Summary of Cornelius Ryan's The Last Battle

By IRB Media

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#1 In the northern latitudes, the dawn came early. In Berlin, Germany’s most bombed city, the ruins stood out in stark, macabre splendor. The city was blackened by soot, pockmarked by thousands of craters, and laced by the twisted girders of ruined buildings.

#2 The 314th American bombing raid on Berlin was over, and the city was in ruins. The statistics of destruction were staggering: three billion cubic feet of debris lay in the streets, enough rubble for a mountain more than a thousand feet high.

#3 On March 21, 1945, Berliners went about their daily lives, despite the ongoing war. They rose early, and waited in line to get to work.

#4 Berliners reacted to the dangers that threatened them in different ways. Some stubbornly disregarded the threat, hoping it would go away. Others courted it. Others reacted with anger or fear, and some prepared bravely to meet their fate head on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669397687

IRB Media

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Insights on Cornelius Ryan's The Last Battle

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In the northern latitudes, the dawn came early. In Berlin, Germany’s most bombed city, the ruins stood out in stark, macabre splendor. The city was blackened by soot, pockmarked by thousands of craters, and laced by the twisted girders of ruined buildings.

#2

The 314th American bombing raid on Berlin was over, and the city was in ruins. The statistics of destruction were staggering: three billion cubic feet of debris lay in the streets, enough rubble for a mountain more than a thousand feet high.

#3

On March 21, 1945, Berliners went about their daily lives, despite the ongoing war. They rose early, and waited in line to get to work.

#4

Berliners reacted to the dangers that threatened them in different ways. Some stubbornly disregarded the threat, hoping it would go away. Others courted it. Others reacted with anger or fear, and some prepared bravely to meet their fate head on.

#5

Berlin had been spared from the saturation bombing that many feared. Spandau, the second largest and most western district, had only lost 10 percent of its buildings. Despite this, more than 1,000 houses were destroyed or unusable.

#6

The Kolbs, who lived in Spandau, were quite safe from the war. They planned to listen to the German-language broadcasts of the BBC, which was forbidden, but they followed the Allied advances from east and west. They were convinced that no matter what happened they would not be involved.

#7

Carl Johann Wiberg was a 49-year-old Swedish businessman who lived in Berlin. He had not left the city like so many other foreigners when the bombing began. He did not want to get rid of his lithograph of Hitler, even though it was banned throughout Germany.

#8

Wiberg, the Swedish diplomat, was also a member of America’s top-secret Office of Strategic Services. He was an Allied spy. He liked to go to Harry Rosse’s bar, where he could catch up on the latest news.

#9

The services of all clergymen were in great demand, but especially that of Father Bernhard Happich, a highly skilled doctor of medicine. He was the Father Provincial of Haus Dahlem, the orphanage, maternity hospital and foundling home run by the Mission Sisters of the Sacred Heart.

#10

The fear of sexual attack lay over Berlin like a pall, for the city was primarily a city of women. The only males left in any appreciable number were children under eighteen and men over sixty.

#11

The average Berliner was not aware of the atrocities committed by the German SS troops in Russia, but they were aware of what was happening to the Jews in concentration camps. They feared that the oppressor was becoming the oppressed.

#12

In Berlin, the atmosphere was one of near-panic as the reports of the atrocities coming from the refugees reached the city. The stories of Russians as Mongols who butchered women and children on sight were spread by clergymen.

#13

The death plans were already under way in every district. Doctors were besieged by patients and friends seeking information about speedy suicide and begging for poison prescriptions. Some even improved on the capsules’ potency.

#14

The vast majority of Berliners, particularly the women, wanted the Anglo-American forces to capture Berlin. They were terrified of the Red Army, but they still hoped the Allies would take the city.

#15

The Ehrenburg leaflet was published in Soviet War News, 1941-45, Vols. 1-8. It was an extremely offensive pamphlet that blamed the German people for the war, and called for them to be killed. It was no worse than what was being issued by the