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The War Comes To Berlin
Herb (T71Herb)
Prelude
World War
II would bring about the destruction of
cities all across the globe, causing
horrendous civilian suffering. Lives were
ruined, and nations went bankrupt. The
capitals of the participants, the main
geographic symbol of a war state, would all
go through different experiences. In Asia,
the former Chinese capital of Nanking was
pillaged and raped by Japanese troops, while
Tokyo was to be firebombed by Allied
aircraft. In Europe, the Luftwaffe would
spread death to Warsaw, Belgrade and London,
which was also harassed by German wonder
weapons later on in the war. Axis Rome was
both bombed and battled over, causing
significant damage to the city, while Soviet
Moscow had barely escaped Nazi capture in
1941, but had been hit by several damaging
airraids. Towards the end of 1943, Adolf
Hitler's Berlin, the capital of fascist
Germany, was to begin to undergo its own
suffering.
A city learns to endure
By the beginning of
September, 1943, Berlin had to yet to truely
suffer the consequences of Hitler's war, now
entering its fourth year. The first major
Anglo-American air raids upon the capital
had only just begun, using over 2,200 tons
of explosives in the first two attacks. The
combination of strong anti-aircraft
batteries and its relative distance from
Allied air bases had posed a bit of a threat
to Allied pilots, delaying large scale
attacks. Earlier, less powerful raids were
viewed as entertainement by some Berliners,
with crowds watching the show, and many
dancing to them, such was the problem of
boredom affecting the city. Big department
stores and luxury restaraunts had been
closed early in the year, and film theaters
were showing little more than Joseph
Goebbels' anti-semitic propaganda, leaving
concerts and plays as the main escape from
city life.
The city braced itself
well as the scope and intensity of the
Allied raids increased with the commencement
of the Royal Air Force's "Battle of Berlin,"
including by creating an excellent air raid
command center, and treating many house
roofs with material to retard possible
fires. Berlin's inhabitants were also helped
by its broad streets and the large amount of
stone buildings, lessening the ability of
Western Air Forces to wreck it, "from end to
end" as Bomber Harris had predicted they
could; however, the city still suffered
considerable damage. During the gray winter
months, the bombings continued, and in
April, 1944, transportation in the city was
largely cut off, but the city pressed on.
Workers walked to work, mail continued to be
delivered, and food shops remained open. A
report from the security service of the SS
(Sicherheitsdienst) reported that Berliners
would withstand such hardships because,
"there is nothing else to do." (Beck,
p.85, p.110)
With the increase in
Allied raids, so too increased complaints
and rumors among Berliners. They were not
used to living under such conditions. Seeing
such activities as threats to their rule,
Nazi party members were granted the power to
arrest anyone suspected of such crimes, and
escort them to jail. In prison, many of
these new convicts were often murdered, as
the Nazis sought to fully use the power that
they still possesed over their people. Such
policies wouldn't cease until the Third
Reich finally capitulated.
Foretellers of destruction
In the middle of 1944,
as the Ostfront began to crumble under the
weight of the Red Army's massive summer
offensive, refugees began filtering into the
capital. Thousands were arriving every day,
by rail, wagon, and even by foot. Berliners,
in an effort to ease these nomads' troubles,
established soup kitchens on railroad
platforms, all the while handing out
clothing, most of which was formerly worn by
the victims of the Nazi gas chambers. These
refugees spread their stories, some real,
others imagined, about the Red Army's gross
ill-treatment of the conquered German
population. Those in the capital aware of
the Einsatzgruppen's massacres in the East,
and the German concentration camp system,
understood what was coming, and attempted to
escape it. The typical Berliner, on the
other hand, shrugged most refugee stories
off as mere lunacy.
The storm nears
As the war continued,
the battle front continued to close in on
Germany. By the end of January, 1945, the
German front in the east had collapsed,
enabling George Zhukov's 1st Belorussion
Front to reach the Oder, less than 40 miles
from the capital. Ivan Konev's 1st Ukranian
front had charged into south western Poland,
and by the beginning of March, had reached
the river Neisse, holding the Soviet line
immediately south of Zhukov. In early April,
Rokossovky's 2nd Belorussian also reached
the Oder river line, following the collapse
of Konigsberg in East Prussia. With the Red
Army pushing westward, more and more
refugees were reaching the city. Allied
bombing raids did not lessen, but only
increased. Even with adequate air raid
protection measures in place, whole city
blocks were obliterated. Broad city streets
were turned into winding, narrow paths,
which sliced through massive piles of
rubble. Buildings were turned windowless,
and the soot from burning material could be
seen everywhere. Room sized bomb craters
dotted the city, and many houses were left
without roofs. When the Allied raids finally
ceased in late April, 1945, they left three
billion cubic feet of debris laying on the
roads, and practically destroyed one third
of the houses in the city.
