A highly documented point of view. There are some things you never knew, others descripted in a new light, such as the final assault on Reichstag. Humanity was very unlucky, as Hitler and Stalin lived in the same period, but that's not all. Perhaps we should learn much more from history, in order not to do the same mistakes, again and again.

A truly amazing book that looks at the last few months of the Third Reich and the horrors visited on the population of Berlin by the Red Army. That Army was frenzied by their experiences at the hands of the Nazis when Germany invaded Russia and they wreaked unimaginable suffering in their revenge....tanks crushing civilians, mass rape, pillage and total destruction. The author does a masterful job of reconstructing the experiences of those millions caught up in the Third Reich's final collapse. I give it the highest recommendation. It is also a wonderful companion book to The End: The Defiance & Destruction of Hitler's Germany 1944-45 by Ian Kershaw

I do have issues with some of the text not being footnoted in a manner I find useful but there is a fine bibliography and a section of interviews, diary and unpublished accounts.
In the end though an interesting read on the appalling fall of Berlin that showed that the enemies each had no idea as to the humanity of each other. Propaganda by the opposing sides was always fierce and in the end with the Eastern Front being probably the most brutal event in history this book bought to the fore the never ending question of man’s inhumanity to man and how propaganda can cause appalling events to happen.

As the Red Army crossed into East Prussia and had seen German wealth in comparison to their own homes, towns and cities Senior Lieutenant Klochkov said he could not understand why Germany had attacked them and risked such a prosperous life. Zhukov’s divisional commander General Maslov said “What was surprising was that they were crying in exactly the same way as our children cry" as he watched these children weeping for their lost parents. Revenge propaganda had convinced its citizens that all Germans were ravening beasts wrote the author. The same was true of the Nazi’s propaganda.

The Nazis use of “soft faced children” in the final battle was an utter indictment on their moribund ideology and latter attempts to blame the Nazis by Wehrmacht officers holds no water with this reviewer. The final toll of rape, as well as the death and destruction, that the eastern front was from the start to the fall of Berlin is not pretty reading in this very competent telling.
Gertraud "Traudl" Junge once said of Nazism after WW2 had ended “………..at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young and that it would have been possible to find things out.” Quite.

Muy bien documentada, y dentro de lo que cabe para este tipo de obras, amena en su desarrollo. Se centra en los últimos meses de la guerra, sobre todo el avance del ejército soviético y en la descomposición del estado alemán.
Intenta ser neutral aunque es difícil dada la magnitud de las salvajadas cometidas por todos los bandos, aunque unos más que otros.
Lo que más me impacto es la parte final, de la inmediata postguerra, poco conocida, de la venganza soportada por el pueblo alemán.

Antony Beevor's " The Fall of Berlin 1945" is an excellent account of the final battles of the Eastern Front, specifically focusing on the Soviet push into Germany in early 1945 and the subsequent battle of Berlin that April.
This work does not just focus on the operational and Geo-political aspects of the Third Reich's downfall, it also shines light on the human drama that unfolded in the midst of the horror. Woven into the book are various personal accounts of the brutal fighting between Soviet and German Soldiers, accounts of German civilians trying to survive the chaos, and the accounts of various Hitler Youth and Foreign units of the SS caught up in the fighting. The perspective's of Hitler, Stalin, and their generals are also given. We are shown a worn down, yet merciless Hitler who seeks to fight to the end, and an unrelenting Stalin, pushing his forces onward to take Berlin.
Overall, I felt this was a good read, it took quite a bit of reading, and I had to refer to the maps at the front of the book many times for a view of a particular unit or area, but it was well written and informative.

A really great book about the fall of Berlin and the Reich. Beevor is an excellent writer and historian and makes many good points. Well researched. Thumbs up.

Beevor sheds light on the subject of the mass rape of German women by Soviet troops. It was far worse than anyone realizes. Not an easy subject to write about but he had to do it to make his book comprehensive

Very detailed account of the last months of the Third Reich. Engages both the military history of the event and the pain that the war and occupation dealt to ordinary citizens. Hitler in these last months was clearly out of touch with reality, and it is quite surprising that nobody dared to contradict his edicts which were suicidal to the armed forces and the people of Germany.

Somehow I missed doing a review when I read this, ho hum

1945. The chickens are coming home to roost. The Red Army has systematically dismantled and destroyed the Wehrmacht in a series of massive campaigns. By April they are on the outskirts of Berlin. The capital of the Reich is a mass of rubble, its inhabitants cowering in cellars pensively awaiting Ivans arrival.

