In the middle of the night it became as bright as day, and the ground shook from the firing of eight thousand guns. Thus, on April 16, 1945, Marshal Georgy Zhukov announced that he was commencing the "Berlin Operation" - the final act of the Third Reich. The Germans were unable to stop the Red Army advancing west. They could only slow it down and inflict huge losses. The fall of Hitler, Berlin and Germany was inevitable.
The capture of Berlin and the defeat of Germany in May 1945 was an unprecedented event in history. The Soviet Union reached the peak of its power and occupied half of the "civilized world", and the red banner then planted over eastern Europe continued to fly until 1989. Let's go back 80 years to learn about the course of actions that led to the fall of the Third Reich.
Rokossowski levels the front
In January and February 1945, as a result of the brilliant Vistula-Oder operation, the Red Army plowed the Germans in three weeks and reached the line of the Oder.
No further advance west was possible, although it was under consideration. It turned out, however, that the supply lines are too long, and the Germans are still fiercely resisting East Prussia and Pomerania. We had to wait for the slower troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front, Marshal Konstanty Rokossowski, to catch up with the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front (Marshal Georgy Zhukov) and the 1st Ukrainian Front (Marshal Ivan Konev) and level the front line. It took Rokossowski the entire month of March, but finally - at the end of the month - his troops captured Pomerania and also reached the Oder.
The Berlin operation brought an end to World War II
The most important, central part of the Oder front was occupied by the 1st Belorussian Front, which manned the almost 100-kilometer section on the Oder. Zhukov's troops managed to gain several bridgeheads across the river, incl. in the vicinity of Kostrzyn. They were then used as a "launch pad" to attack Berlin, which was only 80 kilometers away from here.
Railway transport of Soviet IS-2 tanks on their way to the front in winter 1944
It is worth remembering that the southern flank of the front was still defended by Wrocław, encircled from February 13. The fights for Wrocław and other minor battles did not prevent Stalin and Stawka, however, from planning the "last offensive". Soon a great attack was to start from the Oder and Neisse, the main target of which was Berlin. As part of this operation, the Red Army was also to reach the Elbe, where the Soviet and British-American front lines were located. Such arrangements were made earlier, at the conference of three powers in Yalta.
Eisenhower gets fooled
Stalin attached great importance to the capture of Berlin. In his opinion, the capture of the capital of Germany - a great economic, cultural and industrial center, had a symbolic, propaganda and strategic significance. He also expected a lot of loot there, including obtaining documentation for work on German nuclear weapons. However, he said something different in his talks with the Western Allies. He assured him that he was not interested in Berlin, that the city had lost its geopolitical importance, and that the key goal of the Red Army was to defeat the Germans in central Germany. He also announced that the front would not move from the Oder until mid-May.
On the west side, the march on Berlin was demanded by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Bernard Montgomery, as well as by American generals and soldiers. However, at the highest level, in Washington, the decision was made that the Americans would not go to Berlin. The British were furious.
Tanks of the 3rd Guards Tank Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front during the offensive towards Germany in 1945
The reason was to be the great losses that Anglo-American troops would suffer in the battles for the city. In addition, the commander-in-chief of the west, General Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower believed in the words of Stalin and unconfirmed intelligence information that the Germans planned to withdraw intact units to the Alps, where they allegedly built a "national fortress" in which they would defend themselves even for several years. Americans regretted the "forgiveness" of Berlin for the next half century. The Soviets dealt cards again.
Stalin, constantly airing conspiracies and treason, did not believe for a long time that the Americans had let themselves be screwed. However, regardless of playing political games and spreading disinformation, he preferred to seal his plans with gun barrels. Therefore, on April 1, he called a meeting of the highest staff in Moscow, ordered the planning of the offensive and its launch on April 16. The armies were given two weeks to reach Berlin.
Zhukov goes first
The Berlin operation was to be carried out by three fronts:the 1st and 2nd Belarusian and the 1st Ukrainian. They had a total of about 2.5 million soldiers, 41 thousand. cannon and mortars, 6.2 thousand. tanks and self-propelled guns and 7.5 thousand. aircraft. Zhukov's army was the first to attack before dawn on April 16. The attack was supported by bomber aviation and 143 powerful aviation searchlights, which, directed straight ahead, were to blind the Germans and illuminate the attack area.
Zhukov was sure that the two-hour artillery barrage of 8,000 guns and the Katyusha would destroy the fortifications and kill the Germans. But on the other side, he had an experienced opponent. Germany was commanded in this area by General Gotthard Heinrici, a specialist in defensive combat. He used his proven maneuver and, at the right moment, simply withdrew the troops to the other line. Bombs, rockets and missiles plunged into the fortifications, but their defenders survived.
