Status
Available
Collection
Publication
London : Macmillan, 2004.
Description
This is the story of the last eight months of World War II in Europe. In September 1944, the Allies expected that the war would be over by Christmas. But the disastrous Allied landing in Holland, American setbacks on the German border, together with the bitter Battle of the Bulge, drastically altered that timetable. Hastings tells the story of both the Eastern and Western Fronts, and paints a portrait of the Red Army's onslaught on Hitler's empire. He raises provocative questions: Were the Western Allied cause and campaign compromised by a desire to get the Soviets to do most of the fighting? Why were the Russians and Germans more effective soldiers than the Americans and British? Why did the bombing of Germany's cities continue until the last weeks of the war, when it could no longer influence the outcome? --From publisher description.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member nbmars
Quick Summary:
The title Max Hastings chose for his history of the final year of World War II in Europe conveys something of the gripping drama he manages to create in this well-researched and fascinating work. In parallel to his later book Retribution about the last year of World War II against the
As The Washington Post pointed out in its review, “the months between September 1944 and May 1945 were among the cruelest and most destructive Europe had ever seen.” Hastings helps you get a sense of the horror of the battles, their brutality, the exhaustion of the soldiers, and the suffering of the citizenry. And all of it sounds fresh, even though you may have read these stories time and again (or watched them on the History Channel). The Washington Post review calls this book “magisterial” and it seems to be no exaggeration.
Detailed Review:
After the success of the Normandy Landing and subsequent breakout, it appeared in autumn of 1944 that the Western Allies could roll into Germany with only slight opposition. That view proved to be woefully inaccurate for several reasons.
First, the allied generals had little competence in wars of rapid maneuver.
Second, allied soldiers were much more interested in surviving the war than their Nazi opponents, who man for man, proved to be much more competent soldiers. Hastings writes: "The defense of Germany against overwhelming odds reflected far more remarkable military skills than those displayed by the attackers, especially when all German operations had to be conducted under the dead hand of Hitler."
Third, bickering among the allies exacerbated the problem, but the American General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s skill and tact overcame the biggest obstacles. The British General Bernard Montgomery comes across as very petty and egotistical, but fairly competent at a plodding strategy. Hastings says he “was a cleverer man and a far more professional soldier than [Eisenhower], but his crassness towards his peers was a fatal impediment to greatness.”
A fourth reason for the western allies’ tardiness was Hitler’s December offensive that produced the Battle of the Bulge, which came as a total surprise to the complacent allies.
Montgomery made a major strategic mistake in failing to secure the approaches to Antwerp, the largest port in Western Europe after it fell with little resistance. The port lies 50 or so miles from the sea on the River Scheldt. The Germans quickly occupied both banks of the river to prevent ships from reaching the port. It took several months of hard fighting to dislodge them from their positions, which they defended with substantial competence. The allies suffered from substantial supply shortages because the only ports available to them were the small channel ports in Normandy and Pas de Calais. Not until the approaches to Antwerp were secured in early 1945 could the allies bring to bear their enormous advantage in material and fire power.
The slowness of the Western Allies’ progress caused great hardship among the conquered people of Nazi-occupied countries. The Dutch in particular had to suffer through their “Hongerwinter” at near starvation subsistence. Eisenhower persisted in a very cautious “wide front” approach, especially after the spectacular failure of Montgomery’s Market Garden attempt at rapid penetration of the German front. As German Field Marshal von Paulus, surveying the ruin of his country from a Soviet prison cell observed contemptuously, “If the British and Americans had not dilly-dallied so much, we could have got this whole thing over a great deal sooner.”
Hastings acknowledges the greater importance and weight of the war in the east conducted by the Soviets. He credits the Soviets with being much more competent that the western allies with maneuvering large armies, particularly in conducting encircling movements. He also emphasizes the extraordinary differences between the eastern and western “allies” in missions, behavior, discipline, suffering, willingness to accept casualties, and awareness to accomplish political as opposed to purely military goals.
Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union have we in the west had access to documentary evidence of the details of the horror of the war in the east. Hastings does not in any way exculpate the Germans, but he pulls no punches when describing the behavior of the Soviet army as it flooded into Eastern Europe and Germany. Moreover, he lays the blame for their barbaric behavior right at the top of the soviet state.
The Soviets were particularly cruel to the Poles as well as the Germans. The Soviet army camped just outside of Warsaw and made no move to prevent the Germans from slaughtering the Polish resistance. They even refused to allow the western allies to land planes that dropped supplies to the Poles.
The Soviet army became an efficient fighting machine largely through instilling fear among its fighters. Political commissars were always just behind the front to shoot any soldiers who thought it might be safer in the rear. The Soviet front line troops feared their own officers more than the Germans. The NKVD recorded shooting 157,000 soviet soldiers for desertion or cowardice in 1941-42 alone!
Amazingly, the Wehrmacht continued to fight effectively to the very end, even in the west, although many soldiers attempted to surrender to the British or Americans rather than to the Soviets. Hastings contrasts the Germans, who fought on bitterly even after the war clearly was lost, with the Japanese, who ultimately surrendered the home islands without firing a shot. Even in the last month of the war, the SS and the Hitler Jugend fought suicidally.
The fate of the German civilians can be contrasted with that of the Japanese, who, once they surrendered, underwent a rather benign occupation. The Germans surrendered only after nearly all their cities had been reduced to rubble. Ironically, the first subchapter of the final chapter is entitled “Retribution,” the title of Hastings’ subsequent book about the final year of the war against Japan. Hastings details the plight of the Germans living in East Prussia near the end of the conflict. More than 2 million were “ethnically cleansed” from that area, and more than a million perished in their efforts to reach the west. The German civilians feared the Soviet army, with good reason. The Soviets systematically looted and raped wherever they went. The first Russians to enter Germany actually raped, then crucified on barn doors, the women of the first village they captured.
Hastings finds interesting, but does not criticize, Eisenhower’s decision not to race the Soviets to Berlin. The Yalta agreements had already ceded that part of Germany to the Soviets, who suffered more than 300,000 casualties in taking the German capital. The western allies had no stomach for losing that many men for purely political goals. The loss of many additional British and American lives would have accomplished nothing unless their governments were ready to repudiate their Yalta agreements so soon after making them and risking provoking a new war against the Soviets. Stalin, on the other hand, was willing to incur extraordinary losses to get what he wanted. He even goaded two of his marshals, Zhukov and Konev, to vie for the honor of taking Berlin, even at the cost of many unnecessary lives. Hastings points out that for every British or American who was killed in the war, more than 30 Soviet citizens perished!
Hastings also details the plight of prisoners of both the Germans and the Soviets with many gruesome anecdotes. Less than 10% of the Germans taken prisoner at Stalingrad ever returned home. Perhaps saddest of all fates befell soviet soldiers captured by the Germans: those “lucky” enough to survive the war were often shot by the NKVD or sentenced to 25 years in the Gulag for “collaborating,” i.e., not fighting to their death.
The western allies were hardly blameless, conducting a strategic bombing offensive designed to destroy whole cities and being guilty in several incidents of killing of prisoners. Nevertheless, their record of atrocities pales in comparison with either the Nazis or the Soviets.
This review does not do justice to Hastings’ book because, in the interest of (relative) brevity, I cannot cite or effectively summarize its many personal anecdotes that add color, depth, and credibility to his narrative. This is a very good book; in fact, Norman Davies, in No Simple Victory, cites it as one of the best books on the war.
The title Max Hastings chose for his history of the final year of World War II in Europe conveys something of the gripping drama he manages to create in this well-researched and fascinating work. In parallel to his later book Retribution about the last year of World War II against the
Show More
Japanese, Armageddon focuses on the final year of World War II in Europe. His technique and style are very similar in both books. He begins each chapter with an overview of a topic (such as “the Bulge” or “Stalin’s Offensive” in Armageddon) and then supplements his summary with two categories of anecdotes: testimonies by relatively unknown “little people,” whose millions of stories compose the total history of the war, and analyses of the actions and judgments of the military and political leaders involved.As The Washington Post pointed out in its review, “the months between September 1944 and May 1945 were among the cruelest and most destructive Europe had ever seen.” Hastings helps you get a sense of the horror of the battles, their brutality, the exhaustion of the soldiers, and the suffering of the citizenry. And all of it sounds fresh, even though you may have read these stories time and again (or watched them on the History Channel). The Washington Post review calls this book “magisterial” and it seems to be no exaggeration.
