The last weeks of World War II on the Western Front in Europe witnessed extraordinary scenes of heroism, horror, melodrama and pathos.

In Plunder, Max Hastings presents a cast of fascinating people British, American and German, in a series of great events in which some distinguished themselves through wonderful deeds, others through the basest crimes.

The book takes its title from Montgomery’s ‘Operation Plunder’, the 23 March 1945 crossing of the Rhine, witnessed by Winston Churchill and embracing huge amphibious and airborne landings. The author describes the American coup in capturing Remagen bridge and the ‘battles of the breakout’ which followed. Thereafter he recounts stories of Nazi Werewolves; of US General George Patton’s reckless and doomed dispatch of an armoured column fifty miles behind German lines to liberate his son-in-law from a prison camp; the heartbreaking liberation of Belsen concentration camp; the wonderful achievement of Ian Liddell of the Coldstream Guards, among the last VC winners of the war and surely one of the most deserving; the last big SAS operation of the war. Finally come accounts of the tortuous succession of German surrenders, and the weeks of Admiral Karl Donitz’s posturing as the Third Reich’s last Fuhrer.

Plunder is the latest history from Max Hastings, and offers his signature narrative of conflict, blending personal experiences into the ‘big picture’, highlighting deeds and personalities that will be unfamiliar to many readers. He mingles accounts of the battles with stories of people – warlords, soldiers, slave labourers, prisoners, fugitives, victims – who played many and various roles in the last European act of history’s most terrible war.

Details

ISBN13: 9780008778248
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 448
Edition:
Publication Date: 29 Sep 2026
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.3(L)x3.2(W)600
Weight (gm): 600

Author Biography

Max Hastings is the author of twenty-six books, most about conflict, and between 1986 and 2002 served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph, then editor of the Evening Standard. He has won many prizes both for journalism and his books, of which the most recent are All Hell Let Loose, Catastrophe and The Secret War, best-sellers translated around the world. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, London and was knighted in 2002. He has two grown-up children, Charlotte and Harry, and lives with his wife Penny in West Berkshire, where they garden enthusiastically.

Reviews

'This book gives military history a good name … In Plunder, his devastating account of the final weeks of the Second World War, Max Hastings brings the conflict to life in such detail it leaves you reeling … Meticulously researched, constructed with a great journalist’s instinct for switching from big to small and back again, and written with a keen eye for human foibles … He covers an enormous amount of ground with admirable dexterity, from the haunting scenes as British troops liberate the Bergen-Belsen camp to the blackly comic chaos as Hitler’s short-lived successor, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, struggles to impose his authority on the quarrelsome Nazi elite'
Dominic Sandbrook, The Times
‘Hastings is our greatest living chronicler of the Second World War’
Daily Express
PRAISE FOR SWORD:
‘The messy, dirty, bloody reality of Operation Overlord comes alive in Sword, Hastings’s portrait of the individual soldiers who risked their lives on the beaches of Normandy. He brings these men to life with sensitivity and beautiful prose'
The Times
‘The transporting of 150,000 troops across the Channel in total secrecy and the feats they did that day is a story we never tire of – and Max Hastings tells it exceedingly well. His is one of the most reliable brands in popular history and Sword meets his usual standards. A cracking tale in the hands of a practised storyteller'
Spectator
‘D-Day was one of the British army’s finest hours, perhaps the finest. The author has matched that hour admirably'
Country Life