The Fall of Berlin 1945

If you are already somewhat familiar with the major players in the Soviet and German armies in 1945, then you will love this book. For me, it was hard to keep straight which name or unit name was associated with the Soviets and which with the Germans and, obviously, that made it hard to keep up. Last week I read the “anonymous” diary of a German woman in Berlin during that time period and her book was much more interesting to me. This spends most of its time talking about troop movements. It gives lots of detail about the positioning of both armies during the last stages of the war. The most interesting part to me was to see how Stalin was lying to the Americans ... just as Putin is lying to our president-elect today, unfortunately.

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not being footnoted in a manner I find useful but there is a fine bibliography and a section of interviews, diary and unpublished accounts.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 never ending question of man's inhumanity to man and how propaganda can cause appalling events to happen.

As the Red Army crossed into East Prussia and had seen German wealth in comparison to their own homes, towns and cities Senior Lieutenant Klochkov said he could not understand why Germany had attacked them and risked such a prosperous life. Zhukov's divisional commander General Maslov said “What was surprising was that they were crying in exactly the same way as our children cry” as he watched these children weeping for their lost parents. Revenge propaganda had convinced its citizens that all Germans were ravening beasts wrote the author. The same was true of the Nazi's propaganda.

The Nazis use of “soft faced children” in the final battle was an utter indictment on their moribund ideology and latter attempts to blame the Nazis by Wehrmacht officers holds no water with this reviewer. The final toll of rape, as well as the death and destruction, that the eastern front was from the start to the fall of Berlin is not pretty reading in this very competent telling.
Gertraud “Traudl” Junge once said of Nazism after WW2 had ended “...........at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young and that it would have been possible to find things out.” Quite.