Last Days of the Reich: The Collapse of Nazi Germany, May 1945

by James Sidney Lucas

When the Third Reich collapsed, 70 million Germans were left bewildered and terrified, their leaders dead or incarcerated; the victors saw fully for the first time the unbearable legacy of death, atrocity, and destruction left by the Nazis. Here is the view from Hitler's bunker, where news came of his troops surrendering on every front. An extraordinary story of ruin, retribution, sometimes courage and occasional suicide...and the ultimate rise from these ashes of a powerful, democratic republic.

Genres: History, World War II, Military History, Nonfiction, Germany, Military Fiction, 20th Century

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1986

About the author

Author and historian. Imperial War Museum, London, England, deputy head of department of photographs.

Mr. Lucas was a WWII veteran. He served with the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, First Battalion, North Africa, infantryman, 1942; Queens' Own Royal West Surrey Regiment, Italy, 1943-44; Occupation Army, Austria, 1945; Foreign Office, Germany.

Most of James Lucas's professional life was associated with war. First, he served in the Queen's Own Royal Army as a British soldier in World War II, stationed in Africa, Italy, and later in Austria. In 1960 he joined the staff of the Imperial War Museum in London, eventually becoming the deputy head of the department of photographs. After retiring from this position, Lucas took up a third career, that of an author and historian. His favorite topic was World War II, a subject about which he became a respected authority—not only among scholars, but, through his work as an adviser on film and television productions about the war, among the general public as well. According to a London Times obituary, Lucas examined "almost every aspect of the Nazi war machine …combining technical information with first-hand testimony and so producing a body of work unequalled in its breadth. Having fought the Third Reich's best troops through North Africa and Italy, he knew their tenacity and resourcefulness."

Lucas's writing style was not considered typical of war histories. "Humour and enthusiasm, combined with rigorous attention to detail, were the hallmarks of his style," reported the Times obituary writer. Lucas was a prolific writer upon his topic of choice; and he covered many different aspects of the war, often concentrating on the German side of the conflicts.

As his Times obituarist declared, Lucas "saw himself as an archivist, searching for the ordinary men in the heat of battle, playing their part in the bigger picture." Lucas died on June 19, 2002, at the age of seventy-eight.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is good in details and descriptions but personally I think it is one sided. Yes it only shows German side and how they suffered so I understand that. But it kind of fails to remind the reader that German army and particularly SS done terrible atrocities through the Eastern Europe and more then anywhere else in Russia. One way of the other Nazi Germany killed millions in Russia and rest of the Eastern Europe. In the contrast they were much more 'civilized' in Western Europe although they done terrible things there as well. So when Russian army advanced in Germany obviously they had only one thing on their mind. Bloody revenge. And Germans got it. Yes thousands of German women were raped, some soldiers & civilians were shot on site, particularly SS. But what they expected after what they done in Russia? To be treated nicely. I wonder if Sea Lion actually happen and Germany invaded England and in the process done same atrocities they done in Russia, would British Army behave any different towards them later? I doubt. If Germans came to your village and killed every male above 16, and took every women and child to concentration camp and burned the village down and you somehow survived - would any of you behave differently towards German prisoners later then how Russians did. I think not. Besides, Russian army DID NOT in general burn villages and killed all males on site. Sure they done terrible things as well and when bad things are done we must recognize them for what they are - bad things. But we have to understand as to why those things are done in a first place. Even German soldiers themselves were saying that they have to stop Ivan as if not and they do to Germans only half of what Germans done to Russia, there will be no Germany left. Are you forgetting that millions of Ukraninan died of starvation simply because Germans took all the grain for Germany. So when Ukranian Red Army soldier came to ‘rich’ German village you think he wanted to be nice knowing that his sister of mother died of hunger because of Germans.

