Eight Days in May: The Final Collapse of the Third Reich by Volker Ullrich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Eight Days in May is the story of the end of World War 2 in Europe, from Hitler’s suicide to Germany’s unconditional surrender. These eight days are seldom discussed in detail in World War 2 histories, but the author has made them the focus of this very interesting book.

The book is laid out chronologically – each day from May 1 to May 8 is discussed in detail. There is a prologue which covers Hitler’s death and the situation on April 30, including the formation of the new government under Admiral Donitz. As we work through the eight days, there is a lot of information presented, some of which was new to me at least. One of the themes is the desire of the Donitz government and the German Wehrmacht to surrender to the Western Allies and not the Soviet Union. Despite the official policy of unconditional surrender, local surrenders in northern Germany, Denmark and other areas occurred. A significant number of German army units were able to disengage from the Red Army and move west to surrender to the British and American forces.

There were many other topics that I found very interesting – the defense of the city of Breslau, the uprising in Prague, and the liberation of the concentration camps are among them. I highly recommend this book; if you are interested in the history of World War 2 in Europe, I think you will like this book.