After a fascinating guided walking tour entitled "the last days of the Third Reich" during a recent weekend in Berlin, I felt compelled to re-read Anthony Beevor's "Berlin, the Downfall 1945" which, together with his other masterpiece Stalingrad, are among the finest military histories from World War 2. Taken together and complemented by a viewing of the Bruno Ganz movie " Downfall", these 2 books will provide the student of WW2 history with a great perspective on the unravelling of the Third Reich.

Beevor stands out from other military historians in that he has the cinematic eye of the novelist in addition to his obvious talent as an accomplished military historian. He recounts not only from the top-down military strategy and tactics level, but also from the bottom-up real-life experience accounts of ordinary participants caught up in the great and terrible events, the individual soldiers and civilians.

Another trademark of Beevor's writing is his balanced viewpoint. The wanton destruction and indiscipline of the vengeful Red Army troops and their widespread rape of German women and girls as they swept into East Prussia and approached Berlin is carefully qualified by reference to the equally brutal treatment visited by the Wehrmacht and the SS on the civilian populations of Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Belarus during the Nazi invasion 3 years earlier. What is sown is reaped. Or is it ? For Beevor, things are not so straightforwardly explained by the justification of retribution. The Red army also raped, murdered and doled out shocking treatment to Soviet Citizens and POW's liberated by their invasion of the Reich. Likewise, while the obscene catalogue of Nazi war crimes are well documented, the lesser-known war crimes of the Soviets are brought to the fore, such as the unnecessary sinking of the Wilhem Gustlav in the Baltic Sea, crammed with civilian refugees fleeing the encirclement of East Prussia with the loss of > 7,000 lives, still the worst Maritime disaster in history. Our tour guide in Berlin was very cynical at the point of the tour where we visited the Soviet war memorial to the " heroic" crushing of Fascism and liberation of the German people by the Red army; now I see precisely why. 2 million German women and girls were raped during this campaign of " liberation", something that would put the marauding hoardes from the 30 years' war to shame.

On the human side of the story, Beevor tells many individual tales of defiance, bravery, resistance, kindness and cruelty. He brilliantly builds up the suspense, the harrowing sense of impending catastrophe, the sheer terror at what is about to befall Berlin as the noose draws tighter. One can almost smell the fear of everyone from senior military commanders down to the women terrified at the fate that awaits them, while at the same time the Nazi leadership at best remain in denial of what is about to happen or live in hope of a miracle to save them, at worst adopting the shocking attitude, like Hitler and Goebbels, that the German people deserve to be annihilated because they have proved weak.

As well as expertly sketching out the military order of battle flawlessly in minute detail, Beevor also explores the political strategies, maneuvering and jostling for position among the Western Powers and their Russian Allies. Who seized the deeper long term meaning of events in the heat of the final battle With Nazi Germany and who did not; for the events in the final push for Berlin were crucial to the re-drawing of the European map that would persist for the next 50 years or so and the accompanying Cold War that emerged.

Above all, the scale of Hitler and the Nazis' demented view of the World is mind-boggling. Their sheer evil and the futility of their continued determination to sacrifice every drop of German blood and take the German Nation down to eternal damnation with them can only be articulately described by Beevor but not explained. This was after all the most criminal regime the World has ever known. Beevor though does not hide his utter disdain for Stalin and the brutal Communist regime he presided over, and this shines through in his work. But facts are facts. Although many argue that Stalin was in many ways worse than Hitler ( He certainly killed more of his own countrymen than the Nazis ever did) the difference though was that his was a political rather than a racial genocide, and that his crimes were largely hidden from the view of the outside World. Contrast the fates of Zhukov, the Soviet military hero of the Berlin campaign, with Eisenhower, the superme Allied commander. Eisenhower went on to become President of the United States, while Zhukov was persecuted and languished under house arrest until his death, a victim of Stalin's paranoia and jealousy. Stalin and Hitler both held similar degrees of contempt and suspicion for their military hierarchy.

To stand in the Government district of Berlin by the Budestag today is to stand on the the spot where these terrible events that witnessed the downfall of a regime and a Nation took place 70 years ago. Berlin rose from the ashes and conquered its past by confronting it; the Berlin of today is a prosperous, multicultural liberal beacon of tolerance, democracy and modernity that would have Hitler spinning in his grave if he could see it, standing as it does for the polar opposite values of Nazism. But the ghost of the past is ever present as a warning from history. And Beevor's book is the unsurpassed telling of the final days when the worst of Germany's past met its downfall.

