In September 1944, the Allies believed that Hitler’s army was beaten and expected the bloodshed to end by Christmas. Yet a series of mistakes...
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Feb 22, 2010
Eric_W
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Max Hastings is one of the premier historians of the Second World War. Unlike Stephen Ambrose, who , while a very readable historian -- even knowing whom to plagarize (link) -- is as much a cheerleader as historian, Hastings presents objective analysis. It's fortuitous that he also happens to be a very good writer.
Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 follows his Overlord D-Day and the Battle for Normandy. Hastings succeeds in explaining why the Germans fought so tenaciously More...
Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 follows his Overlord D-Day and the Battle for Normandy. Hastings succeeds in explaining why the Germans fought so tenaciously More...
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Feb 05, 2009
Drawing on untapped Russian archives, Hastings (a former war correspondent and leading military historian) rethinks the final year of World War II in this sequel to Overlord (1984), an account of the Normandy landings. He writes with authority, technical mastery, and profound sympathy for the victims of war, particularly German civilians. Although much of this story has been told before, Hastings casts new light on the war's devastating tolls on lowly GIs, confused civilians, and commanding offi
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Dec 30, 2009
Sandy
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Max Hastings has done it again. With his blend of analysis of the big picture and personal reminiscences of the participants, Hastings tells the story of those terrible last months of the Second World War in Europe. He pulls no punches as he details the reality of those days, the terrible price paid by the Soviets in their campaigns, the revenge they inflicted on the Germans for the horrors that the Germans had inflicted on the Soviet Union and the struggles of the Western Allies as they grind t
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Mar 12, 2010
Raymond
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It was the biggest battlefield in history, spreading from the English Channel to the Vistula River in Poland. The battlefield involved more humans, combatants and non-combatants, than any other battlefield. It claimed more lives. More guns and tanks and airplanes were massed across the battlefield than were seen before or since on a single continent. This battle ground was - Max Hastings’ title, “Armageddon, The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945.” Hastings is a master when writing of battles on the
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Sep 27, 2010
Charles
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In September 1944, the Allies believed that Hitler’s army was beaten and expected the bloodshed to end by Christmas. Yet a series of mistakes and setbacks, including the Battle of the Bulge, drastically altered this timetable and led to eight more months of brutal fighting.
With Armageddon, the eminent military historian Max Hastings gives us memorable accounts of the great battles and captures their human impact on soldiers and civilians. He tells the story of both the Eastern and Western More...
With Armageddon, the eminent military historian Max Hastings gives us memorable accounts of the great battles and captures their human impact on soldiers and civilians. He tells the story of both the Eastern and Western More...
Jun 03, 2010
Nathan
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Once again, Max Hastings corrals an impressive amount of material but fails to build it into a cohesive and organized study. The most rudimentary of theses - that Russia's alliance with Britain was fraught with tension- is presented at the outset, but to absolutely no effect. This is a straight chronological narrative, bereft of any analysis or implication. I was frustrated with it from the beginning. It's not that Hastings is a bad writer (though he's not a good one), or that he hasn't any know
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Jun 30, 2011
Jacob
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Like the war itself, reading this book is a long slog through dense information and only mildly ordered presentation. However, it is really good information to have - an account of World War II from September 1944 (post D-Day) onward, mostly from the perspective of the common soldiers and civilians who fought and lived in it. Conditions on both sides were terrible, but especially along the Eastern front where Germans, Russians and members of subject states died in much larger numbers and commi
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Dec 21, 2009
Christopher
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Armageddon is a very insightful and deep book about the final 9 months of World War II in Europe. The book chronicles the slow and at times deadly advance of the Allied forces through Hitler's Europe starting with the ill fated Operation Market Garden through the bloody, savage , and gruesome Eastern Front.
The author has already written a very well received book on D-Day so those events are barely even mentioned (much to my disappointment) and the book starts with Operation Market G More...
The author has already written a very well received book on D-Day so those events are barely even mentioned (much to my disappointment) and the book starts with Operation Market G More...
Nov 01, 2008
Craig
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The end of the war in Europe is often glossed over to a large extent in many of the general books about world war 2. The relatively short time between the Allied invasion in June of 1944 and the final defeat of Nazism in May of 1945 seemingly rushed through when compared to the preceding war years.
