Reddit reviews The Fall of Berlin 1945

Read The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Anthony Beevor. Covers most of what you're asking about and a very entertaining read.

Although the first instinct is to blame Cold War era propaganda, based on evidence available, it seems that Soviet troops were responsible for instances of mass rap and other atrocities towards the end of the war. Antony Beevor’s The Fall of Berlin is a great resource for information regarding this. Naturally, the Russians often protest these accusations, not wishing to tarnish their perceived valor during their Great Patriotic War. Often many Soviet veterans will claim that those responsible for the atrocities were the undisciplined lower echelon units who brought up the rear for the elite front line troops.

Before total condemnation is handed down, one very important thing should be remembered; Neither the Americans nor the British had to endure German invasion or occupation. Therefore, their respective troops had less motivation to commit brutal acts of reprisal against the German people. The Russians, on the other hand, suffered immensely when the Germans directly attacked their homeland. No other Allied country (with the Chinese at a close second) sustained as many casualties during the war. The Germans saw the Russians as sub-human, and they were treated brutally. Even when the tide turned and the Germans were being pushed out of Russia, they operated a “scorched earth” policy, destroying anything that could be useful to their enemy as they retreated, including entire towns and villages.

Naturally, when Soviet troops suddenly found themselves in enemy territories, they enacted what, to them, was justified retribution against the many crimes the Germans had inflicted upon them. Added to this was the outrage that Soviet soldiers felt upon witnessing the relatively comfortable European living conditions (large houses, indoor plumbing and other middle to upper class niceties). Many Soviet troops were simple peasants of very modest means before the war, and were angered as to why the enemy instigated an expansionist war when they lived with such plenty and prosperity, leading to mass lootings. These acts of revenge, as well as the propaganda highlighting the “savagery” of the Soviet “horde,” are why so many German troops preferred surrender to the Western Allies.

It should be noted that not all Soviet troops behaved this way, and some did treat the defeated population with humanity. The Soviet high command did take steps to stop the atrocities, and threatened to shoot any serious offenders. Cases of rape did continued, however, until the end of 1947 when Soviet authorities finally segregated the occupying troops from the local population into guarded military camps and bases.

The Battle for Spain by Anthony Beevor is considered the definitive, modern single volume history of this conflict.

Beevor is renowned for his justifiably famous books Stalingrad, D-Day and The Fall of Berlin.

Read Anthony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin 1945. The whole thing was a god awful mess.

If you're interested, I suggest you go out and read both Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege and Berlin: The Downfall. Really some of the best books on the Eastern Front I've ever read. There's also books like Sniper on the Eastern Front, and also Enemy at the Gates (not the movie, the book, which is superb).

Also, may I suggest Downfall about Hitlers last days in Berlin's Fuhrerbunker told from his secretary's point of view. I found it to be the best movie I had ever seen on the Eastern Front.

Just finished [Fall of Berlin] (http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Berlin-1945-Antony-Beevor/dp/0142002801) which is a great account of that period and talks a little about how kids were forced into service in the final days.

In The Fall of Berlin, Beevor talks some of the grumblings of Germans about the war, complaints about Hitler, the Nazi party, and general war fatigue.

It stands to reason that in the 42-43 period, Germans probably developed some souring on the Nazi's, Hitler, and the War. It's well known that Herman Goering, Luftwaffe Chief said that if the Allies managed to bomb Germany his name was Meir. Well, he was called Meir by many Germans (in Private), by then.

Do we have a definitive Rasmussen or Gallup poll of the German population? No. However other sources indicate that Hitler and the Nazi's were not as widely loved in '43 as they were in '40.

[Hope you like it as much as I did.] (https://i.imgur.com/TFrI6xM.gif) If you do, you will not want to miss his follow-up book : [The Fall Of Berlin] (http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Berlin-1945-Antony-Beevor/dp/0142002801/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418409049&sr=8-2&keywords=the+battle+of+berlin&pebp=1418409052291). Enjoy.

Some of my reccommendations

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Anthony Beevor's books on Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin

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Bernard Fall's Hell in a Very Small Place about the Siege of Dien Bien Phu

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Osprey's book on Infantry Anti Tank Tactics. I thoroughly enjoyed this and gave me some insight into tactis that I can try out in the Combat Mission games.

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Anything by Anthon Beovor.

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

The Fall of Berlin 1945

Antony Beevor's Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945 were superb narrative histories of World War Two in the East. On the American end, the first two volumes of Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy - An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle are great. I think somebody else mentioned The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. Just the first paragraph of that book is worth the price of the paperback.

If you're not into the whole military thing, The Worst Hard Time by Tim Egan covers the dustbowl era in the southern plains. Reads like an epic novel.

All of these suggestions prioritize craft of writing over intellectual rigor. I studied history, so I have a keen appreciation for the value (and the limits) of academic history. These books are not that sort of history, though I don't think any of them get any facts egregiously wrong. It's just that they're remarkable for being well-written - which should appeal to a fiction enthusiast - not for being pathbreaking academic treatments of their subject matter.

> If you truly believe a victory of Wilders will lead to genocide, leave the country, because then we are already lost.

I don't "believe" anything, I merely note what he actually said. Which is the very opposite of "sensationalist nonsense". EDIT: I already left the country some time ago, not least because of the noxious political climate around Wilders. My win, your loss.

> you insist that Wilders is genocidal based on your own emotions about his speech

Again: I don't insist on anything. I can't see into Wilders' dark soul: for all I know he was just tickling the lizard brain of his audience. But I can read exactly what he said.

> Because otherwise Moroccans would mistake your for... a woman, and you would come into contact with their cultural view on women. Which isn't all too nice.

Oh, you know all Moroccans, so you feel qualified to assert that they are all sexist? I'm familiar enough with North African sexism, thank you very much, but I wouldn't generalise my experience with specific people to a whole country on that account, just as I wouldn't generalise my experience with individual racists in the Netherlands to all Dutch people.

You, on the other hand, seem comfortable with sweeping generalisations.

> And this is basically just one big insult, not an argument.

Believe me, if I insulted you, which I'm certainly feeling like doing, you'd know. You're just avoiding a reply.

> If you call people literally "evil" for voting a certain party, that's pretty much synonymous to calling them a "nazi", because no-one who actually uses the word means to invoke political ideology.

Quite frankly, you don't make any fucking sense. I believe that Maoism and Stalinism are evil: does that make them "synonymous" with Nazism?

I believe that PVVers are evil (but not Nazis, never mind "Nazi's"), because I've had a look at that party's platform and I find it is evil. If I'm not allowed to call a party program "evil" because that is "synonymous to calling it Nazi", then we are done discussing politics, thank you very much.

> No, the point is that you can't discuss someone's political views without, in effect, dehumanizing them

Evil, idiocy and misdirection are essentially human. I can hardly "dehumanise" anyone by pointing those out where they occur.

> if you're going to be a grammar Nazi

YOU CALLED ME A NAZI!!!!

> you should know that text between quotation marks is being quoted

Well, where did you quote "Nazi's" from, then?

> You have never heard of the Sack of Berlin?

I've even read Beevor's book, just as I read "The Fire. I even personally know several women who had to flee the advancing Red Army. Again, I don't see your fucking point.

The Fall of Berlin by Antony Beevor is an amazing book.

Also Stalingrad The Fateful Seige by Beevor is great too.

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army 1939 - 1945 by Catherine Merridale
The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Anthony Beevor

A couple that I've read from Antony Beevor:

Stalingrad, and its follow up book The Fall of Berlin 1945. Beevor has also written books on the Ardennes, D-Day, and an all encompassing book on WWII. I have yet to read those but can attest that his two Eastern Front focused books are fantastic

I would also highly recommend The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison Salisbury. Absolutely haunting stuff.

I'm starting to get the sense that you didn't read my first comment. I literally said a very specific two year period before the end of stalingrad.

I then went on to talk about the people who joined the red army in the early war after the shock of operation barbarossa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa


Read the following Books for more information:

Ivan's war

Stalingrad

Leningrad

The Fall of Berlin

I don't know why you keep posting things from after the date range I specified. So many of the men who faugh in the early battles were dead by the time even operation Uranus took place, let alone during invasion of Germany.