Victory '45
The End of the War in Eight Surrenders
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pre-order for $19.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Al Murray
About this listen
On the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, two acclaimed historians chronicle the remarkable stories behind the surrenders that ended the world’s most catastrophic global conflict.
In May 1945 and then again in August and early September, the seemingly endless World War II finally came to a close in eight dramatic surrender ceremonies, six in Europe and the last two in Japan. On the 80th anniversary of those historic moments, celebrated historians James Holland and Al Murray chronicle these momentous events in turn, focusing especially on the human dramas behind each surrender and relating stories and perspectives on the end of the war that have not previously been told.
Germany’s armies submitted to the Allies in six ceremonies between May 2 and June 7, the latter after considerable delays by the Germans and threats from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander. Japan then finally conceded only after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, initially on August 15th and then in a formal ceremony aboard the USS Missouri on September 2. Holland and Murray focus on specific characters participating in each of these world-changing events—from ordinary servicemen and women and civilians to generals and political leaders. The saga of the first German surrender, in Italy, revolves around senior SS general Karl Wolff’s personal battle to save his own neck and involves VIP prisoners locked up in a resort in South Tyrol, art theft, money laundering, and the resistance of other German commanders to give up. The German surrender to the Americans on May 5 follows the fortunes of private Alan Moskin from New Jersey, whose 6th Infantry Regiment found themselves liberating Gunskirchen, one of Mauthausen’s sub-concentration camps, the terrible reality of which affected the rest of his life.
The stories surrounding the war’s end are in their own way as dramatic as the strategy and battles themselves. As Holland and Murray make clear, they add greatly to our understanding and appreciation of World War II and its legacy.
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Opening the Gates of Hell
- Operation Barbarossa, June–July 1941
- By: Richard Hargreaves
- Narrated by: Philip Pope
- Length: 23 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opening the Gates of Hell is based on over a decade’s research in archives and sites across Europe. It is a ground-breaking examination of the start of the Nazi–Soviet conflict, a narrative history not just of the fighting, but also the impact on civilians, the atrocities committed by both sides and ethnic cleansing carried out by the inhabitants of the regions invaded. This fascinating history tells the stories of bravery, cowardice, misery and horror through the eyes of those who were there including ordinary soldiers, generals, leaders, politicians and civilians on both sides.
-
The Hitler Years
- Holocaust 1933–1945
- By: Frank McDonough
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bestselling historian Professor Frank McDonough tackles the subject in the same way as his brilliantly reviewed and bestselling titles in this series. The penultimate title in the Hitler's Germany series, the book marks the end of the Second World War, and the end of the Nazi regime, offering the listener a sweeping narrative tackling the major characters, significant events of this horrific period of Nazi doctrine formed in their early years of the 1920s, that would evolve into full-blown genocide of a race of people by the end of World War Two.
By: Frank McDonough
-
Into the Reich
- The Red Army’s advance to the Oder in 1945
- By: Prit Buttar
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 1945, the Red Army launched a powerful offensive across the Vistula River to drive the Wehrmacht out of Poland, with the intention of securing a start line for an operation that would ultimately result in the capture of Berlin and the end of the war. But, as Prit Buttar expertly reveals, there were other issues at play. Stalin was determined to push the boundaries of the Soviet Union further west, restoring land lost by the tsars and securing vast industrial and mineral wealth.
By: Prit Buttar
-
Hard Neighbors
- The Scotch-Irish Invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity
- By: Colin G. Calloway
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hard Neighbors follows the people who came to be known as Scotch-Irish and traces their relations with Native Americans, examines their experiences as marginalized people, and demonstrates their roles as protective and disruptive forces on the edge of colonialism. The Scotch-Irish fought Indian wars and shaped the frontier, and their experiences living near and fighting against Indians shaped their identity and their attitudes towards government. They influenced national attitudes and policies, and they transformed Indian people into racial others as they transformed themselves into Americans.
-
Scorched Earth
- A Global History of World War II
- By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 23 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires and the triumph of an American-led democratic order. In Scorched Earth, historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin dispatches the myth of World War II as a good war. Instead, he depicts the conflict as it truly was: a massive battle beset by vicious racial atrocities, fought between rival empires across huge stretches of Asia and Europe.
-
Normandy '44
- D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 24 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed the Allied landing, have become the defining episode of World War II in the west - the object of books, films, television series, and documentaries. Yet as familiar as it is, as James Holland makes clear in his definitive history, many parts of the OVERLORD campaign, as it was known, are still shrouded in myth and assumed knowledge.