Uff, harter Tobak. Die Geschichte wird hier sehr detailgetreu wiedergegeben, mit vielen Anekdoten und Zitaten belegt, sodass es sehr anschaulich ist zum Lesen. An sich ein gutes Buch, nachdem man erstmal eine Pause braucht.

This is an advanced military history. It discusses the military campaign of the Soviet and Allies drive on Berlin. It also discusses to a large extent the political and social collateral damage of the conquest of Nazi Germany. It is mainstream in its approach, not offering any radical perspective on the Russo-German war in 1944-45. Differently from other histories of the period I’ve read, it contains use of a large number of Soviet sources versus exclusively German. This Soviet POV makes it particularly instructive. I suspect this book is intended to be read as part of the series of books Beevor Does WWII? (I have not read any other of Beevor’s books.) I found the level-of-detail to be uneven. For example, there are a lot of anecdotes about the Soviet soldiers, but few in comparison of the German landsers. The book also makes few concessions to the reader regarding: geography, previous campaigns in the theater of military operations, order-of-battle, and military doctrine. If you already don’t have a deep understanding of the late period Russo-German war in 1944-45, it would be difficult to completely leverage this book.

My copy of this book was a substantial 530-pages. Some sections went quickly and others went slow.

Beevor’s writing was good and very British. His public school background was felt, as I was occasionally sent to the dictionary. Editing was to Penguin’s high standard.

Map usage was good, although I would have appreciated more terrain features to have been included in the larger scaled ones. In addition, I would have liked the maps to appear in the appropriate chapter and not be all found in the front. However, this is a quibble.

“Whoever controls Berlin controls Germany, and whoever controls Germany controls Europe.”
-- Karl Marx

The book handles the strategy and politics of the campaign well, although briefly. The above quote from the book is important to understanding Beevor’s thesis on the importance Stalin gave to capturing Berlin. It’s the key strategic message of the book. I found the lure of German nuclear technology, scientists and fissionables thought to be located in Berlin by the Soviets to be weakly argued. If felt like it was there only because it had to be. Politics cannot be separated from strategy. According to Beevor Churchill and Roosevelt , the remainder of the “Big Three” underestimated the importance of the German capitol. Only Churchill had awareness of the effect of Soviet ‘boots on the ground’ toward the landscape of post-war Europe. The Americans, including the weakened through illness Roosevelt and Eisenhower had a much shorter-term view—“End the War and Go Home”.

Biographies of historical figures in the narrative received a peculiar level-of-detail. Eva Braun received more prose than General Heinz Guderian. Other historical figures in the narrative were adequately thumbnailed. Oddly, minor German figures were better described than major Russians. Note that already being familiar with historical figures will greatly add to the context of the narrative. In addition, there were a lot of anecdotes about: Soviet common soldiers, German soldiers (landsers) and war zone civilians. In places this provided a near popular history feel to the book.

I had the largest problem with the military operational aspects of the book. Despite the amount of prose devoted to military engagements, there is almost no military background. The reader is assumed to already be familiar with the order of battle, table of organization and the combat doctrine of the powers. That's bad. There was a lot of difference between Soviet and German formations. That is, a Soviet Rifle division was not the same as a German Infantry division. Without this background, the descriptions of many issues facing the combatants at all levels loses context. For example, there are quite vivid descriptions of engagements. In one, two German officers take shelter from Russian artillery fire “in an abandoned n  Hetzern tank destroyer”. The book contains no description of the vehicle or the defensive doctrine of its use. Note the Soviet n   T-34n (like all things Soviet) receives more attention.

The organizational behavior of both Nazis and Soviets was well done. The Nazis and Communist dictatorships were in some ways remarkably similar. There is plenty of opportunity to compare and contrast Hitler and Stalin’s conduct at the end of the war. The collapse of the German state under invasion is particularly well described. The rapine and slaughter of civilians by the Soviet armies in Berlin and the eastern German states is described in detail. (I suspect the author may document similar behavior by Germans in Russia in his earlier book Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943?) This includes violence against German women by ill-disciplined Russian soldiers. It’s an important example of the effects and consequences of dehumanizing an opponent.

