* After almost four years of war, the Red Army was ready to begin the final push, driving on Berlin with massive armies in the face of desperate but faltering German resistance. Although the outcome of the battle could not be in doubt, it would still prove to be as hard and painful as any other major battle in the East.
* Hitler had promised that he had established a "Thousand-Year Reich", but as 1944 drew to a close, his regime was tottering on the edge of a crumbling precipice. Germany was in ruins, while the Western Allies closed in from the West and the Soviets closed in from the East.
With the Luftwaffe running out of gas and pilots, hopelessly outnumbered in the skies, British and American bombers pounded Germany's cities and factories into rubble. While the Allied bomber offensive had been plagued by uncertain strategy and tactics through much of the war, it had now reached its stride, and was doing much to bring German industry to a halt. Fuel supplies dried up, while fighter-bombers shot up anything that moved on the roads by daylight.
Allied forces greatly outnumbered the Wehrmacht and were vastly better supplied, but Hitler refused to contemplate surrender. He threw whatever reinforcements he could scrape up to the East in hopes of blocking, or in his delusions even defeating, the Red Army. In early February, Goebbels noted that the Fuehrer seemed "utterly exhausted", but was convinced that he had "halfway succeeded in restabilizing the situation in the East." Goebbels then commented in a cautiously understated way that he was "a little skeptical. Just in the last few months, the Fuehrer has sometimes made mistakes in his judgement of our military possibilities."
The lull in the fighting was entirely due to a reconsideration of offensive strategy on the Soviet side. Stalin had called Zhukov from the Yalta Conference on 6 February 1945 and ordered that the drive on Berlin be postponed. The Red Army was to concentrate on East Prussia for the moment, driving north to clear out the threat to its flank before beginning the final push on Berlin. Stalin may have also wanted to prolong the war a little in hopes of improving the Soviet Union's standing at the end of the conflict.
In any case, Zhukov's First Belorussian Front turned right and drove towards Kolberg on the Baltic, while Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front moved west to meet them, surrounding Danzig along the way. To the south, Konev's First Ukrainian Front conducted a limited offensive to keep up the pressure along the line, with this thrust quickly reaching the Neisse. Konev's troops overran the industrial area of Silesia, capturing many factories and mines intact. It was a major economic disaster for the Reich.
The Germans in East Prussia had known their position was hopeless well before the February offensive; many had been trying to escape. On 10 January, the Red Navy submarine S-13 had put three torpedoes into the WILHELM GUSTLOFF, loaded down with 7,000 refugees. Over 6,000 people died in the frigid waters of the Baltic. On 10 February, the S-13 also torpedoed the STEUBEN and sent it to the bottom, with 3,500 refugees on board. The submarine's captain, A.I. Marinesco, was recommended Hero of the Soviet Union, but he had a sexual liaison with a foreigner, and was denied the award. He was finally given the HSU posthumously in 1990, at the last hour of the Soviet state.
The German 2nd Army was trapped with the civilians in Danzig. Hitler sacked its commander, Colonel General Walter Weiss, and on 12 March appointed General Dietrich von Saucken in his place. Saucken was something of an odd choice for Hitler, since the general was an aristocrat to the core -- he even wore a monocle -- and made no secret of his contempt for the low-life Nazis. Hitler briefed Saucken and told him that he was to take orders from the Gauleiter in Danzig. Saucken replied stiffly: "I have no intention of placing myself under the orders of a Gauleiter."
Even Guderian, who had often argued with Hitler and was a witness to the scene, was shocked, all the more so because Saucken did not even bother to add "Mein Fuehrer" to the response. Even more astounding, Hitler meekly caved in: "All right, keep the command to yourself." Saucken flew to Danzig on 13 March and did everything he could to hold the line and get the civilians out. When the city finally fell on 28 March, the Red Army exceeded itself in the barbarity inflicted on those who had not been able to flee. The fortified city of Koenigsberg held out until 10 April, the last of the "Baltic Balcony" to fall to the Red Army. As if to emphasize the crushing defeat, on 16 April a Red Navy submarine sent the hospital ship GOYA to the bottom, along with most of the 7,000 refugees on board.
By this time, the Western Allies were across the Rhine and German resistance against them was sputtering out. German troops and civilians were fleeing West to surrender to the British and Americans. Himmler, discouraged by his lack of success, resigned his command of Army Group Vistula, though since he dared not make such a request of Hitler himself, Guderian suggested doing it for him. Himmler agreed, and Guderian happily did him the favor.
Command of Army Group Vistula fell to Colonel General Gotthardt Heinrici, currently commander of the 1st Panzer Army, which was then trying to hold the line against Konev. When Heinrici arrived, Himmler gave him a pompous and long-winded briefing, until news of another disaster on the front arrived. Himmler broke off the briefing, and departed without further delay.
Many other Germans in uniform were much more resolute than Himmler, willing to fight on to the last. They were to be given little reward for their diligence. Despite the loyalty of the German people to their Fuehrer, he felt they had let him down. Following the Soviet capture of the resources of Silesia, on 19 March 1945 he issued the "Nero Befehl (Nero Order)", which dictated the widespread destruction of Germany's material resources. It was done to deny the enemy rewards for their conquests, as well as to punish the German people, Hitler stating with lunatic arrogance that they had "proved themselves unworthy of me."
The fact was plain that the cataclysm that was engulfing Germany was almost entirely of his own making. Hitler could have worked for peace and prosperity, but instead he had recklessly chosen war -- and having unleashed a dragon, the dragon had now turned on him. There was no way the Fuehrer could have conceded his own responsibility in the matter: the despised Slavs had proven themselves stronger than the weakling Germans, and so the Germans did not deserve to survive. To add to the arrogance, Martin Bormann had been sent off a few days earlier to the south to find places to stash Nazi loot. The people might starve, but the Nazis would ensure they kept the treasures they had stolen from others.
Fortunately, the Nero Order was not implemented with any great enthusiasm, and in fact in some cases German Army officers posted guards around important installations to prevent hardcore Nazis from destroying them. Germany was being thoroughly ruined by the simple violence of warfare. Attempting to deliberately enhance the ruin was madness. The Fuehrer had no future; his people did, and they had to give serious consideration of how to survive in that future beyond the Fuehrer.
The clock was rapidly approaching midnight. On 7 March 1945, the Americans had captured a bridge over the Rhine at Remagen and were energetically using it to establish an ever-expanding foothold on the east bank, undeterred by frantic German counterattacks. Hitler got the news the next day and took it with a certain punch-drunk passivity, but the next day he was in a rage and ordered the execution of five German officers, much to the shock of the German Army.
The Fuehrer had ventured out of his bunker on 13 March to visit the Oder front, mostly for the benefit of Goebbels' cameramen. He did not review the troops, instead meeting with a group of officers, who were shocked at how white and unhealthy he looked. One officer commented on the Fuehrer's "glittering eyes, which reminded me of those of a snake." Hitler returned to his bunker and would not leave it again alive. There were heavy air raids on Berlin that day that killed thousands of civilians and left tens of thousands homeless.
* In the meantime, on 13 February 1945, the Red Army had taken Budapest after a 50-day siege. The Hungarians, tired of the war, had felt some relief when the Soviets approached, but Stalin's troops demonstrated much of the same inclination towards rape, looting, and brutality that they had put into practice elsewhere. The Hungarians quickly took a dislike to their "liberators". Churchill clearly saw his belief that the Soviets planned to take control of Eastern Europe coming true.
In fact, by this time, Stalin's attitude towards the Western Allies was drifting towards unconcealed hostility, with Soviet officials being as uncooperative and rude as possible. Even Roosevelt, whose attitude toward the Soviets had been traditionally inclined towards giving them the benefit of the doubt, was becoming disgusted by that time, admitted in late March that "we can't do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of the promises he made at Yalta."
At the same, Churchill was pushing for a drive on Berlin; British Field Marshal Montgomery was enthusiastic about the idea. Churchill understood that the capture of Berlin would be a major propaganda victory, and would give the Western Allies a better bargaining position with the Soviets after the war. The British made no secret of their interest in Berlin to the Soviets, and it was a matter of concern to Stalin.
US General Dwight Eisenhower, the military supreme commander in the West, had other ideas. He felt that his primary responsibility was to minimize the losses among his troops -- an attitude that the Soviet high command would have found almost baffling -- and didn't believe that Berlin would be worth the casualties required to capture it. In particular, Eisenhower considered Montgomery's interest in the capture of Berlin to be motivated solely by Monty's well-established love for glory. Besides, according to the occupation plan agreed on at Yalta, much of the territory the Western Allies would capture in northern Germany would simply be handed over to the Soviets after the war anyway.
Eisenhower focused his armies on central Germany, with Leipzig and Dresden as their objectives. He wanted to capture what was left of Germany's heavy industries, and he also feared that the Nazi regime was preparing to make a fanatical last stand in the mountains of southeastern Germany and western Austria, an action that could prolong the war by a year or more. As far as the "AlpenFestung (Alpine Fortress)" or "National Redoubt" in the Alps was concerned, Eisenhower needn't have worried: it never really existed except as a fantasy of Nazi propaganda. Some Allied intelligence officers suspected as much, but Hitler's confused transfers of forces southward gave the idea some credibility.
Eisenhower sent a message to Stalin describing his strategy without consulting with the British ahead of time, the result being a furious quarrel between British and American leadership. Eisenhower refused to change his decision, and the message was given to Stalin on 31 March by the head of the US military mission to the USSR, Major General John R. Deane. Stalin told Deane that he approved of Eisenhower's plans, and that the Red Army would drive southwest to link up with American and British forces.
* In reality Stalin, who lied without a second thought himself, assumed that Eisenhower was lying as well, that the Western Allies were planning to double-cross him and take the city anyway. The American capture of the bridge at Remagen was almost as big a shock to Koba as it was to Hitler; Stalin, who had a tendency to under-estimate the military capability of his Western Allies, hadn't expected them to penetrate the Rhine barrier so quickly. He understood the propaganda value of Berlin as well as Churchill did, and decided that it was now time to move. Ironically and characteristically, Stalin had mercilessly badgered the Western Allies for years about a second front, and now that he had one, he was worried that his comrades-in-arms might use it to gain an advantage on him.
He called his generals to Moscow at the beginning of April. The offensive was to be conducted primarily by Zhukov's First Belorussian Front and Konev's First Ukrainian Front. Zhukov was nominally to be in overall command, but in reality Stalin blatantly played the two generals off against each other, first giving them bogus intelligence about Eisenhower's "plan" to capture Berlin to get them in a competitive mood, and then modifying the overall Red Army plan for the offensive so that, if circumstances justified it, Konev might take Berlin instead of Zhukov.
Despite the fact that Zhukov had interceded in Konev's behalf during the Battle of Moscow, the two generals disliked each other strongly. They were both burly men and aggressive, even ruthless, commanders, but that was about as far as the resemblance went. Zhukov was short, Konev tall; Zhukov was an imperious leader, Konev paternalistic; Zhukov was coarse, Konev had an intellectual bent. Zhukov looked down on Konev because he came out of the ranks of the political commissars, not the regular military, and Konev of course it. Konev also resented the fact that Zhukov was the object of such glorification by the state propaganda apparatus. The two set to work on organizing their parts in the offensive, pushing their staffs to the limit to get things in order as fast as possible.
Stalin always had a devious agenda, and underlying the competition he had created between the two generals was his distrust of anyone who was a potential rival. Konev wasn't the only one who was irritated by Zhukov's prominence. Although Stalin called Zhukov to his face "my Suvorov", after the great Russian general who had defeated Napoleon, and Zhukov was one of the few people who would bluntly argue with Koba, there were stories that the normally controlled and calculating Stalin flew into rages at Zhukov's insufficiently subordinate attitude.
The NKVD had been quietly collecting evidence against Zhukov even as far back as the Khalkin Gol victory for the day that a case might need be made against him. That would have to wait until Hitler was dragged through the streets of Moscow in chains, or otherwise dealt with to Stalin's satisfaction. For the moment, Stalin needed Zhukov, and continued to be more or less agreeable to his face.
The preparations for the offensive were massive and exhausting. The Germans had wrecked the rail lines as they withdrew, and Polish trains had used a different track gauge anyway, so streams of American 6x6 trucks brought up a flood of supplies of weapons, ammunition, food, and everything else needed for the battle. Zhukov accumulated seven million artillery shells for the opening phases alone. 40 engineering battalions worked night and day to put 25 bridges across the Oder to support Zhukov's drive. A detailed model of the city of Berlin was built at general headquarters, and all senior officers to be involved in the assault were put through a course with it. By mid-April, all was ready.
BACK_TO_TOP* The Soviet assault on Berlin was to involve a total of four Red Army fronts. Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front, having cleaned the Germans out of the Baltic States, would be on the northern flank of the attack, protecting Zhukov's First Belorussian Front, which was to drive on the city proper, more or less in coordination with Konev's First Ukrainian Front just to the south. Yeremenko's Fourth Ukrainian Front would keep up the pressure on the defense of southern Germany. The offensive would be conducted by about 2,500,000 men, 45,000 artillery pieces and Katyusha launchers, plus 6,250 tanks.
The Soviets were opposed by German Army Group Vistula under Colonel General Gotthardt Heinrici in the north, and German Army Group Center under Field Marshal Ferdinand Schoerner in the south. Heinrici, who had replaced Himmler in the command just a few weeks earlier, was nothing like his predecessor. Heinrici a short, taciturn, blunt, no-nonsense man, distrusted by Nazi leadership because he tended to speak his mind and also because he was a devout churchgoer. In fact, he had been sidelined from command for a time after the disasters in the East in the summer of 1943. His troops trusted him, however, calling him "our tough little bastard." Schoerner, in contrast, was loud, overbearing, and bullying, his major virtue in the eyes of his superiors being that he was a 100% Nazi. Though his troops differed on the quality of his generalship, they were in agreement that he was a 100% bastard.
While the main show against Berlin was underway, Malinovsky's Second Ukrainian Front would drive into Austria, ensuring that Hitler couldn't shuttle troops north to brace up the defense of the city. Hitler understood the threat to Berlin from the East -- even in his shaky condition, it would have been hard to ignore the Red Army when it was all but camping on his doorstep -- and had engaged in some imaginative exercises to scrape up more troops.
In early April, Heinrici had attended a meeting in the Fuehrer's bunker in Berlin, where Hitler's chief lieutenants offered personnel to help hold the line on the Oder. Goering offered 100,000 Luftwaffe men; Himmler 25,000 SS troopers; and Admiral Doenitz offered 12,000 navy men. Heinrici was appalled, replying that such inexperienced soldiers would merely be slaughtered. Goering took offense at the implied slight since he believed his people were "uebermenschen", and Hitler said that the reinforcements could be kept in the rear as reserves and brought up to standard in time.
In time? What time? Heinrici got about 35,000 of the men he was promised and found them, to no surprise, to be a completely mixed lot of old and young who were completely unprepared for frontline combat. There were even a few men who showed up in tuxedos, apparently having been press-ganged while they were out on the town. Heinrici informed Berlin that the only thing that the lot of them would be good for was digging ditches and the like; Berlin told him to shut up and arm them. Arm them? With what? All he could scrape up was about a thousand old rifles, many of which could not use any ammunition he had in quantity.
In the city, Berliners were now throwing up barricades and digging trenches against the imminent assault. The work hadn't really started until March, and it was all somewhat pathetic. A black joke made the rounds that it would take the Soviets two hours and five minutes to get through one of the obstacles: two hours to laugh at it, five minutes to walk through it.
The Soviet forces that would drive on Berlin had an overwhelming advantage over the Germans in all categories of military power, ranging from three to one to five to one, and the Red Army was well-equipped with modern and thoroughly combat-proven weapons; no sane German thought the battle was winnable, it was just a question of how long defeat could be held off. German officers were appalled to find that when the Soviets blasted propaganda at young conscript soldiers in the frontline trenches, some of the soldiers would shout back and ask what kind of treatment they could expect to receive as prisoners.
Hitler remained in hiding in his bunker, still grasping at straws for a miracle victory. On 12 April, American President Roosevelt died of a brain hemorrhage, Vice-President Harry Truman taking his place. The Fuehrer got the news next day and was ecstatic, seeing it as the turning point of his fortunes. One witness said "he clung to [the news] like a drowning man to a straw." Soon, Hitler predicted, the Soviets and the Western Allies would fall out and be at each other's throats. He continued to issue his ranting declarations, calling on Germans to fight to the death.
Citizens understood the "death" part of the declarations only too well. Lawyers were working overtime helping people make out wills, and rat poison and cyanide capsules were in great demand. That Christmas a black joke had been making the rounds in Berlin: "Be practical -- give a coffin." Another joke in circulation said that the signs that littered the city indicating "LSR" for "Luftschutzraum (Air Raid Shelter)" actually meant "Lernt Schnell Russiche (Learn Russian Quickly)". The "Heil Hitler" greeting had all but disappeared among the citizens.
* Starting on the night of 12 April, the Red Army sent out battalion-sized units to probe German defenses, gradually escalating the probes and backing them up with artillery barrages. Everyone on both sides knew the storm was coming within days. At 3:00 AM on 16 April the storm broke, with Zhukov's forces hammering on German positions in front of the Soviet bridgehead at Kustrin, on the west bank of the Oder, with 10,000 guns and 400 Katyusha barrage rocket launchers. Within a half hour, a half-million shells had fallen on the German Ninth Army. The thunder was audible in Berlin.
The bombardment was noisy and spectacular, but not very effective. Heinrici had anticipated it, and quietly pulled the bulk of his troops back from the front lines to defenses in the rear. There were two lines of defenses in front of the heights and a very solid line of defense with mortar pits and antitank gun positions on the top of the Seelowe Heights, rugged high ground well behind the front lines. When one of his officers protested at the pullback, Heinrici replied in his matter-of-fact way: "You don't put your head under a trip hammer, do you? You pull it back in time."
At 5:30 AM, three Soviet armies moved forward from the Soviet bridgehead into the churned-up German front lines. Their way was in principle illuminated by 143 searchlights on the east bank of the Oder, which Zhukov had arranged to help blind the Germans and give his people an advantage. In fact, in all the smoke and dust the searchlights simply confused the troops, and most of the soldiers halted to wait for daylight.
When the sun did come up, the troops were disturbed to find that the shattered frontline defenses into which they were moving into were empty of the remains of German soldiers. The lack of enemy artillery fire was also eerie, and experienced troops got the unpleasant suspicion they were advancing into a trap. They were absolutely correct. When Red Army tanks and infantry had advanced well into range, they were hit by a storm of German artillery and machine-gun fire that stopped the advance in its tracks, at least for the moment. The lowlands in front of the Seelowe Heights were crisscrossed by streams and canals, creating obstacles to armor and other vehicles, and the ferocious bombardment had churned up the terrain. Soviet troops were mired down and easy targets.
Konev began his bombardment at 4:15 AM, which was followed up by massive air raids into the German rear. Konev did not have a bridgehead on the western bank of the Neisse and didn't think it would be practical to bridge the river in the dark. To provide cover for his engineers, he had aircraft lay down a thick cloud of smoke while rockets and artillery plastered German positions. Spearheads went across the river at 5:55 AM. By midmorning, engineers had set up twenty pontoon bridges. Tanks that were too heavy for the pontoon bridges were ferried across.
The Germans were expecting an attack to the south, towards Prague, and the First Ukrainian Front achieved tactical surprise, rapidly penetrating the first line of German defenses. They found shell-shocked Germans in the trenches, many of them surrendering with little or no resistance, calling out in rough Russian: "Ivan, don't shoot!" One German prisoner told his interrogators: "The only promise Hitler has kept is the one he made before coming to power: Give me ten years and you will not be able to recognize Germany."
Konev's initial success contrasted sharply with Zhukov's difficulties. Zhukov normally scouted out enemy defenses personally before beginning an assault, but he had been distracted by Stalin's nagging and had relied on aerial reconnaissance photographs for planning his attack. Zhukov assumed that the sheer weight of the preliminary bombardment and his masses of troops would carry the day; he later admitted that he had greatly underestimated the strength of the German defenses. He still descended on General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the Eighth Guards Army and the hero of Stalingrad, to give him a brutal chewing-out. Chuikov, who disliked Zhukov for his arrogance and ambition, could only try to assure him that things would work out, but Zhukov went on with his tirade.
In mid-afternoon, in an attempt to hurry things along, Zhukov ordered armored forces to the front. Chuikov was horrified, since he saw that would create a hideous traffic jam. That was exactly what happened, with vehicles immobilized while Red Army troops at the front continued to be chewed up by the Germans. The confused state at the front also led to Red Army units suffering more than the usual share of casualties from misdirected Soviet attack aircraft and artillery batteries. However, the Soviets did make some progress, helped by air strikes that destroyed much of Heinrici's heavy artillery on top of the heights, and the Germans were taking serious casualties themselves. That was not much consolation to Zhukov, who in his own turn had to endure being cut down to size by Stalin during a conversation over radio that evening: Koba taunted Zhukov with Konev's success to the south, demanded results, and then cut off the conversation abruptly.
Of course, the assault on Berlin couldn't be concealed from the Western Allies. For the moment, Stalin kept up the lie he had fed Eisenhower. The Americans were told that the Red Army was merely performing a "reconnaissance in force" to determine the strength of German defenses in the area.
* The German defense of the Seelowe Heights began to erode the next day, 17 April, with the simple size and weight of the attackers chewing up the defenders and eroding holes in their lines. Desperate and in some cases deliberately suicidal attacks by Luftwaffe pilots against the Red Army's bridges over the Oder proved largely futile. Such damage as they inflicted at the cost of their lives was quickly made good.
Heinrici wanted to counterattack, using 30,000 troops then stationed in the town of Frankfurt-on-Oder to the south -- of course, not the same place as the city of Frankfurt-on-Main to the west, now already in Allied hands. These troops were in immediate danger of being encircled by Konev's First Ukrainian Front, which was moving forward rapidly. He needed these soldiers to halt Konev's advance so he could focus on Zhukov. However, Frankfurt-on-Oder had been designated as a "fortified place" by the Fuehrer, and though Heinrici called to request permission to use these troops, Hitler turned him down flat.
As a result, Konev's First Ukrainian Front continued to move west rapidly. Konev had a lot of good news to report to Stalin that night and Koba was appreciative. Stalin pointed out that Zhukov was having troubles and suggested that the First Belorussian Front shift from its hammering at the Seelowe Heights and join Konev's offensive. Konev knew that was logistically impractical, and also knew that if Zhukov came south, Konev would be taking orders from him. Konev told Stalin that the First Ukrainian Front was strong enough to take Berlin, if Koba so wished. He did. Konev was authorized to shift his attack to the north and advance on the city.
Konev ordered his two tank armies to move on Berlin, instructing the commanders to cut off the western approaches to the city and isolate it, to go around strong points and to absolutely not perform frontal attacks. This would get them to the city quickly, with a minimum of wastage. The German units trapped behind the advance would then be cut off, to be given a choice between surrender or destruction. Konev's armor moved north the first thing in the morning of 18 April.
To the north, Zhukov continued to hammer in something resembling blind rage at the German defenses on the Seelowe Heights, throwing in everything he had and all but oblivious to the piles of casualties. Back in the Fuehrer's bunker there was rejoicing over the continued frustration of Zhukov's offensive, with Hitler once again believing that his fortunes might still be retrieved.
His elation was short-lived. That same day, 18 April, Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front had jumped off across the lower section of the Oder. The Germans fought back furiously and it would take the Soviets two days to break through, but efforts elsewhere were now showing results. On 19 April, Zhukov's troops finally cracked German defenses. Zhukov had shown little finesse in the attack, losing at least 30,000 men in the meat grinder to the 12,000 casualties of the Germans, but the simple mass of the assault had finally ground down the defenders. Now Zhukov and Konev were truly in a race. Konev radioed his commanders to move faster.
Heinrici knew that disaster was finally on him, and he once more called Berlin to ask that the troops in Frankfurt-on-Oder be released. He ended up talking to General Hans Krebs, the new German Army chief of staff. Krebs had replaced Guderian on 28 March, when Guderian finally decided to speak his mind to the Fuehrer. Witnesses described the confrontation between the two as a furious screaming match, with Hitler's face becoming paler and paler as Guderian's face got redder and redder. Some of the witnesses in attendance slipped out of the room and managed to arrange an "urgent call" for Guderian as a means of interrupting the quarrel. When Guderian returned, Hitler ordered him to take "six weeks' convalescent leave".
Krebs had been Guderian's deputy and moved up into his shoes. Krebs was apparently a good staff officer but not suited for the top command, more inclined to tell jokes than to issue orders and very quick to trim to changing winds. He was regarded as suitable for the job because he had little inclination to disagree with Hitler. In response to Heinrici's request, Krebs didn't even bother to talk to the Fuehrer; he simply barked at Heinrici to "hold all positions", and then hung up.
BACK_TO_TOP* The situation continued to fall apart at a rapid rate over the next few days. On 20 April, Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in his bunker, with his senior Nazi lieutenants in attendance, including Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering, Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler, and Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. The Americans had also given the Fuehrer a birthday present that morning: a massive bombing raid on Berlin that inflicted major damage on the city, cutting gas and water supplies. Officials began to flee west.
Down in the bunker, Goering was dressed in an olive drab field uniform instead of his usual imperial silk-and-satin dress uniforms. There were whispers at the party that he looked like an American general, presumably because he wanted to put on an agreeable appearance when he surrendered. In fact, Goering had already fled his mansion at Karinhall to the northwest of Berlin, with a convoy of dozens of trucks loaded down with the loot he had stolen from Germany's conquests. He personally had detonated the charge that blasted the mansion into ruins, as a parting gesture. The failure of Goering's Luftwaffe to help stop the Allied tide against Germany -- a failure that had made even more vivid by Goering's tendency to make overblown boasts that he couldn't back up -- had left him out of favor with the Fuehrer, but Hitler was feeling agreeable with Goering that day.
Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler was not in the Hitler's favor either. The Fuehrer was disappointed in Himmler's poor performance as commander of Army Group Vistula. Hitler would have been even more disappointed if he had known that Himmler was putting out feelers to make a deal with the Western Allies, going through the motions of smuggling a few Jews from the concentration camps to safety in hopes the Americans and British would think he had turned over a new leaf.
Himmler was almost as deluded as Hitler. Whatever misgivings and problems the Western Allies had with the Soviets, Hitler and his lieutenants were the enemy, pure and simple, and at that late date the Germans had no real bargaining position. The Allies would win the war and soon; what did they have to discuss with vermin like Himmler? The idea of coming to some sort of terms with him only underlined the sensibility of the doctrine of unconditional surrender. One German Army colonel who was sounded out by one of Himmler's underlings on the Reichsfuehrer's scheme replied that it was too little, too late, and Himmler was "the most unsuitable man in the whole of Germany for such negotiations."
Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz's star was still bright in Hitler's eyes. To be sure, Doenitz's attempt to strangle Britain with his U-boat fleet had failed, but Hitler, in an unusual outburst of reasonableness, had recognized that submarine construction had been given low priority. Doenitz was a dedicated Nazi, so devoted to the Fuehrer that he was regarded in some quarters as an overgrown Hitler Youth, and Hitler admired his crisp military efficiency. Hitler saw Doenitz as a possible successor -- though the admiral had competition in the form of Martin Bormann, the low-profile master schemer, "dear Martin" to the Fuehrer.
The guests urged Hitler to flee Berlin and go south to the mountains to lead continued resistance. He refused, saying he could not flee Berlin and expect his soldiers to go on fighting. The meeting soon broke up, with most of the guests departing. Goering went to his castle in Bavaria, where he would soon be under house arrest. Himmler went off to pursue his absurd peace initiatives. Doenitz was dispatched to take command of the defense of the Reich in the south.
Goebbels remained behind. He was the purest of pure Nazis, Hitler's old and trusted friend. That morning he had performed one of his last propaganda broadcasts, calling on Germans to trust in the Fuehrer and saying Hitler would lead them out of difficulties. Some Berliners listening to the broadcast concluded that Goebbels had gone completely mad. In any case, Hitler had asked him to stay. Goebbels would share the fate of the Fuehrer.
* Fate was approaching rapidly. At exactly 11:30 AM the next day, 21 April, the first Soviet shells slammed into Berlin, taking citizens by surprise and scattering dead and wounded over the streets. Hitler thought that the Red Army must have been using long-range railroad guns, but was told that there were no rail lines in condition to bring such a weapon so far forward; the shells were from conventional heavy field artillery. In fact, the Soviets were close enough that they could see the landmarks of the city through field glasses.
Hitler, having woken up to the fact that the enemy was literally at the gates, threw together new elaborate plans to deal with the attackers. They were all fantasies; there were simply no resources left to take the counter-offensive. Heinrici, having reached the limit of his ability to endure such nonsense, told Chief of Staff Krebs that he wished to be relieved of command, so he could fight in the ranks. Krebs didn't want to relay the request to the Fuehrer, but Heinrici insisted. The Fuehrer denied the request.
At midday on 21 April, the German Army cleared out of the big underground headquarters complex at Zossen, south of Berlin, just ahead of Konev's forces. The Red Army occupied the complex later that afternoon, finding only a caretaker and four soldiers. Three of the soldiers surrendered without any hesitation, the fourth failing to do so only because he was too drunk to stand up. The caretaker took the amazed Russians on a tour of the facility. Suddenly, a phone rang. One of the soldiers picked up the phone to hear a voice asking questions in German. The soldier answered in Russian: "Ivan is here, go to hell." -- and hung up.
On 22 April, Hitler tried to get reports on the progress of the counter-offensives he had ordered. Of course, he soon found out that nothing was happening. He flew into a mad rage, far more wild and raving than the tantrums to which everyone had become accustomed; he all but foamed at the mouth, cried out: "The war is lost!" -- and then, spent, collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His staff, appalled, tried to encourage him, saying he should leave Berlin and go to the mountains in the south. That brought him out of his stupor. He told his generals that they should leave, but he would stay and direct this one last battle.
On the afternoon of 22 April Hitler sent Keitel southwest of the city to give General Walther Wenck and his 12th Army orders to come to the rescue of Berlin and send the Red hordes packing. Keitel met with Wenck the next morning, 23 April, and blustered on at length. One witness reported: "We let him talk, and we let him leave."
Wenck was a soldier's soldier, highly professional and a great inspiration to his men, and he knew perfectly well that he had been ordered to lead his troops to futile destruction. He shrugged and rearranged the orders to conform to reality: the 12th Army would attack, but it would simply be a rescue operation to help survivors of trapped German forces to the east escape the grasp of the Red Army. On 24 April, Wenck's 12th Army to the southwest began its "relief operation". One of his officers wrote: "Who would have ever thought that it would be just a day's march from the Western Front to the Eastern Front?" There was no thought of defeating the Red Army, only to do everything that could be reasonably done to reach trapped German civilians and soldiers, and then withdraw west. Wenck hardly bothered to acknowledge most of the orders sent him -- though communications and organization were in such a bad state that it wasn't much trouble to ignore them.
