In the final months of the Second World War in 1945, the German Army was in full retreat on both its Western and Eastern Fronts. British and American troops were poised to cross the River Rhine in the west, while in the East the vast Soviet war...
How did top Red Army commanders see the assault on Berlin in 1945 – what was their experience of the last, terrible battle of the Second World War in Europe? Personal accounts by the most famous generals involved – Zhukov, Koniev and...
Operation Berlin, the Soviet offensive launched on 16 April, 1945, by Marshals Zhukov and Koniev, isolated the German Ninth Army and tens of thousands of refugees in the Spreewald ‘pocket’, south-east of Berlin. Stalin ordered its encirclement...
The unexpected arrival of Soviet troops at the end of January 1945 at the ancient fortress and garrison town of Küstrin came as a tremendous shock to the German High Command—the Soviets were now only 50 miles from Berlin itself. The Red Army...
In May 1945, as the triumphant Red Army crushed the last pockets of German resistance in central Berlin, French soldiers fought back. They were the last surviving members of SS Charlemagne, the Waffen SS division made up of French volunteers. They...