Race for the Reichstag: The 1945 Battle for Berlin

Tony Le Tissier's classic account of the battle for Berlin dispels the myths created by Soviet propaganda and describes in graphic detail the Red Army's final offensive against Nazi Germany - the race for the Reichstag. Among the soldiers of the Red Army, Berlin - and the Reichstag in particular - was seen as the victor's prize. Stalin had promised Berlin to Marshal Zhukov, but the latter's blundering in the preliminary battle forced a dramatic change of plan. Stalin chastened his subordinates, then allowed Marshal Koniev, Zhukov's rival, to launch one of his powerful tank armies at the city. The advancing Soviet forces were confronted by a desperate, inadequate German defence. General Weidling's panzer corps was dragged into the city in a futile attempt to prolong the existence of the Third Reich, whose leaders squabbled and schemed in their underground shelters, a world apart from the reality outside where their subjects suffered and died. Ten days later, after the suicides of Hitler and Goebbels, the survivors had to choose between breakout and surrender.Race for the Reichstag offers a compelling insight into the terrible final days of the Second World War in Europe.During many years working in senior official positions in Berlin Tony Le Tissier accumulated a vast knowledge of the campaign the led up to the fall of the city in 1945. He has researched every aspect of the battle in unprecedented detail and has published a series of outstanding books on the subject - The Battle of Berlin 1945, Farewell to Spandau, Berlin Then and Now, Zhukov at the Oder, Slaughter at Halbe, Berlin Battlefield Guide: Third Reich and Cold War and The Siege of Kustrin 1945: Gateway to Berlin.