The New York Times #1 bestselling author Martin Dugard’s latest book “Taking Berlin: The Bloody Race to Defeat the Third Reich” hit the stands Nov. 1. “Taking Berlin” is the second installment in a series covering WWII and is the follow-up to last year’s “Taking Paris: The Epic Battle for the City of Lights,” which Townhall covered.
Dugard previously co-authored over ten bestselling “Killing” books with political commentator Bill O’Reilly. Similar to “Taking Paris” and the “Killing” series, “Taking Berlin” is a work of historical nonfiction and focused on events and figures from a specific era. The "Taking" books are based on WWII.
“Taking Berlin” opens in summer of 1944, overlapping some of the time frame of “Taking Paris” before the liberation of Paris. Similar to Dugard’s other novels, each chapter opens with a specific timestamp and point of view to place the reader in the story. And, the story is told through multiple points of view, such as General James M. Gavin, the youngest American general in WII, and Winston Churchill, whose point-of-view was also featured in "Taking Paris."
In this case, Dugard entwines the firsthand accounts from historical figures within the three Allied powers and their efforts to reach Berlin. Dugard details D-Day and how it marked the beginning of the American and British armies moving in from the west to liberate European countries from Nazi occupation. Included is the well-documented “rivalry” between General George S. Patton and Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery. American war correspondent Martha Gellhorn’s experiences are included. She is known for documenting nearly every world conflict that took place over the course of 60 years. On the Axis’ side, Dugard covers how In Oct. 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was implicated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and given the option to face a trial (and execution) or commit suicide via cyanide. He chose the latter. During this time, the Soviets were moving in from the east.
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In an interview with Townhall, Dugard shared what his writing process was like for “Taking Berlin,” how his research was different from when he wrote “Taking Paris,” and exclusively shared what’s next in the “Taking” series.
“In my mind, everything that happened at the end of [Taking Paris], everything that happened after August 26, 1944, the liberation of Paris, really didn’t end there. I wanted to pick up these characters again and see what they did in the next nine months,” Dugard told Townhall. “I got to go back to Churchill and Patton, not so much De Gaulle, but then new characters like Martha Gellhorn and James Gavin came in…you know, when you write these things, you don’t really plan it. You just basically say ‘how do we get to Berlin?’ and then all these historical people kind of step up and make themselves known and kind of clamor in your head to tell their own story. And that’s how we get the book.”
Last year, Dugard shared with Townhall that he was unable to travel overseas as he wrote “Taking Paris” to gather research because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. During his travels for “Taking Berlin,” he said he added stops along the way that he wanted to visit when we wrote his previous book.
“When I had research questions, I made a mental list of all the places I needed to go and things I needed to see,” Dugard shared. “We went to all the battlefields that we talk about in this book. Went throughout France, Germany, the low countries..I even revisited some of the places I didn’t get to go to in Paris just because I was curious about them.”
Some of the places Dugard traveled included Cologne, Germany, Nijmegen, Netherlands, and even visited Dunkirk for research for his next book. In our conversation, Dugard said that Gellhorn’s backstory was the most surprising thing he came across in his research.
“When you read her work, her writing is out-of-this-world, it’s so good. And her reportage is so smart. She did a lot of it without credentials because she stood away on a ship to cover the D-Day invasions, which was illegal, so when she got back to England they arrested her and took away her credentials. But she didn’t quit and go home, what she did was she found a way to cover the war through her own ways. She would talk people into giving her a ride on an airplane to get over the continent, she would find her way to battlefields.”
He added that he was given access to Gavin’s personal writings shortly after he completed “Taking Berlin.”
“Just after I turned the book in, four, five months ago, I was given access to Gavin’s private wartime journals, which he hand-typed on a little field typewriter. They’ve never been published,” he explained. “It had specific dates. It had specific comments he made himself.”
He added that Gavin and Gellhorn had a “torrid” love affair.
“You put that [the affair] against the backdrop of this great conflict and it puts a personal note on it,” Dugard said. “As a writer, when you get moments like that, it’s just gold.”
“You talk about two people just trying to get through the war, deeply in love, but also, two people who were very influential in their own way. Her, with her writing, and him with his command assignments. It was a really nice thing to be able to learn about those people.”
Dugard exclusively shared with Townhall that his next book will be called “Taking London” and will be available in 2023.
“We’re going to open with the development of the Spitfire in 1936,” he said, adding that he flew in one in his travels to the United Kingdom. “It’s going to be about the Battle of Britain and the Blitz itself. So roughly from Sept. 1940 all the way to January-February 1941.”
“I just want to be able to study it, know the events, and report on them as openly and honestly as I can,” Dugard said of his writing, concluding that “If you research well, and you look for the story, you can find a story in any particular piece of history.”
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