
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'RECOUNTS IN HARROWING DETAIL & WITH FORMIDABLE SKILL THE BRUTAL DEATH-THROES OF HITLER'S REICH AT THE HANDS OF THE RAMPAGING RED ARMY' Boyd Tonkin Independent' Makes us feel the chaos & the fear as if every drop of blood was our own compellingly readable deeply researched & beautifully written' Simon Sebag Montefiore Spectator' An irresistibly compelling narrative of events so terrible that they still have the power to provoke wonder & awe' Adam Sisman Observer'A masterpiece' Michael Burleigh Guardian' Brilliant Combines a soldier's understanding of war's realities with a novelist's eye for detail' Orlando Figes Sunday Times' Startling chilling compelling Beevor's writing burns like a torch at night in a landscape of ruins' Literary Review' Powerful diligently researched & beautifully written even better than Stalingrad' Andrew Roberts Mail on Sunday The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945 Political instructors rammed home the message of Wehrmacht & SS brutality The result was the most terrifying example of fire & sword ever known with tanks crushing refugee columns under their tracks mass rape pillage & destruction Hundreds of thousands of women & children froze to death or were massacred because Nazi Party chiefs refusing to face defeat had forbidden the evacuation of civilians Over seven million fled westwards from the terror of the Red Army Antony Beevor reconstructs the experiences of those millions caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse telling a terrible story of pride stupidity fanatacism revenge & savagery but also one of astonishing endurance self-sacrifice & survival against all odds