Into the Reich: The Red Army’s Advance to the Oder in 1945

REVIEW BY DAVID PORTER In January 1945, the Red Army launched a powerful operation that was intended to go all the way to Berlin. The Vistula–Oder Offensive, as it was known, is the subject of this new book by Prit Buttar, who has already written extensively on the campaigns of the Eastern Front. What makes the offensive worthy of continual study was partly its scope, and partly the discipline Stalin showed when faced with still-bitter German resistance. The Soviet leader assigned the operation to two fronts: Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front holding the Magnuszew and Pulawy bridgeheads across the Vistula in the centre of Poland, and Marshal Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front occup