In 1945 Hitler's army was exhausted and weakened by retreat. Only the medieval city of Konigsberg stood between Berlin and a Russian army bent on extracting revenge for German atrocities. >> Already devestated by two Allied bombing raids, Konisgsberg - soon to be renamed Kaliningrad - was the scene of the fiercest fighting since Stalingrad. After weeks of heavy shelling and the death of more than 50,000 German and 60,000 Russian soldiers, the Red Army finally overcame the city's extensive fortifications. As the city fell the civilians were at themercy of the rampaging attackers and were left with two choices; to embark on a treacherous walk across the frozen Baltic Sea or risk crossing enemy lines.Their flight was a direct result of Hitler's ill-fated decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941. The horrors of Leningrad and Stalingrad were to be avenged by an army determined not only to invade Germany but to take over its eastern-frontier territories.>> Isabel Denny has gathered together the rist-hand accounts of people caught up in the brutality, revealing their plight and, for the first time, the story of a city that should never be forgotten. Author Isabel Denny read history at the Universities of Bristol and Kent and taught adult education at the Open University. She is now working on her next book on Danzig in the twentieth century and has begun work on a historical novel set in the nineteenth-century in London.
