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Zusatztext “Fascinating . . . The narrative shifts from scene to intimate scene of every conference room . . . from liberated camp to Hitler’s underground bunker! to GIs storming the railroad bridge across the Rhine. . . . Toland has woven the tapestry of history.” — Chicago Tribune “A hundred stories fill out these hundred days—portraits! battle plans! ironies! feats of espionage! mass brutalities! insanity! diplomats! generals! soldiers! snipers! the cool and the fanatic. Hitler’s horoscope! what General Eisenhower was reading on the morning of surrender! Quisling’s final auto ride! orders! counterorders! impatient statesmen! conflicting strategies! the stench of fire and death! telegrams to Moscow! plunging armies! straggling refugees. . . . In fascinating and exhaustively researched detail—it is all here!” — The New York Times “Brilliant . . . The reader is in suspense throughout. . . . Each scene is played out close-up and point-blank! as if one were there! listening to the dialogue! counting the stakes! feeling the emotions of the principals.” — The New York Times Book Review Informationen zum Autor John Toland Klappentext A dramatic countdown of the final months of World War II in Europe, The Last 100 Days brings to life the waning power and the ultimate submission of the Third Reich. To reconstruct the tumultuous hundred days between Yalta and the fall of Berlin, John Toland traveled more than 100,000 miles in twenty-one countries and interviewed more than six hundred people—from Hitler's personal chauffeur to Generals von Manteuffel, Wenck, and Heinrici; from underground leaders to diplomats; from top Allied field commanders to brave young GIs. Toland adeptly weaves together these interviews using research from thousands of primary sources. When it was first published, The Last 100 Days made history, revealing after-action reports, staff journals, and top-secret messages and personal documents previously unavailable to historians. Since that time, it has come to be regarded as one of the greatest historical narratives of the twentieth century.1. On the morning of January 27, 1945, there was an air of restrained excitement among the 10,000 Allied occupants of Stalag Luft III (Air Prisoner of War Camp) at Sagan, only 100 air miles southeast of Berlin. In spite of the biting cold and the steady fall of snow in large flakes, prisoners huddled outside their barracks discussing the latest report: the Russians were less than twenty miles to the east and still advancing. Two weeks earlier the first news of a great Red Army offensive had begun seeping into the camp from anxious guards. The prisoners were in high spirits until several goons—guards—hinted that orders had come from Berlin to make the camp a Festung, a hedgehog fortress to be defended to the end. A few days later another rumor spread that the Germans were going to use the Kriegies (short for Kriegsgefangenen, “war prisoners”) as hostages and shoot them if the Russians tried to take the area. This story was succeeded by an even more terrifying one: the Germans were going to convert the showers into gas chambers and simply exterminate the prisoners. Morale dropped so alarmingly that Arthur Vanaman, an American brigadier general and the senior Allied officer at Sagan, sent a directive to the camp’s five compounds urging that all rumors be stopped and that preparations for a possible forced march to the west be accelerated. One of the prisoners wrote in his diary, “Our barracks looks like a gathering of the Ladies’ Aid Sewing Circle.” Men sat cross-legged on the bunks cutting glove patterns from the bottoms of overcoats, devising snow caps and face guards, and improvising knapsacks out of trousers. A few ambitious ones were even building sleds from odd bits of lumber and bed boards. But nothing could stop the rumors, and on January 26 Va...
