C'est une magnifique publication, riche en prose et en photographie. Présentée en français, mon manque de maîtrise du français me fait passer à côté de la qualité de la prose, mais la photographie ne nécessite pas de traduction précise.

In English - This is a magnificent publication, rich in prose and photography. Presented in the French language, my lack of command of French means that I am missing out on the quality of the prose, but the photography and the captions for the images does not require precise translation. While the book is in the French language, some ability to read and understand French would be extremely helpful. My command of French is, at best, that of a six-year old. But even with a remarkably disappointing ability to speak and write in French, I found that the captions of the photographs were not at all difficult to roughly translate and to understand. When all else fails, one can seek an online translation tool.

Professor Michael Fredholm von Essen is an historian and former military analyst who has published extensively on the history, defence strategies, security policies, and energy sector developments of Eurasia. He currently is the Head of Research and Development at IRI, an independent research institute. Educated at Uppsala, Stockholm, and Lund Universities, Michael Fredholm von Essen has lectured, including during conferences and as visiting professor, at numerous institutions and universities around the world.

This book vividly describes life in Hitler’s Führerbunker below the German Reich’s Chancelleries as the Soviet Red Army closes in on Berlin at the end of WWII. Two French officers secretly entered the bunkers in November 1945 and gathered hundreds of documents that describe the living conditions and actions of the bunker’s inhabitants at the end of WWII. These documents form the basis for this book.

Führerbunker is divided into chapters that chronologically describe the last few months of Germany’s Reich at the end of WWII. Each chapter contains written text, sidebar narratives with first-person accounts, B&W and color photos with descriptive captions, photos of historical documents, and color illustrations. The chapters are:

Prologue: Berlin 1945

The opening chapter describes the chaos and devastation following the bloody assault on Berlin by the Red Army.

There is an old axiom that amateurs pursue tactics, but professionals manage logistics. It is a topic that largely goes unexplored in the voluminous literature of the Second World War. Outside of the modeling world, I am an academically trained military historian who works in the public history field. I have had a keen interest in the topic. Given my background, I was keen to review this work. From a production point of view, Pen and Sword knows what they are doing – high quality binding, heavy paper, and well produced photographs, contemporary to the war and modern, color photographs of restored vehicles form the Second World War. My criticisms are with the content.

About the Author

Dr. Nigel Thomas, PhD, is an accomplished linguist and military historian, formerly at Northumbria University, now a freelance military author, translator and military uniform consultant. His interests are 20th-century military and civil uniformed organizations, with a special interest in Germany, Central and Eastern Europe. He was awarded a PhD on the Eastern enlargement of NATO.

About the Illustrator

Johnny Shumate works as a freelance illustrator living in Nashville, Tennessee. He began his career in 1987 after graduating from Austin Peay State University. Most of his work is rendered in Adobe Photoshop using a Cintiq monitor. His greatest influences are Angus McBride, Don Troiani, and Édouard Detaille.