With the Soviet forces
positioned so closely to Berlin, and with
time running out before another offensive
began, it was slowly hitting Adolf Hitler
that he must prepare the city to be
defended. He appointed Helmuth Reymann as
the Commander of the Berlin Defense Area on
March 6. Berlin was cut up into 8 defensive
pie-slice shaped sectors, with a commander
appointed for each, along with having a
small ring around the government quarter in
the capital. Reymann had few forces at his
disposal, and the ones he did possess were
often sent to the front, including many of
his anti-aircraft batteries, and Reserve
Army units, but there was another problem
that plagued Reymann's mind. Inside the
city, there were still millions of
civilians.
Reymann had begged
Hitler to, at the very least, evacuate the
children that remained in the city, but the
Nazi leader refused to acknowledge their
very existence. On investigating further,
Reymann was notified that there were hardly
any evacuation plans prepared for civilians
still living in the city, causing him to
accept the fact that he would have to
support millions of civilians during a
fierce battle. When questioning Goebbels on
how to feed such a large population, the
Nazi propaganda minister only gave unreal
solutions, such as having cattle brought
into the battlezone. Some of the civilians
wished to stay, to watch the destruction of
the evil Nazi forces once and for all, but
most wished to reach safety.
The Soviets plan their attack
On April 1, both
Zhukov and Konev were summoned to Berlin and
ordered to prepare a plan of attack upon the
Nazi capital. The 49 year old Zhukov, known
for his use of brute strength against the
Germans, planned a massive artillery barrage
leading up to the onslaught of Soviet
infantry. Following a breakthrough by the
infantry, Zhukov would then send in
General-Colonel Katukov's 5th Guards Tank
Army and Gen.-Col. Bogdanov's 2nd Guards
Tank forces to charge to Berlin and cut the
city off. The main springboard of Zhukov's
offensive was to be the 30 mile long by 10
mile deep Küstrin bridgehead, manned by 8th
Guards Army, and led by General Chuikov, the
same commander who fought the Germans in the
streets of Stalingrad. Konev, a year younger
thank Zhukov and generally considered better
educated, had a more difficult task to reach
the city. Konev would have to reposition his
forces to support his planned dawn attack
across the Neisse, following an immensely
powerful artillery bombardment. Once
bridgeheads were established, Konev would
swing his tank forces northwestwards to cut
off Berlin. Farther north, Rokossovsky would
mostly act to protect Zhukov's flank, while
pushing to the British lines.
Map sourced from:
www.onwar.com/maps/wwii/eastfront2/1finaloffensive45.htm
Joseph Stalin, upon
the end of Konev's presentation, consented
to both Marshals' plans, turning their plans
into formal directives, but that wasn't the
only important occurence that came out of
the meeting. Following the presentations, it
seems to have been recognized by all, but
never mentioned during the meeting, that
Zhukov would have the glory of taking the
city. As he stared at the map portraying the
current military situation and the
organization of forces, Stalin began drawing
the demarcation line that would seperate the
two's forces. The line that Stalin would
draw ended abruptly 65 miles southeast of
Berlin. Both Konev and Zhukov understood
that the door had just been opened for the
1st Ukranian front commander to take the
city. The next morning, both Soviet leaders
flew out to their front headquarters to
begin preparing for their offensives. Orders
were issued, division commanders began
planning, and the buildup of forces
commenced, not stopping until mid-April. The
race for the city was on.
