• Six Months in 1945

  • FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman - from World War to Cold War
  • By: Michael Dobbs
  • Narrated by: Bob Walter
  • Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (225 ratings)

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Six Months in 1945

By: Michael Dobbs
Narrated by: Bob Walter
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Publisher's summary

From the author of the best-selling One Minute to Midnight, a riveting account of the pivotal six-month period spanning the end of World War II, the dawn of the nuclear age, and the beginning of the Cold War.

When Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler's armies were on the run and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace - but instead set the stage for a 44-year division of Europe into Soviet and western spheres of influence.

After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was rapidly fracturing. By the time the leaders met again in Potsdam in July 1945, Russians and Americans were squabbling over the future of Germany and Churchill was warning about an "iron curtain" being drawn down over the Continent.

These six months witnessed some of the most dramatic moments of the 20th century: the cataclysmic battle for Berlin, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the discovery of the Nazi concentration camps, Churchill's electoral defeat, and the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. While their armies linked up in the heart of Europe, the political leaders maneuvered for leverage: Stalin using his nation's wartime sacrifices to claim spoils, Churchill doing his best to halt Britain's waning influence, FDR trying to charm Stalin, Truman determined to stand up to an increasingly assertive Soviet superpower.

Six Months in 1945 brilliantly captures this momentous historical turning point, chronicling the geopolitical twists behind the descent of the iron curtain, while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants. It is a vividly rendered story of individual and national interests in fierce competition at a seminal moment in history.

©2012 Random House Audio (P)2012 Michael Dobbs

What listeners say about Six Months in 1945

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Totally Outstanding. Bravo !

This is only the 2nd book Ive given 5 stars to. The author and narrator grab your attention from the opening paragraph and hold it to the very end. Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Truman literally come to life with each paragraph. You can almost see them as Bob Walter reads this brilliant work. You are transported back to 1945 and you are witnessing these giants of history formulate the next 50 years of anglo-russian relations. The cold war is born and you are there to witness it.

I have only 2 minor complaints. The first one is the humanization of Joseph Stalin. For a man that killed more people then Hitler, Stalin is not portrayed in this negative light. The book describes how Stalin sought German reparations to aid in the rebuilding of his country but fails to acknowledge how Stalin caused a lot of this suffering himself. I.E. the great hunger in Ukraine

Second is the SLIGHT drop in audio quality during the last hour.

These 2 reasons do nothing to detract from the overall appeal of this book.

Buy it

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very Insightful and Even-Handed

This book was fantastic. It is a look into not simply the events at the end of the Second World War, but a real insight into the major players - Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, Truman. I felt almost like it was fiction at times because the author made their personalities so real. Their interactions, their feelings, their flaws, and their motivations are so clear that you feel like you are actually there, listening to them talk at Yalta or at Potsdam. As someone who was not even old enough to be in kindergarten when the Berlin Wall fell, this book was a major insight into what caused that turmoil and misery that was to last almost 45 years. The big decisions, the most influential people, and the events that exacerbated it all - the atomic bomb, the division of Berlin, the Iron Curtain, the looting of Germany, and the argumentative beginnings of the United Nations - this book discusses all of it. I have read a lot about the Second World War, but I didn't know very much about the Cold War when I started this book. Now I feel like I really understand what happened to create such a tense environment for so long.

I've read a lot of history, and the insight and depth of this book makes it one of the best ones I've ever found. It was fascinating to get such a variety of points of view that made my understanding of the people in this time complex and human. (However, this doesn't mean that the person you see is likeable - Stalin's own daughter describes him several times as cold and unfeeling.) I also appreciated that it didn't deify the American presidents in the way American history books sometimes do, especially when a president dies in office. Roosevelt comes across as a little naive and too unwell to make a stand (a little like Woodrow Wilson does in Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World, though this book was much more forgiving of Roosevelt's flaws than Paris 1919 was of Wilson's), and Truman as inexperienced and not particularly interested in reducing tensions with the Soviet Union. Churchill is left out a little, which as someone who finds him fascinating I was a little annoyed about, but it is symbolic of the decline of Britain as a world power at the end of the war. When he is discussed, however, he is also very human - frustrated by being ignored by Stalin and the Americans, well-spoken, depressed, and to some extent out of touch due to his imperialist leanings. The book also doesn't shy away from describing the atrocities of the Red Army in Germany and the ethnic cleansing that followed the movement of Poland's border to the west. The suffering of the Germans, especially in Berlin, is clearly devastating.

I thought the narration was good. I am very picky about mispronounced words, though, and there were a couple of those, so I can't give it five stars.