Detailed Review:
After the success of the Normandy Landing and subsequent breakout, it appeared in autumn of 1944 that the Western Allies could roll into Germany with only slight opposition. That view proved to be woefully inaccurate for several reasons.
First, the allied generals had little competence in wars of rapid maneuver.
Second, allied soldiers were much more interested in surviving the war than their Nazi opponents, who man for man, proved to be much more competent soldiers. Hastings writes: "The defense of Germany against overwhelming odds reflected far more remarkable military skills than those displayed by the attackers, especially when all German operations had to be conducted under the dead hand of Hitler."
Third, bickering among the allies exacerbated the problem, but the American General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s skill and tact overcame the biggest obstacles. The British General Bernard Montgomery comes across as very petty and egotistical, but fairly competent at a plodding strategy. Hastings says he “was a cleverer man and a far more professional soldier than [Eisenhower], but his crassness towards his peers was a fatal impediment to greatness.”
A fourth reason for the western allies’ tardiness was Hitler’s December offensive that produced the Battle of the Bulge, which came as a total surprise to the complacent allies.
Montgomery made a major strategic mistake in failing to secure the approaches to Antwerp, the largest port in Western Europe after it fell with little resistance. The port lies 50 or so miles from the sea on the River Scheldt. The Germans quickly occupied both banks of the river to prevent ships from reaching the port. It took several months of hard fighting to dislodge them from their positions, which they defended with substantial competence. The allies suffered from substantial supply shortages because the only ports available to them were the small channel ports in Normandy and Pas de Calais. Not until the approaches to Antwerp were secured in early 1945 could the allies bring to bear their enormous advantage in material and fire power.
The slowness of the Western Allies’ progress caused great hardship among the conquered people of Nazi-occupied countries. The Dutch in particular had to suffer through their “Hongerwinter” at near starvation subsistence. Eisenhower persisted in a very cautious “wide front” approach, especially after the spectacular failure of Montgomery’s Market Garden attempt at rapid penetration of the German front. As German Field Marshal von Paulus, surveying the ruin of his country from a Soviet prison cell observed contemptuously, “If the British and Americans had not dilly-dallied so much, we could have got this whole thing over a great deal sooner.”
Hastings acknowledges the greater importance and weight of the war in the east conducted by the Soviets. He credits the Soviets with being much more competent that the western allies with maneuvering large armies, particularly in conducting encircling movements. He also emphasizes the extraordinary differences between the eastern and western “allies” in missions, behavior, discipline, suffering, willingness to accept casualties, and awareness to accomplish political as opposed to purely military goals.
Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union have we in the west had access to documentary evidence of the details of the horror of the war in the east. Hastings does not in any way exculpate the Germans, but he pulls no punches when describing the behavior of the Soviet army as it flooded into Eastern Europe and Germany. Moreover, he lays the blame for their barbaric behavior right at the top of the soviet state.
The Soviets were particularly cruel to the Poles as well as the Germans. The Soviet army camped just outside of Warsaw and made no move to prevent the Germans from slaughtering the Polish resistance. They even refused to allow the western allies to land planes that dropped supplies to the Poles.
The Soviet army became an efficient fighting machine largely through instilling fear among its fighters. Political commissars were always just behind the front to shoot any soldiers who thought it might be safer in the rear. The Soviet front line troops feared their own officers more than the Germans. The NKVD recorded shooting 157,000 soviet soldiers for desertion or cowardice in 1941-42 alone!
Amazingly, the Wehrmacht continued to fight effectively to the very end, even in the west, although many soldiers attempted to surrender to the British or Americans rather than to the Soviets. Hastings contrasts the Germans, who fought on bitterly even after the war clearly was lost, with the Japanese, who ultimately surrendered the home islands without firing a shot. Even in the last month of the war, the SS and the Hitler Jugend fought suicidally.