Largely standing in
the way of Zhukov's steamroller was General
Theodore Busse's 9th Army, holding the line
directly to the east of Berlin. This was the
same formation that helped drive to the
outskirts of Moscow in 1941, but now the
army was defending its own capital, and few
of its troops from the 1941 campaign
remained. The veterans of Eastern front
combat knew how fierce the fighting would
become, but alot of the new Volkksturm units
would receive their baptism of a major
Soviet artillery barrage in the coming
weeks. All, however, were suffering from a
waning morale. Officers were ordered to pick
up the spirits of their soldiers, and did so
be telling them the awful predictions of
life under Soviet occupation, informing them
of US President Roosevelt's death, and
promising them that new war winning wonder
weapons would appear shortly.
To Busse's left lay
General Hasso von Manteuffel's 3rd Panzer
Army, which held the coastal plain north of
Berlin. Together, these forces formed Gen.
Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula
(AGV), a group which in total possesed less
than 700 operable panzers and self propelled
guns, and had only 744 artillery weapons,
with an additional 600 anti-aircraft guns
from Germany's cities. Following the removal
of several panzer division to Prague from
AGV on April 5, Heinrici was forced to
transfer many units from 3rd Panzer to 9th
Army. Von Manteuffel could handle such
maneuvering for the moment, as his region
was largely flooded by the Oder from the
spring thaw, but consequences would be
suffered once Zhukov broke through Busse's
left wing. South of AGV, facing Konev on the
Neisse river line, was General Graser's 4th
Panzer Army, of Army Group Center. Graser's
force was in little better strength position
than either of Heinrici's two armies.
Once Heinrici took
command of AGV on March 20, he had the
troops begin preparing for the coming Soviet
onslaught. He had his forces create 3
defensive lines, which reached back to the
Nazi capital in some areas. He tried to
focus his available resources on the crucial
sandy plateau of the Seelow Heights, west of
the Küstrin bridgehead, from which his
artillery could knock out Soviet tanks at
long distances, in low-lying areas. As the
Germans dug in, they could hear the engines
of the thousands of tanks and trucks
bringing artillery to the front. The Soviets
made little effort to disguise their
intentions, but the Germans wouldn't know
just how massive the buildup was until the
guns began to roar.
On April 15, Heinrici
was at his Army Group command post near
Prenzlau. He was very busy trying to
forecast the timing of the now inevitable
Soviet offensive, and he was not one to be
bothered, but former Minister of Armaments
Albert Speer and Berlin Commandant Reymann
arrived to talk with the Army Group Leader.
Speer begged Heinrici and Reymann not to
demolish the capital's numerous bridges, as
millions of civilians depended on them, but
neither of the two would promise anything,
though Heinrici told Reymann to confer with
him prior to demolishing bridges which
carried electric, water, or gas lines within
them. Following Speer's speech, Reymann
began telling Heinrici that he did not know
how he could hold the city with so few
forces at his disposal. Heinrici responded
by telling the Commandant of his hope to
avoid a battle in the city altogether.
Little else could be done to save the city.
As the visitors
finally left later in the evening, Heinrici
turned his attention back to a more pressing
issue, anticipating the timing of the Soviet
offensive. He scowered over intelligence
reports, looked over interrogation
transcripts of Russian prisoners, and
communicated with his field commanders. As
the afternoon turned to night, Heinrici
paced around his office, deeply in thought.
Finally, shortly after 8 pm, he made his
decision. "I believe the attack will take
place in the early hours tomorrow," he said.
He sent out an immediate order to Busse's
9th Army: "Move back and take up positions
on the second line of defense." (Read
and Fischer, p.305)
"The capital of Fascist Germany
will be taken"-Zhukov's April 16 Order
of the Day to his troops
(Read and Fischer, p.309)
In the early morning
hours of April 16, Zhukov's artillery guns
began to fire for 20 minutes straight, in
which time they unloaded 500,000 shells,
mortars and rockets. Following the ending of
this massive bombardment, Soviet infantry
rushed the largely vacant German lines,
finishing off what was left of the German
covering forces, which were acting as mere
cannon fodder for 9th Army. By approximately
7 am, Berlin time, 3 hours after the
beginning of 1st Belorussian Front's attack,
Red Army soldiers began reaching the 2nd
German defensive line, manned by Busse's
mainly unscathed 9th Army. From their 2nd
line, which had many steep slopes and the
plateaus, the Germans opened fire with what
weapons they could, grinding Zhukov's
offensive to a near halt.
