The capture of Berlin was a necessary final point in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people.

The enemy, who came to Russian soil and brought incredible losses, terrible destruction, plunder of cultural values ​​and left scorched territories behind, should not just be expelled.

He must be defeated and defeated in his own land. for all four bloody years of the war, it was associated with the Soviet people as the lair and stronghold of Hitlerism.

The complete and final victory in this war was to end with the capture of the capital of Nazi Germany. And it was the Red Army that had to complete this victorious operation.

This was demanded not only by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin, but it was necessary for the entire Soviet people.

Battle for Berlin

The final operation during the Second World War began on April 16, 1945 and ended on May 8, 1945. The Germans defended themselves fanatically and desperately in Berlin, which turned into a city-fortress on the orders of the Wehrmacht.

Literally every street was prepared for a long and bloody battle. 900 square kilometers, including not only the city itself, but also its suburbs, were turned into a well-fortified area. All sectors of the area were connected by a network of underground passages.

The German command hastily removed troops from the Western Front and transferred them to Berlin, directing them against the Red Army. The allies of the Soviet Union in the anti-Hitler coalition planned to take Berlin first, this was their priority task. But for the Soviet command, it was also the most important.

Intelligence provided the Soviet command with a plan for the Berlin fortified area, and on the basis of this, a plan was drawn up for a military operation to take Berlin. Three fronts under the command of G.K. participated in the capture of Berlin. a, K.K. and I.S. Konev.

The forces of these fronts had to gradually break through, crush and crush the enemy defenses, encircle and dismember the main enemy forces, and encircle the fascist capital. An important aspect of this operation, which was supposed to bring tangible results, was a night attack using searchlights. Previously, the Soviet command had already applied this practice and it had a significant effect.

The amount of ammunition for shelling amounted to almost 7 million. A huge number of manpower - more than 3.5 million people were involved in this operation from both sides. It was the largest operation ever. From the German side, almost all forces took part in the defense of Berlin.

The battles involved not only professional soldiers, but also the militia, regardless of age and physical capabilities. The defense consisted of three lines. The first line included natural obstacles - rivers, canals, lakes. Large-scale mining was used against tanks and infantry - about 2 thousand mines per sq. km.

A huge number of tank destroyers with faustpatrons were involved. The assault on the Nazi citadel began on April 16, 1945 at 3 o'clock in the morning with a strong artillery attack. After its completion, the Germans began to blind 140 powerful searchlights, which helped to successfully carry out the attack with tanks and infantry.

Already after four days of fierce hostilities, the first line of defense was crushed and the fronts of Zhukov and Konev closed a ring around Berlin. During the first stage, the Red Army defeated 93 German divisions and captured almost 490,000 Nazis. A meeting of Soviet and American soldiers took place on the Elbe River.

The Eastern Front merged with the Western Front. The second defensive line was considered the main one and ran along the outskirts of the suburbs of Berlin. Anti-tank obstacles and numerous barbed wire were erected on the streets.

Fall of Berlin

On April 21, the second line of defense of the Nazis was crushed and fierce, bloody battles were already taking place on the outskirts of Berlin. The German soldiers fought with the desperation of the doomed and surrendered extremely reluctantly, only if they were aware of the hopelessness of their situation. The third line of defense ran along the district railway.

All the streets that led to the center were barricaded and mined. Bridges, including the subway, are prepared for explosions. After a week of fierce street fighting, on April 29, Soviet soldiers launched an assault on the Reichstag, and on April 30, 1945, they hoisted the Red Banner over it.

On May 1, the Soviet command received the news that he had committed suicide the day before. General Krabs, Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, was taken to the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army with a white flag and negotiations for an armistice were started. The headquarters of the Berlin defense on May 2 gave the order to stop the resistance.

German troops stopped fighting and Berlin fell. More than 300 thousand killed and wounded - such losses were suffered by Soviet troops during the capture of Berlin. On the night of May 8-9, an act of unconditional surrender was signed between defeated Germany and members of the anti-Hitler coalition. The war in Europe was over.

findings

With the capture of Berlin, which for all progressive mankind personified the stronghold of fascism and Hitlerism, the Soviet Union confirmed its leading role in World War II. The victorious defeat of the Wehrmacht led to complete capitulation and the fall of the existing regime in Germany.

Berlin was taken surprisingly quickly. The assault on Berlin itself lasted from April 25 to May 2. The Berlin offensive began on 16 April. For comparison: Budapest was on the defensive from December 25, 1944 to February 13, 1945. The besieged city of Breslau (now Wroclaw) capitulated after Berlin, without being taken by assault, being under siege since mid-February. The Germans were never able to take the besieged Leningrad. Fierce battles in Stalingrad went down in history. Why did Berlin fall so quickly?

According to German data, the city was defended in the final phase by 44 thousand people, of whom 22,000 died. Military historians involved in the reconstruction of the storming of Berlin agreed on a figure of 60 thousand soldiers and officers and 50-60 tanks. The Soviet army directly involved 464,000 people and 1,500 tanks and self-propelled guns in the assault on Berlin.

It fell to the city firefighters and police to defend Berlin, but Volkssturmists prevailed - poorly trained and poorly armed old men and underage members of the Hitler Youth (Nazi "Komsomol"). There were about 15,000 regular soldiers in Berlin, including about 4,000 SS men. Even in April 1945, Hitler had a very large army, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers were not found for the capital. How did it happen that 250 thousand professional experienced soldiers waited for the end of the war in Courland (Latvia), and were not transferred across the Baltic Sea to Germany? Why did 350,000 soldiers meet their surrender in Norway, from where it was even easier to get to Germany? A million soldiers surrendered in Italy on 29 April. Army Group Center, located in the Czech Republic, totaled 1 million 200 thousand people. And Berlin, declared a fortress (Festung Berlin) in February 1945, had neither a sufficient garrison nor any serious fortification preparation for defense. And thank God.

Hitler's death led to the swift surrender of the German army. While he was alive, the German troops surrendered whole formations in extreme cases, when all possibilities of resistance were exhausted. Here you can remember Stalingrad or Tunisia. Hitler was going to fight to the last of his soldiers. Strange as it may sound today, but on April 21 he believed that he had every opportunity to push the Red Army back from Berlin. Although at that time the German defense line on the Oder had already been broken through and it became clear from the advance of the Soviet troops that a few more days and Berlin would be in the blockade ring. American troops reached the Elbe (at the summit in Yalta, the Elba was designated as the dividing line between American and Soviet troops) and waited for the Soviet army.

At one time, Hitler demonstrated outstanding abilities in the struggle for power. Having a very low starting position, he managed to outplay, or even just fool, many professional politicians and gain complete control over a large European country. Hitler's power in Germany was much greater than the power of the Kaiser. And if during the First World War the military actually deprived the Kaiser of power, then during the Second World War Hitler increased his power over Germany. How can one not imagine oneself a genius, a favorite of Providence? And Hitler believed in his own genius.

A characteristic episode is cited in his memoirs ("Hitler. The last ten days.") Captain Gerhard Boldt, assistant chief of the General Staff Guderian, and then Krebs: absolutely reliable information, prepared by experts of the highest level, regarding the plans of the Soviet command and the places of concentration of the Russian strike units.Having listened, Hitler, in the strongest irritation and in a tone that did not allow objections, declared: "I categorically reject these unsuitable proposals. Only a true genius is able to predict the intentions of the enemy and draw the necessary conclusions. And no genius will pay attention to various trifles.

Hitler, rejecting all the proposals and requests of the General Staff for the evacuation of two armies from Courland, justified his refusal with a "brilliant" insight that if this supposedly happens, then Sweden, which is just waiting for this, will immediately declare war on Germany. All the arguments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in favor of Sweden's steadfast observance of neutrality were not taken into account by the "brilliant" strategist.

The Courland Cauldron was formed on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Hitler did not trust his generals. And this distrust intensified after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. A sharp deterioration in health after a concussion and many minor injuries also affected the quality of decisions made. All this led to such stupid decisions as the appointment on January 24, 1945 of the Reichsführer SS Himmler as the commander of the Vistula Army Group (equivalent to our concept - the front commander), and the Minister of Information and Propaganda Goebbels - the Reich Defense Commissioner and, concurrently, the Berlin Defense Commissioner . Both tried very hard and did everything in their power to safely fill up the assignments.