But with the D-Day landings, the loss of life in ground combat on the Western Front had only just restarted after a 4 year hiatus. On the Eastern Front, the casualty rate was even higher, far More...
But with the D-Day landings, the loss of life in ground combat on the Western Front had only just restarted after a 4 year hiatus. On the Eastern Front, the casualty rate was even higher, far More...
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Sep 04, 2008
David
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This is a surpsingly provocative book. Be prepared to have established notions of the Allied defeat of Germany severely challenged.
Hastings thinks that post-D-Day (and the break-out of Allied forces from Normany) the Allied ground campaign in Europe was a series of missed opportunities, poor command and needless casualties. He is particularly critical of Montgomery but does not hold his fire for Eishenhower, Bradley, Roosevelt, Churchill and many other leaders.
By late 44 More...
Hastings thinks that post-D-Day (and the break-out of Allied forces from Normany) the Allied ground campaign in Europe was a series of missed opportunities, poor command and needless casualties. He is particularly critical of Montgomery but does not hold his fire for Eishenhower, Bradley, Roosevelt, Churchill and many other leaders.
By late 44 More...
Feb 22, 2011
David
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A harrowing account of the last year of World War Two in Europe, Hastings' "Armageddon" is equally pitiless in its depiction of the Western Allies' strategic incompetence, its description of the Red Army's trail of slaughter and rapine, and its account of Nazi atrocities. Thus, it is a useful corrective to Stephen Ambrose and other accounts of the "Good War." "Armageddon" is not, however, as good as Hastings' more recent history of the last year of WWII in the Pacif
Feb 12, 2011
Nathan
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This is the first of Hasting books that I have read and I must say I am greatly impressed. He has gone beyond the grand events to bring the reader face to face with the horrifying impact of the final days of the war in Europe. I am especially impressed with the author's objectivity. His willingness to turn a critical eye on the plans and the planners who decided the fate of millions was not corralled by personal interest or national pride. So many War memoirs, whether by chance or design, attem
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Jan 12, 2012
Mark
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Even-handed account of last year of European theater of operations in WWII, a departure from some of the other near-hagiographies we have become accustomed to. Hastings does not shy away from examining Allied failures. Accessible to the casual historian and offers a better writing style than customary for military history. Similar to Alan Moorehead I thought. Does not address Italian or Balkan aspects.
Nov 07, 2008
Rod
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Another excellent but perhaps controversial work by Hastings.
Hastings compares battle performance of with western allies with the Soviets and Germans and finds their performance somewhat lacking. This is due, he says, to the natural reluctance of soldiers of the western democracies to shed their natural reluctance to wage war.
Other somewhat controversial perspectives: the overall performance of the US Army was less than stellar, though some units performed spectacularl More...
Hastings compares battle performance of with western allies with the Soviets and Germans and finds their performance somewhat lacking. This is due, he says, to the natural reluctance of soldiers of the western democracies to shed their natural reluctance to wage war.
Other somewhat controversial perspectives: the overall performance of the US Army was less than stellar, though some units performed spectacularl More...
Jul 03, 2008
John
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Excellent... very comprehensive and very easy to read...
Hastings takes the last 12 months of the Battle for Europe and breaks it up into easily digestible chunks...uniquely timlining the tale from the Commonwealth/USA, Russian and German perspective simultaneously..
There are tails in here that are not popular history which makes the effort all the more successful and worthwhile..the information is packaged in bite-sized chunks and does not sprawl on for page after page as More...
Hastings takes the last 12 months of the Battle for Europe and breaks it up into easily digestible chunks...uniquely timlining the tale from the Commonwealth/USA, Russian and German perspective simultaneously..
There are tails in here that are not popular history which makes the effort all the more successful and worthwhile..the information is packaged in bite-sized chunks and does not sprawl on for page after page as More...
Nov 17, 2011
Claire
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An interesting narrative overview of a complex and confused period, this is an ambitious book which doesn't quite achieve what it aims for. Hastings is as clear and precise as ever on the military side of things, nicely portraying the bitching and back-biting among the Allied command structure of the period, but where this book falls down is in its attempt to give a more balanced view by showing the civilian experience of war-torn Europe too. This is an excellent idea, and I applaud him for taki
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Aug 22, 2011
Lysergius
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An excellent account of the last days of WWII in the European theatre. Not really sure he explained why the German armies fought so hard and so long... Understand that and perhaps Hitler's hold on the German people will become clearer?
