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Title: The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor ISBN: 0-14-200280-1 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.49 (85 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Not as Good as Stalingrad
Comment: Anthony Beever's book on Stalingrad is a very, very good study of that campaign, one of the best World War Two books to come out in recent years. Compared to that book, the Fall of Berlin is a disappointment. Beever's book focuses on a number of story lines, all of which could have been books in and of themselves - the military campaign itself, Soviet strategy in the final days of the war, the plight of civilians, and the last days of the Nazi party and its principle players. Because of this, the book seems hurried and superficial. Treatment of the actual military campaign suffered because of this. I found myself constantly wishing the book would go into greater detail.

Still, its a well-written, interesting and informative book. I particulary enjoyed the plight of the German Civilian population. Like many other reviewers, I had never truly grasped the magnitude of the harm inflicted on them by the Red Army. While this is set forth in some detail, Beever does a good job of tying this back into the treatment of the Russian Population by the German Army after the 1941 invasion. I find it interesting that some of the reviewers below are so offended by the depiction of Soviet atrocities. While these do not lessen the horrors committed by the Nazi's, they certainly should be brought to light.

Rating: 4
Summary: Not much good, lots of bad, way too much ugly
Comment: World War II lasted five and a half years in Europe, and many of the participants suffered greatly in the conflict. Ironically, among the worst of the sufferers were the Germans themselves, who after all started the war, and had no objections to the sufferings of civilians as long as they weren't German. This book chronicles the chickens coming home to roost, so to speak, the last gasp of the Nazi regime in Germany, and the sufferings of the German people who were in the path of the Soviet juggernaut that destroyed that Nazi empire.

The author comes in for some criticism from some of the reviewers on this site because he talks candidly about the abuses that Soviet soldiers inflicted on their Germans victims, especially the rapes that occurred as the Red Army marched across eastern Germany. No one argues whether this happened or not, and the statistics are staggering. Millions of German women were raped (and some Jews, and some Russian women who had been deported to Germany as slave labor) and a large number of civilians of all ages and both sexes were killed in various ways. This is all reported in considerable horrific detail, and if there's a lack of balance here it's because the Nazis didn't, by this time, have the chance to inflict any more atrocities on their opponents.

The military half of the campaign is handled reasonably well, though not in as much detail as some (perhaps myself included) would like. Antony Beevor isn't David Glantz, and that cuts both ways. The tactical detail is lacking, but Beevor's prose is perhaps somewhat more readable. I enjoyed this book, or at least feel I gained something from it. I will agree with the criticism that there's nothing new here, though some of the information hasn't been gathered together in a book like this before. So John Toland's book might be comparable, but he didn't have access to the information about the fate of Hitler's body, for instance.

Other than that, this is a serviceable, competent account of the campaign, not particularly enlightening, but a good book nonetheless. I would recommend it.

Rating: 1
Summary: Let the veterans speak
Comment: Before you mindlessly believe a journalist who is primarily out to make money, it is only fair that you let the Soviet veterans also have their say. We have in this book and these reviews a one-sided attack with the accused unable to defend themselves!A disgusting book.
It dehumanizes the army that almost single-handedly saved the world from Nazi oppression. Mr. Beevor's attitude is abhorrent and selfish, and his trumped up charges against the Red Army only serve to confuse and mislead people, supporting an increasingly russophobic mindset in the US and Britain.
Please, don't be closed-minded. Cold War stereotypes have no place in the modern world.
It amuses me that when Russians try to defend their army's conduct with facts, it is seen by many as a "cover up". If a Russian wrote this kind of book about Americans or Britons in the war, wouldn't you be just as outraged?

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