Our commissars, in truth, were no better. The famous Mekhlis, sent by Stalin in 1942 to the Crimea to look after the "stupid" generals, broke so much firewood. that no Goebbels could compete with him. Thanks to Mekhlis, who constantly interferes in military affairs, the Red Army, having a great advantage in numbers and equipment, suffered a crushing defeat. The Red Army lost 170,000 prisoners alone and tens of thousands killed. The Germans lost 3,400 men, of which about 600 were killed.

But back to the storming of Berlin. The troops of the First Belorussian Front were in front of a decisive offensive at a distance of 60 km from Berlin. The direct route to the capital of the Reich was covered by the 9th German Army. After breaking through the defense line to Berlin, the 56th Panzer Corps under the command of Lieutenant General Helmut Weidling retreated from the Seelow Heights. On April 16, on the eve of the Berlin operation, the corps numbered 50,000 people along with the rear. After bloody battles, the corps retreated to the capital, greatly weakened. By the beginning of the fighting in Berlin itself, the corps had the following forces:

1. 18th Panzer Division - 4000 people.

2. 9th Airborne Division - 4000 people (500 paratroopers entered Berlin and here the division was replenished with Volkssturmists up to 4000).

3. 20th Panzer Division - about 1000 people. Of these, 800 Volkssturmists.

4th SS Panzer Division "Nordland" - 3500 - 4000 people. The national composition of the division: Danes, Norwegians, Swedes and Germans.

In total, the corps that retreated to Berlin totaled 13,000 - 15,000 fighters.

After the surrender of Berlin, General Weidling gave the following testimony during interrogation: “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, moreover, at the disposal of the German command by April 24 there was not a single regular formation in Berlin, with the exception of the security regiment "Grossdeutschland" and the SS brigade guarding the Imperial Chancellery.All defense was entrusted to units of the Volkssturm, police, fire brigade personnel, personnel of various rear units and services.

The commandant of Berlin, Helmut Weidling, died in the Vladimir prison on November 17, 1955. (aged 64).

Before Weidling, the defense of Berlin was led by Lieutenant General Helmut Reiman, who completed the people's militia (Volkssturm). In total, 92 Volkssturm battalions (about 60,000 people) were formed. For his army, Reiman received 42,095 rifles, 773 machine guns, 1,953 light machine guns, 263 heavy machine guns, and some mortars and field guns.

Volkssturm - a people's militia in which males from 16 to 60 years old were called up.

By the time the militia was formed, the German armed forces were experiencing an acute shortage of weapons, including small arms. The Volkssturm battalions were armed mainly with captured weapons made in France, Holland, Belgium, England, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Norway. In total, there were 15 types of rifles and 10 types of light machine guns. Each Volkssturmist had an average of 5 rifle cartridges. But there were quite a lot of faust cartridges, although they could not compensate for the lack of other weapons.

The Volkssturm was divided into two categories: those who had any weapons - Volkssturm 1 (there were about 20,000 of them), and Volkssturm 2 - who had no weapons at all (40,000). The battalions of the people's militia were formed not according to the military scheme, but according to party districts. Party chiefs who were not trained in military affairs were usually appointed commanders. These battalions did not have headquarters, moreover, they did not have field kitchens and did not stand on allowances. The Volkssturmists were fed by the local population, usually their families. And when they fought far from their homes, they ate what God would send, or even starved. Volkssturm also did not have its own transport and communications. Among other things, these battalions were subordinate to the party leadership, and not to the military command, and passed to the commandant of the city only after receiving a prearranged signal, which meant that the assault on the city had begun.

This is also a Volkssturm. Dictators need subjects only as cannon fodder.

The fortifications of Berlin erected under the leadership of Goebbels were, according to General M. Pemzel, simply ridiculous. The report of General Serov addressed to Stalin also gives an extremely low assessment of the Berlin fortifications. Soviet experts stated that there were no serious fortifications within a radius of 10-15 km around Berlin.

On April 18, on the orders of Goebbels, Reimann, then commandant of Berlin, was forced to transfer 30 Volkssturm battalions and an air defense unit with their excellent guns from the city to the second line of defense. On April 19, 24,000 militias remained in the city. The departed battalions never returned to Berlin. Also in the city there were units made up of military personnel of the rear services, firefighters, policemen, members of the Hitler Youth. Among the young Volkssturmists was 15-year-old Adolf Martin Bormann, the son of Hitler's deputy in the party. He survived and became a Catholic priest after the war.

The last replenishment arrived in Berlin by land (April 24) were about 300 Frenchmen from the remnants of the SS Volunteer Division "Charlemagne". The division suffered heavy losses in the fighting in Pomerania. Of the 7,500 people, 1,100 survived. These 300 French SS men provided invaluable assistance to Hitler. They knocked out 92 Soviet tanks out of 108 destroyed in the defense zone of the Nordlung division. On May 2, 30 French survivors were taken prisoner at the Potsdam railway station. Oddly enough, two-thirds of the SS men who fought furiously against the Soviet army in Berlin were foreigners: Norwegians, Danes, Swedes and French.

Armored personnel carrier of the commander of a company of Swedish volunteers. To the right of the car lies the driver: Unterscharführer Ragnar Johansson.

The last meager replenishment of the defenders of Berlin arrived on the night of 26 April. A battalion of cadets of the naval school from Rostock was transported by transport aircraft. Some sources (even Wikipedia) report. that it was a parachute landing. But these comrades probably saw paratroopers jumping only on TV, otherwise they would not have written that young people trained for service on submarines mastered parachuting so skillfully and were able to perform a technically difficult jump at night from a low altitude. Yes, and on the city, which in itself is difficult even during the day and in peacetime.

Not only Hitler and Goebbels helped us to take Berlin, but also German generals. The commander of the Vistula Army Group, which covered Berlin from the east, Colonel General Heinrici, belonged to those German generals who believed that the war was lost and it must be urgently ended, to prevent the complete destruction of the country and the destruction of the people. He was extremely sensitive to Hitler's intentions to fight to the last German. Heinrici, a talented military leader, was considered very suspicious from the point of view of the Nazis: he was married to a half-Jewish woman, was a zealous Christian, went to church and did not want to join the NSDAP, refused to burn Smolensk during his retreat. Heinrici, after breaking through the line of defense on the Oder, withdrew his troops in such a way that they would not fall into Berlin. On April 22, the 56th Panzer Corps received an order from the headquarters of the 9th Army, which is part of the Vistula group, to withdraw south of Berlin to connect with the main parts of the army. The generals, playing giveaway, hoped that the Red Army would reach the Reich Chancellery somewhere by April 22. Weidling received an order from Hitler to lead a corps to defend the city, but he did not obey the order immediately, but only after the Fuhrer duplicated it. Hitler even ordered Weidling to be shot for insubordination on April 23, but he managed to justify himself. True, the general won a little from this. Weidling died in a Vladimir prison after spending 10 years there.

Heinrici continued to withdraw his troops, located north of Berlin, to the west for surrender to the Anglo-American troops. In doing so, he tried to deceive Keitel and Jodl, who remained loyal to Hitler to the very end. Heinrici did everything possible not to comply with the demand of the command and Hitler personally to organize a counterattack by the Steiner group from the north to unblock Berlin. When Keitel was finally convinced of Heinrici's intentions, he removed him from his post and offered to shoot himself as an honest officer. However, Heinrici surrendered command. left for a small town and later surrendered to British troops.

Colonel General Gotthard Heinrici. Died in December 1971 (aged 84).

On April 22, SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner received Hitler's order to strike from the north and unblock Berlin. Steiner attempted to carry out the order, but failed. Realizing that further attempts would doom his hastily formed group to death, Steiner arbitrarily began to withdraw his subordinate units to the West. He also disobeyed the orders of Field Marshal Keitel, the Chief of the General Staff, General Krebs, to send his troops back towards Berlin. On April 27, 1945, Hitler removed him from command of the group for disobedience, but Steiner again did not obey and continued to retreat. According to Heinz Hehne, author of The Black Order of the SS, Himmler was critical of Steiner, calling him "the most disobedient of my generals." Close to Himmler, Obergruppenführer G. Berger stated: “Obergruppenführer Steiner cannot be educated. He does whatever he wants and does not tolerate objections.

SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner. He died in May 1966 (aged 69).

Great assistance was rendered to the Soviet Army by the Minister of Armaments Speer, who did so much to ensure that until the beginning of 1945 the production of armaments in Germany steadily increased. Speer, after the winter offensive of the Soviet army, wrote a report for Hitler, which began with the words "the war is lost." Speer was categorically against the "scorched earth" tactics in Germany, believing that the surviving Germans would have to live somehow. Speer prevented most of the bridges in Berlin from being blown up, which could have led to delays in the offensive and heavy losses for the Red Army. Of the 248 bridges in Berlin, only 120 were blown up.

The central defense sector of Berlin, the Citadel, was defended by a group under the command of Brigadeführer W. Monke.

Brigadeführer W. Monke, released from Soviet captivity in October 1955, died in 2001.

On the night of April 21, 1945, Adolf Hitler appointed him commander of the Monke Battle Group, which was entrusted with the defense of the Reich Chancellery and the Fuhrer's bunker. In total, the group included 9 battalions with a total number of about 2100 people. After Hitler's suicide, on May 1, Mohnke led a group that made a breakthrough from the bunker and unsuccessfully tried to break out of Berlin to the north. Was taken prisoner.

The inhabitants of the Nazi bunker tried to escape from Berlin in three groups. In one of the groups were Bormann, Axman, the head of the Hitler Youth and Hitler's personal doctor, Ludwig Stumpfegger. They, along with other inhabitants of the bunker, tried to get through the fighting center of Berlin, but soon Stumpfegger and Bormann separated from the group. In the end, exhausted and demoralized, they committed suicide at Lehrter station. On December 7-8, 1972, two skeletons were found during the laying of an underground mail cable. After their careful examination by forensic doctors, dentists and anthropologists, the skeletons were recognized as belonging to Stumpfegger and Bormann. Fragments of glass ampoules with potassium cyanide were found between the teeth of the skeletons.

Knowing the weakness of the defense of Berlin, the Soviet command planned to take the German capital on Lenin's birthday, April 21. On this day, the "Victory Banner" should have been flying over Berlin. Why, then, did the Red Army, which has a colossal advantage in men and equipment, have to take Berlin with such heavy losses, the highest average daily losses in the entire war? Military historians are still looking for an answer to this day.

I shared with you the information that I "dug up" and systematized. At the same time, he has not become impoverished at all and is ready to share further, at least twice a week. If you find errors or inaccuracies in the article, please let us know. My e-mail address: [email protected] I will be very grateful.

Map

Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation (Battle of Berlin):

Berlin strategic offensive operation

Dates (beginning and end of the operation)

The operation continued 23 day - from April 16 on May 8, 1945, during which Soviet troops advanced westward at a distance of 100 to 220 km. The width of the combat front is 300 km.

The goals of the parties to the Berlin operation

Germany

The Nazi leadership tried to drag out the war in order to achieve a separate peace with England and the United States and split the anti-Hitler coalition. At the same time, holding the front against the Soviet Union acquired decisive importance.

the USSR

The military-political situation that had developed by April 1945 required the Soviet command to prepare and conduct an operation to defeat the group of German troops in the Berlin direction, capture Berlin and reach the Elbe River to join the Allied forces as soon as possible. The successful fulfillment of this strategic task made it possible to thwart the plans of the Nazi leadership to prolong the war.

The forces of three fronts were involved in the operation: the 1st Belorussian, 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian, as well as the 18th air army of long-range aviation, the Dnieper military flotilla and part of the forces of the Baltic Fleet.

• Capture the capital of Germany, the city of Berlin
• After 12-15 days of operation, reach the Elbe River

• Deliver a cutting blow south of Berlin, isolate the main forces of Army Group Center from the Berlin grouping and thereby ensure the main attack of the 1st Belorussian Front from the south
• Defeat the enemy grouping south of Berlin and operational reserves in the Cottbus area
• In 10-12 days, no later, reach the Belitz-Wittenberg line and further along the Elbe River to Dresden

• Deliver a cutting blow north of Berlin, securing the right flank of the 1st Belorussian Front from possible enemy counterattacks from the north
• Press to the sea and destroy the German troops north of Berlin

• Assist the troops of the 5th Shock and 8th Guards Armies with two brigades of river ships in crossing the Oder and breaking through the enemy defenses at the Kustra bridgehead
• The third brigade to assist the troops of the 33rd Army in the Furstenberg area
• Provide anti-mine defense of water transport routes.

• Support the coastal flank of the 2nd Belorussian Front, continuing the blockade of the Kurland Army Group pressed to the sea in Latvia (Kurland Cauldron)

The balance of power before the operation

Soviet troops:

• 1.9 million people
• 6250 tanks
• over 7500 aircraft
• Allies - Polish troops: 155,900 people

German troops:

• 1 million people
• 1500 tanks
• over 3300 aircraft

Photo gallery

Preparations for the Berlin operation



Commanders-in-Chief of the Allied Forces of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition



Soviet attack aircraft in the sky over Berlin



Soviet artillery on the outskirts of Berlin, April 1945



A volley of Soviet Katyusha rocket launchers in Berlin



Soviet soldier in Berlin



Fighting on the streets of Berlin



Hoisting the Banner of Victory on the Reichstag building



Soviet gunners write on the shells "Hitler", "To Berlin", "According to the Reichstag"



Gun crew of the guard senior sergeant Zhirnov M.A. fights on one of the streets of Berlin



Infantrymen are fighting for Berlin



Heavy artillery in one of the street fights



Street fight in Berlin



The crew of the tank unit of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Konstantinov N.P. knocks the Nazis out of the house on Leipzigerstrasse



Infantrymen fighting for Berlin 1945



The battery of the 136th Army Cannon Artillery Brigade is preparing to fire on Berlin, 1945.

Commanders of fronts, armies and other units

1st Belorussian Front: Commander Marshal - G.K. Zhukov M.S. Malinin

Front Composition:

• 1st Army of the Polish Army - Commander Lieutenant General Poplavsky S. G.

Zhukov G.K.

• 1st Guards Tank Army - Commander Colonel General of the Tank Forces Katukov M.E.
• 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps - Commander Lieutenant General Kryukov V.V.
• 2nd Guards Tank Army - Commander Colonel General of the Tank Forces Bogdanov S.I.
• 3rd Army - Commander Colonel General Gorbatov A.V.
• 3rd Shock Army - Commander Colonel General Kuznetsov V.I.
• 5th Shock Army - Commander Colonel General Berzarin N.E.
• 7th Guards Cavalry Corps - Commander Lieutenant General Konstantinov M.P.
• 8th Guards Army - Commander Colonel General Chuikov V.I.
• 9th Tank Corps - Commander Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Kirichenko I.F.
• 11th Tank Corps - Commander Major General of the Tank Forces Yushchuk I.I.
• 16th Air Army - Commander Colonel General of Aviation S.I.
• 33rd Army - Commander Colonel General Tsvetaev V.D.
• 47th Army - Commander Lieutenant General Perkhorovich F.I.
• 61st Army - Commander Colonel-General Belov P.A.
• 69th Army - Commander Colonel General Kolpakchi V. Ya.

1st Ukrainian Front: Commander Marshal - I. S. Konev, Chief of Staff General of the Army I. E. Petrov

Konev I.S.

Front Composition:

• 1st Guards Cavalry Corps - Commander Lieutenant General Baranov V.K.
• 2nd Army of the Polish Army - Commander Lieutenant General Sverchevsky K.K.
• 2nd Air Army - Commander Colonel General of Aviation Krasovsky S.A.
• 3rd Guards Army - Commander Colonel General V. N. Gordov
• 3rd Guards Tank Army - Commander Colonel General Rybalko P.S.
• 4th Guards Tank Corps - Commander Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Poluboyarov P.P.
• 4th Guards Tank Army - Commander Colonel General Lelyushenko D.D.
• 5th Guards Army - Commander Colonel General Zhadov A.S.
• 7th Guards Motorized Rifle Corps - Commander Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Korchagin I.P.
• 13th Army - Commander Colonel General Pukhov N.P.
• 25th Tank Corps - Commander Major General of the Tank Forces Fominykh E.I.
• 28th Army - Commander Lieutenant General Luchinsky A.A.
• 52nd Army - Commander Colonel General Koroteev K.A.

