Berlin: The Downfall 1945

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Antony Beevor

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Pages: 528 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0141017473

Pub: Penguin Books Ltd

Pub date: 2004-09-30

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 25148

Editorial 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 Götterdämmerung 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

Reader Reviews:

The End of Nazism (8/9 people found this helpful)

This is an astounding account about the collapse of a society during the last days of the European theatre of the most cataclysmic war the world has ever seen.

We see it all from the ranting of Hitler as he calls for the plugging of gaps in the German defensive line with non-existent divisions to the orgiastic goings on of the inhabitants of Berlin as they see their doom approaching from the Russian front.

We see children and old men been told to fight to the last soldier even though any General worth his salt would wish to negotiate albeit the Russians had engaged in brutal waves of rapes as they retook territory and were sure to do in Berlin and they certainly did.

One almost has sympathy with the Nazis but one then realises that this regime was so odious that it had to be consumed by fire to stop its re-emergence. One does feel intensely for the Germans who were swept along by patriotic fervour and supported Nazis despite having misgivings.

The whole story is told in fluent narrative by the author who must be the leading modern literary historian in the world at present

A wonderful book (3/3 people found this helpful)

Berlin by Antony Beevor is a wonderful book in the style of his work on Stalingrad. It mixes the personal with the bigger picture and provides a thrilling and very readable book on the final destruction of the Nazi regime.

Gripping and tragic (6/7 people found this helpful)

This is a thoroughly gripping account of the final few months of the Third Reich. It focuses in particular on the advances of the Red Army, which undoubtedly bore the major burden of bringing about the death throes of the Nazi regime, but many of whose members also committed atrocities against the civilian populations of Poland and Germany as they advanced westwards, including the rape of some 2 million women. In short it shows the horror and bestiality of the fighting on the Eastern Front, including the appalling and often unnecessary loss of life on both sides, even when the eventual outcome was assured. As well as the grand sweep of events, Beevor also mentions many small incidents involving individual German civilians or Russian soldiers, thus adding human colour to the grim military and political events. A tremendously dramatic and tragic piece of writing.

Outstanding (10/13 people found this helpful)

Where do I begin with this book? Antony Beevor had me engrossed from the very first page. I noted with interest that one of the printed reviewers in the book likened it to reading it like a novel. It really does run like a story, yet you know in the back of your mind you are being taken to one of the most tragic periods of history in the modern world. Everything about this book is excellent - the maps, the photographs, all combine with Beevor's writing well. It does away nicely with the whole 'USA won the war' theory that many people buy into. Read the casualty lists of both German and Russian, and the numbers of men in the armies involved on the Eastern Front. The numbers pale in comparison to Western figures. Much has been made of the mass rape that occurred as the Red Army closed on Berlin in this book, and I ask, why? Do people want Beevor to just ignore it happened? Much of the information in this book is from a time after the Wall came down, leading to the opening of fascinating Soviet archives. It says a lot that this information is now available. To summarize, a book well worth reading by EVERYONE, wheather interested in military history or not.

You wouldn't want to be there! (3/7 people found this helpful)

This is a great overview of the last days of the European war. The scale is epic and tragic, like the Somme the insanity of it all still defies belief - what made these people go on?

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