Ten days that changed the course of history.
On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin.
But victory over the Nazi regime was not celebrated in western Europe
until May 8, and in Russia a day later, on the ninth. Why did a peace
agreement take so much time? How did this brutal, protracted conflict
coalesce into its unlikely endgame?
After Hitler shines a light on ten fascinating days after that
infamous suicide that changed the course of the twentieth century.
Combining exhaustive research with masterfully paced storytelling,
Michael Jones recounts the Führer's frantic last stand; the devious
maneuverings of his handpicked successor, Karl Dönitz; the grudging
respect Joseph Stalin had for Churchill and FDR, as well as his distrust
of Harry Truman; the bold negotiating by General Dwight D. Eisenhower
that hastened Germany's surrender but drew the ire of the Kremlin; the
journalist who almost scuttled the cease-fire; and the thousands of
ordinary British, American, and Russian soldiers caught in the swells of
history, from the Red Army's march on Berlin to the liberation of the
Nazis' remaining concentration camps. Through it all, Jones traces the
shifting loyalties between East and West that sowed the seeds of the
Cold War and nearly unraveled the Grand Alliance.
In this gripping, eloquent, and even-handed narrative, the spring of
1945 comes alive--a fascinating time when nothing was certain, and every
second mattered....
INCLUDES PHOTOS
