Beevor's account of the final collapse of Nazi Germany is not great historical writing. The narrative reads as a catalogue of events without the binding literary thread necessary to weave a compelling historical tale. There is little development of the historical figures -- their stories are not fleshed out. You end the book knowing not much more about Zhukov, Guderian, Chiukov or Weidling than when you started. The Fall of Berlin 1945 is weak alongside John Toland's The Last 100 Days despite gr...

(3.5 stars rounded up to 4) William T. Sherman knew what he was talking about in his famous quote on war, and nevermore so than on the Eastern Front in WWII. By 1945 the years of war had bred an intense hatred between two ideologies, which could only end in the destruction of one. In Antony Beevor's book about the final days of the Third Reich, the author gives a somewhat drawn out background to the success as well the final failure of Germany. Hitler's mistakes are well known in the years leadi...

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 Tus...

What a well-researched, well-written book! Despite it being quite lengthy, I read it only in four days because it was so compelling that I couldn’t put it down, and it’s not an easy feat for a historical source to be “compelling.” Another thing that I highly appreciate when it comes to my research sources is I like them to be written in an objective way. “The Fall of Berlin” passed this test with flying colors; Mr. Beevor clearly did his homework researching historical archival material from all...

Soviet soldiers hoist the red flag over the Reichstag in May 1945http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf...The grramazon description is a naff affair, I shall find proper information on a better site:Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (aka The Fall of Berlin 1945 in the US) is a narrative history by Antony Beevor of the Battle of Berlin during World War II. It was published by Viking Press in 2002, then later by Penguin Books in 2003. The book achieved both critical

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 n...

List of IllustrationsMapsGlossaryPreface--Berlin: The Downfall: 1945ReferencesSource NotesSelect BibliographyIndex

In this book Beevor covers in detail the final offensives into Eastern Germany. He does a masterly job of describing the events from the leadership level down to the individuals experience in the final 6 months of the war. For the size of the book Beevor covers an incredible range of topics. He explores not just the military aspects of this period but also the social impacts and changes wrought by the war. He additionally frames the Eastern Front by covering at a high level the progress of the w...

The Fall of Berlin is not going to make the permanent shelf. It took a fair amount of time to get through it and, in the end, it was not a particularly riveting account. Nor was it a well-constructed account. It seemed to jump around with no connecting thread. From the soldier or civilian caught in the battle to the high levels of command, nothing really stands out. Except the Red Army’s revenge, retribution and rape of the German lands and people. That is covered in great detail throughout. Bee...

I think my politics are already pretty transparent so let's dive in with what occupies my mind at the moment. It is frustrating that you cannot compare Trump to Hitler without being dismissed as making an argument that isn't the one you're making. It isn't the simple transitive, Hitler bad, Trump bad, therefore Trump like Hitler. Instead, it's the whole barrel of specific rotten qualities: the thin-skinned self-aggrandizement, the insistence on expertise in impressive-sounding subjects about whi...

When I was writing my novel, Skeletons at the Feast, I read a great many histories about the end of the Second World War in Europe -- and the final collapse of Nazi Germany. I'm currently involved with a possible TV series adaptation of that novel, and so I have been returning to that literature. Anthony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin is one that I missed in 2007. It's brilliantly researched and captures the horror of the winter and spring of 1945 on the Eastern Front: the relentless sacrifice of R...

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 d...

What could I possibly say that I hadn't already alluded to within my previous updates. I read "Stalingrad" in the snow outside on purpose in January of 2009, I read Beevor's "D-Day" in April of 2010 and believe that Stephen Ambrose still holds my attention best on that topic, "Paris After the Liberation" I read in November of 2011 and here on 14 January, 2013 I completed "The Fall of Berlin 1945". I believe that "Stalingrad" was brilliant, but this work on "The Fall of Berlin 1945" was even more...

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 codena...

I am going to have to make some space for this one on my favorite’s shelf. This is my second Antony Beevor book and I have to say I’m a Beelevor!!!! This was every bit as entertaining as the Beev’s Stalingrad. One more book like this and I will be ready to proclaim Antoney Beevor the Hornfischer of the land war in Europe!!! More appropriately, Beevor is to WWII history what Justin Bieber is to pop music. In fact, I’m sure if Antoney Beevor came to my town for a book signing, he would be mobbed b...

During World War II, some of the most savage fighting took place between the Germans and the Russians on the Eastern Front. Not only was it a war of ideology between National Socialism and Communism, it was often a war of annihilation as well. This book is a fascinating read about the last days of the Third Reich, with lots of focus on the German and Soviet high commands, as well as the trials and tribulations of the German civilians caught up in the maelstrom of war. If you're looking for a boo...

Somehow I missed doing a review when I read this, ho hum1945. 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 Ma...

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.

Antony Beevor is one of the greatest historians of the second half of the twentieth century. The Nobel Literature Committee has not a awarded the prize to an historian since 1953. The time to award another is long overdue; Beevor would be a very logical choice.Beevor trained at Sandhurst and served for five years in the British army. Despite being admirably trained to write the type of technical history that military academies use to train their students in battle field tactics, Beevor has alway...

The Red Army's invasion of Berlin in January 1945 was one of the most terrifying examples of fire and sword in history. Frenzied by terrible memories of Wehrmacht and SS brutality, the Russians wreaked havoc, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians dead and millions more fleeing westward. Drawing upon newly available material from former Soviet files, as well as from German, American, British, French, and Swedish archives, bestselling author Antony Beevor vividly recounts the experiences of t...