This book was an advanced history of the Russo-German war in 1944-45. It contained a peculiar level-of-detail. Firstly, it was very Russian-centric. Reading this, through anecdotes I’d know more about the Soviet-era military medication for venereal disease (Streptocide) than late war German tank destroyers and anti-tank doctorine. I thought being Soviet-centered was advantageous, because the majority of histories on the Russo-German War use mostly German sources. However, only a reader with a deep background in mid-20th Century military and diplomatic history could grasp the book in its entirety. The author assumes a lot of reader context, which is likely not there for many readers. For example, the book starts with the Collapse of Army Group Centre described in a single paragraph. On the other hand, there are sections of the book, which can be read ‘stand-alone’ and provide good insight into the non-military aspects of the Russian invasion of Germany in 1944-45. In particular, the book is valuable in describing mid-20th century Russians, the authoritarian Communist state under Stalin and Total War.

When I read about the Eastern Front I have an odd sense that I cannot lose- two of my most hated ideologies, Communists and Nazis, slaughtering one another. But then you read stories about a woman's family members imploring soldiers to stop raping her long enough so she can nurse her baby that would not cease crying from hunger. Reading those stories reminds you of how horrid humans can be. I really enjoyed this book - I gained so much information relating to the last days of the Reich, and the battle of Berlin and it was a compelling listen.

Wow. Just wow.

This is Antony Beevor's best book by far. The kind of awesome he showed us in his book on Spain, Arnhem and then Stalingrad is now doubled and tripled as he writes the book on the ultimate moments of the Third Reich.

The cardinal trait of a good author - he/she makes you care.

In Stalingrad, you were thrown into the awful suffering of the Soviet population. Here, he shows what happened in Germany, and finally in Berlin, and you get the same harrowing feeling of pain and disgust. He doesn't spare any detail, and some of the parts are very hard to read. The systemic and chaotic destruction by the Soviet troops, the lunacy of the Nazi leaders, the fanaticism and hipocrisy, the lurid orgies, the careless disregard for human life.

The book starts with the Soviet liberation of Poland, and then, follows the German army as it falls back to Berlin. It is interesting to see how much resistance there was among the ordinary soldiers to Hitler's whim, and yet, the general still obeyed and obeyed, and contributed to the disaster. But then, the Americans also naively chose to stop their advance, and were oblivious to the fact the Germans would have almost allowed them to walk into Berlin at this point. Stalin is there with his famous political scheming and games, and no one is spared. The tale of what happened with Hitler's burned body is too surreal to put in a fiction movie. No one would find it plausible.

There's just too much to say. Every little detail is a gem. This book is a proper, hard-paced, no-mercy thriller, and just when you think you can pause, breathe - Antony throws in more pain, more misery, more complications, on every side, on every possible level. Superbly complex, superbly precise, and put together like the finest clockwork.

Must read for anyone really - because what happened in Berlin in 1945 shaped Europe for the next sixty or seventy years, perhaps still does.

Igor

Some details were hard to swallow, however I do not regret one bit spending time to read this book. In a war no side is a good side - atrocities and dehumanizing actions are performed from both sides.

The True Horrors of War.

The book that got Sir Antony Beevor banned from Russia. Berlin is an excellent account of the Battle for Berlin and the downfall of Nazi Germany at the end of the Second World War. It opens up thought on the true horror of war and the suffering on all that it touches. This book allows the reader to be dragged away from the glorifying movies that have sprung up over the last 80 years and look reality in the face. I have read many books on the Nazis, WWII and conflict, however this book was still able to shock, upset and surprise me. It left food for thought on a number of occasions as thought about what people must have gone through, from young to old, soldiers to civilians, innocents to guilty and men and women to animals. An entire nation, albeit a twisted and sickening one was destroyed and its population dispersed. The memory and cultural heritage of old Germany was evaporated with it and there are no signs of this ever returning. For this the book is a must read.

