The Battle of Berlin 1945 E-Book

Tony Le Tissier

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

Seitenzahl: 480

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

'Tony Le Tissier is arguably the finest English-language historian of the Battle of Berlin' - defenceWeb The Battle of Berlin was a battle on an unprecedented scale. The Soviets massed 1.6 million troops for Operation Berlin, and Marshal Zhukov in the centre had half of them, but his initial attack floundered, lasting four days instead of one. It was so costly that he had to revise his plans for taking the city, and to revise them yet again when Stalin allowed his rival, Marshal Koniev, to intervene. The battle thus became a contest for the prize of the Reichstag. Meanwhile, Hitler and his courtiers sought to continue the struggle in the totally unrealistic atmosphere that prevailed in his bunker, while soldiers and civilians alike suffered and perished unheeded all around them. In The Battle of Berlin 1945, Tony Le Tissier brings us the definitive history of the last great battle of the Second World War – a fight to the death in the smouldering ruins of the capital of Hitler's Third Reich.

Leseprobe

First published 1987

This edition published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Tony Le Tissier, 1987, 2008, 2022

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

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9780752496573

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

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Contents

Preface

1 The Plan

2 The Objective

3 The Opposition

4 The Main German Forces

5 An Early Dawn

6 Breakthrough

7 Encirclement

8 Siege Preparations

9 Encirclement Completed

10 The Noose Tightens

11 No Relief

12 The Last Round

13 Ultimate Victory

Abbreviations

Appendices

1 Organisation of a Red Army Rifle Division – 1945

2 Organisation of Red Army Tank andMechanised Formations – 1945

3 Soviet Strengths for ‘Operation Berlin’

4 Soviet Order-of-Battle for ‘Operation Berlin’

5 Order-of-Battle of the Main German Forces Engaged in   ‘Operation Berlin’

6 Führer-Order of 21 January 1945 

Notes on Sources

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Maps

Acknowledgements

Preface

T his book is an attempt at a definitive account of the last battle to have been fought on the grand scale in Europe, involving as it did some three and a half million combatants.

Although it has been only sixty years since the events related here took place, the task of putting the story together has been rather like the reconstruction of an ancient vase from an incomplete set of fragments, for the vanquished lost virtually all their records, and the victors, for reasons which became clearer during the course of reconstruction, have always been evasive about much of the pertinent detail.

Fortunately, more and more missing pieces appeared during the course of the task, sufficient – I hope – to produce a reasonably comprehensive and rewarding pattern of events.

To assist the reader through the complexities of this operation, I have endeavoured to illustrate the various parts and phases with a series of maps and drawings, incorporating as many of the place-names mentioned in the text as were feasible. Reference to the maps on which these names appear has been included in the index.

A.H. Le T

1

The Plan

A t about 0200 hours on 16 April 1945, Marshal Georgi Konstantinovitch Zhukov, organiser of the heroic defence of Leningrad and Moscow, victor of the historic battles of Stalingrad and Kursk-Orel, Deputy Supreme Commander of the Soviet Armed Forces and, since January 1945, Commander of the 1st Byelorussian Front, arrived at his forward command post on a spur of the Seelow Heights above the village of Reitwein. The man who had won the first victory of the Great Patriotic War over the Wehrmacht at Jelnya in the defence of Moscow was about to bring the same war to a triumphant conclusion with the seizure of the Nazi capital in time to celebrate the most glorious May Day in the history of the Soviet Union.1

With daylight his command post should give him a grandstand view of the troops in action on the main axis of advance, the highway from Küstrin (now Polish Kostryn) on the River Oder directly to Berlin barely forty miles away, where the sky glowed a dull red from the effects of incessant bombardment being inflicted on the city by the Anglo-American air fleets.2

Below him in the darkness, the misty, dank valley-bed of the Oderbruch seethed with activity as several hundred thousand men prepared themselves for battle. They had received their final briefings on their immediate objectives, and the regimental banners had been brought into the line for the oath-taking ceremonies that bound each soldier to do his duty to the utmost in the forthcoming conflict. Victory was certain, and with it the annihilation of the Fascist beast that had brought so much suffering and destruction to their country. For this ‘Operation Berlin’ over two and a half million Soviet troops had been allocated to the three Army Groups ranged along the Oder–Neisse river line, together with half of all the armour and one-third of all the artillery available for operational use out of the nation’s vast resources.3

Although the detailed planning and preparation for this operation had been completed in record time and he was confident of the outcome of his mission, Marshal Zhukov still had cause for unease. Firstly, he had not been given overall command of ‘Operation Berlin’ as had generally been expected, and secondly, his hitherto close relationship with Stalin appeared to have deteriorated alarmingly.4

Zhukov had been one of the few survivors of the pre-war purges of the Soviet military leadership, possibly because he was serving in the Far East at the time. He had begun his career as a cavalry conscript in 1914, and by 1937 commanded the short-lived Cossack Cavalry Corps, but it was with modern arms that he had won his first battle at Kharkin Kol in 1939 during the Japanese incursion into Outer Mongolia. Following the dismal defeats of 1941, he had come into prominence when sent to organise the defence of Leningrad as a Stavka (General Staff) trouble-shooter, and since then his career had progressed rapidly. He had a reputation for utter determination and ruthlessness in achieving his objectives, regardless of the cost in human lives, and for demanding instant and absolute obedience to orders. He had a fierce temper and rode roughshod over his subordinates, who both feared and respected him. Stalin trusted him and respected his military ability, and their relationship had become quite close. Zhukov had always unquestioningly accepted Stalin’s complete authority, whether he thought him right or wrong, in the same spirit that he demanded total obedience from his own subordinates.5 His appointment as Deputy Supreme Commander had been a popular move, but in fact had little meaning, for Stalin had no intention of delegating any of his centrally held authority, as had become palpably evident at the planning conference held in Moscow at the beginning of the month.

