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Berlin's fate was sealed at the 1945 Yalta Conference: the city, along with the rest of Germany, was to be carved up between the victorious powers -- American, British, French, and Soviet. On paper, it seemed a pragmatic solution. In reality, now that the four powers were no longer united by the common purpose of defeating Germany, they wasted little time reverting to their pre-war hostility toward and suspicion of each other. The veneer of civility between Allies and Soviets was to break down in spectacular fashion. Rival systems, rival ideologies, and rival personalities ensured that Berlin became an explosive battleground.The warring leaders who ran the zones that Berlin and Germany were divided into were charismatic, mercurial, larger-than-life men you'd sooner expect to find in a Quentin Tarantino movie than a history book, and Giles Milton brings them all to rich and thrilling life -- resourced from their diaries, memoirs, and unpublished papers.