Two hours after the
beginning of Zhukov's attack, Konev's 1st
Ukranian Front began an artillery
bombardment that would last for nearly three
hours. By the time his guns ceased firing,
his forces had established 133 crossings
over the Neisse, with tanks already moving
across the western bank of the river. On
more open terrain than Zhukov's forces, 1st
Ukranian Front was more succesful in its
efforts, gaining more ground quicker. In
just a few days, as his forces pressed on
into the German lines, he began seperating
the German 9th and 4th Panzer Armies,
creating a void which the Germans could not
fill.
As April 16 wore on,
Zhukov was becoming more and more impatient.
His forces had suffered heavy casualties in
their frontal attacks upon German positions,
and they were bogged down. Zhukov was also
nervous about Konev's progress in the south.
He had never predicted that anything like
this would happen. Fearing that he would
lose the race to the capital, at midday,
Zhukov prematurely threw in his armored
forces, pitting them against the elevated
German positions, which were using their 88
mm flak guns. Hundreds of tank crews would
pay for Zhukov's decision.
By the second day of
the attack, April 17, Konev had broken threw
along an 18 mile front, threatening the rear
of 9th Army. His engineers had set up highly
capable bridges, able to support his drive.
Zhukov's decision, which caused considerable
chaos at the front with so many Soviet
forces so crowded together, was finally
beginning to pay off, as the German defense
was slowly starting to crack around Seelow,
at the unnecessary cost of thousands of
Soviet lives. By the next day, April 18, 1st
Belorussian front finally breached through
the German line along the Seelow Heights,
after suffering an astonishing 30,000
casualties. The German defense, which had
held up the Soviets for nearly 3 days under
immense pressure, was almost completely
unraveled.
"A new and heavy trial, perhaps the
heaviest of all, is before us. "-The
Official Berlin Nazi Party Newspaper in its
mid-April edition
(Ryan, p.400)
As the Soviet
offensive began, Berliners began to realize
that their time had come. Citizens in
Berlin's eastern suburbs were awakened by
the thunder of Soviet artillery as the
attack began. The artillery was so powerful
that it was able to knock pictures off walls
in many of their homes. Labor gangs were put
together in the city to prepare it for
battle, setting up anti-tank ditches and
digging trenches for the 50 panzers
available in the city, but they were largely
incomplete and ineffective. As the Soviets
grew closer, Berliners began partying later
into the night, drinking alcohol not for
enjoyment, but for intoxication. Many
virgins had sex, not out of love, but
instead of the fear that they would remain
virgins to the end. It was the beginning of
the end.
On April 20, Hitler's
birthday, Zhukov's artillery began smashing
into the city, but it hardly phased those
who were standing in line for food and other
necessities. The last Allied air raid hit
the city on April 21, knocking out the
city's water, gas, sewage and much of the
electricity. Without such services, nearby
factories were forced to close, and it
became a crime punishable by death to
electrically cook your food. Excrement,
unable to be flushed down the toilet,
polluted the street with its stench.With
everything going downhill, total strangers
began to use a new greeting, urgint each
other "Blei übrig." German for survive. (Ryan,
p.371)
Several days earlier,
in the early morning hours of April 19, as
the last RAF aircraft headed back to their
bases, a large group of Anti-Nazi resistance
members came out of their shelters to answer
the Nazi's referendum question, which asked
them whether they approved of Hitler's
policies to hold the city till the end. The
resisters hurried about the city, as
daylight was approaching quickly. On nearly
every shop window, the word "Nein!" was
painted in big letters, signifying the
biggest resistance the city gave to Hitler
since 1933. Anti-Nazi leaflets were also
posted throughout the city. Resentment
towards Hitler was fostering.
By April 22, Hitler
relieved Reymann of his command for his
defeatism, and replaced him with newly
promoted Major General Ernst Kather, the
former Chief of Staff to the Chief Wehrmacht
political commissar, but by the end of the
day, Hitler personally took over command of
the city's defense. As Hitler was switching
up the command chain in the city, Konev had
pushed into southern Berlin, beating Zhukov.
The city streets now became battlefields.