Zhukov had originally intended to attack Berlin two months previously. At the beginning of February, Colonel-General Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army had arrived at the Oder, and on the 2nd had crossed the dangerously thin ice from the area of Göritz (now Polish Górzyca). By dint of some very hard fighting it had established a substantial bridgehead on the line Klessin–Podelzig–Hathenow–Rathstock–Manschnow–Kietz (the west bank suburb of the fortress town of Küstrin at the junction of the Warthe and Oder Rivers). Meanwhile Colonel-General Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army had gained a small bridgehead of its own at Kienitz and had taken the remainder of the town of Küstrin from the north, but had failed to capture the citadel on the island in the centre, and was thus deprived of the use of the only bridges across the Oder in this area.6 Further south the 33rd Army had also succeeded in reaching the west bank between Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and Fürstenberg (now Eisenhüttenstadt). From these footholds Zhukov had been prepared to chance his operation on only two tankfuls of fuel per vehicle and two front-line issues of ammunition per weapon, but the rapid advance from the Vistula had overextended his lines of communication and the necessary supplies were not getting through to his forward troops. Then on 6 February, Stalin had abruptly ordered Zhukov’s attention away from Berlin to the task of clearing Pomerania, leaving only part of his Army Group behind on the Oder.7

Both Zhukov and Marshal Ivan S. Koniev of the 1st Ukrainian Front had been summoned to Moscow at the end of March with their principal staff officers in order to consolidate the plans for ‘Operation Berlin’.8 Marshal Rokossovsky, whose 2nd Byelorussian Front was also to take part, did not join them as his troops were still actively engaged mopping up along the Baltic coast. Rokossovsky was an old friend, but, as a straightforward soldier, Zhukov was openly hostile to the inclusion of political commissars in the military command structure, the source from which Koniev came. And the latter, who had endured several experiences under Zhukov’s command, disliked him intensely, and now hoped to steal the big prize from him by getting into Berlin first. This bitter rivalry between the two commanders was not accidental: Boris Nicolaevsky, in his book Power and the Soviet Elite, wrote that 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.9

In contrast to this situation, Rokossovsky presented no real problem to Stalin, for he had been a victim of the purges and most cruelly tortured before Stalin had him released from prison to command a mechanised corps in 1941. Despite all the honours and awards subsequently heaped upon him, Rokossovsky remained under a sentence of death that could be invoked at any time, and thus remained a willing and obedient servant of his master.10

On 29 March Zhukov and Koniev had gone over their plans with the Stavka and agreed various details, but, as Stalin had previously decreed that Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian Front alone would take Berlin, the Stavka’s planned boundary lines excluded the 1st Ukrainian Front from the city itself, much to Koniev’s annoyance.11 Then on the afternoon of Easter Sunday, 1 April, Zhukov and Koniev had come before Stalin and the other members of the State Defence Committee, with General A.I. Antonov, Chief of the General Staff, and Major-General S.M. Shtemenko, Head of the Operations Planning Directorate, in attendance. The meeting began with Shtemenko reading out a signal to the effect that the Anglo-American armies were proposing to take Berlin ahead of the Soviet forces.12 Under the circumstances, the plan appeared feasible but was clearly unacceptable to Soviet pride and ambition.13

Stalin had given Zhukov and Koniev two days in which to complete their plans in the Stavka before submitting them for his approval. Both operations were to begin on 16 April and were to be completed in time for the May Day celebrations. He stipulated that Zhukov would have the primary task of taking Berlin and pushing on to the Elbe, for which he would receive further reinforcements from the Stavka reserves, while Koniev would support the Berlin operation by destroying the enemy 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 enemy forces north of the capital, beginning its offensive on 20 April. In the meantime the other fronts to the south would maintain pressure on the Germans to prevent the redeployment of strategic reserves to the ‘Operation Berlin’ theatre.14

The two marshals then reported to Stalin again on 3 April to expound their plans. A necessary preliminary for Zhukov would be the clearing of the enemy from the Seelow Heights, and he proposed doing this with a simultaneous attack from his bridgehead in the Oderbruch by four reinforced combined-arms formations – the 8th Guards, 3rd and 5th Shock and 47th Armies – clearing breaches in the German defences. This would enable the 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies to pass through and converge on Berlin from the southeast and northeast respectively in a classic pincer movement. To cover his northern flank, the 1st Polish and 61st Armies, supported by the 7th Guards Cavalry Corps, would cross the Oder just south of the Finow Canal and continue westwards along the line of the waterways via Eberswalde and Fehrbellin to Sandau at the junction of the Havel and Elbe Rivers. The 69th Army would cover the 8th Guards Army’s southern flank and contain the Frankfurt-an-der-Oder garrison in conjunction with the 33rd Army. The latter, with the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, would break out of its own bridgehead, and together these two armies would push westwards along the line of the autobahn with the objectives of Fürstenwalde and eventually Brandenburg. The 3rd Army would constitute the front’s reserve.15

Koniev needed reserves to reinforce his thrusts if it became necessary, so Stalin had him allocated the 28th and 31st Armies from the 2nd Byelorussian Front. It was appreciated that they might not be redeployed and ready in time for 16 April, but it was thought that nevertheless Koniev could afford to take the risk of starting without them. In order to ensure an artillery density of 400 guns of 76mm calibre or larger per mile along his attack line, Koniev had already been allocated an additional seven artillery divisions from the Stavka reserves.16

Both Fronts had an integral air army to provide fighter cover and ground strike support, but Zhukov had also been assigned the 18th Air Army with a heavy bombing capacity and several independent air corps and divisions from the Stavka reserves to support his operation. In addition he was given the support of the 2nd Byelorussian Front’s 4th Air Army and some of the Baltic Fleet Air Arm for the first three days. These formations, together with the 1st Polish Composite Air Corps, gave an overall total of 7,500 combat aircraft, including 2,267 bombers, 1,709 ground-attack planes and 3,279 fighters.17

It was decided that Air Chief Marshal A.A. Novikov should coordinate all air activity over the Oder–Neisse theatre from a central headquarters based on the 16th Air Army. These arrangements would enable the Russians to maintain large forces in the air permanently, with the bombers of the 18th Air Army relieving the 16th Air Army at night. A basic principle of operation was that the tank forces would get priority in air support, amounting to as much as 75 percent of the daily effort. To accommodate these massive air forces some 290 base and field aerodromes had to be constructed, the bombers of the 18th Air Army being located east of Poznan.18

Zhukov had also been allocated the Dnieper Flotilla of the Red Navy to assist him with the numerous water-crossings involved in his sector, both in the initial phase of the operation and later within the city boundaries.19

The Stavka had drawn the operational boundary between Zhukov and Koniev from Guben on the Neisse via Michendorf to Schönebeck on the Elbe, but, in response to Koniev’s plea, with which the Stavka were in accord, Stalin had silently erased the boundary beyond Lübben, thereby implying that whatever happened beyond that point would be up to them. ‘Operation Berlin’ was to be a race for glory between the two of them.20

Later, in his orders to the 3rd Guards Tank Army, Koniev wrote:

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 with a reinforced tank corps and an infantry division from the 3rd Guards Army.21

Surprisingly the Yalta Conference had not provided for proper liaison and co-ordination of effort between the Western Allies and the Soviet Command, and Stalin had been able to take advantage of this to deceive both the Allies and his own front commanders. On 28 March he had received a signal from General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in the West, who, unilaterally and against the wishes of the British leadership, had decided to disregard Berlin and direct his main thrusts on the Erfurt/Leipzig/Dresden area and the mythical ‘Alpine Redoubt’.22 Stalin had promptly 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 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 had divulged the date to them, again emphasising that his main thrust would be to the south.23

Here we see the beginnings of the so-called Cold War which was to follow. Yet Stalin owed much to his Western Allies, a factor that the Soviet Union never fully acknowledged. For instance, at this stage of the war about two-thirds of all Soviet military vehicles were of American origin, many of the troops wore boots and uniforms of either British or American manufacture, and the Soviet forces existed almost entirely on American-supplied concentrated foodstuffs. Their devastated heartland was quite incapable of sustaining such vast numbers of men in the field unaided, and these vehicles provided their armies with the necessary mobility to defeat the Axis forces ranged against them.24

The operational plans having been agreed in Moscow, there then followed two weeks of intense preparation on the Oder–Neisse Front, with prodigious feats being accomplished in the bringing forward of the required manpower, equipment, ammunition and supplies.25

The Soviet lines of communication were based on their railway system, linking the fronts with the war industries, ports and sundry centres of production. The distances involved were enormous, with 2,000 miles separating the war industries grouped in the Ural Mountains from the Oder, and half the lend-lease supplies coming all the way across Siberia from the Pacific ports. The Russian gauge being wider than the European, the railway tracks had to be adapted and repaired as they advanced. For this operation special railheads had been established close to the river banks, from where local distribution could be made by horse and motor transport.26

Units depleted in the winter fighting had to be brought up to strength, and their equipment overhauled and replenished. The Soviets were scraping the bottom of their manpower barrel by 1945, and released prisoners-of-war were being promptly rearmed, fed and thrust back into the line. For the first time the Russians had even used air transport to bring forward reinforcements.27

The newly allocated formations from the Stavka reserves had also been brought forward and deployed into position. A more complicated manoeuvre had been the lateral transfer of the two armies allocated to Marshal Koniev from the 2nd Byelorussian Front.28

The artillery concentration required vast stocks of ammunition. It was later calculated that the 1st Byelorussian Front used 1,235,000 shells (2,450 wagon loads, or 98,000 tons) on the first day of the operation alone, out of an accumulated stockpile of 7,147,000.29

Troops and equipment had become so thick on the ground that camouflage was difficult, but with air superiority the Soviets could afford to flaunt their build-up at the Germans. Additional bridges had been erected across the Oder to the bridgehead, some with their surfaces just below water level as a result of flooding, making them extremely difficult targets, and numerous ferry points prepared. On Zhukov’s northern flank and in Koniev’s sector preparations had been made for opposed river crossings, with the engineers stockpiling bridging and ferry equipment.30

According to Zhukov, the problem of tackling the city itself had been studied in some detail by war-gaming. First, eight aerial surveys of the city area had been made, and then detailed assault plans prepared with the aid of captured documents and prisoner-of-war interrogations. The engineers had made a large model of the city and its suburbs, which was used from 5 to 7 April for command games down to corps commander level.31 The more detailed games, including the problems of supply, had been conducted at various formation headquarters from the 8th to the 14th of the month.32

Chuikov says that his 8th Guards Army had published manuals on street-fighting and had begun training cadres in these skills in February, but to what extent this had spread and was being practised within the 1st Byelorussian Front is a matter for conjecture. From Chuikov’s own comments at a later stage of the operation, it is obvious that the preparation of the troops for fighting under the very different circumstances they could expect to encounter in the city was not as thorough as has been claimed. Indeed, with time so desperately short and the prospects of first having to storm the Seelow Heights and clear all the defensive positions between the Oder and the city, it would have been surprising if it had been.33

Despite all the factors in their favour, the Soviet leadership still found themselves with a serious problem on their hands. The end of the war was so obviously in sight that native caution dictated a widespread reluctance to risk one’s life. The desire to end the war was suddenly confounded by a pernicious wariness. It was as if the steam was about to run out of this mighty engine of war; it was threatening to become unmanageable as inertia began setting in.

The Political Department, being responsible for morale, decided to tackle this problem by stepping up the recruiting campaign for Party and Komsomol members, thus enlarging the reliable nucleus already established in every unit. In this they were remarkably successful, according to the published figures. On this occasion, by cross-posting where necessary, they ensured a nucleus of eight to twenty full or probationary Party members in every unit of company size, and also established a reserve of political instructors and Party organisers to replace casualties. With over 2,000 applications received for Party membership on 15 April in the 1st Byelorussian Front alone, it seems that many soldiers were anxious to ensure their future under the Soviet regime now that the Great Patriotic War had confirmed its supremacy.34

Another measure they had decided to adopt was the introduction of regimental colours to be carried into battle, before which oath-taking ceremonies would be held at which the soldiers would be sworn to their duty. The standard bearers were naturally appointed from the Party faithful, who as usual were expected to set an example to the others. The carrying of banners in action thus became an unique feature of this battle. However, although the banners provided good propaganda material, they also tended to draw enemy fire, and the initial effect on the fighting troops was soon nullified by the heavy casualties exacted in the first phase of the operation. The reluctance to take risks, later camouflaged by somewhat bombastic accounts of minor episodes, was to have a strong influence on the conduct of operations, despite all these measures.

Another complication had arisen for the Political Department. Ever since leaving Soviet soil the Russian soldiers had behaved abominably towards the civilian populations they had encountered, committing endless atrocities of murder, rape, looting, arson and wilful damage, urged on by an official campaign of revenge put out by the Soviet press and radio. In the forefront of this campaign had been the writer, Ilya Ehrenburg, and the soldiers – primitive peasants as most of them were – had responded with enthusiasm. The reason for this policy is uncertain, but it may have been designed to instil sufficient fear into the German population to cause them to abandon voluntarily the territory east of the Oder, and thus facilitate resettlement by the Poles in accordance with predetermined post-war boundaries; or simply to provide motivation for the Red Army once the sacred task of clearing the enemy out of Russia had been completed.35

The unparalleled extent of the devastation and the human suffering arising out of the German invasion of their country, quite apart from the atrocities of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler’s extermination squads, had given the individual Soviet soldier ample grounds for seeking revenge. Official Soviet sources quoted twenty million dead, but this figure has been contested by historians, whose analyses show that the Germans could not possibly have been responsible for more than about half that number, the remainder being in fact victims of Stalin’s own relentless efforts to impose his regime on the people.36

Then, on 14 April 1945, an officially inspired article in the national press had criticised Ehrenburg’s views, thereby signalling a complete change of policy. From then on revenge against the Nazis and Fascists would be pursued remorselessly, but the German people themselves were to be wooed into the Soviet fold.37 However, it was too late to stop the established trend, the Red Army was unable to accept such a volte-face overnight, and the atrocities were to continue unabated until the fighting was all over and the behaviour of the troops could be constrained.

The fear that the Red Army inspired, involuntarily assisted by the German’s own propaganda fomenting hatred of the enemy, was fully justified. In some places overrun by them, every town official and everyone in any kind of uniform, whether policeman, postman, railway employee or forester, was summarily executed. In some cases people were dragged to death behind horses, and there were incidents of the nobility being hunted down with great savagery, some being blinded, mutilated or hacked to death. Rape was widespread, and often accompanied by murder, and in some instances women were rounded up wholesale for use by the soldiers. Even card-carrying members of the Communist Party were not exempt as victims of these outrages.38

Discipline in the Red Army varied greatly from unit to unit, but throughout bouts of heavy drinking would lead to serious breakdowns of discipline and acts of violence. Generally the Soviet soldier had a good and close relationship with his officers, which was not so readily extended to his commissars, for whom he had a natural distrust, despite his gullibility. His basic characteristics were those of the Russian peasant, and the qualities of patriotism, obstinacy, endurance and cunning stood him in good stead as a soldier. He tended to be unpredictable in his moods and could easily become apathetic, morose or unruly in his behaviour. Although he was slow-witted and cautious in his approach, he was by no means lacking in courage.39

Recruits were allocated in accordance with their intelligence rating to the air arm, artillery, engineers, armour, and finally infantry, and formations within or combining those arms were again divided into various categories. Of these the elite were those with the Guards appellation, which was awarded to those regiments and higher formations that had distinguished themselves in battle, such as Chuikov’s 64th Army, which had been renamed the 8th Guards Army after Stalingrad. This title brought increased rations, but also demanded the highest standards in discipline, training and combat. Guards regiments and formations could be found throughout the first echelon formations, but when grouped into Guards Armies they normally carried more firepower than the others, and their establishments tended to be larger. Their armoured units were usually equipped with the latest Stalin tanks and T-34/85s.40

Breakdowns of the composition of the various types of Red Army formations are given in the Appendices to this book. In brief, the Guards armies were organised as combined-arms armies, that is with three infantry and one armoured corps, and the shock armies, having stronger artillery resources, were designed to be used against well-established fortifications at the beginning of an offensive, after which they would normally be withdrawn into second echelon.41

The remaining infantry armies were generally of a much lower calibre. Although well equipped with light arms, their artillery and all their transport was horse-drawn. Having the lowest priority for clothing and rations, their uniforms were often in rags and they were expected to virtually live off the land. Consequently, on the move they presented an extraordinary spectacle, reminiscent of previous Asiatic invasions, with livestock being driven alongside ungainly caravans of commandeered wagons piled high with loot. Their training was minimal and their discipline poor, authority often being exercised by their officers at pistol point.42

Human life was of little value in Soviet considerations, and least of all in the dozen or so penal battalions available to each of the fronts for swamping enemy positions by sheer weight of numbers, or for advancing first over minefields to clear the way for others. Not only did they cater for the disciplinary cases, but they were also a convenient means of purging real or potential opponents of the regime from the ranks.43

Cavalry was still used in considerable numbers, Zhukov having a cavalry corps with both of his flank guards and one in reserve. However, the most impressive arm was the artillery, which specialised in massive concentrations, many formations being held for this purpose in the Stavka Reserve, from where they were carefully assigned to the various fronts for specifically approved tasks.44

The Air Force remained subordinate to the Army, and was divided into Strategic, Tactical and Transport Commands. The Strategic Command of long-range bombers was the least used and least effective, but the Tactical Command had a wide range of combat aircraft and was used extensively as another form of artillery support in the front line. In concept it was thus primarily another battlefield arm with little strategic value.45

The Soviet armour was very good indeed. By concentrating production on just a few simplified designs, the Russians had produced some of the most outstanding fighting vehicles of the war. The new 60-ton IS-1 and IS-2 (Joseph Stalin) main battle tanks with 122mm guns, and the ubiquitous 36-ton T-34 medium tank updated to carry a 85mm gun, were formidable fighting machines and available in quantity. The T-70 light tank with its 45mm gun was used mainly for the protection of tactical headquarters in battle. However, radios were scarce and generally limited to commanders’ vehicles, so that communication between tanks in action was difficult in the extreme. The SU self-propelled guns mounted on tank chassis, like their German counterparts, were primarily intended for use in the assault role, not as supporting artillery, and were particularly effective as tank-destroyers.46

The 1st Byelorussian Front had a chemical warfare battalion equipped with poison gas with it in the field, but this was not used. Other chemical warfare units specialised in laying smokescreens when required.47

Also fighting under Soviet command were the recently raised 1st and 2nd Polish Armies, the 1st Polish Composite Air Corps with 390 combat aircraft, and various other Polish units, including a tank brigade and a cavalry brigade. These had originally been founded from those prisoners taken when Poland was overrun in 1939 that had not voluntarily transferred to the British Army in 1942. Their numbers had later been augmented by drafting in partisans and recruits called to the colours after the ‘liberation’ of their country. However, the Soviet culling of any Poles capable of leadership had left considerable gaps in the rank structure that had to be filled with Russians, and although the senior figures wore Polish uniforms they were in fact Red Army officers of Polish descent.48

The Russians also used converted German prisoners of war for propaganda, spying, infiltration and subversion purposes, and even in some instances at this late stage in the war as combat units. These so-called ‘Seydlitz-Troops’ wore German Army uniforms from which the Nazi insignia had been removed, with armbands in the old national colours of black, white and red.49

Each Soviet army had from one to three NKVD (Ministry of the Interior) regiments attached, depending upon the situation. These units were not intended for use as fighting troops, but for providing a rear screen to the parent formation, and also for controlling the civilian population in the rear areas.50

These then were the mighty forces preparing to launch this final massive offensive of the war in Europe. The Soviets quoted the combined strengths of their three fronts in Operation ‘Berlin’ as being over 2.5 million troops, over 4,200 guns and mortars, 6,200 tanks and self-propelled guns, 7,500 aircraft and more than 1,000 rocket-launchers. In the actual assault areas the artillery were packed in at a density of 400 guns of 75mm calibre and over to the mile. Although we have no reason to doubt these figures, those that they quoted for the German forces opposing them were certainly exaggerated, and appear to be on the assumption that all the units listed in the German Order-of-Battle were fully manned and equipped. We know this not to have been so, but the figures served to enhance the achievements of the Soviet forces engaged.51

On 14 April 1945, the Russians began probing the German forward defences with forces up to regimental strength, thereby gaining some ground and enabling them to clear some of the minefields, but also alerting the enemy as to their intentions.52 The curtain was about to go up on the final act of the war in this theatre, and stage and cast were all set.

2

The Objective

T he primary soviet objective was Berlin. Between the Red Army and their objective lay the main German lines of defence, and beyond that the city’s own defence system, all believed to be formidable. Within the city itself the ultimate goal was the Reichstag building.1

It is curious that the Russians should have chosen the Reichstag as their goal in preference to other prominent structures in the city centre, such as the Royal Palace (Schloss), Reich Chancellery or the Brandenburg Gate. If anything, the Reichstag represented the old Imperial or pre-Nazi Germany. The burning of the building had served as the first step in the destruction of the normal democratic process under the Nazis, and it had remained a burnt-out ruin since 1933. However, having been set the Reichstag as their goal, this building took on all the significance of a German Kremlin to the Red Army.2

Much of the surrounding city was now in little better condition than the Reichstag. Nevertheless, Berlin’s blackened ruins still housed the organs of government of what remained of the Third Reich. Here too remained Adolf Hitler, whose haphazard, bankrupt dictatorship was clearly reflected in the state of his capital and its motley defenders preparing to meet the Soviet offensive. As the seat of government and a leading industrial city, Berlin had been a prime bombing objective for much of the war, despite the fact that it lay at the extreme range of United Kingdom-based aircraft and was usually obscured by cloud so that only blind area-bombing was possible. Having endured a total of 450 raids, Berlin was the most heavily bombed city in Germany, the United States Army Air Forces and the Royal Air Force dropping in all some 45,517 tons of bombs and mines on it. The frequency and size of the raids had gradually increased, and from mid-February 1945 onwards Berlin suffered almost continual air bombardment for thirty days and nights. The damage was worst at the centre, where Mitte District sustained 78 per cent total destruction and Tiergarten District 48 per cent. Although three-quarters of this damage was attributable to fire, the broad streets characteristic of much of Berlin had prevented the larger conflagrations experienced in other German cities.

The pre-war population of this spacious city of 4,321,000 inhabitants had been reduced by evacuation, wartime redeployment of labour, and air raid casualties.3 Despite a large influx of refugees from the eastern provinces in early 1945, it was now down to between two and two and a half million. It is estimated that the bombing alone killed 50,000 Berliners, but it significantly failed to extinguish the spirit of the survivors. Indeed, the gradual build-up of the attacks seems to have conditioned the inhabitants to survival under the most appalling conditions, producing an indifference to their own suffering, and preparing them for the forthcoming battle.4

This build-up had also enabled the city authorities and civil defence organisations to prepare for the worst of the ordeals. Following some heavy raids in August 1943, Dr Joseph Goebbels, as Gauleiter of Berlin, had secured the evacuation of a million inhabitants and closed the schools, thereby reducing the burden of ‘useless mouths’. For those that remained, air raid shelters were eventually produced with a total capacity of 300,000 persons. All suitable cellars were reinforced, their exits masked with brick walls and fitted with steel doors. Public shelters were also prepared under gasometers and other buildings with concrete foundations, and in the lateral galleries of some U-Bahn (underground railway) stations. In addition, 100 massive concrete shelters were built with roofs over three feet thick, each consisting of either 18 or 36 compartments, according to the model, and capable of accommodating several hundred people.5

All the principal ministries were provided with their own shelters, such as the one under Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry, which was connected by tunnel with the bunker system under Hitler’s Chancellery. The special Führerbunker lay some 60 feet down under several layers of earth and concrete, connected again by tunnels with other bunkers sheltering the staff, bodyguards and a fleet of vehicles.

In addition to these shelters, three enormous towers were constructed in the parks at Friedrichshain, Humboldthain and the Zoo for the dual purpose of sheltering civilians and providing elevated platforms for the anti-aircraft artillery (Flak).6 These massive flak-towers were veritable fortresses, being both bomb-proof and shell-proof with walls six feet thick and heavy steel shutters over all the apertures. The largest and best equipped was that at the Zoo, being 132 feet high with five storeys above ground. The top floor contained the barracks for the 100-strong garrison, the fourth a fully equipped and staffed hospital intended primarily for VIPs, the third served as a secure warehouse for some of Berlin’s art treasures, while the lower floors could provide shelter for 15,000 people as well as having an especially reserved section for Deutschlandsender, the official broadcasting service. The tower was completely self-contained with its own water and power supplies, and was well stocked with food and ammunition for sustaining a siege. However, it did have its drawbacks, for when the guns were in action and the rattling ammunition hoists were conveying shells up from the basement the noise was almost unbearable, and the security it offered attracted far more people than it was designed for, so that it was permanently overcrowded.7

Adjacent to this tower, just across the Landwehr Canal in the Tiergarten park, was a smaller one accommodating the headquarters of the 1st ‘Berlin’ Flak Division, and providing the radar and gun directing equipment for the main gun tower. The other two flak towers were similarly linked to adjacent control towers.

Each of these three main flak-towers carried an 8-gun battery of twin-mounted 128mm calibre guns, and was ringed with a gallery carrying a 37mm gun at each of the four corners of the tower, and a quadruple 20mm gun centrally on each side of the tower flanked by single-barrelled 20m guns.8

There were a dozen other flak towers of lesser proportions situated at various points in the city, and these were to prove useful in accommodating command posts and in acting as defensive positions.

All the flak within the city came under the 1st ‘Berlin’ Flak Division and was independent of the normal military garrison. Originally the Berlin Flak, as it was called, numbered some 500 batteries, but the capital’s aerial defences had been denuded to reinforce the Oder ground defences, and now all that remained were those guns installed on the flak towers and a few others scattered around the city. These flak batteries could be expected to provide valuable support in the land battle, both against aircraft and in an anti-tank role. Unfortunately they were not all that they appeared, for since early 1943 secondary schoolboys of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) had replaced all but a few key adult personnel on the home defence batteries, while even younger boys manned the searchlights and assisted the Luftwaffen Helferinnen (female auxiliaries) with the radar and communications systems.

The Berlin Garrison Headquarters were traditionally located opposite the Zeughaus (Arsenal, now housing the German History Museum) on the Unter den Linden, and administered a miscellany of units: military police checking for stragglers and deserters, several battalions of sub-standard troops guarding installations, bridges and other vulnerable points, as well as the thousands of prisoners-of-war and foreign slave-labourers employed in the city, some penal units, an engineer battalion, and two battalions of the ‘Grossdeutschland’ Guard Regiment retained for ceremonial duties. These garrison troops also assisted in clearing the streets of debris after air raids. The garrison formed part of Wehrkreis (Military Area) III, which was administered by Headquarters III Corps in peacetime, and when the III Corps went off to war by a Deputy Headquarters on the Hohenzollerndamm. Deputy Headquarters III Corps in turn came under the Reserve or Home Army, whose command had been given to Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, in 1944 after the abortive attempt on Hitler’s life.9

At the beginning of February 1945 Hitler had declared Berlin a ‘Festung’ (fortress), ordering the strengthening, supply and tactical deployment of the garrison in preparation for the defence of the city, but had omitted to designate what troops were to be used for this purpose. At the same time the Commander Deputy Headquarters III Corps had become Commander Berlin Defence Area, a logical step now that most of Wehrkreis III was either overrun or in the combat zone. However, for various reasons, including two rapid changes of commanders and the overriding commitment to reinforce the front, it was not until Lieutenant-General Hellmuth Reymann had taken over on 8 March that any actual plans were made for the defence of the city as a separate entity. At the time of his appointment Hitler had informed him that, should the need arise, sufficient front-line troops would be made available to him to man the defences, and General Reymann understood that they would come from Army Group Weichsel (Vistula) on the Oder Front.10

General Reymann had found the double appointment unworkable and at his request another general had been appointed to the Wehrkreis Headquarters, which was eventually evacuated before the battle and took no part in it.11

General Reymann’s plan was naturally conditioned by the nature of the terrain. The main threat was from Soviet armour, for which much of the ground was eminently suitable, with a good network of roads and open sandy ground, often screened by woodland providing covered approaches. Although the irrigated fields in the northeast and many ditches, canals and streams provided effective anti-tank obstacles, only the Havel Lakes in the west, the Spree River running obliquely through the city, and the Müggelsee and Dahme River in the southeast could be relied upon as effective barriers to movement. However, further out at an average distance of 25 miles from the city centre there was a belt of woods and lakes running between the Alte Oder River near Bad Freienwalde to south of Königs Wusterhausen on the Dahme, offering a readily adaptable defensive position.

The system of defence devised by General Reymann, incorporating ideas put forward by Hitler and Reichsminister Dr Joseph Goebbels, consisted basically of the following:

1 A forward defence line in the east, utilising the chain of natural obstacles between the Dahme and Alte Oder Rivers, and extending for about 50 miles.

2 An obstacle belt blocking major road junctions north and south of the city.

3 An outer defence ring based roughly on the line of the city boundary, with alternative fall-back positions whenever practicable.

4 An inner defence ring based on the S-Bahn (suburban railway) circuit.

5 An innermost keep, named ‘Zitadelle’ (Citadel), based on the island formed by the River Spree and the Landwehr Canal, with extended bastions ‘Ost’ and ‘West’ around Alexanderplatz and Am Knie (Ernst-Reuter-Platz) respectively, encompassing all the more important government buildings, including the Reich Chancellery.12

The area between the outer defence ring and ‘Zitadelle’ was divided clockwise into eight Defence Sectors labelled ‘A’ to ‘H’, and it was intended that the defence could be conducted in depth within these individual sectors. A commander with the powers of a Divisional Commander, usually SS from Nazi Party resources but not necessarily with combat experience, was assigned to each sector. ‘Zitadelle’ was entrusted to SS-Brigadeführer (Major-General) Wilhelm Mohnke, commander of the 1,200-strong detachment of Hitler’s lifeguard regiment, the Waffen-SS ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’, whose members rotated with the front-line division of the same name.

The preparations of the defences presented a mammoth task. The Chief of Engineers, Colonel Lobeck, had only the one engineer battalion at his disposal, so General Reymann, with Goebbels’s permission, had two of the city’s Volkssturm (Home Guard) battalions assigned to this role. The labour force itself was organised by Party officials, who, despite tremendous difficulties, still managed to muster about 70,000 people per day during the weeks preceding the attack. In addition to the Organisation Todt (official civil engineering service) and Reichsarbeitsdienst (compulsory pre-military labour service) personnel, who were the only ones with proper tools and equipment for this work, soldiers, civilians, prisoners-of-war and slave-labour gangs were employed. Although the numbers may appear small in relation to the size of the population, it should be remembered that the city’s many factories were being maintained at full production day and night until the very last minute. A major transport problem was caused by the lack of fuel; movement of the labour force depending largely on the railways, which were constantly open to disruption by air raids; and there were only horse-drawn wagons with which to move the sparse building materials available. There was a drastic shortage of tools of all kinds, barbed wire, nails and anti-tank mines, and the time factor precluded the use of ferro-concrete in the construction of defensive positions. The shortage of supervisors with expertise in these matters led to some of the results being militarily useless, or even a handicap to their own troops. The greatest and best-qualified effort appears to have been expended in the preparation of ‘Zitadelle’ in the city centre, gradually diminishing in effectiveness towards the periphery, and to a great extent the quality of the troops initially assigned to the defences corresponded to this pattern.13

The forward defence line had natural strength, but only normal field positions were constructed along it at critical points, and as these were eventually manned by Luftwaffe and Volkssturm units lacking the necessary arms or training for the task, no more than a token defence could be expected from them. Though the Oder Front troops might have put these facilities to better use, circumstances were to dictate otherwise.14

The obstacle belt consisted of a series of roadblocks at all road junctions on the route linking Schmöckwitz with Königs Wusterhausen and along Route 246 to Beelitz in the south, and on Route 273 from Strausberg through Bernau in the north. Each roadblock was covered by defensive positions intended to accommodate one Volkssturm platoon armed with infantry and anti-tank weapons, and all built-up areas between the obstacle belt and the outer defence ring were also designated strongpoints to be defended by the local Volkssturm. However, because of the nature of the terrain, most of these positions could be easily bypassed and overcome at leisure.15

The first cohesive line of defence began at the city boundary with the outer defence ring. This was some 60 miles around and obviously could not be manned effectively with the limited manpower available. In the north it followed the line of the Nordgraben, a water-filled ditch of little consequence, from Tegel harbour as far as Blankenburg, thus excluding all the northernmost suburbs. From there it curved round Hohenschönhausen, where it was bordered by a mass of irrigated fields, down to the line of the S-Bahn, which it then followed through Biesendorf and Mahlsdorf to beyond the city boundary before cutting due south to the top of the Müggelsee. On the other side of the lake it crossed the wooded isthmus to the Dahme River, resuming at the eastern entrance to the Teltow Canal, which it then followed as far as the Wrede Bridge. It then followed the line Köpenicker Strasse–S-Bahn–Wildmeisterdamm to the main lateral road connecting Buckow and Marienfelde, and on to the Teltow Canal again at the Eugen-Kleine Bridge. The line then continued westwards protected by water as far as the Glienicker Bridge leading into Potsdam, and then turned due north by way of the Sacrower See and Gross-Glienicker See lakes to beyond Staaken before turning east on the northern outskirts of Spandau to end on the Havel opposite the entrance to the Tegeler See.16

The alternative fall-back positions in the west allowed a withdrawal across the Havel should Gatow Airfield or Spandau have to be abandoned, and boats were placed in readiness for the evacuation of the Gatow garrison. In the east the fall-back position followed the line of the Wuhle stream running northwards from Köpenick. In the south the Teltow Canal served as a fall-back position, as did the Hohenzollern Canal in the north.

The defences along the outer defence ring consisted mainly of a single meagre fire-trench with a few covered positions built at intervals along it, but each road entering the city was strongly barricaded on this line and the barricades covered by defensive positions, including a few dug-in obsolete tanks. There was a continuous anti-tank ditch masking the southern and eastern suburbs, and 20 local artillery batteries were allocated in support of the outer defence ring, plus some mobile elements of the Berlin Flak.

