The advance on Berlin - which was to be the largest battle in history - began at exactly 4am on 16 April, 1945. Along the Oder Neisse front, two and a half million Soviet troops attacked one million Germans. The panic induced in the German civilian population is easy to imagine. Hitler had sworn that Germany would never be invaded, yet now overwhelming Soviet armies were advancing on Berlin. The utterly deranged Hitler ensconced deep in his concrete bunker, could only scream at his military staff. Denouncing the cowardice of the Wehrmacht, he had become convinced that Germany's defeat proved that its people were not worthy of him - that they deserved to die. This book reconstitutes the experience of those millions caught up in the nightmare crescendo of the Third Reich's final defeat - a story encompassing the realities of those who suffered to the end from folly, cruelty and the exercise of naked power. The battle for Berlin is revealed as a terrifying example of fire and sword, pillage, mass rape, and murder.