pode levar os leitores a acharem que é chato). Todavia, é tão importante termos conhecimento destas perspectivas mais históricas e mais camufladas que aconteceram com os nossos antepassados europeus.
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? Podia contar-vos mil e uma coisas ou mais sobre este livro, mas prefiro que descubram, é sempre mais interessante.
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? Um livro "pesado" e cheio de conteúdo que nos leva à reflexão. A escrita do autor é maravilhosa. Sou fã.
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? Obrigada @editorialbizancio porque me proporcionam ótimas leituras dentro dos meus gostos literários. A vossa generosidade e simpatia é incrível
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