The fate of the German civilians can be contrasted with that of the Japanese, who, once they surrendered, underwent a rather benign occupation. The Germans surrendered only after nearly all their cities had been reduced to rubble. Ironically, the first subchapter of the final chapter is entitled “Retribution,” the title of Hastings’ subsequent book about the final year of the war against Japan. Hastings details the plight of the Germans living in East Prussia near the end of the conflict. More than 2 million were “ethnically cleansed” from that area, and more than a million perished in their efforts to reach the west. The German civilians feared the Soviet army, with good reason. The Soviets systematically looted and raped wherever they went. The first Russians to enter Germany actually raped, then crucified on barn doors, the women of the first village they captured.
Hastings finds interesting, but does not criticize, Eisenhower’s decision not to race the Soviets to Berlin. The Yalta agreements had already ceded that part of Germany to the Soviets, who suffered more than 300,000 casualties in taking the German capital. The western allies had no stomach for losing that many men for purely political goals. The loss of many additional British and American lives would have accomplished nothing unless their governments were ready to repudiate their Yalta agreements so soon after making them and risking provoking a new war against the Soviets. Stalin, on the other hand, was willing to incur extraordinary losses to get what he wanted. He even goaded two of his marshals, Zhukov and Konev, to vie for the honor of taking Berlin, even at the cost of many unnecessary lives. Hastings points out that for every British or American who was killed in the war, more than 30 Soviet citizens perished!
Hastings also details the plight of prisoners of both the Germans and the Soviets with many gruesome anecdotes. Less than 10% of the Germans taken prisoner at Stalingrad ever returned home. Perhaps saddest of all fates befell soviet soldiers captured by the Germans: those “lucky” enough to survive the war were often shot by the NKVD or sentenced to 25 years in the Gulag for “collaborating,” i.e., not fighting to their death.
The western allies were hardly blameless, conducting a strategic bombing offensive designed to destroy whole cities and being guilty in several incidents of killing of prisoners. Nevertheless, their record of atrocities pales in comparison with either the Nazis or the Soviets.
This review does not do justice to Hastings’ book because, in the interest of (relative) brevity, I cannot cite or effectively summarize its many personal anecdotes that add color, depth, and credibility to his narrative. This is a very good book; in fact, Norman Davies, in No Simple Victory, cites it as one of the best books on the war.
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LibraryThing member dswaddell
The story and evaluation of the fall of Germany on the Eastern and Western fronts during WW2 in '44 and '45. The book is interesting and goes into great detail about the events, armies, and leaders involved at the end of the war in europe. The book seems a little out of balance in regards to the
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authors opinions about the troops and leaders but the arguments made to support the position he takes are very well done. The only bad part is that it gets to be a bit repetitive near the end of the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member mensheviklibrarian
This is a well written and straightforward account of the bloody last nine months in Central Europe. Hastings alternates between analysis of high strategy on both sides and touching stories of soldiers, civilians, and bystanders who bore the full brunt of the violence.
Hastings doesn't exactly break
Still, this book is recommended for people interested in a well written, popular history of the fall of Nazi Germany.
Hastings doesn't exactly break
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new ground but his clear and concise style is appealing. He is better at covering the war from the Western Allies perspective and is a bit hard on the Soviets. He argues for an equivalency between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that is untenable and seems like a relic from the Cold War.Still, this book is recommended for people interested in a well written, popular history of the fall of Nazi Germany.
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LibraryThing member jontseng
A window into an utterly different era, yet one which is still well within living memory. A reminder to anybody dissatisfied with the current polity, that only a couple of generations ago things were so, so much worse.
LibraryThing member meegeekai
Unbelievable book. This one blew me away, I just never thought much about the Soviets in WWII. This is a must read for anyone interested in miliatary history.
