The Fall of Berlin 1945 [Paperback]

Antony Beevor (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 29, 2003

Acclaimed for his vivid re-creations of some of the twentieth century's most significant battles, Antony Beevor is one of the best known and respected military historians writing today. He now offers readers a gripping, street-level portrait of the harrowing days of January 1945 in Berlin when the vengeful Red Army and beleaguered Nazi forces clashed for a final time. The result was the most gruesome display of brutality in the war, with tanks crushing refugee columns, mass rapes, pillage, and destruction. Hundreds of thousands of German civilians froze to death or were massacred because Nazi officials had forbidden their evacuation. Hitler, half crazed in his bunker, issued wild orders while Stalin was prepared to risk any number of his men to seize the city before the other Allies could get there.

Making full use of newly disclosed material from former Soviet files as well as from German, American, British, French, and Swedish archives, Beevor has reconstructed the different experiences of those millions caught up in the death throes of the Third Reich. The Fall of Berlin 1945 depicts not only the brutality and desperation of a city under siege but also rare moments of extreme humanity and heroism. This account also contains new revelations about the motives behind Stalin's hurried assault. Sure to appeal to all readers interested in military history and the Second World War, The Fall of Berlin 1945 promises to be the definitive treatment of the subject for years to come.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

By December 1944, many of the 3 million citizens of Berlin had stopped giving the Nazi salute, and jokes circulated that the most practical Christmas gift of the season was a coffin. And for good reason, military historian Antony Beevor writes in this richly detailed reconstruction of events in the final days of Adolf Hitler's Berlin. Following savage years of campaigns in Russia, the Nazi regime had not only failed to crush Bolshevism, it had brought the Soviet army to the very gates of the capital. That army, ill-fed and hungry for vengeance, unloosed its fury on Berlin just a month later in a long siege that would cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. But as Beevor recounts, the siege was also marked by remarkable acts of courage and even compassion. Drawing on unexplored Soviet and German archives and dozens of eyewitness accounts, Beevor brings us a harrowing portrait of the battle and its terrible aftermath, which would color world history for years to follow. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Covering the months from January to May in 1945, as Soviet and other Allied troops advanced to Berlin, freelance British historian Beevor (Stalingrad) opts for direct narrative with overheard quotes from the main players, making the reader an eavesdropper to Hitler and Stalin's obiter dicta. Brisk and judgmental, the narrative is studded with short sentences and summary judgments: about Nazi minister Hermann Goring, we are told that his "vanity was as ludicrous as his irresponsibility" and he looked more like " `a cheerful market woman' than a Marshal of the Reich." During the rubble-strewn city's Christmas of 1944, "the quip of that festive season was: `be practical: give a coffin.' " The book is based on material from former Soviet files as well as from German, American, British, French and Swedish archives, but the somewhat limited bibliography is disappointing, and many of the usual sources are quoted, such as Hitler's personal secretary, who took dictation in the bunker to the end. Her expectation that Hitler would suddenly produce "a profound explanation" of the war's "great purpose" says as much about German self-delusion of the time as about Hitler, but here and elsewhere, Beevor simply quotes her flatly and fails to connect the dots. However, given the scope of this book the 1945 advance on Berlin is thought to be the largest battle in history, with two and a half million Soviet troops attacking one million Germans the summary approach is inevitable.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reissue edition (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142002801
• ISBN-13: 978-0142002803
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (189 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #90 in Books > History > Europe > Germany

More About the Author

A regular in the 11th Hussars, Antony Beevor served in Germany and England. He has had a number of books published and his book Stalingrad was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. Among the many prestigious posts he holds, he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 116 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent account of the fall of Berlin. June 26, 2002

By Sean Judge

Format:Hardcover

This is a well researched and written account of the fall of Berlin. It fills a void somewhere between Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle" (excellent for the casual historian) and Read and Fisher's "The Fall of Berlin" (a more detailed and lengthy account). It's a good mesh of historical background and personal experiences from the battle. Most of the criticisms I have read about the book seem more motivated by a "Politically Correct" approach to history than by the truth. German atrocities throughout the war are well documented and are not the focus of this book. The Red Army DID(by all accounts save their own) engage in widespread rape and looting in eastern Germany and Berlin. Beevor gives a balanced account - he does not glorify German resistance, Nazism, or the Soviet advance. He simply tells what happened. Rape is a predominant theme in the book, but it was a predominant concern of the German women, and a fact of the war. This is a solid piece of work on one of the greatest human dramas in history. Don't let those with a hidden agenda steer you away from this book.

