What do you think?
Rate this book
1120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
This wounded and demoralized corporal who fifteen years later would be the leader of the Reich was not yet aware of the magnitude of Germany’s defeat. Four years earlier, as the first great German offensive rolled over Belgian, French and British resistance, Hitler’s regiment had first been bloodied in battle in that same area, losing an almost inconceivable eighty per cent of its personnel in less than a week. To the ardent Hitler these losses, far from discouraging, had been proof of the fighting spirit of German troops.
As Hitler walked off the stage the audience exploded into applause and the cheers continued for several minutes. Later Hitler, wearing an ill-fitting field jacket and puttees, stood in the back seat of an open car to review 3500 (the enthusiastic Goebbels put the number at 15,000) storm troopers who marched past, a bit out of step, with right arms raised in salute.
The Battle of the Bulge was over. Left behind were two tiny ravaged countries, destroyed homes and farms, dead cattle, dead souls, dead minds—and more than 75,000 bodies…[Operation] Autumn Fog was creeping back to the Führer like some huge wounded beast. It reminded many of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Men shuffled painfully through the snow, feet encased in burlap bags, with shawls wound around their heads like careless turbans. They plodded on frozen feet, bedeviled by biting winds, bombs and shells. The wounded and sick crept back to the homeland with rotting insides, ulcers oozing, pus running from destroyed ears. They staggered east on numb feet with despair in their hearts, stricken by dysentery, which left its bloody trail of filth in the snow…Their will was broken. Few who survived the retreat believed there was now any chance of German victory. Almost every man brought back a story of doom, of Allied might and of the terrifying weapon forged in the Ardennes: the American fighter. The GI who came out of the battle was the quintessential American, the man Hitler did not believe existed.
There is no finger pointing or hauling the blame only on Adolf Hitler since there had been a great deal of shameless appeasement on Britain's part once everything got a little tense, as well as the protectionist pacifist policies of the U.S. You also get to see the adverse shift in Hitler's war policy beginning from 1940 with reasonable explanations so it's not like the guy was plain crazy, though he merely pushed every country in his way to the limit -
There is great gratification on my part for having found the book which many may consider the "real deal."