New Book Bloody Streets: The Soviet Assault on Berlin

[Stephan H.]

Hi! I recently made a similar post on another site and someone was nice enough to inform me about worldwartwozone.com so I decided to place the post here as well.

My name is Stephan Hamilton and my first historical work will be published in June by Helion & CO. The book is titled, as the post name suggests, Bloody Streets: The Soviet Assault on Berlin, April 1945.

It is my first historical work (I have several others schedule for future publication with Helion) and I believe this book may be of interest to many members here on Feldgrau. I have visited your forum over the years and enjoyed reading many of the threads. I find it now a privilege that I am able to announce this publication to the Feldgrau community.

The book is a massive study of the battle of Berlin. On the strategic level, I view Berlin's fall not only through the prism of WWII's end, but the ensuing Cold War. I argue that Berlin, as a battle, and a historical event is far more important than previously thought; it not only ushered in Soviet post-war dominance of Eastern Europe but also foreshadowed modern urban asymmetrical warfare. I discuss other key strategic factors like what I term Hitler's strategic apathy after Wacht am Rhein, Stalin's almost religious zealousness to capture Berlin before the Western Allies, and what stopped Eisenhower along the Elbe River. In addition I discuss how Guderian and Heinrici conspired to force the Western Allies over the Elbe--and avoid any fighting in Berlin--without Hitler's or the German High Command's knowledge. Yet, these topics only "wrap" the beginning and end on this work.

What the book does is detail the plans and preparations for the Soviet assault on, and German defense of Berlin in more detail than previously published; furthermore I detail tactical actions down to the street level, day-by-day, sector-by-sector. I obtained period aerial imagery of Berlin from February/March 1945 and built over 60 overlays that show both Soviet and German troop movement street-by-street. The imagery is so good; you can see trucks and people of the streets of Berlin. More than half book is taken up by this section.

The book took over 5 years to produce with the bulk of time spent reconciling hundreds of first person accounts of the battle to determine exactly what happened, where it happened, and with what equipment.

I look forward to hearing from anyone interested, and I hope that when the book is published it is well received.

Cheers,
Stephan

[Stephan H.]

I should note that the Cover I posted is still under development by Helion and looks different on Amazon.com.

The other two images are sample detailed operational overview maps that allow you to trace the battle on the aerial imagery as you read through the text.

Cheers,
Stephan

[lufttiger]

Did you, yourself interview people who were there, are did you use records?

[Dallas]

It sounds interesting. Are there any reviews of the book available yet?

[Stephan H.]

To answer questions in both posts:

1) I did not interview any people who were there but I did access and use hundreds of previously unpublished German and Russian interviews and documents. I had so much material, actively seeking veterans out was a "bridge too far" in booth time and resources. I also came across a treasure trove of Soviet (Russian) language material late in the writing but translating it and incorporating it into the book was, again "a bridge too far." Too much research, too little time.

2) No reviews yet because it is schedule to be released in June. The Publisher starts work on final production after Easter. Advance copies may go out to some reviewrs but that's out of my hands at this point.

Thanks for the interest,
Stephan

[Jim O]

The book is available for pre-order at

[lufttiger]

As this book sounds very interesting to me, i wonder how can you tell
fact from fiction?, not being able to interview anyone on this seems to
me to be alot of heresay?

And how did you come by all those documents, were they in some Govt.
archive?

Sorry to be asking so many questions, but it just seems strange to me to write a book based on info that could or not be legit? You mention your
leaving out Russian POV?, or just some of it?

I do apricate the fact of you taking on a huge project, maybe too huge and
too rushed? I don't know as i've never writen a book, and never had the
opertunity to ask these question of a real author, so forgive my ignorance.

[Stephan H.]

Wow! Looks like have my first critic.

I spent 5 years researching the Battle of Berlin. I used every available German primary document I could locate in the BA-MA, and US NA. I intended to write a smaller work striclty lookinging at urban asymetrical tactics, then I hit the "motherload." Tucked away in Athens, Ohio. . .good 'ol USA is probably the singlest largest collection of documents regarding the Batle of Berlin, outside of the Moscow State Archives.

Are you familiar with Cornelius Ryan? He wrote the book The Last Battle--abok about the battle of Berlin that is considered the statndard text on the topic and has been printed in more languages than other book about the battle.

Well, it appears that Ryan amassed thousands of documentys, partiularly interviews from German and Russian participants about the battle that were never--I repeat--never used in his book or by another author. . .that is until now.

In terms of your comment of fact vs fiction, I painstankinly deconstucted evry account I used for the book, cross-referenced with other accounts, and primary documents where I could, and mapped out the unit actions. Then I stepped back and said, is this right? or am I looking at the facts differently than they are? In other words, I tired to make sure that the picture of the Berlin Battle I paint in my book is authentic. Be warned, I expose some interesing facts about the battle and well known individual's actions that run contray to accepted fact.

You'll have to buy the book to find those out : )

Some accounts were outlandish and could not be supported by facts, so I choose not to use them.

In the end, I put together the most detailed account of the battle in print to date. I'll stand by that.

In terms of the point-of-view, I used as much Russian material as I could and that includes some never before used sources and some new accounts.

So I hope this answer's your question!

Stephan

[lufttiger]

I am thirlled that you took the time to try an educate me on how you went
about this, thank you so much. It sounds like you didn't get time to access that archive in USSR?

Does your book mention about the the two last people to see Hitler alive?
I've just read about this where a German Officer and a Doctor had just
finished disposeing of Hitler's body and decided to make a break for it.
One was very famous, but i can't remember his name, anyway they never
knew what became of them until recently when they unearthed their bones.
They did DNA test to confirm them as well, i'll try to find that story.

[Stephan H.]

Researching is the former USSR is not as easy as it sounds, takes time and $$. I would love the opportunity to do so in the future, but after I unearthed the other material I didn't see the need.

Now, I focus the book on the tactical events of the street fighting, day-by-day, so I only mention Hitler and the activity of the Bunker "residents" when they relate to the actually battle. The vast majority of all books about the battle of Berlin focus specifically on the Bunker "residents" so I choose not to rehash those events. I'm more concerned at "peeling the onion" back on the street fighting.

As far as the two individuals you mention, one of them was Bormann. There are two fates told of Bormann. The first is that he was on the back of a King Tiger that was driving north across the Spree during the 1-2 May evening breakout when he was swept off the engine deck by a Panzerfaust fired by a Russian, and the second was that he made it across the Spree but couldn't find a way through Soviet lines so he and his companion took cyanide and died in the street. According to "Der Speigel" his remains were found during construction and verified through DNA in the 1980s I believe, but I'd have to go back and check the sources.

Hope this helps,
Stephan