138 of 156 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars the dark side of the Noble Fury July 4, 2002

By Chapulina R

Format:Hardcover

The preponderance of space in the Central Armed Forces Museum of Moscow is devoted to the Great Patriotic War. You will see memorials to fire-scorched Byelorussia and Ukraine, bomb-devastated Stalingrad, and famine-besieged Leningrad. You'll see an entire hall dedicated to the Holocaust, with grisly displays of Nazi barbarism, including products made from the bodies of concentration-camp victims. You'll see photos of emaciated Jews as well as Czechs, Bulgarians, and Hungarians showering flowers and kisses on Red Army tanks and troops. You'll see tributes to American Lend-Lease convoys, and snapshots of Western and Soviet Allies embracing on the Elbe. Your guide will tell you how only in recent years can the truth be told about the paranoid cruelty of Stalin, Beria, and the NKVD toward "liberated" Europe and the Soviet people. But while documenting the suffering and sacrifices of the USSR, there is little mention, even today, of crimes committed by Red Army occupiers of Berlin.
I disagree with the detractors of Antony Beevor that in addressing these atrocities his book negates the heroism of the Soviet soldier. On every page, the author emphasizes the appalling conditions in which the Red Army had to wrest its victory, and the terrible cost in Soviet lives. Under-nourished, under-supplied, poorly-trained soldiers were motivated not only by the brutality of SMERSH and NKVD forces. Their "Noble Fury" was incited not only by relentless propaganda from Political Instructors or incendiary front-line correspondents such as the popular Ilya Ehrenburg. Every Soviet family had suffered personal loss during the German invasion and occupation, and every soldier was driven by hatred of the Fascist Beast.
It is the mass rape perpetrated by the Red Army which comprises the controversy of Beevor's book.... But Beevor is hardly the first to document that atrocity. It was early exploited for pulp-novels such as James Burke's luridly-titled "The Big Rape." And it has not been ignored by historians. Neither Cornelius Ryan in "The Last Battle" nor Andrew Tully in his Soviet-sympathetic "Berlin: Story of a Battle" flinch from describing the orgy of looting and rape which often followed the most desperate fighting and hard-won victories. Only Beevor makes the effort to analyze (although never justify) the reasons for this conduct. As he reiterates, many Soviet frontoviki comported themselves "with utmost correctness", and the ones who partook in debauchery were emboldened to do so only after much imbibing of alcohol. Beevor delves into the still-prevailing rape psychology of conquering armies (indeed, to large groupings of males in general), assigning four distinct phases to the culture of wartime abuse of women. The first phase is vengeful, which accounted for the extreme ferocity toward victims in Prussia and eastern Germany. The second phase is purely sexual, and accounted for the celebratory riot in Berlin. Regarding the time period, Beevor cites the total "unenlightenment" of attitudes about sex, revealed in one Soviet officer's jovial anecdote about the "gratitude" of man-starved grandmothers for soldiers' attentions. And also in a widely repeated quip of Berlin women, trapped in the city enduring Allied air-raids and awaiting the Asiatic Horde, which went: "Better a Russki on the belly than an Ami [American, a reference to B-17 bombs] on the head!" The third phase involves women's "willing" participation, usually in exchange for food or "protection". Feminists nowadays refute any theory of rape being a sexual, as opposed to purely violent, crime. But it should be remembered, up until the 70's, women facing rape -- even gang-rape -- were routinely advised not to resist but to "relax and enjoy it". The fourth phase is prostitution. According to Beevor, by the time Americans entered Berlin, a "cigarette-economy" was in full-swing, and American servicemen "did not have to rape".
While Beevor's sensationalism of Red Army brutality may antagonize Russian readers, he contrastingly portrays honorable Soviets in a positive light. There are numerous mentions of traditional Slavic sentimentality toward children, and the compassion of soldiers who shared their meager rations with refugees and civilians. As one sapper noted: "How should one treat them? Just think of it. They were well off, well fed, had livestock, vegetable gardens, and apple trees. And they invaded us! For this, we should strangle them. I'm sorry for the children. Even though they are Fritz kids." And there are quotes from idealistic Communists distressed by drunken violence and concerned about its effect on the world image of the USSR.
If you read this book, keep in mind the extraordinary circumstances of the War. Beevor is neither anti-Slavic nor anti-German. He is properly condemnatory of Stalin. He is even more unforgiving of the Reich, its coldness toward its own people and utter contempt for non-Aryans. He documents a conflict between two insane despots of two totalitarian regimes, and the horror endured by everyone caught up in it. Read more ›

