by Mikhail Kucherov
[REGNUM] On the night of April 15-16, 1945, the sky to the east of the German capital was illuminated by the light of 140 anti-aircraft searchlights. Then the roar of 20,000 artillery guns and Katyusha rockets fell on the Germans' first line of defense. This was the beginning of the Berlin Offensive Operation - victorious for the Red Army and fatal for the Third Reich.
Earlier, in February–March, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of Georgy Zhukov and the 1st Ukrainian Front, commanded by Ivan Konev, carried out several successful operations in the area from mountainous Silesia to the Baltic Sea. Thus, during the Vistula–Oder Operation, our armies in less than a month, with heavy fighting, advanced from the outskirts of Warsaw to the Prussian city of Küstrin, from where no more than 60 kilometers remained to Berlin.
By that time, Anglo-American troops had crossed the Rhine and surrounded a large German group in the Ruhr, which opened the way to the Elbe. There was no doubt that the attack on Berlin would soon begin from the west or the east. But it was not clear which of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, the Soviet Union or the Western Allies, would send troops there first.
"THE REAL AIM OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ARMIES"
On 1 April 1945, Winston Churchill wrote to Franklin Roosevelt, saying:" I believe that politically we should push as far east as possible in Germany and that if Berlin were within our reach we should certainly take it." The British and American General Staffs must coordinate their armies "before any commitment to the Russians is made," the Prime Minister insisted.
After the war, in his memoirs, Churchill bluntly recalled his plans from the spring of 1945: together with the Americans, “to immediately create a new front against its (Soviet Russia’s) rapid advance.”
“The main and real goal of the Anglo-American armies is Berlin; the liberation of Czechoslovakia and the entry of American troops into Prague are of the utmost importance,” Churchill reconstructed his plans.
In his memoirs, Zhukov cites the phrase of the commander of American forces in Europe, Dwight Eisenhower, at a meeting of the Allied headquarters on April 7: “If, after the capture of Leipzig, it turns out that it is possible to advance to Berlin without major losses, I want to do it.”
For his part, Joseph Stalin was clearly afraid of a separate conspiracy between the Nazi elite and the Anglo-Americans. He believed that the Nazis were amassing forces against us, exposing the Western Front. Thus, Zhukov cites details of one of the meetings with the Supreme Commander before the start of the Berlin operation:
"Silently extending his hand, he (Stalin), as always, as if continuing a recently interrupted conversation, said: - The German front in the West has finally collapsed, and, apparently, the Nazis do not want to take measures to stop the advance of the allied forces. Meanwhile, in all the most important directions against us, they are strengthening their groups."
| Given Soviet internal history, it was quite reasonable for the Nazis to be more afraid of them than of the Allies. |
| All expected the next war of the free world vs. totalitarianism to be the Allies against the Soviet Union, et al, and so it was. It just turned out to be a cold war instead of a hot one, because America got nuclear bombs first. |
During another meeting with the commanders of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts, Stalin read out intelligence data (the Anglo-Americans were preparing to attack Berlin) and asked the military leaders a leading question about who would actually take it. "Of course we will, Comrade Stalin," Konev replied. Zhukov then repeated the same thing.
The Supreme Commander took a large operational map and drew a dividing line between the fronts, stopping at the town of Luben, several dozen kilometers from Berlin.
The marshals, competing with each other, got the hint: they needed to begin the operation quickly, with the honor of the winner going to the one who managed to break through to the city first. However, the troops of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front were in a more advantageous position, so Konev and his 1st Ukrainian Front had no choice but to assist their bureaucratic rival and focus on other tasks, including reaching the Elbe.
The honorable but extremely difficult task of taking Berlin fell to Zhukov.
"I'VE NEVER HAD TO TAKE CITIES LIKE THIS BEFORE"
The enemy was indeed able to concentrate very serious forces on the eastern approaches to the capital of the "thousand-year Reich". Zhukov noted: as a result of the operation, it turned out that the fascists had deployed against us no less than a million "bayonets" (this is without counting the 200-thousand garrison that was being formed in Berlin itself), about 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns, 10.4 thousand artillery pieces and mortars, more than three thousand combat aircraft.
Yes, for the first time in the war years we had an overwhelming, not just significant, superiority over the enemy. In aviation - 2.5 times, in tanks and artillery - four times. The offensive involved 2.5 million soldiers and officers, 6,300 tanks, 7,500 aircraft. In addition, our military already knew the upcoming battlefield well: our reconnaissance aircraft took 15 thousand photographs, on the basis of which they created a detailed map
But the 1st Belorussian was facing the toughest urban battles of the entire war. It had to break through three lines of defense and minefields (in some areas the density reached 2 thousand mines per square kilometer).
"During the war, we had never had to take such large, heavily fortified cities as Berlin. Its total area was almost 900 square kilometers. The metro and widely developed underground structures gave the enemy troops the opportunity to carry out a wide covert maneuver," Zhukov explained. The Nazis equipped the city with at least 400 pillboxes and bunkers and erected barricades on the streets. Residential and industrial areas, highways and bridges were transformed into a huge fortified area.