2nd Belorussian Front: Commander Marshal - K. K. Rokossovsky, Chief of Staff Colonel General A. N. Bogolyubov

Rokossovsky K.K.

Front Composition:

• 1st Guards Tank Corps - Commander Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Panov M.F.
• 2nd Shock Army - Commander Colonel General Fedyuninsky I.I.
• 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps - Commander Lieutenant General Oslikovsky N. S.
• 3rd Guards Tank Corps - Commander Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Panfilov A.P.
• 4th Air Army - Commander Colonel General of Aviation Vershinin K.A.
• 8th Guards Tank Corps - Commander Lieutenant General of the Tank Forces Popov A.F.
• 8th Mechanized Corps - Commander Major General of Tank Troops Firsovich A.N.
• 49th Army - Commander Colonel General Grishin I.T.
• 65th Army - Commander Colonel-General Batov P.I.
• 70th Army - Commander Colonel General Popov V.S.

18th Air Army- Commander Chief Marshal of Aviation Golovanov A.E.

Dnieper military flotilla- Commander Rear Admiral Grigoriev V.V.

Red Banner Baltic Fleet- Commander Admiral Tributs V.F.

The course of hostilities

At 5 o'clock in the morning Moscow time (2 hours before dawn) on April 16, 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 and at the same time illuminated

Soviet artillery on the outskirts of Berlin

way for advancing units. For the first one and a half to two hours, the offensive of the Soviet troops developed successfully, individual formations reached the second line of defense. However, soon the Nazis, relying on a strong and well-prepared second line of defense, began to offer fierce resistance. Intense fighting broke out along the entire front. Although in some sectors of the front the troops managed to capture individual strongholds, they did not succeed in achieving decisive success. The powerful knot of resistance, equipped on the Zelov heights, turned out to be insurmountable for rifle formations. This jeopardized the success of the entire operation. In such a situation, the front commander, Marshal Zhukov, decided to bring the 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies into battle. This was not envisaged by the offensive plan, however, the stubborn resistance of the German troops required to increase the penetration ability of the attackers by bringing tank armies into battle. The course of the battle on the first day showed that the German command attaches decisive importance to the retention of the Zelov Heights. To strengthen the defense in this sector, by the end of April 16, the operational reserves of the Vistula Army Group were thrown. All day and all night on April 17, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front fought fierce battles with the enemy. By the morning of April 18, tank and rifle formations, with the support of aviation of the 16th and 18th air armies, took the Zelov Heights. Overcoming the stubborn defense of the German troops and repulsing fierce counterattacks, by the end of April 19, the troops of the front had broken through the third defensive zone and were able to develop the offensive against Berlin.

The real threat of encirclement forced the commander of the 9th German Army T. Busse to come up with a proposal to withdraw the army to the suburbs of Berlin and take up a strong defense there. Such a plan was supported by the commander of the Vistula Army Group, Colonel General Heinrici, but Hitler rejected this proposal and ordered to hold the occupied lines at any cost.

April 20 was marked by an artillery raid on Berlin, inflicted by long-range artillery of the 79th Rifle Corps of the 3rd Shock Army. It was a kind of gift to Hitler for his birthday. On April 21, units of the 3rd shock, 2nd guards tank, 47th and 5th shock armies broke through the third line of defense, broke into the outskirts of Berlin and started fighting there. The first to break into Berlin from the east were troops that were part of the 26th Guards Corps of General P. A. Firsov and the 32nd Corps of General D. S. Zherebin of the 5th Shock Army. On the evening of April 21, advanced units of the 3rd Guards Tank Army of P.S. Rybalko approached the city from the south. On April 23 and 24, hostilities in all directions took on a particularly fierce character. On April 23, the 9th Rifle Corps under the command of Major General I.P. Rosly achieved the greatest success in the assault on Berlin. The soldiers of this corps captured Karlshorst, part of Kopenick, by a decisive assault and, having reached the Spree, crossed it on the move. Great assistance in forcing the Spree was provided by the ships of the Dnieper military flotilla, transferring rifle units to the opposite bank under enemy fire. Although by April 24 the pace of advance of the Soviet troops had decreased, the Nazis failed to stop them. On April 24, the 5th shock army, fighting fierce battles, continued to successfully advance towards the center of Berlin.

Operating in an auxiliary direction, the 61st Army and the 1st Army of the Polish Army, having launched an offensive on April 17, overcoming the German defenses with stubborn battles, bypassed Berlin from the north and moved towards the Elbe.

The offensive of the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front developed more successfully. On April 16, early in the morning, a smoke screen was placed along the entire 390-kilometer front, blinding the advanced observation posts of the enemy. At 0655, after a 40-minute artillery strike on the front line of the German defense, the reinforced battalions of the divisions of the first echelon began to cross the Neisse. Having quickly captured bridgeheads on the left bank of the river, they provided conditions for building bridges and crossing the main forces. During the first hours of the operation, 133 crossings were equipped by the engineering troops of the front in the main direction of attack. With every hour, the number of forces and means transferred to the bridgehead increased. In the middle of the day, the attackers reached the second lane of the German defense. Feeling the threat of a major breakthrough, the German command already on the first day of the operation threw into battle not only its tactical, but also operational reserves, setting them the task of throwing the advancing Soviet troops into the river. Nevertheless, by the end of the day, the troops of the front broke through the main line of defense on the 26 km front and advanced to a depth of 13 km.

Storming Berlin

By the morning of April 17, the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies crossed the Neisse in full force. All day long, the troops of the front, overcoming the stubborn resistance of the enemy, continued to widen and deepen the gap in the German defenses. Air support for the advancing troops was provided by pilots of the 2nd Air Army. Assault aviation, acting at the request of ground commanders, destroyed the firepower and manpower of the enemy at the forefront. Bomber aircraft smashed suitable reserves. By mid-April 17, the following situation had developed in the zone of the 1st Ukrainian Front: the tank armies of Rybalko and Lelyushenko were moving west along a narrow corridor pierced by the troops of the 13th, 3rd and 5th Guards armies. By the end of the day, they approached the Spree and began crossing it.

Meanwhile, on the secondary, Dresden, direction, the troops of the 52nd Army of General K. A. Koroteev and the 2nd Army of the Polish General K. K. Sverchevsky broke through the enemy’s tactical defenses and advanced to a depth of 20 km in two days of hostilities.

Considering the slow advance of the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front, as well as the success achieved in the zone of the 1st Ukrainian Front, on the night of April 18, the Stavka decided to turn the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front to Berlin. In his order to the army commanders Rybalko and Lelyushenko on the offensive, the front commander wrote: “In the main direction with a tank fist, it is bolder and more decisive to break forward. Bypass cities and large settlements and not get involved in protracted frontal battles. I demand to firmly understand that the success of tank armies depends on a bold maneuver and speed in action"

Fulfilling the order of the commander, on April 18 and 19, the tank armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front marched irresistibly towards Berlin. The pace of their offensive reached 35-50 km per day. At the same time, the combined-arms armies were preparing to liquidate large enemy groupings in the area of ​​Cottbus and Spremberg.

By the end of the day on April 20, the main strike force of the 1st Ukrainian Front had penetrated deeply into the enemy’s location, and completely cut off the German Army Group Vistula from the Army Group Center. Feeling the threat caused by the rapid actions of the tank armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the German command took a number of measures to strengthen the approaches to Berlin. To strengthen the defense in the area of ​​​​the cities of Zossen, Luckenwalde, Jutterbog, infantry and tank units were urgently sent. Overcoming their stubborn resistance, on the night of April 21, Rybalko's tankers reached the outer Berlin defensive bypass. By the morning of April 22, Sukhov's 9th Mechanized Corps and Mitrofanov's 6th Guards Tank Corps of the 3rd Guards Tank Army crossed the Notte Canal, broke through the outer defensive bypass of Berlin, and reached the southern bank of the Teltowkanal at the end of the day. There, having met strong and well-organized enemy resistance, they were stopped.

On the afternoon of April 22, a meeting of the top military leadership was held at Hitler's headquarters, at which it was decided to withdraw W. Wenck's 12th Army from the western front and send it to join T. Busse's semi-encircled 9th Army. To organize the offensive of the 12th Army, Field Marshal Keitel was sent to its headquarters. This was the last serious attempt to influence the course of the battle, since by the end of the day on April 22, the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts formed and almost closed two encirclement rings. One - around the 9th Army of the enemy east and southeast of Berlin; the other - west of Berlin, around the units that were directly defending in the city.

The Teltow Canal was a rather serious obstacle: a moat filled with water with high concrete banks forty to fifty meters wide. In addition, its northern coast was very well prepared for defense: trenches, reinforced concrete pillboxes, tanks and self-propelled guns dug into the ground. Above the canal is an almost solid wall of houses, bristling with fire, with walls a meter or more thick. Having assessed the situation, the Soviet command decided to conduct thorough preparations for forcing the Teltow Canal. All day on April 23, the 3rd Guards Tank Army was preparing for the assault. By the morning of April 24, a powerful artillery grouping, with a density of up to 650 barrels per kilometer of front, was concentrated on the southern bank of the Teltow Canal, designed to destroy German fortifications on the opposite bank. Having suppressed the enemy defenses with a powerful artillery strike, the troops of the 6th Guards Tank Corps of Major General Mitrofanov successfully crossed the Teltow Canal and captured a bridgehead on its northern bank. On the afternoon of April 24, the 12th Army of Wenck launched the first tank attacks on the positions of the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps of General Ermakov (4th Guards Tank Army) and units of the 13th Army. All attacks were successfully repulsed with the support of Lieutenant General Ryazanov's 1st Assault Aviation Corps.

At 12 noon on April 25, west of Berlin, the advanced units of the 4th Guards Tank Army met with units of the 47th Army of the 1st Belorussian Front. On the same day, another significant event took place. An hour and a half later, on the Elbe, the 34th Guards Corps of General Baklanov of the 5th Guards Army met with American troops.

From April 25 to May 2, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front fought fierce battles in three directions: units of the 28th Army, 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies participated in the storming of Berlin; part of the forces of the 4th Guards Tank Army, together with the 13th Army, repulsed the counterattack of the 12th German Army; The 3rd Guards Army and part of the forces of the 28th Army blocked and destroyed the encircled 9th Army.

All the time from the beginning of the operation, the command of the Army Group "Center" sought to disrupt the offensive of the Soviet troops. On April 20, German troops delivered the first counterattack on the left flank of the 1st Ukrainian Front and pushed back the troops of the 52nd Army and the 2nd Army of the Polish Army. On April 23, a new powerful counterattack followed, as a result of which the defense at the junction of the 52nd Army and the 2nd Army of the Polish Army was broken through and the German troops advanced 20 km in the general direction of Spremberg, threatening to reach the rear of the front.

From April 17 to April 19, the troops of the 65th Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front, under the command of Colonel-General Batov P.I., conducted reconnaissance in force and advanced detachments captured the Oder interfluve, thereby facilitating the subsequent forcing of the river. On the morning of April 20, the main forces of the 2nd Belorussian Front went on the offensive: the 65th, 70th and 49th armies. The crossing of the Oder took place under the cover of artillery fire and smoke screens. The offensive developed most successfully in the sector of the 65th Army, in which the engineering troops of the army had a considerable merit. Having built two 16-ton pontoon crossings by 13 o'clock, by the evening of April 20, the troops of this army captured a bridgehead 6 kilometers wide and 1.5 kilometers deep.

More modest success was achieved in the central sector of the front in the zone of the 70th Army. The left-flank 49th Army met stubborn resistance and was not successful. All day and all night on April 21, the troops of the front, repulsing numerous attacks by German troops, stubbornly expanded their bridgeheads on the western bank of the Oder. In the current situation, the front commander K.K. Rokossovsky decided to send the 49th army along the crossings of the right neighbor of the 70th army, and then return it to its offensive zone. By April 25, as a result of fierce battles, the troops of the front expanded the captured bridgehead to 35 km along the front and up to 15 km in depth. To build up striking power, the 2nd shock army, as well as the 1st and 3rd guards tank corps, were transferred to the western bank of the Oder. At the first stage of the operation, the 2nd Belorussian Front, by its actions, fettered the main forces of the 3rd German tank army, depriving it of the opportunity to help those fighting near Berlin. On April 26, formations of the 65th Army stormed Stettin. In the future, the armies of the 2nd Belorussian Front, breaking the resistance of the enemy and destroying the suitable reserves, stubbornly moved to the west. On May 3, Panfilov's 3rd Guards Tank Corps, southwest of Wismar, established contact with the advanced units of the 2nd British Army.

Liquidation of the Frankfurt-Guben group

By the end of April 24, formations of the 28th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front came into contact with units of the 8th Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front, thereby encircling the 9th Army of General Busse southeast of Berlin and cutting it off from the city. The encircled grouping of German troops became known as the Frankfurt-Gubenskaya. Now the Soviet command was faced with the task of eliminating the 200,000th enemy grouping and preventing its breakthrough to Berlin or to the west. To accomplish the latter task, the 3rd Guards Army and part of the forces of the 28th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front took up active defense in the path of a possible breakthrough by German troops. On April 26, the 3rd, 69th, and 33rd armies of the 1st Belorussian Front began the final liquidation of the encircled units. However, the enemy not only offered stubborn resistance, but also made repeated attempts to break out of the encirclement. Skillfully maneuvering and skillfully creating superiority in forces in narrow sections of the front, the German troops twice managed to break through the encirclement. However, each time the Soviet command took decisive measures to eliminate the breakthrough. Until May 2, the encircled units of the 9th German Army made desperate attempts to break through the battle formations of the 1st Ukrainian Front to the west, to join General Wenck's 12th Army. Only separate small groups managed to seep through the forests and go west.

Capture of the Reichstag

At 12 noon on April 25, the ring around Berlin was closed, when the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps of the 4th Guards Tank Army crossed the Havel River and connected with units of the 328th Division of the 47th Army of General Perkhorovich. By that time, according to the Soviet command, the Berlin garrison numbered at least 200 thousand people, 3 thousand guns and 250 tanks. The defense of the city was carefully thought out and well prepared. It was based on a system of strong fire, strongholds and centers of resistance. The closer to the city center, the tighter the defense became. Massive stone buildings with thick walls gave it special strength. The windows and doors of many buildings were closed up and turned into loopholes for firing. The streets were blocked by powerful barricades up to four meters thick. The defenders had a large number of faustpatrons, which in the conditions of street fighting turned out to be a formidable anti-tank weapon. Of no small importance in the enemy's defense system were underground structures, which were widely used by the enemy for maneuvering troops, as well as for sheltering them from artillery and bomb attacks.

By April 26, six armies of the 1st Belorussian Front (47th, 3rd and 5th shock, 8th guards, 1st and 2nd guards tank armies) and three armies of the 1st Belorussian Front took part in the assault on Berlin. th Ukrainian Front (28th, 3rd and 4th Guards Tank). Taking into account the experience of capturing large cities, assault detachments were created for battles in the city as part of rifle battalions or companies, reinforced with tanks, artillery and sappers. The actions of the assault detachments, as a rule, were preceded by a short but powerful artillery preparation.

By April 27, as a result of the actions of the armies of the two fronts that had deeply advanced towards the center of Berlin, the enemy grouping in Berlin stretched out in a narrow strip from east to west - sixteen kilometers long and two or three, in some places five kilometers wide. The fighting in the city did not stop day or night. Block by block, Soviet troops "gnawed through" the enemy's defenses. So, by the evening of April 28, units of the 3rd shock army went to the Reichstag area. On the night of April 29, the actions of the forward battalions under the command of Captain S. A. Neustroev and Senior Lieutenant K. Ya. Samsonov captured the Moltke bridge. At dawn on April 30, the building of the Ministry of the Interior, adjacent to the parliament building, was stormed at the cost of considerable losses. The way to the Reichstag was open.

Banner of Victory over the Reichstag

April 30, 1945 at 21.30, units of the 150th Infantry Division under the command of Major General V. M. Shatilov and the 171st Infantry Division under the command of Colonel A. I. Negoda stormed the main part of the Reichstag building. The remaining Nazi units offered stubborn resistance. We had to fight for every room. In the early morning of May 1, the assault flag of the 150th Infantry Division was raised over the Reichstag, but the battle for the Reichstag continued all day and only on the night of May 2 did the Reichstag garrison capitulate.

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. The message was immediately conveyed to G.K. Zhukov, who himself telephoned Moscow. Stalin confirmed the categorical demand for unconditional surrender. At 6 pm on May 1, the new German government rejected the demand for unconditional surrender, and the Soviet troops were forced to resume the assault with renewed vigor.

In the first hour of the night on May 2, the radio stations of the 1st Belorussian Front received a message in Russian: “Please cease fire. We are sending parliamentarians to the Potsdam Bridge.” A German officer who arrived at the appointed place on behalf of the commander of the defense of Berlin, General Weidling, announced the readiness of the Berlin garrison to stop resistance. At 6 am on May 2, General of Artillery Weidling, accompanied by three German generals, crossed the front line and surrendered. An hour later, while at the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army, he wrote a surrender order, which was duplicated and, using loud-speaking installations and radio, brought to enemy units defending in the 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. Individual units that did not want to surrender tried to break through to the west, but were destroyed or scattered.

Side losses

the USSR

From April 16 to May 8, Soviet troops lost 352,475 people, of which 78,291 people were irretrievably lost. The losses of the Polish troops during the same period amounted to 8892 people, of which 2825 people were irretrievably lost. The loss of military equipment amounted to 1997 tanks and self-propelled guns, 2108 guns and mortars, 917 combat aircraft.

Germany

According to the combat reports of the Soviet fronts:

• Troops of the 1st Belorussian Front in the period from April 16 to May 13 killed 232,726 people, captured 250,675 people
• Troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front in the period from April 15 to April 29 killed 114,349 people, captured 55,080 people
• Troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front in the period from April 5 to May 8: killed 49,770 people, captured 84,234 people

Thus, according to the reports of the Soviet command, the loss of German troops was about 400 thousand people killed, about 380 thousand people captured. Part of the German troops was pushed back to the Elbe and capitulated to the Allied forces.

Also, according to the assessment of the Soviet command, the total number of troops that emerged from the encirclement in the Berlin area does not exceed 17,000 people with 80-90 armored vehicles.

Did Hitler have a chance?

Under the onslaught of the advancing armies, Hitler's feverish intentions to take refuge either in Berchtesgaden, or in Schleswig-Holstein, or in the South Tyrolean fortress advertised by Goebbels collapsed. At the suggestion of Gauleiter Tyrol to move to this fortress in the mountains, Hitler, according to Rattenhuber, "with a hopeless wave of his hand, said:" I see no more sense in this running around from place to place. "The situation in Berlin at the end of April left no doubt that that our last days had come. Events were unfolding faster than we expected."

Hitler's last plane was still at the ready at the airfield. When the plane was destroyed, hastily began to build a take-off site near the Reich Chancellery. The squadron intended for Hitler was burned by Soviet artillery. But his personal pilot was still with him. The new commander-in-chief of aviation Greim still sent planes, but not one of them could get through to Berlin. And, according to Greim's exact information, not a single plane from Berlin crossed the offensive rings either. There was literally nowhere to go. Armies were advancing from all sides. Escape from fallen Berlin to get caught by the Anglo-American troops, he considered a lost cause.

He chose a different plan. Enter from here, from Berlin, into negotiations with the British and Americans, who, in his opinion, should be interested in the Russians not taking possession of the capital of Germany, and stipulate some tolerable conditions for themselves. But negotiations, he believed, could only take place on the basis of an improved martial law in Berlin. The plan was unrealistic, unworkable. But he owned Hitler, and, figuring out the historical picture of the last days of the imperial office, he should not be bypassed. Hitler could not fail to understand that even a temporary improvement in the position of Berlin in the general catastrophic military situation in Germany would change little in general. But this was, according to his calculations, a necessary political prerequisite for the negotiations, on which he pinned his last hopes.

With manic frenzy, he therefore repeats about the army of Wenck. There is no doubt that Hitler was decidedly incapable of directing the defense of Berlin. But now we are talking only about his plans. There is a letter confirming Hitler's plan. It was sent to Wenck with a messenger on the night of April 29th. This letter reached our military commandant's office in Spandau on May 7, 1945, in the following way.

A certain Josef Brichzi, a seventeen-year-old boy who studied as an electrician and was drafted into the Volkssturm in February 1945, served in an anti-tank detachment defending the government quarter. On the night of April 29, he and another sixteen-year-old boy were called from the barracks in Wilhelmstrasse, and a soldier took them to the Reich Chancellery. Here they were led to Bormann. Bormann announced to them that they had been chosen to carry out the most important task. They have to break out of the encirclement and deliver a letter to General Wenck, commander of the 12th Army. With these words, he handed them a package.

The fate of the second guy is unknown. Brihzi managed to get out of encircled Berlin on a motorcycle at dawn on April 29. General Wenck, he was told, he would find in the village of Ferch, northwest of Potsdam. Upon reaching Potsdam, Brichzi discovered that none of the military knew or heard where Wenck's headquarters were actually located. Then Brichzi decided to go to Spandau, where his uncle lived. My uncle advised me not to go anywhere else, but to hand over the package to the military commandant's office. After a while, Brihtzi took him to the Soviet military commandant's office on May 7th.

Here is the text of the letter: "Dear General Wenck! As can be seen from the attached messages, Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler made an offer to the Anglo-Americans, which unconditionally transfers our people to the plutocrats. The turn can only be made personally by the Fuhrer, only by him! The precondition for this is the immediate establishment of communication armies of Wenck with us, in order to give the Fuhrer domestic and foreign political freedom of negotiations. Your Krebs, Heil Hitler! Chief of Staff Your M. Bormann"

All of the above suggests that, being in such a hopeless situation in April 1945, Hitler still hoped for something, and this last hope was placed on Wenck's army. Wenck's army, meanwhile, was moving from the west to Berlin. She was met on the outskirts of Berlin by our troops advancing on the Elbe and dispersed. Thus melted Hitler's last hope.

Operation results

The famous monument to the Soldier-Liberator in Treptow Park in Berlin

• The destruction of the largest grouping of German troops, the capture of the capital of Germany, the capture of the highest military and political leadership of Germany.

• The fall of Berlin and the loss of the German leadership's ability to govern led to the almost complete cessation of organized resistance on the part of the German armed forces.

• The Berlin operation demonstrated to the Allies the high combat capability of the Red Army and was one of the reasons for the cancellation of Operation Unthinkable, Britain's plan for a full-scale war against the Soviet Union. However, this decision did not further influence the development of the arms race and the beginning of the Cold War.

• Hundreds of thousands of people have been liberated from German captivity, including at least 200,000 citizens of foreign countries. Only in the zone of the 2nd Belorussian Front in the period from April 5 to May 8, 197,523 people were released from captivity, of which 68,467 were citizens of the allied states.

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 unite with 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 air 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 19th. 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 operation was not the most difficult for the Soviet troops. In 1945, when everyone, even the most inexperienced fighters, understood that there was very little left before the end of the war, when almost all of their native land was cleared of the enemy, and Soviet troops, surpassing the enemy in both quantity and quality of weapons, stood on the outskirts to Hitler's lair, I think, it was still easier to fight than or a year later, when it was necessary to hand over to the enemy city after city, region after region. No one had any doubts that the operation, developed by the best Soviet generals, would end in success: neither in Moscow, nor even in Berlin, which continued to agonize, from where the Fuhrer continued to send directives to army headquarters and call the piece of Central Europe torn apart by bombing and flooded with refugees " empire."

War and politics

But despite all the obviousness of the outcome of the Berlin operation, on the eve of the upcoming battles, the military aspects gave way to political ones. The closer the end of the war was, the more attention the allied powers paid to the question of the post-war reorganization of the world. The impending collapse of the Third Reich posed before the USSR, the USA and Great Britain (at that time France had already joined them) a lot of questions, which, even if they were discussed at the Yalta Conference, still gave rise to wariness and even mistrust towards each other. The command of the Soviet troops had to build their plans, in accordance not with the convenience of the current military positions, but with the need to give more weight to Moscow's arguments in the course of its future negotiations with the allies. That is why, at the last stage of the Great Patriotic War, political considerations sometimes interfered so decisively in the operational plans of Soviet military leaders.

For this reason alone, despite the victorious mood of the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, the Berlin operation cannot be called a cakewalk. The high stakes of this battle made it one of the most stubborn and bloody on the Eastern Front. The Nazis defended their last line and they had nothing to lose. In addition, the Germans were led not just by blind fanaticism. In addition to the actual protection of the capital of the Reich, they had another important goal - to hold back the offensive of the Soviet troops for as long as possible, so that most of the territory of Germany came under the control of the allies. And the defenders of Berlin themselves were more attracted by the prospect of being in the hands of the Anglo-Americans than of falling into Russian captivity. Hitler's propaganda also instilled such views everywhere, although it represented the British and the Yankees as swaggering countrymen, but did not attribute to them the satanic bloodthirstiness, which, according to Dr. Goebbels, was distinguished by " Bolshevik Slavic-Tatar hordes«.

On the way to the lair

By mid-April, the Nazi army, despite the bashing that had been given to it for two years now on all European fronts, continued to remain in a very combat-ready state. The strength of the Wehrmacht was estimated at 223 divisions and brigades, most of which, including the most combat-ready, operated on the Soviet-German front. A series of defeats and heavy losses undermined the morale of the German troops at the front and the population in the rear, but it was not completely broken.

In the Berlin direction, the fascist German command concentrated a large grouping as part of the Vistula and Center Army Groups (a total of about 1 million people, 10,400 guns and mortars, 1,530 tanks and assault guns, over 3,300 aircraft). On the western banks of the Oder and Neisse rivers, a defense in depth was created, including the Oder-Neissen line, which consisted of three lanes 20-40 kilometers deep, and the Berlin defensive area. The total number of the Berlin garrison exceeded 200 thousand people. For the convenience of command and control, the city was divided into 9 sectors. The most carefully prepared central sector, which covered the main state and administrative institutions, including the Reichstag and the Imperial Chancellery. All defensive positions were interconnected by communications. The metro was widely used for covert maneuvering by forces and means.

For the offensive in the Berlin direction, the Soviet command concentrated 19 combined arms (including 2 Polish), 4 tank and 4 air armies (2.5 million people, 41,600 guns and mortars, 6,250 tanks and self-propelled artillery installations, 7,500 aircraft). The plan of the operation was to inflict several powerful blows on a wide front, dismember the Berlin enemy grouping, surround and destroy it piece by piece. The main role in the capture of Berlin was assigned to the armies of Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, commander of the 1st Belorussian Front. At the same time, the directives of the Headquarters did not provide for the organization of operational-tactical cooperation with the 1st Ukrainian (commander Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev) and 2nd Belorussian fronts (commander Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky). When breaking through the Oder-Neissen line, the 1st Belorussian Front was supposed to deliver the main blow from a small bridgehead, attack with an open right flank, attack the enemy's defense in depth in the forehead.

They tried to implement this plan back in February, but then the offensive failed - the Soviet command underestimated the enemy. In bloody battles, both sides suffered heavy losses, but the Germans still managed to stop the advance of the Soviet troops by transferring additional units to this sector of the front.

Having relied on a lightning strike right in the heart of the Nazi Reich in order to get ahead of the allies and single-handedly put an end to Nazi Germany, Moscow, as always in such cases, pushed the question of the price of victory into the background. If it were possible to squeeze the German troops concentrated around Berlin into a "cauldron", dismember them into parts and destroy them separately, without rushing to storm the well-fortified Seelow Heights that covered the capital of the Reich from the east, then the Soviet army would have avoided those losses, which she suffered, striving at all costs to enter the city by the shortest route.

But it was here that operational expediency had to give way to political considerations. Despite the few days allocated to the Red Army to capture Berlin, the Allied troops, moving on an accelerated march, could well get there earlier - on the Western Front by that time the Germans had practically ceased to resist, surrendering to whole corps and divisions. But, apparently, the blow delivered in January by German tanks in the Ardennes had such an effect on the Allies that, even in the absence of resistance, they observed the greatest caution in Germany. But the pace of advance for the Soviet army during the Berlin operation was determined as follows: for combined arms armies - 8-14 kilometers, for tank armies - 30-37 kilometers per day.

To Berlin!

On April 16, at 03:00 local time, aviation and artillery preparation began on the sector of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts. After its completion, 143 searchlights were turned on, and the infantry, supported by tanks, attacked the enemy. Encountering no strong resistance, she advanced 1.5-2 kilometers. However, the closer our troops approached, the stronger the resistance of the enemy increased.

In order to strengthen the onslaught, Zhukov brought tank armies into battle in the afternoon. Their forward detachments completed the breakthrough of the first line of defense. However, approaching the Seelow Heights, the infantry and tanks met the unsuppressed enemy defenses. During the first day of the offensive, the troops of the front advanced only 3-8 kilometers and could not break through the defenses on the Seelow Heights. The premature introduction of tank formations created chaos in the operational formation of combined-arms armies, caused a disruption in their rear communications, and confusion in command and control.

Only by the end of April 17 did the troops of the front overcome the second line of defense. Two days later, the Oder line of defense of the Germans was finally broken through. As a result of a four-day fierce struggle, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front advanced to a depth of 34 kilometers.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, in turn, advanced 1-1.5 kilometers by the end of the first day of the offensive. The Germans began to retreat across the Spree River, and on April 17 Marshal Konev ordered the troops "on the shoulders of the enemy" to cross the river in order to "open a non-stop route to Berlin." Taking into account the hitch of the armies of Marshal Zhukov and the success of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to encircle the city with the forces of three fronts, which was not originally envisaged by the operation plan.

Despite the unrelenting resistance of the enemy, the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts decisively "bite" into its defenses and, bypassing the fortified settlements, approached Berlin. By the end of April 21, the tank armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front reached the outer defensive line of the German capital. On the same day, part of the forces of the 1st Belorussian Front bypassed Berlin and continued their accelerated advance towards the Elbe, where they were supposed to meet with the Allied forces.

It was on the eve of the decisive assault on Berlin between Marshals Zhukov and Konev that an unjustified competition unfolded for the right to be the first to report on the breakthrough of the troops of their front to the capital of the Third Reich. In fact, the command of the fronts demanded that the troops go forward, regardless of any losses in manpower and equipment.

On April 22, the last operational meeting of the German High Command was held at the Imperial Chancellery, which was attended by Hitler. It was decided to remove the 12th Army of Walter Wenck from positions on the Elbe and send it to the east, towards the troops of the 9th Army, which attacked the Soviet troops, from the area southeast of Berlin. In an effort to delay the offensive of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the German command launched a counterattack from the Görlitz region to the rear of the strike group of Soviet troops. By April 23, German troops had penetrated 20 kilometers into their location. However, by the end of the next day, the advance of the enemy was stopped.

On April 24, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front united southeast of Berlin with the armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front. The ring of encirclement was closed to the west of the city. At the same time, in the Torgau area, Soviet troops met with the Americans. Thus, the Berlin grouping of the enemy turned out to be dissected into two isolated groups: Berlin and Frankfurt-Guben

Flag over the Reichstag

It took five days, from April 26 to May 2, to eliminate the most powerful Frankfurt-Guben group of Germans of the Red Army at that time. The enemy fought with the desperation of a cornered beast, before which suddenly loomed the hope of salvation, because if they joined the Wenck army, the Germans would have a corridor to go to the West, directly captured by the Americans. After stubborn fighting on the night of April 29, the Nazis managed to break through the encirclement of Soviet troops at the junction of two fronts. As a result, they formed a corridor up to two kilometers wide, through which they began to retreat west to Luckenwalde. But by the end of the day, the enemy was stopped, and his troops were dissected, surrounded and destroyed by May 1. A few units broke through to the West.

The assault on the German capital itself also began on April 26. The Soviet armies struck in converging directions towards the center of the city. The fighting went on day and night. They were conducted on the ground, in underground communications and in the air. The next day, the enemy in Potsdam was destroyed, and in Berlin compressed into a strip up to 2-3 kilometers wide, stretching from east to west for another 16 kilometers.

The tension of the fighting in Berlin increased as the Soviet troops advanced towards the city center, towards the Reichstag and government buildings. The armies that stormed Berlin had predetermined offensive lines, units and subunits attacked specific objects - districts, streets, buildings and structures. The battles were fought, as a rule, by assault groups and detachments made up of units of all branches of the armed forces; tanks, direct fire guns, flamethrowers and even captured faustpatrons were used.

It is difficult to talk about the tension of the fighting in Berlin, even after reading the memories of the participants in those events. There was an assault on the real lair - the city from where fascism spread like a plague throughout Europe, where the craziest Nazi ideas were born and where every house was an enemy fortress. The whole city was saturated with defensive structures - especially, as already mentioned, the Reich Chancellery and the Reichstag were fortified. A strong fortified area was created in Tiergaten Park. The Nazis made extensive use of tanks and heavy artillery, mercilessly turning their capital into a heap of ruins. Every effort was made to hold back the offensive of the Soviet troops - the metro was flooded, houses were blown up to block the streets, and most importantly, until the very last moment, people were driven to the slaughter so that they would keep the defense. In fact, it was a mass suicide - the behavior of the defenders of Berlin can be compared, perhaps, with the Japanese "kamikaze". The same lack of alternatives - only death in the name of the Fuhrer, who himself was already standing on the edge of the grave.

By the end of April 28, the encircled Berlin grouping was cut into three parts. The next evening, General Weidling, commander of the city's defense, presented Hitler with a plan for a breakthrough to the west, and Hitler approved it. The breakthrough was scheduled for 30 April. The optimism of this man can only be envied, although, perhaps, the whole point is that in the last days of his life, at the sight of how the monstrous empire he built crumbles to dust under the blows of Soviet troops, the Fuhrer practically lost the ability to think clearly.

On April 29, fighting began for the Reichstag, which was defended by about a thousand people. What these people fought for is hard to understand, but each floor of the building had to be taken with a fight. After a series of attacks, units of the 171st and 150th rifle divisions broke into the building. On April 30, at 2:25 p.m., Sergeants Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria hoisted the Victory Banner over the Reichstag. The capture of the Reichstag was of great political and moral significance. The courage, selflessness and heroism of Soviet soldiers were actively promoted in the troops, the names of the heroes of those battles were heard in the reports of the Soviet Information Bureau throughout the country. And the very sight of the main building of Nazism, decorated with inscriptions of Soviet soldiers who carried all their hatred for the enemy and jubilation over victory from the banks of the Volga and Dnieper, told everyone and everyone that the Third Reich was crushed.

On May 1, at 03:50, the head of the general staff of the Wehrmacht ground forces, General of the Infantry Krebs, was brought to the command post of the 8th Guards Army, commanded by the hero of Stalingrad, General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov. He declared that he was authorized to negotiate an armistice and reported Hitler's suicide. Deputy Zhukov went to Chuikov for negotiations with Krebs with Stalin's order to conduct no negotiations, except for unconditional surrender, with no one. Zhukov himself delivered an ultimatum: if consent to unconditional surrender is not given before 10 o'clock, the Soviet troops will strike such a blow, from which "nothing will remain in Berlin but ruins." The leadership of the dying Reich was slow to respond. Therefore, at 10:40, Soviet troops opened heavy fire on the remnants of the defense in the center of Berlin. By 18 o'clock it became known that the enemy had rejected the demand for unconditional surrender. After that, the final assault began on the central part of the city, where the Imperial Chancellery was located.

The battle for this object lasted all night from 1 to 2 May. The Germans made desperate attempts to push back the Soviet soldiers, but all their counterattacks were thwarted. By morning, all the premises were cleared of the enemy: not far from the entrance to the office bunker, the corpse of Goebbels was found, and in one of the rooms - the bodies of his wife and six children. According to eyewitnesses, several corpses of Hitler's doubles were also found in the building, but the remains of the Fuhrer themselves were discovered later.

On the night of May 2, at 1:50 a.m., the radio station of the Berlin Defense Headquarters transmitted in German and Russian: We are sending our parliamentarians to the Bismarck-Straße bridge. We stop hostilities". On May 2, the Deputy Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Fritsche, turned to the Soviet command with a request for permission to speak on the radio with an appeal to the German troops of the Berlin garrison to stop all resistance. By 3 pm on May 2, the remnants of the Berlin garrison, totaling more than 134 thousand people, surrendered.

The price of victory

After the fall of Berlin, active hostilities were conducted in fact only in Czechoslovakia. On the territory of Germany itself, only individual units did not even try to keep the Soviet troops, but to break through to the west in order to surrender to the Allies. Despite the fact that Admiral Karl Doenitz, appointed by Hitler as Reich Chancellor, continued to issue orders urging German soldiers not to lay down their arms, the surrender took on a mass character.

Goebbels' propaganda machine worked well: the image of a bloodthirsty savage eating the meat of German babies was fixed in the minds of the subjects of the Third Reich for a long time. Of course, it is impossible to completely deny the facts of the murders of civilians, the rape of German women and the robbery of the population by the Soviet troops. And the allies often behaved on German territory far from being liberators. However, in a war as in a war, especially since the Soviet troops, unlike the Americans and the British, had to overcome fierce resistance at every step almost until the very end of the war. Moreover, not only military personnel were involved in this resistance, but also civilians, hastily armed and stuffed with Hitler's ideology. Elderly veterans of the First World War and 14-year-old boys armed with fauspatrons joined the ranks of the defenders of Berlin.

These Germans could be understood and humanly pitied - in front of them were Soviet soldiers, who, thanks to Goebbels' tales, turned into a horde of cannibals, and behind their backs were courts-martial, which, until the very last hours of the war, continued to pass death sentences for desertion. Moreover, in his hatred of everything Soviet, Hitler ordered that all of Germany be turned into a cemetery. On his orders, the retreating troops used scorched earth tactics everywhere, leaving destruction, starvation and death in their wake.

The fact that the resistance of the Nazis during the Berlin operation was desperate in the full sense of the word is also evidenced by the fact that the losses of the Soviet troops in it amounted to 361367 people killed and wounded (irretrievable losses - 81 thousand). And the average daily losses (15,712 people) were even higher than during the Battle of Stalingrad or Kursk. However, the desire of the Soviet Headquarters, primarily Marshal Zhukov, to take Berlin at all costs as soon as possible played a role here.

The enemy also knew about the heavy losses of the Soviet troops, who were trying to push through the defenses on the outskirts of Berlin. The hitch in the attack on the Seelow Heights caused great joy at the headquarters of the German command. Hitler enthusiastically exclaimed: We repulsed this blow. Near Berlin, the Russians will suffer the most bloody defeat that can ever be!". The Fuhrer, as usual, turned out to be a poor visionary, but it cannot be denied that Berlin was taken at a really high price, even if we take into account the rapid pace of advance of the Soviet troops and the strength of the enemy opposing them - after all, in just 16 days the Red Army defeated about a hundred enemy divisions that did not surrender, but tried desperately to resist.

But this price was paid for the capture of the main stronghold of Nazism, and therefore - for the victory in the Great Patriotic War. On May 9, at 0:43 Moscow time, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, as well as representatives of the German Navy, who had the appropriate authority from Doenitz, signed the Act of Germany's unconditional surrender. A brilliant operation, coupled with the courage of Soviet soldiers and officers who fought to end the four-year nightmare of war, led to a logical outcome: Victory.