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Armageddon | 
 enlarge | Author: Max Hastings
Creator: John Sessions
Publisher: Macmillan Audio Books
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £9.79
You Save: £5.20 (35%)
New (7) from £9.79
Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 16485
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Items: 6
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 1
ISBN: 140505543X
EAN: 9781405055437
ASIN: 140505543X
Publication Date: October 7, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 One theater, two wars. December 16, 2008
Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"American and British officers knew that their citizen soldiers were attempting to fulfil tasks which ran profoundly against the grain of their societies' culture. The Germans and Russians in the Second World War showed themselves better warriors, but worse human beings. This is not a cultural conceit, but a moral truth of the utmost importance to understanding what took place on the battlefield ... If American and British soldiers of 1944-45 had matched the military prowess and become imbued with the warrior ethos of Hitler's armies, it is unlikely that we should today hold the veterans of the Second World War in the just regard that we do. They fought as bravely and as well as any democracy could ask, if the values of civilization were to be retained in their ranks." - Author Max Hastings in ARMAGEDDON
"Between 13 January and 25 April, 2nd Belorussian Front lost 159,490 men dead and wounded, and 3rd Belorussian Front 421,763. During three months in East Prussia, therefore, the Red Army suffered almost as many casualties as the Anglo-American armies in the entire north-west Europe campaign." - Author Max Hastings in ARMAGEDDON
The timeframe for ARMAGEDDON: THE BATTLE FOR GERMANY 1944-1945 is the last 9 months of the conflict in Europe, from September 1, 1944 into May 1945. On September 1, the Red Army was poised to invade East Prussia and cross the Vistula River to capture Warsaw. In the West, Eisenhower's armies had advanced across France to liberate Paris. Now, the Anglo-American forces were preparing to cross into Belgium, and Field-Marshal Montgomery's ill-conceived plan to take the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem - a "bridge too far" as it would turn out - was on the planning board. Perhaps the war would be over by Christmas.
Author Max Hastings paints his literary canvas using the recollections and documents from those on both sides who participated in and survived the events of those last apocalyptic months: Operation Market Garden, the Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, the Soviet rape of East Prussia, the Allied heavy bombing of Germany, and the Red Army's assault on Berlin. And, most poignantly, those - slave laborers, POWs, concentration camp inmates - who outlived their sojourn in the cruel, massive prison that was, for them, the Third Reich.
ARMAGEDDON includes two sections of black and white photographs of widely varying subjects and several small scale maps of the Western and Eastern Fronts.
Hastings takes great pains to establish two major truths of the European war: that the savagery in the East made the Western Front look like a comparative garden party, and that, based on casualties suffered, casualties inflicted, and extent of territory wrested from the Nazis, the Soviet Union can truly be said to have won the war against Hitler. And, about the cooperation between the American and British allies, he explodes the popular myth with such statements as:
"... it is important to emphasize that affection played no part in the decisions or actions of either ally ... There was a deep resentment among Churchill's people of American wealth and British poverty, matched by American exasperation about Britain's pretensions to influence, and to empire ... It is against this background that Eisenhower's great achievement should be measured. He sustained the military partnership between allies who were weary to death of each other, and led them to share in victory with the facade of unity unbroken."
Serious students of World War Two may find ARMAGEDDON too superficial in its treatment of any of the topics it covers, e.g. the Soviet drive on Berlin or Monty's Market Garden. But the book wasn't meant to be a comprehensive history, but rather an overview based on individual and personal experiences. Further, Western sensibilities, especially of those now aged veterans, may be offended by the view that Ike and his generals didn't shoulder the bulk of combat against Hitler's legions. I, too, might have been taken aback had I not seen, long ago, the 1978 documentary series THE UNKNOWN WAR about the Eastern Front. (Conversely, the Americans and the British Empire won the war against Japan.)
ARMAGEDDON is a balanced, intelligent, well thought out summary. Hastings manages to put a human face on the last convulsions of the Reich. Bravo!
The miracle is that Civilisation could ever reemerge from the rubble December 10, 2008
John Ferngrove (Hants UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yes this is a fine piece of military history that is both immensely informative and utterly harrowing reading. Hastings is not averse to presenting his own judgements about issues such as generalship and fighting quality, but I think he makes reasonably clear that they are his views and provides pursuasive arguments.
The point I really want to make, looking at the 'Occicentric' bias of so many fellow reviewers is how delusory the mythography of WWII remains in the West even 60 years on. The question is not whether 'we' could have won the war with or without the help of the Russians. The real question is, whether the Russians could have won the war, which in fact they were doing, without the arrival of the Western allies? In all probability, the Russians would have won the war and we would have seen a far larger communist hegemony. There is absolutely no reason to think that Stalin would have stopped at Berlin otherwise. The arrival of the West merely bought forward the end of the war and guaranteed that at least some of Europe would emerge free.
