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Swansong 1945 a collective diary of the last days of the Third Reich

Chronicles the end of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe through hundreds of letters, diaries, and autobiographical accounts covering four days that fateful spring: Hitler's birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler's suicide on April 30,...

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Other Authors: Kempowski, Walter (Compiler), Whiteside, Shaun (Translator)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
German
Published: New York, N.Y. : W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.
Edition: First American edition.
Subjects:
World War, 1939-1945 > Personal narratives.
Germany > History > 1933-1945.
Summary: Chronicles the end of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe through hundreds of letters, diaries, and autobiographical accounts covering four days that fateful spring: Hitler's birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler's suicide on April 30, and finally the German surrender on May 8. Side by side, we encounter vivid, first-person accounts of civilians fleeing Berlin, ordinary German soldiers determined to fight to the bitter end, American POWs dreaming of home, concentration-camp survivors' first descriptions of their horrific experiences, as well as the intimate thoughts of figures such as Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Joseph Goebbels, and Hitler himself. These firsthand accounts, painstakingly collected and organized by renowned German author Walter Kempowski, provide the raw material of history and present a panoramic view of those tumultuous days, an extraordinary account of suffering and survival.--From publisher description.
Item Description: First published in Great Britain by Granta Books, 2014 as Swansong 1945: a collective diary from Hitler's last birthday to VE Day. -- Great Britain : Granta Books, 2014.
Original German edition first published in 2005 as Das Echolot : Abgesang '45 Ein kollekitives Tagebuch by Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich.--Title page verso.
Physical Description: xxii, 479 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (pages 433-454) and index.
ISBN: 9780393248159 (hardcover) :
0393248151 (hardcover)
Author Notes: Walter Kempowski (1929-2007) was one of Germany's most important postwar writers. In the 1980s he began gathering diaries, letters, and memoirs of World War II, which he edited into ten volumes published in German. Swansong 1945 is the first portion to appear in English.

Shaun Whiteside 's translations from the German include classics by Freud, Musil, and Nietzsche.

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