Jul 27, 2011
Really good, not just the usual Hitler shoots himself at the end stuff but a lot of other less heard of stuff such as the famine in Holland and the Hurtgen forest. Basically by the end of it everyone was trying not to get shot,
Aug 24, 2009
bkwurm
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Chronicling the final year of Hitler's regime, this book sets out the contrast between the Western and Eastern fronts in the final days of the war.
The author has also provided a vivid account of the German refugees fleeing before the Russian onslaught and how the battles on the Eastern front, largely ignored by the West, were bitter to-the-death contest fought without quarter and how the Soviets suffered horrendous casualties in those final days. The author also makes the point that More...
The author has also provided a vivid account of the German refugees fleeing before the Russian onslaught and how the battles on the Eastern front, largely ignored by the West, were bitter to-the-death contest fought without quarter and how the Soviets suffered horrendous casualties in those final days. The author also makes the point that More...
Mar 29, 2008
P.
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This book describes the hell on Earth that was Europe in 1944-1945. The cruel, murderous advance of the Red Armies from the east, the advance of the Western Allies behind carpet bombing and "de-housing" from the west, the discovery and liberation of death and labor camps. Shoah, the Holocaust. It also discusses the massive and murderous relocations of the German peoples from areas some had been in for 300 plus years, the grim transfer of ownership and operation of concentration camp
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Nov 21, 2007
Mike
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This is a very insightful account of the war in Europe and the fall of Germany. Hastings' analysis of the Anglo-Allied strategy and the Soviet strategy for crushing Hitler's Germany is an eye-opener. Essentially, he attributes Allied success to the willingness of Stalin to throw the Red Army into the meatgrinder, while the Americans and British advanced into Germany at a more measured pace. At the same time, the conquering Soviet troops committed atrocities at least equal to the ravages of the G
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Jun 25, 2011
Emil
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Excellent book on the last year of the war, a year that was mostly useless suffering, since the war was lost for Germany.
Recommended to anyone interested in WWII.
Recommended to anyone interested in WWII.
May 16, 2010
Andy
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Excellent review of the last months of the war in Europe (September 1944 to May 1945). Brutally honest analysis of the strengths and failings of the Allies, and the human tragedy that occurred among civilians on both sides. Few people realize the casualties suffered by the US and British troops, and the far worse casualties suffered by the Soviets. Highly recommended for those interested in WWII in Europe.
Feb 06, 2012
Miquixote
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Interesting read on how the Soviet Union, not the US was the foremost combatant in the destruction of the Nazi empire. Ties the social powers of ideology and military together. Of how the communist and nazi leaders used their ideological fanaticisms to push their soldiers ahead. The ideology was the real competition, that drove both sides farther and farther into more and more insanity, in order to win the war. Can't help but think the message here is that if you want your country to be powerful
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May 09, 2010
George
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This gace a vivid narrative of the last 2 years. I had not read of the eastern front of this time. The resistance in the West surprised me.
Mar 28, 2008
Etanouye
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I think I spent more time reading this book than the soldiers spent liberating Europe. I started it in the summer of 2006 and finally finished it in the spring of 2008.
Anyway, it's incredibly comprehensive (maybe too much so?) and paints a vivid picture of the battles and civilians in Germany between D-Day and VE-Day. Sometimes it's overwhelming with the number of statistics, but there's always a human face on the suffering.
Some parts, including the evacuation of various More...
Anyway, it's incredibly comprehensive (maybe too much so?) and paints a vivid picture of the battles and civilians in Germany between D-Day and VE-Day. Sometimes it's overwhelming with the number of statistics, but there's always a human face on the suffering.
Some parts, including the evacuation of various More...
May 12, 2011
Toby
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This is probably one of the longest, and ultimately best history books, that I have ever read. It wasn't for the faint hearted - there is so much information packed into each page that at times it did make it rather tiring to read - needless to say the text size was rather small - so unless you're interested in the subject or know someone who is I wouldn't recommend it...
Personally though - for any historians or warfare enthusiasts - this is well worth checking out!
Personally though - for any historians or warfare enthusiasts - this is well worth checking out!