Furthermore, as I have mentioned above, Beevor has been banned from Russia as a result. This is because he has told the truth about the red army and criticising it is something illegal in Russia today. The taboo matter is the rape and sexual violence of the Soviet soldiers as they hacked their way through Eastern Europe to the heart of the Third Reich. The cruelty, born out of repression of Stalin’s USSR, knew no bounds. It has been something whispered and nodded about, but never acknowledged or written about until Beevor bravely produced this work. Now he has researchers attend the Russia archives, who pretend they work for other academics. This is why this is a must read. The paranoia of Stalin and the Soviet’s also shine through, the decent, backstabbing and political games against their own generals and western allies are really sobering. One thinks of the obsession to get to Berlin first, acumlate all civilians for Gulag work and the betrayal of Marshall Zhukov over the discovery of Hitler’s charred remains.

Beevor does an excellent job as always of telling the history and leaves little biased opinion in his prose. Again though, with such brilliant and interesting source material only a truly poor scholar would make this a boring book. The book is of course not without its criticisms, the focus on the sensational and horrific aspects of the battle, such as the widespread sexual violence by Soviet soldiers has been deemed by some to be excessive. While these accounts are an essential part of the historical record, their prominence in the narrative may leave some feeling that other aspects of the story, such as the broader military strategy or the political implications of Berlin’s fall, receive less attention.

Despite this, ‘The Fall of Berlin 1945’ remains a masterful work of history. Beevor’s skillful writing and comprehensive research make it both an informative and a deeply moving account of one of World War II’s most significant and tragic events. It is a book that challenges readers to confront the full horror of war, while also offering insights into the human capacity for resilience and survival in the face of unimaginable hardship. For anyone interested in the history of World War II, or the broader study of conflict and its impact on humanity, Beevor’s book is an essential read.

“Дайте ми десет години и няма да познаете Германия.”

Пророчески думи и рядък случай на правота от страна на Фюрера. Както горчиво се шегува пленен немски войник, това е и единственото спазено от Хитлер обещание.

“Падането на Берлин” е всъщност много повече от история за разрухата на един велик град. Битката за Берлин като символ на могъщия Райх е кулминацията на петгодишна касапница. Но преди германската столица да капитулира, Бийвър разказва за постъпателната агония на Източна Прусия, Померания и Силезия – подстъпите към сърцето на Третия Райх, в които Червената армия, започва отмъстително да граби, насилва и руши.

Мнозина, ужасени от нацистките зверства в концлагерите, еврейските гета и вероломното им нападение срещу бившия им съюзник СССР, сигурно биха имали повод за злорадстване в стил “получиха си го”. Дори тези, които очакват да изпитат морално удволетворение от ужаса, сполетял германския народ, ще бъдат сащисани – подробностите за насилията, застигнали мирното население, няма да оставят място за schadenfreude у нормалния читател.

На първо място, Червената армия никак не е подбирала кого насилва – жертви са не само германски жени и момичета, но и новоосвободени рускини и полякини, както и германски комунисти и техните семейства. Съветската параноя гледа на тях с подозрение, защото не са “партизани”, без да подозира, че партизантската борба просто не е в кръвта на немците. По оценки на историци, повече от два милиона са изнасилените жени, самоубийствата в резултат на това – над десет хиляди.

Много и комплексни са причините зад руското отмъщение. Нахлуването на Вермахта през лятото на 1941 г., обсадата на Ленинград, продължила 900 дни, касапницата при Сталинград подготвят почвата за реванш. Към това трябва да прибавим съветската пропаганда, подхранвана и от стиховете на народния трубадур Иля Еренбург, а и чувствата, които войниците изпитват на немска земя - недоумение и завист от стандарта на обикновените германци. Паралелите с условията на живот в родината никак не са в полза на последната.

Затова никак не е чудно, че това, което следва, е ирационално унищожение, което далеч надхвърля целите на войната.

И докато 2,5 милиона червеноармейци настъпват все по-уверено към крайната цел, Борман, Химлер, Гьобелс и Гьоринг се борят над трупа на Третия райх в грозни игри, които трябва да излъчат приемника на Хитлер. Защитата на цивилното население в Източна Прусия, там където я има, е фатално ненавременно. Берлин също е оставен беззащитен. Символ на отчаяната съпротива е Фолкщурм – отчаяна, като се има предвид кои възрастови групи влизат в него, деца и старци, последните - често ветерани от Първата световна война.

