Customer Reviews

The Fall of Berlin 1945

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Like Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle" and John Toland's "The last Hundred Days", this terrific new book by acclaimed British historian Antony Beevor ("Stalingrad") is both an entertaining thought piece and an incredibly well researched and infinitely detailed description of the fall of Berlin at the end of World War Two. Plagued by food and heating fuel shortages, endangered by increasingly devastating bombardment from a sky full of Allied planes, and badgered by the frantic desperation of the Nazi leadership, the people of Berlin awaited the denouement of the long raging conflict and the terrible retribution they felt certain would rage from the Russians, who had been savaged themselves at the hands of the Wehrmacht during the blitzkrieg of 1941-42. When their moment came, the Soviets ruthlessly pursued it to ensure taking the last full measure of terror.

With strict (but secret) orders from Hitler to quickly annihilate what he and the Nazi leadership considered to be the "subhuman Slavs" in order to make "liebenstraum" (living room) for future German colonization, the Germans had conducted a campaign of such staggering and unparalleled brutality, of such senseless slaughter during their sweep east toward Stalingrad and Moscow that afterward the Russians literally seethed with a profound bloodlust, aching for a chance at revenge. Now that the tide had turned and the Soviet army was flooding over the eastern borders of the fatherland, their chance had arrived, and the day of reckoning was fast approaching.

Beevor's treatment of the story of the fall of Berlin in 1945 is rich with detail and anecdotal information, which helps bring the story to life, putting a human face on the horrific specifics of life in a city under siege. While Hitler cowered deep beneath the city in his bunker, fantasizing about his imminent rescue, Zhukov's Russian shock troops were encircling the city. Yet, it never deteriorated into a situation of "every man for himself'. The author's narrative is filled with examples of individual bravery and personal sacrifice for the benefit of others. Amid the savagery and carnage that surrounded them, ordinary men and women went about their ruined lives, just trying as best they could to survive. Yet hundreds of thousands perished, succumbing to the numbing effect of shelling, bombs, fires, gun-battles and random rape, victims of a half-starved and hate-filled foe hell-bent on bloody revenge.

The author masterfully employs previously unavailable Soviet and German archives to thread a storyline very well told. In so doing, Beevor delivers a very compelling vision of the people and events that shaped the progressive collapse of Berlin under the constant bombardment and attacks of the Russian army, and the horror that awaited ordinary Berliners in the line of fire. What he gives us is an indelibly colored portrait of a time of great pitch and moment in the history of the modern world, a snapshot of two titans, the Germans and Russians, locked in mortal combat in one of the great cities of Europe. The aftermath of that struggle was felt for decades afterward. This is a well-written and very carefully researched book, one that added to my personal knowledge of the history of the Second World War. I heartily recommend it. Enjoy!

Dear Editor,

I found it disturbing that instead of balancing the spotlight review for this book by posting two opposing views, you picked instead two negatives reviews. The general discomfort of sympathizing with German civilians during the war is understandable, though my interpretation of Beevor's book was not so much a purely sympathetic book as much as an interest in looking at a well-worn story from a different light. In the half-century since the German defeat, this is the first popular history that explores the tragedies the Germans suffered as well. The sources for the book are accepted critical texts of the period. The Fall of Berlin remained the best-seller in England for many months after its publication, a country that suffered far worse than America in the war. Clearly, the British are interested in understanding different sides of the German experience during the Nazi period. In a sense your spotlight reviews perpetuate the stereo-type of all Germans being guilty for Nazis deeds. The Fall of Berlin 1945 is an effort to put a personal face on the civilians of the war instead of painting them all one color. For good reason, the Nazi atrocities are well documented. One hopes history remains an attempt to view all sides of an event. This book contributes to such an understanding.

As a student of military history and war fighting I was able to fight my way through this volume with little difficuly. I was even reading it at a high altitude and while hospitalized and it only rarely put me to sleep.

I read Beevor's STALINGRAD and I must say, Stalingrad was MUCH BETTER. In reading The Fall of Berlin I came to the realization that Beevor was writing a Social History and is himself a Social Historian. No problem, it just comes at the subject from a different angle than I had originally expected. Also, as a sidebar here, other reviewers have accused Beevor of being a Journalist, well, who the hell writes books any way? Randy the recruit in the rear rank with a rusty rifle?

The book itself covers much more than just the Fall of Berlin, it would have been better titled The Fall of the 3rd Reich (but that one was taken). I got a little hung up on some of the endless pages of details and some of the repetitive ocurrances that took place and, yes, I scanned a page or two, I confess. But overall, I learned alot about a chapter of WWII that I had never previously read or studied much about. (I'm more of a Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Rommel, and Desert Rat fan, personally.) I recommend it to students of military history and people who want an in depth look at the collapse of Hitler's Regime. It is not, however, for the casual student or reader.

I do not think that this is a biased account as many other alleged readers of this book claim it is. If you want an account of Nazi atrocities, read Stalingrad, you'll get all you want. Also, for those of you who state that it is not researched or well supported history, I know my copy includes a couple of sections at the back; one is called the Bibliography, and the other is called the Works Sited. I'm sorry if it's confusing, maybe they removed those sections from later editions? I don't think that Beevor favors the Nazis at all, but just because he doesn't favor the Nazis doesn't mean that he is duty bound to applaud the Soviets. The Soviets were tough, no doubt, and yes, they certainly did do a great ammount of hard fighting against a powerful, determined, and skillful Nazi Army. But, that does not excuse atrocity on either side.

In Henry V, Shakespeare said "When lenity and cruelty play for a Kingdom. The gentler gamester is the soonest winner." This is not the case in The Fall of Berlin. This is a story of Total War from start to finish, no question. If you want a tale af the splendid heroes of the Red Army valiantly assaulting the last vestige of National Socialism, don't look for it here. In fact, if that is what you're looking for, I recommend you go back to your copies of Red Star and dust off your Commie Propaganda videos. And while you're at it, if you're one of those who think the Red Army whipped the Wehrmacht single handedly and saved the world, I suggest you help yourselves to a few of the other WWII history books available on Amazon because you're either ignorant or Communists. Atrocity happens in war, let's not get holier than thou here people. The Nazis might have deserved it, but that doesn't make it right. But, then again...

Such a work as this constantly begs the question is it balanced?

The story of the totalitarian Soviet state defeating the totalitarian German state is one littered with cruelty and barbarity of insane proportions, where those in charge care nothing for those that are their subordinates or for those that are their enemies. After a while the numbers senselessly killed and maimed become so huge that they are baffling. Stalin and Hitler both share the same response to any setback, which is to blame the generals and the " cowardice" of their own troops- never to blame themselves for their own tactical shortcomings or the opposition for being well placed or superior in number and formation.
Stalin and Hitler and those dedicated to supporting their regimes, whether it is the SS or the NKVD are pretty much interchangeable. The bravery of the Red army and of the German army cannot be doubted and Beevor makes this fact abundantly clear.

Reading negative critical reviews of this book, I see that the fact that Beevor is not black and white on the issue of the conduct of the two armies is one that some find hard to take. Beevor is accused of being unduly harsh on the Red army and easy on the German army. I think he accurately acknowledges the bravery and the brutality common to any group of people; people fight for their country whether the cause is just or not.

Beevor broaches the subject of rape by the Red army. He tries to discuss it and gives reasons as to why it happened on such a vast scale. He doesn't give any definitive answers, but then I wouldn't want any, because such blanket answers cannot be given. He again and again mentions the subject, according to another reviewer it is 102 times. I would like to thank him for doing so- for bringing forth a subject that is taboo to talk about- for allowing us to talk about and think about this terrible crime openly. I find the level of negative criticism about his discussion of rape disturbing- people seem to think that the Red army should be seen purely as liberators and that any crimes that they committed should be ignored (Sounds a bit like the world of Uncle Joe there.) Beevor does not mention rapes committed by the German army in this book, that is because they were in retreat on their own soil, he certainly mentions their rapes in his book Stalingrad however.

This book allows the normal person to taste the dust and to hear the deafening noise of the battles for Berlin through a series of incisive quotes and anecdotes. It grips you and makes accessible the inaccessible. How can it be possible to comprehend the scale of these battles? One gets a feeling for the breakdown of Germany and the feelings of the red army soldiers. More over it gives us an insight into the lunacy of the Nazi hierarchy- as Berlin burns all around they drink and dance and plan future glories with futile and doomed counter attacks that cost more and more lives. On the other side of the asylum we have Stalin viewing everyone through his own moral standards and plotting to purge successful generals and soldiers after the war so that they cannot become too powerful.

If you want to appreciate this book, then Poland is the perfect place to look. Initially divided between Stalin and Hitler and then fought over and abused by the two. The people who live there are only there to be used and enslaved, literally- no one there is ever to be trusted and purges on grand scales are the norm. In one part of Poland only 7% of the population are still left there at the end of the war!

A horrible book that is well presented and accessible. You will finish this book realising how fragile the hold on democracy is and how we must fight to prevent the erosion of any civil liberties.

This book obviously covers the last few months of WW2 and how the Russians captured Berlin. It is a fascinating account that details the operations and strategies of the German, Russian, and American armies as well as presents civilian stories from inside the city. It shows how one of the primary motivations of the Russians was to capture the atomic weapons research lab at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and how the Americans, not knowing of its existence (according to the author), refused to engage in a race to Berlin.

