Excellent! Ryan never disappoints... ( )

An extremely readable account of the death throes of the Third Reich. We get fairly balanced accounts from the British and american Armies, and even a kind word or two about the Soviet forces. But the main focus is on the Wehrmacht, doggedly trying to carry out impossible orders issuing from the madhouse of Hitler's Bunker. And we do get to follow the well drawn cast of this brutally ironic drama, down to the final bonfire in the garden. Not to be missed by the student of WWII. ( )

In The Last Battle, Cornelius Ryan recounts the battle for Berlin and the final collapse of the Nazi regime, as the Allies swept into Germany from the west only to cede the capital to the Soviet army. Most western audiences are naturally more familiar with events on the western front, but here Ryan focuses more on the clash of the Germans and the Soviets to the east. This is grim stuff as the Russians wreak their vengeance, but nonetheless fascinating; if you've read his other books, The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far, you know he paints a vivid picture, weaving several threads into a gripping narrative.

It's difficult to wrap one's head around the level of barbaric brutality to which supposedly civilized societies could descend so recently in our past, unless you remember that the Nazis in the end were reaping the bitter fruits of the seeds of hatred and violence that they had sown (which is not to excuse some of the Soviet excesses). Ryan does an excellent job capturing the senseless horror or it, while still managing to find some meaning amidst the chaos. Even if you've read quite a bit about the war, I can almost guarantee there's plenty of material here you've not seen elsewhere. Definitely worth a read.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RO0Q4OEILI3TW ( )

On of the best books about the final, desperate battle for Berlin. Like all of Ryan's book, its built around personal accounts of people who lived through it. The unlikely hero is General Gotthard Heinrici, the pragmatic soldier tasked by Hitler with doing the impossible and fending off the rampaging Soviet armies. With supreme military skill, Heinrici succeeds in delaying the Soviets for a few days and inflicts massive casualties on them, but eventually the inevitable happens and they break through. Heinrici then performs the bravest action of his military career. Rather than subject his crippled forces to a last-ditch suicidal defence of Berlin, he defies Hitler's orders and leads his men and as many civilians as he can to the west where they can surrender to the Americans and British. For this he is excoriated and sacked by Hitler, a meaningless gesture because the Fuhrer committs suicide a couple of days later. But Heinrici has saved thousands of his men from death or long captivity in Siberia. Woven through this heroic tale are the stories of many others involved in the desperate final days, German civilians, including women who endured being raped, sometimes many times, by Russian soldiers, soldiers from both sides who go through the horrors of the last crushing of nazi Germany, and westerners who are essentially spectators to this unbelievable chaos. A great book, gripping, breath-taking. ( )