Product Description

By mid-April 1945, Hitler's Third Reich was staring into the abyss. Less than 60 miles to the east, the Red Army was poised to seize the German capital. On 16 April, Stalin unleashed his forces, and days later, Berlin was surrounded. The Soviet soldiers fought their way into the devastated German capital, and on the morning of 30 April, the men of MajGen Perevertkin's 79th Rifle Corps began their attack on the Reichstag, the symbolic heart of the Reich. Despite fanatical resistance and close-quarter fighting in every room, that evening the Red Banner was raised over the Reichstag and Berlin; Hitler had committed suicide the same day. Berlin surrendered unconditionally and Germany surrendered to the Allies on 7 May - the war in Europe was at an end.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #285434 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Peter D Anthill has a background in international politics and defence studies, with a BA in International Relations from Staffordshire University and an MSc in Strategic Studies from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. A former Research Assistant in the Department of Defence Management and Security Analysis at Cranfield from 1998 to 2002, Peter is now pursuing a career as a writer. Peter Dennis was born in 1950. Inspired by contemporary magazines such as Look and Learn he studied illustration at Liverpool Art College. Peter has since contributed to hundreds of books, predominantly on historical subjects. He is a keen wargamer and modelmaker.

Customer Reviews

Could be much better
This is a courageous thing to tackle such a great and archicomplexe battle with only one volume of limited size and I think the author and the editor did - with some reserves - the best they could. The color plates are very good and there is three of them - it seems that after a short period of cheap and mean policy Osprey gave us back the one plate, greatly missed in some of the previous volumes.
There is however one very black spot - the big two page maps which are hardly of any help. Actually they are virtually impossible to understand and this is a pity, because the great maps in Osprey Campaign series are usually of great quality. Not this time.
One very strange and disturbing thing can be found in the description of events leading to the battle. Although very limited by the space attributed for this great event the author found the two lines necessary to precise that in August-September 1944 the Soviet Army under orders of Stalin "tried its best to assist the Polish Underground fighting the Germans during the Warsaw Insurection". Or it is widely known that to the contrary Stalin didn't help the Polish insurgents, stopped Polish troops fighting alongside the Soviet Army from helping the Home Army fighting Germans in Warsaw and made obstacle to the Allied aviation trying to drop supplies on Warsaw by forbidding their landing on Soviet airstrips. It is beyond my understanding why the author took a valuable space to place an obvious lie in a book which has NOTHING to do with the Warsaw 1944 tragedy.
The book is also clearly too short - such a climactic event would deserve a two volumes serie, with the first one describing the Oder crossing and the great January 17 offensive of the Soviet Army and the second one the siege and capture of Berlin itself. The editor made a mistake by denying this possibility to the author - this is after all the end of WWII in Europe, the fall of Third Reich, death of Hitler and the beginning of the Cold War. Osprey editors here is a message for You - be more generous when the great history is involved - You made well with the Normandy 1944 series /4 volumes well deserved/ or with the special edition of double size for Gettysburg 1863 - next time try to do the right thing with Berlin 1945 /how about a reprint in two volumes in 5 years?/.
All in all the book is not so bad, especially considering the lack of publications on this topic.

All Diplomas but no knowledge
Berlin 1945 has nothing new or innovative and there is a line of other books that are better (James Lucas).
It's basically just a warm-up of the standard works that are even quoted in the bibliography.
I agree fully with the other review on this book that there are many inaccuracies and the maps are useless. I agree on two volume edition absolutely.
Foremost the book and author fell through for me on page 31 with the sentence: "...it is difficult to understand why Eisenhower suddenly made a complete turnabout and pronounced Berlin as having no significance...".
I goes beyond my understanding how someone who supposedly has a (quote bio!) "background in international politics and defence studies with a BA in International Relations from Staffordshire University and MSc in Strategic Studies and is a former Research Assistant in DoD Management and Security Analysis", can not answer to the reader the key question of the whole campaign and explain a turning point of European history.
It is very obvious why Mr. Antill (quote bio again) "is now pursuing a career as a writer"...he’s in the wrong line of business again.
I hope Osprey doesn't encourage any further Antill books as it's a costly experiment the customer has to pay.

Disappointing
While leaving the question marks of this book's accuracy and analysis to the first two reviewers, my main disappointment was with the style. It's not just the maps that are hard to follow, but the narrative as well, at times. This may partly because it is simply not very well written, and I thus found it quite a dull read.
Reading Amazon reviewers on Osprey books you can see that the quality of their titles is very variable, which raises questions about the editorial policy.
The best thing about this book is the superbly symbolic photo on the front cover.