Когато не описва сражения, които според мен не са силната част на книгата, Бийвър е страхотен в предаването на атмосферата, в дребните детайли, в дипломатическите игри. Разчитайки, че основните моменти от историята са познати на всеки, Бийвър внася допълнителен мотиви, без които “Падането на Берлин” щеше да е просто изсушена хронология. Ето само няколко примера, които остават трайно в съзнанието:

•tКонференцията в Ялта и простоватата хитрост на Сталин. Рузвелт и Чурчил са колосално надхитрени. Не бях чела по-добро описание за този момент от войната.
•tПоразително е, че дори по това време е имало дезертьори от руска страна, въпреки нулевият шанс за успех на германците.
•tПоследният концерт на Берлинската филхармония, след който членове на Хитлерюгенд раздават от нарочни кошници капсули с цианид на посетителите, та когато дойде моментът...Мнозина се възползват от подаръка.
•tГьобелс чете на глас “История на Фридрих II Пруски” на Хитлер в бункера, за да повдигне духа му.
•tНов лагер, само че роден, съветски, очаква оцелелите от немски плен. Съдбата на Жуков също е показателна за система, която не се свени да се обърне срещу своите, пък били те и национални герои.
•tЗавръщат се и немските комунисти от Москва, повече от готови да служат на старите си нови господари (да ви звучи познато?)
•tНасред бездушната нацистка бюрокрация се открояват двама немски генерали, които впрягат сили да спасят цивилното население – Валтер Венк и Хелмут Вайдлинг.
•tИ нека се помни, че големият герой след падането на Берлин са германските жени – гладни, насилени, останали без дом (1 милион души живеят сред руините през май 1945 г.), те намират сили да разчистят отломките по улиците, да преметат грижливо и да очакват завръщането на съпрузи, братя и синове, които да утешават.

В крайна сметка Сталин печели съзтезанието и слага пръв ръце на Берлин. А голямата ирония е, че обръщайки се срещу болшевиките през лятото на 1941 г., на практика германците поканват болшевизма в сърцето на Европа след края на войната. Разбира се, не по-малко интересно е какво се случва непосредствено след капитулацията. Но, това, както се казва, е друга история.

Книгата проследява движението на Червената армия от началото на 1945 година до влизането й в Берлин и капитулацията на Германия. Почти ден по ден и битка по битка, предвижването от град на град, заедно с издевателствата над цивилните. Трудни неща за четене, поне за мен. Първо ми беше трудно да проследя армиите с техните номера и национална принадлежност, но това е техническата част. По-трудното беше четенето за нещата, които фронтовиките са вършили с цивилните, предимно жени и деца. Не ми се разсъждава за причините, които карат хората да се държат като диви зверове. Наскоро слушах как Ювал Харари обяснява, че човек е сбор от неврони и някои групи неврони не си говорят с други групи. Все едно в едно тяло живеят няколко личности, които не правят връзка помежду си. Този подход може би, донякъде е валидно обяснение. Може би същото важи и за обществата. Като се каже "война", хората виждат красиви и героични войници, които се бият за спасението на света от поредното зно. Но думата "война" не извиква асоциации за откъснати крайници, разсипани по земята черва, тела, премазани от веригата на танк, деца, умрели от глад, кал, мръсотия и разруха. Сякаш едното няма общо с другото. А "война" означава както героизъм, така и безгранично страдание, за което не мога да намеря подходяща дума. Защо искаме това да се повтори, изобщо никога няма да разбера.

Excelentă!

Antony Beevor's work is a wonderful overview of the battle for Berlin.

In the final year of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin wanted the Red Army to occupy Berlin first, and there was a very strong reason for this wish. In May 1942, he had summoned Lavrenty Beria and the leading atomic physicists to his villa. He was furious to have heard through spies that the United States and Britain were working on a uranium bomb. Over the next three years, the Soviet nuclear research programme, soon codenamed Operation Borodino, was dramatically accelerated with detailed research information from the Manhattan Project provided by Communist sympathizers. Beria himself took over supervision of the work and eventually brought Professor Igor Kurchatov’s team of scientists under complete NKVD control. The Soviet programme’s main handicap, however, was a lack of uranium, reveals Beevor. No deposits had been identified yet in the Soviet Union. Therefore, Stalin and Beria’s greatest hope of getting the project moving ahead rapidly lay in seizing German supplies of uranium before the Western Allies got to them.

