Summary

The storming of Berlin had been the Red Army's dream of vengeance ever since the German's invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941.

The storming of Berlin had been the Red Army's dream of vengeance ever since the German's invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941. Soviet soldiers had many accounts to settle when they finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. The result was the battle for Berlin; the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known, with mass rape, murder, pillage and destruction. Antony Beevor, using often devastating new material from former Soviet files, as well as from German, American, British, French, and Swedish archives, has reconstructed the experiences of those millions caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse. Berlin - The Downfall 1945 is a terrible story of pride, stupidity, fanaticism, revenge and savagery, yet it is also one of astonishing endurance, self-sacrifice and survival against all odds.