The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the borders of the Reich in January 1945. Political instructors hammered home the brutality of the Wehrmacht and SS. The result was one of the most terrifying displays of fire and sword ever witnessed. Tanks crushed columns of refugees under their tracks, and mass rape, looting, and destruction took place. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were slaughtered because Nazi party leaders, unwilling to accept defeat, prohibited the evacuation of civilians. More than seven million people fled west to escape the terror of the Red Army. Antony Beevor reconstructs the experiences of those millions trapped in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse. He tells a gripping story of pride, stupidity, fanaticism, revenge, and cruelty, but also of astonishing resilience, self-sacrifice, and survival against all odds.