The Fall of Berlin 1945

Rating:
Summary: A HARROWING ACCOUNT OF A TRAGEDY
Review: This book by Beevor is an interesting account of the aftermath of the fall of Berlin and the soviet occupation that ensued.
With a balanced perspective the author tells a tale many would like to hide under the blanket of the heroic and victorious deeds of the Red Army. It is not the role of the historian to further means of political propaganda, only to record the facts as they occurred. It is surprising that some reviewers criticize the book because it dwells too much with atrocities committed by the soviet soldiers (the good guys) against german civilians (the bad Hitler supporters). In order to rescue values of humanity and fairness such perspective must be abandoned. And if you doubt about the rapes and the suffering of the civilians, please indulge yourself with a personal account of this tragedy: the book by Heidi Scriba Vance titled "Shadows over my Berlin" available in Borders.

Rating:
Summary: Not a history book
Review: The book contains two terrible mistakes.

First of all, the facts Mr. Beevor provides do not constitute a sufficient basis for the conclusions he draws. Even if Soviet Army raped several hundreds of German women, this is, as bad as it is, an incredibly small amount of crime taking into consideration the size of Red Army troops involved into liberation of Berlin. Mr. Beevor does not have any reasonable statistics, so he substitutes missing numbers with several real-life strories multiplyed by his imagination. This is not a scientific approach, but rather an amature one.

Secondly, Mr. Beevor fails to make it clear (deliberately?) that before victorious Red Army entered Germany and later Berlin, it liberated Belorussia, where 25% (twenty five) of population was killed by Nazis, liberated Ukraine where Nazis commited unthinkable crimes against local Slav and Jewish populations. Soviet soldiers liberated city by city, village by village and everywhere they saw death and devastation left behind by Nazis. They spoke to those who survived ocupation, listened to their stories about whole villages being burned down (together with dwellers - sometimes locked in a local church), stories about hundreds of thousands of slaves taken by Nazis to Germany to work for them. So by the time Russians finally entered Germany and liberated concetration camps the desire for revenge was as strong as it could be. It was only strong discipline and high morale of Soviet soldiers that prevented full-scale genocide of German population - the kind Nazis conducted in occupied Soviet territories...

Soviet soldier took a bycicle from a civilian German woman? At least she was not burned alive together with all her relatievs, as the soldier's wife might have been. Mr. Beevor should have made this point very clear, if he wanted to look serious and be read not only by poor sick Rusophobes, but general public as well.

Rating:
Summary: very easy to read, Title matches it's content
Review: It's nice to see for a change a book who's content is accurately represented by it's title. It's also very easy reading in terms of it being not complicated with technical details and the book is well written (although some readers may be horrified by some of the accounts in the book). Although atrocities are featured in this book, this is not the main focus of the book. The main focus of the book is simply that of the fall of Berlin and to try to give the reader an accurate picture as possible within a book as to what it was like during the last few days of the war on the eastern front and Berlin. It describes army movements, what the generals were talking about, as well as the situation of civilians and the army during the last few chaotic months of the war. If the main focus of the book were atrocities, then there are plenty of more documented atrocities (and in more graphic detail) that I found on the web that were not mentioned in this book - including atrocities commited by the Americans. (The book does mention some looting by americans as well as making an argument that americans did not need to rape since they had plenty of cigerettes - which became the currency of Germany when the regeime fell. ).
I don't see this as a book as a book that is specifically negative toward the Russian army since a lot of what happened had to be taken in context (Stalin release over 1 million criminals to fight at the front, and propaganda ministers fueled hatred for the Germans by putting dead bodies of Russians along roads, many years of hardship and brutal war can turn many men into animals, etc.). The book does make a case that there were many Russians (notably officers), who treated German civilians with respect. If anything, I would think that this book may make an unintential criticism towards humanity - it is that some humans (not all) are capable of almost anything if given the opportunity, and are not held by accountability. Especially if you've read accounts of atrocities that were commited by all sides of the war (including Americans) from other books as well as the world wide web. The book does mention that many Germans were looting as well during the end of the war as well.
For those poeple that like to look at photographs and maps of army movements, then this book may prove somewhat of a dissapointment. As there are relatively few photographs compared to other books that I've read, and the only maps are provided at the front of the book. This is to say it is not necessary, however. As much of these things can be found in other books.

Rating:
Summary: the dark side of the Noble Fury
Review: The preponderance of space in the Central Armed Forces Museum of Moscow is devoted to the Great Patriotic War. You will see memorials to fire-scorched Byelorussia and Ukraine, bomb-devastated Stalingrad, and famine-besieged Leningrad. You'll see an entire hall dedicated to the Holocaust, with grisly displays of Nazi barbarism, including products made from the bodies of concentration-camp victims. You'll see photos of emaciated Jews as well as Czechs, Bulgarians, and Hungarians showering flowers and kisses on Red Army tanks and troops. You'll see tributes to American Lend-Lease convoys, and snapshots of Western and Soviet Allies embracing on the Elbe. Your guide will tell you how only in recent years can the truth be told about the paranoid cruelty of Stalin, Beria, and the NKVD toward "liberated" Europe and the Soviet people. But while documenting the suffering and sacrifices of the USSR, there is little mention, even today, of crimes committed by Red Army occupiers of Berlin.
I disagree with the detractors of Antony Beevor that in addressing these atrocities his book negates the heroism of the Soviet soldier. On every page, the author emphasizes the appalling conditions in which the Red Army had to wrest its victory, and the terrible cost in Soviet lives. Under-nourished, under-supplied, poorly-trained soldiers were motivated not only by the brutality of SMERSH and NKVD forces. Their "Noble Fury" was incited not only by relentless propaganda from Political Instructors or incendiary front-line correspondents such as the popular Ilya Ehrenburg. Every Soviet family had suffered personal loss during the German invasion and occupation, and every soldier was driven by hatred of the Fascist Beast.
It is the mass rape perpetrated by the Red Army which comprises the controversy of Beevor's book. But Beevor is hardly the first to document that atrocity. It was early exploited for pulp-novels such as James Burke's luridly-titled "The Big Rape." And it has not been ignored by historians. Neither Cornelius Ryan in "The Last Battle" nor Andrew Tully in his Soviet-sympathetic "Berlin: Story of a Battle" flinch from describing the orgy of looting and rape which often followed the most desperate fighting and hard-won victories. Only Beevor makes the effort to analyze (although never justify) the reasons for this conduct. As he reiterates, many Soviet frontoviki comported themselves "with utmost correctness", and the ones who partook in debauchery were emboldened to do so only after much imbibing of alcohol. Beevor delves into the still-prevailing rape psychology of conquering armies (indeed, to large groupings of males in general), assigning four distinct phases to the culture of wartime abuse of women. The first phase is vengeful, which accounted for the extreme ferocity toward victims in Prussia and eastern Germany. The second phase is purely sexual, and accounted for the celebratory riot in Berlin. Regarding the time period, Beevor cites the total "unenlightenment" of attitudes about sex, revealed in one Soviet officer's jovial anecdote about the "gratitude" of man-starved grandmothers for soldiers' attentions. And also in a widely repeated quip of Berlin women, trapped in the city enduring Allied air-raids and awaiting the Asiatic Horde, which went: "Better a Russki on the belly than an Ami [American, a reference to B-17 bombs] on the head!" The third phase involves women's "willing" participation, usually in exchange for food or "protection". Feminists nowadays refute any theory of rape being a sexual, as opposed to purely violent, crime. But it should be remembered, up until the 70's, women facing rape -- even gang-rape -- were routinely advised not to resist but to "relax and enjoy it". The fourth phase is prostitution. According to Beevor, by the time Americans entered Berlin, a "cigarette-economy" was in full-swing, and American servicemen "did not have to rape".
While Beevor's sensationalism of Red Army brutality may antagonize Russian readers, he contrastingly portrays honorable Soviets in a positive light. There are numerous mentions of traditional Slavic sentimentality toward children, and the compassion of soldiers who shared their meager rations with refugees and civilians. As one sapper noted: "How should one treat them? Just think of it. They were well off, well fed, had livestock, vegetable gardens, and apple trees. And they invaded us! For this, we should strangle them. I'm sorry for the children. Even though they are Fritz kids." And there are quotes from idealistic Communists distressed by drunken violence and concerned about its effect on the world image of the USSR.
If you read this book, keep in mind the extraordinary circumstances of the War. Beevor is neither anti-Slavic nor anti-German. He is properly condemnatory of Stalin. He is even more unforgiving of the Reich, its coldness toward its own people and utter contempt for non-Aryans. He documents a conflict between two insane despots of two totalitarian regimes, and the horror endured by everyone caught up in it.

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Summary: Hitler Youth Distribute Poison Capsules as Wagner Plays
Review: Beevor's latest offering does not disappoint his "Stalingrad" readers. It views the crumbling Third Reich from the perspective of the major players, following them as they struggle to beat back the invaders (Hitler, Speer, Gobbels, Himmler) or to smash the Nazis (Stalin, Zhukov, Churchill, Einsehower, Patton) in the last few months of the war. The book is a thorough distillation of the unimaginable suffering of the Germans as they get pushed out of France and Belgium after the failure of the Ardennes offensive and as they flee the Soviet steamroller which, like a dark nemesis, seeks to avenge the evil inflicted by the erstwhile conquerors to the Socialist Motherland. The narrative is dispassionate, but the events are so convulsive that not one page goes by without an audible gasp escaping the lips of the reader. While the book does not excuse the Nazis or deny that they got what was coming to them, it does allow the reader to empathise with the terror of ordinary Germans as they fled in crowded trains, on rickety carts, on ships or on foot, across desolated winter landscapes, under constant bombing. For those left behind, life would be very grim indeed. The Fuehrer's "Fortress Directive", designed to tie down Soviet forces on the Eastern Front (the latest one to surrender was Breslau, currently Polish Wroclaw) guaranteed that the Red Army bombed its way street by street as it occupied a city. On the wake of the front line (often well behaved) came stragglers, often linked with Beria's NKVD, who indulged in sacking, burning and gang raping on an epic scale. Even Soviet women released from German bondage were likely to suffer this horrible fate, a fact that even today is not openly discussed in the countries of the former Soviet Union. As the Reich collapses all semblance of reason retreated, and the utter moral void of Nazism came fully into view, represented by Hitler's Nero order, by which he attempted to destroy the Germany that had not proved worthy of him. Only Speer's conspiracy with the military leadership permitted Germany to survive the horrible winter of 1945. The end, when it comes, is not something out of Wagner, as Hitler wanted, but rather a sordid affair, as the SS guards in the Fuehrer-bunker entertain girls whom they have lured with food and drink while Hitler plans his demise, which is announced by the smell of cigarrette smoke coming from the ventilation shafts (Hither forbade smoking in his presence, and hated tobacco smell). It takes someone like Beevor to conjure such apocaliptic scenes on such an epic scale. I enjoyed it very much, but missed some characters, about whom I would have liked to have read a bit, such as Roland Freisler (Hitler's Vishinsky, killed during allied bombings), or Goering (who pops in and out of scene much too quickly). I know the book is about the fall of Berlin rather than that of the Third Reich, but surely Mr Beevor could have indulged his readers a bit more?

