"On 8 May 1945 the Nazis surrendered, bringing to an end the Second World War in the West. Two huge allied armies occupied the ruins of the once-mighty Reich. Germany was prostrate, its population starving and its cities devastated." "Now issued with a new afterword, this classic book tells of the period that followed until the years of the Berlin airlift and the division of Germany into two separate nations." "While the German people eked out a stone-age existence in the rubble of caves and cellars, the occupying powers behaved like imperial overlords, punishing past crimes - and perpetrating new ones of their own." "A portrait of a great European power in chaos, In the Ruins of the Reich is an account of the savage climax of war, and a timely reminder of the terrible cost of the occupation."--Jacket.