It was also necessary to take into account that 2.5 million residents remained in the city. There was no talk of evacuation - the authorities forbade them to leave the city, believing that the people should perish together with the leaders of the Reich. Gauleiter and imperial leader of the defense of Berlin Joseph Goebbels explained the refusal to evacuate civilians from the city by saying that he "did not intend to plunge the capital into panic."
One should also not forget about Goebbels' main specialty - propaganda. Thanks to it, the garrison and the city's population, in fact, did not have a defeatist mood.
On the one hand, Goebbels’ department kept repeating about the “war crimes” that the “Bolsheviks” allegedly committed in occupied East Prussia, Eastern Pomerania, Silesia, Austria and other lands of the Reich.
On the other hand, the Germans were called upon to fanatical (Goebbels' favorite word) resistance. The last radio speech of the Reich Minister of Propaganda on April 21 is indicative: "The walls of our city must be broken and stopped by the Mongolian hordes! Our defense will become a beacon for the selfless struggle of the entire nation!.. With fanatical determination we will not allow our capital to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks!"
As Ivan Konev recalled, during the battles on the approaches to Berlin and in the city itself, German soldiers surrendered only when they had no other choice. “The same should be said about the officers. But their fighting spirit had already died out. All that remained was a gloomy, hopeless determination to fight until the order to capitulate was received,” noted the military leader who commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front.
LESSONS FROM MOSCOW
Hitler's main mouthpiece, Goebbels, brought the military and civilians to a hopeless determination to die rather than surrender to the "Asian hordes." And he himself was inspired by the example of Moscow in the fall of 1941. In the multi-volume diaries of the Minister of Propaganda, there remains a note from March 1, 1945 about a conversation with the traitor under his patronage, Andrei Vlasov:
"Vlasov describes the situation in Moscow that arose as a result of the threat of encirclement in the late autumn of 1941. The entire Soviet leadership had already lost its head; only Stalin continued to persist, although he was already very exhausted. The situation was approximately the same as we are experiencing at the present time. And we have a leader who demands resistance at any cost and who again and again incites everyone else to this cause."
It should be noted that our military leaders also drew parallels with the defense of Moscow from September 1941 to April 1942 from a military-strategic point of view.
“I have returned more than once to the greatest battle near Moscow, when powerful enemy hordes, concentrated on the approaches to the capital, dealt powerful blows to the defending Soviet troops,” wrote Zhukov. “ I wanted to take into account the experience of this difficult battle in detail, in order to use all the best for the upcoming operation.”
"CHRISTMAS TREE" ON "FAUSTNIKS"
The first chord of the operation was the assault by Zhukov's troops on the last obstacle on the way to the city - the Seelow Heights. It began on April 16. The fighting was fierce, and the advance of the Soviet troops was complicated by the landscape - there are many rivers, lakes and forests around Berlin. Three days later, this line was broken, and on April 25, the encirclement ring around the city was closed.
The first street battles confirmed that the Germans were not going to surrender without a fight. Windows and doors were filled with concrete, buildings were turned into strongholds with machine guns and Faustpatrones.
“The Faustpatrone is one of those means that can create in people who are not physically prepared and not trained for war a sense of psychological confidence that, having become soldiers only yesterday, they can actually do something today,” recalled Marshal Konev.
The old men of the Volkssturm and the boys of the Hitler Youth were not to be underestimated.
“The Faust soldiers, as a rule, fought to the end and at this last stage showed significantly greater resilience than the seasoned German soldiers, who were broken by defeats and many years of fatigue,” the marshal pointed out.
Here is the testimony of a direct participant in the battles, who went from the outskirts to the center of Berlin.
"Tanks were burning from Faustpatrones. When a shell hit a vehicle, small red-hot fragments hit the crew. Our guys, when they found this weapon, actively used it: they put it on their shoulder, took aim and pulled the trigger. This big blank flew right to the target," recalled Colonel Lev Yasnopolsky.
In order to suppress the enemy's resistance, our heavy and super-heavy artillery of 203 and 305 mm calibers hit the firing point, and then tanks moved in a "herringbone" pattern on different sides of the streets, destroying barricades and suppressing the remnants of resistance. Only after that did the infantry advance.
Unlike the storming of Vienna, there was no goal to preserve the architecture – Berlin had already been destroyed by British and American air raids.
The Red Army treated ordinary Berliners, first intimidated by propaganda and then by battles, humanely. The story of Sergeant Nikolai Masalov is widely known: under machine gun fire, he carried a three-year-old German girl out of a destroyed house. Based on this story, sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich developed a design for a 40-ton statue installed in Berlin's Treptower Park.
"THIS IS COLONEL ZINCHENKO SPEAKING! I AM IN THE REICHSTAG!"
