Berlin : the downfall, 1945 / Antony Beevor.

First published by Viking, 2002.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Berlin in the new year -- The 'House of cards' on the Vistula -- Fire and sword and 'noble fury' -- The great winter offensive -- The charge to the Oder -- East and West -- Clearing the rear areas -- Pomerania and the Oder bridgeheads -- Objective Berlin -- The Kamarilla and the general staff -- Preparing the coup de grâce -- Waiting for the onslaught -- Americans on the Elbe -- Eve of battle -- Zhukov on the Reitwein spur -- Seelow and the spree -- The Führer's last birthday -- The flight of the golden pheasants -- The bombarded city -- False hopes -- Fighting in the city -- Fighting in the forest -- The betrayal of the will -- Führerdämmerung -- Reich Chancellery and Reichstag -- The end of the battle -- Vae victis! -- The man on the white horse.

The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. The result was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known, with tanks crushing refugee columns under their tracks, mass rape, pillage and destruction. Hundreds of thousands froze to death or were massacred because Nazi Party chiefs, refusing to face defeat, had forbidden the evacuation of civilians. More than seven million fled the terror. Antony Beevor, using devastating new material from former Soviet files and German, American, British, French and Swedish archives, has reconstructed the story of the nightmare that was the Third Reich's final collapse.