Red Storm on the Reich: The Soviet March on Germany, 1945

by Christopher Duffy

Book Overview

On the night of January 11, 1945, fog, low clouds, and blizzards reduced visibility at times to literally zero along the Sandomierz bridgehead. So the German troops did not notice tanks, assault guns, and towed artillery pieces moving in position by the thousands along the east bank--the Russian side--of the Vistula River. Within seconds after the order to fire was given by the Soviet commander, General Konev, the air became incandescent with unnatural...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306805057
• ISBN13: 9780306805059
• Release Date: March 1993
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

GREAT HISTORY LESSON.

Wow! This book prooves Adolph Hitler was Joseph Stalin's best ally and secret weapon. It prooves Hitler and all the Nazi's were devil's. Hitler not only killed non Germans but he and his Nazi's killed thousands of non Nazi Germans. It also explaines the raping and looting that was encouraged by some of the soviet officer's. World War two was a view into the very pit of HELL itself.

Essential WWII Reading

Ah, what a pleasure to read such a skilled work of narrative-military history. Professor Duffy wrote this after delving into the Soviet records that opened up after the USSR split open, and the book is a delight to read. Duffy takes the emphasis off the drive to Berlin, and turns instead to the totality of the Soviet drive into Germany- the Vistula-Oder operations. The book is incredibly informative and very, very well written. In addition, it has fascinating appendices on matters such as German and Soviet military tactics & structure, as well as brief descriptions on some of the main weapons used by each side. Please trust me on this one, if you are interested in WWII you will love this book.

An indispensable account of the Eastern Front battles

This is a fine and well known book about the operations in the Eastern Front in 1945 which usually remain at the sidelines of World War II histories. The author is a renowned military writer and a specialist on Frederick the Great's campaigns, a fact that served him well in his attempt to recount the terrible and fast-paced battles of the closing months of World War II in the East. The account is evenly balanced between the German and the Soviet side and so is the criticism for the mistakes commited by the two mighty and ruthless opponents. The period covered does not include the capture of Berlin, but this is not so important because the fate of the Third Reich was sealed months before, during the horrible battles of Poland, East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia. However the book suits more the military history fan than the layman, it requires a solid backround on WW II and is not to be read like Anthony Beevor's popular works. Duffy writes in his introduction that ""Red Storm on the Reich" stands as an atrocious book, in the literal sense of theat term. I have limited the story of destruction as far as I could to that of landscape and machines, and I hope that I have given no satisfaction to lovers of the pronography of violence". I think that he has fully achieved his aim. He presents the operations in a crystal clear way, with the aid of numerous and very good maps, and the editing is excellent, leaving only a few typos. I was especially impressed by his bibliography whic I found very useful. It is not particularly extensive but it includes many first hand accounts as well as some rare and authoritative sources on the subject. The Appendix named "The Conduct of War: Soviet Science and German Art" is also an extremely interesting analysis of the technical and operational matters of the campaign.

An excellent account of a neglected period of war

Mr Duffy has provided us with a definitive account of the last stage of the war in Europe. Sadly there appears to be little in the English language literature dealing with the operations of the Red Army to reach Berlin and bring to an end the war. We can count ourselves all the luckier that Mr. Duffy's book is such a gem. He sets out to tell us the operations in a seamless narrative, effortlessly switching between layers of command reaching from a German platoon commander to a Soviet Marshal and into the Fuehrerbunker. After this section, he discusses in detail the operational problems facing both armies. He does so in a very accessible way, providing references to the first section for the specific examples. Mr. Duffy has an impressive amount of sources that he draws on, and the literature list is exhaustive. I came away from this book with a significantly increased respect for the capabilities of the Red Army that my grandfather fought. The operations described in here dwarf the Ardennes battles in every respect, and are a serious reminder as to who won the second world war, and why Europe looked the way it did for 50 years after 1945. A must read.

A Great Way to Teach History

Until the late 80's, knowledge about what happened on the Esatern Front was limited, due to many factors, one of which was the totally stereotypical way in which the Soviet participants and historians retold these tremendous events. In the early 90's, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, historians could, for the first time, access new and heretofore unpublished material. This book represents one of the first of these "new history" texts. It describes in broad brushstrokes the huge operations on the Eastern Front which resulted in the collapse of Germany in 1945. In addition, it gives enough human element that one can begin to imagine the untold suffering of both the anonymous soviet soldiers whose lives were squandered by the millions, and of the Germans, both civilians and military who were brushed aside or crushed impersonnally under the irresistible soviet juggernaut. It gives one a whole new perspective on what happened in early 1945.