Tieke, Wilhelm Between the Oder and the Elbe

The Opening Moves in the Battle For Berlin, 1945

This is the first of two volumes examining the Battle of Berlinspecifically, the final months of the Third Reich and the defense of the city. The work details German attempts to stem the Soviet tide along the Oder River, the Russian advance on the German capital, and Hitlers increasingly desperate and delusional efforts to halt the Red Armys onslaught. Streams of German soldiers and civilians attempted desperately to flee the city before it was completely encircled; their fate, should they be captured by the Russians, was too horrific even to imagine. The narrative interweaves descriptions of the general military situation with numerous personal accounts of small-unit combat. The soldiers' despair, fear, and determination often culminated in acts of admirable braveryas well as in acts of cowardice and brutality. The hope for a last-minute alliance with the Western Powers spurred the Germans to defend themselves to the very limits of human endurance. Ultimately, the failure of such an alliancecombined with the prospect of capture by the Sovietsdrove many soldiers and civilians to suicide. Here, the reader is offered the opportunity to relive the final days of the Third Reich through the eyes of the German soldiers and foreign volunteers who fought in the approaches to Berlin and within the city itself. In one of the many ironies of this war, a unit of French Waffen-SS troops attempted to break *into* the city to defend itat the very moment when German soldiers were attempting to bypass Berlin to the north!