The story is very well told and offers an interesting blend of facts, first-person accounts, and analyses. I would have liked to have seen a little more explanation of the strategies employed by Roosevelt and Stalin, not only in relation to Germany but in their own competition for dominance as the war drew to a close, but that is perhaps a different book.

The book does have some shortcomings: Beevor tries to throw in a few analyses that just fall flat. For example, he makes the unfounded claim that Hitler was a "repressed pedophile" and "supressed his homoerotic side". These claims completely ignore Hitler's earlier love for Geli Raubal and his long affair with Eva Braun. He also tried to explain an elaborate "4-stage process" of why soldiers raped women that I found simply ludicrous.

Overall, this is an enjoyable, not too dense book that I would definitely recommend to others with even a casual interest in the subject.

The Fall of Berlin 1945 is obviously about the last series of battles in World War II. It not only covers the final battle for the German capital, but it actually starts in January 1945. The Russians are sitting on the Vistula river, just outside Warsaw, and waiting to launch one of the final attacks that will finally collapse the Nazi regime. Beevor has done lots of research, and it shows. This is a completely compelling book. You do, however, have to have an interest in the subject and you should probably not be in a really bad mood when you read it. It is kind of a downer.

For the most part, Beevor concentrates on the Russian front as the Germans face off against the Soviet army. He does have a chapter or two about the other allies, but most of the time that he is talking about them, it is in relation to the Eastern Front and how some of the remaining Germans were trying to retreat to the American and British lines so that they could surrender and hopefully not get killed by the invading Soviet hordes. Beevor also details the Yalta conference and how Stalin completely hoodwinked Churchill and Roosevelt (Roosevelt himself was very ill at this time and certainly wasn't at his best) in regards to his intentions for Poland and for Berlin. Other than this, however, Beevor is completely devoted to action in Poland and in eastern Germany. This isn't surprising, as most of the action in this period of the war was centred here. Not to say there wasn't any fighting in the West, but once the Americans crossed the Rhine river, the Germans seemed more intent on making sure they didn't surrender to the Russians.

Beevor does a good job with the subject. He writes in an interesting manner that doesn't contain the dryness that is prevalent in some history texts. However, he does go deep enough into the subject that it's obviously not intended for light reading. This is a history book, and it certainly feels like one. It's not history-lite for somebody with just a mild interest in the subject. Not being a historian, I can't speak to the accuracy of the research, but he does have a lot of sources, all of which are detailed in the back. He uses archives, interviews, unpublished diaries (including three sources that he insists must remain anonymous, so presumably they are Russian), mostly primary sources. The notes, unfortunately, are in my least favourite format: instead of end or footnotes, the notes are listed by page number and then a brief snippet of a quote to state which section he is referencing. I find this incredibly annoying and hard to follow, so much so that I don't even bother after awhile.

The maps are outstanding as well. Unfortunately, they are all at the front of the book, so you do find yourself flipping back and forth a little bit. It would have been nice to have a couple of full strategic maps at the beginning of the book, but to have the tactical maps begin the section in which they are described. Still, the maps themselves are very well done and definitely worth the time it takes to look at them before reading about the specific operation. They detail every attack, even the attacks on the Western Front. Since the Western Front is not talked about very much, this shows how complete they are.

This is a truly powerful book, especially where Beevor describes the utter devastation that affected Poland and eastern Germany. Berlin was nothing but a pile of rubble with bombs going off everywhere and hardly any buildings without any bomb damage. I think it affected me even more because of the time I was reading it (i.e during the Iraq war). Here I was seeing so little (relatively speaking of course) city and civilian damage, and then I'm reading this book where cities were being bombed into oblivion. It was very disheartening. You certainly should not be reading this book if you're depressed. Beevor details the horrors of war, as German citizens flee from the onrushing Soviets, victorious soldiers rape and pillage to their hearts' content, and there is so much human suffering. Even the Polish and the captured Soviet troops were not spared any of this. It is truly amazing sometimes what the human race is capable of, and Beevor tells us all about it.

That is another small fault with this book, though. While I certainly understand the concentration on the devastation that was inflicted on the Germans, Beevor really seems to centre on the subject of rape. Time and time again he comes back to the subject, and it became a bit annoying after awhile. This is not necessarily because he kept coming back to it, but because every time he did come back to it, he'd go on for a couple of pages about it. It started to get monotonous. I realize that this happened, and that it shouldn't be white-washed, but after the first few times he could surely just briefly cover the fact that more rapes happened at this time. Either that, or he should have just had a chapter detailing the horrors that happened and then not really talked about them again.

Ultimately, though, this is a very worthy book, with just enough minor quibbles to bring it down to four stars. If you like military history, this is definitely the book for you. This period of World War II is not well-documented in book form, at least not that I've seen. Beevor does a great job of covering the subject and I think you'll like it. You certainly won't enjoy it, but you will find it compelling. And isn't that what a history book should be?

David Roy