In addition to the fiercely defending Germans, the Soviets also had to overcome the Seelow Heights, located a few kilometers beyond the Oder. Heinrici manned them with few, but experienced units, incl. 9th Parachute Rifle Division. There were also hundreds of excellent anti-aircraft guns "Acht koma Acht" lined up to fire straight ahead on the hills. It quickly turned out that the idea of using anti-aircraft searchlights did not work. The effect was counterproductive. Dust, set off by the bombings, rose into the air, and the light could not penetrate it. It blinded and illuminated the attackers, who became easy targets. They died by the hundreds of cannons and machine guns, but it didn't matter, because Zhukov kept ordering:forward, forward, forward!
Gen. Gotthard Heinrici
On the Seelow Heights there is an interesting museum dedicated to the 1945 battle. It is worth visiting it on your trip to Berlin. Next to the museum there is a monument and a small cemetery where the Soviet officers and soldiers who died in the battle were buried. When visiting the cemetery, it is easy to realize how difficult it was to climb the hills. From their top, there is a distant view of the surrounding area, especially the flat floodplains of the Odra River, through which the Russians were attacking. In 1945, they were deliberately flooded, leaving tanks and people bogged down in the mud.
In the Battle of Seelow, which was only an episode in the Berlin operation, the Russians lost over 33,000. soldiers and 700 tanks (25% of the state). It lasted four days and during this time the armored armies stood still. In Moscow, Stalin was furious with rage and constantly called Zhukov, asking why the attack was not progressing.
Horse moves forward
The armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front launched their attack on April 16 at 4.55 in the morning after a 40-minute artillery strike. Konev was even more difficult than Zhukov, because the eastern bank of the Neisse was flat, and the western - high and wooded. The attack was carried out in 150 places to locate less fortified or less defended areas. On the first day of the offensive, Koniev's troops broke deeper than Zhukov's. They captured ... 13 km of land and reached the first line of German defense. There was a lot in the battle for Berlin.
On the second day of the offensive, Koniew's troops followed the blow, broke the second line of defense and broke into the defense for another 20 km. Another obstacle was the Spree and the third line of defense. And here Konev fared better, because he opened his way to the German capital faster.
Stalin decided to use Koneev's progress to mobilize Zhukov. The deadly competition had begun. Both marshals were to attack Berlin as soon as possible. Stalin only drew a demarcation line so that the troops would not parade each other. Eternal fame and honors were to come to the one who would break into the city and conquer it first. For Stalin and the rival marshals, human losses were of no importance.
Children, Women and Suicides
The Germans wanted to stop the offensive at all costs. After all, the fight was not about some steppe villages in Ukraine or cities in Italy or France, but for their own homes. Defensive lines ran through the middle of German villages, and the outskirts of Berlin began several kilometers beyond the third line of defense. For the detention of the "Ivans" they threw everything they had.
First of all, all available "cannon fodder", that is infantry, was sent to the battle. The Oder front was manned by the last Wehrmacht and SS troops capable of fighting, but also by the Volkssturm units composed of teenagers and mature men, formed in recent weeks. The Soviets even tried to stop women who - so far - Hitler did not allow to fight. One women's battalion defended the section of the front on the Oder, and in Berlin itself, female volunteers were trained, armed and prepared to fight ... against tanks.
The latest achievements of military technology, the so-called Hitler's marvelous weapons . Although there was already a shortage of aviation fuel, it was possible to send, for example, bizarre planes in the Mistel system (German:mistletoe) into the air. These were Messerschmitt Bf-109 and Focke Wulf Fw 190 fighter planes connected by a truss structure with the Junkers Ju 88 bomber.
The pilot of this "contraption" was sitting in the cockpit of a fighter mounted on the back of a bomber. The fuselage contained a powerful explosive, weighing up to 4 tons. The pilot's task was to direct the bomber at the target and break away from the bomb plummeting downwards at the last possible moment. Mistela was used to destroy bridges on the Odra River, as the German command believed that cutting off supplies would stop the Soviet attack. On April 25, five Mistels attacked the bridge in Kostrzyn. The attack was successful, but the bridge was repaired in a few hours. Another bridge was destroyed by a miracle of German technology - a remotely controlled HS 293 bomb.
In desperation, attempts were also made to attack bridges and river crossings with kamikaze planes. 36 attacks in the second half of April were carried out by a squadron of suicide pilots taking off from Jüterbog in Brandenburg. However, while the pilots declared that they would gladly die for Hitler, many did return to base due to "defects" or "undetected" targets.
A Volkssturm soldier in a combat position near Berlin, armed with a Panzerschreck, in April 1945
Yet another idea for destroying the bridges on the Oder was to use floating mines flowing downstream of the river and Kriegsmarine divers. Unfortunately, for the Germans, all these actions had miserable results. Several bridges were destroyed and a dozen were damaged, while the Russians built over 100 crossings on the Odra and Nysa! In addition, damaged bridges were repaired in a few hours, and damaged bridges in one or two days.
Steiner refuses Hitler
Meanwhile, the Soviet armored roller was gaining momentum. Zhukov finally opened his way to Berlin, in front of which there were no more serious natural obstacles, and no larger German units. For a change, now Koniew was uphill because his road was blocked by numerous canals, rivers and lakes, and the flanks of his front were constantly threatened by battle-hardened German units, retreating from the Oder to the west - to the Americans.
