Prussian Apocalypse: The Fall of Danzig, 1945

by Egbert Kieser, Tony Le Tissier (Translator)

Overview

Egbert Kieser’s graphic account of the Red Army’s assault on East Prussia in 1945 is one of the classic histories of the destruction of Hitler’s Germany, and it has never before been available in English. Using extensive, firsthand, unforgettable eyewitness testimony, he documents in riveting detail the catastrophe that overtook German civilians and soldiers as they fled from the Soviet onslaught and their world collapsed around them.

Tony Le Tissier, in this fluent and vivid translation of the original German text, brings to bear all his expert knowledge of the military defeat of the German armies in the East and the enormity of the human disaster that went with it. Egbert Kieser was born in 1928 in Bad Salzungen, Thüringen and studied philosophy and the history of art at Heidelberg University. He worked as a freelance journalist, writer and editor. Among his many publications are two outstanding studies of German Second World War history – Danziger Bucht 1945 (which is translated here as Prussian Apocalypse) and Operation Sea Lion: The German Plan to Invade Britain, 1940.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783461202
Publisher:	Pen & Sword Books Limited
Publication date:	01/31/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

During many years working in several senior official positions in Berlin - including spells as provost marshal and British governor of Spandau prison - Tony Le Tissier has accumulated a vast knowledge of the campaign the led up to the fall of Berlin. He has researched every aspect of the 1945 battle for the city in unprecedented detail and has published a series of outstanding books on the subject, inlcuding The Battle of Berlin 1945, Farewell to Spandau, Berlin Then and Now, Zhukov at the Oder, Slaughter at Halbe, The Third Reich Then and Now, With Our Backs to Berlin, Death Was Our Companion, Berlin Battlefield Guide: Third Reich and Cold War and The Siege of Küstrin 1945: Gateway to Berlin.

Table of Contents

Introduction Tony Le Tissier vii

Preface viii

Maps x

1 The Eastern Front 1

2 Precipitate Flight 8

3 The Last Trains 22

4 The Fall of Elbing 31

5 The German 4th Army's Breakout 41

6 Over the Ice of the Frisches Haff 56

7 The Road along the Spit 70

8 The Pillau Exit 75

9 Flight from Königsberg 87

10 The Soviet Invasion of the Samland 96

11 The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff 105

12 The Sinking of the General von Steuben 115

13 Westwards over the Vistula 123

14 From Pillau to Gotenhafen 128

15 Danzig cut off 139

16 Chaos at the Mouth of the Vistula 156

17 From Hela to the West 164

18 The Fall of Königsberg 176

19 The Soviets occupy the Samland 182

20 The End of Pillau 192

21 The End at the Vistula and Hela 206

Sources 220