According to Beevor, there have never been any doubt in the minds of the Nazi leadership that the fight for Berlin would be the climax of the war. "The National Socialists," Goebbels had always insisted, "will either win together in Berlin or die together in Berlin." He also used to paraphrase Karl Marx, declaring that "whoever possesses Berlin possesses Germany." "Stalin, on the other hand, undoubtedly knew the rest of Marx’s quote: ‘And whoever controls Germany, controls Europe,'" adds Beevor.
The American war leaders, however, were clearly unfamiliar with such European sayings. They – at that stage – simply did not view Europe in strategic terms. They had a limited objective: to win the war against Germany quickly, with as few casualties as possible, and then concentrate on Japan. General Dwight Eisenhower – like President Truman, the chiefs of staff, and other senior officials – failed to look ahead and completely misread Stalin’s character, argues Beevor. This exasperated British colleagues and led to the main rift in the western alliance. Some British officers even referred to Eisenhower’s deference to Stalin as "Have a Go, Joe", a call used by London prostitutes when soliciting American soldiers.

On 2 March, Eisenhower signalled to Major General John R. Deane, the US liaison officer in Moscow, "In view of the great progress of the Soviet offensive, is there likely to be any major change in Soviet plans from those explained to Tedder [on 15 January]?" He then asked whether there would be a lull in operations mid-March to mid-May. But Deane found it impossible to obtain any reliable information from General Antonov, the Soviet chief of staff. (And when finally the Soviets did state their intentions, they deliberately misled Eisenhower to conceal their determination to seize Berlin first.)

As Beevor reveals, in the difference of views over strategy, American personalities unavoidably clashed. While General Montgomery, for instance, favored a single, "full-blooded" thrust towards Berlin, Eisenhower suspected that his demands were prompted solely by "prima donna ambitions." He weighted an attack southwards partly because he was convinced that Hitler would withdraw his armies to Bavaria and northwestern Austria for a last-ditch defence of the Alpine Fortress. He conceded later in his memoirs that Berlin was "politically and psychologically important as the symbol of remaining German power", but he believed that "it was not the logical nor the most desirable objective for the forces of the Western Allies". As Beevor explains, Eisenhower justified this decision on the grounds that the Red Army on the Oder was much closer and the logistic effort would have meant holding up his central and southern armies, and his objective of meeting up with the Red Army to "split Germany in two".

Six days earlier, Winston Churchill had hoped that "our armies will advance against little or no opposition and will reach the Elbe, or even Berlin, before the Bear". Now he was thoroughly dismayed. It seemed to him as if Eisenhower was far too concerned with placating Stalin because the Soviet authorities were angry about an accidental shooting of several Soviet aircrafts by American fighters.
Ironically, despite their efforts, it was the Americans who provoked the biggest row with the Soviet Union at this time: when Allen Dulles of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) had been approached by SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff about an armistice in north Italy, the Soviet leadership’s demands to participate in the talks were rejected in case Wolff might break them off. This, asserts Beevor, was a blunder. The Soviet Union was understandably alarmed, and Stalin began to fear a separate peace on the Western Front even more. "His recurrent nightmare," writes the author, "was a revived Wehrmacht supplied by the Americans."
The Soviet dictator also suspected that the huge numbers of Wehrmacht troops surrendering to the Americans and British in the west of Germany revealed not just their fear of becoming prisoners of the Red Army but also a deliberate attempt to open up the Western Front to allow the Americans and British to reach Berlin first. In fact, the reason for such large surrenders at that time was Hitler’s refusal to allow any withdrawal. If he had brought his armies back to defend the Rhine after the Ardennes débâcle, explains Beevor, the Allies would have faced a very hard task. But he did not, and this allowed them to trap so many divisions west of the Rhine. "We owed much to Hitler," Eisenhower commented later.

Meanwhile, Churchill felt strongly that until Stalin’s post-war intentions in central Europe became clearer, the West had to grab "every good card available for bargaining with him". Recent reports of what was happening in Poland, with mass arrests of prominent figures who might not support Soviet rule, strongly suggested that Stalin had no intention of allowing an independent government to develop; Molotov had also become extremely aggressive. The British Prime Minister's earlier confidence based on Stalin’s lack of interference in Greece had now started to disintegrate. He suspected that both he and Roosevelt had been the victims of "a massive confidence trick". As Beevor explains, Churchill still did not seem to realize that Stalin judged others by himself. It would appear that he had acted on the principle that Churchill, after all his comments at Yalta about having to face the House of Commons over the subject of Poland, had simply needed "a bit of democratic gloss to keep any critics quiet until everything was irreversibly settled." Stalin now appeared to be angered by the Prime Minister's renewed complaints over the Soviet Union’s behaviour in Poland.

