Product Description

In 1945, two and a half million people were forced out of Germany's most easterly province, East Prussia, and in particular its capital, Königsberg. Their flight was a direct result of Hitler's ill-fated decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941. The horrors of Leningrad and Stalingrad were to be avenged by an army determined not only to invade Germany but to take over its eastern-frontier territories. The Russians launched Operation Bagration in June 1944, to coincide with the D-Day landings. As US and British forces pushed west the Russians liberated Eastern Europe and made their first attacks in the autumn of 1944. Königsberg itself was badly damaged by two British air raids at the end of August 1944, and the main offensive against the city by the Red Army began in January 1945. The depleted and poorly armed German army could do little to hold it back, and by the end of January East Prussia was cut off. The Russians exacted a terrible revenge on the civilian population, who were forced to flee across the freezing Baltic coast in an attempt to escape. On 9 April, the city surrendered to the Russians after a four-day onslaught. Through first-hand accounts as well as archival material, The Fall of Hitler's Fortress City: The Battle for Königsberg, 1945 tells the dramatic story of a place and its people that bore the brunt of Russia's vengeance against the Nazi regime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187493 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
This book is well presented and extremely readable. Denny did an excellent job casting a totally non-military perspective on the fortress of Konigsberg, unlike most WW2 books that focus more so from a military strategy point of view. She presented Konigsberg and its rich history as the cultural gem of East Prussia, and beyond the broken families and the lives lost, a piece of human history was destroyed when the Russian conquerors practically razed the city. Even in the post-war years, Russian authorities deliberately refused to maintain or outright demolish buildings of historical value in order to wipe out Konigsberg, now Kaliningrad, from German memory ... This book is a wonderful source for those looking for the human side of war. Glorious battles and duels of ideologies aside, it is the civilians who truly suffer, and Denny did a great job illustrating it with first-hand accounts. --World War II Database," May 2007

I read The Fall of Hitler s Fortress City: The Battle for Königsberg, 1945 in just two days because I found it so compelling. Isabel s excellent book proves that narrative history doesn t have to be populist, dumbed down or badly-researched. And she pulls no punches when it comes to the sheer bloody horror of what happened to the people of East Prussia once the tables had been turned and the Russians arrived with reprisals for Leningrad and Stalingrad uppermost in their minds --Secondary Education

A superb portrait of a forgotten but vital World War II battle of strategic importance and bestial savagery --Simon Sebag Montefiore

Customer Reviews

Wasted opportunity
I give this book one star because it is one of the few available in English and may serve to stir interest in this subject.

It's title is misleading since the fall of Königsberg is hardly touched upon at all. The brief overview of East Prussian history is interesting. I note that the writer is or was a history teacher according to another reviewer and this is clear from the potted history of the war in the Est which the book could easily do without. Do we really need a rehash of Stalingrad and Kursk when there is no detail of the Soviet offensive into East Prussia in 1945?

I could not find any reference to Otto Lasch's book nor to other works on the campaign. Since Lasch was the Fortress Commander in Königsberg and presided over its fall, I would have expected him to be heavily quoted which is not the case. Equally bizarre is the reliance placed on Guy Sajer's work. This is not the place to discuss whether his book is a novel rather than a memoir but I feel it should be treated a little more sceptically than seems to be the case here.

It is really a pity that a work that offers so much should deliver so little, although the folkloric picture of the area before the war arrives is well done. The definitive work on this subject is still waiting to be written.

A brilliant exposition
I was knocked out by this book. Isabel Denny was my A level history teacher a few years back, and in her classes you could not let your attention slip for a second. Take a look out of the window for half a minute and you missed something crucial. At the end of two hours, I would have terrible writer's cramp: I had to write down almost every word because Isabel Denny had stripped out all the irrelevance, and everything she said was valuable.

There is a point to this nostalgia: 'The Fall of Hitler's Fortress City' is exactly like those classes. There is no spare fat, no paragraphs to skip. In some ways it almost reads like a novel: the story is so well told, and the pace so well-judged that you'll find yourself whizzing through it in no time, and picking up knowledge almost without noticing. And it is never remotely dry!

In fact, it makes fantastic reading. The story is of course harrowing, but Isabel Denny makes the history so riveting - and remains so balanced and impartial - that it is a joy to read. And if, like me, you didn't already know this story, it explains such a lot about the war in the east - and, indeed, the west. You'll keep saying, "Oh! So THAT'S why..."

The other thing that makes it so approachable is the mix of pure textbook history with eyewitness testimony. This clever combination means that although Denny remains scrupulously impartial, the narrative is never unaffecting. She can be dispassionate in the history, but deeply sympathetic to the personal stories: so we are made both to understand, and to care about the suffering on both sides.

If you're an ordinary reader with an interest in history generally - and especially if you're interested in WWII - I'm sure you will love this book.

Highly recommended. Just how history SHOULD be written.

A tragic story told with remarkable impartiality and in beautifully crafted English
A superb book telling the tragic story of the destruction of a mediaeval city and its culture in the last months of the second World War. Isabel Denny manages to tell this appalling tale with a remarkable impartiality and in beautifully crafted English.

In the winter of 1945 Konigsberg stood between the Red Army and Berlin. The German forces were ordered to fight to the last man and the civilian population was not evacuated. In avenging the cruelties of the Nazi campaign in Russia their army fought with no holds barred. Denny describes the misery in both armies and particularly amongst the civilian population during a bitterly cold winter, using first-hand stories from the survivors of this most brutal campaign.

You will not find Konigsberg on the map. After the Red Army had razed it to the ground the city was renamed Kaliningrad and, since 1946, this part of north east Prussia has been part of Russia.