'Brilliantly recapturing the febrile atmosphere of Berlin in the first four years after the
Second World War Giles Milton reminds us what an excellent story-teller he is' - Andrew
Roberts author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny Berlin was in ruins when Soviet forces
fought their way towards the Reichstag in the spring of 1945. Streets were choked with rubble
power supplies severed and the population close to starvation. The arrival of the Soviet army
heralded yet greater terrors: the city's civilians were to suffer rape looting and horrific
violence. Worse still they faced a future with neither certainty nor hope. Berlin's fate had
been sealed four months earlier at the Yalta Conference. The city along with the rest of
Germany was to be carved up between the victorious powers - British American French and
Soviet. On paper it seemed a pragmatic solution in reality it fired the starting gun for the
Cold War. As soon as the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating
Germany they reverted to their pre-war hostility and suspicion. Rival systems rival
ideologies and rival personalities ensured that Berlin became an explosive battleground. The
ruins of this once-great city were soon awash with spies gangsters and black-marketeers all
of whom sought to profit from the disarray. For the next four years a handful of charismatic
but flawed individuals - British American and Soviet - fought an intensely personal battle
over the future of Germany Europe and the entire free world. CHECKMATE IN BERLIN tells this
exhilarating high-stakes tale of grit skullduggery and raw power. From the high politics of
Yalta to the desperate scramble to break the Soviet stranglehold of Berlin with the greatest
aerial operation in history this is the epic story of the first battle of the Cold War and how
it shaped the modern world.
