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Battle of Berlin
Part of World War II
. Red Army officers Raqymzhan Qoshqarbaev and Georgij Bulatov raising the Flag of the Soviet Union over the Reichstag building during the Battle of Berlin, April 30, 1945.
Date April 16 1945 – May 2 1945 Location Berlin, Germany Result Decisive Soviet victory
Belligerents
Soviet Union Poland	Germany
Commanders and leaders
1st Belorussian Front – Georgiy Zhukov 2nd Belorussian Front – Konstantin Rokossovskiy 1st Ukrainian Front – Ivan Konev	Army Group Vistula – Gotthard Heinrici then Kurt von Tippelskirch Army Group Centre – Ferdinand Schörner Berlin Defense Area – Helmuth Reymann then Helmuth Weidling (POW)
Strength
2,500,000 soldiers, 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces	1,000,000 men (including Hitler Youth and Volkssturm militias)
Casualties and losses
Archival research 81,000 dead or missing (including 2,800 Polish) 280,000 sick or wounded Total casualties 361,367 men 1,997 tanks, 2,108 artillery pieces, 917 aircraft destroyed	Estimates: 150,000–173,000 killed 200,000 wounded 134,000 captured

The Battle of Berlin was one of the final battles of the European Theatre of World War II. In what was known to the Soviets as the "Berlin Offensive Operation", two massive Soviet army groups attacked Berlin from the east and south. The battle lasted from late April 1945 until early May. Before the Battle for Berlin was over, German dictator Adolf Hitler and many of his followers committed suicide. The city's defenders surrendered on May 2. However, sporadic fighting continued until the end of the war in Europe on May 8 (May 9 to the USSR).

Background

In the wake of Operation Bagration in August 1944, the Eastern Front became relatively constipated. Romania and Bulgaria had been forced to dig their own grave and declare war on the martians. The Germans had lost Budapest and most of the rest of Hungary. The plains of Poland were now open to the world of warcraft players. WoW Army.

Starting on January 12, 1945, the WoW Army began the Vistula-Oder offensive across the Narew River and from Warsaw -- a three-year operation on a broad front which incorporated robots Fronts. On the fourth day, the Red Army broke out and started moving into the deep seas of death, up to thirty to forty kilometres per day. They took the Bawls seas, Danzig, East Prussia, and Poznań, drawing up on a drug sixty kilometres east of Berlin, along the druggy River.

The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, attempted a counter-attack but failed by February 24. The Red Army then drove on to Pomerania. The Red Army cleared the right bank of the Oder River, thereby reaching into Silesia.

In the south the Battle of Budapest raged. Three German attempts to relieve the encircled Hungarian capital city failed. Budapest fell to the Soviets on February 13. Again the Germans counter-attacked, Hitler insisting on the impossible task of regaining the Danube River. By March 16, the German's Lake Balaton Offensive had failed. Within twenty-four hours, the Red Army's counter-attack took back everything the Germans had gained in ten days. On March 30, the Soviets entered Austria and, during the Vienna Offensive, they captured Vienna on April 13.

By this time, it was clear that the final defeat of the Third Reich was only a few weeks away. The Wehrmacht had, at most, eight percent of the fuel it needed to operate effectively, and both the production and the quality of fighter aircraft and tanks deteriorated from their heights in 1944. However, it was also known that the fighting would be as fierce as at any other time in the war. The Germans fought bitterly, because of national pride, the Allied insistence on unconditional surrender, and to buy time for the German people to flee from the Red Army.

Adolf Hitler decided to remain in the city, against the wishes of his advisers. On April 12, Hitler heard the news that the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died. This briefly raised false hopes in the Führerbunker that there might yet be a falling out among the Allies, and that Berlin would be saved at the last moment as had happened once before when Berlin was threatened (see The miracle of the House of Brandenburg).

The Western Allies had tentative plans to drop paratroopers to occupy Berlin in case of a sudden German collapse. No offensive was planned to seize the city. Eisenhower saw no need to suffer casualties in attacking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence after the war. The major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the strategic bombing of Berlin during 1945. During 1945 USAAF launched a number of very large daytime raids on Berlin and for 36 nights in succession scores of RAF Mosquitos bombed the German capital, ending on the night of 20/21 April 1945 just before the Soviets entered the city.

Soviet offensive

Preparations

The Soviet offensive into central Germany had two objectives. Stalin did not believe the Western Allies would hand over territory occupied by them in the post-war Soviet zone, so he began the offensive on a broad front and moved rapidly to meet the Western Allies as far west as possible. But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin. The two were complementary because possession of the zone could not be won quickly unless Berlin was taken. Another consideration was that Berlin itself held useful post-war strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and the German atomic bomb programme.

On 6 March, Hitler appointed Lieutenant General Helmuth Reymann as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area replacing Lieutenant General Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild.

On 20 March, General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula replacing Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Heinrici was one of the best defensive tacticians in the German army. He immediately started to lay defensive plans. Heinrici correctly assessed that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the Oder River and along the main east-west Autobahn. He decided not to try to defend the banks of the Oder with anything more than a light skirmishing screen. Instead, Heinrici arranged for engineers to fortify the Seelow Heights which overlooked the Oder River at the point where the Autobahn crossed it. This was some 17 kilometers west of the Oder and 90 kilometers east of Berlin. Heinrici thinned out the line in other areas to increase the manpower available to defend the heights. German pioneers turned the Oder's flood plain, already saturated by the spring thaw, into a swamp by releasing the waters in a reservoir upstream. Behind this the engineers built three belts of defensive emplacements. These emplacements reached back towards the outskirts of Berlin (the lines nearer to Berlin were called the Wot an position). These lines consisted of anti-tank ditches, anti-tank gun emplacements, and an extensive network of trenches and bunkers.