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good account of a dreadful battle December 14, 2002

By Bruce A. Johnston

Format:Hardcover

Beevor's new book is a worthwhile, accurate and, I think, well balanced description of the campaign leading up to the battle of Berlin and the battle itself. It confirms many suppositions, destroys some myths, and adds a fair amount of information gleaned from sources not available before the break-up of the Soviet Union. I found particularly interesting the confirmation of the imperatives of Stalin's need to take Berlin before the Americans got there, and while I knew about the atomic research conducted in Berlin, I was not aware of the development of Sarin and other poison gases in laboratories there. Also I was not aware that so many of the German units defending Berlin were in fact third country nationals, including fascist French units. The Soviet Union's terrible treatment of their own soldiers and citizens and those of their allies, released from camps and slave labor factories, is well described, as is the abysmal stupidity of the leadership on both the German and Soviet sides. And a significant proportion of the combatants, especially in the Red Army, were drunk out of their skulls on liberated wine and booze most of the time. Mr. Beevor implicitly destroys the myth that Stalin withdrew front line units from the battle and replaced them with barbarians from central Asia to do as much damage to the population as possible: the Red Army units were already well filled with Asiatic replacements, but they certainly had no monopoly on committing atrocities. Arguments among armchair generals about the U.S. Army stopping at the Elbe will undoubtedly go on forever - personally, I think Beevor's interpretation of the event is correct, and Eisenhower's strategy, based on military intelligence and political perceptions current at the time, can't be faulted....

As a serious military history buff, during various stints in Germany and Eastern Europe over the last 40 years I got to know many veterans on both sides of the battle who were surprisingly willing to talk about it (I speak German, Polish and Russian), although their memories tended to be somewhat selective. I visited most of the cities, and hiked and drove over almost all of the ground described in the book, from Courland in Latvia to Silesia, East Prussia and Pomerania (now mostly in Poland), and the Berlin region. Couldn't get to Kaliningrad, ex-Koenigsburg, though - it was (and still is) a closed military enclave. In any case, I can personally vouch for the accuracy of Mr. Beevor's geography, including the fact that skeletons and other remains are still turning up in northern Poland and the woods around Berlin. And the Seelow heights dominating the Oder crossings east of Berlin are indeed a formidable military barrier.

I expect there will be a good deal of moaning and carping about minor inaccuracies, such as misspelled Russian names, times of day, unit movements, and the like. Some of the narrative is complicated and hard to follow, just like the campaign and battle itself, and record keeping under the circumstances of total collapse was haphazard at best. Much of the story will be considered loaded with upsetting opinions and political angles by those with particular axes to grind - some very strong feelings still prevail. But these minor points don't really matter - Mr. Beevor basically got it right. I really have only one significant criticism: why, oh why, is it so difficult for publishers to get decent maps? They would do better to copy gas station road maps than use the obscure dots on white expanses that are seen so often in military history books.

