For educational purposes
The furious, climatic last battle of Hitler's war, over half a million lives were lost as the Red Army finally crushed the last Nazi citadel.
Deep underground in a bomb-proof bunker under the Reich Chancellery, Hitler commanded his few remaining armies in 1945 in the last battle of the war.
Berlin, a city that had been bombed by four years, decimated by the Red Army artillery and ravaged by uncontrollable fires.
Hidden in shelters and basements, the surviving residents awaited in fear for the end. For twelve days the Russians fought their way through the suburbs towards the center of Berlin.
Although resistance was meaningless, the Germans put up bitter resistance, remnants of the Waffen SS and Hitler Jugend fought to the death until they fell.
The climax of the battle was reached when it came to the capture of the government district and the Reichstag, here violence and bloodshed reached an extent previously unknown in the war.
Even in its death throes, the Third Reich remained a vicious enemy, wiping it out cost hundreds of thousands of more human lives.
Its shameful legacy -- a city divided and the resulting forty-five year Cold War -- would plague generations to come.
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