The race for the city continues
Seeing
that his forces were crumbling, Heinrici
asked Hitler for permission to withdraw
Busse's 9th Army to more favorable
positions, but the Fürher refused, ordering
9th Army to stay were it fought. Even with
Hitler's order to the contrary, 9th Army
began falling back under the Soviet weight,
largely being pushed to the southwest,
though its 56th Panzer Korps began heading
back into Berlin. As it moved to escape 1st
Belorussian front, Busse's Army was hit by
Konev's 1st Ukranian front as it charged to
Berlin from the south, largely encircling
the force. On April 21, the right flank of
1st Belorussian front reached open ground,
pushing on to the outskirts of the German
capital, all the while creating a gap
between 9th and 3rd Panzer Armies. In an
effort to protect von Manteuffel's exposed
southern flank, Heinrici had moved Felix
Steiner's SS corps, originally part of 9th
Army, to the north of Berlin.
Back in the Fürher
bunker in Berlin, in the center of the
government district in city, imagining that
the formations on his situation map
paralleled the strength of the forces that
he had launched the blitzkrieg with, Hitler
created an offensive that he believed would
save Berlin. Steiner's newly moved force
would push on into Zhukov's norther wing,
reaching the area east of Berlin, while
AGC's forces would begin rolling up Konev's
1st Ukranian front from the rear. In the
center, General Walther Wenck's 12th Army,
which was engaged on the Elbe facing the
Western Allies, would turn around and push
through Konev to reach Busse's encircled 9th
Army. Once these forces linked up, they
would then turn northward and reach the
capital, saving it from destruction.
What Hitler refused to
comprehend and take into consideration was
the fact that the German units on his map
were no where near up to their average
strength, and that his rule outside of
Berlin was almost nill. Few commanders, upon
receiving the ludicrous order to take the
offensive, actually followed through.
Steiner had no intention of attacking with
his weak force from the north, but only
sought to move westward to surrender to the
British. Hitler sent out Keitel and Jodl to
have Steiner relieved of his command, and
replaced by 41st Panzer Korps commander
General Holste, but neither Steiner nor his
replacement payed attention to Hitler's
minions. As Keitel and Jodl went to von
Manteuffel for his assistance in relieving
Steiner, they found him directing traffic
for his forces, as they were quickly pulling
back from the Oder and heading westward,
disobeying Hitler's orders to remain on the
river. Keitel and Jodl immediately went into
action, verbally reprimanding the commander,
but they could not find anyone willing to
arrest the 3rd Panzer Army commander.
Ferdinand Schorner's Army Group Center was
the only formation to heed Hitler's order to
attack, and though they did achieve some
initial success against Konev, they posed no
serious threat to his drive on the capital.
Konev only had to worry about the numerous
canal and water obstacles as he entered the
city.
On April 24, the
commander of 56th Panzer Korps, General
Weidling, was put in charge of Berlin's
defenses. With this new responsibility,
Weidling gave control of his force, which
made up the backbone of the city's defense,
to General Mummert, the leader of 56th Korps
Münchberg Panzer Division. On the same day,
Zhukov's and Konev's spearheads would make
contact with each other in Potsdam,
surrounding the Berlin and cutting off the
land connection between it and 9th Army.
General Wenck's 12th Army was making
significant progress against the dispersed
formations of 1st Ukranian front, pushing
nearly to Potsdam on the 25 of April, right
up against the Soviet ring around the
capital and raising the hopes of the
besieged population, but his proximity to
Berlin was only incidental, as he was only
focused on saving Busse's 9th Army, which
was miraculously finding a way to trodge on
westward through 4 relentlessly attacking
Soviet Armies, and the 40,000 civilians that
were protected by it. On the same day,
Rokossovky's 2nd Belorussian Front finally
broke through what was left of 3rd Panzer
Army's forces, and Soviet forces finally
linked up with the Americans on the Elbe,
cutting Germany into two. Little could save
the Nazi regime.
Last minute
reinforcements were flown into the
surrounded capital, in hopes of saving it
from imminent destruction. Admiral Donitz
sent in some of his submarine crews and
radar technicians, while Himmler had a lost
battalion of Latvian SS, 300 French SS
fighters of the Charlemagne Division, and
many Spanish SS members were flwon in.
Already available in the capital to be used
for its defense was the weakened 56th Panzer
Korps, the capital guard detachment of
Grossdeutschland, some marine guard
detachments, Hitler Youth fighters,
Volkssturm units, and Himmler's 2,000 SS
bodyguards under SS Generalmajor Wilhelm
Mohnke. This cobbled together defensive
unit, with only a few dozen panzers and a
moderate amount of artillery, was
responsible for the defense of the capital
of Hitler's Third Reich against 464,000
Soviet troops, 12,700 artillery guns, 1,500
tanks, and 21,000 Katyushas.
