The Last Battle
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
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By:
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Cornelius Ryan
About this listen
The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich.
The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater. The last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, it devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come.
The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to endure more militarily correct than to win.”
The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.
©1966 Cornelius Ryan; 1994 by Victoria Ryan Bida and Geoffrey J. M. Ryan (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Comprehensive history of The First Army in WWI
- By Bruce Miller on 03-08-18
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Panzer Commander
- The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck
- By: Hans von Luck, Stephen E. Ambrose - introduction
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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A stunning look at World War II from the other side.... From the turret of a German tank, Colonel Hans von Luck commanded Rommel's 7th and then 21st Panzer Division. El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Poland, Belgium, Normandy on D-Day, the disastrous Russian front - von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the world. German soldiers. Awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross, von Luck writes as an officer and a gentleman.
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Reads like Forrest Gump ( a fiction )
- By Randall on 11-08-16
By: Hans von Luck, and others
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Leningrad
- By: Michael Jones
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1941 Hitler's armies blocked the last roads leading into Leningrad. What followed was one of the most horrific sieges in history. When the German High Command encircled Leningrad it was a deliberate policy to eradicate the city's civilian population by starving them to death. As winter set in and food supplies dwindled, starvation and panic set in.
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Great narration and a enthralling story line.
- By nathanfisch on 10-19-21
By: Michael Jones
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Shanghai 1937
- Stalingrad on the Yangtze
- By: Peter Harmsen
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This deeply researched book describes one of the great forgotten battles of the 20th century. At its height it involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers, while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators and, often, victims. It turned what had been a Japanese adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world.
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The Curtain to World War Two
- By Michael on 03-01-16
By: Peter Harmsen
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Is Paris Burning?
- By: Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling authors and renowned journalists Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre spent three years researching this book, drawing on French Resistance radio messages, German military records, countless interviews, and secret correspondence between de Gaulle, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. Here they recreate the drama, the fervor, and the triumph that heralded one of the most dramatic events of our time. Is Paris Burning? reconstructs, in meticulous and riveting detail, the network of fateful events - day by day, moment by moment - that saved the City of Light.
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Necessary reading for fans of WWII and Paris history
- By K Parany on 10-10-23
By: Larry Collins, and others
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Douglas MacArthur
- American Warrior
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 39 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Douglas MacArthur was arguably the last American public figure to be worshipped unreservedly as a national hero, the last military figure to conjure up the romantic stirrings once evoked by George Armstrong Custer and Robert E. Lee. But he was also one of America's most divisive figures, a man whose entire career was steeped in controversy. Was he an avatar or an anachronism, a brilliant strategist or a vainglorious mountebank?
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Claims to be balanced... glosses over flaws
- By Us 5 Camp on 07-03-18
By: Arthur Herman
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Patton, Montgomery, Rommel
- Masters of War
- By: Terry Brighton
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In the Second World War, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany each produced one land-force commander who stood out from the rest: George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel. All were arrogant, publicity seeking, and personally flawed, yet each possessed a genius for command and an unrivaled enthusiasm for combat.
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Excellent ... Patton, Montgomery, Rommel
- By John VandenBrook on 01-10-10
By: Terry Brighton
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The Fall of Japan
- By: William Craig
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
By midsummer 1945, Japan had long since lost the war in the Pacific. The people were not told the truth, and neither was the emperor. Japanese generals, admirals, and statesmen knew, but only a handful of leaders were willing to accept defeat. Most were bent on fighting the Allies until the last Japanese soldier died and the last city burned to the ground.
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Superbly written history
- By Saman on 01-22-16
By: William Craig
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The Rising Sun
- The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 41 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."
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A political as well as military history
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-30-15
By: John Toland
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My Fellow Soldiers
- General John Pershing and the Americans Who Helped Win the Great War
- By: Andrew Carroll
- Narrated by: Andrew Carroll
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Andrew Carroll's intimate portrait of General Pershing, who led all of the American troops in Europe during World War I, is a revelation. Given a military force that on the eve of its entry into the war was downright primitive compared to the European combatants, the general surmounted enormous obstacles to build an army and ultimately command millions of US soldiers. But Pershing himself - often perceived as a harsh, humorless, and wooden leader - concealed inner agony from those around him.
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Don’t pass this up
- By PineappleSmoothy on 03-29-18
By: Andrew Carroll
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Moscow 1941
- A City and Its People at War
- By: Rodric Braithwaite
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The 1941 Battle of Moscow, unquestionably one of the most decisive battles of World War II, marked the first strategic defeat of the German armed forces in their seemingly unstoppable march across Europe. The Soviets lost many more people in this one battle than the British and Americans lost in the whole of the Second World War. Now, with authority and narrative power, Rodric Braithwaite tells the story in large part through the individual experiences of ordinary Russian men and women.
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slow, repetitive
- By Wylie on 12-27-06
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Airborne
- The Combat Story of Ed Shames of Easy Company
- By: Ian Gardner
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Some men are born to be warriors, and Ed Shames is one of these men. His incredible combat record includes service at D-Day, Operation Market Garden, and Bastogne and finally in Germany itself.
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Let down
- By Craig W. Mcsorley on 06-30-15
By: Ian Gardner
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Sons and Soldiers
- The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler
- By: Bruce Henderson
- Narrated by: Brett Barry
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1942 the US Army unleashed one of its greatest secret weapons in the battle to defeat Adolf Hitler: training nearly 2,000 German-born Jews in special interrogation techniques and making use of their mastery of the German language, history, and customs. Known as the Ritchie Boys, they were sent in small, elite teams to join every major combat unit in Europe, where they interrogated German POWs and gathered crucial intelligence that saved American lives and helped win the war.
