Guest Review: Victory ‘45: The End Of The War In Eight Surrenders By James Holland and Al Murray

From the Italian Alps to northern Germany, to London, New York, Washington and Tokyo, Victory ’45 tells the story of the extraordinary summer when the greatest conflagration the world had ever known finally came to an end after eight surrenders that heralded the Allied victory.

Comprised of eight chapters based around each of those surrenders and the victory celebrations which followed, it will be rich in character and human drama with revealing stories and perspectives behind the end of the war not yet told before. Each chapter will follow the viewpoints of a number of key characters as they traverse these world-changing events – from ordinary servicemen and women and civilians to generals and political leaders.

What took place during the negotiations of those surrenders and the terms that were agreed there would determine the directions the participating countries would take in the years that followed and ultimately the shape of our current world.

Review: How do you end a World War that has raged for almost six years across different continents and oceans? This is the question that the joint authors James Holland and Al Murray have set out to address in this book. Each having written individually historical accounts relating to the Second World War, and having collaborated on a podcast series “We Have Ways of Making You Talk”, this is their first collaborative book, published in 2025 to coincide with the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

With Allied forces fighting in Northern Italy, closing in from the east and west on Germany’s capital Berlin, and fighting in Asia and the Pacific, the end of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan appeared imminent by the beginning of 1945. However, there had to be a series of negotiations to end hostilities on the various fronts and the Allies had agreed previously that nothing less than unconditional surrender would be acceptable. This book describes the processes and the personalities involved in these surrender agreements, starting with the surrenders of Nazi forces in Italy, Germany and Austria and ending with the surrenders of Japanese forces in Japan’s capital Tokyo and the Philippines. As well as the main protagonists, the book also provides accounts of some of the ordinary soldiers and civilians caught up in the events. One such intriguing account concerns a female interpreter in the Soviet Union’s Red Army tasked with examining captured documents and interrogating prisoners. However, she was also involved in locating and identifying the body of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler following the latter’s suicide.

I found the book an interesting and highly readable account of events that have, in the main, received little attention. I should add a warning that there are details concerning the liberation of concentration and prison camps that are quite graphic. With photographs, a timeline detailing the sequence of events and a detailed bibliography, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Second World War.

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