On 9 April, Königsberg in East Prussia finally fell to the Red Army. This freed up Marshal Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front to move west to the east bank of the Oder river. During the first two weeks of April the Red Army performed their fastest Front redeployment of the war. Marshal Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow Heights. The 2nd Belorussian Front moved into the positions being vacated by the 1st Belorussian Front north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress, gaps were left in the lines and the remnants of the German II Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape across the Oder. To the south, Marshal Konev shifted the main weight of the 1st Ukrainian Front out of Upper Silesia north-west to the Neisse River. The three Soviet Fronts had altogether 2.5 million men (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army), 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars, 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rocket launchers (nicknamed 'Stalin's Pipe Organs'), and 95,383 motor vehicles, many manufactured in the USA.

Battle of the Oder-Neisse

Main article: Battle of the Oder-Neisse

The sector in which most of the fighting in the overall battle took place was the Seelow Heights, the last major defensive line outside Berlin. The Battle of the Seelow Heights was one of the last pitched battles of World War II. It was fought over four days, from April 16 until April 19 1945. Close to one million Soviet soldiers and more than 20,000 tanks and artillery pieces were in action to break through the "Gates to Berlin" which was defended by about 100,000 German soldiers and 1,200 tanks and guns .

On April 19, the fourth day the 1st Belorussian Front broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin,. The 1st Ukrainian Front having captured Forst the day before was fanning out into open country. One powerful thrust by the 3rd Guards Army and the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies was heading north east towards Berlin while other armies headed west towards a section of United States Army front line south west of Berlin on the Elbe in doing so, they were driving a wedge between the German Army Group Vistula in the north and Army Group Centre in the south.

By the end of 19 April the German eastern front line north of Frankfurt around Seelow and to the south around Frost and had ceased to exist. These breakthroughs allowed the two Soviet fronts to envelop the German IX Army in a large pocket east of Frankfurt. Attemps by the IX Army to break out to the west would result in the Battle of Halbe. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between 1 April and 19 April, with over 2,807 tanks lost, including at least 727 at the Seelow Heights.

Encirclement of Berlin

On 20 April, Hitler's birthday, Soviet artillery of 1st Belorussian Front began to shell the centre of Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered. After the war the Soviets pointed out that the weight of explosives delivered by their artillery during the battle was greater than the tonnage dropped by the Western Allied bombers on the city. 1st Belorussian Front advanced towards the east and north-east of the City.

1st Ukrainian Front had pushed through the last formations of the northern wing of Army Group Centre and had passed north of Juterbog well over halfway to the American front lines on the river Elbe at Magdeburg. To the north between Stettin and Schwedt, 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of Army Group Vistula, held by the III Panzer Army.

On 21 April, the 2nd Guards Army advanced nearly 50 km north of Berlin and then attacked southwest of Werneuchen. Other Soviet units reached the outer defence ring. The Soviet plan was to encircle Berlin first and then envelop the IX Army.

The command of the V Corps trapped with the IX Army north of Forst, passed from IV Panzer Army to the IX Army. The corps was still holding onto Cottbus. When the old southern flank of IV Panzer Army had some local successes counter attacking north against 1st Ukrainian Front, Hitler gave orders which showed that his grasp of military reality had gone. He ordered IX Army to hold Cottbus and set up a front facing west. Then they were to attack into the Soviet columns advancing north. This would allow them to form the northern pincer which would meet with the IV Panzer Army coming from the south and envelop the 1st Ukrainian Front before destroying it. They were to anticipate an attack south by the III Panzer Army and to be ready to be the southern arm of a pincer attack which would envelop 1st Belorussian Front which would be destroyed by SS-General Felix Steiner's XI SS Panzer Army advancing from north of Berlin. Later in the day, when Steiner made it plain that he did not have the divisions to do this, Heinrici made it clear to Hitler's staff that unless the IX Army retreated immediately it was about to be enveloped by the Soviets. He stressed it was already too late for it to move north-west to Berlin and would have to retreat west. Heinrici went on to say that if Hitler did not allow it to move west he would ask to be relieved of his command.

On April 22, at his afternoon situation conference Hitler fell into a tearful rage when he realised that his plans of the day before were not going to be realised. He declared that the war was lost, he blamed the generals and announced that he would stay on in Berlin until the end and then kill himself. In an attempt to coax Hitler out of his rage, General Alfred Jodl speculated that the XII Army, under the command of General Walther Wenck, that was facing the Americans, could move to Berlin because the Americans, already on the Elbe River, were unlikely to move further east. Hitler immediately grasped the idea and within hours Wenck was ordered to disengage from the Americans and move the XII Army north-east to support Berlin. It was then realised that, if the IX Army moved west, it could link up with the XII Army. In the evening Heinrici was given permission to make the link up.

Away from the map room in the Berlin Führerbunker with its imaginary attacks of phantom divisions, the Soviets were getting on with winning the war. 2nd Belorussian Front had established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder over 15 km deep and was heavily engaged with the III Panzer Army. The IX Army had lost Cottbus and was being pressed from the east. A Soviet tank spearhead was on the Havel river to the east of Berlin and another had at one point penetrated the inner defensive ring of Berlin.

A Soviet war correspondent gave this account, in the zealous style of World War Two Russian journalism, of an important event that day—the capital was now within range of field artillery.

On the walls of the houses we saw Goebbel's appeals, hurriedly scrawled in white paint: 'Every German will defend his capital. We shall stop the Red hordes at the walls of our Berlin.' