The Death of Hitler’s War Machine: The Final Destruction of the Wehrmacht
About this audiobook
The endgame for Hitler’s Reich
Hitler’s army had dared all to win all on the Western Front with its surprise winter campaign in the Ardennes, the “Battle of the Bulge.” But when American and Allied forces recovered from their initial shock, the German Army, the Wehrmacht, was left fighting for its very survival—especially on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Army was intent on matching, or even surpassing, Nazi atrocities.
At the mercy of the Fuhrer—who refused to acknowledge reality and insisted on forbidding German retreats—the Wehrmacht was slowly annihilated in horrific battles that have rarely been adequately covered in histories of the Second World War, perhaps most especially the brutal Soviet siege of Budapest, which became known as “the Stalingrad of the Waffen-SS.”
Now, at last, veteran military historian Dr. Samuel Mitcham, in the capstone of a career covering of more than forty books—most of them on the German Armed Forces in World War II—tells the extraordinary tale of how Hitler’s once-feared war machine came to a cataclysmic end, from the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 to the German surrender in May 1945.
Making use of German wartime papers and memoirs—some rarely seen in English-language sources—Mitcham’s sweeping narrative makes The Death of Hitler’s War Machine: The Final Destruction of the Wehrmacht a book that needs to be on the shelf of every student of World War II history.
Ratings and reviews
- Flag inappropriate
About the author
Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. is a military historian who has written extensively on the German army in the Second World War, including his major biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Desert Fox. A US Army helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War and a graduate of the Command and General Staff College, he remained active in the reserves, qualifying through the rank of major general. A former visiting professor at the US Military Academy, West Point, he has appeared on the History Channel, CBS, NPR, and the BBC. He lives with his family in Monroe, Louisiana.
Grover Gardner has recorded more than 650 audiobooks since beginning his career in 1981. He's been named one of the "Best Voices of the Century" as well as a "Golden Voice" by AudioFile magazine. Gardner has garnered over 20 AudioFile Earphones Awards and is the recipient of an Audio Publishers Association Audie Award, as well as a three-time finalist. In 2005, Publishers Weekly deemed him "Audiobook Narrator of the Year." Gardner has also narrated hundreds of audiobooks under the names Tom Parker and Alexander Adams. Among his many titles are Marcus Sakey's At the City's Edge, as well as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and John Irving's The Cider House Rules. Gardner studied Theater and Art History at Rollins College and received a Master's degree in Acting from George Washington University. He lives in Oregon with his significant other and daughter.
