Fourth Reich and Operation Eclipse
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In this third volume on the progress of the Second World War after the D-Day landings, Patrick Delaforce examines the final weeks of World War Two, beyond the Yalta Conference, when the question to be asked was not who would win, but how to prevent the war dragging on and also how to prevent Hitler from implementing a scorched earth policy across the Reichland. Then there was the race to win territory as the Russians, too, clawed their way across Europe. Operation Eclipse, begun in March1945, both prevented the Russians from occupying Denmark in violation of the agreement at Yalta but also occupied the Kiel naval base. The book also examines events immediately after the surrender and Hitler's suicide, and the creation of the short-lived fourth reich under the leadership of Admiral Donitz. As well as Denmark, the book also covers the liberations of both Holland and Norway. Most poignant of all, the liberation of the prisoners of war is covered as well as the freeing those that had toiled for Hitler against their will, as slaves. The book ends with the famous war crimes trials and the beginnings of the Cold War.
Patrick Delaforce served as a troop leader in Normandy with the Royal Horse Artillery of the 11th Armoured Division. Hitler's Wehrmacht blew him up with their mines in Holland, and he was again wounded by a rifle grenade on the banks of the River Elbe. He was with the first battle group into Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, was twice mentioned in despatches, and was awarded the Bronze Cross of Orange-Nassau. Finally, he was an official British Army of the Rhine witness when Mr Albert Pierrepoint, the British hangman, executed 13 convicted war criminals in Hameln.