-
-
Excellent account of Normandy but be weary...
- By S. H. Moore on 02-22-20
By: James Holland
-
Opening the Gates of Hell
- Operation Barbarossa, June–July 1941
- By: Richard Hargreaves
- Narrated by: Philip Pope
- Length: 23 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opening the Gates of Hell is based on over a decade’s research in archives and sites across Europe. It is a ground-breaking examination of the start of the Nazi–Soviet conflict, a narrative history not just of the fighting, but also the impact on civilians, the atrocities committed by both sides and ethnic cleansing carried out by the inhabitants of the regions invaded. This fascinating history tells the stories of bravery, cowardice, misery and horror through the eyes of those who were there including ordinary soldiers, generals, leaders, politicians and civilians on both sides.
-
The Hitler Years
- Holocaust 1933–1945
- By: Frank McDonough
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bestselling historian Professor Frank McDonough tackles the subject in the same way as his brilliantly reviewed and bestselling titles in this series. The penultimate title in the Hitler's Germany series, the book marks the end of the Second World War, and the end of the Nazi regime, offering the listener a sweeping narrative tackling the major characters, significant events of this horrific period of Nazi doctrine formed in their early years of the 1920s, that would evolve into full-blown genocide of a race of people by the end of World War Two.
By: Frank McDonough
-
Into the Reich
- The Red Army’s advance to the Oder in 1945
- By: Prit Buttar
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 1945, the Red Army launched a powerful offensive across the Vistula River to drive the Wehrmacht out of Poland, with the intention of securing a start line for an operation that would ultimately result in the capture of Berlin and the end of the war. But, as Prit Buttar expertly reveals, there were other issues at play. Stalin was determined to push the boundaries of the Soviet Union further west, restoring land lost by the tsars and securing vast industrial and mineral wealth.
By: Prit Buttar
-
Hard Neighbors
- The Scotch-Irish Invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity
- By: Colin G. Calloway
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hard Neighbors follows the people who came to be known as Scotch-Irish and traces their relations with Native Americans, examines their experiences as marginalized people, and demonstrates their roles as protective and disruptive forces on the edge of colonialism. The Scotch-Irish fought Indian wars and shaped the frontier, and their experiences living near and fighting against Indians shaped their identity and their attitudes towards government. They influenced national attitudes and policies, and they transformed Indian people into racial others as they transformed themselves into Americans.
-
Scorched Earth
- A Global History of World War II
- By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 23 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In popular memory, the Second World War was an unalloyed victory for freedom over totalitarianism, marking the demise of the age of empires and the triumph of an American-led democratic order. In Scorched Earth, historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin dispatches the myth of World War II as a good war. Instead, he depicts the conflict as it truly was: a massive battle beset by vicious racial atrocities, fought between rival empires across huge stretches of Asia and Europe.
-
Normandy '44
- D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 24 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed the Allied landing, have become the defining episode of World War II in the west - the object of books, films, television series, and documentaries. Yet as familiar as it is, as James Holland makes clear in his definitive history, many parts of the OVERLORD campaign, as it was known, are still shrouded in myth and assumed knowledge.
-
-
Excellent account of Normandy but be weary...
- By S. H. Moore on 02-22-20
By: James Holland
-
38 Londres Street
- On Impunity, Pinochet in England, and a Nazi in Patagonia
- By: Philippe Sands
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this intimate legal and historical detective story, the world-renowned lawyer and acclaimed author of East West Street traces the footsteps of two of the twentieth century’s most merciless criminals—accused of genocide and crimes against humanity—testing the limits of immunity and impunity after Nuremberg.
By: Philippe Sands
-
Allies at War
- How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World
- By: Tim Bouverie
- Narrated by: Tim Bouverie
- Length: 25 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the fall of France in June 1940, all that stood between Adolf Hitler and total victory was a narrow stretch of water and the defiance of the British people. Desperate for allies, Winston Churchill did everything he could to bring the United States into the conflict, drive the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany apart, and persuade neutral countries to resist German domination. By early 1942, after the German invasion of Russia and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the British-Soviet-American alliance was in place.
By: Tim Bouverie
-
Midnight on the Potomac
- The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
- By: Scott Ellsworth
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Told with a thrilling pace, New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth has written the most compelling new book about the Civil War in years. Focusing on the last, desperate months of the war, when the outcome was far from certain, Midnight on the Potomac is a story of titanic battles, political upheaval, and the long-forgotten Confederate terror war against the loyal citizens of the North.
