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On 30th April 1945 Germany is in chaos…
Russian troops have reached Berlin. All over the country, people are on the move – concentration camp survivors, Allied PoWs, escaping Nazis – and the civilian population is fast running out of food. The man who orchestrated this nightmare is in his bunker beneath the capital, saying his farewells.
Hitler’s Last Day: Minute by Minute is pure chronological narrative, as seen through the eyes of those who were with Hitler in those last tumultuous hours; those fighting in the streets of Germany; and those pacing the corridors of power in Washington, London and Moscow. It was a day of endings and beginnings when ordinary people were placed in extraordinary situations.
Take Sisi Wilczek, fleeing the advancing Russians with her family’s vast fortune in a shoebox; President Truman, weighing up whether to use the atomic bomb that his Secretary of War calls “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history”; German officer Claus Sellier, on a last mission across the country to deliver vital documents; or Allied aircrews, dropping food parcels to feed the starving Dutch population.
30th April 1945 was a day that millions had dreamed of, and millions had died for.
“Beyond fascinating... this book brings to life a thousand different people in the most dramatic moment of the last century”
“Mesmerisingly recreates the minute by panic-filled minute, as madness and terror engulfed the Fuhrer's bunker”
“Riveting... A vivid present is maintained throughout”
Jonathan Mayo joined the BBC in 1987, first working in radio and then television, where he won awards for his documentaries. In 2012 he became a freelance producer, director and writer. He lives in Surrey with his wife Hannah and son Charlie.
Emma Craigie is a writer and teacher. She is also author of Who Was… King Henry VIII (Short Books, 2006). She lives in Somerset with her husband and four children.