The End: Hitler’s Germany 1944-45

Ian Kershaw & Allen Lane, £30

THE question why Germany continued fighting against the Allies in the last year of World War II, when it obviously could not win, is brilliantly analysed here by military historian Ian Kershaw.

Knighted in 2002, he has repeatedly received awards for his books about the Third Reich, the most notable being his monumental biography of Adolf Hitler.

Now, in The End, he presents a graphic and horrifying picture of a nation seemingly gripped by collective madness, resisting its invaders with increasing desperation and savagery, and unnecessarily sacrificing the lives of millions in the process.

Patriotism, fear of retribution from the Russian forces, and a murderous crackdown by the Nazis against any form of “defeatism” by Germans, were among the reasons for the stubborn resistance.

But the main one lay in the charisma still surrounding Hitler, who insisted that his country fight to the bitter end. Until he was no longer living — he died by his own hand on April 30, 1945 — there was no way in which Germany would capitulate.