Battle of Berlin

Battle of Berlin
Part of World War II
. Red Army soldiers Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria of the 756th Rifle Regiment raising the Flag of the Soviet Union over the Reichstag building during the Battle of Berlin, April 30, 1945.
Date April 16 1945 – May 2 1945 Location Berlin, Germany Result Decisive Soviet victory and end of the Third Reich one week later
Belligerents
Soviet Union Poland	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Georgiy Zhukov Ivan Konev Konstantin Rokossovskiy Vasiliy Chuykov	Adolf Hitler Gotthard Heinrici Helmuth Reymann Ernst Kaether (one day) Helmuth Weidling (POW) Karl Dönitz (POW) Wilhelm Mohnke (POW)
Strength
2,500,000 soldiers, 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces	1,000,000 men (including Hitler Youth and Volkssturm militias), 1,500 tanks, 3,300 aircraft
Casualties and losses
81,000 dead or missing (including 2,800 Polish) 280,000 sick or wounded Total casualties 361,367 men 1,997 tanks, 2,108 artillery pieces, 917 aircraft destroyed	150,000–173,000 killed 200,000 wounded 134,000 captured

This article is about the Soviet assault on Berlin in 1945. For the strategic bombing raids on Berlin, see Battle of Berlin (air).

The Battle of Berlin was one of the final battles of the European Theatre of World War II. In what was known to the Soviets as the "Berlin Offensive Operation", two massive Soviet army groups attacked Berlin from the east and south. The battle lasted from late April 1945 until early May. Before the Battle for Berlin was over, German dictator Adolf Hitler and many of his followers committed suicide. The city's defenders surrendered on May 2. However, sporadic fighting continued until the end of the war in Europe on May 8 (May 9 to the USSR).

Background

In the wake of Operation Bagration in August 1944, the Eastern Front became relatively stable. Romania and Bulgaria had been forced to surrender and declare war on Germany. The Germans had lost Budapest and most of the rest of Hungary. The plains of Poland were now open to the Soviet Red Army.

Starting on January 12, 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula-Oder offensive across the Narew River and from Warsaw -- a three-day operation on a broad front which incorporated four army Fronts. On the fourth day, the Red Army broke out and started moving west, up to thirty to forty kilometres per day. They took the Baltic states, Danzig, East Prussia, and Poznań, drawing up on a line sixty kilometres east of Berlin, along the Oder River.

The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, attempted a counter-attack but failed by February 24. The Red Army then drove on to Pomerania. The Red Army cleared the right bank of the Oder River, thereby reaching into Silesia.

In the south the Battle of Budapest raged. Three German attempts to relieve the encircled Hungarian capital city failed. Budapest fell to the Soviets on February 13. Again the Germans counter-attacked, Hitler insisting on the impossible task of regaining the Danube River. By March 16, the German's Lake Balaton Offensive had failed. Within twenty-four hours, the Red Army's counter-attack took back everything the Germans had gained in ten days. On March 30, the Soviets entered Austria and, during the Vienna Offensive, they captured Vienna on April 13.

By this time, it was clear that the final defeat of the Third Reich was only a few weeks away. The Wehrmacht had, at most, eight percent of the fuel it needed to operate effectively, and both the production and the quality of fighter aircraft and tanks deteriorated from their heights in 1944. However, it was also known that the fighting would be as fierce as at any other time in the war. The Germans fought bitterly, because of national pride, the Allied insistence on unconditional surrender, and to buy time for the German people to flee from the Red Army.

Adolf Hitler decided to remain in the city, against the wishes of his advisors.

The Western Allies had tentative plans to drop paratroopers to occupy Berlin in case of a sudden German collapse. No offensive was planned to seize the city. Eisenhower saw no need to suffer casualties in attacking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence after the war. The major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the strategic bombing of Berlin during 1945. During 1945 USAAF launched a number of very large daytime raids on Berlin and for 36 nights in succession scores of RAF Mosquitos bombed the German capital, ending on the night of 20/21 April 1945 just before the Soviets entered the city.

Soviet offensive

Preparations

File:Russian artillery fire in Berlin.jpg

Soviet Katyusha multiple rocket launchers fire in Berlin, April 1945. This example is a BM-13N, 132mm rocket launcher mounted on a Lend-Lease US Studebaker truck.

The Soviet offensive into central Germany [what later became East Germany (GDR)] had two objectives. Stalin did not believe the Western Allies would hand over territory occupied by them in the post-war Soviet zone, so he began the offensive on a broad front and moved rapidly to meet the Western Allies as far west as possible. But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin. The two were complementary because possession of the zone could not be won quickly unless Berlin was taken. Another consideration was that Berlin itself held useful post-war strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and the German atomic bomb programme.

On 6 March, Hitler appointed Lieutenant General Helmuth Reymann as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area replacing Lieutenant General Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild.

On 20 March, General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula replacing Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Heinrici was one of the best defensive tacticians in the German army. He immediately started to lay defensive plans. Heinrici correctly assessed that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the Oder River and along the main east-west Autobahn. He decided not to try to defend the banks of the Oder with anything more than a light skirmishing screen. Instead, Heinrici arranged for engineers to fortify the Seelow Heights which overlooked the Oder River at the point where the Autobahn crossed it. This was some 17 kilometers west of the Oder and 90 kilometers east of Berlin. Heinrici thinned out the line in other areas to increase the manpower available to defend the heights. German pioneers turned the Oder's flood plain, already saturated by the spring thaw, into a swamp by releasing the waters in a reservoir upstream. Behind this the engineers built three belts of defensive emplacements. These emplacements reached back towards the outskirts of Berlin (the lines nearer to Berlin were called the Wot an position). These lines consisted of anti-tank ditches, anti-tank gun emplacements, and an extensive network of trenches and bunkers.

On 9 April, Königsberg in East Prussia finally fell to the Red Army. This freed up Marshal Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front (2BF) to move west to the east bank of the Oder river. During the first two weeks of April the Red Army performed their fastest Front redeployment of the war. Marshal Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front (1BF) which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow Heights. The 2BF moved into the positions being vacated by the 1BF north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress, gaps were left in the lines and the remnants of the German II Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape across the Oder. To the south, Marshal Konev shifted the main weight of the 1st Ukrainian Front (1UF) out of Upper Silesia north-west to the Neisse River. The three Soviet Fronts had altogether 2.5 million men (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army), 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars, 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rocket launchers (nicknamed 'Stalin's Pipe Organs'), and 95,383 motor vehicles, many manufactured in the USA.

Battle of the Oder-Neisse

Main article: Battle of the Seelow Heights.

In the early hours on April 16, the offensive began with a massive bombardment by thousands of artillery pieces and Katyusha rockets in a barrage which was sustained for several days. Shortly afterwards and well before dawn the 1BF attacked across the Oder. The 1UF attacked across the Neisse before the dawn the same morning. The 1BF was the stronger force but it had the more difficult assignment and was facing the majority of the German forces.

The initial attack by the 1BF was a disaster. Heinrici anticipated the attack and withdrew his defenders from the first line of trenches just before the Soviet artillery obliterated them. The light from 143 searchlights which were intended to blind the defenders was diffused by the early morning mist and made useful silhouettes of the attacking Soviet formations. The swampy ground proved to be a great hindrance and under a German counter barrage, Soviet casualties were enormous. Frustrated by the slow advance, or on the direct orders of Stalin, Zhukov threw in his reserves, which in his plan were to have been held back to exploit the expected breakthrough. By early evening an advance of almost six kilometres had been achieved in some areas, but the German lines remained intact. In the south the attack by the 1UF was keeping to plan. Zhukov was forced to report that the Battle of the Seelow Heights was not going as planned. Stalin, to spur Zhukov, told him that he would give Konev permission to wheel his tank armies towards Berlin from the south.

On the second day the 1BF staff were reduced to combing the rear areas for any troops which could be thrown into the battle. The Soviet tactic of using massed attacks was proving more costly than usual. By night fall of April 17 the German front before Zhukov remained unbroken, but only just. To the south Army Group Centre under the command of General Ferdinand Schörner was not proving such a hindrance. IV Panzer Army on the north flank of his formation was falling back under the weight of the 1UF Attack. He kept his two reserve Panzer divisions in the south covering his centre, instead of using them to shore up the IV Panzer Army. This was the turning point in the battle because by nightfall the positions of both the Army Group Vistula and southern sectors of Army Group Centre were becoming untenable. Unless they fell back in line with the IV Panzer Army they faced envelopment. In effect Konev's successful attacks on Schörner's poor defences, to the south of the battle of the Seelow Heights, were unhinging Heinrici's brilliant defence.

On April 18, both Soviet Fronts made steady progress but Soviet losses were again substantial. By the nightfall the 1BF had reached the third and final German line of defence and the 1UF having captured Forst was preparing to break out into open country.

On April 19, the fourth day the 1BF broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The remnants of General Theodor Busse's IX Army which had been holding the heights and the remaining northern flank of the IV Panzer Army were in danger of being enveloped by elements of the 1UF, these were the 3rd Guards Army and the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies, which having broken through the IV Panzer Army turned north towards Berlin and the 1BF. Other armies of the 1UF raced west towards the Americans. By the end of the 19th the German eastern front line had ceased to exist. All that remained were pockets of resistance. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between April 1 and April 19, with over 2,807 tanks lost. During the same period the Allies in the west lost 1,079 tanks.

Encirclement of Berlin

On 20 April, Hitler's birthday, Soviet artillery of 1BF began to shell the centre of Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered. After the war the Soviets pointed out that the weight of explosives delivered by their artillery during the battle was greater than the tonnage dropped by the Western Allied bombers on the city. 1BF advanced towards the east and north-east of the City.

1UF had pushed through the last formations of the northern wing of Army Group Centre and had passed north of Juterbog well over halfway to the American front lines on the river Elbe at Magdeburg. To the north between Stettin and Schwedt, 2BF attacked the northern flank of Army Group Vistula, held by the III Panzer Army.

On 21 April, the 2nd Guards Army advanced nearly 50 km north of Berlin and then attacked southwest of Werneuchen. Other Soviet units reached the outer defence ring. The Soviet plan was to encircle Berlin first and then envelop the IX Army.

The command of the V Corps trapped with the IX Army north of Forst, passed from IV Panzer Army to the IX Army. The corps was still holding onto Cottbus. When the old southern flank of IV Panzer Army had some local successes counter attacking north against 1UF, Hitler gave some orders which showed that his grasp of military reality had gone. He ordered IX Army to hold Cottbus and set up a front facing west. Then they were to attack into the Soviet columns advancing north. This would allow them to form the northern pincer which would meet with the IV Panzer Army coming from the south and envelop the 1UF before destroying it. They were to anticipate an attack south by the III Panzer Army and to be ready to be the southern arm of a pincer attack which would envelop 1BF which would be destroyed by SS-General Felix Steiner's XI SS Panzer Army advancing from north of Berlin. Later in the day, when Steiner made it plain that he did not have the divisions to do this, Heinrici made it clear to Hitler's staff that unless the IX Army retreated immediately it was about to be enveloped by the Soviets. He stressed it was already too late for it to move north-west to Berlin and would have to retreat west. Heinrici went on to say that if Hitler did not allow it to move west he would ask to be relieved of his command. Template:ImageStackRight On April 22, at his afternoon situation conference Hitler fell into a tearful rage when he realised that his plans of the day before were not going to be realised. He declared that the war was lost, he blamed the generals and announced that he would stay on in Berlin until the end and then kill himself. In an attempt to coax Hitler out of his rage, General Alfred Jodl speculated that the XII Army, under the command of General Walther Wenck, that was facing the Americans, could move to Berlin because the Americans, already on the Elbe River, were unlikely to move further east. Hitler immediately grasped the idea and within hours Wenck was ordered to disengage from the Americans and move the XII Army north-east to support Berlin. It was then realised that, if the IX Army moved west, it could link up with the XII Army. In the evening Heinrici was given permission to make the link up.

Away from the map room in the Berlin Führerbunker with its imaginary attacks of phantom divisions, the Soviets were getting on with winning the war. 2BF had established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder over 15 km deep and was heavily engaged with the III Panzer Army. The IX Army had lost Cottbus and was being pressed from the east. A Soviet tank spearhead was on the Havel river to the east of Berlin and another had at one point penetrated the inner defensive ring of Berlin.

A Soviet war correspondent gave this account, in the zealous style of World War Two Russian journalism, of an important event that day—the capital was now within range of field artillery.

On the walls of the houses we saw Goebbel's appeals, hurriedly scrawled in white paint: 'Every German will defend his capital. We shall stop the Red hordes at the walls of our Berlin.' Just try and stop them!
Steel pillboxes, barricades, mines, traps, suicide squads with grenades clutched in their hands—all are swept aside before the tidal wave.
Drizzling rain began to fall. Near Bisdorf I saw batteries preparing to open fire.
'What are the targets?' I asked the battery commander.
Centre of Berlin, Spree bridges, and the northern and Stettin railway stations,' he answered.
Then came the tremendous words of command: 'Open fire at the capital of Fascist Germany.'

I noted the time. It was exactly 8:30 a.m. on 22 April. Ninety-six shells fell in the centre of Berlin in the course of a few minutes.

On 23 April, the Soviet 1BF and 1UF continued to tighten the encirclement, including severing the last link that the German IX Army had with the city. Elements of 1UF continued to move westward and started to engage the German XII Army moving towards Berlin. On this same day, Hitler appointed General Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area replacing Lieutenant General Reymann.

By April 24 elements of 1BF and 1UF had completed the encirclement of the city.

The next day, 25 April, the 2BF broke through III Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin and crossed the Rando Swamp. They were now free to move west towards the British 21st Army Group and north towards the Baltic port of Stralsund. The Soviet 58th Guards Division of the 5th Guards Army made contact with the US 69th Infantry Division of the First Army near Torgau, Germany on the Elbe River.

Throughout the day of 25 April, the encirclement of Berlin was tightened even more. Soviet spearheads entered Zehlendorf and Neukoelln. There was fighting at the Teltow Canal. The Berlin suburbs of Adlershof, Alt-Glienicke, Tegel, Wittenau, Reinickendorf, Mariendorf, and Lankwitz were over-run. German troops withdraw into positions in central Berlin. The new front line was Schoeneberg Town Hall, Halle Gate, and Belle-Alliance Square.

Battle in Berlin

Main article: Battle in Berlin

The forces available to Weidling for the city's defence included several severely depleted Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions, in all about 45,000 men. These divisions were supplemented by the police force, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the Volkssturm. Many of the 40,000 elderly men of the Volkssturm had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I. The comander of the central district, SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, who had been appointed to this position by Hitler, had over 2,000 men under his comanded.

Weidling organized the defences into eight sectors designated 'A' through to 'H' each one commanded by a colonel or a general, but most of them had no combat experiance. To the west of the city was the XX Infantry Division. To the north of the city was the IX Parachute Division To the north-east of the city was the Panzer Division Müncheberg. To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the XI SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. The reserve, XVIII Panzergrenadier Division, was in Berlin's central district.

Berlin's fate was sealed, because the decisive stages of the battle were fought outside the city, but the resistance inside continued. On the 23 April Some of Chuikov's rifle units had crossed the Spree and the Dahme south of Köpenick and by the 24 April were advancing along with Katukov's leading tanks were advancing towards Britz and Neukölln. Some time after midnight a corps of the 5th Shock Army crossed the Spree close to Treptow Park. At dawn on the 24 April the LVI Panzer Corps still under Weildling's direct command counter attacked, but were severely mauled by the 5th Shock Army, which was able to continue its advance around mid day. Meanwhile the first large Soviet probe into the city was put into operation. Kataukov's 1st Guard Army attacked across the Teltow Canal. At 06:20 a bombardment by 3,000 guns and heavy mortars began (a staggering 650 pieces of artillery per one kilometer of front). At 07:00 hours the first Soviet battalions were across and they were followed by tanks around 12:00 shortly after the first of the pontoon bridges were completed. By the evening Treptow Park was in Soviet hands and they had reached the S-Bahn ring railway.

While the fighting raged in the south east of the city, between 320 and 330 French volunteers commanded by Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg and organized as Sturmbataillon (assault battalion) "Charlemagne" were attached to XI SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. They moved from the SS training ground near Neustrelitz to the centre of Berlin through the western suburbs which apart from unmaned barricades across the Havel and Spree were devoid of fortifications or defenders. Of all the reinforcements ordered to Berlin that day only this one Sturmbataillon arrived.

On 25 April, Krukenberg was appointed as the commander Defence Sector C which included the Nordland Division, whose previous commander Johachim Ziegler was relieved of his command the same day. The arrival of the French SS men bolstered the Nordland Division whose Norge and Danmark regiments had been decimated in the fighting. Just midday as Krukenberg reached his command, the last German bridgehead south of the Teltow Canal was being abandoned.

The location of Neukölln

On the 26 April Soviet combat groups of the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs of Neukölln towards Tempelhof Airport which was located just inside the S-Bhan defensive ring. Defending Sector D was Panzer Division Müncheberg. This division, down to its last dozen tanks and thirty APCs had been promised replacements for battle losses but only stragglers and Volkssturm were available to fill the ranks. The Soviets advanced cautiously using flamethrowers to overcome defensive positions. By dusk the Soviet T43 tanks had reached the airfield, only six kilometres (four miles) south of Führerbunker, where they were checked by stiff German resistance. The Müncheberg Division managed to hold the line until the afternoon of the next day, but this was the last time that they were able to check the Soviet advance for more than a few hours. With Neukölln heavily penatrated by Soviet combat groups Krukenberg prepared fallback positions for Sector C defenders around Hermammplatz. He moved his headquaters into the opera house. The two understrenth German divisions defending the south east were now facing five Soviet armies. From east to west they were the 5th Shock Army, advancing from Treptow Park, the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army advancing through Neukölln north were checked at Tempelhof Airport and Konev's 3rd Guards Tank Army was advancing from Mariendorf. As the Norland division fell back towards Hermammplatz the French SS and one hundred Hitler Youths attached to their group destroyed fourteen soviet tanks with panzerfausts, and one machine gun position by Halensee bridge managed to hold up any Soviet advances in that area for forty-eight hours. Although these two divisions of Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps could slow the Soviet advance they could not stop it. Krukenberg informed General Krebs that within 24 hours the Nordland would have to fall back to the centre sector Z (for Zentrum).

A northern European apartment building.

The Germans tactics used for the urban warfare that took place Berlin was dictated by three considerations. The first was the experience that the Germans had gained during five years of war, the physical characteristics of Berlin and the tactics used by the Soviets. Most of central districts of Berlin consists of city blocks with straight wide roads with several waterways, parks and large railway marshalling yards. It is predominantly flat but there are some low hills like that of Kreuzberg that is 66m above sea level. Much of the housing stock consisted of apartments blocks build in the second half of the 19th century most of those, thanks to housing regulation, and few elevators, were five stories high built around a courtyard which could be reached from the street through a corridor large enough to take a horse and cart or the small trucks used to deliver coal. In many places these apartment blocks were build around several courtyards one behind the other each one reached through the outer courtyards by a ground level tunnel similar to that between the first courtyard and the road. The larger more expensive flats faced the street and the smaller less expensive ones could be found around the inner countyards.

A devastated street in the city centre, 3 July, 1945.

Just as the Soviets had learn a lot about urban warfare, so had the Germans. The Waffen SS did not use the makeshift barricades erected close to street corners, because these could be raked by artillery fire from guns firing over open sights further along the straight streets. Instead they put snipers and machine guns on the upper floors and the roofs because the Soviet tanks could not elevate their guns that high and they put men armed with panzerfausts in cellar windows to ambush tanks as they moved down the streets. These tactics were quickly adopted by the Hitler Youth and the First World War Volksstrurm veterans.

To counter these tactics the Soviets mounted sub-machine gunners on the tanks who sprayed every doorway and window, but this had the disadvantage that the tank could not traverse its turret quickly. The other solution was to rely on heavy howitzers (152mm and 203mm) firing over open sights to blast defended buildings and to use anti-aircraft guns against the German gunners on the higher floors. Soviet combat groups started to move from house to house instead of directly down the streets. They moved through the apartments and cellars blasting holes through the walls of adjacent buildings (for which the Soviets found that abandond German panzerfausts were very effective) while others fought across the roof tops and through the attics. These tactics took the Germans laying in ambush for tanks in the flanks. Flamethrowers and granades were very effective, but as the Berlin civilian population had not been evacuated these tactics inevetably killed many civillians.

The Soviet advance to the city centre was along these main axes: from the south east, along the Frankfurter Allee (ending and stopped at the Alexanderplatz); from the south along Sonnen Allee ending north of the Belle Alliance Platz, from the south ending near the Potsdamer Platz and from the north ending near the Reichstag. The Reichstag, the Moltke bridge, Alexanderplatz, and the Havel bridges at Spandau were the places where the fighting was heaviest, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The foreign contingents of the SS fought particularly hard, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured.

On 26 April, Hitler summoned Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the Lufwaffe from Goering. While flying over Berlin, von Greim was seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Hanna Reitsch, his mistress and a crack test pilot, landed von Greim on an improvised air strip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.

On the same day that Reitsch and von Greim landed in Berlin, 26 April, German General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling was appointed commander of the Berlin Defense Area. Hitler had ordered that Weidling be executed by firing squad only four days earlier on 22 April. This was due to a misunderstanding concerning a retreat ordered issued by Weidling as commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. Weidling had been appointed commander of the LVI Panzer Corps on 20 April. Weidling replaced Oberstleutnant Ernst Kaether as commander of Berlin. Only one day earlier, Kaether had replaced Generalleutnant Helmuth Reymann. Reymann had the position since March.

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File:Soviet soldier metro.jpg

Soviet soldiers storming the Berlin metro.

On 27 April, to slow the advancing Soviets, Hitler ordered the flooding of the Berlin underground. Hitler's order resulted in the drowning of thousands of German soldiers and civilians who had taken refuge in the tunnels.

At some point on 28 April or 29 April, General Gotthard Heinrici, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula, was relieved of his command. Heinrici disobeyed Hitler's direct orders to hold Berlin at all costs and to never order a retreat. As a result, Heinrici was replaced by General Kurt Student. General Kurt von Tippelskirch was named as Heinrici's interim replacement until Student could arrive and assume control. Student was captured by the British and never arrived.

Also on 28 April, German General Hans Krebs, Chief of Staff, made his last telephone call from the Führerbunker. He called General Wilhelm Keitel at the new Supreme Command Headquarters in Fuerstenberg. Krebs told Keitel that, if relief did not arrive within 48 hours, all is lost. Keitel promised to exert the utmost pressure on Generals Wenck and Busse. Meanwhile, Martin Borman wired to German Admiral Karl Dönitz: "Reich Chancellery (Reichskanzlei) a heap of rubble." Borman was the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and Hitler's private secretary.

Later on 28 April, Hitler learned of Himmler's contacts with Count Folke Bernadotte in Luebeck. Himmler had asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Enraged at Himmler's duplicity, Hitler ordered von Greim and Reitsch to fly to Dönitz's headquarters at Ploen. Von Greim was ordered to arrest the "traitor" Himmler.

During the night of 28 April, General Wenck reported to the German Supreme Army Command in Fuerstenberg that his XXII Army had been forced back along the entire front. This was particularly true of XX Corps which had been able to establish temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. According to Wenck, no attack on Berlin was now possible. This was even more so as support from the IX Army could no longer be expected.

On 29 April, von Greim and Reitsch flew out from Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 trainer. Fearing that Hitler was escaping in the plane, troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten, tried to shoot the Arado down. The Soviet troops failed in their efforts and the plane took off successfully.

On 29 April, in the Führerbunker, General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, Krebs, and Bormann witnessed and signed the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. Hitler dictated the document to Traudl Junge.

Late in the evening of 29 April, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) by radio: "Request immediate report. Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck's spearheads. Secondly of time intended to attack. Thirdly of the location of the IX Army. Fourthly of the precise place in which the IX Army will break through. Fithly of the whereabouts of General Rudolph Holste's spearhead."

In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs: "Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake. Secondly, XII Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. Thirdly, bulk of IX Army surrounded. Fourthly, Holste's Corps on the defensive."

File:Polacy Berlin1.jpg

Officer of the 1st Polish Army fighting in the vicinity of the Brandenburger Tor

On 30 April, as the Soviet forces fought their way into the centre of Berlin, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun and then committed suicide with her. The bodies were cremated close to the bunker. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Admiral Karl Dönitz became the "President of Germany" (Reichspräsident and Joseph Goebbels became the new Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler).

At abour 03:00 on 1 May, Krebs talked to Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Krebs returned empty handed after refusing to agree to an unconditional surrender. In the afternoon, Goebbels and his wife killed their childern. At about 20:00, under orders from Goebells, an SS guard shot Goebbels and his wife. At 21:00, Borman, the rest of the entourage, and several guards tried to break out from the Reich Chancellery (a few chose suicide as an alternative).

For a brief period after Hitler's suicide, Goebbels was Germany's Reichskanzler. On 1 May, after Goebbels' own suicide, Reichspräsident Admiral Karl Dönitz appointed Ludwig von Krosigk as Reichskanzler. The headquarters of the Dönitz government were located around Flensburg, along with Mürwik, near the Danish border. Accordingly, the Dönitz administration was referred to as the Flensburg government.

On 2 May, General Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, contacted Zhukov at 8:23 am. Zhukov asked: "You are the commander of the Berlin garrison?" Weidling replied: "Yes, I am the commander of the LVIIth Tank Corps." Zhukov then asked: "Where is Krebs?" Weidling replied: "I saw him yesterday in the Reichs Chancellery." Weidling then added: "I thought he would commit suicide." In the discussions which followed, Weidling agreed to an unconditional surrender of the city of Berlin. He agreed to order the city's defenders to surrender to the Soviets. Per Zhukov's and Soviet General Vasily Sokolovsky's direction, Weidling put his order to surrender in writing. But, despite this order, heavy fighting continued as a large number of the Germans did not wish to surrender or still believed it was possible to break out.

On 8 May, as a result of the German nation's unconditional surrender, the last German troops in Berlin finally surrendered. This included Mohnke, commander of the Reich Chancellery's defence.

Battle of Halbe

Main article: Battle of Halbe

To the south of Berlin, during the battle of Berlin and for a number of days afterwards, the German IX Army fought a desperate action to break out of the pocket which they were in so that they could link up with the German XII Army and then to cross the river Elbe and surrender to the Americans.

Conclusion

File:Polska Flaga Berlin.jpg

Polish flag flown at the Brandenburg Gate after the battle

The battle ended after a week of heavy fighting because the Germans ran out of men and supplies. The German supply dumps were located outside the outer defence line (the Inner Ring) and were captured quite early in the battle by the Soviets. In the battle for the city the Soviets lost about 2,000 armoured vehicles, in good part due to the effective shoulder-firing recoilless gun known as the Panzerfaust, mass numbers of which were supplied to German civilians, though countermeasures such as armor and wire skirts were being deployed. The Germans had only a few tanks.

In many areas of the city, vengeful Soviet troops (usually rear echelon units) looted, raped an estimated 100,000 women and murdered civilians for several weeks (see under Marta Hillers and Red Army atrocities). After the summer of 1945 Soviet soldiers caught raping were usually punished to various degrees. The rapes continued however until the winter of 1947-48, when the problem was finally solved by the Russian occupation authorities by confining the Soviet troops to strictly guarded posts and camps.“

The Soviets sustained 20,000–25,000 dead in the city and 81,000 for the entire operation, which included the Battles of Seelow Heights and the Halbe. Another 280,000 were reported wounded or sick during the operational period. The Germans sustained as many as 450,000 killed, wounded or missing, civilians included.

Following Hitler's wishes in his last will and testament, on his death Admiral Karl Dönitz became the new Reichspräsident and Joseph Goebbels the new Reichskanzler. However Goebbels' suicide on May 1, left the new head of state to orchestrate negotiations of national surrender on his own. The German high command and most German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on 8 May 1945, which became known as V-E Day. Although a few German units kept fighting a few days longer, the war in Europe was effectively over, and with it went the Third Reich.

File:TamanyanUnderBrandenburg.jpg

Troops of the 89th Tamanyan Division marching under the Brandenburg Gate (ca. May 1945).

See also

• German Instrument of Surrender, 1945
• Flak Tower
• Race to Berlin
• The German Alpine National Redoubt
• Decisive victory
• End of World War II in Europe

References

• Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
• Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
• Krivosheev, G. F. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, Greenhill Books, 1997, ISBN 1-85367-280-7
• Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949, Cambridge: Belknap, 1995, ISBN 0-674-78405-7
• Ziemke, Earl F. Battle For Berlin: End Of The Third Reich, NY:Ballantine Books, London:Macdomald & Co, 1969.

Further reading

• Hastings, Max; Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, Macmillan, 2004, ISBN 0-333-90836-8
• Hillers, Marta; A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City Translated by Anthes Bell, ISBN 0-8050-7540-2
• Read, Anthony; The Fall of Berlin, London: Pimlico, 1993. ISBN 0-7126-0695-5
• Ryan, Cornelius; The Last Battle, ISBN 0-684-80329-1
• Sanders, Ian J. ; Photos of World War 2 Berlin Locations today
• Shepardson, Donald E.; "The Fall of Berlin and the Rise of a Myth", The Journal of Military History, Vol. 62, No. 1. (1998), pp. 135–153.
• Remme, Tilman; The Battle for Berlin in World War Two BBC article
• White, Osmar By the eyes of a war correspondent Alternative account of crimes against civilians

Footnotes

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