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The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945

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Kershaw's latest perplexed me. He lays out his objective of explaining why the Nazi state did not capitulate or was over thrown. As history has shown their are few examples of such destructive collective behavior. To me the value of the book were in the Introduction and the Conclusion as they were the two chapters that dealt with Kershaw's thesis. The rest of the book was a fairly standard history of the last 12 months of the Second World War in Europe.

Structural and cultural aspects of German society and Nazi rule contributed to both military and civilian dedication to the doomed cause. Hitler's charisma and track record accorded a warped loyalty but terror played a huge role in the police state. And as the war continued, the Soviet threat was also terrifying and provided another reason to hold out. It is incredible how bureaucracy refused to shut down so that the mail, arms manufacture, propaganda films, and parades continued which must have given citizens a surreal sense of comfort even though the reality of the situation was undeniable and unavoidable. Lastly, the Allies unwavering "Unconditional Surrender" strategy hemmed Nazi leadership in and conjured up memories of World War One most Germans did not want to repeat.

An interesting premise but it could have been an article or paper, it did not warrant a book given the meat of the thesis is constrained to two chapters.

In July 1945, the western Allies breached the German front in Normandy; the Wehrmacht was retreating faster than the Allied could advance. The Red Army had launched a decisive offensive in the East and demolished an entire German army group. For Nazi Germany, the writing was on the wall: the war was lost. But the war was not over: the thousand years Reich still had 300 days to go and to inflict more suffering to the German people. Millions more would die. One after another, German cities would be turned into rubble. This book tries to understand why, faced with the certainty of defeat, the German people kept fighting until the bitter end.

Part of the answer is that the German people were terrorized by the Nazis. After the failed plot on Hitler's life, the Nazis declared total war and reorganized for it. The regime settled scores against its perceived enemies with ever increasing brutality: political opponents in concentration camps were murdered; the few surviving Jews died in death marches. But the violence also targeted ordinary German who just wanted to survive. More than 20,000 German soldiers, often stragglers in a retreating army, were executed for "cowardice". Thousands of civilians were sentenced to death by "people's courts" for inciting soldiers to stop fighting.

But Nazi terror is only part of the answer. For Hitler, if the German people did not win the war, they deserved to disappear. But the Nazis could not have kept the fight and exerted extreme violence on the German people without the complicity of the Wehrmacht. Not all the German generals were Nazi fanatics and none of them wanted the German people to disappear. They were professionals and they could draw the obvious conclusion that continued fighting would only bring death and destruction to the German people. But most of the generals chose to fail the men who served under them and the German people rather than their Fuhrer. Why they made that choice will remain a mystery. I did not find in this book a complete answer to this question. Maybe because there is none.

The author of this book, Ian Kershaw, is perhaps the best active historian of Nazi Germany. For this book, the author had to rely on reports and statistics from the Gestapo and from Allied interrogations of German POW's which both are biased and do not tell what people really thought. He also makes use personal diaries, such as the diary of General Reinhardt, one of the many tough soldiers who was dismissed by Hitler for trying not to waste too many lives. These testimonies do not explain but they tell infinitely more about the individual dilemmas and the human dimension of this tragedy than all the reports and statistics.

An extremely well written and researched tome. It was fascinating to read how the basics of German common and military life were tenaciously held onto until the bitter end. Required reading for anyone that has pondered why the Germans never surrendered before total destruction befell them. The inclusion of a definitive map covering the area of interest would have made it easier for the reader to follow the war's progress. There was also a considerable overuse of the phrasing "all is lost but in spite of everything, etc. etc.". Overall, I found the book to be captivating and enlightening.

This book provides an in depth account of the collapse of the Third Reich from the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler to the final capitulation. In the process Kershaw tries to answer the question of why the Third Reich continued to hold out well past the point of any hope for victory, right the point of self-destruction. Frankly, it's hard to know why most people would be interested in an entire book on this subject - one notable weakness to consider.

For the book, though, Kershaw effectively delineates the nuanced causes of the determination to hold out to the end. The main reason turns out to be that Hitler had effectively taken over the structure of the German state through "charismatic leadership". Hitler was no longer necessarily loved and adored by all, but the leadership of the state still all flowed from him. There were neither "structures of power" nor the "collective will" in the top echelons to keep Hitler from taking Germany to destruction. Only his death finally released the German state to finally seek terms - when it was far too late.

A harrowing disturbing account of what was an inferno for the Third Reich and its people, not one that will have wide interest necessarily, but well-supported by Kershaw's characteristic good analysis and style.

If you are attracted to the title and to its story line, you will find this book a fascinating, absorbing study of Hitler and Germany in the 1940s. However, the importance of the book is its significance to our own times. So, you might come to regard it, as do I, as comprehensive and truly educational.