The Conquest of the Reich: D-Day to Ve Day--A Soldiers'
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Neillands, Robin, PUBLISHER: New York University Press, The defeat ong>ofong> Nazi Germany in the words ong>ofong> those who were there. New Year's Day was not a day for rest or rejoicing on the embattled continent ong>ofong> Europe. Hard winter gripped the land, from the Channel coast to the distant Urals. Only the thought ong>ofong> victory warmed the frozen soldiers huddled in tanks and foxholes as the New Year dawned and they faced the prospect ong>ofong> battling onwards toward Berlin. This is the story ong>ofong> the last five months ong>ofong> Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, from New Year's Day to VE Day, May . It is a story told not in the words ong>ofong> historians or scholars, but in the words ong>ofong> the people who lived through it, who fought and endured: soldier and civilian, American infantryman and British paratrooper, Canadian gunner and Australian pilot, New Zealand POW and German civilian. With his unrivalled gift for popular history, Robin Neillands, in his follow-up to the enormously successful "D-Day ," recreates in engaging narrative fashion the most dramatic and bloody months ong>ofong> the war. Drawing on hundreds ong>ofong> interviews, letters, and inside eyewitness testimony from veterans about such subjects as the esprit de corps in the Allied and Axis armies, the discovery ong>ofong> the concentration camps, the dissension in the Allied command, and the meeting ong>ofong> Russians and Americans at the Elbe, the book recounts the effects ong>ofong> many ong>ofong> the most crucial events ong>ofong> the conflict on soldier and citizen alike. The Battle ong>ofong> the Bulge, the liberation ong>ofong> Auschwitz, the Malmedy Massacres, the fall ong>ofong> Warsaw to the Red Army, the destruction ong>ofong> Dresden, the lynching ong>ofong> Allied aircrews, Yalta, Hitler's Scorched Earth directive, the massive parachutes drops by the Allied forces, the death ong>ofong> Roosevelt, the last days ong>ofong> Hitler, and, finally, the surrender ong>ofong> Germany--it's all here, rendered in engrossing and rich detail in this example ong>ofong> military history at its finest. For a comprehensive and thrilling account ong>ofong> the end ong>ofong> World War II, The Conquest ong>ofong> the Reich will stand as the definitive people's history for years to come.