Download or read book The Last Battle written by Cornelius Ryan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic account of the final offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich. The Battle for Berlin was the culminating struggle of World War II in the European theater, the last offensive against Hitler’s Third Reich, which devastated one of Europe’s historic capitals and marked the final defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also one of the war’s bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come. The Last Battle is Cornelius Ryan’s compelling account of this final battle, a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.” The Last Battle is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

Download or read book Battle of Berlin World War II written by Hourly History and published by Hourly History. This book was released on 2018-12-25 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Battle of Berlin - World War II The Battle of Berlin was a monumental battle between two adversaries who despised one another. For the Russians who had endured the horrific suffering and loss of lives in defending their nation against the Nazi invasion, the opportunity for vengeance seemed as if fate was on their side. For the German civilians who remained in Berlin, the approach of the Red Army invoked terror. The Germans hoped that the Americans would reach them first; they would have preferred to surrender to the Americans. But the Russians were advancing swiftly from the east, and by April of 1945, the Battle of Berlin was underway. Inside you will read about... ✓ From Stalingrad to Berlin ✓ The Battle of the Oder-Neisse ✓ The Russians Enter Berlin ✓ The Last Days of Adolf Hitler ✓ The Rape of Berlin And much more! Hitler died by his own hand on April 30, and the Third Reich was crumbling. The loss of life on both sizes was catastrophic, but the Germans had no way of replacing the defenders of the city, and on May 2, Berlin surrendered to the Soviet forces intent on retaliation. The Russians attempted to provide services and food to the starving Germans, but not all of the Russian soldiers were inspired by compassion or altruism. Looting and rape replaced law in the city, and more than 100,000 women of Berlin were raped by Allied soldiers. By the time the Americans and British arrived, the scars of the Russian occupation were seared upon the memories of the German people. The country and its capital would be divided, and the Soviet presence would remain in the country for decades, a bitter reminder that Adolf Hitler's grand promises of glory had brought Germany to defeat. World War II came to an end in 1945, but for the Germans, their nation became a sacrifice to the Cold War which took its place.

Download or read book Race for the Reichstag written by Tony Le Tissier and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed historian’s classic account of the Battle for Berlin offers unprecedented detail and insight into the final days of WWII in Europe. This authoritative study dispels the myths created by Soviet propaganda and describes the Red Army’s final offensive against Nazi Germany in graphic detail. For the Soviets, Berlin—and the Reichstag in particular—was seen as the ultimate prize. Stalin had initially promised Berlin to Marshal Zhukov. But after Zhukov blundered a preliminary battle, Stalin allowed Marshal Koniev, Zhukov's rival, to launch one of his powerful tank armies at the city. The advancing Soviet forces were confronted by a desperate, inadequate German defense. General Weidling's panzer corps was dragged into the city in a futile attempt to prolong the existence of the Third Reich, whose leaders squabbled and schemed in their underground shelters. Ten days later, after the suicides of Hitler and Goebbels, the survivors had to choose between breakout and surrender. Drawing on a wide range of Soviet sources and unprecedented access to German archival and memoir materials, Race for the Reichstag brings into startling focus the bitter fight for the last patch of soil under Wehrmacht control.

Download or read book The Battle for Berlin Ontario written by W.R. Chadwick and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 1992-11-11 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the events of 1916--a watershed year in the history of the small Canadian town known today as Kitchener, Ontario. The community, founded by German immigrants, was in turmoil over attempts to raise a battalion to support the British war effort, and that turmoil broke down the established order and culminated in the town's name change. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book The German Defense Of Berlin written by Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often written during imprisonment in Allied War camps by former German officers, with their memories of the World War fresh in their minds, The Foreign Military Studies series offers rare glimpses into the Third Reich. In this study Oberst a.D. Wilhem Willemar discusses his recollections of the climatic battle for Berlin from within the Wehrmacht. “No cohesive, over-all plan for the defense of Berlin was ever actually prepared. All that existed was the stubborn determination of Hitler to defend the capital of the Reich. Circumstances were such that he gave no thought to defending the city until it was much too late for any kind of advance planning. Thus the city’s defense was characterized only by a mass of improvisations. These reveal a state of total confusion in which the pressure of the enemy, the organizational chaos on the German side, and the catastrophic shortage of human and material resources for the defense combined with disastrous effect. “The author describes these conditions in a clear, accurate report which I rate very highly. He goes beyond the more narrow concept of planning and offers the first German account of the defense of Berlin to be based upon thorough research. I attach great importance to this study from the standpoint of military history and concur with the military opinions expressed by the author.”-Foreword by Generaloberst a.D. Franz Halder.

Download or read book Berlin written by Antony Beevor and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2007-10-04 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. Political instructors rammed home the message of Wehrmacht and SS brutality. The result was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known, with tanks crushing refugee columns under their tracks, mass rape, pillage and destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred because Nazi Party chiefs, refusing to face defeat, had forbidden the evacuation of civilians. Over seven million fled westwards from the terror of the Red Army. Antony Beevor reconstructs the experiences of those millions caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse, telling a terrible story of pride, stupidity, fanatacism, revenge and savagery, but also one of astonishing endurance, self-sacrifice and survival against all odds.

Download or read book Special Forces Berlin written by James Stejskal and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The previously untold story of a Cold War spy unit, “one of the best examples of applied unconventional warfare in special operations history” (Small Wars Journal). It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two US Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the expected juggernaut, if and when a war began. This plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission—should hostilities commence—was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality, it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each of these one hundred soldiers and their successors was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, and intelligence tradecraft, and were able to act, if necessary, as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin left a legacy of a new type of soldier, expert in unconventional warfare, that was sought after for other deployments, including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the US government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told—by one of their own.

Download or read book Berlin at War written by Roger Moorhouse and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berlin was the nerve-centre of Hitler's Germany - the backdrop for the most lavish ceremonies, it was also the venue for Albert Speer's plans to forge a new 'world metropolis' and the scene of the final climactic bid to defeat Nazism. Yet while our understanding of the Holocaust is well developed, we know little about everyday life in Nazi Germany. In this vivid and important study Roger Moorhouse portrays the German experience of the Second World War, not through an examination of grand politics, but from the viewpoint of the capital's streets and homes.He gives a flavour of life in the capital, raises issues of consent and dissent, morality and authority and, above all, charts the violent humbling of a once-proud metropolis. Shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman History Prize.

Download or read book The Berlin1945 Battlefield Guide written by David McCormack and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-12-17 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A meticulously researched and highly detailed history and location guideInsights into the human face of warPeriod and contemporary photographs bring the history of the battlefield to lifeAn essential guide crammed with useful information and facts for explorers of the Oderfront This guide is specifically tailored towards travellers making the leap from escorted tours to independent battlefield exploration. Along with essential tour information, there are useful tips, hints and suggestions aimed towards making your battlefield journey as stress-free and enjoyable as possible. While some tour professionals and guide authors still favour traditional ‘stands’, author David McCormack has used his own experience of leading tour groups to produce a more accessible guide based around ‘viewpoints’. Therefore, what you have is straight-forward, easy to use guide, and uncluttered by unnecessary maps, diagrams and tables. Each ‘viewpoint’ has easy to follow directions, along with tried and tested satellite navigation instructions to take you direct to the scene of the action. This easy to use guide will prove to be your indispensable tour companion as you begin your exploration of the Oder-Neisse battlefields. Includes an accessible layout and easy to follow tour instructions; circular tours designed for novice battlefield explorers; tried and tested satellite navigation addresses for every ‘viewpoint’; lunch breaks and dining suggestions incorporated into tours; profusely illustrated with period and contemporary photographs; unencumbered by unnecessarily overcomplicated diagrams and maps; and detailed historical sections, which include some remarkable first-hand accounts.

Download or read book Panzers in Berlin 1945 written by Lee Archer and published by In Focus. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 392-page book is lavishly illustrated with 360 mostly unpublished photographs that take the reader from the retreat at Seelow to collecting wrecks from central Berlin. Years of painstaking research and a network of like-minded researchers from across the globe have enabled the authors to piece together the who, where and why, including lists o

