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A review by anti_formalist12
The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45 by Ian Kershaw
5.0
The utter refusal of the Nazis to surrender in the face of an unstoppable Soviet juggernaut is not hard to explain. They were staunch anti-bolsheviks and knew that the various war crimes they perpetrated would only earn them a hangman's noose. But why did normal people keep fighting? Why didn't the army collapse? Why did generals hold out until what seemed like the bitter end? And why did civilians blithely wait for the end to come, offering no resistance to the regime that threatened to destroy their country? This last point seems especially true, considering revolution and political upheaval had been so important in bringing about the end of WW1.
Kershaw lays out in his typical scintillating prose why the vast majority of Germans waited quietly waited for the end. They were terrified of the Nazi government, and with good reason. And any potential leaders who could lead a movement against the Nazis had either been ousted during the 30s, or had played a substantial role in the crimes perpetrated by the regime, and therefore their bridges were burned. The people who could end the war, therefore had no reason to do so, and the people who needed the war to end had little way to bring that about.
Kershaw lays out in his typical scintillating prose why the vast majority of Germans waited quietly waited for the end. They were terrified of the Nazi government, and with good reason. And any potential leaders who could lead a movement against the Nazis had either been ousted during the 30s, or had played a substantial role in the crimes perpetrated by the regime, and therefore their bridges were burned. The people who could end the war, therefore had no reason to do so, and the people who needed the war to end had little way to bring that about.