Hitler: Volume II: Downfall 1939-45
Volker Ullrich
'Meticulous... Probably the most disturbing portrait of Hitler I have ever read' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
By the summer of 1939 Hitler was at the zenith of his power. Yet despite initial triumphs in the early stages of war, the Führer's fortunes would turn dramatically as the conflict raged on. Realising that victory was lost, and with Soviet troops closing in on his Berlin bunker, Hitler committed suicide in April 1945; one week later, Nazi Germany surrendered. His murderous ambitions had not only annihilated his own country, but had cost the lives of millions across Europe.
In the final volume of this landmark biography, Volker Ullrich argues that the very qualities - and the defects - that accounted for Hitler's popularity and rise to power were what brought about his ruin. A keen strategist and meticulous military commander, he was also a deeply insecure gambler who could be shaken by the smallest setback, and was quick to blame subordinates for his own disastrous mistakes.
Drawing on a wealth of new sources and scholarship, this is the definitive portrait of the man who dragged the world into chaos.
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About Volker Ullrich
Reviews for Hitler: Volume II: Downfall 1939-45
Dominic Sandbrook
Sunday Times
Ullrich is a fine writer
David Aaronovitch
The Times
The reader who plunges in is rewarded with insight, understanding, fine judgements and read-me narrative drive... [This] biography of Hitler makes essential reading, especially one as deeply researched, beautifully written and finely judged as this one
Tony Rennell
Daily Mail,
Book of the Week
Ullrich’s work is much more than just a biography. It is a work of synthesis, certainly, but a thorough and thoroughly readable one nonetheless, which stands muster alongside Hitler’s most significant earlier biographers: Bullock, Toland, Fest and Kershaw. Elegantly written, engaging and insightful, it is a new standard work on its subject
Roger Moorhouse
BBC History
A fine and meticulous historian with a true command of archives and secondary sources… Ullrich has his own angle, and that is to recover the personality of the man… this is one of the most impressive Hitler biographies…you will find it compelling
Anthony Cummins
Daily Telegraph