Download or read book Berlin in the Cold War written by Thomas Flemming and published by Berlinica. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vividly describing the conflict between the two superpowers--the U.S. and the Soviet Union--as it played out in Berlin, this book highlights the dramatic events that occurred in the divided city that was the frontier town, the spy post, and the battlefield. It was a time in Berlin that touched the whole world: the blockade, the airlift, the uprising of June 1953, the construction of the Wall, and the fall of the Iron Curtain. Stories of escape and espionage are included in this concise but detailed book which describes key points from 1945 up through the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Download or read book The Struggle for Berlin written by Joseph Goebbels and published by Antelope Hill Originals. This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Battle of Berlin written by Martin W. Bowman and published by Air World. This book was released on 2020-05-30 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating look into the aircrews used and the effect on those who had to live through this constant bombing” by the RAF during World War II (UK Historian). Berlin was bombed by four Allied air forces between 1940 and 1945. British bombers alone dropped 45,517 tons of bombs, while the Americans a further 23,000 tons. By 1944, some 1.2 million people, 790,000 of them women and children, about a quarter of Berlin’s population, had been evacuated to rural areas. An effort was made to evacuate all children from Berlin, but this was defeated by parents and many evacuees who soon made their way back to the city. However, by May 1945, 1.7 million people—40% of the population—had fled the city. This fitting tribute to those who died in the relentless struggle to knock Berlin, and hopefully Germany, out of the war resonates with eyewitness accounts and background information which the author has painstakingly investigated and researched. The result is a hugely fascinating and highly readable narrative containing very real and unique observations by British and Commonwealth aircrew and, equally importantly, the long-suffering citizens of Berlin, and well as the capital’s defenders. Though not a defeat in absolute terms, in the operational sense The Battle of Berlin was an offensive that Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and his aircrews could not win. “Berlin won” concluded Sir Ralph Cochrane, the Air Officer Commanding 5 Group RAF Bomber Command. “It was just too tough a nut.” “An impressively informative, deftly written, exceptionally well documented, and expertly organized history . . . a seminal work of original scholarship.” —Midwest Book Review

Download or read book The Battle for Berlin Ontario written by W.R. Chadwick and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2010-10-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 1914, Berlin, Ontario, settled largely by people of German origin, was a thriving, peaceful city. By the spring of 1915 it was a city torn apart by the tensions of war. By September 1916, Berlin had become Kitchener. It began with the need to raise a battalion of 1,100 men to support the British war effort. Meeting with resistance from a peace-loving community and spurred on by the jingoistic nationalism that demanded troops to fight the hated “Hun,” frustrated soldiers began assaulting citizens in the streets and, on one infamous occasion, a Lutheran clergyman in his parsonage. Out of this turmoil arose a movement to rid the city of its German name, and this campaign, together with the recruiting efforts, made 1916 the most turbulent year in Kitchener’s history. This is the story of the men and women involved in these battles, the soldiers, the civic officials, the business leaders, and the innocent bystanders, and how they behaved in the face of conditions they had never before experienced.

Download or read book Battle of Berlin 1943 44 written by Richard Worrall and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout late-1943 into early-1944, an epic struggle raged over the skies of Germany between RAF Bomber Command and the Luftwaffe. This campaign had been undertaken by the Commander-in-Chief Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, and was baptized 'The Battle of Berlin'. The Berlin campaign was a hard, desperate slog. Struggling against dreadful and bitter winter weather, Bomber Command 'went' to Berlin a total of sixteen times, suffering increasingly severe losses throughout the winter of 1943/44 in the face of a revitalized German air-defence. The campaign remains controversial and the jury, even today, is ultimately undecided as to what it realistically achieved. Illustrated throughout with full-colour artwork depicting the enormous scale of the campaign, this is the story of the RAF's much debated attempt to win the war through bombing alone.

Download or read book The Battle of Berlin 1945 written by Tony Le Tissier and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2008-12-08 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Berlin was a conflict of unprecedented scale. The Soviets massed 1,600,000 troops for Operation Berlin, and but Marshal Zhukov's his initial attack floundered and was so costly that he had to revise his plans for taking of the city when Stalin allowed his rival, Marshal Koniev, to intervene. The fight for Berlin thus became a contest for the prize of the Reichstag, fought in the sea of rubble left by Allied aerial bombardments, now reduced further by the mass of Soviet siege artillery. Meanwhile, Hitler and his courtiers sought to continue the struggle in the totally unrealistic atmosphere that prevailed in his bunker, while soldiers and civilians alike suffered and perished unheeded all around them.

Download or read book Tanks in the Battle of Germany 1945 written by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-24 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history and analysis of the German and Soviet tank forces that battled on eastern German soil in the final months of World War II. The final months of World War II on the Eastern Front saw the Wehrmacht fighting with exhausted armoured divisions, albeit now armed with the most advanced and heaviest tanks of the war, to slow the Soviet advance. The Red Army meanwhile was rolling relentlessly westwards, with its own highly developed tank forces now equipped with T34/85s and the huge IS-2 heavy tanks, intent on taking Berlin and as much German territory as possible. This book is a history and analysis of the state of these two mighty armoured forces, as their battles decided the fate of Germany. It covers their initial encounters on the German frontier in 1944 (East Prussia), the fighting of the Oder-Vistula offensive in January 1945 and describes the condition of the German tank forces and their Hungarian allies as they were beaten back. It also considers the huge impact of The Red Army and other significant Allied forces such as those from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania on the outcome of victory in the war.