Battle for Berlin. unknown war

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During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet troops carried out the Berlin strategic offensive operation, the purpose of which was to defeat the main forces of the German army groups Vistula and Center, capture Berlin, reach the Elbe River and join the Allied forces.

The troops of the Red Army, having defeated large groupings of Nazi troops in East Prussia, Poland and East Pomerania during January-March 1945, by the end of March reached the Oder and Neisse rivers on a wide front. After the liberation of Hungary and the occupation of Vienna by Soviet troops in mid-April, fascist Germany was under the blows of the Red Army from the east and south. At the same time, from the west, without encountering any organized resistance from the Germans, the Allied troops advanced in the Hamburg, Leipzig and Prague directions.

The main forces of the Nazi troops acted against the Red Army. By April 16, there were 214 divisions on the Soviet-German front (of which 34 were armored and 15 motorized) and 14 brigades, and against the American-British troops, the German command held only 60 poorly equipped divisions, of which five were armored. The Berlin direction was defended by 48 infantry, six tank and nine motorized divisions and many other units and formations (a total of one million people, 10.4 thousand guns and mortars, 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns). From the air, ground troops covered 3.3 thousand combat aircraft.

The defense of the Nazi troops in the Berlin direction included the Oder-Neissen line 20-40 kilometers deep, which had three defensive lanes, and the Berlin defensive area, which consisted of three ring contours - external, internal and urban. In total, with Berlin, the depth of defense reached 100 kilometers, it was crossed by numerous canals and rivers, which served as serious obstacles for tank troops.

The Soviet Supreme High Command during the Berlin offensive operation provided for breaking through the enemy’s defenses along the Oder and Neisse and, developing the offensive in depth, encircle the main grouping of Nazi troops, dismember it and subsequently destroy it in parts, and then go to the Elbe. For this, the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front under the command of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov and the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev were involved. The Dnieper military flotilla, part of the forces of the Baltic Fleet, the 1st and 2nd armies of the Polish Army took part in the operation. In total, the Red Army troops advancing on Berlin numbered over two million people, about 42 thousand guns and mortars, 6250 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, 7.5 thousand combat aircraft.

According to the plan of the operation, the 1st Belorussian Front was supposed to capture Berlin and reach the Elbe no later than 12-15 days later. The 1st Ukrainian Front had the task of defeating the enemy in the area of Cottbus and south of Berlin, and on the 10th-12th day of the operation to capture the line of Belitz, Wittenberg and further the Elbe River to Dresden. The 2nd Belorussian Front was to cross the Oder River, defeat the Stettin enemy grouping and cut off the main forces of the German 3rd Panzer Army from Berlin.

On April 16, 1945, after a powerful aviation and artillery preparation, a decisive attack by the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts of the Oder-Neissen defensive line began. In the area of the main attack of the 1st Belorussian Front, where the offensive was launched before dawn, the infantry and tanks, in order to demoralize the enemy, went on the attack in a zone illuminated by 140 powerful searchlights. The troops of the shock group of the front had to sequentially break through several lanes of defense in depth. By the end of April 17, they managed to break through the enemy defenses in the main areas near the Seelow Heights. The troops of the 1st Belorussian Front completed the breakthrough of the third line of the Oder line of defense by the end of April 19. On the right wing of the shock group of the front, the 47th Army and the 3rd Shock Army were successfully moving forward to cover Berlin from the north and northwest. On the left wing, conditions were created for bypassing the Frankfurt-Guben enemy grouping from the north and cutting it off from the Berlin area.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the Neisse River, on the first day they broke through the enemy's main line of defense, and wedged 1-1.5 kilometers into the second. By the end of April 18, the troops of the front had completed the breakthrough of the Neusen line of defense, crossed the Spree River and provided the conditions for the encirclement of Berlin from the south. On the Dresden direction, formations of the 52nd Army repelled an enemy counterattack from the area north of Görlitz.

On April 18-19, the advanced units of the 2nd Belorussian Front crossed the Ost-Oder, crossed the interfluve of the Ost-Oder and West-Oder, and then began crossing the West-Oder.

On April 20, artillery fire of the 1st Belorussian Front on Berlin laid the foundation for its assault. On April 21, tanks of the 1st Ukrainian Front broke into the southern outskirts of Berlin. On April 24, the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts joined in the Bonsdorf area (southeast of Berlin), completing the encirclement of the Frankfurt-Guben grouping of the enemy. On April 25, tank formations of the fronts, leaving in the Potsdam area, completed the encirclement of the entire Berlin grouping (500 thousand people). On the same day, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the Elbe River and joined the American troops in the Torgau region.

During the offensive, the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front crossed the Oder and, having broken through the enemy's defenses, advanced to a depth of 20 kilometers by April 25; they firmly fettered the German 3rd Panzer Army, depriving it of the opportunity to launch a counterattack from the north against the Soviet troops surrounding Berlin.