The first ten days of fighting showed that, despite stubborn resistance, the position of the Wehrmacht and the SS troops was hopeless. This was understood by all officers who retained common sense, but the inhabitants of the Führerbunker clearly did not understand.
The story of artillery general Helmut Weidling is indicative. On April 23, he was to be shot as a traitor on a false denunciation. Weidling reached the bunker, waited for an audience with Hitler, and convinced the Fuhrer of his innocence. As a sign of trust, Hitler appointed the general commander of the defense of Berlin. Leaving the Fuhrer's office, Weidling uttered the famous phrase: "I would prefer to be shot."
After almost two weeks of fighting, on April 30, Soviet units approached the Reichstag building, which had long since lost its real political significance, but remained a symbol of German power, and in April 1945 became a serious "fortification" of the enemy. The Reichstag was defended by 1,000 people, including SS men, anti-aircraft gunners, and naval school cadets.
In essence, Hitler's "new Europe" fought its last battle here. The SS men from the Danish-Norwegian "Nordland" division, the French from the SS "Charlemagne" division, Latvian and Estonian legionnaires and even Spanish "volunteers" were driven out of the Reichstag. The building was crammed with machine gun crews and artillery pieces.
A recording of a conversation with the commander of the 756th rifle regiment of the 1st Belorussian Front, Fyodor Zinchenko, who was one of the first to break through to the besieged building, has been preserved:
"I appoint you, Comrade Zinchenko, as commandant of the Reichstag. You will receive written confirmation later. I set the task: clear the Reichstag of the enemy, immediately install the Banner of the Military Council of the Army on its dome and organize the protection of valuables located in the building. Convey the gratitude of Marshal Zhukov to all participants in the storming of the Reichstag.”
Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria were tasked with installing the Victory Banner, which had to be in a prominent place. It was impossible to climb the dome with a ladder under heavy fire, but Kantaria saw a pediment from which the banner would be clearly visible. "Come on, Misha, let's install it there," he suggested to Egorov. Later, the banner was moved to the dome, and on May 3, the famous photograph of it was published in the newspaper Pravda.
"TODAY IS OUR HOLIDAY"
On the same day, April 30, the Führer and Reich Chancellor Hitler committed suicide, having previously read out his political testament. He expelled the "traitors" Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, who had fled Berlin to negotiate with the Anglo-Americans, from the party, after which he appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (who remained in Flensburg in northern Germany) as Reich President, and Goebbels, who was in the Führerbunker, as Chancellor.
The latter, however, soon followed the example of the Reich leader and committed suicide along with his family. The last commandant of Berlin, General Weidling, breathed a sigh of relief after the Führer's death - and issued an order stating: "The Führer has committed suicide, leaving to the mercy of fate all who swore allegiance to him."
After the war he recalled:
"I gave the order to the units, those who could and wanted to, to break through, and the rest to lay down their arms. All the staff supported me, and on the night of May 2, I sent Colonel von Dufing as a parliamentarian to the Russians... The situation was such that after I had made my decision, I felt safe only with the Russians."
On May 1, a delegation headed by Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces General Hans Krebs arrived at the headquarters of the commander of the 8th Guards Army Vasily Chuikov. "Today is May Day, a great holiday for both of our nations," Krebs began. "Today is our holiday. And how things are going for you, it's hard to say," Chuikov answered bluntly.
Krebs reported Hitler's death, and when it was passed on to Stalin, he expressed regret that the Fuhrer could not be captured alive. The general also proposed a truce, while Moscow demanded complete capitulation. Zhukov promised that "nothing but ruins" would remain of Berlin if the Germans did not fulfill their main demand. At 10:40 a.m., heavy artillery fire was opened on the government quarter that remained in Nazi hands.
At about 1 a.m. on May 2, Wehrmacht officers with white flags were spotted on the Potsdam Bridge, and at 6 a.m. Weidling finally ordered his troops to surrender. Soviet tanks drove around the city with loudspeakers broadcasting their commander's appeal to the Nazis. Groups of German soldiers and officers with their hands raised emerged from the ruins and basements. By three o'clock in the afternoon, the city was silent.
In the first "peaceful" hours and days, new tasks had to be urgently solved. "The possibility of epidemics in Berlin posed an exceptional threat to the troops and the population. The weather was hot, and corpses were lying around everywhere - in every house, basement, attic," recalled one of the commanders of the military rear, General Nikolai Antipenko (from September - the commander of the rear in our group of troops in Germany). "Many destroyed and contaminated reservoirs and springs, mass diseases among Soviet and foreign citizens liberated from concentration camps, spoiled food in warehouses, stores, etc."
There were many to bury: the Soviet troops lost 80 thousand soldiers irretrievably during the operation, Germany lost 380 thousand. About half a million Germans were captured.
Although the act of final capitulation was signed six days later, and German units were still holding the line near Prague, the fall of Berlin meant the long-awaited end of the war. The capture of the German capital by Soviet units also became an important factor in world politics: it gave the USSR a powerful argument in negotiations on the formation of a post-war world order.