Berlin The Downfall, 1945

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. Theresult was the battle for Berlin; the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known, with mass rape, murder, pillage and destruction. Antony Beevor has reconstituted the experience of those millions caught up in the nightmare crescendo ofthe Third Reich's final defeat. BERLIN is the unforgettable story of those men, women and children who suffered to the end from folly, cruelty and the naked exercise of power on a scale that is almost incomprehensible.