Overall, I felt totally immersed in this book. I highly recommend it - it is engaging and accessible to many readers, though prior understanding of the Second World War is necessary, as the reader is expected to already know what happened militarily in 1945 for context. I feel like I now have a really clear insight into the people and the decisions that created the Cold War and all of its continuing effects on the world.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

History comes alive

Having read One Minute to Midnight, I was looking forward to Michael Dobb's approach to this momentous half year of history. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the end of WWII through the eyes of those with whom I was not very familiar, specifically Churchill and Stalin.

History always seems so much more orderly after it has been massaged by time and culture. This book demonstrates how every meeting, issue and decision was messy, complicated and difficult.

There were times when Dobb's attention to detail seemed a bit too deep, but all-in-all I found myself glued to my headphones and, in the end, wishing for the story to continue.

Bob Walter is easy to listen to and handles various names, locations and non-English words flawlessly.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent! Real-time history unfolds before us.

Those of us who experienced 9/11 may have some idea of how a world can change virtually overnight. Those involved in World War 2 may not have realized how much impact these six months would have on the world, nor may those of us living today have known how our world was shaped - or even CREATED within that same time frame.

We learn history from books written with perspecitve. This perspective changes with every person removed from the events, every decade that passes where we see consequences of the events, and with the softening of opinions about events experienced by earlier generations.

This type of history telling - with first person perspective written at the time of the events is so much more...EVERYTHING. I love the humourous events around Churchill (including FDR finding him naked in the tub); the details on the death of FDR, and the real fear of Truman as he stepped into the presidency; the nature of Stalin in his creation of his power-bloc behind the "iron curtain", all of it. Many of the details come from those we have never heard of - but who kept good diaries, who have insights we would never had discovered any other way.

This type of history can give us more depth on issues that we have a surface knowledge of. We know the Cold War developed out of the WWII end, just as WWII grew out of the end of WWI, but this book delves into the details in a way that is in-depth without being dry and boring. We know the atomic bomb race was a part of this Cold War, but this dig into the WHY and HOW in ways I have never read before. I even found out that the 38th parallel was chosen as the dividing line for Korea (an important part of the second half of the 20th Century) by two guys and a National Geographic map!

This is a credit well-used, and I share this in hopes it helps you decide if it is for you.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Incredibly well researched, sub par reader

If you have any interest in WWII at all, this book will captivate you and provide some interesting details and insights you likely had not heard before. Very thorough and yet I did not feel the detail bogged the story down. What did however slow things down for me was the William Shatner-esque unnecessary drawing out of certain words and random pauses in every sentence.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A Fascinating Period in History, but

But the book is not so fascinating. I've found that basing a book of history on a date (no matter how compelling the date. c.f. 1776), rather than a person or event doesn't make for a very good book.

While there were some interesting stories in this book, the overall effect was not that impressive.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Facts stand in the way of fiction

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Not worth it

Would you ever listen to anything by Michael Dobbs again?

Depends on the subject matter

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I thought the narrator did an adequate job.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

If they introduced some behind the scenes skulduggery then it might make a good movie

Any additional comments?

The subject was interesting enough and the descriptions of the eccentric requirements of Stalin and Churchill was amusing. These characters were certainly larger than life itself and considering that they held the fate of the world in their hands the portrayal in the book came over as bland. If you want a good war story you have to get onto the front line.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Amateurish history worthy of a high school student

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

It needed to be profesional history rather than a collection of cliches

What do you think your next listen will be?

Biography of Jefferson

What didn’t you like about Bob Walter’s performance?

Flat expressionless voice.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment indeed, I was looking for some insightful analysis, some new understanding of this well covered period and instead one gets cliches about Stalin's "Russian Autocratic manner" and insignificant minutiae about lodging arrangements, all of which feel like space fillers rather than truly meaningful information.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Love letter to Churchill

After reading the book, the fact all eyes of the men on the cover are facing towards Churchill was unmistakable. The Author, who was a British conservative politician, main thrust of the book is that Churchill had been right from the start of the war to the end of the war and if only had the Americans listened more closely, they could have predicted the Cold War better. The author describes Churchill's electoral defeat as a betrayal of the man who did everything for them and even goes on to denigrate PM Macmillan for essentially not being macho enough.


Huge chunk of the book is dedicated to bringing up every bad thing Stalin is accused before, during, and after the war to justify the end result of the Anglo-American's turning their backs once and for all now that they had the bomb and no longer needed what the author described as a "undesirable" Red Army to win the war.

After spending hours describing how wrong it was for Stalin to seek reparations for 20M+ Soviet dead, he lauded the atomic bombings as finally having "avenged Pearl Harbor". 250,000 civilians for 2300 military dead.


The author also took three separate instances to condemn Stalin for giving credit to the common solider instead of giving credit to specific commanders who the author thinks more worthy. Strange.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

excellent overview of the final months.

very well written and informative book.The author does an excellent job weaving the various storylines into a cohesive and engaging story.

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