Full name: After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation

Author: Giles MacDonogh Year: 2007 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, War/Military Culture: Germany Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780465003389 0465003389

When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, the Allied powers converged on Germany and divided it into four zones of occupation. A nation in tatters, in many places literally flattened by bombs, was suddenly subjected to brutal occupation by vengeful victors. Rape was rampant. Hundreds of thousands of Germans and German-speakers died in the course of brutal deportations from Eastern Europe. By the end of the year, Germany was literally starving to death. Over a million German prisoners of war died in captivity, where they were subjected to inadequate rations and often tortured. All told, an astounding 2.25 million German civilians died violent deaths in the period between the liberation of Vienna and the Berlin airlift. A shocking account of a massive and vicious military occupation, After the Reich offers a bold reframing of the history of World War II and its aftermath. Historian Giles MacDonogh has unearthed a record of brutality which has been largely ignored by historians or, worse, justified as legitimate retaliation for the horror of the Holocaust. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary firstperson accounts, MacDonogh has finally given a voice to tens of millions of civilians who, lucky to survive the war, found themselves struggling to survive a hellish peace. Similar books: Germany 1945 by Richard Bessel The German War by Nicholas Stargardt Exorcising Hitler by Frederick Taylor Hitler's holy relics by Sidney Kirkpatrick The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze The End by Ian Kershaw The German Dictatorship by Karl Dietrich Bracher Hitler's Army by Omer Bartov Hitlerland by Andrew Nagorski Witnesses of War by Nicholas Stargardt The Nazis by Laurence Rees Final Entries 1945 by Joseph Goebbels Orderly and Humane by R. M. Douglas Nuremberg by Joseph E. Persico The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans Armageddon by Max Hastings The Thirty Years War by C. V. Wedgwood Dresden by Frederick Taylor Wolfram by Giles Milton