LibraryThing member greginAk
good overview of the last year of the war in europe on both fronts. hastings is not afraid to be controversial especially about the quality of allied solders. he backs up his view points with many quotes. he clearly has a mastery of the subject. he discusses the strategic overview of the war,
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tactics, the lives of civilians in occupied countries and Germany. Show Less
LibraryThing member historybooks
The best and most objectively written history for the battle for Germany
LibraryThing member Miro
Max Hastings has interviewed survivors around Europe who witnessed the last months of WWII. He talks to foot soldiers, prisoners, civilians and generals and combs through autobiographies and original documents to write a magnificent book that shows the confusing reality of events rather than the
I doubt his idea that democratic countries (in this case America and Britain) can't fight with the determination of the German and Russian dictatorships. What about the Americans in the pacific war?
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familiar "interpreted" version.I doubt his idea that democratic countries (in this case America and Britain) can't fight with the determination of the German and Russian dictatorships. What about the Americans in the pacific war?
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LibraryThing member CharlesMcCain
British journalist Sir Max Hastings has written a number of very good narrative histories of various episodes of World War Two. Narrative history is generally that which the writer takes pains to let the people involved tell the story through excerpts from their papers and letters and diaries and
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government reports of the time. Hastings succeeds brilliantly at this. The end game on the Eastern Front, which decided the war in the favor of the Allies, is very complicated. Hastings does a masterful job of explaining this very complex moment in history. Show Less
LibraryThing member ablueidol
Interesting view of how the impact of the 1st world war affected the democratic states behaviour in the 2nd
LibraryThing member Cajun_Huguenot
This is a well written history of the last year of the war in Europe. Hastings is masterful writer. I could not put this book down.
LibraryThing member Claire5555
Excellent in depth historical related book, any people interested in the second world war will enjoy this book.
LibraryThing member 4bonasa
Gripping story of the final and deadliest year of the war in Europe.
LibraryThing member Whiskey3pa
Excellent book. Compares favorably with any treatment of the end of the war that I have read. Does a fair job of calling out leaders'errors. Also acknowledges that sometimes there was not a real option available at a given time. Critical and inciteful.
LibraryThing member cpg
This guy can write! Hastings is the kind of writer that makes you want to buy everything he's written, regardless of its subject matter. Armageddon takes an overall look at the last 9 months of the war in Europe as American, British, Canadian, and token French forces besieged Germany from the west
the Red army attacked from the east. I recommend this book to just about anyone who has any interest in the topic.
I say *just about* anyone because I spoke enthusiastically about this book to my grandfather, who was in Patton's 3rd Army as it fought its way into Germany in 1945, and he asked me if he could borrow it after I was done, but I had second thoughts about agreeing to loan it to him because there are some frank depictions and language that I'm not sure he'd appreciate. Of course, he *lived* this sort of stuff--having an eye blown out when his buddy stepped on a mine, watching a couple of guys in his company take a German POW, a rifle, and a shovel into the woods, and then seeing those two guys come back alone--so maybe I'm being too sensitive.
One shortcoming of _Armageddon_, as far as I'm concerned, is Hastings' apparent desire to not look too sympathetic to the plight of German civilians. For example, he writes:
"Even after sixty years, it is difficult to extend to the German people the pity due to innocent victims of Nazi tyranny. However bitterly many Germans may have regretted this by 1945, Hitler and Nazism were the creations of their society. The horrors the Nazis inflicted upon Europe required the complicity of millions of ordinary Germans, merely to satisfy the logistical requirements of tyranny and mass murder. Yet now they saw the first fruits of retribution."
This passage comes at the tail end of a chapter entitled "Blood and Ice", in which Hastings recounts the behavior of Red Army soldiers in East Prussia: gang rapes, crucifixions, etc. What if Hastings were to write about the problem of, say, prison rape? Would his response be that the victims of this practice should have thought about it before committing the crimes that put them in prison in the first place? Would he similarly justify, say, Abu Ghraib? I hope not.
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andthe Red army attacked from the east. I recommend this book to just about anyone who has any interest in the topic.
I say *just about* anyone because I spoke enthusiastically about this book to my grandfather, who was in Patton's 3rd Army as it fought its way into Germany in 1945, and he asked me if he could borrow it after I was done, but I had second thoughts about agreeing to loan it to him because there are some frank depictions and language that I'm not sure he'd appreciate. Of course, he *lived* this sort of stuff--having an eye blown out when his buddy stepped on a mine, watching a couple of guys in his company take a German POW, a rifle, and a shovel into the woods, and then seeing those two guys come back alone--so maybe I'm being too sensitive.
