Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • The Death of Hitler's War Machine

  • The Final Destruction of the Wehrmacht
  • By: Samuel W. Mitcham
  • Narrated by: Grover Gardner
  • Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (91 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Death of Hitler's War Machine cover art

The Death of Hitler's War Machine

By: Samuel W. Mitcham
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £17.99

Buy Now for £17.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Mighty Endeavor cover art
Desert Fox cover art
The Guns at Last Light cover art
Bloody Verrieres cover art
On to Stalingrad cover art
A Continent Erupts cover art
Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1943-1945 cover art
A Short History of World War 2 cover art
At All Costs cover art
To Besiege a City cover art
Tip and Run cover art
From the Realm of a Dying Sun, Volume 1 cover art
The Devil's Bridge cover art
The Reckoning cover art
Retribution cover art
Battleground Prussia cover art

Summary

The endgame for Hitler’s Reich

Hitler’s army had dared all to win all on the Western Front with its surprise winter campaign in the Ardennes, the “Battle of the Bulge”. But when American and Allied forces recovered from their initial shock, the German Army, the Wehrmacht, was left fighting for its very survival - especially on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Army was intent on matching, or even surpassing, Nazi atrocities.

At the mercy of the Fuhrer - who refused to acknowledge reality and insisted on forbidding German retreats - the Wehrmacht was slowly annihilated in horrific battles that have rarely been adequately covered in histories of the Second World War, perhaps most especially the brutal Soviet siege of Budapest, which became known as “the Stalingrad of the Waffen-SS”.

Now, at last, veteran military historian Dr. Samuel Mitcham, in the capstone of a career covering of more than 40 books - most of them on the German Armed Forces in World War II - tells the extraordinary tale of how Hitler’s once-feared war machine came to a cataclysmic end, from the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 to the German surrender in May 1945.

Making use of German wartime papers and memoirs - some rarely seen in English-language sources - Mitcham’s sweeping narrative makes The Death of Hitler’s War Machine: The Final Destruction of the Wehrmacht a book that needs to be in the hands of of every student of World War II history.

©2021 Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about The Death of Hitler's War Machine

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    59
  • 4 Stars
    20
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    5
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    57
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    56
  • 4 Stars
    16
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Detailed

Incredibly well researched and delivered.
My only potential negative comment would be the clear message that Russian troops reaction was improper at best and war crimes probably.
Towards men, women and children.
Rape, pillage etc. in the most brutal form.
If correct this does not bode well for future Russian special operations, where the media tell of similar acts.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Get a map

This is a challenging story to follow if you are unfamiliar with European geography. To get the best out of this excellently told story, my recommendation is not to do it on the move but somewhere you can look at maps. Whilst listing names and unit numbers seems superfluous it is not and the narrator has done an excellent job in pronunciation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great History Lesson

Worth a listen, especially it was free, a new insight into how things went wrong for Germany

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narration is excellent.

Fast-paced and gripping from beginning to end. The narrator is great and it sounds like he actually knows the these things rather than reading from the book. This made it all the more enjoyable.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring as.

A list of places and armies. Great for serious historians but not otherwise and not for me.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

Interesting subject but the narrators voice is so dull it ruined it for me.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Disappointing

The headline says it all.

This was a disappointing experience. The book is full of details about units from all sides of the conflict, but is is also full of large and small factual errors. Errors that the author should by no means make. Just to name three of the major errors.

Paul von Hindenburg was President in Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934, but he was never Chancellor of Germany!

The Russian counterattack at the gates of Moscow in December 1941, did not open on December 16th, but December 5th.

The German Reichkomissar in Norway was named Terboven, not Treboven.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful