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.
About the Author
Bestselling British historian Antony Beevor was born on December 14, 1946. He was educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst and studied under the well-known World War Two historian, John Keegan. Beevor was an officer with the 11th Hussars for five years before becoming a writer. His works have received awards including the Runciman Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History, and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. The French government made him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1997, and in 2008 the president of Estonia awarded him the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana. In 1999 Beevor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is a visiting professor at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London.