Other thing I have to say is that I am Croat myself and I know about the war in Yugoslavia and what was written for that chapter was way too much oversimplified.
Chetnicks were not peace loving patriots and simple Royalist. They wanted Serbian hegemony and were openly collaborating with Germans to the point that allies abandoned them. They killed countless civilians and have tons of blood on their hands.
And you would think that because I am Croat I would say that.
But as described in the book the fault of Croats was that they choose the wrong side and sided with Germans. There is no mention of thousands of civilians that Croat Ustase regime killed (mainly Serbs, Jews etc but also 'normal' thinking Croats etc). There is no mention of concentrations camps Ustase ran like Jasenovac or Stara Gradiska where even Germans were appalled of the butchery that was happening there. So at the end when they lost and Partisan army caught up with them revenge was on the cards and their paid in blood. What they expected? Again I am Croat, and there were thousands of Croats in Partisan army and the leader of the Army was Croat (Tito), but there were also a lot of Croat that sided with Germans and done terrible things so when they lost – they paid the price, same as Chetnicks or other loosing sides. Ex Yugoslavia was complex country patched together with different nations and ruled by Serbian king and Sebs enjoyed lot of benefits comparing to other nations. Same or similar issues spilled over in post war Yugoslavia and are one of the reasons the country broke apart in a bloody war in 90’s. Let’s not forget that when all western democracies were conquered by the might of German army and waited for Americans and in part British to liberate them there was only one country in Europe that liberated themselves (with some help of Russians in the North around the capital city) and that was Yugoslavia. No other country done that. End yet in the ironies of politics France emerges as a victorious country of the WWII. Say what? French army collapsed in 1941 in few weeks and only remaining ‘forces’ were from colonies with De Gaulle but their size was nothing comparing to other armies around. End yet France emerge as a victory country with their contribution of few divisions. Makes me want to lough. True they had resistance in occupied territories but compering to partisan forces in Yugoslavia they were nothing, although they suffered badly and need to be recognized as well.
Crime is crime, no matter which side does it but you should differentiate causes for it. When Germans invaded Russia, they had no reason to kill millions, but when later Russia invaded Germany they had every reason to take revenge on them. And yet with all the rape and murder they done in Germany, they treated Germans far better than the Germans treated them. Rape happen on the large scale but outright murders of civilians did not. Sure, a lot of people got killed as civilians always get in the crossfire and there were cases when they were shot on site, but nothing comparing what Germans done in Russia or Eastern Europe.
In conclusion, both sides done terrible things but they cannot be put in one basket as simple as in this book.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested to read this account of the last days of Nazi Germany as I had read a couple of books some years ago, one an eyewitness account of someone in the Hitler bunker at the end. I found when starting it, however, that it was an account of what went on in each country in the last days of the war.

The author was a respected historian, who served in WWII, including being stationed in Austria during the occupation, where he formed opinions from what he witnessed there. Nevertheless, I found a few things about the book puzzling. Firstly, there are no footnotes. I can’t remember reading a serious book about WWII without extensive footnotes. There is only a fairly short index and a timeline of events, both at the back of the book.

There are a few maps but they’re not very clear and take quite a bit of puzzling over to try to find the various armies or towns/cities referenced in the text.

The book makes use of eyewitness accounts, but none are credited and no information is given about them. They are dropped into the text as part of the particular sequence of events he writes about. He says in the introduction that where there are more than one about something, he's amalgamated them, but it only says once in the main text that he's done that with a particular account.

This made it seem less like an account by a serious historian. On the plus side, the publication date of 1986 must make it one of the earliest, if not the first, account to acknowledge the many rapes carried out by Red Army soldiers of German women, not only in Berlin but in other areas of the country. I had only come across references to this about ten years ago, previously.

Lucas admires the German military especially the army, even the SS, for their warrior nature, effectiveness etc. He does mentions concentration camps and general atrocities in passing, but the focus of the book is not on that. It does, though, come across as biased in the favour of the Germans.

Given the doubts raised, after finishing the book I had a look at what other reviewers on Goodreads had made of it. Other than knowing that ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia dated back to World War II, I knew nothing of what Lucas describes in his chapter on Yugoslavia. I haven’t attempted to fact check anything myself, and would direct anyone interested in knowing more to a review by Mike, who is a Croat and has detailed knowledge of World War II in Yugoslavia.

I did check the background to what Lucas says about the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight Eisenhower and his decision to direct the US and British armies away from Berlin and southward instead. By then, the US provided the vast majority of weapons, vehicles, aircraft etc and the majority of the manpower. Lucas castigates him on several fronts for this. It seems others have also raised doubts, and a useful article was https://the-past.com/feature/endgame-... As Lucas says, a factor in his decision was the belief by US intelligence that the Germans were concentrating their forces around an Alpine Redoubt for a last stand. This was eventually proved false, a product of German propaganda among other things.

Eisenhower telegrammed Stalin on 28 March to tell him of his plans and asked Stalin’s intent, so they could co-ordinate their efforts. Stalin, as usual with him, gave a false impression that Berlin was no longer strategic and he would allocate secondary forces only to its capture, when in reality he ordered an all-out assault by the parts of the Red Army that were then only thirty-five miles from Berlin.

The article does verify some of Lucas’s statements about this development. The change of strategy wasn’t agreed by the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the British were furious when they heard afterwards. Churchill did contact Roosevelt to advise strongly against it as it would give the Soviet Union too much power: he already foresaw the post-war conflict that would be inevitable. But his warning was overruled. Roosevelt hoped for co-operation with the USSR through the newly set up United Nations, and believed he could trust Stalin.

