The End: Hitler’s Germany 1944-1945. Ian Kershaw. 2012.

What made Germany keep fighting to the death, even when it was clear it would lose the Second World War? Why did its rulers not cut a deal to save their own skins? And why did ordinary people continue to obey the Fuhrer’s suicidal orders, with countless Germans executing their own countrymen for desertion or defeatism? Ian Kershaw’s searing account takes us into the heart of the Third Reich’s final months, laying bare the fear and fanaticism that drove a nation to destruction.