battle of Berlin

Berlin, battle of (April-May 1945), the crowning, though not the last, battle of WW II in Europe. Soviet authorities have argued they might have taken Berlin as early as February, immediately after the Red Army established bridgeheads across the Oder on 3 February. However, it was only at the Yalta conference from 4 to 11 February that the wartime Allies finally agreed post-war zones of occupation. Since the demarcation line between the Soviet forces and their western Allies was the river Elbe, well west of Berlin, there was no need for Stalin to rush. The Soviet forces which had advanced with breathtaking speed through Poland in the VISTULA-ODER operation in January were exhausted and running out of fuel. A pause was needed—especially as resistance on German soil proved even tougher. Besides, the Red Army was fully occupied moving through Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria. It was nearly two months before Stalin assembled his Main Planning Conference, on 1 April, and asked who would take Berlin—they or the western Allies? The latter had now crossed the Rhine, and might strike for the German capital. He must have known he could have had Berlin in February, but at vastly greater cost in men and matériel and without consolidating the Soviet hold on south-eastern Europe. Now was the time.

The Red Army had about two million troops available for the assault, with 6, 000 tanks and self-propelled (SP) guns and 40, 000 artillery pieces against 750, 000 German troops with about 1, 500 tanks and assault guns. Berlin lay in the path of Zhukov and the first Belorussian Front (army group), with Koniev and the first Ukrainian to the south. Stalin capitalized on their rivalry by scrubbing out the Front boundary line 40 miles (64 km) east of the German capital. From there on in the two commanders raced each other to the kill and many thousands of casualties from friendly fire resulted.

Zhukov used a huge, elaborate scale model of the city to brief his commanders, but in spite of abundant air photography, he failed to identify the main line of German resistance and his attack stalled before the Seelow heights. Impatient, he launched his two reserve tank armies (First and Second Guards Tank), in defiance of instructions from Stavka, the supreme war council. Stalin was furious but Zhukov won the race. On 23 April Stalin drew the boundary line 164 yards (150 metres) west of the Reichstag, leaving Koniev, advancing from the south, on the other side. The Red Army broke into the centre of Berlin on the 26th. By 30 April, having fought through the zoo, the Soviet 150th Division of LXXIX Rifle Corps, Eighth Guards Army, first Belorussian Front, was poised to attack the Reichstag—‘target number 105’. Two sergeants raised the red flag on the second floor at 14.25 and from the roof at 22.50, although the Germans fought on. The photographer Yevgeny Khaldei later recorded a moving daylight re-enactment. That night, the Soviets learned of Hitler's suicide. Negotiations continued until the middle of 1 May when Stalingrad veteran Gen Vassily Chuikov, commanding Eighth Guards, exasperated, ordered artillery fire to be resumed. Early on 2 May Gen Weidling, commander of the Berlin garrison, drafted an order for Berlin to give in. Germans still hiding in the Reichstag basement began to surrender. At 15.00 on 2 May, Soviet artillery finally ceased fire.

Bibliography

• Bellamy, Chris, Red God of War (London, 1986).
• Erickson, John, The Road to Berlin (London, 1982)

— Christopher Bellamy