Prevail until the Bitter End, Alexandra Lohse
Prevail until the Bitter End, Alexandra Lohse
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Prevail until the Bitter End
Germans in the Waning Years of World War II

Author: Alexandra Lohse

Narrator: Christa Lewis

Unabridged: 7 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/15/2021


Synopsis

In Prevail until the Bitter End, Alexandra Lohse explores the gossip and innuendo, the dissonant reactions and perceptions of Germans to the violent dissolution of the Third Reich. Mobilized for total war, soldiers and citizens alike experienced an unprecedented convergence of military, economic, social, and political crises.

Lohse uncovers how Germans experienced life and death, investigates how mounting emergency conditions affected their understanding of the nature and purpose of the conflagration, and shows how these factors influenced the people's relationship with the Nazi regime. She draws on Nazi morale and censorship reports, features citizens' private letters and diaries, and incorporates a large body of Allied intelligence, including several thousand transcripts of surreptitiously recorded conversations among German prisoners of war in Western Allied captivity.

Lohse's historical reconstruction helps us understand how ordinary Germans interpreted their experiences as both the victims and perpetrators of extreme violence. We are immersively drawn into their desolate landscape. Prevail until the Bitter End is about the stories that Germans told themselves to make sense of this world in crisis.

About Alexandra Lohse

Alexandra Lohse is an applied research scholar at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kathy

I have been reading about WW2 for many, many years but had never seen much of this information before. The author writes clearly and simply and it is not some dry, academic recital of facts. What was unexpected, and frightening, was the similarities to things we are seeing today in our country. Many......more

Goodreads review by Umar

Good book describing the reaction to the German public to the final days and upcoming defeat of the Third Reich. Could've used some more details about Nazi campaigns of terror and reprisal attacks after the Spring of 1945.......more

Goodreads review by Scott

(audiobook) This book looks at the various attitudes of Germans, from civilians to POWs, during the last part of WWII. From the defeat at Stalingrad, the Nazi regime only fought to hold off the Allies, but the views of the populace about the regime could vary from person to person. This work doesn’t......more

Goodreads review by W.

This was one of those rare history books I could not put down until I had finished it all. Dr. Alexandra Lohse has tackled a complex topic: what were Germans’ opinions on Nazi leadership, the war, and even the whispers of atrocities in the east in the final years of the Third Reich. At the heart of......more

Goodreads review by Michael

An interesting book about German opinion and attitudes from the defeat at Stalingrad (Feb. 1943) to the end of the war (May 1945). The book is interesting in that it shows a great deal of unhappiness within the Nazi system. There was a lot of grumbling, class antagonism, hatred toward Party officials......more