The Frankfurt-Gubenskaya grouping was destroyed by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian fronts in the period from April 26 to May 1. The destruction of the Berlin grouping directly in the city continued until May 2. By 3 pm on May 2, enemy resistance in the city had ceased. Fighting with separate groups, breaking through from the outskirts of Berlin to the west, ended on May 5th.

Simultaneously with the defeat of the encircled groupings, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front on May 7 reached the Elbe River on a wide front.

At the same time, the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front, successfully advancing in Western Pomerania and Mecklenburg, on April 26 captured the main strongholds of the enemy’s defense on the western bank of the Oder River - Pölitz, Stettin, Gatow and Schwedt and, deploying a swift pursuit of the remnants of the defeated 3rd tank army, on May 3 they reached the coast of the Baltic Sea, and on May 4 they advanced to the line of Wismar, Schwerin, the Elde River, where they came into contact with the British troops. On May 4-5, the troops of the front cleared the islands of Vollin, Usedom and Rügen from the enemy, and on May 9 they landed on the Danish island of Bornholm.

The resistance of the Nazi troops was finally broken. On the night of May 9, in the Berlin district of Karlshorst, the Act of Surrender of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany was signed.

The Berlin operation lasted 23 days, the width of the front of hostilities reached 300 kilometers. The depth of front-line operations was 100-220 kilometers, the average daily advance rate was 5-10 kilometers. As part of the Berlin operation, the Stettin-Rostock, Zelow-Berlin, Cottbus-Potsdam, Stremberg-Torgau and Brandenburg-Rathen front-line offensive operations were carried out.

During the Berlin operation, Soviet troops surrounded and liquidated the largest grouping of enemy troops in the history of wars.

They defeated 70 infantry, 23 tank and mechanized divisions of the enemy, captured 480 thousand people.

The Berlin operation cost the Soviet troops dearly. Their irretrievable losses amounted to 78,291 people, and sanitary - 274,184 people.

More than 600 participants in the Berlin operation were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 13 people were awarded the second Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

(Additional

The Berlin offensive operation is the last operation of the Red Army forces against the forces of the Third Reich. The operation did not stop from April 16 to May 8, 1945 - 23 days. As a result, it led to the unconditional surrender of Germany in World War II.

Purpose and essence of the operation

Germany

The Nazis tried to drag out the fighting as long as possible, while they wanted to achieve peace with the United States and Britain - that is, the split of the anti-Hitler coalition. This would make it possible to keep the Eastern Front against the SRSR with the aim of further counter-offensive with the subsequent defeat of the Soviet Union.

SRSR

The Soviet army was supposed to destroy the Reich forces in the Berlin direction, capture Berlin and unite with the Allied forces on the Elbe River - this would have destroyed all German plans to prolong the war.

Side forces

The SRSR had at its disposal 1.9 million people in this direction, in addition to this, the Polish troops numbered 156 thousand people. In total, the army consisted of 6250 tanks and about 42 thousand guns, as well as mortar guns, more than 7500 military aircraft.

Germany had one million men, 10,400 guns and mortars, 1,500 tanks and 3,300 combat aircraft.
Thus, one can notice a clear superiority of numbers towards the Red Army, which had 2 times as many soldiers, 4 times as many mortar guns, as well as more than 2 times as many aircraft and 4 times as many tanks.

Now it would be wise to analyze in detail the entire course of the Berlin offensive.

Operation progress

The first hours of the operation were more than successful for the soldiers of the Red Army, as in a short time it easily broke through the first line of defense. However, later it met with very fierce resistance from the Nazis.

The Red Army received the greatest resistance at the Zelov Heights. As it turned out, the infantry could not break through the defense either, since the German fortifications were well prepared and they gave this position special importance. Then Zhukov decides to use tank armies.

April 17 began a decisive assault on the heights. Fierce battles were fought all night and day, as a result of which, on the morning of April 18, they nevertheless managed to take defensive positions.

By the end of April 19, the Red Army repulsed the fierce German counterattacks and was already able to develop an offensive against Berlin. Hitler ordered to hold the defense at any cost.

On April 20, the first air strikes were carried out on the city of Berlin. On April 21, paramilitary units of the Red Army invaded the outskirts of the city of Berlin. Already on April 23 and 24, the actions acquired a particularly fierce character, as the Germans stood resolutely to the death. On April 24, the pace of the offensive practically stopped, but the Germans failed to stop it completely. The 5th Army, waging fierce, bloody battles, broke through to the center of Berlin.

The offensive in this direction developed more successfully than that of the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front.

The Red Army successfully crossed the Neisse River and transported troops for further advance.

Already on April 18, an order was given to send the 3rd and 4th Panzer Army to the aid of the Belorussian Front, which met with determined resistance.

On April 20, the forces of the Red Army divided the forces of the armies "Vistula" and "Center". Already on April 21, a battle began for the outer defensive positions of Berlin. And on April 22, the defensive positions were broken through, but then the Red Army met strong resistance, and the attack was stopped.

On April 22, the ring around Berlin was practically closed. On this day, Hitler makes the last decision that could have an impact on the course of military operations. He considered Berlin's last hope to be W. Wenck's 12th Army, which was obliged to transfer from the Western Front and break through the ring.

On April 24, the Red Army was able to capture the defensive positions of the southern bank of the Teltow Canal, where the Germans decisively fortified and only the most powerful artillery salvos made it possible to force.

Also on April 24, Wenck's army launched an offensive with tank armies, but the Red Army managed to hold them back.

On April 25, Soviet soldiers met with the Americans on the Elbe.

(April 20 - May 8) 2nd Belorussian Front

On April 20, the crossing of the Oder began, which took place with varying success. As a result, the Red Army forces froze the 3rd Panzer Army in action, which could help Berlin.

On April 24, the power of the 1st Ukrainian and 2nd Belorussian fronts surrounded Busse's army and cut it off from Berlin. So more than 200 thousand German soldiers were surrounded. However, the Germans not only organized a powerful defense, but also tried to carry out counterattacks right up to May 2 in order to unite with Berlin. They even managed to break through the ring, but only a small part of the army was able to reach Berlin.

On April 25, the ring around the capital of Nazism, Berlin, finally closed. The defense of the capital was carefully prepared and consisted of a garrison of at least 200 thousand people. The closer the Red Army advanced to the center of the city, the denser the defense became. The streets became barricades - serious fortifications with thick walls, behind which the Germans fought to the death. Numerous tanks of the Soviet Union in urban conditions suffered from German faustpatrons. Before launching the next offensive, the Soviet army carried out heavy artillery shelling of the enemy’s combat positions.

The fighting went on continuously, both during the day and at night. Already on April 28, the soldiers of the Red Army reached the Reichstag area. And on April 30, the path to it was completely open.

On April 30, his decisive assault began. In a short time, almost the entire building was captured. However, the Germans stood on the defensive so stubbornly that they had to fight fierce battles for rooms, corridors, etc. On May 1, the flag was raised over the Reichstag, but the battles for it continued right up to May 2, only at night the garrison capitulated.

As of May 1, only the state quarter and the Tiergarten remained in the clutches of the German soldiers. Here was Hitler's headquarters. An offer of surrender reached Zhukov as Hitler committed suicide in the bunker. However, Stalin refused and the offensive continued.

On May 2, the last commander of the defense of Berlin surrendered and signed a surrender pact. However, not all units decided to surrender and continued to fight to the death.

Losses

Both warring camps suffered colossal losses in human strength. According to the data, the Red Army lost over 350 thousand people, wounded and killed, more than 2 thousand tanks, about 1 thousand aircraft and 2 thousand guns. However, these data should not be trusted blindly, since the SRSR kept silent about the real numbers and gave false data. The same applies to the assessment of German losses by Soviet analysts.
Germany, on the other hand, lost (according to Soviet data, which may have greatly exceeded real losses) 400 thousand soldiers killed and wounded. 380 thousand people were taken prisoner.

Results of the Berlin operation

- The Red Army defeated the largest grouping of German troops, and also captured the top leadership (military and political) of Germany.
- The capture of Berlin, which finally broke the spirit of the German troops and influenced their decision to end the resistance.
– Hundreds of thousands of people were released from German captivity.
The battle for Berlin went down in history as the largest battle in history, in which more than 3.5 million people took part.

On April 18-19, the advanced units of the 2nd Belorussian Front crossed the Ost-Oder, crossed the interfluve of the Ost-Oder and West-Oder, and then began crossing the West-Oder.

Simultaneously with the defeat of the encircled groupings, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front on May 7 reached the Elbe River on a wide front.

The resistance of the Nazi troops was finally broken. On the night of May 9, in the Berlin district of Karlshorst, the Act of Surrender of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany was signed.

During the Berlin operation, Soviet troops surrounded and liquidated the largest grouping of enemy troops in the history of wars.

They defeated 70 infantry, 23 tank and mechanized divisions of the enemy, captured 480 thousand people.

The Berlin operation cost the Soviet troops dearly. Their irretrievable losses amounted to 78,291 people, and sanitary - 274,184 people.

More than 600 participants in the Berlin operation were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 13 people were awarded the second Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

(Additional

Berlin strategic offensive operation- one of the last strategic operations of the Soviet troops in the European theater of operations, during which the Red Army occupied the capital of Germany and victoriously ended the Great Patriotic War and World War II in Europe. The operation lasted from April 16 to May 8, 1945, the width of the combat front was 300 km.

By April 1945, the main offensive operations of the Red Army in Hungary, East Pomerania, Austria and East Prussia were completed. This deprived Berlin of the support of industrial areas and the possibility of replenishing reserves and resources.

Soviet troops reached the line of the Oder and Neisse rivers, only a few tens of kilometers remained to Berlin.

The offensive was carried out by the forces of three fronts: the 1st Belorussian under the command of Marshal G.K. Zhukov, the 2nd Belorussian under the command of Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky and the 1st Ukrainian under the command of Marshal I.S. air army, the Dnieper military flotilla and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

The Red Army was opposed by a large grouping as part of the Vistula Army Group (Generals G. Heinrici, then K. Tippelskirch) and Center (Field Marshal F. Schörner).

