Berlin: The Downfall 1945
{{Short description|Narrative history book by Antony Beevor}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox book
| name = Berlin: The Downfall 1945
| translator =
| image = Berlin - The Downfall 1945.jpg
| author = Antony Beevor
| cover_artist =
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| subject = Battle of Berlin
| genre =
| publisher = Viking Press, Penguin Books
| release_date = 2002
| pages = 501
| isbn = 978-0-14-103239-9
| oclc= 156890868
}}
Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (also known as The Fall of Berlin 1945 in the US) is a narrative history by Antony Beevor of the Battle of Berlin during World War II. It was published by Viking Press in 2002, then later by Penguin Books in 2003. The book achieved both critical and commercial success. It has been a number-one best seller in seven countries apart from Britain, and in the top five in another nine countries. Together this book and Beevor's Stalingrad, first published in 1998, have sold nearly three million copies.{{cite web | url=http://www.literaryfestivals.co.uk/authors/anthonybeever.html#.T3GPotX4LvG | title=Antony Beevor Biography | publisher=Literary Festivals | date=May 31, 2011 | accessdate=March 27, 2012 | archive-date=23 September 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190923190654/http://www.literaryfestivals.co.uk/authors/anthonybeever.html#.T3GPotX4LvG | url-status=dead }}
Contents
The book revisits the events of the Battle of Berlin in 1945 and narrates how the Red Army defeated the Wehrmacht and brought an end to Hitler's Third Reich as well as an end to the war in Europe. The book was accompanied by a BBC Timewatch programme on Beevor's research into the subject.{{Citation|last=Remme|first=Tilman|title=Battle for Berlin|date=2014-03-15|url=https://vimeo.com/89171060|accessdate=2017-12-10}}
Prizes
Beevor received the first Trustees' Award of the Longman-History Today Awards in 2003.{{cite web | url=http://www.historytoday.com/page/awards-winners | title=Awards Winners | publisher=History Today | accessdate=March 27, 2012 | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110916032646/http://www.historytoday.com/page/awards-winners | archivedate=September 16, 2011 }}
Publication notes
The book was published in the United States under the title of The Fall of Berlin 1945, and has been translated into 24 languages. The British paperback version was published by Penguin Books in 2003.
Reception
Scottish newspaper The Herald, after summarizing the novel's warm critical reception in other publications, called it "a gripping narrative which brings vividly to life the confusion, cruelty, courage and madness of the time, illustrated by eye-witness accounts and vignettes from diaries".{{cite news |title=The Reviewers Reviewed: The weekly round-up of critical reaction to the major arts events of the past week|url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11964783.the-reviewers-reviewed-the-weekly-round-up-of-critical-reaction-to-the-major-arts-events-of-the-past-week/|access-date=19 July 2024|work=The Herald|date=28 Nov 2003}}
The book encountered criticism, especially in Russia,{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/25/wruss25.xml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030124205221/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/25/wruss25.xml |url-status=dead |archive-date=24 January 2003 |publisher=Telegraph |date=25 January 2002 |accessdate=4 March 2009 |title=Russians angry at war rape claims |last=Johnson |first=Daniel}} centering on the book's discussion of atrocities committed by the Red Army against German civilians. In particular, the book describes widespread rape of German women and female Soviet forced labourers, both before and after the war. The Russian ambassador to the UK denounced the book as "lies" and "slander against the people who saved the world from Nazism".{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3572273/Lies-and-insinuations.html |publisher=Telegraph |accessdate=10 July 2014 |date=25 January 2002 |title=Lies and insinuations |first=Karasin |last=Grigory |location=London}}
Oleg Rzheshevsky, a professor and the president of the Russian Association of World War II Historians, has stated that Beevor is merely resurrecting the discredited and racist views of Neo-Nazi historians, who depicted Soviet troops as subhuman "Asiatic hordes".{{cite journal |last=Rzheshevsky |first=Oleg A. |script-title=ru:Берлинская операция 1945 г.: дискуссия продолжается |trans-title=The Berlin Operation of 1945: Discussion Continues |journal=Мир истории [World of History] |year=2002 |issue=4 |language=Russian}} He argues that Beevor's use of phrases such as "Berliners remember" and "the experiences of the raped German women" were better suited "for pulp fiction, than scientific research". Rzheshevsky also stated that the Germans could have expected an "avalanche of revenge" after what they did in the Soviet Union, but "that did not happen".{{cite news |last=Summers |first=Chris |title=Red Army rapists exposed |newspaper=BBC News Online |date=29 April 2002 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1939174.stm |accessdate=27 May 2010}}
Beevor responded by stating that he used excerpts from the report of General Tsigankov, the chief of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian Front, as a source. He wrote: "the bulk of the evidence on the subject came from Soviet sources, especially the NKVD reports in GARF (State Archive of the Russian Federation), and a wide range of reliable personal accounts".Cragg quotes Beevor ({{cite interview |last=Beevor |first=Antony |interviewer=Claudia Cragg |date=11 November 2010 |title=Chatting Up A Storm - Remembrance (Veterans') Day II - Professor Antony Beevor, 'D Day - The Battle for Normandy' |work=ChatChat - Claudia Cragg |url=http://ccragg123.libsyn.com/remembrance-veterans-day-two-professor-anthony-beevor-d-day-the-battle-for-normandy-}}). Beevor also stated that he hopes Russian historians will "take a more objective approach to material in their own archives which are at odds to the heroic myth of the Red Army as 'liberators' in 1945".{{cite journal |last=Von Maier |first=Robert |last2=Glantz |first2=David M. |author2-link=David M. Glantz |title=Questions and Answers: Antony Beevor |journal=World War II Quarterly |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=50 |date=1 November 2008 |url=http://www.antonybeevor.com/biography/WWII_Quarterly_(5.1)%5B1%5D.pdf |issn=1559-8012 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324140608/http://www.antonybeevor.com/biography/WWII_Quarterly_%285.1%29%5B1%5D.pdf |archivedate=24 March 2012 }}
UK historian Richard Overy, from the University of Exeter, has criticized Russian reaction to the book and defended Beevor. Overy accused the Russians of refusing to acknowledge Soviet war crimes, "Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors' history".
References
{{Reflist}}
- Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945 - Viking 2002 - {{ISBN|978-0-14-103239-9}}
External links
- {{Official website|https://www.antonybeevor.com/book/berlin-%e2%80%a8the-downfall-1945/}}
Category:Books by Antony Beevor
Category:History books about World War II