Final Days of the Reich

Ian Baxter

Feb 2012 · Casemate Publishers

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A pictorial history of the end of World War II from the perspective of Nazi Germany.

Drawing on rare and previously unpublished photographs accompanied by in-depth captions and text, this book is a compelling account of the final weeks of the Nazis’ struggle for survival against overwhelming odds. Each photograph fully captures the tension, turmoil, and tragedy of those last, terrible days of war as Wehmacht, Waffen SS, Luftwaffe, Hitlerjungend, Volkssturm, and other units, some of which were comprised of barely trained conscripts, fought out their last battles.

Exhausted and demoralized skeletal units must have been aware of the impending defeat. Yet the German General Staff was still resolved to fight at all costs. By late March 1945, less than 100 miles east of Berlin, some 250,000 German troops had slowly withdrawn to the Oder, and what followed was a series of fierce and determined defensive actions that would finally see the Germans encircled and fighting the last desperate battle within Berlin itself against overwhelming odds.

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Ian Baxter is an avid collector of WW2 photographs. His previous books in this series include Hitler’s Boy Soldiers, Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants, and German Army on the Eastern Front: The Advance, German Army on the Eastern Front: The Retreat, and Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants, The Crushing of Army Group (North), and the SS Waffen Division series including SS Leibstandarte Division and SS Totenkopf Division At War. He lives near Chelmsford, Essex.