The Day The War Ended [Audio Cassette]

Martin Gilbert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 1995

By the author of "The Holocaust". This is a history of the events of 8 May 1945 and its repercussions, published to coincide with the 50th Anniversary celebrations of VE-Day in May 1995. It focuses not only on the events of that day, but also looks forward from that day to the years ahead. The theme of the book is the way in which the world today has been moulded by the events of 8 May 1945. Gilbert traces in narrative form the events and personalities of that day, from the early hours of the morning until midnight, looking at the topics and people first in their 8 May context and then in the wider sweep of the events to which they led across the years. The story of one day's impact and its aftermath combines global perspectives with the stories of individuals.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Gilbert moves without difficulty from high politics to street parties, conveying the world-shaking tremors of elation, relief and mourning that greeted the joyous news of the conclusion of the World War II. He brings out the wrangles between the Western and the Eastern allies about exactly which day should be called VE Day, and also sketches in outline the troubles yet to come. (Kirkus UK)

For all the drama inherent in the stoW of WW II's end, this is one of the noted British historian's least interesting books. Gilbert (The First World War, 1994, etc.) bases his account of the day the war ended on contemporary letters, documents, newspapers, diaries, memoirs, histories, and the recollections of 190 individuals he contacted while working on the book. He contributes new vignettes but little that alters existing perceptions. Still, the scale of the event remains awe-inspiring: This was the most destructive war in history; on an average, more than 20,000 people, soldiers and civilians, were killed each day, the same number killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The liberation in April 1945 of the Belsen concentration camp, with its huge mounds of unburied bodies and skeletal survivors, was a moment that, Gilbert rightly argues, transformed the Allied perception of the war. Pointing up a detail that has escaped general notice, however, he records that one American lieutenant, immediately after entering Dachau and seeing the corpses there, machine-gunned 346 SS guards after they gave themselves up. There was the usual maneuvering about where and when the German surrender would be signed and announced: It was signed in Reims early on the morning of May 7 by General Alfred Jodl, but was not announced until May 8 by Britain and the United States, and on May 9 by Stalin. The aftermath was filled with jubilation, tragedy, and the grotesque: jubilation as millions celebrated; tragedy as hundreds of thousands of Russians were forcibly returned by the Allies, France even allowing NKVD commissions to travel through the country in search of non-returnees; and elements of the grotesque, as Ireland's president made an official visit of condolence to the German embassy after Hitler's death. Rich in incident and anecdote, but Gilbert turns over soil already so thoroughly mined that it is hard to find a nugget. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape, Inc. (December 8, 1995)
• ISBN-10: 0736632107
• ISBN-13: 978-0736632102
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,993,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sir Martin Gilbert is one of the leading historians of his generation. An Honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford - of which he was a fellow for thirty years - he is the official biographer of Churchill and the author of eighty books, among them Churchill - A Life and The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust. For more information please visit http://www.martingilbert

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrrific Overview of A Fascinating Moment In History!, December 15, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Day The War Ended (Audio Cassette)

No one has been more acclaimed or prolific in writing about the total scope of twentieth century history than British author and historian Sir Martin Gilbert, who sometimes seems to represent a kind of one-man revival in British historical publication. Here he focuses impressively on the end of the war in Europe in "The Day The War Ended", giving the reader a breathless and almost exhausting look at all that transpired all over Europe, and indeed, in the world, as the terrible conflict that had raged for almost five years final drew to a terrifying close. He brings impressive credentials to the task; as the foremost biographer and authority on Winston Churchill (with an 8 volume biography already published), he is obviously well versed on the particulars of the European theater of the conflict, and in this volume he displays how comprehensive his knowledge of the other theaters of wars, especially the Pacific campaign, is as well.

