The Last Days of Hitler, 7th Edition

As a history buff and WWII enthusiast (if there is such a term for WWII), the story told in these pages should be fairly familiar. The decades that have followed have filled in the void of uncertainty around the death of Hitler and his henchmen. Yet there is so much more in these pages that still capture the brutal dictatorship of the Nazis and their inner thoughts until the very end of the Third Reich. It is still fascinating to see why (and how) the Nazi elite held onto the thought of a new government with the Western Powers after the wars end. Many years later, the author Ian Kershaw captures the same mood and sentiment in his book “The End”.

The author, Hugh Trevor-Roper, himself is an interesting character who was ultimately ridiculed for accepting the fake Hitler diaries. Nevertheless, you can certainly see the power of his writing in this book. The narration is also very strong in this Audible release.

Highly recommended for the history buff.

I love history, the longer the better, and I can't get enough of WWII and Civil War books - but man, this is one dull book. I've listened to a ton of the audiobooks available about WWII and Hitler in particular - also the last days of the third reich is just a very interesting story, but you wouldn't know that from reading this book. It's loaded with a lot of cliches and moves at a snail's pace and doesn't add much of anything to what I knew already (in fairness this book was first written shortly after the war ended so at the time most of this was unknown). There are much better audiobooks on Audible that cover this in more detail and in a much more interesting manner - just search around and you'll find them.

The reader does an OK job, but the material is so dull I think that hurts my rating a bit. Hard to go above a 3 - which is average in my book - so nothing good or bad about him.

The book is worthwhile both as history but also as a period piece in style. It is not my favorite style but is good fun. Any more stylistic flourishings and it would sound "affected".

For history buffs, this is a great work. I found it interesting but it was rather dry for listening to during rush hour commutes.