By: Scott Ellsworth
-
The Savage Storm
- The Battle for Italy 1943
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: Al Murray
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following victory in Sicily, while the central command planned the spring 1944 invasion of France, Allied troops crossed into Southern Italy in September 1943, expecting to drive Axis forces north and liberate Rome by Christmas. Italy quickly surrendered but German divisions fiercely resisted, and the hoped-for quick victory descended into one of the most challenging and protracted battles of the entire war. James Holland’s The Savage Storm chronicles the dramatic opening months of the Italian Campaign in unflinching and insightful detail.
-
-
Immerian into WWII 's Italian Campaign in late 1943
- By Logophile on 10-30-24
By: James Holland
-
Nothing but Courage
- The 82nd Airborne's Daring D-Day Mission—and Their Heroic Charge Across the La Fière Bridge
- By: James Donovan
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In June 1944, German and American forces converged on an insignificant bridge a few miles inland from the invasion beaches. If taken by the Nazis, the bridge might have gone down in history as the reason the Allies failed on D-Day. The narrow road over it was each side’s conduit to victory. Continued Nazi control over the bridge near an old manoir known as La Fière—one of only two bridges in the region capable of supporting tanks and other heavy armor—would allow the Germans to reinforce their defenses at Utah Beach, one of the five landing areas chosen for Operation Overlord.
By: James Donovan
-
The Greatest Knight
- The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones
- By: Thomas Asbridge
- Narrated by: Christopher Tester
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Caught on the wrong side of an English civil war and condemned by his father to the gallows at age five, William Marshal defied all odds to become one of England’s most celebrated knights. Thomas Asbridge’s rousing narrative chronicles William’s rise, using his life as a prism to view the origins, experiences, and influence of the knight in British history.
By: Thomas Asbridge
-
The Reckoning
- The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prit Buttar retraces the ebb and flow of the various battles and campaigns fought throughout the Ukraine and Romania in 1944. January and February saw Army Group South encircled in the Korsun Pocket. Although many of the encircled troops did escape, in part due to Soviet intelligence and command failures, the Red Army would endeavour to not make the same mistakes again. Indeed, in the coming months the Red Army would demonstrate an ability to learn and improve, reinventing itself as a war-winning machine, demonstrated clearly in its success in the Iasi-Kishinev operation.
-
-
Exceptional
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-21
By: Prit Buttar
-
The Road That Made America
- Travels on America's First Frontier Highway
- By: James Dodson
- Narrated by: James Dodson
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the bestselling tradition of Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail and Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic, The Road That Made America is a lively, epic account of one of the greatest untold stories in our nation’s history—the eight-hundred-mile long Great Wagon Road that 18th-century American settlers forged from Philadelphia to Georgia that expanded the country dramatically in the decades before we ventured west.
By: James Dodson
-
The Mission
- The CIA in the 21st Century
- By: Tim Weiner
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mission has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.
By: Tim Weiner
-
The Battle of Manila
- Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War
- By: Nicholas Evan Sarantakes
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1945 the United States and Japan fought the largest and most devastating land battle of their war in the Pacific, a month-long struggle for the city of Manila. It was a key piece of the campaign to retake control of the Philippine Islands, which itself signified the culmination of the war, breaking the back of Japanese strategic power and sealing its outcome. In The Battle of Manila, Nicholas Sarantakes offers the first in-depth account of this crucial campaign from the American, Japanese, and, significantly, Filipino perspective.
-
Eagle Days
- Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain
- By: Victoria Taylor
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eagle Days transforms the Luftwaffe’s historical role during the RAF’s ‘Finest Hour’ from a cartoonish antagonist to a multidimensional, flawed-yet-formidable opponent. The narrative contains not just the voices of the air crews who conducted the fighting, but uniquely never-before-translated primary source material of other contemporary eyewitnesses, (Luftwaffe’s paratroopers, anti-aircraft gunners and air signalmen). Eagle Days will offer all fans of this period a refreshing, comprehensive and exciting account of the Luftwaffe’s real experiences during the Battle of Britain.
By: Victoria Taylor
-
The British Are Coming
- The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy, Book 1)
- By: Rick Atkinson
- Narrated by: George Newbern, Rick Atkinson - introduction
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rick Atkinson recounts the first 21 months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of our country’s creation drama.
-
-
Where are the Maps?
- By George Reid on 07-08-19
By: Rick Atkinson