Berlin: The Downfall: 1945 - Softcover

Beevor, Antony

4.29

16,775 ratings by Goodreads

9780141017471: Berlin: The Downfall: 1945

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141017473 ISBN 13: 9780141017471

Publisher: Penguin, 2005

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Paperback. Pub Date :2002-1-1 Pages: 489 Publisher:. Penguin This book could not possibly have been researched without the help of many people I am first of all deeply obliged to the directors and staff in numerous archives: Colonel Shuvashin and the staff of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence (TsAMO) at Podolsk; Dr Natalya Borisovna Volkova and her staff at the Russian State Archive for Litera-ture and the Arts (RGALI); Dr Vladimir Kuzelenkov and Dr Vladimir Korotaev of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA); Professor Kyrill Mikhailovich Andersen and Dr Oleg Vladimirovich Naumov at the Russian State Archive for Social-Political History (RGASPI); Dr Manfred Kehrig. Director of the Bundesarchiv-Militiirarchiv. Freiburg. and Frau Weibl; Dr Rolf- Dieter Mtiller and Hauptmann Luckszat at the MGFA in Potsdam; Professor Dr Eckhart Henning of the Archiv zur Geschich...

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Military history, even at its best, can be a cold art. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that wars involve individuals, each with their own hopes, fears and desires. Berlin: the Downfall, 1945, is Antony Beevor's account of the bloody G�tterd�mmerung that brought the Second World War in Europe to an end, and in which he has fused the large and the small scale effects of war. Beevor paints the broad picture of Marshals Zhukov and Konev, competing for glory and Stalin's attention, as they race their armies towards Berlin. He gives the reader a gripping account of the brutal street-by-street fighting in the German capital and provides an unforgettable portrait of the last, insane days of Hitler and his entourage in the bunker.

His attention to emotional detail is what made his previous book Stalingrad such a magnificent work, combining a sweeping hisorical narrative with a remarkable sensitivity to human drama. Yet he also highlights the small details of ordinary people caught in the nightmare of history--the sick children evacuated at the last minute from a Potsdam hospital; the Soviet soldiers shaving themselves for the first time in weeks so that they would make appropriately presentable conquerors; and the Nazi Youth teenagers peddling their bikes in despairing, last-ditch attacks against the Red Army's tanks.

The story Beevor tells is an almost unremittingly terrible one--one of death, rape, hunger and human misery--but he tells it with both an epic sweep and an alertness to individuality. The result is a masterpiece of narrative history that is as powerful as Stalingrad. --Nick Rennison

Review:

Antony Beevor's remarkable Stalingrad won the Samuel Johnson prize in 1999, along with a slew of other awards. Berlin; The Downfall 1945 depicts the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known when Soviet soldiers reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. It is an unforgettable story of those men, women and children who suffered from a naked exercise of power on a scale that is almost incomprehensible. Accompanied by a major national press campaign and a BBC series that is to air just after publication. Look for this one to do quite as well as its predecessor.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.