I cannot recommend enough that people read Norman Davies Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory for the definitive account of 'the meaning' of WWII in Europe.
Another excellent Hastings War book November 19, 2008
Kentspur
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Max Hastings is not a character I instinctively take to. His bluff manner, pinstripe suits, right wing views and - most of all - strange hair leave me thinking 'okaayyy' every time he pops up as a talking head on the TV.
As a rule, I don't like 'celebrity' history books. It's easier to get published if you're a 'name' journalist, but that doesn't mean you're any good.
Hastings bucks the trend.
This book joins 'The Korean War,' Bomber Command' and 'Overlord' as top quality, popular military histories. He synthesises many sources to produce a highly readable narrative and does not shirk from ethical judgements. Why did the german army go on fighting in the West after the Bulge? The moral failure of the German generals. Were the Russians so different in their failure to help Warsaw than the Western allies were in their failure to help starving Holland?
The scale of human suffering is amazing - shocking - as Hastings reports the sinking of liners trying to get civilians away from the Russian advance. However, he does not flinch from the unpopular view that these ships were legitimate military target as they were carrying troops. Throughout the work, Hastings draws a contrast with the 'civilians in uniform' of the British and American forces and the armies of the dictatorships - German and Soviet, who fight with utter disregard for casualties.
By the end, the sheer scale of the catastrophe envelops you, but the little stories of kindness do offer a modicum of hope.
Great book.
 A compelling and sometimes preachy overview July 1, 2008
Geschichtsliebhaber (Oldenburg, Niedersachsen)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
An impressive panoramic narrative of the battle for Germany, "Armageddon" combines a wide range of sources (including many veterans) with Hastings's sharp, often iconoclastic judgement. His criticism of the military folly of Operation Market Garden, the Ardennes offensive, and Zhukov's Oder crossing is hard-hitting, but frequently deserved. Hastings is no apologist for military failings, although he frequently gets moralistic: discussions of the justice of the allied cause or the tyranny of Stalin, which is perceived in downright Manichean terms, should not be part of a work of history. This is not to deny the reality of good and evil, or to say that tales of atrocity should not be included: of course they should, especially in a book that intends to provide a comprehensive narrative. It's just that anti-communist and anti-Nazi polemic should not be part of a work of history; it should be left to philosophers and politicians.
Apart from that criticism, Hastings provides a compellingly readable and frequently heart-wrenching account of the final months of the war, paying almost equal attention to the topics usually ignored in the west, such as the sheer magnitude and ferocity of the war on the eastern front. In "Armageddon", the catastrophic climax of the Second World War comes to life, and although we probably can't imagine accurately that awful time, Hastings comes pretty close.
Two minor criticisms. The first is that Hastings argues that the allied carpet bombing of German civilian homes is justified on the grounds that the workers who got bombed were supporting the German war effort through their labour. This is of course correct, but it's a very slippery slope. Taken to an extreme, this argument completely removes the distinction between civilian and military targets: after all, enemy women are also working and supporting their working husbands, thus contributing to the war effort, and children will grow to become enemy soldiers.
Secondly, the maps Hastings includes (e.g. pp.4-5) are extremely strange, inasmuch as they show Europe in the borders of 1937 (except for Luxemburg, which Hastings for some reason considers a part of Germany). As a consequence, Hastings's maps feature a number of countries which did not in fact exist in 1944-5, such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, or Estonia, and simply do not show several countries which did exist, such as Slovakia and Croatia. Of course, the borders of 1937 are broadly those accepted by the Western allies, but they have nothing to do with the political realities of 1944-5; Austria, for instance, was not an independent country, as "Armageddon" suggests, but an integral part of Germany. The problem is sometimes compounded in the text. What is the reader to imagine when told that a certain regiment was moved "to the Czech border"? What Czech border? The pre-1938 Czech border did not exist in 1944-5 either politically or ethnographically. Thus Hastings causes considerable confusion, as there is no clear sense where exactly the "frontiers of Germany" are, or anything else for that matter.
 Excellent Narrative June 19, 2008
Phileas Fogg
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a superb book, and I can really appreciate the level of knowledge about the war in 1944-45, and the personal quotes and insights into the conflict at the time that he has brought into the book.
Highly recommended, especially the lesser parts of the campaign he covers, such as the annihilation of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia, and the moving of borders and people westwards.
I'd highly recommend anyone read this to gain insights into this tumultuous time and help them see how a modern, civilised, Western European civilisation can descend so quickly into chaos, brutality and destruction. One is left pandering for a visit to pre-war europe to see what Dresden and Warsaw used to look like.
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