Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II

Most educated Americans know, in general, what happened on the battlefields of WWII from Normandy to V-E Day. This extremely excellent book, while giving a broad overview of thr "big" events, tells us a multitude of "little" stories about different people caught up in living during the last months of the war. They are fascinating tales, and even more so for being true. We go along the roads of Germany with troops, see the opening of the concentration camps, spend time imprisoned, and in general wait out the war itself. This book is an effort to show the triumph of the human will to survive, even though surrounded by tragedy. I'm extremely glad that I read it, and I hope that it reaches a very wide audience!

As the author notes, many know the war in Europe ended with the surrender of Germany on 7 May, but in reality the shear inertia of the war meant the dying and some of the fighting continued. On top of that, the problems created by the war only began. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of displaced persons, former concentration camp survivors, and the administration of a collapsed nation had to be dealt with in the final days of the war. And, in the area of Trieste, Italy, the Cold War could be claimed to have begun as allied divisions and naval forces deployed to prevent Tito's army from grabbing Italian territory and to force it back into Yugoslavia. The book is also written well. The method Stafford uses to tell this history is to weave into the historical narrative the lives of several people -- allies and others. This leads to an almost novel-like quality as you follow their lives through the last weeks of the war, while at the same time maintaining historical context.

Excellent historical study of the closing days of WWII in Europe that superbly interweaves the personal experiences of people involved in the chaos. Few Second World War histories have moved me so deeply and made the horror felt by the combatants and civilians who encountered the Holocaust so real. Highly recommended to those with a general interest in the subject and to the scholar also. The author is a fine writer and brings sensitivity and insight to his work.

ENDGAME 1945 is a wide-ranging history of the final days of WW II in that part of Europe liberated by the Western allies along with the immediate post-VE Day period. Populated by a myriad of individuals of various nationalities and depicting events in a variety of locales, David Stafford's impressive chronicle illuminates a period of history poorly served by previous historians. Much more than a simple battle-by-battle history, Stafford's book interweaves the stories of civilians and servicemen struggling to survive in the chaotic last days of the Third Reich with the larger political developments transpiring in Europe and America along with military developments in the Pacific. The cast of characters in this 581-page book includes well known historical figures (Hitler, Churchill, Mussolini, Himmler), lesser political and military luminaries along with U. S., Canadian and New Zealand soldiers as well as Third Reich prisoners, refugee workers, etc. The picture created by these interwoven narratives is not one of glorious triumph but of chaos, muddied victories, pointless death and destruction, endless political maneuvering, senseless brutality and suffering on a mammoth scale. By VE Day, a needed victory had been won but the resulting peace was problematic with millions of people facing an uncertain future. Though ENDGAME 1945 jumps back and forth betwen various individuals, the narrative moves along at a fairly steady pace. Stafford's depth of research is reflected in the detailed descriptions of various people, places and events that abound in the book. ENDGAME 1945 is not pleasant reading at times. Up until the final surrender, various German units, mostly SS, continued to murder and brutalize concentration camp inmates. Reading of the slaughter of so many helpless men, women and children is both sickening and heartbreaking. It makes one hope there is a Heaven and a Hell...and that all such Nazi monsters are residents of the latter! Given the depth of Stafford's research and the skillful job he does in presenting such a large historical canvas, ENDGAME 1945 may be THE definitive book on the subject! Highly recommended.

This is as close to a perfect book as I have recently read on WWII history, particularly on the infrequently covered closing days of the European war. Seldom do historians write about the immediate repercussions and events that ran concurrent with the disintegration of the Third Reich. In Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II, author David Stafford carefully chronicles these events through the eyes of various personalities involved. Their anecdotes complete an image of Europe in such disarray that paint a picture of near hopelessness. Stafford captures the emotion of the allied race to Berlin, the ominous possibility of a Nazi Alpine Redoubt and the anticlimactic sigh the war weary world breathed before the loose ends were truly tied off. Reading this book, one realizes how unfortunate it is that those lessons and tales of World War II so often go forgotten. Everyone has heard, read, or seen in movies the horrors that concentration camps wrought, few writers though re-capture the horror in mental Technicolor like Stafford. Reading this book validates the cause of freedom worldwide, the sacrifice of so many and appropriately was released on the American observance of Veteran's Day. Everyone should read this book, but more importantly, everyone should take their time and understand the horrors we both faced and have since overcome. But a great solid read about the cataclysmic last days of war and hesitant first days peace in Europe.