The Fall of Berlin 1945

Title: The Fall of Berlin 1945 [amazon]
Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 528 (I am, however, only counting 431 of these as “read” pages. There was a huge amount of notes in the back of the book, as well as source information, and then on top of that, a gigantic bibliography. I didn’t read any of this.)
Book Number: 2

Warning: This entry contains some remarks on sexual assault during the war. If such things will upset you, please skip this entry.

This book has been on my list of books to read since I read Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 last year. I thoroughly enjoyed Stalingrad, and so it was natural to want to read the ’sequel’ to it. For those that don’t know, the siege of Stalingrad was one of the major turning points in the Second World War. The Germans went up against the city of Stalingrad and ultimately lost. This then naturally progressed to the assault on Berlin; the tables had turned, literally.

A lot of the realities of war were already familiar to me from reading other World War Two books, particularly Stalingrad. Tanks running out of fuel; civilians suffering terribly as the war progressed, and the creation of bizarre underworld cultures by said suffering civilians; the increasing amount of desertion among German troops as the Red Army advanced. One of the things in The Fall of Berlin 1945 that caught me off guard was the mass reports of rape. According to Beevor, many Red Army soldiers would go out every night once they’d set up camp and find a woman to rape. Many women were raped more than once during the advance towards Berlin, and there were many instances of gang rape as well. That the Red Army was so undisciplined really surprised me. There were eyewitness accounts of Red Army officers coming across a soldier raping a woman, and simply laughing. While some of the rape was chalked up to being revenge on the Germans for what they had done on their advance to Stalingrad, that doesn’t explain it in full: Russian soldiers also raped women in Poland on their way to Germany. I can’t remember if there were large numbers of rape incidents during the German invasion of Russia; I’ll have to check my Stalingrad book and see if it mentions anything.

While I’m familiar with Hitler’s character, it still always shocks me to read about him, particularly as the war neared its end. He seemingly lost all connection with reality. He would jab his finger at war maps, ordering armies that had been destroyed to be deployed here or there; he expected young boys on bicycles, each with two panzerfausts strapped to them, to hold off Russian tank advances; and of course, he preferred the German people to die than to surrender to the Russians.

It was also interesting to read about how all of the top Nazis, the “courageous” ones, decided to proceed once they saw that the end was upon them. Heinrich Himmler attempted to make secret contact with the Western Allies, hoping to come up with a peace deal; he ultimately committed suicide. Hermann Göring also committed suicide, after the Nuremberg trials sentenced him to death. And, perhaps most important of all, Hitler himself, the great leader of the German people, offed himself before the Russians could capture him.

This was a great book, not dry at all, and quite informative. I’d recommend both it and Stalingrad by Beevor.

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?