The ratio of forces by the time the operation began is given in the table.

On April 16, 1945, at 5 am Moscow time (2 hours before dawn), artillery preparation began in the zone of the 1st Belorussian Front. 9000 guns and mortars, as well as more than 1500 installations of the RS BM-13 and BM-31 for 25 minutes, grinded the first line of German defense on the 27-kilometer breakthrough section. With the start of the attack, artillery fire was moved deep into the defense, and 143 anti-aircraft searchlights were turned on in the breakthrough areas. Their dazzling light stunned the enemy, neutralized night vision devices and at the same time illuminated the path for the advancing units.

The offensive unfolded in three directions: through the Seelow Heights directly to Berlin (1st Belorussian Front), south of the city, along the left flank (1st Ukrainian Front) and north, along the right flank (2nd Belorussian Front). The largest number of enemy forces was concentrated in the sector of the 1st Belorussian Front, the most intense battles flared up in the area of the Seelow Heights.

Despite fierce resistance, on April 21, the first Soviet assault detachments reached the outskirts of Berlin, and street fighting ensued. On the afternoon of March 25, units of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian fronts joined, closing the ring around the city. However, the assault was yet to come, and the defense of Berlin was carefully prepared and well thought out. It was a whole system of strongholds and centers of resistance, the streets were blocked by powerful barricades, many buildings were turned into firing points, underground structures and the metro were actively used. Faustpatrons became a formidable weapon in the conditions of street fighting and limited space for maneuver, they inflicted especially heavy damage on tanks. The situation was also complicated by the fact that all German units and individual groups of soldiers retreating during the fighting on the outskirts of the city concentrated in Berlin, replenishing the garrison of the city's defenders.

The fighting in the city did not stop day or night, almost every house had to be taken by storm. However, thanks to the superiority in strength, as well as the experience gained in past offensive operations in urban combat, the Soviet troops moved forward. By the evening of April 28, units of the 3rd Shock Army of the 1st Belorussian Front reached the Reichstag. On April 30, the first assault groups broke into the building, unit flags appeared on the building, on the night of May 1, the Banner of the Military Council, located in the 150th Infantry Division, was hoisted. And by the morning of May 2, the Reichstag garrison capitulated.

On May 1, only the Tiergarten and the government quarter remained in German hands. The imperial office was located here, in the courtyard of which there was a bunker at Hitler's headquarters. On the night of May 1, by prior arrangement, the Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, General Krebs, arrived at the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army. He informed the commander of the army, General V. I. Chuikov, about Hitler's suicide and about the proposal of the new German government to conclude a truce. But the categorical demand for unconditional surrender received in response was rejected by this government. Soviet troops resumed the assault with renewed vigor. The remnants of the German troops were no longer able to continue resistance, and in the early morning of May 2, a German officer, on behalf of the commander of the defense of Berlin, General Weidling, wrote a surrender order, which was duplicated and, using loud-speaking installations and radio, brought to the enemy units defending in center of Berlin. As this order was brought to the attention of the defenders, resistance in the city ceased. By the end of the day, the troops of the 8th Guards Army cleared the central part of the city from the enemy. Separate units that did not want to surrender tried to break through to the west, but were destroyed or scattered.

During the Berlin operation, from April 16 to May 8, Soviet troops lost 352,475 people, of which 78,291 people were irretrievably lost. In terms of daily losses of personnel and equipment, the battle for Berlin surpassed all other operations of the Red Army. In terms of the intensity of losses, this operation is comparable only to the Battle of Kursk.

The losses of the German troops, according to the reports of the Soviet command, amounted to: killed - about 400 thousand people, captured about 380 thousand people. Part of the German troops was pushed back to the Elbe and capitulated to the Allied forces.

The Berlin operation dealt the last crushing blow to the armed forces of the Third Reich, which, with the loss of Berlin, lost their ability to organize resistance. Six days after the fall of Berlin, on the night of May 8-9, the German leadership signed the act of Germany's unconditional surrender.

The Berlin operation is one of the largest in the Great Patriotic War.

List of sources used:

1. History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945. In 6 vols. - M .: Military Publishing, 1963.

2. Zhukov G.K. Memories and reflections. In 2 vols. 1969

4. Shatilov V. M. Banner over the Reichstag. 3rd edition, corrected and enlarged. - M .: Military Publishing House, 1975. - 350 p.

5. Neustroev S.A. Path to the Reichstag. - Sverdlovsk: Middle Ural book publishing house, 1986.

6. Zinchenko F.M. Heroes of the assault on the Reichstag / Literary record of N.M. Ilyash. - 3rd ed. - M.: Military Publishing House, 1983. - 192 p.

Storming of the Reichstag.

The assault on the Reichstag is the final stage of the Berlin offensive operation, the task of which was to capture the building of the German parliament and hoist the Banner of Victory.

The Berlin offensive began on April 16, 1945. And the operation to storm the Reichstag lasted from April 28 to May 2, 1945. The assault was carried out by the forces of the 150th and 171st rifle divisions of the 79th rifle corps of the 3rd shock army of the 1st Belorussian Front. In addition, two regiments of the 207th Infantry Division were advancing in the direction of the Kroll Opera.

Image copyright RIA Novosti

On April 16, 1945, the Berlin offensive operation of the Soviet army began, which was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest battle in history. On both sides, about 3.5 million people, 52 thousand guns and mortars, 7750 tanks, almost 11 thousand aircraft took part in it.

The assault was conducted by eight combined arms and four tank armies of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts under the command of Marshals Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev, the 18th long-range air army of Air Marshal Alexander Golovanov and the ships of the Dnieper military flotilla transferred to the Oder.

In total, the Soviet grouping consisted of 1.9 million people, 6,250 tanks, 41,600 guns and mortars, more than 7,500 aircraft, plus 156,000 Polish troops (the Polish flag was the only one raised over the defeated Berlin along with the Soviet one).

The width of the offensive sector was about 300 kilometers. On the direction of the main attack was the 1st Belorussian Front, which was to capture Berlin.

The operation lasted until May 2 (according to some military experts, until the surrender of Germany).

The irretrievable losses of the USSR amounted to 78291 people, 1997 tanks, 2108 guns, 917 aircraft, the Polish Army - 2825 people.

In terms of the intensity of average daily losses, the Berlin operation surpassed the battle on the Kursk Bulge.

Image copyright RIA Novosti Image caption Millions gave their lives for this moment

The 1st Belorussian Front lost 20% of its personnel and 30% of its armored vehicles.

Germany lost about a hundred thousand people killed during the entire operation, including 22 thousand directly in the city. 480 thousand soldiers were captured, about 400 thousand retreated to the west and surrendered to the allies, including 17 thousand people who fought their way out of the surrounded city.

Military historian Mark Solonin points out that, contrary to popular belief, that in 1945 nothing significant except the Berlin operation took place at the front, Soviet losses in it amounted to less than 10% of the total losses for January-May (801 thousand people). The longest and fiercest fighting took place in East Prussia and on the Baltic coast.

The Last Frontier

On the German side, the defense was held by about a million people, reduced to 63 divisions, 1,500 tanks, 10,400 artillery pieces, 3,300 aircraft. Directly in the city and its immediate environs were about 200 thousand soldiers and officers, three thousand guns and 250 tanks.

"Faustniks", as a rule, fought to the end and showed much greater stamina than the battered, but broken by defeats and many years of fatigue, soldiers Marshal Ivan Konev

In addition, there were about 60 thousand (92 battalions) Volkssturm - militia fighters, formed on October 18, 1944 on Hitler's orders from teenagers, the elderly and people with disabilities. In open battle, their value was not great, but in the city, the Volkssturm, armed with faustpatrons, could pose a threat to tanks.

Captured faustpatrons were also used by Soviet troops, primarily against the enemy, who had settled in the basements. Only in the 1st Guards Tank Army on the eve of the operation, 3,000 of them were stocked.

At the same time, the losses of Soviet tanks from faustpatrons during the Berlin operation amounted to only 23%. The main means of anti-tank warfare, as during the entire war, was artillery.

In Berlin, divided into nine defense sectors (eight peripheral and central), 400 pillboxes were built, many houses with strong walls were turned into firing points.

Commanded by Colonel General (in the Wehrmacht this rank corresponded to the Soviet rank of army general) Gotthard Heinrici.

Two lines of defense were created with a total depth of 20-40 km, especially strong opposite the Kyustrinsky bridgehead previously occupied by Soviet troops on the right bank of the Oder.

Preparation

Since the middle of 1943, the Soviet army had an overwhelming superiority in people and equipment, learned to fight and, in the words of Mark Solonin, "filled up the enemy no longer with corpses, but with artillery shells."

On the eve of the Berlin operation, engineering units built 25 bridges and 40 ferry crossings across the Oder in a short time. Hundreds of kilometers of railways were converted to a wide Russian gauge.

From April 4 to April 15, large forces were deployed from the 2nd Belorussian Front operating in northern Germany to participate in the assault on Berlin at a distance of 350 km, mainly by road, for which 1900 trucks were involved. According to the memoirs of Marshal Rokossovsky, it was the largest logistical operation in the entire Great Patriotic War.

Reconnaissance aviation provided the command with about 15 thousand photographs, on the basis of which a large-scale model of Berlin and its environs was made at the headquarters of the 1st Belorussian Front.

Disinformation activities were carried out in order to convince the German command that the main blow would be delivered not from the Kustrinsky bridgehead, but to the north, in the area of the cities of Stettin and Guben.

Stalinist castling

Until November 1944, the 1st Belorussian Front, which, due to its geographical location, was to occupy Berlin, was headed by Konstantin Rokossovsky.

By merit and military talent, he had every right to claim part of the capture of the enemy capital, but Stalin replaced him with Georgy Zhukov, and sent Rokossovsky to the 2nd Belorussian Front - to clear the coast of the Baltic.

Rokossovsky could not resist and asked the Supreme Commander why he was so disfavored. Stalin limited himself to a formal answer that the sector to which he was transferring him was no less important.

Historians see the real reason that Rokossovsky was an ethnic Pole.

Marshal pride

Jealousy between the Soviet military leaders also took place directly during the Berlin operation.

Image copyright RIA Novosti Image caption The city was almost completely destroyed

On April 20, when units of the 1st Ukrainian Front began to advance more successfully than the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front, and it became possible that they would be the first to break into the city, Zhukov ordered Semyon Bogdanov, commander of the 2nd Tank Army: "Send from each corps one of the best brigade to Berlin and set them the task of breaking through to the outskirts of Berlin at any cost no later than 4 am on April 21 and immediately conveying to Comrade Stalin and announcements in the press for a report.

Konev was even more outspoken.

"Marshal Zhukov's troops are 10 km from the eastern outskirts of Berlin. I order you to be the first to break into Berlin tonight," he wrote on April 20 to the commanders of the 3rd and 4th tank armies.

On April 28, Zhukov complained to Stalin that Konev’s troops had occupied a number of quarters of Berlin, which, according to the original plan, belonged to his area of responsibility, and the Supreme Commander ordered units of the 1st Ukrainian Front to give up the territory that had just been occupied with battles.

Relations between Zhukov and Konev remained tense until the end of their lives. According to film director Grigory Chukhrai, soon after the capture of Berlin, things came to a fight between them.

Churchill's attempt

Back in late 1943, at a meeting aboard the battleship Iowa, Franklin Roosevelt set the military the task: "We must reach Berlin. The United States must get Berlin. The Soviets can take territory to the east."

“I think that the best object of attack is the Ruhr, and then to Berlin by the northern route. We must decide that it is necessary to go to Berlin and end the war; everything else should play a secondary role,” wrote British commander Bernard Montgomery to Dwight Eisenhower on September 18, 1944 . He in a response letter called the German capital "the main trophy."

Image copyright RIA Novosti Image caption Winners on the steps of the Reichstag

According to the agreement reached in the autumn of 1944 and confirmed at the Yalta Conference, the border of the occupation zones was to pass approximately 150 km west of Berlin.

After the March Ruhr offensive of the allies, the resistance of the Wehrmacht in the west was greatly weakened.

“The Russian armies will undoubtedly occupy Austria and enter Vienna. If they also take Berlin, will not the unjustified notion be strengthened in their minds that they have made the main contribution to our common victory? serious and insurmountable difficulties in the future? I believe that in view of the political significance of all this, we must advance in Germany as far east as possible, and if Berlin is within our reach, we must of course take it, "wrote the British Prime Minister .

Roosevelt consulted with Eisenhower. He rejected the idea, citing the need to save the lives of American soldiers. Perhaps the fear that Stalin would refuse to participate in the war with Japan also played a role.

On March 28, Eisenhower personally sent Stalin a telegram in which he said that he was not going to storm Berlin.

On April 12, the Americans reached the Elbe. According to Commander Omar Bradley, the city, to which there were about 60 kilometers, "lay at his feet," but on April 15, Eisenhower forbade the continuation of the offensive.

The famous British researcher John Fuller called it "one of the strangest decisions in military history."

Dissenting opinions

In 1964, shortly before the 20th anniversary of the Victory, Marshal Stepan Chuikov, who commanded the 8th Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front during the assault on Berlin, expressed the opinion in an article in the Oktyabr magazine that after the Vistula-Oder operation triumphant for the USSR the offensive should have continued, and then Berlin would have been taken at the end of February 1945.

From a military point of view, Berlin did not need to be stormed. It was enough to take the city into the ring, and he himself would have surrendered in a week or two. And in the assault on the very eve of victory in street battles, we laid down at least a hundred thousand soldiers Alexander Gorbatov, General of the Army

The rest of the marshals gave him a sharp rebuke. Zhukov wrote to Khrushchev that Chuikov "did not understand the situation for 19 years" and "abuses the Berlin operation, which our people are legitimately proud of."

When Chuikov refused to amend the manuscript of his memoirs he had submitted to the Military Publishing House, he was scolded at the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army.

According to most military analysts, Chuikov was wrong. After the Vistula-Oder operation, the troops really needed to be reorganized. However, the honored marshal, moreover, a direct participant in the events, had the right to personal assessments, and the methods by which he was gagged had nothing to do with scientific discussion.

On the other hand, Army General Alexander Gorbatov believed that Berlin should not have been taken head-on at all.

The course of the battle

The final plan of the operation was approved on April 1 at a meeting with Stalin with the participation of Zhukov, Konev and Chief of the General Staff Alexei Antonov.

The advanced Soviet positions were separated from the center of Berlin by about 60 kilometers.

In preparing the operation, we somewhat underestimated the complexity of the terrain in the area of the Seelow Heights. First of all, I must take the blame for the flaw in the question Georgy Zhukov, "Memoirs and Reflections"

At 5 am on April 16, the 1st Belorussian Front went on the offensive with the main forces from the Kustrinsky bridgehead. At the same time, a novelty in military affairs was applied: 143 anti-aircraft searchlights turned on.

Opinions differ on its effectiveness, as the beams had difficulty penetrating the morning fog and dust from explosions. "The troops did not receive real help from this," Marshal Chuikov argued at a military scientific conference in 1946.

On the 27-kilometer section of the breakthrough, 9 thousand guns and one and a half thousand Katyushas were concentrated. Massive artillery preparation lasted 25 minutes.

The head of the political department of the 1st Belorussian Front, Konstantin Telegin, subsequently reported that 6-8 days were allotted for the entire operation.

The Soviet command expected to take Berlin already on April 21, by Lenin's birthday, but it took only three days to take the fortified Seelow Heights.

Image copyright RIA Novosti Image caption A lot of armored vehicles entered the city

At 13:00 on the first day of the offensive, Zhukov made a non-standard decision: to throw the 1st Guards Tank Army of General Mikhail Katukov on the unsuppressed enemy defenses.

In an evening telephone conversation with Zhukov, Stalin expressed doubts about the advisability of this measure.

After the war, Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky criticized both the tactics of using tanks on the Seelow Heights and the subsequent entry of the 1st and 2nd Panzer Armies directly into Berlin, which led to huge losses.

"Unfortunately, the tanks were not used in the best way in the Berlin operation," Marshal of the Armored Forces Hamazasp Babajanyan pointed out.

This decision was defended by marshals Zhukov and Konev and their subordinates, who accepted it and put it into practice.

“We reckoned that we would have to suffer losses in tanks, but we knew that even if we lose even half, we will still bring up to two thousand armored vehicles to Berlin, and this will be enough to take it,” the general wrote. Telegin.

The experience of this operation once again convincingly proved the inexpediency of using large tank formations in the battle for a large settlement Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky

Zhukov's dissatisfaction with the pace of advancement was such that on April 17 he forbade issuing vodka to tankers until further notice, and many generals received reprimands and warnings from him about incomplete official compliance.

There were special complaints about long-range bomber aircraft, which repeatedly struck at their own. On April 19, Golovanov's pilots mistakenly bombed Katukov's headquarters, killed 60 people, burned seven tanks and 40 vehicles.

According to General Bakhmetyev, Chief of Staff of the 3rd Tank Army, "I had to ask Marshal Konev not to have any aircraft."

Berlin in the ring

Nevertheless, on April 20, Berlin was fired from long-range guns for the first time, which became a kind of "gift" for Hitler's birthday.

On this day, the Fuhrer announced his decision to die in Berlin.

"I will share the fate of my soldiers and accept death in battle. Even if we cannot win, we will bring half the world into oblivion," he said to his entourage.

The next day, units of the 26th Guards and 32nd Rifle Corps reached the outskirts of Berlin and installed the first Soviet banner in the city.

Already on April 24, I was convinced that it was impossible to defend Berlin and from a military point of view it was pointless, since the German command did not have sufficient forces for this, General Helmut Weidling

On April 22, Hitler ordered General Wenck's 12th Army to be removed from the Western Front and transferred to Berlin. Field Marshal Keitel flew to her headquarters.

On the evening of the same day, Soviet troops closed a double encirclement around Berlin. Nevertheless, Hitler continued to rave about the "army of Wenck" until the last hours of his life.

The last reinforcements, a battalion of naval cadets from Rostock, arrived in Berlin on transport planes on 26 April.

On April 23, the Germans launched the last relatively successful counterattack: they temporarily advanced 20 kilometers at the junction of the 52nd Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front and the 2nd Army of the Polish Army.

On April 23, Hitler, who was in a state close to insanity, ordered the commander of the 56th Panzer Corps, General Helmut Weidling, to be shot "for cowardice." He achieved an audience with the Fuhrer, during which he not only saved his life, but also appointed him commandant of Berlin.

“It would be better if they shot me,” Weidling said, leaving the office.

In hindsight, we can say that he was right. Once in Soviet captivity, Weidling spent 10 years in the Vladimir Special Purpose Prison, where he died at the age of 64.

On the streets of the metropolis

On April 25, fighting began in Berlin itself. By this time, the Germans did not have a single solid formation left in the city, and the number of defenders was 44 thousand people.

From the Soviet side, 464 thousand people and 1500 tanks took part directly in the storming of Berlin.

To conduct street fighting, the Soviet command created assault groups consisting of an infantry platoon, two to four guns, one or two tanks.

On April 29, Keitel sent a telegram to Hitler: "I consider it hopeless to attempt to unblock Berlin," once again suggesting that the Fuhrer try to fly to southern Germany by plane.

We finished him off [Berlin]. He will envy Orel and Sevastopol - this is how we treated him General Mikhail Katukov

By April 30, only the Tiergarten government quarter remained in German hands. At 21:30, units of Major General Shatilov's 150th Rifle Division and Colonel Negoda's 171st Rifle Division approached the Reichstag.

It would be more correct to call further battles a sweep, but it was also not possible to completely capture the city by May 1.

On the night of May 1, Chief of the German General Staff Hans Krebs appeared at the headquarters of Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and offered to conclude a truce, but Stalin demanded unconditional surrender. The newly appointed Chancellor Goebbels and Krebs committed suicide.

At 6 am on May 2, General Weidling surrendered in the area of the Potsdam Bridge. An hour later, the surrender order signed by him was brought to the German soldiers who continued to resist through loudspeakers.

Agony

The Germans fought to the last in Berlin, especially the SS and the propaganda-washed teenagers of the Volkssturm.

Up to two-thirds of the personnel of the SS units were foreigners - fanatical Nazis who deliberately chose to serve Hitler. The last person to receive the Knight's Cross in the Reich on April 29 was not a German, but a Frenchman Eugene Valo.

This was not the case in the political and military leadership. Historian Anatoly Ponomarenko cites numerous examples of strategic mistakes, the collapse of governance, and a sense of hopelessness that made it easier for the Soviet army to take Berlin.

For some time now, self-deception has become the main refuge of the Fuhrer Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

Due to Hitler's stubbornness, the Germans defended their own capital with relatively small forces, while 1.2 million people remained to the end and surrendered in the Czech Republic, a million in Northern Italy, 350 thousand in Norway, 250 thousand in Courland.

The commander, General Heinrici, frankly cared about one thing: to withdraw as many units as possible to the west, so on April 29 Keitel suggested that he shoot himself, which Heinrici did not do.

On April 27, SS Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner did not comply with the order to go to unblock Berlin and took his group into American captivity.

Arms Minister Albert Speer, who was in charge of the engineering side of the defense, could not prevent the Berlin subway from being flooded on Hitler's orders, but saved 120 of the city's 248 bridges from destruction.

Volkssturmovtsy had 42,000 rifles for 60,000 people and five cartridges for each rifle, and were not even put on boiler allowances, but, being mostly residents of Berlin, ate at home what they had to.

Banner of Victory

Although the parliament played no role under the Nazi regime, and did not meet at all since 1942, the conspicuous Reichstag building was considered a symbol of the German capital.

The red banner, now stored in the Moscow Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, was hoisted over the dome of the Reichstag on the night of May 1, according to the canonical version, by privates of the 150th Infantry Division Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria. It was a dangerous operation, because bullets were still whistling around, so, according to the battalion commander Stepan Neustroev, his subordinates danced on the roof not for joy, but to evade the shots.

Image copyright RIA Novosti Image caption Salute on the roof of the Reichstag

Subsequently, it turned out that nine banners were prepared and the corresponding number of assault groups were formed, so it is difficult to determine who was the first. Some historians give priority to the group of Captain Vladimir Makov from the 136th Rezhetskaya Red Banner Artillery Brigade. Five "Makovites" were presented for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but they were given only the Order of the Red Banner. The banner they set up has not been preserved.

With Yegorov and Kantaria was the battalion political officer Alexei Berest, a man of heroic strength, literally dragging his comrades on his hands to the dome broken by shells.

However, the then PR people decided that, given the nationality of Stalin, Russians and Georgians should become heroes, and all the rest turned out to be superfluous.

The fate of Alexei Berest was tragic. After the war, he was in charge of the regional cinema network in the Stavropol Territory and received 10 years in the camps on charges of embezzlement, although 17 witnesses confirmed his innocence at trial. According to daughter Irina, cashiers stole, and her father suffered because he was rude to the investigator during the first interrogation. Shortly after his release, the hero died after falling under a train.

Bormann's secret

Hitler committed suicide in the building of the Reich Chancellery on 30 April. Goebbels followed suit a day later.

Goering and Himmler were outside Berlin and were captured by the Americans and the British respectively.

Another Nazi boss, Deputy Fuhrer for the party Martin Bormann, went missing during the storming of Berlin.

It is felt that our troops did a tasteful job on Berlin. On the way, I saw only a dozen surviving houses. Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference

According to the widespread version, Bormann lived incognito in Latin America for many years. The Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced him to hanging in absentia.

Most researchers tend to think that Bormann failed to get out of the city.

In December 1972, while laying a telephone cable near the Lehrter station in West Berlin, two skeletons were discovered that forensic doctors, dentists and anthropologists recognized as belonging to Bormann and Hitler's personal doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger. Between the teeth of the skeletons were fragments of glass ampoules with potassium cyanide.

Bormann's 15-year-old son Adolf, who fought in the ranks of the Volkssturm, survived and became a Catholic priest.

uranium trophy

One of the goals of the Soviet army in Berlin, according to modern data, was the Physics Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, where there was an operating nuclear reactor and 150 tons of uranium purchased before the war in the Belgian Congo.

It was not possible to capture the reactor: the Germans had previously taken it to the Alpine village of Haigerloch, where the Americans got it on April 23. But the uranium fell into the hands of the victors, which, according to academician Yuli Khariton, a participant in the Soviet atomic project, brought the creation of the bomb about a year closer.