Osprey's Downfall 1945

To put it mildly, 1945 was not the best year for the Hitler gang. Their cities were being bombed day and night, the German army was falling back on all fronts, boys and older men were being conscripted into service and there was not enough fuel to keep the war machine going. On the other side of things, the Allies were making rather major gains with only the hiccup of the German Ardennes offensive in late 1944 to cause any real worry. Like all the late war German offensives, this one required a litany of situations to fall just right in order to succeed and in war, things like that rarely happen.

When the war ended, there were still areas where there was fighting, but it was quite localized and much of it was against the Soviets as German soliders knew that the Soviets would as soon kill them as bother capturing them. This, of course, caused a massive exodus towards the west where German troops surrendered to the British and American forces in droves. In Prague, Czech freedom fighters fought against the invading Soviets in order to have a chance at a free post-war Czechoslovakia. This did not happen.

During the final days of the war, the Soviets slowed their movement towards Berlin in order to have as much of Austria under their control as possible, while Patton's army moved into the country hoping for the same result. Meanwhile, after the Rhine crossing in March, Germany was literally split in two with many Germans headed for the mountains in hopes that they could stave off the invading armies there. But in the end, even with the suicide of Hitler, there was no way out and Germany surrendered unconditionally. Fortunately, a repeat of the disaster following WWI did not happen, but that is for another book.

In this volume, author Steven Zaloga states the military situation at the beginning of the year and then divides the book into roughly two parts. One is the advance of the Allies in the west and the permutations that the German High Command went through to try to stop them. For this they pulled most of their forces from the East for this attempt and when that failed, sent the remnants back to the east where they were generally overwhelmed by the Soviets. The second portion concentrates on the various battles as well as the personal machinations of the Soviets who pitted two of their Generals against each other in the taking of Berlin and their hopes regarding taking over with some permanence, the nations they had 'liberated' in their push to the west. The book is superbly illustrated by a variety of period photos as well as the excellent artwork or Steve Noon who has so ably illustrated so many books in this series. It makes for a logical and highly readable account of the last days of the Third Reich and a book I highly recommend to those who want to know more about this period of time.

May 2016

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