The Fall of Berlin 1945
Beevor is one of the finest narrative military historians now writing. Like his previous accounts of the siege of Stalingrad and the Crete campaign in 1941, this is a gripping read, rooted in archival research, weaving together all levels of war, from the strategic to the tactical. There is nothing really new in his discoveries about the ferocity and costliness of the fighting, the horrors of rape, or the madness of the Fuhrer in his bunker. But the tale lies in the telling, and there are none better.
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Site of post-WW2 tensions, Berlin now finds itself relegated to the margin of political and economic change across Europe. Even the FRG is showing less and less interest in Berlin's future. Nevertheless, NATO should not ignore it, but include it in a new vision for FRG-GDR relations and the ending of the division of Europe.
On June 29, after almost five months of discussion and preparation, the East German Communist régime denounced an agreement for public debates to be held in both German states between its spokesmen and the leaders of West Germany's opposition Social Democratic Party. The plan for a high-level confrontation, the first of its kind since Germany was partitioned at the end of the Second World War, was the result of an East German initiative. It had aroused intense interest and some exaggerated hopes among Germans on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Franco-GERMAN relations are at once much better and much worse than is generally imagined in the United States. Better, because the frigid atmosphere and tensions of 1964-1965 obscure the solidity of the links forged between France and the Federal Republic. Worse, because these tensions are not solely attributable to General de Gaulle but are the expression of a profound divergence in perspective.
