Armageddon

The Battle for Germany 1944-45

By: Max Hastings

Narrated by: Paul Woodson

In September 1944, the Allies believed that Hitler's army was beaten, and expected that the war would be over by Christmas. But the disastrous Allied airborne landing in Holland, American setbacks on the German border and in the Hürtgen Forest, together with the Battle of the Bulge, drastically altered that timetable. Hastings tells the story of both the Eastern and Western Fronts, and paints a vivid portrait of the Red Army's onslaught on Hitler's empire. He has searched the archives of the major combatants and interviewed 170 survivors to give us an unprecedented understanding of how the great battles were fought, and of their human impact on soldiers and civilians.

Hastings raises provocative questions: Were the Western Allied cause and campaign compromised by a desire to get the Soviets to do most of the fighting? Why were the Russians and Germans more effective soldiers than the Americans and British? Why did the bombing of Germany's cities continue until the last weeks of the war, when it could no longer influence the outcome? Why did the Germans prove more fanatical foes than the Japanese, fighting to the bitter end? This book also contains vivid portraits of Stalin, Churchill, Eisenhower, Montgomery, and the other giants of the struggle. The crucial final months of the twentieth century's greatest global conflict come alive in this rousing chronicle.

©2004 Max Hastings

Detailed but wordy.

The narration was excellent. Clear and well paced, The author has little regard for economy of words. I’m a history buff and have read and listened to scores of books on WWII. This book includes a lot of repeated topics to the point it becomes annoying. As often is the case with academic types, brevity and economy of words is not considered when writing.