This Book was
authored by A. Stephan Hamilton and published by Helion & Co..
It is Large Format, HB, 410 pages, illustrated.

Bloody Streets
The Soviet Assault on Berlin, April 1945

Content: On 16 April 1945 the Soviet Army launched their fourth largest offensive of WWII with the objective to capture Berlin in five days. The Soviet assault on Berlin initiated the largest urban combat operation in recorded human history and provided a glimpse into the savage asymmetrical warfare faced in modern conflicts. The German defense of the Seelow Heights and the bloody street fighting in Berlin proved more difficult than the Soviets ever imagined. Over the next seventeen days the Soviet Army suffered higher daily losses in men that at Stalingrad, and average daily losses in tanks and aircraft that were higher than at Kursk. Zhukov’s operational planning proved incomplete and rushed from the start. He was under extraordinary pressure from Stalin to capture Berlin before the Western Allies and he also continued to worry about his rival—Koniev—approaching from the south. Koniev’s independent operation to take Berlin arguably saved Zhukov’s poorly executed offensive, but initiated fierce instances of fratricide between opposing Soviet Armies in the city’s ruins. The backbone of Berlin’s defense was the German LVI Panzer Korps, newly formed and under strength. This unit bore the brunt of the Soviet attack along the Seelow Heights by Zhukov’s 5th Shock, 8th Guards, 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies. By pure chance, LVI Panzer Korps now found itself fighting in Berlin’s streets against the combined weight of seven separate Soviet Armies from both Zhukov’s and Koniev’s Fronts. Supporting the LVI Panzer Korps were various formations of the Volkssturm, Hitlerjugend, and Waffen-SS, as well as smaller ad hoc formations of foreign volunteers and locally formed units. The Soviet assault on Berlin precipitated the death of Adolf Hitler, the collapse of the Third Reich, and solidified Soviet dominance over Eastern Europe for the next fifty years. Bloody Streets is a massive new work that uses previously unpublished German, Russian, and American first person accounts, as well as previously unused primary documents and aerial imagery to bring to life the largest urban assault in human history. All aspects of this battle are covered with new insights into how it was planned, shaped, and executed. The book provides a sweeping survey of why Berlin was important to Stalin, and how Berlin was central to Soviet postwar dominance in Eastern Europe. Bloody Streets uniquely presents a day-by-day account of the tactical fighting throughout the city’s ruins in greater detail than previously published. German and Soviet unit actions are presented in over fifty period full page aerial images that present the reader with a street-by-street account of the fighting. German and Soviet units come to life through vivid first person accounts and insightful analysis that are interwoven to provide a complete picture of the brutal urban combat that ensued in the bloody streets of Berlin. Bloody Streets presents the most complete picture of the battle for Berlin published to date.

Item Number: 5159

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