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Available
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Publication
London : Macmillan
Description
Late in 1945, Trevor-Roper was appointed by British Intelligence in Germany to investigate conflicting evidence surrounding Hitler's final days and to produce a definitive report on his death. The author, who had access to American counterintelligence files and to German prisoners, focuses on the last ten days of Hitler's life, April 20-29, 1945, in the underground bunker in Berlin-a bizarre and gripping episode punctuated by power play and competition among Hitler's potential successors. "From exhaustive research [Trevor-Roper] has put together a carefully documented, irrefutable, and unforgettable reconstruction of the last days in April, 1945."-New Republic "A book sound in its scholarship, brilliant in its presentation, a delight for historians and laymen alike."-A. J. P. Taylor, New Statesman… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member robeik
Non-fiction writing at its best. This apparently started life as an official report of the interrogation of Nazis and other German officials immediately after World War II. The story telling is great, and truly gives the impression that Germany was being led by a fractious group of individuals, all
I read the updated 1956 edition which comes with an excellent introduction and summary; it can be read alone - the rest of the book just provides the details.
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looking after their own interests, with some kooky interactions with medical quacks and mystics. That Germany got so far in the war was testament to the army only, not the bunch of crazies surrounding Hitler (including AH himself) nor the air force and navy.I read the updated 1956 edition which comes with an excellent introduction and summary; it can be read alone - the rest of the book just provides the details.
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LibraryThing member iftyzaidi
An interesting and informative read. Trevor-Roper's careful reconstruction of the last days of Hitler well illustrates the tragi-comic nature of the Nazi leadership in its final days. His ruminations on the nature of the German "totalitarian" state and of the character of absolute dictatorships is
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also as insightful today as when it was first written over fifty years ago. Additional sources have come to light after this was written, but they have only fleshed out the narrative this former British intelligence officer worked out in this book and have not added anything substantially new. Show Less
LibraryThing member adzebill
History as investigative journalism, piecing together the end of the Third Reich. Trevor-Roper dispels the idea that the Nazi regime was a totalitarian machine: in his account, it's a bunch of scheming clowns and courtiers.
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
I was absorbed by this book, which is a kind of classic on its topic.
LibraryThing member ddonahue
The epilogue is especially valuable discussion of Germany and politics: industry and warfare well executed by the Germans, but politics not. T-R attributes this the the German tradition of failed politics, especially failed liberal politics.
LibraryThing member EricCostello
A classic bit of investigation, which had its origin when the author worked for British Intelligence in the closing months, and immediate aftermath, of the Second World War. Trevor-Roper explains how confusion over whether Hitler was truly dead (some of the confusion being engendered by the
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Russians) prompted the British government to launch an investigation. Trevor-Roper filed a report in November of 1945, which was expanded into a book in 1946; I read the 3rd edition, which came out in 1962. The book is admirably laid out. The first part explains how Trevor-Roper came to write the book, and some of the limitations he faced in writing it. The second part gives the background to the final days of Hitler's life, going through the whole machinations of the "oriental court" surrounding Hitler. Finally, the third part itself details what was known and verifiable (based on substantive cross-checking of witnesses) about Hitler's last days, death, and burial. Some additional facts have emerged regarding the Russian treatment of Hitler's body since that time, and in addition, Martin Bormann's remains were conclusively located. Other than these new facts, Trevor-Roper's book still holds up very well. Highly recommended for World War II readers, but also recommended as a model of investigative research. Show Less
LibraryThing member Paul-the-well-read
This book made the list of "100 best Non-fiction Books of all Time" prepared by The Guardian newspaper. After reading what The Guardian had to say about it, I had to read it
"The Last Days of Hitler" describes in vivid detail the last weeks of Hitler and those who were with him in the bunker in
As a work of history, it is brilliant! Trevor-Roper includes nothing that he has not thoroughly and completely researched, verified, double checked and cross referenced. He portrays the characteristics and personalities of those who were with Hitler in detail, describing their strengths and weaknesses based on numerous accounts he researched about each subject. Zealots and opportunists, dreamers and realists, loyalists and doubters, preceptive minds and vacuous one all had a place in Hitler's government, but the overriding personality of Hitler himself created the tragedies of WW II and of the destruction it laid to humanity.
As a chronicle of a dark era of history, the book is a masterpiece because it not only tells the story of the last days in the bunker, but it puts those stories into context, describing backgrounds and earlier histories that brought each of the participants to this tragic place. Thus, were this book to be read a hundred years from now when the horrible history of Nazism and Hitler has become blurred and forgotten through the fog of time, this book will still provide a vivid explanation of this particular era of human history.
I see why The Guardian placed it on its "100 Bests" list and I would have to put it ion mine, too.
"The Last Days of Hitler" describes in vivid detail the last weeks of Hitler and those who were with him in the bunker in
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Berlin at the conclusion of the war. As a work of history, it is brilliant! Trevor-Roper includes nothing that he has not thoroughly and completely researched, verified, double checked and cross referenced. He portrays the characteristics and personalities of those who were with Hitler in detail, describing their strengths and weaknesses based on numerous accounts he researched about each subject. Zealots and opportunists, dreamers and realists, loyalists and doubters, preceptive minds and vacuous one all had a place in Hitler's government, but the overriding personality of Hitler himself created the tragedies of WW II and of the destruction it laid to humanity.
As a chronicle of a dark era of history, the book is a masterpiece because it not only tells the story of the last days in the bunker, but it puts those stories into context, describing backgrounds and earlier histories that brought each of the participants to this tragic place. Thus, were this book to be read a hundred years from now when the horrible history of Nazism and Hitler has become blurred and forgotten through the fog of time, this book will still provide a vivid explanation of this particular era of human history.
I see why The Guardian placed it on its "100 Bests" list and I would have to put it ion mine, too.
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LibraryThing member goosecap
Hugh’s introductions are excessively boring to read, although they are important, and were even more important at the time they were actually written: He’s really dead…. “Man, Hitler is gone!” (Labyrinth of Lies).
It’s still boring. (Yes, this tooth was really Adolf Hitler’s tooth!
The main body of the text is much better to read, if you like to read about dark scary men and the dark scary things that happen to them at the end of their bloody lives, you know. ‘Hitler and his court’, as he calls it. Hugh states that the Nazis around Hitler weren’t as idealistic as they said they were, that each ruled a competing little fiefdom that competed with its theoretically fellow-German rivals, in a supposedly one-headed state…. The Russians were afraid of Hugh’s book—I guess somehow they were still afraid of Hitler—and Hugh believes that they were nervous about people reading about Hitler’s final days thinking that it really was the operatic finale it was meant to be—burn the bodies in a circle of fire, etc etc—but I think I agree with the British guy that the myth doesn’t bear too close a scrutiny….
Aside from their practical problems in terms of spending on luxuries/status/internal competition, the personal-moral content of their lives doesn’t bear the weight of examination, either. Obviously the Nazis are a very unwholesome group, and form the abstraction of evil in many peoples’ minds, based on their behavior. But personally, they were also very base: cutting their food into very small portions and chewing thoroughly, and not having sexual peccadilloes (Himmler), and thinking that this earned them the right to liquidate a race or two; or being dissipated and weird and thinking that prominence in the State and the military entitled them to this (Goering)….
It’s true that Hitler shot himself in the end—I guess he wasn’t afraid to die, and spent a lot of time figuring out how to die in this theatrical way, with panache, so to speak…. But it remains that there’s a lot more to a good life than an operatic exit, especially in terms which they considered that sort of thing: blood, politics, and false-glory, you know.
…. Aside from the obviously formidable demon-actor-killer, it seems that Germany in this period of her history also produced a number of more German and less Wagnerian grey-bureaucrat/racist-mystic characters, who seem, I guess, to have been both terribly stupid and disorganized in political/organizational/ideological tasks, and incapable of healthy relationships with other power players on the personal level. In my experience, as a male one wants these criminal villains who are the destroyers of the world, these real-life movie characters, to have a certain amount of glory and panache in the play before they go to hell. It seems they did not really have it at all, really. It is disappointing that they are all so stupid. We sometimes think, in my opinion, that the Nazis are somehow more ‘important’, somehow better, for all our thespian hatred of them, than the Black African tinpot paramilitary dictator freaks who hand grenades and AK-47s to thirteen-year-olds, and tell them to liquidate random villages and do random drugs, and keep on grooving: these later we merely ignore; they do not quite have the same panache. But I wonder—is there any difference?
(…. I know it sounds crazy, because, obviously for liberals and even for conservatives, if there’s a white person you don’t like, you point and shout, Hitler!, but it is part of white history being visible, more visible, the only visible thing, almost, and frankly there are a lot of people who study the Hitler people just to go, They weren’t really right-wing, they weren’t really European pagan, they weren’t really European Christian—they weren’t the white race at all, really! Think of the good white people, and the white peoples who suffered! The whole world is Europe and white people! You just have to assign merit and faults to Germans, Italians, French, and British, that’s all!…. Whereas African wars aren’t ‘seen’ in the same way; ie they’re not seen at all. This isn’t to say that a catastrophic blow up like the Hitler episode shouldn’t be studied and studied well, but in addition to evaluating and knowing the history and the historian, you have to evaluate and know the history reader, and her or, probably, his intentions, motivations, and reasons-for-seeing.)
…. Incidentally, Hugh was certainly a Man of the Forties—the Nazis were vaguely Oriental; Hitler was a Prince of Persia, you know. (Bad boy!) And the Germans certainly weren’t part of Europe and the West; they were only Germans after all! I mean, if I don’t like someone, it’s like, Bang bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer comes down upon his head; Maxwell’s silver hammer made sure that he was dead: ie I never met him before; I Know Nothing; I Vote Know Nothing; I Know Nothing….
I mean, it’s like if we talked about Ted Bundy, and it’s like, somebody’s all, Ted Bundy an American? Ted Bundy killed people in Florida and Colorado and so on, but I never heard (I Know Nothing!) that he was an American…. Maybe he was part of a rogue state, a nation of one…. Bundystadt, right…. If I don’t like somebody, that’s it! I’ve never met them!
But, of course, the book was published in 1947. And if you read old books, you find out what the world was like…. 👻
…. In a way he was brave I guess, but still he was strange and stupid, and now, of course, he’s really dead.
…. Hugh’s books has its flaws, at least for me: a little stiff and ‘correct’, emoting ‘correctly’, or not at all…. But obviously it’s not the inspiring record of a heroic Wagnerian death that the Russians were semi-consciously afraid of, you know. So this is how a failed dictator ends—by chewing out his co-conspirators, and then shooting himself in the mouth.
It’s still boring. (Yes, this tooth was really Adolf Hitler’s tooth!
Show More
Ah, the science!) The main body of the text is much better to read, if you like to read about dark scary men and the dark scary things that happen to them at the end of their bloody lives, you know. ‘Hitler and his court’, as he calls it. Hugh states that the Nazis around Hitler weren’t as idealistic as they said they were, that each ruled a competing little fiefdom that competed with its theoretically fellow-German rivals, in a supposedly one-headed state…. The Russians were afraid of Hugh’s book—I guess somehow they were still afraid of Hitler—and Hugh believes that they were nervous about people reading about Hitler’s final days thinking that it really was the operatic finale it was meant to be—burn the bodies in a circle of fire, etc etc—but I think I agree with the British guy that the myth doesn’t bear too close a scrutiny….
Aside from their practical problems in terms of spending on luxuries/status/internal competition, the personal-moral content of their lives doesn’t bear the weight of examination, either. Obviously the Nazis are a very unwholesome group, and form the abstraction of evil in many peoples’ minds, based on their behavior. But personally, they were also very base: cutting their food into very small portions and chewing thoroughly, and not having sexual peccadilloes (Himmler), and thinking that this earned them the right to liquidate a race or two; or being dissipated and weird and thinking that prominence in the State and the military entitled them to this (Goering)….
It’s true that Hitler shot himself in the end—I guess he wasn’t afraid to die, and spent a lot of time figuring out how to die in this theatrical way, with panache, so to speak…. But it remains that there’s a lot more to a good life than an operatic exit, especially in terms which they considered that sort of thing: blood, politics, and false-glory, you know.
…. Aside from the obviously formidable demon-actor-killer, it seems that Germany in this period of her history also produced a number of more German and less Wagnerian grey-bureaucrat/racist-mystic characters, who seem, I guess, to have been both terribly stupid and disorganized in political/organizational/ideological tasks, and incapable of healthy relationships with other power players on the personal level. In my experience, as a male one wants these criminal villains who are the destroyers of the world, these real-life movie characters, to have a certain amount of glory and panache in the play before they go to hell. It seems they did not really have it at all, really. It is disappointing that they are all so stupid. We sometimes think, in my opinion, that the Nazis are somehow more ‘important’, somehow better, for all our thespian hatred of them, than the Black African tinpot paramilitary dictator freaks who hand grenades and AK-47s to thirteen-year-olds, and tell them to liquidate random villages and do random drugs, and keep on grooving: these later we merely ignore; they do not quite have the same panache. But I wonder—is there any difference?
(…. I know it sounds crazy, because, obviously for liberals and even for conservatives, if there’s a white person you don’t like, you point and shout, Hitler!, but it is part of white history being visible, more visible, the only visible thing, almost, and frankly there are a lot of people who study the Hitler people just to go, They weren’t really right-wing, they weren’t really European pagan, they weren’t really European Christian—they weren’t the white race at all, really! Think of the good white people, and the white peoples who suffered! The whole world is Europe and white people! You just have to assign merit and faults to Germans, Italians, French, and British, that’s all!…. Whereas African wars aren’t ‘seen’ in the same way; ie they’re not seen at all. This isn’t to say that a catastrophic blow up like the Hitler episode shouldn’t be studied and studied well, but in addition to evaluating and knowing the history and the historian, you have to evaluate and know the history reader, and her or, probably, his intentions, motivations, and reasons-for-seeing.)
