Embedded Files
Context
Context
On 22 June 1944, two weeks after the Allied landings in Normandy, the Soviet army initiated its campaign against the German forces. On 16 October Soviet troops crossed the German border. Joseph Stalin, the head of State of the Soviet Union, was in a hurry to get to Berlin before the Americans. He wanted above all to demonstrate Soviet military might and achieve a favourable post-war negotiating position. However, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt was not interested in conquering Berlin. He wanted the Soviet Union as an ally in the war against Japan, and above all as a partner in the creation of a stable post-war world order.
On 16 April 1945, the Soviet forces started the final offensive against the German capital. They tried to encircle Berlin in a pincer movement. But the attempted fast breakthrough into Berlin did not materialize. Instead it took them four days and many casualties to get past the Seelow Heights, situated about 70 km east of Berlin. All-in-all, 30,000 Soviet troops were killed and 743 tanks and self-propelled guns were lost.
Soviet general Gregory Zhukov’s forces were spearheaded by over 3,000 armored vehicles, supported by almost 7,500 guns, 7,000 mortars, and 1,500 Katyusha rocket-launchers.
The Event
The Event
"You see very young boys, baby faces peeping out beneath oversized steel helmets. It's frightening to hear their high-pitched voices. They're fifteen years old at the most, standing there looking so skinny and small in their billowing uniform tunics. Why are we so appalled at the thought of children being murdered?" (Account from a Berlin woman)
Within Berlin, the Germans possessed around 45,000 fighters composed of regular army, S.S., Hitler Youth, and Volkssturm militia. The Volkssturm was made up of middle-aged and elderly men who had not previously signed up for military service. It was formed in the waning years of the war. Not only were the Germans vastly outnumbered, but they also were outmatched by training with many of their forces.
Initial Soviet assaults on Berlin began on April 23, a day before the city was encircled. Striking from the southeast, they met heavy resistance but reached the Berlin S-Bahn railway near Teltow Canal by the following evening.
On April 26, Lt. Gen. Vasily Chuikov's 8th Guards Army advanced from the south and attacked Tempelhof Airport. By the next day, Soviet forces were pushing into the city along multiple lines from the south, southeast, and north.
Early on April 29, Soviet troops crossed Moltke Bridge and began attacks on the Interior Ministry. These were slowed by a lack of artillery support.
After capturing Gestapo headquarters later that day, the Soviets pressed on to the Reichstag (right). Assaulting the iconic building the next day, they succeeded infamously hoisting a flag over it after hours of brutal fighting.
A further two days were needed to completely clear the Germans from the building. Meeting with Hitler early on April 30, German commander Karl Weidling informed him that the defenders would soon run out of ammunition.
Seeing no other option, Hitler authorized Weidling to attempt a breakout. Unwilling to leave the city and with the Soviets nearing, Hitler and Eva Braun, who were married on April 29, remained in the Führerbunker and then committed suicide later in the day.
With Hitler's death, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz became Führer (leader) while propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, who was in Berlin, became chancellor.
On May 1, the city's remaining 10,000 defenders were forced into a shrinking area in the city center. Though Gen. Hans Krebs, Chief of the General Staff, opened surrender talks with Chuikov, he was prevented from coming to terms by Goebbels who wished to continue the fight. This ceased to be an issue later in the day when Goebbels committed suicide.
Though the way was clear to surrender, Krebs elected to wait until the following morning so that a breakout could be attempted that night. Moving forward, the Germans sought to escape along three different routes. Only those who passed through the Tiergarten had success penetrating the Soviet lines, though few successfully reached American lines.
"I am a Russia, a communist and a Jew... My father and mother were murdered by the S.S. because they were Jews. My wife and two children are missing. My home is in ruins. And what has happened to me has happened to millions in Russia. Germany has murdered, raped, plundered, and destroyed... What do you think we want to do, now that we have defeated German armies?" (A Soviet political officer to a German family, before sparing them.)
Early on May 2, Soviet forces captured the Reich Chancellery. At 6 a.m., Weidling surrendered with his staff. Taken to Chuikov, he promptly ordered all remaining German forces in Berlin to surrender.
Everywhere the Soviet victors held sway, they embarked on an orgy of celebration, rape, and destruction on a scale such as Europe had not witnessed since the seventeenth century. “The baker comes stumbling towards me down the hall," wrote a Berlin woman about one of her neighbors, “white as his flour, holding out his hands: 'They have my wife...' His voice breaks. For a second I feel I'm acting in a play. A middle-class baker can't possibly move like that, can't speak with such emotion, put so much feeling in his voice, bare his soul that way, his heart so torn. I've never seen anyone but great actors do that."
Source(s): Europe Remembers, ThoughtCo., Max Hasting's Inferno
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse