Customer Reviews

Hitlers Last Bastion: The Final Battles for the Reich 1944-1945

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The problem with this book and many others published by Schiffer is not the books themselves but their translations from German into English. It is, to say the least, poor. I advise you to avoid Schiffer books translated by Joseph Welsh, as this one.

From the outset it is obvious that this book is a translation from German. The word-for-word nature of the translation makes the text near unreadable. What ever nuggets of information that are left are scattered in oddly constructed paragraphs filled with obfuscating passive sentence constructions. Terms were translated inconsistently: panzerfauts (a single-shot shape-charged anti-tank infantry weapon) were written panzerfautens and panzerfaeusten. The dates were written in German order dd.mm.yy, but with the American separaters; so May 4th 1944 became 4/5/1999.

The organization of the text was confusing. The story shifted backward and forward in date and time so that it was no longer clear what happened in what order.

I can't say if the author did this in the German edition as I did not read that one, but it looks as if the author is prone to make pronouncements of how things were without providing any evidence to back it up. Typifying this was the description of the Soviet armies closing in on Berlin. Here the author describes overwhelming Soviet fire power crashing into depleted German units only to be turned back. Well, how did these inferior German units do this time and time again? If they performed so well, why did they only defend a given site for 24 hours? I don't know if I call that turning them back. I almost suspect the author of letting his sympathies infect his historical perspective.

Finally I found the book far too general in its description of the action. This is not a fault of the author/book if this is what he intended. It's just that my expectations were not met.

Having read Kurowski's "Infanterie Aces" and "Panzer Aces", I was expecting this book to be action-packed and filled with first-hand personal accounts of fighting from the German side. I was severely disappointed as this is not the Kurowski I know. It was overall not a readable book even for the lack of battle action. I would not recommend this book to anyone. But I do highly recommend Kurowski's other books that I have mentioned.

First of all let me state why I handed over my hard-earned money... I wanted a book written from a German perspective regarding the closing days of the war. I was hoping for first-hand personal accounts of the hell and desperation that those days brought. What I got was a very poor translation of a book that offered little, if any, "soldier's stories" and skipped wholesale details of what it was like living in the "fortresses." No mention is even made of the efforts at places such as Memel. Overall, it was a very disappointing purchase

Excellent book. Easy to read account of the final months of the Third Reich and the desperate battles fought to stave off defeat.
The unfolding events described are interspersed with personal accounts by the combatants and civilians, which adds additional and welcome detail to the book.
The book also recounts, in very readable fashion, the efforts by the German military to assist civilian populations in escaping the onrushing Soviet onslaught. These accounts alone made the book a worthwhile addition to my library.
The book details troop activities at various organizational levels, from Corps and Division level down to Battalion level and smaller. It would have been very helpful for there to have been more detailed maps to assist the reader in following the described actions. Other than that slight shortcoming, the book will find a welcome place in my library.

a very rare glimpse into the last days of ww2 on the eastern front, writen by a german author from the german view

It is a good book, which gives us a global vision of the operations without going into too many details. Easy to read. I recommend it

This book is definately worth the cost, if you want to learn of the final battles of Hitler's third reich, get this book. I am an avid reader of books dealing with the German military in WWII and this is one of my favorites. Very informative.

As the other reviewers have mentioned; the translation to English is a bit lacking. Also, two of the photos were labeled incorrectly.

What is good about this book? It does mention battles that are rarely written about in English. I bought it for the Baltic battles, as there is very little about them available. This book does not add very much to the existing literature. It does have information about evacuations of some of the small towns, and the battles that were fought for them. For instance: the Goldap area.

The photos of the German commanders have some I had not seen before. A lot of ruined building photos are included, these are not hard to find. They also were at least half of the books total photos. The maps were nothing special. The text was easier to read. I think the font was a little larger.

What is bad about the book? The Western Front has been covered in much better detail by other authors. This includes the German point of view. The atrocities committed by the "Mongolians" and Soviet Red Army is given pages. I found it interesting that when the author mentions the rape and murder of women in East Prussia/Baltic there is no word about the prior German atrocities in the same area. He also glosses over how the fortifications were built using slave labor.

Would I recomend this book as an introduction to the last year of the Third Reich? No. If you find it on the $[...] table it would be worth it.

I began reading this book from the perspective of someone whose family was one of the many thousand Ost Deutsche fleeing the advancing Soviet army, and there is virtually ZERO written in English about the fall of Koenigsberg and East Prussia. In the photo sections highlighting these battles, the author shows a photo of the center of old Koenigsberg after the 3 day fire bombing raid in August 1944 -- and juxtaposes this with the ruins of the University saying this was after Russian bombing. This raid on the historic center was by the British, and in similar form to Dresden. Get it right!