Antony Beevor - Berlin - The Downfall 1945

ARMIES

Sixth SS Panzer, 5, 21, 82, 195

Eleventh SS Panzer, 88, 89

CORPS

III SS Germanische Panzer, 241, 267, 268

V SS Mountain, 225, 228, 241, 242, 260, 270, 329

XI SS Panzer, 225, 229, 246, 247, 260, 270, 329

DIVISIONS

Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, 72, 151, 276, 387

Das Reich , 54

Feldherrnhalle , 71

11th SS Nordland , 241–2, 246, 256, 257, 264, 269, 283, 286, 291, 301, 319, 323, 352, 367, 382

SS Nederland , 241, 397

30. Fanuar , 72, 133, 182, 208, 219, 242, 270

Charlemagne , 116

20th (Estonian), 129

35th SS Police Grenadier, 332

36th SS Grenadier, 334

REGIMENTS AND UNITS

‘Danmark’, 257, 258, 302

‘Norge’, 257, 258, 302

‘Charlemagne’, 291–3, 302, 319, 321–2, 323, 352, 356–7

Latvian Bn, 322

Reichsführer SS guard bn, 294

Heavy Panzer Bn 502, 218, 223, 330

Heavy Panzer Bn 503, 322, 352 ‘Hermann von Salza’ Heavy Panzer Bn, 297, 319, 357

Wagner, Gerd, 218

Wagner, Gauleiter Joseph, 386, 387

Warsaw, 18, 21, 22–3

uprising, 20, 99

ghetto, 23

Wartheland, 22, 63

Wedding, 346

Weidendamm bridge, 382

Weidling, Gen. Helmuth and Oder battle, 225, 228, 229, 237, 242, 245, 246, 256, 259

and defence of Berlin, 267, 269, 286, 287, 291, 292, 301, 304, 320, 358

and breakout plans, 320, 353, 358, 382

and surrender, 386

Weiss, Lt. Col. Rudolf, 351

Weiss, Col. Gen. Walter, 116, 117, 118

Weissensee, 301

Weizsäcker, Dr Gerlag v., 325

Wenck, Gen. Walther, 21, 90, 150, 200, 201, 276, 284, 285, 286, 298, 328, 329, 330, 350, 378, 379, 395, 397, 398

Werwolf , 173–6, 260, 261, 412, 415, 416

Werwolfsender , 261, 285

White, Maj. Gen. Isaac D., 190

Wiesbaden, 203

Wilhelm Gustloff , sinking of, 51, 88

Wilhelmstrasse, 304, 322, 347, 351, 352, 356, 366

Winant, John G., 84

Wittenberge, 202

Wöhlermann, Col. Hans-Oscar, 228, 229, 237, 340

Wolf, Friedrich, 214

Wolf, Koni, 214, 373, 402

Wolf, Markus, 214, 373, 417–18

Wolff, SS-Obergpfh. Karl, 142, 144, 194

Wolfsschanze HQ 6, 7, 96–8

Woltersdorf, 240, 248

Wriezen, 134, 242, 243, 246

Yalta conference, 20, 77–82, 83, 99, 100, 143, 364, 420

Yermakov, Maj. Gen. I. P., 328

Yushchuk, Maj. Gen. I.I., 235–6

Zavenyagin, Gen. Avraami, 324, 325

Zehlendorf, 232

Zerbst, 203, 232, 284

Zhadov, Gen. A. S., 239, 245

Zhukov, Marshal G. K., 15, 16, 18, 21, 26, 44, 63, 64, 65, 87, 88

and Poland, 99

and Pomeranian campaign, 115–16

summoned to Moscow by Stalin, 136–7

and ‘Berlin operation’, 144–5, 146–7, 165, 186, 206

and arrest of Polish leaders, 195

and battle for see low Heights, 216–23, 226, 227, 228, 229–30, 235, 242, 243, 269

and rivalry with Konev, 222, 230, 232, 242, 255, 256, 265, 296, 319

and battle for Berlin, 255, 268, 269, 319, 384

and surrender, 368, 369, 403, 404–5

and death of Hitler, 389, 399, 400, 426, 428

and Red Army discipline, 413

and Stalin, 425, 426, 427, 428

Ziegler, SS-Brigfh. Joachim, 241, 242, 269, 291, 292, 301–2, 366, 382, 383

Zoo flak tower and bunker, 2, 268, 282, 287, 340, 355, 356, 372–3, 384, 391–2, 394

‘The outstanding piece of non-fiction this year. His last book, Stalingrad was, I thought, as good as it gets. But Berlin is even better. If you ever needed reminding of why war is something we should move heaven and earth to avoid, this will do it’.

‘Once you’ve read it, it’ll stay with you forever. What a book!’

‘Beevor tells the savage, gripping story of the fall of the city with brilliance and a humane attention to the impact of an epic battle on fragile, individual lives. His powerful account lays bare the nightmarish sordidness of German fascism, with its back to the wall, buying a few more days at the expense of thousands of lives’.

‘Antony Beevor has become justly celebrated for Stalingrad, and his new book, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, lives up to all his fans’ expectations. Beevor has explored Russian and German sources with his customary industry, to produce a gripping and harrowing narrative of the city’s fall to the Red Army in 1945’.

‘Essential reading’.

‘This is a brilliantly researched book, all the more effective because of Beevor’s spare and unemotional style’.

‘The narrative onslaught of Beevor’s book is tremendous’.

‘An appalling and gripping story’.

‘I read it like a novel… it does make you feel as if you know what it might have been like to be there’.

‘The style contributes to the account itself, a masterful mixture of narrative finesse and scrupulousness towards the facts. In both categories we are witnessing an author at the height of his art’.

‘The best of five exemplary works of history is Beevor’s Berlin. The story has been told many times, but Beevor brings a distinctive combination of gifts to it. Not merely is he a lucid chronicler of military tactics, strategy and maneuvers, but he has a sympathetic eye for the ordinary people who became war’s innocent victims — in this case the uncountable thousands of women who were raped and brutalized by the Red Army as it raced to the prize that was Berlin’.

‘Riveting, magnificent — masterly but shocking. It simply makes [all previous histories] obsolete at a stroke’.

‘Beevor gives an exceptionally clear account of complicated military movements and the reasoning of the commanders responsible for them. But he is also sensitive to the real casualties of war. Boys whose anxious faces disappeared within man-sized helmets; women who managed to feed their babies between multiple gang rapes; and elderly folk who found themselves in the midst of hell because they were loath to leave a family farm or a spouse’s grave. The result is a masterpiece of modern historical writing’.

‘Beevor, a British historian of great distinction and range, once more demonstrates his mastery of his sources, including newly discovered material from Soviet archives’.

‘Quite splendid. Combines a calm and scholarly narrative with an unrelenting moral indignation at what he has uncovered. Berlin stands as a superbly lucid examination of one of the most dreadful battles in world history’.

‘A compelling piece of historical description and assessment, the more important because some of Beevor’s Russian archival sources may not be available in future’.

‘Superlative. The days and events leading to the final collapse of Berlin are recreated vividly and faithfully. It is an education’.

‘Magisterial. This is an epic story, epically told: chilling, insightful, analytical, desperately moving. From the past at its worst, Antony Beevor has fashioned history at its best’.