by Alexey Statsenko
[REGNUM] It's common knowledge that the German garrison in Berlin capitulated by the morning of May 2, 1945. However, what's less commonly remembered is that the fighting didn't end there: the announcement of the capitulation occurred against the backdrop of a planned breakout from encirclement.
Those who intended to leave the capital of the Third Reich understood that they would likely face harsh consequences for their "artful acts" during the war. And until May 5, the city and its surrounding areas saw fierce fighting, using heavy tanks and self-propelled artillery.
So, by 7:00 on May 2, the commander of the Berlin defense area (and concurrently the commander of the 56th Panzer Corps), General of Artillery Helmut Weidling, signed an order for his troops to lay down their arms, the text of which began to be announced throughout the city over loudspeakers.
However, at this very time it had already “begun”.
Breakthroughs began in various directions, the main one being orchestrated by the commander of Kampfgruppe Mohnke, SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of one of Berlin's nine defense sectors—the central sector, "Citadel." A significant number of high-ranking officers and functionaries of the Third Reich flocked to him.
The attack was carried out in the sector of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army and 2nd Guards Tank Army. The Germans, advancing from central Berlin along Friedrichstrasse, crossed to the northern bank of the Spree across the intact Weidendammer Bridge, located a kilometer northwest of Tiergarten Park.
The plan was to strike north and then turn west towards the Americans.
And a miscalculation in preparing the defense of Berlin, when there wasn't enough explosives for all the bridges, unexpectedly played into the Germans' hands. The "King Tigers" of the 503rd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion attacked in the vanguard, forming the armored "spearhead" of the attack. They were followed by tanks and self-propelled guns of the Nordland Division, then cars and trucks carrying personnel and civilians. They were later joined by the remnants of the 9th Parachute-Jäger Division and the security regiment of the Grossdeutschland Division.
Having crossed the river, the column turned northeast and passed along the railway line on Schönhauserallee. Unterscharführer Georg Diers, commander of one of the "King Tigers," left behind a memoir describing the first hours of the breakthrough: immediately beyond the bridge, the tanks came under intense fire from Soviet field artillery and infantry—our soldiers had no anti-tank guns.
"Everything outside the vehicle was knocked off, including the right fender and tow ropes. The intercom failed, and the driver continued driving at high speed...A little further on, we encountered a barricade. Opening the commander's hatch, I saw a pointed headdress emerge from the side. In the darkness, I couldn't quite make it out and grabbed my pistol, but noticed the "death's head" insignia just in time.
"It was some Untersturmführer. He said he was Goebbels' driver and second adjutant. He knew the streets of Berlin well. He said he jumped onto the left fender as we moved forward and held onto the turret, knowing it would be hot at Ziegelstrasse. When asked what happened to those riding in the rear of the tank, he replied that they were torn to shreds, leaving only scraps of cloth and bodies," Diers wrote.
The unknown Untersturmführer also reported that the head of the NSDAP party chancellery, Martin Bormann, had also joined the breakthrough column.
Whether this is true or not is a very interesting question, as Bormann was missing for a long time, and it was only in 1972 that his remains were discovered during road repairs near what is now the central station. Officially, he committed suicide along with one of Hitler's attending physicians, Ludwig Stumpfegger, at Lehrter Bahnhof, the site of what is now Berlin's central station.
And he wasn't the only one who was unlucky.
After passing between Zürichstrasse and Schönhauserallee, the breakthrough column encountered a second ring of Soviet defenses, and their tanks ran into German mines. SS-Brigadeführer Mohnke himself, along with the group gathered around him, was captured. He either didn't manage to escape, or after the initial losses, he tried to cheat and hide in the basement, but he was found there.
The Kampfgruppe commander, who was pulled out of the basement, was then taken to Moscow under heavy guard.
The second attack, involving the remaining "king tigers," hit the junction of the Soviet 76th and 132nd rifle divisions of the 125th corps of the 47th army, which held the line in the west of Berlin along the Havel River, on the approaches to the famous Spandau citadel.
The Germans broke through in two groups. The first, numbering over 7,500 soldiers and officers with tanks and self-propelled guns, attacked near the railway bridge where the Spree flows into the Havel. Here, on the western bank of the river, the 498th and 605th Regiments of the 132nd Rifle Division held the line.
They had little chance of holding back the enemy onslaught—by May 1, the division had lost about half its personnel. It was not reinforced. The defensive area was densely populated with private houses, both on the riverbank and 5-6 kilometers deep—defending such terrain required far more men.