…. Incidentally, Hugh was certainly a Man of the Forties—the Nazis were vaguely Oriental; Hitler was a Prince of Persia, you know. (Bad boy!) And the Germans certainly weren’t part of Europe and the West; they were only Germans after all! I mean, if I don’t like someone, it’s like, Bang bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer comes down upon his head; Maxwell’s silver hammer made sure that he was dead: ie I never met him before; I Know Nothing; I Vote Know Nothing; I Know Nothing….
I mean, it’s like if we talked about Ted Bundy, and it’s like, somebody’s all, Ted Bundy an American? Ted Bundy killed people in Florida and Colorado and so on, but I never heard (I Know Nothing!) that he was an American…. Maybe he was part of a rogue state, a nation of one…. Bundystadt, right…. If I don’t like somebody, that’s it! I’ve never met them!
But, of course, the book was published in 1947. And if you read old books, you find out what the world was like…. 👻
…. In a way he was brave I guess, but still he was strange and stupid, and now, of course, he’s really dead.
…. Hugh’s books has its flaws, at least for me: a little stiff and ‘correct’, emoting ‘correctly’, or not at all…. But obviously it’s not the inspiring record of a heroic Wagnerian death that the Russians were semi-consciously afraid of, you know. So this is how a failed dictator ends—by chewing out his co-conspirators, and then shooting himself in the mouth.
Show Less
LibraryThing member markm2315
In 1945, Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (1914 - 2003) was asked by British Intelligence to find out what happened to Adolph Hitler. Hitler’s bunker under the Reich Chancellory in Berlin was overrun by the Soviets, and probably owing to Stalin’s peculiarities, various
Trevor-Roper was quite controversial, strongly opinionated, and cultivated arguments with other historians of WWII especially concerning Hitler’s ideology and motivations. He encouraged the use of the historian’s imagination in the interpretation of historical events and was a supporter of Fernand Braudel and the Annales School.
Although the various peculiarities and faults of this work that have been pointed out by HTR’s critics seemed clear to me, I nevertheless found the book to be quite brilliant overall. The author’s sarcasm and his wild dislike for various characters were very entertaining. The extraordinary interrelationships among the assorted screwballs in Hitler’s entourage are analyzed with great insight into their motivations and include comments from the various witnesses, e.g. Albert Speer’s comment that Himmler seemed a combination of a school teacher and a crank. HTR did a fine job of mentioning the cross-correlations among his recorded testimonies to verify the veracity of his opinions. I am, of course, not able to have a personal opinion of any substance concerning the accuracy of his analysis of Hitler’s nature.
I was struck by the almost complete absence of mention of the Holocaust (the words Jew or Jewish appear twice), and the author seems to have thought that Hitler’s antisemitism was just a political expediency. Whether this reflects a British aristocratic antisemitism, as suggested by Lucy Dawidowicz, is a speculation that I find ultimately only slightly interesting.
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misleading accounts of the whereabouts and nature of Hitler’s remains had been promulgated as Soviet propaganda. Trevor-Roper, a professor of History at Oxford and an officer in the Radio Security Service during the war, interviewed every significant witness to Hitler’s final weeks that he could find and created a report for the Intelligence Service. Shortly afterward, he states in his Introduction, he was asked to publish a version of the report for the general public - this book. The author had various addenda in the subsequent decade as information became available, e.g. concerning the death of Martin Borman, but those have been consolidated in this edition into the Introduction. Trevor-Roper was quite controversial, strongly opinionated, and cultivated arguments with other historians of WWII especially concerning Hitler’s ideology and motivations. He encouraged the use of the historian’s imagination in the interpretation of historical events and was a supporter of Fernand Braudel and the Annales School.
Although the various peculiarities and faults of this work that have been pointed out by HTR’s critics seemed clear to me, I nevertheless found the book to be quite brilliant overall. The author’s sarcasm and his wild dislike for various characters were very entertaining. The extraordinary interrelationships among the assorted screwballs in Hitler’s entourage are analyzed with great insight into their motivations and include comments from the various witnesses, e.g. Albert Speer’s comment that Himmler seemed a combination of a school teacher and a crank. HTR did a fine job of mentioning the cross-correlations among his recorded testimonies to verify the veracity of his opinions. I am, of course, not able to have a personal opinion of any substance concerning the accuracy of his analysis of Hitler’s nature.
I was struck by the almost complete absence of mention of the Holocaust (the words Jew or Jewish appear twice), and the author seems to have thought that Hitler’s antisemitism was just a political expediency. Whether this reflects a British aristocratic antisemitism, as suggested by Lucy Dawidowicz, is a speculation that I find ultimately only slightly interesting.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1947
2002
1962
Physical description
288 p.; 22 inches
ISBN
0333445422 / 9780333445426
Local notes
Donated by Adele Rosalky from the Earle Hoffman Private Library, September 2020