In any case, Eisenhower's view that Berlin itself was "no longer a particularly important objective" demonstrated, according to Beevor, "an astonishing naivety." Yet, the irony was that Ike's decision to avoid Berlin was almost certainly the right one, albeit for the wrong reasons. For Stalin, the Red Army’s capture of The Third Reich's capital was far too important a matter. "If any forces from the Western Allies had crossed the Elbe and headed for Berlin, they would almost certainly have found themselves warned off by the Soviet air force, and artillery if in range," comments Beevor. Stalin would have had no compunction in condemning the Western Allies and accusing them of criminal "adventurism". While Eisenhower gravely underestimated the importance of Berlin, Churchill, on the other hand, underestimated both Stalin’s determination to secure the city at any price and the genuine moral outrage which would have greeted any western attempt "to seize the Red Army’s prize from under its nose".

At the end of March, the Stavka in Moscow put the finishing touches to the plan for "the Berlin operation". Marshal Zhukov, who was to be responsible for seizing Berlin, shared Stalin’s fears that the Germans would open their front to the British and Americans. His fear only intensified when Stalin showed him a letter from a "foreign well-wisher" tipping off the Soviet leadership about secret negotiations between the Western Allies and the Nazis. While it did explain that the Americans and British had refused the German proposal of a separate peace, the possibility of the Germans opening the route to Berlin still "could not be ruled out". "Well, what have you got to say?’ said Stalin. Not waiting for a reply, he said, " I think Roosevelt won’t violate the Yalta agreement, but as for Churchill… that one’s capable of anything."

Equipped with such notions, Stalin, General Antonov, and Foreign Affairs Commissar Molotov met with the US ambassador, Averell Harriman, and his British counterpart, Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr, on March 31 in Kremlin. Stalin talked about virtually every front except the crucial Oder (along which the Soviet onslaught on Berlin would be launched). He enthusiastically approved of Eisenhower's plan of an attack southwards, commenting that it was a good one "in that it accomplished the most important objective of dividing Germany in half".

However, the very next morning the Soviet dictator received Marshals Zhukov and Konev in his study in Kremlin and showed them a telegram, presumably sent by one of the Red Army liaison officers at SHAEF headquarters. The message claimed that – in fact – General Montgomery would head for Berlin and that General Patton’s Third Army would also divert from its advance towards Leipzig and Dresden to attack Berlin from the south. The Stavka had already heard of the plan to drop parachute divisions on Berlin in the event of a sudden collapse of the Nazi regime. All of this, reasoned Stalin, evidently combined into an Allied plot to seize Berlin first under the pretense of assisting the Red Army. ("One cannot, of course, rule out the possibility that Stalin had the telegram faked to put pressure on both Zhukov and Konev," remarks Beevor.)
"Well, then," Stalin asked the two marshals after the telegram was read. "Who is going to take Berlin: are we or are the Allies?"
"It is we who shall take Berlin,’ Konev replied immediately, "and we will take it before the Allies."
When Stalin asked how Konev intended to accomplish this, the marshal replied that Comrade Stalin "needn't worry". His desire to beat Zhukov to Berlin was unmistakable and Stalin, who liked to engender rivalry among his subordinates, was clearly satisfied.

As Beevor further narrates, soon afterwards General Antonov presented the overall plan; then Konev and Zhukov presented theirs, and the Stavka started working in great haste, fearing that the Allies would be quicker than Soviet troops in taking Berlin.
They had much to coordinate: the operation to capture the city involved 2.5 million men, 41,600 guns and mortars, 6,250 tanks and self-propelled guns and 7,500 aircraft. No doubt, asserts Beevor, Stalin took satisfaction in the fact he was concentrating a far more powerful mechanized force to seize the capital of the Reich than Hitler had deployed to invade the whole of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the Soviet dictator also continued leading his Western Allies by their noses – after the main conference on April 1, he replied to the American supreme commander that his plan "completely coincided" with the plans of the Red Army, and assured his trusting ally that "Berlin has lost its former strategic importance" and that the Soviet command would send only second-rate forces against it. The Red Army, continued he, would be delivering its main blow to the south, to join up with the Western Allies; the advance of the main forces would start approximately in the second half of May, but this plan "may undergo certain alterations, depending on circumstances."
Little did the Allies know what a Berlin operation "the genius commander-in-chief, Comrade Stalin," (as the political department of the 1st Ukrainian Front had called him) had prepared for them... "It was," observes Beevor with a tinge of humor, "the greatest April Fool in modern history."

