Berlin: The Downfall, 1945

The advance on Berlin - it 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 this 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. 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. With many a score to settle from the German invasion of Russia in 1941, the battle was one of the most terrifying examples of fire and sword recorded, with mass rape, murder, pillage and destruction. Men, women and children suffered to the end from folly, cruelty and the naked exercise of power on a massive scale.