A review by hauteclere
The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45 by Ian Kershaw

5.0

Like all of Kershaw's books, this one is well written and thoroughly researched. Here he reveals and cogently synthesizes the reasons why Nazi Germany was unable to choose a different paths in the last months of the war, causing untold suffering on countless people. This resolves, for me, one of the big puzzles of the war - why Germany, when it had clearly lost, did not act more rationally. There are many factors in play, according to Kershaw, but in essence the regime that Hitler and his coterie constructed and the police state that kept it upright, was incapable of course correction. Much like the Führer himself, no deviation was possible. Tragic beyond comprehension.