Memorrs: TEN YEARS AND TWENTY Days, by Admiral Karl Doenitz (World, $6.00). Admiral Doenitz was Hitler’s personal choice to be the second and last Fuehrer of the Third Reich; and although Doenitz ruled but twenty days
(just long enough to arrange the unconditional surrender of an ut- terly defeated Germany), his ex- perience and opinions are extreme- ly interesting and _historically valuable. Doenitz gives a striking picture of just how bitter was the hour of defeat for Germany; and he says a great many other things about Allied policies and actions, about General Eisenhower, etc., which lead one to ponder how much we ourselves lost in the German disaster. But Doenitz was Fuehrer for only twenty days: he had commanded Germany’s U- boat arm for the preceding ten years, and the bulk of this large volume is concerned with that phase of his career. It, too, makes fascinating reading; but the casual reader will no doubt find the finely detailed mass on submarine operations boring. The meat of the book is crammed into the last pages, and it is meaty indeed. J. P. MCFADDEN
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