This Will Be The Spring Without End
Addapting to the
heavy urban environment that they were now
engaged in, Soviet forces were broken up
into tactical assault groups, composed of
infantry, armor, artillery, and
flame-thrower units. Such tactics, though
succesful, did not prevent the Red Army from
suffering casualty levels that even it had
never seen before. In an effort to save now
irreplaceable Soviet manpower, Zhukov sent
his two tank armies into the city battle, a
dangerous decision. Artillery and air power
were more widely used to erase unyielding
defenders from existence, causing total
destruction in some areas of the city.
Tempelhoff aerodome, a high priority for the
Soviets which could use the airbase to
support their operations logistically, and
to prevent Hitler's possible escape, was
completely destroyed before Chuikov's men
finally conquered it early on April 26.
Following this heated engagement, and seeing
how his forces were quickly using up their
ammunition stocks throughout the city,
Zhukov gave his front nearly a day of rest,
allowing his logistical units to bring up
more artillery, ammo, and food. Later on in
the evening, the Red Army would launch a
heavy bombardment, using their newly
received weapons, on the Nazis last
strongpoints in the Government district,
preparing the ground for the 5 Soviet armies
that were pushing in. Using what was left of
their fairly large Berlin reserve stock,
including experimental prototype weapons,
the Germans would launch a moderately
powerful counterbarrage, but nothing would
stop the Soviets.
With his forces being
demarcated out of the Berlin Government
district, which possesed the prized
Chancellory and Reichstag, Konev began
withdrawing 1st Ukranian front from Berlin.
Aiming in a new direction, Konev rather
quickly took the area west and south of
Berlin, as the remaining pockets of German
resistance continued to break out and push
towards Wenck's nearby 12th Army. As he was
clearing up his new area of operations,
Konev also had the task of halting the
closest of Wenck's forces to the capital,
which he succesfully did between April
27-28. The rest of the glory in the fight
over Berlin would go to Zhukov. Konev had
lost the race, and the capital.
By the end of April
27, as the Red Army pressed on once again
deeper into the city, the Nazi's defense was
nearing its end. The cauldron remaining to
be defended was a 10 mile strip, running
east to west, with a depth of nearly 4
miles. The German units left to defend this
area were being destroyed block by block,
with their machine gun nests being stormed
once they ran out of ammunition. Starved of
fuel, the last few panzers, acting as static
gun positions, were destroyed by Soviet
firepower. Stocks of Panzerfausts for the
infantry, the deadly German tank killers,
were about to run out. All attempts at
airlifting supplies into the city had proven
to be ineffective, and Wenck's army could
push no closer to its Führer. The main
reason the German soldiers continued to
fight was the deadly SS flying court
martials, which executed anyone accused of
surrendering. All hope was gone.
In the final battle
conference the Führer bunker witnessed, in
the early evening hours of April 29,
Weidling outlined all of these points to
Hitler, painting the grim picture. As he
began to wrap up his presentation, Weidling
concluded with the stunning statement that
all fighting in the capital must cease
within the next 24 hours. Following a brief
silent moment Mohnke, the commander of the
vital SS bodyguard forces which did a great
deal of fighting in the Government district,
stated his agreement with Weidling.
Responding to the idea that the Berlin
garrison should attempt a breakout towards
Wenck, like several other German pockets had
done, Hitler ordered that the soldiers were
to remain fighting in the city until their
weapons ran out of ammunition, only at which
time was it permissible for them to break
out to the west in small groups. He forcibly
forbade anyone from surrendering, seeking to
stretch out Berlin's defense as long as was
possible.
Map sourced from:
www.onwar.com/maps/wwii/eastfront2/1reichstag45.htm
By April 30, the
situation for the Germans had gone from bad
to worse. Chuikov's 8th Guards Army, the
spearhead for Zhukov's drive into the
capital, had pushed to within several
thousand feet of Hitler's bunker. The
Reichstag was stormed, and after a few hours
of fierce room to room fighting, the victory
banner was symbollically raised over the
building. Though victory was already claimed
in the Reichstag, it would take nearly a
full day to remove the remaining Nazi
forces, with fighting taking a total of
8,000 lives from both sides.