The article by Taylor Downing, referenced above, vindicates Eisenhower as making the right decision at the time. For one thing, his concern over the loss of Allied troops in the house-to-house fighting that would be inevitable in Berlin, wasn’t misplaced, as the Red Army in fact lost 80,000 killed and over a quarter of a million wounded, apart from a huge civilian death toll. I won’t reiterate the various points made in the article, but I note that Lucas only mentions the important conference at Yalta, 4-11 Feb 1945, between President Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in passing, despite it being vitally important in how the war was conducted subsequently and Eisenhower’s decision.

I came across an interesting Wikipedia on the preliminary, a London Protocol drawn up on 12th September 1944. It defined how Germany and Greater Berlin were to be divided after the war. The NW and SW areas, which were to be either British or US, were not yet assigned and were left as blank spaces. The Eastern Zone of Germany and North East zone of Greater Berlin were marked USSR.

This division was ratified at Yalta, with the addition that France was now one of the future occupiers, having been liberated after D-Day. It was pointless for Eisenhower to risk troops unnecessarily to conquer Berlin, when the Red Army were much closer, and most of the city, and the large area of Germany in which Berlin was situated, would become the USSR Zone after the war. Other areas where the US/British/French armies had fought, if part of the allocation to the Soviet Union, had to be handed over when the war in Europe finished.

Altogether, with the various issues encountered, I would rate this as an OK 2 stars.

[Callum Hyslop · Rating 4 out of 5]

A neat little book that covers the whole continent at the end of the war, I bought it by mistake thinking it was just about the Battle of Berlin clearly not as it goes into detail of other parts of Europe towards the end of the war and how they reacted etc.

[Baco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some unusual and worthwhile perspectives here, but some of Lucas's attempt to evoke sympathy are laughable and the lack of citations is baffling.

[David Vernon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting story that examined the end of the war with Germany by describing the events that occurred on various fronts. Most people are aufait with the war on the Western (British/US/French) front and the Eastern front (Russia) but little is known about the defeat of the German Army in Italy, Czechloslovakia and Yugoslavia. By examining these more 'obscure' fronts, Lucas provides a very useful overview of the end of the war. His writing style by being so explicit about how he intends to tell us the story, does get annoying at times.

Nevertheless, a very readable account.

[Neil Aplin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously immensely well researched history of the final days of the 2nd WW, but the overall effect is to highlight the huge pain and suffering war causes. The end of the war brought not only chaos but revealed all the worst of human characteristics, and as usual the real victims were the innocent civilians and conscripted soldiers who had no interest in the politics of the leaders. If this book serves any purposes other than a record of the final days, it is to remind us that war should be avoided at all costs.

[Nick Boldrini · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good account of the last days of the Third Reich. Literally, as it it covers less than 2 weeks in detail, but expands out from that for context. Some things you may be aware of, but there is extra information regarding the events and fates of various groups which show the chaos of this time. If your interested in details of WWII worth a look, but not really for a general reader.

[Rebecca Reddell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good perspective, excellent details, helpful research, and wonderful layout. I enjoyed this book and its use as a resource. The writing style was well-done, nice breakdown of each subject material covered in the book, and helpful maps and other visuals.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

An essential book...

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the Third Reich collapsed, 70 million Germans were left bewildered and terrified, their leaders dead or incarcerated; the victors saw fully for the first time the unbearable legacy of death, atrocity, and destruction left by the Nazis. Here is the view from Hitler's bunker, where news came of his troops surrendering on every front. An extraordinary story of ruin, retribution, sometimes courage and occasional suicide...and the ultimate rise from these ashes of a powerful, democratic republic.

[Frank Pellecchia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent account of the last weeks of the Third Reich. The book has abundant first person accounts by the German military, German civilians, and the conquering Russian, American, and British forces. Many pictures are included.
Readable riveting accounts of ruin, retribution, chaos and courage.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting Quite an interesting look at life inside the Reich as it crumbled, but let down by the slightly one-sided view point.  There's a fair bit about the atrocities committed by the incoming Red Army, but very little about the same atrocities perpetrated by the German Army.

[Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of detail, especially concerning incidents that have mostly escaped the history books. Very well researched, as are most of Lucas' books.

[Russ Spence · Rating 5 out of 5]

an excellent book concentrating on what happened to Europe when the guns finally (more or less) fell silent.

[Mikko Åberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hyvä kuvaus kaaoksesta kolmannen valtakunnan viimeisissä hetkissä. Todella luettavasti kirjoitettu ja sisälsi paljon tietoa, jota itse en vielä tiennyt.