3.5 stars, but rounding up. Lots of dry military history in the beginning (which I don’t enjoy), but ends with a very political/cultural reflection of the finality of the third Reich.

An in-depth accounting of the last days of the Third Reich. The author gives us an up-close view of Germany’s collapse: the arrogant power struggles of the Nazi high command; the rape, violence, and plundering inflicted by the Soviet army in Berlin, death marches and massacres of prisoners of war and forced laborers by diehard Nazis.

An excellent read.

Very interesting read, giving a lot of detail, context and different perspectives on the final collapse and subsequent chaos of Nazi Germany. It enriched my understanding of how surrender negotiations work, what happened to the people of Germany after war ended and how the Allied and Soviet forces determined the future of Germany during those pivotal days at the end of the war.