The Bunker: The History Of The Reich Chancellery Group – James P. O'Donnell, 1978 ★★★½

The Finality of Evil

Adolf Hitler wasn’t one for back-up plans. If he couldn’t conquer the world, he’d just as soon die in a stagnant hole with anyone he could pull down with him. The Bunker is an absorbing account of Hitler’s last days as seen by those who shared it with him in his Fuhrerbunker.

Author James P. O’Donnell, a Harvard man who liked to tout his classical education, pulls out a Nietzsche quote: “Many men die too late and some die too soon. Few manage to depart at just the right time.”

Hitler's Spies – David Kahn, 1978 ★★

Keeping Hitler in the Dark

Titles are funny things. Sometimes they are disarmingly bland, suggesting nothing of the page-turning dynamite within.

Others are short and sweet and promise killer content, only to offer a damp squib. Such was the case with this, historian David Kahn’s promisingly-titled follow-up to his landmark examination of cryptography, The Codebreakers.