This is a grippingly written account of the events that took place between Saturday 28 April and Wednesday 2 May 1945 as the war in Europe came to an end. The stories are mostly very familiar: the capture and death of Mussolini and his mistress; the liberations of Bergen-Belsen and Dachau; and most famously of course Hitler's ignominious end in the Reichs Chancellery bunker as his Third Reich shrank to a few Berlin streets, then floors within buildings and finally to the bunker itself, as the city was blasted by the Red Army as they closed in on victory. The familiar stories are told in a lively style, with quotes from leading participants, including some who wrote later memoirs of their part in these dramatic events such as Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge (whose memoir was the basis of the film Downfall) and his bodyguard Rochus Misch. The narrative is also enlivened by accounts of the experiences of a wide range of people who later became famous in a wide range of fields, such as Sophia Loren (who is aunt to Mussolini's granddaughter), Spike Milligan, Robert Runcie, Bob Dole, Willie Whitelaw, Karol Wojtyla (future Pope John Paul II), Josef Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) and Gunter Grass. A great read. ( )