The Fuhrer sits in his bunker too. Reduced to a shambling wreck and allegedly numbed by drugs much of the time. Hitler promised to Make Germany Great Again but all he has achieved for his adopted country is ruination.

Between the Russians and the capital is a rag tag army, many of them old men and teenage boys, as the recruitment barrel is scraped one last time. Fourteen year olds are given rocket propelled grenades and sent out against tanks. Hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered the German army fights on, ferociously defending the homeland.

Numbers prevail and the Russians break into Berlin, conquering the city street by street against fierce resistance. Many thousands on both sides die, and as always on the Eastern Front the war is extremely brutal. The victorious Russians loot and rape at will, despoiling the detested capital of the enemy.

In the Fuhrer bunker Hitler shoots himself, his precious Thousand Year Reich destined to outlast him by just a few days. A journey from beer hall rabble rouser to the conqueror of much of Europe ends up with a funeral pyre in a squalid shell hole - Hitler burns, as Berlin burns around him.

A powerful book, well written and meticulously researched. Worth a read.

In The Fall of Berlin 1945, Antony Beevor tries to depict, as graphically as possible, the atrocious actions of the Russian troops (and the clumsy non-action by their American and British allies) in the eventful taking of Berlin, the symbolic civic center of Nazi Germany.

Overall, I did not like this book: while it is informative and has some good pieces of analytical material, it has a subjective approach and a questionable goal, and uses historical fact only as buttress. (Ann Tusa and John Tusa discuss in more detail the legality of these actions in The Nuremberg Trials). The cinematics also don't work in this prose.

On the positive side, the book is carefully researched, albeit Beevor never references the facts mentioned here and there is a strong negative tone towards the Russians. The material on the background of the (short) siege of Berlin is well-written and informative; among others, it introduces the reader to the material support from the Allies (including the opinion that the Russians would have scarcely been able to attack Berlin, had it not have been for the American Land-Lease trucks, materials, ammunition, etc.). The assault on Berlin is prefaced by descriptions of the precedent battles, which have stranded much of the defense (including some key units, due to the directions of Speer) out of reach of Berlin. The actual battle is described in short slices, sometimes difficult to follow but overall well-made (given the medium). The part on the deaths or attempted escapes of the top Nazi officials is very good, drawing from rich material that has surfaced as late as the mid-1990s (e.g., the death of Bormann). Similarly, the part on the fate of the victorious Russian generals is interesting.

Everywhere there are gory details--nasty but needed for trying to understand this war experience--: we learn about the entering of Russians on the German territory; about the youthful (and heart-breaking) German fighters in the streets of Berlin; about the Panzerjagers (Panzer hunters) on bikes; about queuing (and being killed while in line) for the water pump; about the general destruction; about the rape of Berlin; about the re-education (and other pieces of the horrible fate) of the Russian prisoners of war; about the loss of any illusion of having human rights, under the iron fist of the Russians; etc. This part, however, is heavily based on the war-time and on the later reporting of Vassily Grossman (A Writer at War is on my to-read list), imo without enough or proper citation.

This book abounds in good low-detail analysis, which seems to be Beevor's main strength. There's good material on (mostly Russian) life on the front; on the reason for which Berliners could not just give up (Hitler Youth and SS, and the Russians themselves, shot even at people under the white flag); on re-establishing life basics in a destroyed city; etc. There is an interesting story about German Selbstopfereinsatz ("self-sacrificial mission") -- a precursor of the Japanese kamikaze ("divine wind").

There is some fine analysis about seemingly minute events, but with conceivably much broader implications: the internecine fights among the Russian generals, managed to profit by Stalin but ultimately overwritten by NKVD (Russian version of Gestapo); the political impact of the public announcement, by Roosevelt, of the decision to withdraw US troops from Europe, within 2 years from the end of the war (what a boon for the aggressive Russian behavior, and what multi-decade terror this will bring!); the first Jewish service after reconquering Berlin ("in the synagogue of the Jewish hostpital [...] on Friday 11 May"); the actual date when the war ended (hint: the Russians wanted it to coincide with May 1, then, not succeeding with this, to delay the news for nefarious purposes).

