FIVE DAYS THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD: EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS FROM EUROPE AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II

Book ID/图书代码： 00530012B51507

English Summary/英文概要： April 1945. Dragged from his mistress’s bed, Benito Mussolini is taken outside and shot by Italian partisans. Two days later, Adolf Hitler discusses lipstick and dog breeding with his secretaries over a last meal of spaghetti and salad. All over Europe, the white flag is flying as Hitler puts a gun to his head and the most disastrous war in human history draws to a close.

This is the story of five momentous days at the end of the war, from the execution of Mussolini and the surrender in Italy to the announcement on German radio that the Führer had fallen at his post, fighting to his last breath against Bolshevism. Everyone remembered where they were when they learned of the dictators’ deaths, from Jack Kennedy at the UN conference in San Francisco to Bob Dole near death himself in an Italian hospital and Private Henry Kissinger, back on German soil for the first time since his family fled Nuremberg before the war. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was in a Moscow prison, Roman Polanski was playing with grenades on the streets of Krakow and the future Pope Benedict was on his way home, terrified that he might yet be shot for deserting from the Wehrmacht.
Hitler’s sister Paula was in tears at Berchtesgaden. Audrey Hepburn was in Holland, delighted that she no longer risked being put to work in a Wehrmacht brothel. Drawing on a wealth of unfamiliar material, Nicholas Best tells a compelling tale of the men and women across Europe who heaved a collective sigh of relief as the news they had all been waiting for came over the radio – that the two dictators, the most hated men in the world, were dead at long last.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 墨索里尼被处决、希特勒自杀、柏林沦陷……本书讲述了二战尾声的五天所发生的故事。从1945年的4月28日到5月2日，随着盟军推进到德国和意大利境内，法西斯主义者失去了对其民众的铁腕控制，而全世界也刚刚了解到欧洲的境况到底多么糟糕。

本书作者尼古拉斯·贝斯特向我们展示了这场战争的许多面孔，他将几十位著名人物讲述的故事游刃有余地糅合在一起：

　　　 　　　◎ 沃尔特·克朗凯特，与一支加拿大部队空降到荷兰境内。

　　　◎ 摄影记者李·米勒，捕捉到纳粹暴行的铁证。

　　　◎ 未来的教皇本笃十六世，从步兵部队里开了小差，希望在返乡途中不要吃枪子。

　　　◎ 奥黛丽·赫本，盟军的胜利消除了她要在德国国防军当军妓的危险。

　　　 　　　作者从这个具有启发的全新视角描述了欧洲战区，也因此成为精通二战最后日子的专家。(Dangdang)

Awards/获奖情况：历史上几乎没有哪些事件比1945年4月底的五天更能震憾全世界：从墨索里尼被杀开始，以希特勒在柏林地堡里自杀的消息结束。这两位独裁者的死亡早就在人们的意料之中，但是人们没有料到他们的死亡方式居然如此骇人听闻：

　　 　　◎ 墨索里尼和情妇被倒吊在一群满脸嘲弄的乌合之众面前；

　　◎ 希特勒的尸首被付之一炬；

　　◎ 玛格达?戈培尔（Magda Gobbels）亲手毒死了自己的孩子；

　　◎ 德意志帝国总理府内，精神错乱的职员在赴死前集体淫乱了一把……

　　 就连想象力*丰富的小说家都编不出这样的情节来。苏军在猛烈袭击德国全国各地时犯下的暴行同样令人毛骨悚然。*严重的暴行发生在柏林。在苏军围攻这个首都时，发生了前所未有的大规模强暴事件。德国的男人在苏联的行为同样糟糕，但这并不能减轻所有年龄段的德国妇女的恐惧。她们惊慌失措，四处逃难，常有人为免遭苏联军人的轮奸而自杀。而苏联军人此前很少**会享受西方这种电力或者室内卫生设施的美好。

Randall Hansen, author, Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Britain

" A gripping account of the last days of World War II. Written from the perspective of individuals – some famous them, almost all famous thereafter – who experienced the dreadful days, the book provides a clear picture of the immensely varied events, most tragic and horrifying, some poignant and hopeful – that rolled out as that most awful of wars finally come to an end in Europe. It reads like a thriller, informs like a scholar, and is not be missed.

About the Author/作者介绍： 尼古拉斯·贝斯特（Nicholas Best）在英国和都柏林的圣三一学院接受教育。他曾在英国近卫步兵第一团服役，后在伦敦当记者。他为英国《金融时报》担任小说评论员长达十年时间，并著有讲述第一次世界大战结束时的故事的《历*伟大的一天》。

Nicholas Best grew up in Kenya, of Anglo-Irish origin, and was educated there, in England, and at Trinity College, Dublin. He served a spell in Britain’s Grenadier Guards, during which he was airlifted to Belize to prevent its invasion by Guatemalan tanks - an experience that gave him his first short story (in Penthouse) and a satirical novel Where were you at Waterloo? Thereafter he worked in London as a financial journalist before becoming a full time writer.
He is the author of Happy Valley: the Story of the English in Kenya, Tennis and the Masai (a comic novel later serialised on Radio 4) and more than a dozen history books, including Trafalgar, The Greatest Day in History (a Waterstone’s recommendation of the month) and Five Days that shocked the World, about the end of World War Two. He was the Financial Times fiction critic for ten years and has written also for BBC Radio 4, the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, Observer and Times Literary Supplement etc. In 2010, he was long-listed for the inaugural Sunday Times-EFG Private Bank short story award of ￡25,000, the biggest short story prize in the world.

Format:PROOF

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE(到期可授)

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：US: St Martin’s Press Italy: Pearson Poland: Znak UK: Osprey China: Xinhua Publishing House Czech Republic: Vlastimil Turkey: Kahve Yayinlari Finland: Minerva Israel: Keter Books Spain: Ediciones De Pasada Y Presente

原文第一章内容：暂无

手稿：暂无

大纲：暂无