Units of the 1st Belorussian Front reached the outskirts of Berlin on April 20 and began encircling the city from the north. Gen. Heinrici tried to create a new line of defense along the Berliner Ring we all know, but he had no more troops to man. Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday that day. He did not know that Berlin was already under fire from the Soviet artillery, which, however, did not reach the city center yet. The "bomb gift" for the Fuhrer dropped, also downtown, 299 American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses.
The commander of the Third Reich, who had completely lost touch with reality, had still visions of the use of mysterious miraculous weapons, a split in the Allied camp and relief for Berlin, with which the armies of General Felix Steiner and General Helmut Weidling were to come. The deliberation scene in the movie "The Fall", during which Hitler learns that Steiner is not coming, has become iconic. It is reproduced in dozens of video memes, remakes and creative references. Steiner calculated cold. He did everything not to go to Berlin, where - in the fighting in the city - his armies awaited certain doom. He preferred to lead them to American rather than Soviet captivity. He refused to obey Hitler's orders, broke west, and handed it over to the Americans on May 3.
Berlin in a lap
Meanwhile, ticks were tightening around Berlin. The armies of the 1st FB completed the encirclement from the east and the north, the armies of the 1st FA completed the loop from the south and west. The meeting of the fronts took place on April 25 near Kietzin. In the last hours, a unit of ... mobilized Kriegsmarine sailors sent by Doenitz and the remnants of the French SS Charlemange division managed to slip into the city. In fact, instead of a huge garrison of experienced troops, Berlin was defended by a real jumble:armored divisions without tanks created a few weeks ago, foreign units - Scandinavian, French, mixed with scared children from the Hitler Youth, Luftwaffe ground staff and workers from the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labor Service). The total forces of the defenders numbered about 45 thousand. soldiers of regular troops and as many grandparents and children of the Volkssturm.
The city was not prepared for defense. The only strong centers of resistance were the mighty ZOO Flaktürm, Humboldthain and Friedrichshain anti-aircraft towers, located at three points in the city.
The central zone was also strongly strengthened, with solid government buildings, headquarters and ministries. The attack was hindered by numerous rivers and canals on which the bridges were under fire or blown up. Barricades of railway sleepers and tram cars were built in the streets.
Soviet artillery shells German positions during the Battle of the Seelow Heights
At key intersections, there were tanks dug into the ground and paved with cobblestones as stationary resistance points. Even in the last days of April, Berlin factories produced tanks and other combat vehicles, which immediately went into battle from the production line. The Soviet T-34 and IS-2 were hunted in the narrow streets by "tank hunters" armed with Panzerfausts and Panzerschrecks. The Germans also used a state-of-the-art and secret weapon in Berlin called the "fliegerfaust".
However, the German defense collapsed like a house of cards under an avalanche of iron from hundreds of tanks, aerial bombardment and shelling from thousands of guns and mortars, including the heaviest 203 mm B4 howitzers firing straight into the walls of buildings. Even the Soviet fleet fought in Berlin! On the rivers and canals, units of the Danube Flotilla appeared, which were transported to Berlin by rivers and on railway platforms. This great battle probably only lacked submarines ...
The ranks of the defenders were rapidly melting. Approximately 100,000 people died during the Berlin Operation Germans. The attackers also suffered huge losses:the Soviet units and the units of the Polish Army supporting them. They are estimated at almost 80 thousand. killed and over 270,000 injured! The Russians also lost almost 2,000 tanks and 900 aircraft! All this to conquer Berlin - which, as Stalin had assured before, lost its geopolitical importance.
On April 30, when Soviet troops approached the gardens of the Reich Chancellery, under which the Fuhrer's bunker was located, Hitler committed suicide. Eve Braun, the newly married wife of the chief, swallowed the poison with him. On May 1, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide, and also poisoned six of their children. More than 6,000 civilians of Berlin followed in the leader's footsteps, preferring to die rather than watch the Soviet triumph. About 20,000 Berliners died of a heart attack in the last hours of the fighting or after it ended.
Red Army soldiers hanging the flag of the USSR on the roof of the Reichstag. The photo was taken by Yevgeny Khaldey.
Zhukov finally won the bloody race of marshals. On May 2, Berlin capitulated and a red flag with a hammer and sickle hung on the roof of the Reichstag. The staged photo of the hanging of the banner, which has become an icon of visual culture, was taken by military photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldey. Censorship retouched one of the two watches on the soldier's wrist with the flag so as not to suggest that the Red Army was stealing and raping in the territories it occupied ...
The Berlin operation was attended by i.a. Soviet cavalry units. After the bloody battle, guns and wagons dragged by dusty and skinny horses and ... camels rolled through the streets of Berlin. Among them were the famous Misha and Masha Astrakhan camels and a lesser-known camel named Pasikonik. Soviet soldiers led Pasikonik to the Reichstag stairs, on which the camel spat.