The Fall of Berlin 1945 | Antony Beevor | brutal end to a brutal war

The Fall of Berlin 1945 | Antony Beevor | A well written history book

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The Fall of Berlin...

	The Fall of Berlin 1945 Antony Beevor Penguin (Non-Classics), 2003 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 125 reviews view larger image
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The Red Army's invasion of Berlin in January 1945 was one of the most terrifying examples of fire and sword in history. Frenzied by terrible memories of Wehrmacht and SS brutality, the Russians wreaked havoc, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians dead and millions more fleeing westward. Drawing upon newly available material from former Soviet files, as well as from German, American, British, French, and Swedish archives, bestselling author Antony Beevor vividly recounts the experiences of the millions of civilians and soldiers caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse. The Fall of Berlin 1945 is a heartrending story of pride, stupidity, fanaticism, revenge, and savagery, yet it is also one of astonishing human endurance, self-sacrifice, and survival against all odds.

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brutal end to a brutal war

This is a story of epic violence, the final act of staggering and extended violence of the Second World War in Europe, the campaign for, envelopment and destruction of Berlin and a good share of its population, by the Red Army. Beevor's book is riveting, well written, engrossing, and emotionally compelling.

Beevor covers the campaign from every perspective, from the planning by Stalin and STAVKA, the competition between Zhukov and Konev, through the campaign itself to the doorsteps of the Reich Chancellery, the capture of Berlin and its subsequent occupation. The military aspects of the campaign are well presented (more and better maps would have helped); the personal competitions and rivalries given good treatment; the desperation and hopelessness of the German soldier's predicament fully explored; and the Nazi leadership's impotence to accomplish anything other than further murder of their own population and nation in full relief. It is the end of the world.

Perspectives below the strategic and presented fully as well. The stoic bravery of the Russian soldier, mixed with craven drunkenness and thievery; the plight of millions of civilians; the ongoing mass murder of the concentration camps; the delusion of the Nazis - it's all here in personal interviews, exerpts from memoirs, newspaper articles, etc. The surreal nature of the end of the war, with movies playing in Berlin theaters until the very last days, while hundreds of thousands die in the space of a few weeks.

And, throughout, there are the rapes and murders, rapes and murders, rapes and murders. For all the crimes committed by the Nazis in Russia (and elsewhere), the Russian soldiers wasted no time in paying German civilians back. The scale and viciousness of the crimes committed by Russians, whatever the justifications or reasons, was staggering, and continued well after the formal end of hostilities. Initially apparently officially condoned (at times encouraged), the gangraping, casual murder, drunken rampaging and looting continued for months and months, from the first foot of Germany until well after war's end became so disgusting, out of control, and embarrassing, even to Soviet leadership one would think beyond shaming by any type of mass crime by this point, that generals were eventually forced to at least try a little bit to rein their men in. Much of the criticism of this book by other reviewers centers on objections to the author's ongoing discussion of the wanton raping and butchering and looting of civilians, apparently thinking that by showing that the average Russian peasant soldier could be every bit as brutal as the average German Sonderkommando man it takes away from the Russian victory, or somehow brings them down to the level of the Nazis morally. But the truth is these things happened, and to wish them away is simply delusion, the whitewashing of history.

The book is well referenced, the research was deep and thorough, the bibliography and index are excellent, the writing taut and compelling. There are even a number of b&w photos, highly evocative in that they cover not only soldiers and military topics, as well as the average civilian, the aftermath of the struggle.

The destruction of Hitler's evil Nazi regime was absolutely required and at this point of the war, inevitable. The book gives us the violent story of the very violent end to a war of unparalleled violence.

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A well written history book

This is a very good book focused on the Soviet offensive into Germany and ultimately to Berlin starting from Jan 1945. You'll find detailed descriptions of the offensive, how the soldiers faught and how the local population suffered. The author does a good job on describing the war scenes, so that you can actually see a " movie" in your mind. The author also incuded detailed maps and also quotations from veteran's memories.

Haunting...

A beautiful piece of WW2 history written in rich detail. It vividly captures the desperation and panic of the fall of Berlin as the Red Army rolled into Germany to take merciless revenge on their attackers. It leaves an impression and begs to be read again...

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A bit long read but still interesting

I found this book an average read. It took almost 200 hundred pages to actually get to the battle for Berlin.

I also found that the constant minute description of atrocities committed by the Soviets as they advanced made for laboured reading.

All in all I think that there are better and more succinct reads on the fall of Berlin out there.

Good military history, too few personal stories for my taste

As someone for whom the Battle of Berlin and the fall of the Third Reich are subjects of inexhaustible fascination, I found this 431 page tome surprisingly unsatisfying. In an attempt to be exhaustive in scope, I think Mr. Beevor sacrificed the human details that make the story so dramatically compelling.

The book has a lot to recommend it. Beevor effectively and copiously describes the big arrows on the map, i.e. the movements of the armies and the important military engagements. I think he is very successful in conveying the utter horror of the drunken, raping Red Army's barbaric and inexorable advance towards Berlin. He brought to light several historic nuggets about the major personages that were heretofore unknown to me, such as Eva Braun's declaration of atheism in her last days, and the details of the personal conversations between Stalin and Zhukov. Mr. Beevor also provided many interesting vignettes of war such as how the Russian soldiers' ignorance and alcoholism compelled them to consume industrial solvent and other fatal chemicals in their search for intoxication. However, for several reasons the book failed to be the magisterial work I expected.

Minor quibbles I had were several very silly remarks that were inexplicably allowed into the book, such as throwaway asides about Hitler and Speer's "homoerotic" bond, and a comment that it was mainly Hitler's "vanity" that prevented him from suing for peace before he had won a major victory. (That's only common sense, not vanity- why would Stalin negotiate for a portion of his goals when he could easily take the whole thing by force?). I believe Beevor also neglected to mention the German casualty figures for some reason, even though he mentioned the number of Soviet dead. And even though I realize that all the events of Hitler's last days underground couldn't be related in all their horrific and dramatic detail, I still felt that his treatment of the subject was rather cursory. Most disappointing to me was the lack of first-hand accounts. To be sure, there are many very interesting snapshots of war, but they seem culled from newspaper dispatches or military reports. Because everyone knows how the Battle of Berlin turned out, not that there was ever any real suspense or surprises in a battle between such unevenly matched armies, I wanted to hear more from the actual soldiers and civilians who lived through the fighting, the occupation and the atrocities. There were some such accounts here, but not as many as I would have liked or expected. I know the Germans, especially the wartime generation, are a reserved people, but surely they couldn't have been as reticent as this book seems to imply!

I've read a lot on the subject but other than this book I'd never read a work solely about the fall of Berlin. Therefore, I can't recommend an alternate work. I don't think this book is so bad, and I do believe it has a lot of value, especially for students of the large scale military campaigns.

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