One shortcoming of _Armageddon_, as far as I'm concerned, is Hastings' apparent desire to not look too sympathetic to the plight of German civilians. For example, he writes:
"Even after sixty years, it is difficult to extend to the German people the pity due to innocent victims of Nazi tyranny. However bitterly many Germans may have regretted this by 1945, Hitler and Nazism were the creations of their society. The horrors the Nazis inflicted upon Europe required the complicity of millions of ordinary Germans, merely to satisfy the logistical requirements of tyranny and mass murder. Yet now they saw the first fruits of retribution."
This passage comes at the tail end of a chapter entitled "Blood and Ice", in which Hastings recounts the behavior of Red Army soldiers in East Prussia: gang rapes, crucifixions, etc. What if Hastings were to write about the problem of, say, prison rape? Would his response be that the victims of this practice should have thought about it before committing the crimes that put them in prison in the first place? Would he similarly justify, say, Abu Ghraib? I hope not.
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LibraryThing member ubiquitousuk
I cam to this book expecting an action-packed account of the closing days of the war in Europe. As it happens, those parts were the weakest. They leaned very heavily on anecdote and skipped across space and time in a way that made keeping a coherent picture of the action difficult.
But the real
But the real
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surprise was the quality of this book's treatment of the war experience for non-combatants. The allied bombing of Germany, the exodus from East Prussia, and the Warsaw uprising, in particular, receive moving treatments that are very much enriched by the aforementioned anecdotes. Some of these episodes are neglected acts of history, and Hastings does an excellent of job giving them a human face. Show Less
LibraryThing member santhony
I read a broad assortment of genre, from science fiction, to biography to literary fiction. One of my favorites is history and military history in particular. In reviewing my library, I noted a couple of works by Max Hastings and that I had rated them very highly.
His book, Retribution, was an
While the other two Hastings efforts were a disappointment (Korean War and Falklands campaign), this work was very similar in style and quality to Retribution (since renamed Nemesis). Very expansive in its scope, it tracks both the eastern and western fronts of the European theater from the fall of 1944 until the war’s conclusion. It does so largely through interviews and accounts of many of the survivors and participants.
While any student of military history is familiar with the stark differences in the experiences on the eastern and western fronts, many of the examples related by Hastings are jarring, both with respect to the casualties suffered, as well as the treatment of captives and civilian populations.
From time to time, Hastings offers insight into many of the personalities involved, from Montgomery, Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton to Zhukov and the assortment of German generals in place at the time. I found these observations to be fair, balanced and well-reasoned.
I can highly recommend Retribution (Nemesis), Vietnam, an Epic Tragedy, and Armageddon. I would probably leave his other work alone.
His book, Retribution, was an
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outstanding treatment of the final year of the World War II Pacific theater. Vietnam, an Epic Tragedy, was equally as well done. That being the case, I purchased several other Hastings works, including this treatment of the final year of the European front of World War II. While the other two Hastings efforts were a disappointment (Korean War and Falklands campaign), this work was very similar in style and quality to Retribution (since renamed Nemesis). Very expansive in its scope, it tracks both the eastern and western fronts of the European theater from the fall of 1944 until the war’s conclusion. It does so largely through interviews and accounts of many of the survivors and participants.
While any student of military history is familiar with the stark differences in the experiences on the eastern and western fronts, many of the examples related by Hastings are jarring, both with respect to the casualties suffered, as well as the treatment of captives and civilian populations.
From time to time, Hastings offers insight into many of the personalities involved, from Montgomery, Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton to Zhukov and the assortment of German generals in place at the time. I found these observations to be fair, balanced and well-reasoned.
I can highly recommend Retribution (Nemesis), Vietnam, an Epic Tragedy, and Armageddon. I would probably leave his other work alone.
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LibraryThing member TanyaRead
Author seems a bit fond of himself and of criticizing other (obviously seen as competing) authors
Language
Local notes
Signed by author,