Synopses & Reviews
chronicles the end of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe through hundreds of letters, diary extracts, and autobiographical accounts covering four days that fateful spring: Hitler's birthday on April 20; American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25; Hitler's suicide on April 30; and finally the German surrender on May 8. Side by side we encounter vivid accounts of civilians fleeing Berlin, ordinary German soldiers determined to fight to the bitter end, American POWs dreaming of home, and concentration camp survivors' first descriptions of their horrific experiences--as well as the intimate thoughts of figures such as Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Eva Braun, Joseph Goebbels, and Hitler himself. Renowned German author Walter Kempowski painstakingly collected and organized these firsthand accounts, and the result brings to life the end of Nazi Germany and the war in Europe as never before.
Review
"A unique and haunting insight into what it was like to live through the violent twilight of the Third Reich. Indispensable and, above all, unforgettable." Roger Bishop BookPage
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"A remarkable collage of experiences and impressions of the catastrophic last days of the Second World War, which provides a unique panorama of the war and a very powerful impression of its impact on and the responses of those involved." Frederick Taylor, author of Dresden
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"A bewitching, dramatic, utterly extraordinary range of voices and eyewitness testimony as Europe entered its year-zero moment." David Kynaston, author of Austerity Britain
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"A rare combination of aesthetic and historic truths... What gives Kempowski's work its reach and humanity is his keen eye for both the sensory experience of war at its most destructive and individuals' compulsion to go on making sense of it as it engulfed them." Nicholas Stargardt, author of Witnesses of War
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"Amidst the fascinating multitude of voices assembled here the one that speaks most powerfully is that of Kempowski himself. This is a remarkable document of one person's lifelong struggle to make sense of national collapse." Neil Gregor, author of Haunted City
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"Kempowski is a master of form and proportion... The end of the war has never before been depicted like this." Volker Hage, author of Hamburg 1943
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"From the absurd to the sublime, and everywhere heartbreaking: a collage of voices from the tail end of the world's conflagration.... Raw [and] tremendously moving... Riveting." Kirkus (starred review)
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"Riveting... Kempowski's careful selection and sequencing convey the horror, misery, irony, and intensity of living through the last month of war in Germany. The work is noteworthy not just for its unique first-person perspective, but also for its breadth and depth... Essential." Publishers Weekly
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"A disturbing but compulsively readable slice of history." Christian Science Monitor
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"A treasure... [] offer[s] powerful glimpses into otherwise lost history... The collection is a kaleidoscope of voices, revealing struggle of all kinds." Sarah Grant
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"The power of [] comes from the great variety and volume of the personal accounts, many of them eloquent and moving... This important book takes us beyond geography, statistics and battles and reveals the cost of war in very human terms." Booklist (starred review)
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"An emotionally immediate and multi-faceted perspective of the last days of the Third Reich... No mere anthology but an artful collage... Difficult to put down." Gerald Steinacher
Synopsis
A monumental work of history that brings to life the last days of the Third Reich through letters, diaries, and eyewitness accounts.
Synopsis
A monumental work of history that captures the last days of the Third Reich as never before.
About the Author
Walter Kempowski (1929-2007) was one of Germany'smost important postwar writers. In the 1980s he begangathering diaries, letters, and memoirs of World War II, whichhe edited into ten volumes published in German. Swansong 1945 is thefirst portion to appear in English.