The End

Kershaw, famous for his Hitler biography, has spent his professional career exploring the complex world of Hitler, Nazism, and World War II, and becoming one of our foremost experts on the intertwined subjects. He now turns his considerable skills to an examination of the last year of the Third Reich as it struggled to survive the dual challenge of defeating the Soviets coming from the East and the Allies advancing from the West. That Germany was able to fight effectively and vigorously after the near assassination of Hitler in July 1944 is testimony to the efficiencies of the Nazi state under the charismatic leadership of the fanatical Hitler as well as the grim determination of Hitler's underlings to maintain the struggle long after any hope of winning had passed. Kershaw explains in impressive detail the factors that enabled the Germans to keep fighting but assigns the most weight to Hitler's single-minded refusal to give in and the willingness of those who surrounded him to continue the war at all cost. Hitler and his henchmen knew that defeat would be their certain death or, at best, lengthy incarceration.