Picture sourced from:
www.worldwar2database.com
Seeing his lifelong
enemy approach ever more closely, Hitler
knew his time had come. He had long ago
decided to stay in Berlin, to help his
prestige following his death, while boosting
the German defense efforts, and he would now
pay for his choice. There was little else
that he wanted to be done. His final
political testament had been spewed out the
night before, in which he blamed the war
fully on the Jews, and its loss entirely due
to the betrayal of his wishes by traitors.
He had recently been wed to his long time
supporter, Eva Braun, and now the couple
would end their lives together. A half hour
after the Soviet troops raised their banner
over the Reichstag, at around 3:30 pm, Adolf
Hitler commited suicide with a 7.65mm
Walther pistol shot to the head, while Braun
took cyanide orally. Their bodies would soon
be disposed of by the Führer's servants, to
prevent them from following into Stalin's
hands.
Picture sourced from:
www.acepilots.com/ww2/reichstag.jpg
n May Day, Soviet forces were mostly tasked
with clearing out the remaining Nazi forces
left in the city, including in the
Chancellory, room by room. The German
defense in the Government district had
collapsed and with it, so too had Weidling's
patience. Knowing that the battle was long
over, he immediately gave his units, who
were all on the brink of total exhaustion,
permission to break out to the west. Even
Mohnke and his few remaining SS fighters
broke out, bringing with them many top Nazi
officials. Surprisingly, with Konev focusing
1st Ukranian Front on smashing Busse's Army,
which somehow was still a cohesive unit that
was fighting desperately westward, many of
those who broke out succeeded in reaching
Western Allied lines. Doing all he could to
help his soldiers, Weidling tried to provide
some cover for them by beginning surrender
negotiations, which he would draw out until
the last possible moment.
By the next day, May
2, what little leverage Weidling had to
begin with had disappeared, and he, along
with other Army commanders, surrendered
Berlin and called for a ceasefire from his
troops. The Soviet guns finally ceased
pounding the city at 3pm, nearly 300 hours
after the first shell hit the Nazi capital.
The Red Army soldiers began their victory
celebrations following the silence, while
the Berlin civilians began picking up their
destroyed city, being helped along by the
establishment of civil government by Soviet
units. Berliners went about covering the
faces of the dead that littered the streets
on their way to getting food from Red Army
Field Kitchens. Little could be done about
the many buildings that continued to burn,
even with the cold spring rain pouring on
the city.
Picture sourced from
www.worldwar2database.com
To the south of
Berlin, the remains of Busse's battered 9th
Army was getting ever closer to 12th Army.
By April 30, the two armies had made radio
contact, and by the next day, the two forces
finally linked up. Of Busse's original
200,000 man army which had earlier defended
Berlin, only 30,000 remained to be saved,
along with several thousand refugees who
joined Busse's forces in hopes of escaping
the Red Army. As fast as he could get it to
do so, Wenck began withdrawing 12th Army to
the southwest. Between the morning of May 5
and the night of May 6, those who were able
to cross the Elbe river did so, and reached
the safety that American lines offered. The
war was over for them, and for everyone else
in Europe two days later, as the Nazi regime
finally accpeted its defeat.
The Unclear Cost
The Battle of Berlin
is one of the most difficult operations to
estimate the number of losses and casualties
for, as the Soviets do not have definitive
timelines of their casualties, while the
German record system was failing at this
time. From the beginning of their offensive
from the Oder river till the end of the war,
the 3 Soviet fronts (1st Belorussian, 2nd
Belorussian, and 1st Ukranian) had suffered
352,475 men killed, wounded, or missing,
according to the Russian Archives. The Red
Army had also lost nearly 2,000 tanks or
self-propelled guns, 2,108 artillery guns
and mortars, and 917 aircraft. The Germans
had suffered an estimated 100,000 civilian
deaths from the urban fighting, while a
total of 134,000 troops surrendered in
Berlin on May 2. Actual combat deaths are
guesstimated to be in the range of 150,000.
Bibliography
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The Road to Berlin: Stalin's War With
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Internet:
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Battle of
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Battle of
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World War II Multimedia Database. 24 Mar.
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McAteer, Dr. Sean M.. 500 Days; 1944 and
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copyright pending.
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