The Last Days of Hitler revisited

Hugh Trevor-Roper’s study of Hitler’s death was published by Macmillan 60 years ago this month. It won the Oxford historian an international reputation and remains one of the most powerful and readable accounts of the Nazi regime. It has never been out of print, yet this enduring quality is surprising. Trevor-Roper’s book was not the product of calculated research but resulted from an official enquiry. It was instant history, written very quickly a year after the events it describes, when many sources were not yet available. Nevertheless, the author constructed not only one of the most vivid portraits of Hitler but developed an analysis of his regime later confirmed by the specialist studies of German historians.

In September 1945, British Intelligence called in Trevor-Roper, its leading expert on the Nazis, to solve a mystery of Stalin’s making. Although the Soviets had found Hitler’s body in early May, an undead Hitler was more valuable to Stalin than a corpse.