Slaughter at Halbe E-Book

Tony Le Tissier

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 377

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

Operation 'Berlin', the Soviet offensive launched on 16 April 1945 by Marshals Zhukov and Koniev, isolated the German 9th Army and tens of thousands of refugees in the Spreewald 'pocket', south-east of Berlin. Stalin ordered its encirclement and destruction, and his subordinates, eager to win the race to the Reichstag, pushed General Busse's 9th Army into a tiny area east of the village of Halbe. To escape the Spreewald pocket, the remnants of 9th Army had to pass through Halbe, where barricades constructed by both sides formed formidable obstacles and the converging Soviet forces subjected the area to heavy artillery fire. By the time 9th Army eventually escaped the Soviet pincers, it had suffered 40,000 killed and 60,000 taken prisoner. In Slaughter at Halbe, teenaged refugees recount their experiences alongside Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS veterans attempting to maintain military discipline amid the chaos and carnage of headlong retreat. Relating the story day by day, Tony Le Tissier shows the impact of total war upon soldier and civilian alike.

Leseprobe

Slaughterat Halbe

Slaughterat Halbe

THE DESTRUCTION OFHITLER’S 9TH ARMY

Tony Le Tissier

First published in 2005 by Sutton Publishing Limited

The History PressThe Mill, Brimscombe PortStroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Tony Le Tissier, 2005, 2013

The right of Tony Le Tissier to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9534 7

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

 1  Preparing for ‘Operation Berlin’

 2  Breaching the Oder–Neisse Defences

 3  9th Army Encircled – 21 April 1945

 4  Destroy the 9th Army – 22 April 1945

 5  12th Army to the Rescue – 23 April 1945

 6  The Soviets Close In – 24 April 1945

 7  No Luck for von Luck – 25 April 1945

 8  Preparing the Break-Out – 26 April 1945

 9  The Pocket Shrinks – 27 April 1945

10  The Eye of the Needle – 28 April 1945

11   Breaching Koniev’s Lines – 29 April 1945

12  12th Army Waits – 30 April 1945

13  The Last Leg – 1 May 1945

14  Retreat to the Elbe

15  Aftermath

 Appendices

 A  Soviet Forces Engaged Against the HalbePocket

 B  Order of Battle: German 9th Army

 C  Order of Battle: German 12th Army

 Bibliography

Abbreviations

A

Army

Arty

Artillery

B/Bde

Brigade

BF/Bye Fr

Byelorussian Front

C

Corps

D

Division

Elms

Elements

FWL

Forest Warden’s Lodge

G/Gds

Guards

GCC

Guards Cavalry Corps

Gp

Group

Gr

Grenadier

Grn

Garrison

How

Howitzer

HQ

Headquarters

Hy

Heavy

ID

Infantry Division

Lt

Light

M/Mech

Mechanized

Mor

Mortar

Mtn

Mountain

Pol

Police

Pz

Panzer

SA

Shock Army

R

Rifle

Regt

Regiment

UF/Ukr Front

U krainian Front

V

Volunteer

Introduction

Halbe, a small village of about 400 inhabitants in the Spreewald forests south of Berlin, was the eye of the needle through which, in late April 1945, the troops of the already defeated German 9th Army had to pass if they wished to escape Soviet captivity with a break-out to the west.

Some 40,000 people, soldiers and civilians, are said to have been killed in this tragic episode. Their story deserves to be told.

The increasingly vicious and destructive manner in which the war on the Eastern Front had been conducted by both sides left those German soldiers with experience of it in no doubt as to the kind of fate Soviet captivity would bring them, and provided a powerful incentive for engaging in this final desperate struggle to break out and seek captivity with the Western Allies.

Survivors’ accounts give a chaotic picture, suggesting a large-scale loss of command and control in the military system that is not fully borne out by the surprisingly large number that got through to achieve their aim, despite the horrific casualties suffered in the process. Nevertheless, that there were some serious basic defects at command level cannot be denied.

I have been persuaded to attempt a study of these events by Horst Wilke, who survived the ordeal as a signals sergeant and was at one time business manager of the Halbe Memorial Sponsor Club (Förderverein Gendenkstätte Halbe e.V.), and gave me free access to the archives he had accumulated over the years. It was at this club’s annual gathering in 1996 that I had the pleasure of meeting one of his Red Army opponents, Harry Zvi Glaser, who had actually fought in Halbe itself, and was now being fêted by his erstwhile enemies.

I am particularly indebted to my friends Dozent Dr Sc. Richard Lakowski and Oberst a. D. Dr Karl Stich, both military historians of the former German Democratic Republic, whose excellent work Der Kessel von Halbe 1945 – Das letzte Drama has proved an invaluable guide.

My own archives resulting from previous studies of the 1945 battles in and around Berlin (see The Battle of Berlin 1945, updated by feedback from the German edition as Race for the Reichstag, and Zhukov at the Oder), plus individual accounts related in With Our Backs to Berlin and Death was our Companion, yielded a wealth of useful information. Among my sources, I would like to name Erwin Bartmann and Rudi Lindner, the latter an officer cadet in the break-out who later became a major-general in the East German Army, Helmut Jürisch and the late Rechtsanwalt Günter G. Führling.

My thanks are also due to Lothar Schulze, who kindly allowed me the use of translations of the local eyewitness statements that he collated in his book Der Kessel Halbe–Radeland, and for his warning concerning the lingering traces of falsification of local history by the East German government in honouring their ‘liberators’ and attributing all blame and damage to the ‘Fascist Wehrmacht’.

One factor in this connection is the reluctance to accept the fact that so-called Seydlitz-Troops were used in combat by the Soviets during the Berlin Operation, for official documentary evidence has yet to be found in either former East German or Soviet archives to support this claim. Seydlitz-Troops was the name given by the Germans to those turncoat prisoners of war who worked for the Red Army against their former comrades. The name came from General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, who had been captured at Stalingrad and had later become Chairman of the Bund Deutsche Offiziere (League of German Officers) and Vice-Chairman of the Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland (NKFD – National Committee for a Free Germany), institutions set up by the Soviets, initially only for propaganda purposes. However, during the later stages of the war Seydlitz-Troops were also used to spy out German positions, issue false orders to retreating troops, and even engaged in combat under close Soviet supervision. General von Seydlitz totally disassociated himself from these activities, and was eventually exonerated by a West German court after the war.

I must also thank Rolf Kaim of the Kummersdorf Schiessplatz Museum for his assistance in my research, including locating the report by Willi Klär, and Werner Mihan for tracking down copies of the wartime maps of that area.

Above all, I am greatly indebted to the outstanding generosity of Wilhelm Tieke for allowing me to include translations of numerous survivors’ accounts taken from his book Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe.

To assist the reader with the course of events described, I have endeavoured to illustrate the various aspects of the action with a series of maps and drawings incorporating as many of the place-names mentioned in the text as was feasible. Reference to the maps on which these names appear will be found noted in bold type in the index.

I would like to thank the various individuals whose names appear in the photo captions for allowing me to use the related illustrations. Evgeni Bessonov’s photos originally appeared in his book Tank Rider (Greenhill Books, 2003, ISBN 1-85367-554-7). All illustrations which are not specifically credited are from my own collection.

ONE

Preparing for ‘Operation Berlin’

21 APRIL 1999

When the Soviets launched Operation Berlin on 16 April 1945, Marshal Georgi Konstantinovitch Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian Front opposite Berlin, and Marshal Ivan Stepanovitch Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front further south, faced the German 9th Army on the Oder River and 4th Panzer Army on the Neisse River respectively in overwhelming force.

For this final assault on the Third Reich, the Soviets had mustered the last of their manpower to fill the establishments of these two army groups and to provide them with all the equipment and supplies they needed. Additionally, substantial artillery formations from the Stavka (General Staff) Reserve had been placed at their disposal for the initial breakthrough battle. Excluding reserves and rear area troops, these forces amounted to:

1st Byelorussian Front

1st Ukrainian Front

Men & Women

768,000

511,700

Tanks

1,795

1,388

Self-propelled guns

1,360

677

Anti-tank guns

2,306

1,444

Field (76-mm+)

7,442

5,040

Mortars (88-mm+)

7,186

5,225

Rocket launchers

1,531

917

Anti-aircraft guns

1,665

945

Trucks

44,332

29,205

Fighters

1,567

1,106

Ground-attack

731

529

Bombers

1,562

422

Reconnaissance

26

91

Aircraft (total)

3,886

2,1481

In comparison, the opposing 9th Army could only muster some 200,000 men, 512 tanks and self-propelled guns (SPGs) of all kinds, and 2,625 artillery pieces, while air support was reduced to a minimum for lack of fuel for the aircraft available.

The statistics were such that the outcome of the Berlin Operation could be regarded as a foregone conclusion by the Soviets, but with different effects at either end of the rank structure. For the leadership, and that meant Josef Stalin, this entailed thinking and playing one step ahead of imminent victory, and for the rank and file seeing the war out, not taking unnecessary risks in combat, and making the most of their opportunities when not in action.

The attitude of the Soviet soldier since crossing the German frontier had proved a serious problem for the command. Encouraged to take revenge on the Germans by the Soviet press and radio for the outrages committed in the Soviet Union, they had indulged in endless atrocities of murder, rape, looting, arson and wilful damage, bringing about a serious collapse in army discipline. Consequently, the political departments in the command structure had a difficult task in motivating and inspiring the troops, apart from the necessary reimposition of discipline.

For Stalin the war had served to reinforce his position as leader of his country, in which role he would brook no potential rival, but it was inevitable during the course of the war that certain of his generals should have attracted public attention, and he now saw the opportunity to cut them down to size, the rival Marshals Zhukov and Koniev in particular. Zhukov did not like or particularly trust Koniev, the former political commissar turned professional soldier, and the latter’s brief experience under Zhukov’s command had led him to dislike Zhukov intensely. As Boris Nicolaevsky wrote in his book Power and the Soviet Elite, Stalin, with his great talent for exploiting human weaknesses, had:

... quickly sized up Koniev and cleverly used his feelings towards Zhukov. If we trace the history of Stalin’s treatment of the two soldiers, the chronology of their promotions and awards, we shall see that as early as the end of 1941 Stalin was grooming Koniev, the politician, as a rival whom he could play off against the real soldier, Zhukov. This was typical of Stalin’s foresight and bears all the marks of his style. He confers honours on Zhukov only when he has no choice, but on Koniev he bestowed them even when there was no particular reason for doing so. This was necessary in order to maintain the balance between the ‘indispensable organiser of victory’ and the even more indispensable political counterweight to him.2

In fact Zhukov posed no threat to Stalin, whose authority Zhukov accepted without question, whether he thought Stalin right or wrong in his military decisions, in the same spirit in which Zhukov demanded total obedience from his own subordinates. Yet he had reason to be apprehensive for, as early as 1942, Stalin had sought some means of curbing Zhukov, tasking Viktor Abakumov, Head of the Special Department of the Ministry of the Interior (later to become SMERSH) with this. Although officially subordinate to Lavrenti Beria, Abakumov had direct access to Stalin, and began by arresting Zhukov’s former Chief of Operations with the Western Front in an unsuccessful attempt to gain incriminating evidence. Although Zhukov was nominally Deputy Supreme Commander of the Soviet Armed Forces, Stalin retained all the power for himself. By the autumn of 1944 Stalin was becoming ever more openly critical of the directions Zhukov was giving to his subordinate fronts on behalf of Stavka, this time tasking Nikolai Bulganin, then Deputy Commissar for Defence, with finding some error or omission with which Zhukov could be charged. Eventually two artillery manuals were found that Zhukov had personally approved, without first clearing them with Stavka. An order was then distributed throughout the upper echelons of the command structure, openly warning Zhukov not to be hasty when serious questions were being decided. Zhukov’s appointment as commander of the 1st Byelorussian Front then followed as a humiliating demotion, and placed him on a par with Koniev commanding the 1st Ukrainian Front. Consequently, Zhukov was now in a far from enviable position, being under constant threat of arrest.

With Zhukov’s East Pomeranian and Koniev’s Silesian clearance operations successfully completed, Stalin summoned them to Moscow to finalize the planning for the capture of Berlin. The matter was pressing because, despite the agreements reached at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 about the zoning of postwar Germany, the Soviet leaders generally expected that the Western Allies would try to get to Berlin ahead of them. The Soviets were fully aware of the political significance of taking the German capital, a point that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander in the West, and his superior, General George C. Marshall in Washington, failed to grasp, despite urging from their British allies. On 28 March Eisenhower signalled Stalin to the effect that he had decided to disregard Berlin and direct his main thrust on the Erfurt–Leipzig–Dresden area and the mythical Alpine Redoubt.3 Stalin had promptly and deceitfully replied approving these proposals and announcing his own intentions of a main thrust on Dresden with only subsidiary forces directed on Berlin. From German signal traffic the Western Allies had been alerted to the imminence of the Soviet offensive and had pressed Stalin for details, but it was not until the eve of the attack that he was to divulge the date to them, again emphasizing quite untruthfully that his main thrust would be in the south.4

General Sergei M. Shtemenko, Chief of the Operations Department of the Soviet General Staff, wrote about the preliminary planning for Operation Berlin:

The work of the General Staff in planning the culminating attacks was made extremely complicated by Stalin’s categorical decision concerning the special role of the 1st Byelorussian Front. The task of overcoming such a large city as Berlin, which had been prepared well in advance for defence, was beyond the capacity of one front, even such a powerful front as the 1st Byelorussian. The situation insistently demanded that at least the 1st Ukrainian Front should be aimed additionally at Berlin. Moreover, it was, of course, necessary to avoid an ineffectual frontal attack with the main forces.

We had to go back to the January idea of taking Berlin by means of out-flanking attacks by the 1st Byelorussian Front from the north and north-west and the 1st Ukrainian Front from the south-west and west. The two fronts were to link up in the Brandenburg–Potsdam area.

We based all our further calculations on the most unfavourable assumptions: the inevitability of heavy and prolonged fighting in the streets of Berlin, the possibility of German counterattacks from outside the ring of encirclement from the west and south-west, restoration of the enemy’s defence to the west of Berlin and the consequent need to continue the offensive. We even envisaged a situation in which the Western Allies for some reason might be unable to overcome the resistance of the enemy forces opposing them and find themselves held up for a long time.5

Zhukov arrived in Moscow on 29 March and saw Stalin that evening. Stalin gave him two days to sort out the final details of his plans with the General Staff. He and Koniev were to present their plans for Stavka approval on 1 April. Shtemenko then went on to describe the events of the 1945 Easter weekend in Moscow:

By this time the General Staff had all the basic ideas for the Berlin operation worked out. In the course of this work we kept in very close contact with the front Chiefs of Staff, A.M. Bogolyubov, M.S. Malin and V.D. Sokolovsky (later with I.Y. Petrov) and, as soon as the first symptoms appeared that the Allies had designs on Berlin, Zhukov and Koniev were summoned to Moscow.

On March the 31st they and the General Staff considered what further operations the Fronts were to carry out. Marshal Koniev got very excited over the demarcation line between his front and the 1st Byelorussian Front, which gave him no opportunity of striking a blow at Berlin. No one on the General Staff, however, could remove this obstacle.

On the next day, 1st April 1945, the plan of the Berlin operation was discussed at GHQ. A detailed report was given on the situation at the Fronts, and on Allied operations and their plans. Stalin drew the conclusion from this that we must take Berlin in the shortest possible time. The operation would have to be started not later than the 16th April and completed in not more than 12 to 15 days. The Front Commanders agreed to this and assured GHQ that the troops would be ready in time.

The Chief of the General Staff considered it necessary to draw the Supreme Commander’s attention once again to the demarcation line between the two Fronts. It was emphasized that this line virtually excluded the armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front from direct participation in the fighting for Berlin, and this might make it difficult to carry out the operation as scheduled. Marshal Koniev spoke in the same vein, arguing in favour of aiming part of the forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front, particularly the tank armies, at the south-western suburbs of Berlin.

Stalin decided on a compromise. He did not completely abandon his own idea, nor did he entirely reject Marshal Koniev’s considerations, supported by the General Staff. On the map showing the plan of the operation he silently crossed out the section of the demarcation line that cut off the Ukrainian Front from Berlin, allowing it to go as far as Lübben (sixty kilometres to the south-east of the capital) and no further.

‘Let the one who is first to break in, take Berlin,’ he told us later.6

In his memoirs, Koniev wrote of this event:

To me, in any case, the end of the boundary at Lübben meant that the rapidity of the penetration, as well as the speed and manoeuvrability of the operations on the right flank of our Front, might subsequently create a situation which would make our attack against Berlin from the south advantageous.

Could this halting of the boundary at Lübben have been designed to create competition between the two fronts? I admit that that could have been the case. At any rate, I do not exclude this possibility. This becomes all the more plausible if we think back to that time and recall what Berlin meant to us and how ardently we all, from soldier to general, wished to see that city with our own eyes and capture it by the force of our arms.

Naturally, this was also my passionate desire. I am not afraid to admit this now. It would be strange to portray myself during the last months of the war as a person devoid of strong emotions. On the contrary, we were overflowing with them.

As a matter of fact, the drawing of the line of demarcation brought the planning of the operation to a conclusion. The GHQ directives were approved.7

So this operation was to become not only a race against time to beat the Western Allies to Berlin, but also a race between the front commanders for the glory of taking the enemy capital, and within the capital what to them was the symbolic Reichstag building. Although it had been burnt out twelve years previously and remained a desolate shell, its significance to the Soviets was akin to that of the Kremlin in their own country, as the centre of Nazi power.

Instead of the usual three to four months to prepare for an operation of this magnitude, the Soviets could now only allow themselves two weeks.

Stalin signed the directive approving Zhukov’s plans for the 1st Byelorussian Front’s operation on the night of 1 April and Koniev’s the following day. The directive for Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky’s 2nd Byelorussian Front was not issued for another week, for he was still heavily engaged in mopping up the German forces remaining in East Prussia and was not expected to launch his part of the Berlin operation against the 3rd Panzer Army north of Berlin until 20 April.8

Zhukov’s orders gave him the primary task of taking Berlin by 21 April and pushing on to the Elbe by 1 May. Koniev would support the Berlin operation by destroying the German forces to the south of the city, and would have the secondary task of taking Dresden and Leipzig, both important industrial cities in the future Soviet Zone of Occupation. The 2nd Byelorussian Front would engage the German forces north of the capital, while other fronts further south would maintain pressure on the Germans to prevent the redeployment of strategic reserves to the Berlin area.9

The main problem for Zhukov in the breakthrough battle would be the clearing of the commanding Seelow Heights. He proposed doing this with a simultaneous attack from his bridgehead in the Oderbruch valley bottom by four reinforced combined-arms formations to clear breaches in the defences. This would enable his two tank armies to pass through and take Berlin in a pincer movement. The 2nd Guards Tank Army would penetrate the heart of Berlin from the north-east, while 1st Guards Tank Army would bypass Berlin and Potsdam to the south, pushing on to the west. A further two armies would conduct river crossings across the Alte Oder and Oder, press on to cover the northern flank and block off Berlin from the west. Meanwhile, 69th Army would cover the southern flank of the main attack while containing the Frankfurt-an-der-Oder garrison in conjuction with 33rd Army. The latter, with 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, would break out of its own bridgehead, and together these two armies would push westward along the line of the autobahn with the objectives of Fürstenwalde and eventually Brandenburg. (This move, in conjunction with that of 1st Guards Tank Army, could also be interpreted as intended to forestall any attempt by Koniev to break into the city from the south.) The 3rd Army would form the front’s second echelon, and 7th Guards Cavalry Corps the front reserve.10

However, as he reveals in his memoirs, Koniev was determined to get into Berlin, even though the GHQ directive for his front was somewhat vague on this point, reading:

The Front will organise and carry out an offensive operation aimed at routing the enemy group in the region of Cottbus and south of Berlin. Not later than the 10th–12th day of the operation the Front will seize the Beelitz–Wittenberg line and advance further along the Elbe to Dresden. Subsequently, after the capture of Berlin, the Front will prepare for an attack against Lepizig.11

In his own orders to his front, Koniev inserted between the last two sentences of the above text: ‘to bear in mind the possibility of using some of our forces of the right flank of the front to help the troops of the 1st Byelorussian Front in capturing the city of Berlin.’ As he went on to explain in his memoirs:

In the plan for the 1st Ukrainian Front the task of helping the 1st Byelorussian Front to capture Berlin was stated in a general way, but in the order issued to 3rd Guards Tank Army it was concrete:

‘On the fifth day of the operation to seize the area of Trebbin, Zauchwitz, Treuenbrietzen, Luckenwalde … To bear in mind the possibility of attacking Berlin from the south by a reinforced tank corps and an infantry division of the 3rd Guards Army.’

Thus, even before the operation began, one tank corps and an infantry division were earmarked for attacking Berlin from the south.

It seemed strange and incomprehensible, when one was advancing along what amounted to the southern fringe of Berlin, to leave it deliberately untouched to the right of one’s flank, particularly in circumstances when one had no preliminary knowledge of how things might work out in the future. The decision to be ready to deliver such an attack seemed clear, comprehensible and self-evident.12

In contrast to Stalin in the splendour of the Kremlin, Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the Third Reich and Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, was exercising his authority from a new command bunker beneath the Old Chancellery building in the Wilhelmstrasse, into which he had moved on 16 January. He now lived and worked in an oppressive atmosphere of noisy air-conditioning and sweating concrete walls, with no distinction between night and day. The Führerbunker also suffered the serious defect of being inadequately equipped with communications facilities for its role. This was in part due to scale, for accommodation was extremely cramped in the Führerbunker itself, although more space could have been made available in the bomb-proof shelters beneath the New Chancellery building next door. However, the only communications facilities installed in the Führerbunker were a one-man switchboard, one radio transmitter and a radio telephone, which was dependent upon an aerial suspended from a balloon.13

The German Army’s once powerful General Staff had been utterly broken by the purge following the unsuccessful assassination attempt against Hitler of 20 July 1944, and its representatives in Hitler’s entourage were now mere sycophants. Permanently with Hitler in the Führerbunker was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, nominal Chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW – Armed Forces GHQ) with his headquarters in Berlin-Dahlem, but in practice acting as Hitler’s personal chief of staff and issuing orders in the Führer’s name. The OKW Chief of Staff, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, and the Chief of Staff of the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH – Army GHQ), General of Infantry Hans Krebs, were obliged to spend most of their time shuttling back and forth between the Führerbunker conferences and the secret wartime headquarters in the vast bunkers known as Maybach I and II respectively, some thirty kilometres south of the city at Zossen–Wunsdorf.14

One has only to read Colonel-General Heinz Guderian’s book, Panzer Leader, to realize how intolerable Hitler’s conduct as a commander was towards the General Staff and what pressure officers were placed under as a result of this. The essence of the problem lay in Hitler’s Führer-system of unquestioning obedience to orders clashing with the General Staff ’s system of mutual trust and exchange of ideas, against a background of Hitler’s class consciousness and genuine distrust of the General Staff following the failed putsch of 20 July 1944.15

Hitler’s system of leadership was reflected in the state and composition of the German armed forces. One particularly confusing aspect was the use of corps and army headquarters taken out of reserve to command new formations to which they automatically gave their titles, irrespective of their composition or function. Thus, for example, V SS Mountain Corps commanded only one Waffen-SS formation and no mountain troops, and XI SS Panzer Corps consisted primarily of ordinary infantry units.16

The basic framework of the German ground forces was still that of the German Army, most commonly (though not strictly correctly) known by the overall title of the Wehrmacht. However, after the abortive coup of 20 July 1944, the Army had been seriously weakened by the great purge of officers that followed and by the Nazi leaders’ distrust of the survivors. Political officers (NS-Führungsoffiziere) had been appointed to all units and formation headquarters for the purpose of promoting the Nazi spirit and to spy on possible dissidents.

Under the operational command of the Wehrmacht, although technically an entirely separate organization, was Heinrich Himmler’s Waffen-SS, consisting of Panzer (armoured), Panzergrenadier (motorized infantry), cavalry and mountain formations, as well as foreign volunteer elements such as the 23rd SS Panzergrenadier Division Nederland. However, as a result of hard usage most of these formations were now drastically reduced in strength. Despite their elitism, by 1945 the various Waffen-SS units and formations were fully integrated into the Army’s operational system.

Drastic measures had had to be taken to man the defences along the Eastern Front. Marsch (field replacement) battalions had been raised from police, fire brigade, customs and border guard resources, equipped with small arms and sent into combat to serve under their own officers, while sailors and airmen with little or no field training and inadequate equipment were drafted as infantry. Units of the Volkssturm (Home Guard) had also been used to bolster some formations, including some grenadier regiments raised from officer cadet schools.

Nevertheless, the continuing strength of the Wehrmacht lay in its tactical skills, its command system in the field, and its ability to reorganize quickly at all levels. Time and time again the Germans were able to trounce their opponents by means of their superior performance, despite a vast imbalance of numbers.

German field headquarters were kept small and well forward so as to maintain close contact with subordinate commanders, who in turn used experienced officers as their liaison links with those headquarters. Staff officers were highly trained and able to make quick decisions, for their philosophy was that the unexpected could always happen and one must be able to react decisively. Consequently there was a high degree of personal contact and mutual confidence in the command structure. For instance, it was the normal practice for newly appointed divisional generals and their chiefs of staff    to attend a General Staff command course so as to practise working as a team before assuming their roles. The reason for this was that, although the commander took final responsibility, his chief of staff issued orders in his general’s name and was entitled to make command decisions on his own authority when the general was away from headquarters. Also, the system of Auftragstaktik (mission-oriented command) left decisions as to how a given objective was to be achieved to the subordinate commander, thus achieving maximum flexibility of response to any given situation.17

However, on 21 January 1945 Hitler issued a Führer-Order severely limiting command initiative down to divisional level, and since then he had persistently interfered with the operations of the formations on his doorstep. Part of this Führer-Order read:

Commanders-in-Chief, Commanding Generals and Divisional Commanders are personally responsible to me for reporting in good time:

   a. Every decision to carry out an operation movement.

   b. Every attack carried out in divisional strength and upwards that does not conform with the general directives laid down by the High Command.

   c. Every offensive action in quiet sectors of the front over and above normal shocktroop activities that is calculated to draw the enemy’s attention to that sector.

   d. Every plan for disengaging or withdrawing forces.

   e. Every plan for surrendering a position, a local strongpoint or a fortress.

Meanwhile Allied bombing had at last begun to make its mark on the battle front. Railway communications were being seriously disrupted so that supplies were not getting through, and ammunition states were running low. Most serious of all was the lack of motor fuel of all kinds, greatly restricting the number of armoured vehicles available for combat.

Disrupted communications included the troops’ mail, which clearly had an effect on their morale. Those whose homes had not already been overrun had the worry of the continued bombing of the cities and the Western Allies encroaching from the west. They saw themselves as the last bastion against the Bolshevik hordes, and all lived in fear of Soviet captivity, for the ever increasing ruthlessness of the conduct of the war on the Eastern Front by both sides gave them little hope of mercy. Soviet atrocities in East Prussia served as a pertinent reminder of this, which Nazi propaganda did not fail to use to goad the troops on.

From the Baltic Sea to the Czech border, the German defences were organized into two army groups. Army Group Weichsel (Vistula), under Colonel-General Gotthard Heinrici, had the 4th Panzer Army covering the Oder between Stettin in the north and the mouth of the Finow Canal. From there down to Fürstenberg (today’s Eisenhüttenstadt), masking Berlin, came the 9th Army, commanded by General of Infantry Theodor Busse. The final stretch was covered by the 3rd Panzer Army, commanded by General Fritz Herbert Gräser, of Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner’s Army Group Mitte (Centre).

In succession, 9th Army had the following formations deployed from north to south: CI Corps, LVI Panzer Corps, XI SS Panzer Corps, the Frankfurt Fortress Garrison of corps size, and V SS Mountain Corps. Next in line came V Corps of 3rd Panzer Army.

NOTES

 1. Soviet Military History Journal, Moscow, April 1965.

 2. Chaney, Zhukov, p. 307, quoting Nicolaevsky.

 3. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, pp. 397–403; Montgomery-Hyde, Stalin, p. 525; Ziemke, Battle for Berlin, p. 64; Seaton, The Russo-German War, pp. 562–5.

 4. Gosztony, Der Kampf um Berlin, p. 122 [quoting John Ehrmann, Grand Strategy, October 1944–August 1945, p. 142].

 5. Shtemenko, The Soviet General Staff at War, pp. 317–18.

 6. Ibid., pp. 319–20.

 7. Koniev, Year of Victory, p. 83.

 8. Shtemenko, The Soviet General Staff at War, pp. 320–1.

 9. Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections, pp. 346–51; The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union [hereafter cited as GPW], pp. 376–8; Erickson, The Road to Berlin, pp. 531–5.

10. GPW, pp. 88–9; Erickson, The Road to Berlin, pp. 535–7. The role of the tank armies after the breakthrough is taken from a map used by General Ivanov in the 1993 film Der Todeskampf der Reichshauptstadt [Chronos-Film].

11. Koniev, Year of Victory, p. 82.

12. Ibid., pp. 88–9.

13. Rocolle, Götterdämmmerung – La Prise de Berlin, p. 14; Guderian, Panzer Leader, pp. 323–5.

14. Toland, The Last Hundred Days, pp. 1118–19. These bunkers later accommodated the Soviet Army High Command in East Germany.

15. O’Donnell, The Berlin Bunker, pp. 40–3.

16. Tessin, Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS, with additional information on the Volksarmee from Tully. Note that the Germans used Roman numerals for their corps formation titles (including the unusual XXXX for 40) but not for their artillery corps. The Soviets did not use Roman numerals at all.

Wilke, Am Rande der Strassen, states that on 15 March 1945 an instruction was issued dropping the word ‘Panzer’ from XI SS Panzer Corps’ title and the word ‘Mountain’ from V SS Mountain Corps’ title, but it appears that this was not implemented, as the formations concerned are referred to by their full titles in contemporary documents, as used in this text.

17. Timmons, ‘Command and Control in the Wehrmacht’.

TWO

Breaching theOder– Neisse Defences

Simultaneously launching their attacks at 0500 hours Moscow time, 0300 hours local time, on 16 April 1945, the two Soviet fronts fought from widely differing base lines, with equally differing techniques, but both using enormous fire-power.

Marshal Zhukov’s main blow was struck from an established bridgehead across a flat valley bottom to reach the bulk of the German defences strung out along the barrier of the 100-foot high Seelow Heights. To give himself an extra two hours of daylight in which to achieve his objectives, Zhukov had mustered 143 searchlights with a view to guiding and lighting the way for the advancing troops while blinding the enemy. Unfortunately, he had not tried out their use in conjuction with an artillery barrage. The result was night-blindness among his own troops, who were then silhouetted to the enemy against a milky mist. Furthermore, the opening barrage directed on the German forward positions was equally counter-productive, for Colonel-General Gotthardt Heinrici, the army group commander and an expert on such defensive operations, had correctly calculated the time of the attack and had had these positions evacuated during the night, so the damage caused by the bombardment only served to hamper the Soviet advance.

Marshal Koniev’s attack, on the other hand, involved an assault river crossing, and his lengthy opening barrage set fire to the woods on the far bank, to the added distress of the defence. With the coming of daylight, he then had aircraft lay a smokescreen for a considerable distance up and down the river in order to conceal the actual crossing points, and by the end of the day his infantry had advanced 13 kilometres on a 29-kilometre front.

In his memoirs, Zhukov provided a detailed description of this first day of battle:

By about 1300 hours [Moscow Time] It was clear to me that the enemy defences on the Seelow Heights were still relatively intact and that we would be unable to take the Seelow Heights with the order of battle with which we had commenced the attack.

After seeking the advice of the army commanders, we decided to commit to battle both tank armies, in order to reinforce the attacking troops and ensure a breakthrough of the enemy defences.

At about 1500 hours I called Headquarters and reported that we had breached the first and second enemy lines of defence and that the Front had advanced up to six kilometres, but had encountered serious resistance from the Seelow Heights, where the enemy defences appeared to be largely intact. In order to reinforce the all-arms armies, I had committed both tank armies to battle. I went on to report that in my opinion we would breach the enemy defences by the end of the next day.

Stalin listened attentively to me and then said calmly, ‘The enemy defences on Koniev’s Front have proved to be weaker. He crossed the Neisse without difficulty and is now advancing without encountering any resistance of note. Support your tank armies’ attack with bombers. Call me this evening and tell me how things develop.’

That evening I reported to him the difficulties we were experiencing on the approaches to the Seelow Heights, and said that it would not be possible for us to take these Heights before next evening. This time Stalin was not as calm as during my first telephone call.

‘You should not have committed the 1st Guards Tank Army in the 8th Guards Army’s sector, but rather where the Headquarters wanted.’ Then he added: ‘Are you sure you will take the positions on the Seelow Heights tomorrow?’ Forcing myself to remain calm, I replied: ‘Tomorrow, on the 17th April, the enemy defences on the Seelow Heights will be breached by evening. I believe that the more troops the enemy throws against us here, the quicker we will take Berlin, for it is easier to defeat the enemy on an open field than in a fortified city.’

‘We will instruct Koniev to move Rybalko’s and Lelyushenko’s tank armies on Berlin from the south, and Rokossovsky to hurry his river crossing over the Oder and at the same time to strike past Berlin from the north,’ Stalin said.

I replied: ‘Koniev’s tank armies are certainly in a position to make a rapid advance, and should be directed on Berlin. On the other hand, Rokossovsky will not be able to start his offensive from the Oder before the 23rd April, because he will not be able to manage the crossing of the Oder so quickly.’

‘Goodbye!’ said Stalin dryly, and rang off.1

Stalin was not to speak to Zhukov again during the course of the breakthrough battle, an obvious sign of his extreme displeasure with the way things were going. Marshal Zhukov was in deep trouble, and he knew it.

Despite the overall advance that could be claimed, the second day of battle proved as difficult for the 1st Byelorussian Front as the day before, with the casualty toll continuing to mount alarmingly. The rear areas had to be combed for any personnel capable of being redeployed as infantry to fill the gaps in the forward units, and concern at the consequences of the errors made in the planning and execution of this operation grew.2

The afternoon of the second day of battle saw the 1st Ukrainian Front’s two tank armies successfully fording the Spree. That evening Koniev reported to GHQ by high frequency telephone from his advance command post, later to become his main headquarters, in Schloss Branitz on the southern outskirts of Cottbus, as he later related:

I was finishing my report when Stalin suddenly interrupted me and said:

‘With Zhukov things are not going so well yet. He is still breaking through the defences.’

After saying this, Stalin fell silent. I also kept silent and waited for him to continue. Then Stalin asked unexpectedly:

‘Couldn’t we, by redeploying Zhukov’s mobile troops, send them against Berlin through the gap formed in the sector of your Front?’

I heard out Stalin’s question and told him my opinion: ‘Comrade Stalin, this will take too much time and will add considerable confusion. There is no need to send the armoured troops of the 1st Byelorussian Front into the gap we have made. The situation at our Front is developing favourably, we have enough forces and we can turn both tank armies towards Berlin.’

After saying that, I specified the direction in which the tank armies would be turned and, as a reference point, named Zossen, a little town 25 kilometres south of Berlin and, according to our information, the Nazi GHQ.

‘What map are you using for your report?’ Stalin asked.

‘The 1:200,000.’

After a brief pause, during which he must have been looking for Zossen on the map, Stalin said:

‘Very good. Do you know that the Nazi General Staff HQ is in Zossen?’

‘Yes, I do,’ I answered.

‘Very good,’ he repeated. ‘I agree. Turn the tank armies towards Berlin.’3

That same night, 17/18 April, Koniev issued the the following orders:

In accordance with the directive from the Supreme High Command, I order:

1. The Commander of the 3rd Guards Tank Army: on the night of 17 April 1945 the Army will force the Spree and advance rapidly in the general direction of Vetschau, Golssen, Baruth, Teltow and the southern outskirts of Berlin. The task of the Army is to break into Berlin from the south on the night of 20 April 1945.

2. The Commander of the 4th Guards Tank Army: on the night of 17 April 1945 the Army will force the Spree north of Spremberg and advance rapidly in the general direction of Drebkau, Calau, Dahme and Luckenwalde. By the end of 20 April 1945, the Army will capture the area of Beelitz, Treuenbrietzen and Luckenwalde, and on the night of 20 April 1945, Potsdam and the south-western part of Berlin. When turning towards Potsdam the Army will secure the Treuenbrietzen area with the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps. Reconnaissance will be made in the direction of Senftenberg, Finsterwalde and Herzberg.

3. The tanks will advance daringly and resolutely in the main direction. They will bypass towns and large communities and not engage in protracted frontal fighting. I demand a firm understanding that the success of the tank armies depends on the boldness of the manoeuvre and swiftness of the operation.

Point 3 is to be impressed upon the minds of the corps and brigade commanders.

Execution of the above orders will be reported.4

General Theodor Busse, commanding the German 9th Army, was aware of Koniev’s success to his south. He later wrote of this:

On the evening of 17 April there was already a threat to our own far southern flank, which in a short time became such as to cause a withdrawal. Again HQ 9th Army, fully supported by Army Group, tried to reach the OKH with the plea that, because of the 9th Army’s situation and in order to be able to hold on firmly to the boundary with the 3rd Panzer Army, it would be necessary to pull back before the front collapsed. All that the 9th Army got back was Hitler’s sharp order to hold on to its front and to re-establish the position at the critical points with counterattacks.5