"The Fall of Berlin" is a good book, well worth reading. But frankly, it's not as good a read as Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle," published in 1966, which is, on the whole, equally accurate. While many of Mr. Beevor's sources were not available to Mr. Ryan, the actual events were fresher in the minds of combatants and civilians in the 1960s. I would suggest that the serious reader read both books, in chronological order, to get a fair, complete picture. Read more ›

59 of 67 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The locusts descend and devour what's left May 22, 2002

By "michaeleve"

Format:Hardcover

The facts of the story only hint at the carnage. By the beginning of 1945 the allied armies had halted after crossing the Rhine in western Germany. There they waited for a move from the Red Army in the east. It was not long in coming and was preceeded by a wave of millions of fleeing German civilians, who abandoning the occupied territories of Prussia and Silesia, had only one panicked and fearful expression on their lips: "Der Ivan Kommt!" Indeed the Russians were coming and in a massive way. They had assembled "the largest army the world had ever seen" comprising 2.5 million soldiers, over 40,000 artillery guns, 6,000 tanks and four air armies, all for the purpose of a rapid attack and capture of the capital of the Third Reich. Berlin in contrast was defended by 45,000 Wehrmacht troops and about 40,000 militia. The militia comprised the young (mostly 14 year old Hitler Youth), the old (Volkssturm), and also foreign fascist volunteers (mostly French and Latvians) who still believed in the fight against Bolshevism.

This last point is well developed by Beevor. He mentions the Nazi and fascist antipathy towards the Russian peasant army and the Soviet form of totalitarianism. The Russians in turn hated all things German. This had been building since Stalingrad and Stalin himself had deliberately stoken the flames of revenge. When unleashed on Berlin this unquenchable fire took the form of drunken violence, looting, and gang-raping of German women by vast numbers of Red Army soldiers. Here is where Beevor's book differs from the many previous descriptions of this battle. THE FALL OF BERLIN 1945 is much too dull a title for the gruesome, disturbing, and emotionally wrenching descriptions of the inhumanity of both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army.... Beevor says that besides revenge, what drove the Red Army was Stalin's desire to acquire German A-bomb secrets and Soviet commanders concern that the Allies might take Berlin. This could not be allowed to happen, as "Berlin belonged to the Soviet Union by right of suffering as well as by right of conquest."

The Soviets were in such a hurry to seize the city that many Red Army units entering Berlin were shelled by their own artillery. Add to the confusion the fact that Hitler refused to evacuate civilians and you can see that the convergence of drunken indiscipline and revenge on the part of the invaders, and hatred, fear, and a "strange mixture of supressed hysteria and fatalism" on the part of Berliners, could only lead to what Beevor calls "the apocalypse of totalitarian corruption." Berlin was already a ruin from allied bombers but as April arrived and the Soviets entered, any semblance of normality evaporated and "a sense of nightmare unreality pervaded the city as it awaited its doom." When women were not suffering gang-rapes - "of approximately 100,000 women raped...10,000 died...mostly from suicide" - they were acting like automatons or zombies. Beevor tells of an incident where a Soviet artillery shell exploded on women waiting in a food line. The survivors merely shuffled to fill in the spaces created by the fallen. The Berlin Philharmonic gave its last performance on April 12 and guests helped themselves to cyanide pills as they departed. Beevor desribes the unreal scene outside Hitler's Bunker where as he and Eva Braun burned, an SS guard ran downstairs and said 'the chief's on fire, do you want to come and look?'. There were no takers as people were otherwise occupied as Beevor says "an erotic fever" seemed to have gripped everyone.

Beevor does not ignore the strategic big picture of this chaotic battle that consumed some 350,000 lives and left more than a quarter million Russians wounded. But it is at the level of the individual soldier and the women city dwellers that Beevor's story is at its most compelling. Here the descriptions of the irrationality, inhumanity, and insanity that was Berlin in 1945 provide the only means of getting a grip on the totality of the carnage. This is an unremittingly grim account of humanity at war but it's a useful reminder of what WWII was fought for and it's well worth reading. Read more ›