BACK_TO_TOP* The fact that the Germans didn't have the resources to conduct a counter-offensive didn't mean that they had given up the fight. In fact, as the Red Army approached Berlin, German resistance stiffened and Soviet progress slowed. Konev's First Ukrainian Front encountered a particularly nasty obstacle, in the form of the Teltow Canal, which ran along the southern side of the city. The canal was wide and too deep to be easily forded; the Germans had heavily mined the approaches, blown all the bridges, and built up a set of strongpoints on the far side of the canal. They were manned by 15,000 troops, who were well-armed by the standards of the time.
Cracking the Teltow Canal line fell to General Pavel Rybalko and his Third Guards Tank Army. He spent all of 23 April bringing up 3,000 artillery pieces, mortars, and Katyusha rocket launchers, concentrating them on a narrow front. At 6:20 AM on 24 April, they all opened up, and then assault teams crossed the canal in collapsible boats to dig out strongpoints with flame throwers and explosive charges. The Germans didn't die easily, wiping out some of the teams or forcing them to fall back, but the defenders could only delay the inevitable. By early afternoon, Soviet armor was rolling across the canal on top of pontoon bridges, even while fighting continued to crush German resistance up and down the waterway. There were no more serious obstacles in front of Konev's troops to keep them from reaching downtown Berlin.
While Rybalko's artillery was beginning their bombardment that morning, elements of his army were linking up in the northeast with their counterparts in Chuikov's Eighth Guards Army. Chuikov reported the incident to Frontal headquarters, and quickly got a reply from Zhukov to document all the details of the encounter. Chuikov, no doubt shaking his head, concluded that Zhukov wanted to make sure that he was properly credited as being the first to actually reach Berlin. In fact, troops of Zhukov's First Belorussian Front were already fighting their way into the northern districts of the city. Resistance was stubborn and it appeared likely that Konev would reach the city center first, but Stalin then intervened in Zhukov's favor, reserving that district for the First Belorussian Front.
* In the meantime, armored columns of the Second Belorussian Front had been circling around the city to the north, while counterparts in the First Ukrainian Front were moving up along the west side of the city to meet them. Their progress was blocked by a group of Hitler Youth along with some elderly Volkssturm troops, armed mostly with the panzerfaust, an oversized one-shot antitank grenade launcher, sometimes called the "Foot Stuka" after the Stuka tank-buster aircraft. Many German commanders had refused to commit Hitler Youth to battle, feeling it would be irresponsible and dishonorable to send kids out to be slaughtered, but the defenders fought stubbornly for two days until they were overwhelmed. Zhukov and Konev's tanks finally linked up at noon on 25 April. Berlin was now surrounded.
That same day, 25 April, American and Soviet units finally joined hands on the Elbe, cutting Germany in half. The two forces had been very cautious about making contact with each other because of the risk of potentially disastrous "friendly fire" incidents. Radio signals had been going back and forth for a few days, with Soviet radio operators careful not to reveal unit locations because the Germans were listening in. In fact, German operators had even broken in on the conversations every now and then to make sarcastic remarks.
An advance patrol of Americans that had been sent to free some Allied prisoners made contact first, to be shot at until they got a Soviet prisoner to shout at his comrades and tell them to cease fire. After that, everyone got along famously, with the Russians hugging and even kissing startled Americans. Commanders of US General Patton's and Konev's armies met together for a steak banquet to celebrate the meeting, polished off by a victory cake and with plenty of champagne to wash it down.
There were hidden tensions in the camaraderie. American generals looked at ragtag Russian troops, and were inclined to judge they could be no match for their own soldiers; a few of the more thoughtful American officers considered what those ragtag Ivans had done to the Wehrmacht, and thought that underestimating them would be a grave mistake. As far as Red Army generals went, they thought their Western counterparts were in the minor leagues, not one of them ever having led campaigns close to the scale of those fought by the Red Army.
The tensions were more evident at the top. In late March, Stalin had informed the Americans that Foreign Minister Molotov would not attend the United Nations conference in San Francisco, saying Molotov was too busy. In reality, it was an evident snub in response to American complaints about Soviet actions in Poland. After the death of Roosevelt, Stalin relented, with Molotov passing through Washington DC to talk to President Truman on 22 April.
The talks at the White House did not go well, Molotov being impassive as always, Truman being a person of strong convictions. The two talked past each other until Truman tired of the pointless exercise, breaking off the discussion curtly -- an incident embellished Truman embellished in his memoirs, claiming he had told Molotov off. The farce led to an irritable exchange of messages between Stalin and Truman.
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