The Fall of Berlin - Softcover

Anthony Read

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712606955 ISBN 13: 9780712606950

Publisher: PIMLICO, 2002

Synopsis

From the pomp and glitter of the 1936 Olympics to the apocalyptic battle to capture the ruined capital of the Nazi Empire, The Fall of Berlin presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of one of the world's greatest cities caught between the lunacy and cruelty of its leaders and the brutal determination of encircling Soviet armies. The authors have delved into archival research, diaries, and memoirs, and conducted numerous interviews to recreate through brilliantly detailed vignettes the story of Berlin and its resilient inhabitants: the soldiers and ordinary citizens pounded by Allied bombing but maintaining their gallows humor; the endless procession of refugees; the 5,000 Jews who foiled the Nazi's rabid attempt to "purify" the capital; people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who gave their lives in heroic anti-Nazi resistance while film stars and the well-connected lived in precarious luxury; the Third Reich's leaders jockeying for power in Hitler's underground bunker even as a ragged army of children, invalids, and old men confronted Soviet tanks in the rubble above; and of course, Hitler himself, trapped beneath a city he hated, waiting for the miracle promised him in horoscope readings. Not since Is Paris Burning? has a book so vividly evoked the daily struggle for survival and dignity in the nightmarish center of total war.

About this title

About the Author:

Anthony Read has collaborated on many award-winning books, among them Colonel Z, Kristallnacht, The Deadly Embrace, and Berlin Rising . David Fisher has collaborated on many award-winning books, among them Colonel Z, Kristallnacht, The Deadly Embrace , and Berlin Rising .

From Kirkus Reviews:

A kaleidoscopic portrait of the last days of the Nazi Reich, narrated in the best apocalyptic style by British historian/journalists Read and Fisher (Kristallnacht, 1989, etc.). The bloody final days of the bloodiest European war in history provide a spectacle that, in its stupefyingly tragic depth, could have overwhelmed a Tolstoy--although Read and Fisher manage to hold up pretty well. They set their scene carefully, starting in 1936 with the opening of the Olympic games in Berlin and guiding us along the complex route that led inexorably to the eruption of war three years later. This is preeminently a history of the German capital (rather than of the German nation) during wartime, and, as such, it possesses a clarity of focus that few other accounts of the war have achieved. As Read and Fisher see them, the Berliners as a whole were vastly unenthusiastic about Hitler and his war, suspecting from the start that the Nazis were gambling with their lives. Hitler himself seems to have requited their affections in full: For all of his grandiose dreams of rebuilding the capital into an imperial showplace, the F hrer obviously hated Berlin and (until the end of the war) never stayed there more than a few days at a time. When the Nazi regime finally collapsed, its end was just as Wagnerian as its rhetoric had been, and it is here that Read and Fisher manage best to convey the tenor and shape of the war's intrusion into urban life: the endless procession of refugees; the increasing chaos and lawlessness; the progressive disappearance of basic goods and amenities--and, in the midst of everything, the insane survival of Germanic traits of loyalty and duty, which led thousands to die for a doomed cause they had long since lost faith in. Splendidly researched and admirably constructed, this stands as one of the best accounts yet of the war and its terrible toll. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: PIMLICO
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0712606955
• ISBN 13: 9780712606950
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528