Robin Cross. Fallen Eagle: The Last Days of the Third Reich. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. vi + 282 pp. $24.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-471-16408-1.

Reviewed by Howard D. Grier

Published on H-German (December, 1997)

In recent years there has been considerable crossing of the Rhine. The three fnal chapters interest in the fnal stages of World War II in Eu‐ cover the Battle of and the fnal collapse of rope. New information from Soviet archives has Nazi . The book has two brief appen‐ led to the publication of several books such as dices. The frst (four pages) gives technical data and Jonathan House, When Titans on a few of the main weapons used by each side. Clashed: How the Stopped Hitler, and The second (eight pages) provides brief biographi‐ Ada Petrova and Peter Watson, The Death of cal sketches of some of the leading individuals dis‐ Hitler, which contribute signifcantly to our cussed in the text. knowledge of the Third Reich's collapse. Unfortu‐ Although the dust jacket claims that the work nately, little of this new material has been incor‐ is one of "impeccable scholarship," there is little porated into Robin Cross's Fallen Eagle: The Last evidence to support this claim. There are no foot‐ Days of the Third Reich. notes, and only a two-page bibliography with sev‐ This work provides an overview of the last eral glaring omissions. One searches in vain for a months of , primarily from an Allied per‐ single journal article or mention of relevant spective. Following two brief introductory chap‐ works such as Dmitri Volkogonov's Stalin: Tri‐ ters the author addresses Soviet preparations for umph and Tragedy, 's Hitler and Stal‐ the ofensive of January 1945. He then devotes in: Parallel Lives or Tony LeTissier's The Battle of two chapters to the Red Army's - Oper‐ Berlin. Instead of these works, the bibliography ation. A chapter on the air war follows, focusing includes four books by Charles Whiting and two almost exclusively upon the destruction of Dres‐ by the notorious David Irving. Aside from eight den in February 1945. The following two chapters books in German, two in Russian and one in deal with the advance of the Western Allies, be‐ French, all other sources listed are in English, and ginning in September 1944 with the failure of Op‐ none were published after 1991. Instead of notes eration Market-Garden and continuing until the the author provides less than two pages of ac‐ H-Net Reviews knowledgments, noting some, but by no means Russian Movement, was captured in all, direct quotations. Also listed on the acknowl‐ May 1942 near Sevastopol (pp. 14, 103). In fact, edgments page are two diaries and an unpub‐ Vlasov was captured by the Germans in July 1942 lished manuscript from the Imperial War Muse‐ in the Volkhov (south of Leningrad), at the um. The overwhelming majority of Cross's infor‐ other end of the Russian front. The author also mation appears to come from older secondary confuses Hitler's personal testament with his po‐ sources and memoirs. litical testament, and incorrectly claims that in This book will be of interest to the general this document Hitler expelled from reader despite the lack of scholarly apparatus. the Nazi Party (p. 236). Cross writes well, and includes several excerpts In conclusion, the book presents a lively and from diaries to lend a "feel" for individuals' per‐ interesting summary of the fnal phase of the war, ceptions of the events under discussion. He is ef‐ but its use will be limited to the general reader. fective at presenting Allied planning and decision Scholars will continue to turn elsewhere for ac‐ making, but less so in the case of the Germans. counts of the end of the Third Reich. Unlike many authors, Cross does not minimize the Copyright (c) 1997 by H-net. All rights re‐ accomplishments of Soviet armies, giving them served. This work may be copied for non-proft due credit for the destruction of the bulk of Ger‐ educational use proper credit is given to the au‐ many's land forces. He does a particularly fne job thor and the list. For other permission contact H- of showing tensions between British and Ameri‐ [email protected]. can generals in this stage of the war. Unfortunate‐ ly, there is relatively little on the relations be‐ tween the Soviets and their Anglo-American al‐ lies. His account of Yalta shows Stalin frmly in control of an ailing FDR and a distracted and de‐ pressed Churchill. Cross provides a sound analy‐ sis of several aspects of the war during this peri‐ od. For example, he gives a good description of So‐ viet deception measures prior to the January 1945 ofensive. His evaluation of German operations in Kurland and Hungary is brief, but accurate. There are several errors which careful editing could have avoided. becomes Alfried Jodl (p. 8), the Wartegau becomes the Wartegan (p. 88), and Field Marshal Ferdinand Schoerner supposedly received the order to surrender on 7 March instead of 7 May 1945 (p. 273). Fallen Eagle also contains several factual errors. Cross places Schoerner in Munich when he received word of the surrender (p. 236), when he actually was still with Center in (al‐ though Schoerner soon boarded a plane for fight to the West). In addition, Cross claims that Soviet General Andrei Vlasov, who headed the so-called

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Citation: Howard D. Grier. Review of Cross, Robin. Fallen Eagle: The Last Days of the Third Reich. H- German, H-Net Reviews. December, 1997.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=1547

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