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Couldn't put it down
- By P. Voelker on 08-06-17
By: Bruce Henderson
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On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat. The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.
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Required reading, excellent narration
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Taking Paris
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May 1940: The world is stunned as Hitler's forces invade France with a devastating blitzkrieg aimed at Paris. Within weeks, the French government has collapsed, and the City of Lights, revered for its carefree lifestyle, intellectual freedom, and love of liberty, has fallen under Nazi control — perhaps forever.
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Incorrectly titled
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Revolutionary Spring
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As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth century. And yet in 1848 nearly all of Europe was aflame with conflict. Parallel political tumults spread like brush fire across the entire continent, leading to significant changes that continue to shape our world today. These battles for the future were fought with one eye kept squarely on the past. Revolutionary Spring is a new understanding of 1848 that offers chilling parallels to our present moment.
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Like the revolutions, it got off to a good start
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The End
- The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945
- By: Ian Kershaw
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From the preeminent Hitler biographer, a fascinating and original exploration of how the Third Reich was willing and able to fight to the bitter end of World War II. Countless books have been written about why Nazi Germany lost World War II, yet remarkably little attention has been paid to the equally vital question of how and why it was able to hold out as long as it did.
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Engrossing yet horrifying
- By Liz on 10-14-11
By: Ian Kershaw
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The Eagle's Claw
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Spring 1942. The United States is reeling from the blow the Japanese inflicted at Pearl Harbor. But the Americans are determined to turn the tide. The key comes from Commander Joe Rochefort, a little known “code breaker” who cracks the Japanese military encryption. With Rochefort’s astonishing discovery, Admiral Chester Nimitz will know precisely what the Japanese are planning.
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A good story
- By Mike West on 06-05-21
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What listeners say about The Last Battle
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Shaun
- 08-03-12
Masterful Work
Somehow, "The Last Battle" is probably Cornelius Ryan's lesser known work on WWII, after his very famous books "The Longest Day" and "A Bridge Too Far" (yes, both prominent WWII films are based on his material).
If you've seen "The Longest Day" film, you have some idea what this book's narrative is going to be like. It covers the events from as many perspectives as possible...from high-ranking commanders to infantrymen to civilians...many of whom were interviewed by Ryan himself in the 1960's. In fact, many of the most poigiant moments of "The Last Battle" are told from the perspective of German civilians, who attempt to go about their daily lives as the Third Reich collapses in flames all around them.
Essentially, "The Last Battle" covers the invasion of Germany proper, on both the Western and Eastern Fronts, and the titular Battle of Berlin.
But, the heft of this work is in the individual stories. German commanders describe to Ryan how Hitler reacted to his own lunacy coming full circle in the last days of the war. Soviet generals compete to see which Russian army will seize the city first. American pilots reveal how the last aerial dogfight in WWII involved US scout flyers shooting down a opposing German observation plane with Colt .45 1911 pistols. In Berlin, Zoo keepers desperately try to save the animals they were charged with caring for. Nuns struggle to prepare their maternity ward for the worst once Soviet rear-eschelon troops, drunk and prone to rape, arrive to exact revenge for atrocities commited aganist the USSR.
This book is a powerful, moving, and highly informative work.
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Overall
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- Aiden Johnson
- 08-12-14
Educational
The Last Battle was one of the first audiobooks I have read and set the bar VERY high for any future listening. Simon Vance does a brilliant job narrating a part of history that is seldom touched upon and fully conveys the increasingly desperate situation of Nazi Germany during WW2 from the perspective of multiple countries.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Wayne B. Titus
- 08-28-14
What a complex web, spun and woven to decimation..
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
The author takes the complexities and inhumanity of German nationalist society at the time, as well as the inhumanity of its' supporters during the war, and weaves together these facts from first hand accounts. These are then interwoven with other examples of humanity and courage, driving toward what we all know is the inevitable conclusion, the Fall of Berlin. The surprises along the way provided a great depth of learning for me that make this one of the most remarkable historical accounts of WWII that I have ever read.
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- Richard
- 08-23-18
A wonderful horrific history
It's hard to imagine the research that Ryan had to do to put together such a gripping and detailed account of the final months and days of the Nazi regime. It moves quickly telling stories from all kinds of different perspectives - civilian life, the various military forces involved, and the politics of the different nations involved. And by far, it's a story about lots of good people dealing with the horror of war and unimaginable evil.
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- dfwjr
- 07-17-24
Incredible Book
So well researched and told from so many points of view. This is going into my top 10 favorite books about WWII. I literally couldn’t put it down.
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- Amazon Customer Tom McT
- 06-01-15
Outstanding
The presentation was extremely well done. I spent time in Weisbaden, Frankfurt and Berlin in 1963 and 1986. My first visit was as an OSI agent stationed in Turkey and second time as the Disaster Preparedness Officer subbing for the permanent officer who was on leave to the States. My maternal grandparents were from Pomerania .
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- CJFLA
- 02-19-16
Very interesting, start to finish
Where does The Last Battle rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
If only the history books in school were as well written as this one. A good read/listen from the beginning all the way through. No matter what you thought you knew about the Battle for Berlin, you will know more after listening to this book.
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- d Snyder
- 06-06-18
a fascinating account you'll never find elsewhere
loved it, an account from the inside and leaving no stone unturned and not speculative.
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- Cindy
- 09-30-17
bookgirl
a great read but very unsettling. A well written account of a horrible battle. Really brings home the suffering of civilians. Berlin reaped what Hitler sowed. German's supported a monster who did not care at all about his people, only his ego.
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- Jim
- 07-09-22
excellent coverage of the battle of Berlin
I very much enjoyed the story of the red army and the United States racing to capture Berlin excellent stories of individual soldiers and civilian. the narrator is a little monotone but it doesn't detract. this is a great listing for a fan of history or military experience.
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