Remarkably detailed but too long

For a specialist student of military history, this book would be ideal. It is a day-by-day account of the build-up to D-Day on the German side. For the general reader, much of the detail seems extraneous and interferes with telling the story of how a régime run by a maniac who surrounded himself with sycophants was certain to lose despite the military genius of Rommel. It also ignores some important questions -- for example, the conversations recorded between senior officers suggest they knew about some of the horrors in the East but deliberately avoided thinking about them. I would have liked to hear more about how and why.

The narrator has one of those American "Voice of God" baritones. I'd prefer a little more engagement with the material, but that's a personal preference, His German pronunciation is acceptable but his French and Dutch are cringeworthy. "Caen" is rendered as "Cannes" and "Boulogne" as "booloney". I'll leave what he does to Vlissingen and Scheveningen to your imagination. How can a producer not get a pronunciation coach in for a couple of hours of training? Unreal

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A fresh perspective on D-Day

D-Day is perhaps the part of a handful of truly important dates in 20th century history. There are libraries of memoirs, histories and films dedicated to it. Frank Kapra's images, Monty's memoirs, the 1965 cinema epic 'D-Day the Longest Day' and for modern viewers 'Saving Private Ryan' and TV's 'Band of Brothers'.

So, it's refreshing to see this well worn path approached from a new perspective. This is third person narrative. So, it's 'he' and 'they' describing the story.

You follow protagonists around and you're being told what they are thinking. This is a fresh approach and one you take on trust because the sources and footnotes are swept aside.

The book was most fascinating at telling some less known stories. The Allies flotilla that wasn't recalled and was steaming along to the Normandy beaches ignoring the lone Alied plant frantically trying to recall them.

As with all histories, the near misses are the most fascinating .

If there were things missing it's the focus on the key players blotted out the voices of ordinary Germans in the foxholes. But maybe in part it's because there's not many of them made it out to write their memoirs.

The narration is broadly good but the Americanisms on some key words does grate.

Worth a punt.

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An extremely interesting alternative view point of the Normandy landings and the build up to them from the German perspective

A superb insight into Germany’s preparations for the invasion. The narrator reading can be a bit irritating with Miss pronunciation of words, and disjointed sentences (pauses in the wrong places,) , but if you can set that aside, this is a fascinating book.

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An interesting perspective.

I thoroughly recommend this title to anyone interested in the events leading up to D-Day.

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Fascinating content entirely ruined by narration

I found the content so fascinating that I put up with an appalling narration. I’m not sure this was a human at all. The pronunciation of French, German and occasionally, English was woeful. It sounded from some of the odd phraseology and grammar that this was a poorly translated text from German. This was so distracting that I had to listen to most sections several times in order to focus on the story.

Very hard work but I found it just about worth it for content.

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1 person found this helpful

A full account of the German D Day preparations

Narration very good. Story excellent (was the author planning a film of this book?)
Content very exact and taken from diaries 3rd I suspect, along with memories of Edwin Rommel's son.
A very good listen going over ground already covered, with the exception this book fills in details probably missing from some accounts.
Highly recommend this book

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very well researched and detailed

Overall a great insight in to the German perspective during the build up to D Day. The way the narrative is presented day by day helps to build up the drama.

The only slight negative is the narrator, which took some time to get used to.

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Personal Details of Rommel

there seemed to be very specific information on certain things that would seem difficult to recall to anyone there at the time, yet the overall planning of the operation relating to waiting for the Allied invasion seemed sporadic and hard to match together. enjoyed it, but got lost in several places as I tried to picture what was happening.

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Mixed emotions

it was nice to hear about ww2 from a German perspective, they wasn't all monster's they to had families,I found myself feeling tremendous sympathy for the whole war and every nationality involved.

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2 people found this helpful

Fabulous level of detail

A terrific book, packed with details that despite having read dozens of books on the subject were completely new. This provides an insight that is unique and is well worth a listen.

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