The main issue I have with this book is the coarseness of the theories. This is one of those books that oscillates between historical accuracy and plain fiction, going through temporary stages of subjective analysis. The author misses no chance to call on Russians for committing atrocities; however, perhaps they should be put in international context (although quid pro quo is no excuse, as decided later, during The Nuremberg Trials). Beevor seems mistaken in his analysis of the extraction of German research facilities, including the nuclear research laboratory -- Beevor strongly states that the Russians have had a poor yield out of these extractions (from nail to researcher); instead, it seems to me that Russia got at least a buff to their own research and managed to strip important knowledge from the heart of Europe, not mentioning the control of the important uranium fields of Czechoslovakia.

Another issue is the presence of fantastic stories, not supported with documentary evidence and thus plain unbelievable (even if, possibly or even likely, true): about the NKVD bugging all the rooms at Yalta (where Sir Winston Churchill claimed to have felt truly safe, sic!); about Nazi generals, in charge of defending Berlin, who were learning about Russian advances by calling random phone numbers in different areas (if a Russian voice answered, or there was repeatedly no answer, then the Russians must have conquered that part of the city already); the reverse calls, which the Red Army used as pranks or as a method to intimidate the population; the story about the honor of riding a white horse as the battle victor, which seemingly Stalin left to Zhukov (later to be ostracized) only because he himself has fallen from said horse, a day before; etc.

Yet another issue is the storification of cinematic events, which is not done justice in this prose -- the medium is perhaps not suitable for this type of presentation, as envisioned by Beevor for this book. The prose stumbles into numbers and facts, which are needed for perspective but greatly detract from fluency and atmosphere; the actual battle is fragmented instead of continuous, with effectively breaks any perspective and thus seems to depict an uncoordinated battle in the rubble; etc.

To conclude: a good book, but the mix of history and historical fiction, and the use of cinematics in prose, make this less interesting for this reviewer.

It sits at the top of the human drama, and every so often I have to go back and read about World War II. This book looked like a good chance to revisit old territory.

I was attracted by the book's promise of new accounts and insights to this battle. It turned out that a lot of what people have remarked (tanks and refugee columns, etc.) was stuff already known about: no new perfidious behaviour or atrocities to speak of.

Still, it's not bad. Who, indeed, could write a boring book about the Battle of Berlin? This one contains three sections of photos, many of them pictures I've never seen before.

While the novelty this book adds to the subject isn't breathtaking, it made a couple of points I hadn't seen before. One, the German need to blame others for their victimization was highlighted. The writer also goes into some detail about their justification -- Rommel's, "If the ends don't justify the means, then what does?" This turns out to have been the universal line of reasoning among Germans -- that the measure of morality is whether it succeeds or not.

The book also remarks interestingly on Germany's women, who, when it was all over, had to get the country going with no help whatever from men. It wasn't just the prisoners and the dead, but also the psychological attitude of the surviving German males, that deserted German women once the fighting stopped. It's as if Germany's men were saying, "Okay, we've brought it this far; we're splitting now. You take it from here, babe!"

The writing emphasizes the military aspect of the fall of the German capital too much, in my opinion, with not as much of the human interst side I was expecting. Nevertheless, the subject remains compelling reading even two generations later.

Say what you will about Hitler and the Nazis, but you cant help but feel for the ordinary German people in this poignant end to Germany in WWII. They really did fight to the the bitter end, outnumbered, outgunned with no chance of victory. What would you do in this position? Antony Beevor's ability to reconstruct the helplessness of the situation, from the upper echelons of the leadership to women and children fleeing,gives a stark contrast. The most heroic acts of this battle and yet one of the saddest aspects are the youth who defended the city with bicycles and Panzerfausts, sent into battle against Russian tanks. These kids mustve been 12 to 13 sent into battle against a force hardened by years of battle with no chance of victory. You're descriptively taken right into the midst of the battle, with buildings crumbled by continuous bombing, and the trail of people heading west to escape the Russian beasts who raped an estimated 1 Million German women. Even the elderly women werent safe from the onslaught, when an elderly lady over the age of 80 was raped. And there are numerous accounts of German women who killed themselves to escape such humiliation. Just the utter scope of suffering is astounding, tragedy on such a large scale is a gloom chapter in human history. But, like all stories of human suffering, from the rubble rises a new Germany, with a people united by common misfortune and thats when you see the true spirit of the Germans and the true spirit of human life in general.

If you're looking for a blow-by-blow, crunchy account of the Battle of Berlin, this book is -not- it.

It's no more than a collection of atrocity tales by a credulous scribbler, or perhaps one with an agenda. I invite all the nice people who gave this thing its completely unearned high rating to practice a little scepticism in their reading.