"Based on formerly inaccessible documents and several hundred interviews with Hungarian and German survivors, this is the first complete and unbiased account of the siege of Budapest. Street by street, day by day, Krisztian Ungvary describes the battle and its horrors in meticulous detail. One hundred and two days passed between the appearance of the first Soviet tank and the final capture of Buda Castle. More than 80,000 Soviet troops and 38,000 German and Hungarian soldiers were killed; about 38,000 Hungarian civilian lives were lost. Civilian casualties were extraordinarily high because the city's 800,000 noncombatant residents were never evacuated. This book represents a massive effort of historical reconstruction, and a major contribution to the history of World War II."--BOOK JACKET.