N LIGHT OF THE economic crisis facing Europe, it is worth recalling that within living memory the continent overcame a far greater catastrophe: devastation at the hands of Nazi Germany and its allies. Ian Kershaw's new study of the final year of Hitler's regime provides a salutary reminder of this cataclysm.
Kershaw examines the period from Claus von Stauffenberg's failed assassination attempt on Hitler, in July 1944, to the unconditional surrender signed by Admiral Dönitz, Hitler's successor, on May 7th, 1945, a week after Hitler's suicide, in order to answer a question that continues to perplex historians: why did Germany continue to fight long after it became obvious that it had lost the war?
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