Mount TBR #52

I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2016. The challenge is to read books that you already own.

The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945 - Ian Kershaw

This history explains the reasons why Nazi Germany continued to fight even when it was clear to the government and military that the war was lost. The book also tells grim stories about the consequences of Hitler’s decision never to capitulate. Thousands died. Concentration camp inmates died in thousands on death marches from camp to camp. German civilians died in their thousands under Allied bombing and rampaging Red Army soldiers. Three million German soldiers in the east went into captivity in the USSR and million did not return to Germany. What’s really grim about the whole story is the lack of moral courage on just about everybody’s part, military, civilian, bureaucrat, or thug. The take-away lessons do not say much for people in hard situations, in uniform or not, though the one-third that do step up are to be admired and, heaven willing, emulated.