Every time I pick up a book by Antony Beevor I can't help but be completely astonished by his masterful recreation of dialogues, sketching of portraits of eminent historical figures, and wonderfully detailed descriptions. It is impossible to efficiently summarize "BERLIN: The Downfall" in a single review. While my favorite parts of the book are the ones dealing with the political schemes "at the top" and the battle's logistics, (which is probably obvious from my review), the work doesn't overlook neither the Nazi commanders' point of view, which by this stage of the war could be perfectly summarized by Guderian's reply to Hitler's assurances that the Eastern Front "had never possessed such a strong reserve" ("The Eastern Front is like a house of cards. If the front is broken through at one point all the rest will collapse."), nor the battle for Berlin itself or the suffering of ordinary Berliners, gaunt from short rations and stress and pestered by Allied air raids and Goebbels' propaganda. Beevor spares no horrific details, such as, for example, the mass rape of German women by Soviet soldiers in the Reich's capital. A chapter is even devoted to Hitler's last refuge, the bunker, to Eva Braun, and to Goebbels and his family's suicide; although I've read about this episode more than once, I have to say that none of the authors' I'm familiar with has depicted those scenes as cinematically as Beevor.
A graphically, compellingly written and brilliantly researched book on the Wehrmacht's downfall, the battle for Berlin.

I finished Beevor’s Stalingrad some months ago and Berlin was a natural progression. I don’t need to repeat what so many others have said about his writing ability. It is outstanding. This is a gracefully written, information filled and emotionally charged account of the final destruction of Berlin and the Third Reich. Beevor uses letters, diaries and personal accounts to give a personal perspective of the many horrors of this part of WW2. This makes the whole book compelling.
As I read this account of the attack on the German capital I was intrigued by the personal descriptions that Beevor makes of the main players, the German, Russian and allied politicians and soldiers and how they might have been formidable leaders but they had great individual failings.
I am not sure if it is a valid question as to who was the more evil, Hitler or Stalin? Beevor’s book makes me lean more towards Hitler as he initiated terror, torture and murder to many more innocents outside of his own German population. Stalin’s vent was more towards defeating Hitler and securing his own safety from any challenge.
Nevertheless, they were both finalists in the worst humans of the twentieth century.
As a baby boomer World War 2 and its associated atrocities have been part of my reading, listening and viewing life. This book confirmed much of my knowledge and increased my understanding of many aspects of this historical event. I made my first discovery in my twenties, when I visited the Soviet Union and spoke with Russians who told me of the incredible losses suffered and the crucial role this country played in the defeat of Nazism.
The only time I had a forceful argument with my father was in the late 1970s and on the news was an item about a group of women who wanted to lay a wreath on the Martin Place Cenotaph in remembrance of women who had been raped in war. My father was totally opposed. I had sympathy for the women’s wishes. Beevor demonstrated how correct those women were! Millions of German women were raped by Russian soldiers. After the sieges of Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow it was payback time.
An interesting aspect of the book was wonderment of the Russian soldiers when they saw how Germans lived. They asked themselves, “why, when you have so much do you invade our poor country?” They also realised that the Soviet Union wasn’t the workers paradise that Stalin and the communist party had told them.
The treatment of refugees by both sides was horrendous and there were many millions of them.
As I write this review, we have Australia’s resident boofhead and Defence Minister, Dutton bloviates about war with China. He and any politician seeking military conflict needs to read this publication before sending young men and women off to a conflict.
The cruelty and inhuman behaviour of both sides demonstrated that prejudice and hatred are an integral part of all conflicts. It is promoted by both sides and denied by both sides. One only has to read of the behaviour of some Australian soldiers in Afghanistan and the willingness of some politicians and commentators to deny it.
It is an intellectual and emotional effort to read Antony Beevor’s work but at the end the reader is a different person.