Gilbert's particular genius as a writer and as an historian is particularly acute here, for the narrative centers on the very human ways in which the war has affected people. Here the people have names, families, pasts, and hopefully, now, futures as well, as the dust finally begins to settle over the ashes of a Europe that had been ablaze. The reader is allowed to make the essential connections between various events and the breathing, living human beings that made them happen, and that makes this work fascinating to read. His approach is magisterial, and his account vast in terms of the numbers of people, places, and situations he describes. Doing so, of course, is all too appropriate, for this war was indeed global, and it is indeed useful to recognize that events transpiring in places as far flung as London, Budapest, and Stalingrad were materially affected by each other, and by the particular events that each scene of the war experienced in its final moments.

Gilbert's sweeping prose style and selection of topics makes for entertaining and informative reading; he masterfully weaves together a meaningful context in which the political, military, and diplomatic aspects of the conflict are connected in a perspective that always pays compassionate heed to the civilian impact of the bloody struggle. As one of the foremost authorities on the Holocaust, Gilbert blends the particulars of the "Final Solution" into the history of the final day of the war in Europe as part of the ongoing narrative, placing it in context and showing the shock, bewilderment, and amazement of so many people at what had transpired as they liberated the death camps.

Of particular interest is the way Gilbert uses personal recollections and anecdotal details to humanize the epic struggle and to bring home the horrific and monstrous scale on which this war brought terror, death and destruction to much of the civilized world. He reminds us with compelling evidence and stirring narratives that people died horribly and needlessly every day during the disastrous, painful, and nearly six-year long struggle, so that those who still stood alive and alert in its final moments were survivors forged in the crucible of a terrible, horrific ordeal. If you want to better understand what happened as the raging inferno that raged over Europe was finally extinguished and a very human look at the people who actually experienced it, this wonderful and admirably comprehensive overview will serve you quite well. Enjoy

4.0 out of 5 stars Suffering humanized, history made meaningful, March 18, 2006

By 

Konrad Baumeister - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Day the War Ended (Hardcover)

Martin Gilbert is one of the most prolific and most readable of contemporary historians of the World Wars, the scope of his books ranging from the magisterial 8-volume biography of Churchill to virtually day by day histories of both World Wars, down to a study such as this one, which focuses on the human experience surrounding just one day, May 8 1945, the day World War II was officially over.

Well, he covers more than that. Gilbert initially reviews the final military destruction of Hitler's Germany, with a good overview of the change of government to Donitz, and their last minute struggle to save at least some of the situation - and population - in the east while surrendering to the west. There is interesting discussion regarding the actual date to be established for the war-ending holiday, Churchill and Truman on one side of the issue, Stalin on the other. (Guess who caved?) And the tragedies of the millions and millions of displaced people, from every nationality and ethnicity, choking the roads across Europe, the war not yet finished with them, are movingly brought to life. Gilbert does not shy away from covering the shameful post-war Operation Keelhaul, either, where the Americans and British forcibly and at gunpoint 'repatriated' millions of Russian POWs held by the Germans back to Uncle Joe, knowing they were sending them to long-term hard labor in the Gulag or (for officers) execution.

But the heart of the book is a long series of personal stories and memories, skilfully woven together and organized by location or particular event. Gilbert had correspondents from all walks of life and from most nations writing about their memories of this time, and what it meant to them, and the highly personal 'I was there' nature of these reminisces brings home some of the immense suffering the war caused, and still causes. The book is particularly strong on the Jewish experience.

The book's central strength is this laserlike focusing on the individual. The downside is that there is, besides the editing of these letters and interviews to fit his narrative structure, no real original research here. All of the information save the recollections (and some of them, too) are to be found in one or the other of Gilbert's other books in greater detail. Gilbert's very prolific output has come to mean that there is a good deal of overlap between some of his books, and this is the case here.

Gilbert is always readable, and this book is a powerful, emotional, if not comprehensive, compendium of memories of people who were there then, a rapidly shrinking group today. If the reader wants a more military or political review of the final collapse of Germany, this will not likely be the best choice.