... a gripping, immaculately researched retelling ... Mr. Ullrich also looks further backward and forward in time to add the context that a study confined to eight days alone could not provide ... As Mr. Ullrich demonstrates, Kästner’s concept of the 'no longer' was not one that the Dönitz government was comfortable accepting.
... excellent and admirably succinct ... A commendation too for the translator, Jefferson Chase, who also translated Ullrich’s recent two-part biography of Hitler. He really understands his author, from Ullrich’s use of irony to his occasionally more polemical moments. It still must be hard for a German scholar to be entirely dispassionate about what was done in (still, just) living memory.
... vivid, fast-paced prose ... Superbly researched, Eight Days in May communicates the pity of Hitler’s war and its aftermath with sympathy and an impressive narrative verve.