The inner defence ring stretched for 30 miles and was a much stronger position, being based upon the appreciable obstacle formed by the S-Bahn ring of railway tracks linking the city’s mainline stations. This ring of several parallel tracks, sometimes running through deep cuttings, sometimes elevated on pylons or running along steep-sided embankments, provided a series of ready-made ramparts, anti-tank ditches or glacis, all of considerable width and giving good fields of fire to the defenders concealed in buildings along the inner perimeter. Again all the roads crossing this obstacle were strongly barricaded. They were covered by well-dug-in anti-tank weapons or 88mm anti-aircraft guns, the latter being long-famous for their effectiveness in the anti-tank role.17

The extent and complexity of defence arrangements within the sectors depended largely on the skill and ingenuity of the local commanders. The general scheme, which was achieved to a great degree, was to create barricades at all major road junctions and convert all strong buildings into fortified positions. At the same time the city’s 483 bridges were prepared for demolition in two categories, the first category creating a maze-like approach to the city centre when eventually blown, the second category being left to the last minute.18

Preparations within the inner defence ring were quite elaborate. Barricades in the side streets allowed passage only to pedestrians, and those in the main streets were closed to vehicular traffic at night by means of movable sections. Machine-gun posts were prepared in cellars and upper storeys to cover these barricades, and holes were knocked through the dividing walls to allow covered passage from cellar to cellar. The generally shallow U-Bahn tunnels were also barricaded at intervals to prevent infiltration, and preparations were made for flooding some of them.

‘Zitadelle’ was particularly well prepared, and the arrangement at the Brandenburg Gate was said to be a model of its kind. Guns and tanks, including some powerful ‘Tigers’, were dug in to support the more important positions, and trenches were dug in the Tiergarten.

Communications proved a major problem in the conduct of the defence. The Luftwaffe Flak had their own communications system, but there were no radios available for the improvised garrison, which had to rely on the normal civilian telephone network and the use of runners for the passage of orders and information. Conditions in the city rendered the field radios of the front-line units arriving later virtually worthless. This invariably led to poor co-ordination between sectors and units, lack of centralised control and consequent confusion everywhere and at all levels.19

The supply system was no less complicated. There was no real problem about food, as there were ample stocks within the city, although regular distribution was soon disrupted by the fighting, but there was an almost immediate shortage of ammunition due to the three large depots in the outer suburbs being overrun at an early stage. The military authorities established ration, clothing and equipment stores in several U-Bahn stations, but would not make issues to the Party-sponsored Volkssturm, presumably because the matter had not been cleared at a sufficiently high level. The SS were well provided in all respects, but tended to hoard their supplies to the detriment of the other defenders. All organisations suffered from the common shortage of motor fuel.20

Thus the overall results were scarcely in keeping with the appellation ‘Festung’. With adequate troops of the right calibre, General Reymann had a feasible outline plan for the defence of the capital, but the proper military facilities for developing the plan in depth simply did not exist any longer. However, the Nazi leadership had a completely different philosophy; Hitler’s contention was that, if the Russians succeeded in reaching Berlin, they should be forced to waste their strength in the city’s ruins, much as von Paulus’s 6th Army had done at Stalingrad. If this plan failed and the Soviets prevailed, the Germans would have shown themselves unworthy of their leadership and would deserve extinction, just as in nature only the strongest survive.21

3

The Opposition

A dolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich and Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, had been installed in his new command bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in Wilhelmstrasse since 16 January, although this was still a well-kept secret. His days of courting popularity with the mass Party rallies and public appearances were long since over. He had not even visited a single German city to witness the effects of the Allied bombing, and when his special train necessarily had to pass through these areas the curtains were drawn to exclude such distressing sights. Nor, apart from a single visit to the CI Corps on 3 March 1945, had he made any front-line visits for a considerable time. Secluded in his various remote command posts, he had become more and more removed from the reality of the world in which his subjects lived, suffered, fought and died unheeded.1

During the years of Nazi rule Hitler had established himself as an absolute dictator, who expressed his will to the nation by means of Führer-Orders or Führer-Decrees, while the rest of the Nazi leaders indulged in a behind-the-scenes struggle for power among themselves. His physical and mental health had suffered considerably from the strains of office, lack of exercise and possibly the attentions of his personal physician, Professor Morell, whose prescriptions have subsequently aroused some criticism. The assassination attempt of 20 July 1944 had done nothing to alleviate this condition, and since then a baleful distrust of the General Staff, and also of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and his Luftwaffe, had been grafted on his megalomania and ferocious despotism.2

He firmly believed that his presence alone was sufficient to galvanise all energies in the right direction, and that all orders to retreat, however justified, inevitably led to disaster. He attributed the loss of East Prussia to his decision to abandon his ‘Wolfschanze’ headquarters in Rastenburg. He also believed that the situation was bound to change in his favour, this belief being based partly on the expected appearance of some new secret weapons (for which there were no longer any production facilities), partly on the conviction that the Allies would fall out when the Anglo-American armies met up with the Russians, and partly on an absolute faith in his own star. When he learnt of the death of President Roosevelt on 12 April, he regarded it as an excellent omen.3

His entourage did everything to encourage him in these beliefs, and nothing to bring a sense of reality to the Führerbunker during these last days of the war. Were the consequences not so drastic, the events in the bunker would have had all the elements of a farce. Playing a leading role in this situation and closest of all to Hitler, as he had been now for several years, was the trusted Party Secretary, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann. Virtually unknown outside the Nazi leadership, his low profile hid a position of immense power, for he alone had constant access to the Führer. The other Nazi leaders both feared him and curried his favours, never knowing whether Bormann spoke in his own name or that of his master.4