Rating:
Summary: An excellent account of the fall of Berlin.
Review: This is a well researched and written account of the fall of Berlin. It fills a void somewhere between Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle" (excellent for the casual historian) and Read and Fisher's "The Fall of Berlin" (a more detailed and lengthy account). It's a good mesh of historical background and personal experiences from the battle. Most of the criticisms I have read about the book seem more motivated by a "Politically Correct" approach to history than by the truth. German atrocities throughout the war are well documented and are not the focus of this book. The Red Army DID(by all accounts save their own) engage in widespread rape and looting in eastern Germany and Berlin. Beevor gives a balanced account - he does not glorify German resistance, Nazism, or the Soviet advance. He simply tells what happened. Rape is a predominant theme in the book, but it was a predominant concern of the German women, and a fact of the war. This is a solid piece of work on one of the greatest human dramas in history. Don't let those with a hidden agenda steer you away from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, excellent historian
Review: I only wanted to write this having seen some of the less than complimentary reviews posted on this website. To one of these - where the writer appears to desire a glittering tribute to the red army - I have to say that Mr Beevor is addressing one of the huge inconsistencies in WW2 history (remember the victors write it) writing where Nazi atrocities are fully aired, but allied ones (albeit they occured on a much smaller scale)are not. You only have to see the reaction of the Russian ambassador in London to appreciate that this book is very worthwhile. Perhaps Mr Beevor should next write about the US firebombing of Tokyo, which I believe killed 0.5mm civilians, and still goes very unremarked.
So, keep the writing going Mr Beevor, and continue to spark debate and controversy - paradoxically the very kinds of interraction both the Soviet and German WW2 dictatorships were united in trying to destroy.

Rating:
Summary: Beevor can (and has) done much better than this...
Review: First of all, if you truly want to know what this author is capable of then I strongly recommend you read his book 'Stalingrad: The Fateful Seige, 1942-1943' instead of 'Berlin 1945'. That said, there were many things I both enjoyed about this book, and there were many subjects left untouched or just brushed upon that needed further explanation.

Unlike his book 'Stalingrad' Beevor never spends too much time on any one individual, thereby not allowing the reader to get an intimate character portrayal of many key figures. The maps are almost an afterthought, and while the book covers the periods of January to May of 1945 almost all the maps pertain to the months of April and May. While he clearly is focused on the Eastern Front and "Army Group Vistula" he spends next to no time explaining what happened that caused such dire consequences as Germany faced in 1945. The book spent no time at all revelaing the ultimate fate of any of these key players, whether they perished in captivity, won their freedom or escaped across the Elbe and the relative paradise of the Western Allies. And the book generally followed a predictable course, with the Volksturm, Wehrmacht and Hitler Youth only fighting to escape either capture from the Red Army or a hanging at the hands of the SS or Feldgendarmie. The Red Army, on the other hand, were bent solely on rape, pillage, wanton destruction and random execution. While I realize this is certainly true and often characteristic of the Ostfront, Beevor shed no light on the brave and selfless actions of so many, both Soviet or German. This book contains no heroes.

However, as usual, Beevor paints a graphic portrait of human suffering, and this book, unlike so many others, spends a good deal of time on the civilian population. The hardships were hard to comprehend. The suffering (often taken in stride and with dark humor by German civilians) was brutal, depressing, and savage. If nothing else one can come away with a better understanding of the carnage suffered by all. The largest migration in world history was due to the advance of the Red Army. The Nazi leadership, unwilling to admit defeat, arrogantly called for "fighting to the last man" and "no retreat of civilians" until it was often too late. The Gauletiers in charge of each town would then slip away, leaving the civilians to suffer the wrath of the Red Army. This is explored in depth. As was the Soviet practice of whipping their soldiers into a hysterical, alchohol induced frenzy of revenge. The Red Army was a band of ruthless rapists on the prowl, and everyone knew not to move until morning, when the soldiers were sleeping off their drunkeness. It was often to no avail. To this day the former Soviet Union would never admit their wanton cruelty and wretchedly excessive use of force. The scale of this brutality is staggering.

Unfortunately, the many hundreds of thousands who died so that others had a chance to escape out of this cauldron were never recognized. A great disservice to these brave men and women.
Definitely worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Another Materpiece From Beevor
Review: A well-written, general history of the Allied invasion of Germany in early 1945.

Rating:
Summary: Trash!
Review: This is the worst book I have read on this subject. Can't a single Western historian priase the Soviet Army for its heroism and courage in the face of death? The Russians fought in a war with no equal in its ferocity. Beevor seems obsessed with the fact that all the Soviets did was rape. He never proves this fact with documentation however. The only work that sees the last Soviet offensive as a noble act of destroying Nazism is Davis L Robbins End of War, and he's a writer of fiction...this work is a disrespectful disgrace to the sacrifices of brave men