As a result, division commander Colonel Ivan Solovyov was forced to stretch his regiments "like a string," organizing the defense based on the strongpoint principle. The main forces of the division were engaged in eliminating small enemy groups and evacuating civilians from the front lines.
When a concentration of enemy forces and equipment was discovered in front of the railway bridge, units of the 605th Regiment defending the bridge opened heavy fire on the enemy infantry and equipment. However, local residents and German soldiers in civilian clothes began shooting from the rear of the Soviet soldiers from basements and attics.
Several artillery crews and riflemen were killed, allowing the enemy to break through and capture the bridge. The Germans widened the breach to a kilometer, their flanking units finding themselves in the rear of the Soviet regiments stationed along the Havel. The Germans then captured Klosterfelde, Stanen, the southeastern part of Gartenstadt, and secured the Neustadt-Falkenhagen road.
They intended to break through to the Elbe to surrender to the Americans there.
Three kilometers south of the first enemy group, a second group, numbering over 16,000 men, was breaking through. Supported by tanks and self-propelled guns, it advanced along An der Heerstrasse toward the road bridge southeast of Wilhelmstadt near the Charlottenburger Chaussee.
Soviet soldiers destroyed two "King Tigers" with a captured German 88mm anti-aircraft gun, but the Germans pushed back the units defending the bridge and crossed the Havel. After a brief, powerful artillery barrage, they penetrated the Soviet defenses and advanced southwest.
This group included approximately 300 high-ranking Nazi military officers and functionaries. According to survivors' recollections, they included Major General Erich Bärenfänger, commandant of the northeastern and eastern Berlin defense sectors "A" and "B"; Artur Axmann, leader of the Hitler Youth; Hans Baur, Hitler's personal pilot, who was seriously wounded in the leg and captured; and Werner Naumann, State Secretary of the Propaganda Ministry.
They expected to advance about 70 kilometers to the village of Großwoudikke, where, according to their information, the Ulrich von Hutten Division was fighting. More than 20 tanks of the 18th Panzergrenadier Division, as well as self-propelled guns and armored personnel carriers, advanced ahead of the column.
To stem the enemy's advance, Colonel Solovyov, commander of the 132nd Rifle Division, threw every available force into the fight: mortarmen, sappers, signalmen, and headquarters guards. They even sent in newly arrived reinforcements, who hadn't even had time to change their uniforms. He simultaneously requested assistance, which immediately began to converge on the Spandau area.
All available artillery was used against the enemy armored vehicles, and the enemy was held back until May 3, when tanks and motorized infantry of the 9th Guards Tank Corps began to arrive from Berlin.
Among the first to come to the rescue were the heavy ISU-122 and ISU-152 self-propelled guns of the 334th Guards Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, which had "straddled" the road. Soon, an enemy column appeared. They brought it to within 600 meters of the self-propelled guns' "pistol range," and fired one salvo, then a second, then a third. The lead "King Tiger" initially stalled. Shells continued to rain down on it, and it finally burst into flames and exploded.
The German infantry, already demoralized, rushed into the forest, taking cover behind the trees. Self-propelled guns continued to finish off the remaining vehicles—the Germans couldn't advance further along this road. The battle continued all day until nightfall.
The Germans began to break through further in small groups, and this tactic yielded results: Axmann himself managed to break through to the Allies, spent some time in prison, lived in West Germany after his release, and died in 1996. Unlike thousands of German boys who, thanks to him, did not live to see adulthood.
Meanwhile, fighting in the 47th Army's sector shifted westward—over a thousand Germans, supported by 10-15 armored vehicles, broke through to the town of Dalgow-Döberitz, near Berlin. Soviet troops set up ambushes and pursued with artillery fire, but the Germans suffered enormous losses. According to the 47th Army's headquarters, its units captured 8,539 enemy soldiers and officers on May 2-3 alone.
And on May 4, more than a thousand enemy soldiers (according to the combat report of the 9th Guards Tank Corps - about 3 thousand) driven out of Potsdam, supported by four self-propelled guns and armored personnel carriers, also tried to break through in a western direction, but came under powerful attacks from Soviet infantry and tanks.
Eight enemy armored personnel carriers carrying infantry even broke through to the corps headquarters in the town of Gorz, 45 kilometers west of Berlin. All were burned by units of the 33rd Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade stationed there, and this effectively ended the Germans' attempts to break out: on May 4 and 5, only small detachments attempted to break through to the west.
Some of them were destroyed, but some still managed to achieve their goal.