Penguin paperback, 2003
Combat
The Fall of Berlin 1945
Antony Beevor reconstructs the final Soviet advance and the collapse of Nazi Berlin through the experiences of soldiers and civilians. Military decisions meet the human realities of destruction, revenge, flight, and survival.
On This Shelf
The final campaign in the East, and the people caught between a collapsing regime and an advancing army.
World War II: The Eastern FrontISBN 9780142002803
Selected Passages
From The Fall of Berlin 1945
One important lesson is that one should be extremely wary of any generalization concerning the conduct of individuals. Extremes of human suffering and even degradation can bring out the best as well as the worst in human nature.
Goebbels’s propaganda did not simply dehumanize Jews, commissars and the whole Slav people, it made the German people fear and hate them.
Women queued for a handout of butter and dry sausage, while men emerged only to line up for an issue of schnapps. It seemed to be symbolic. Women were concerned with the immediacy of survival while men needed escape from the consequences of their war.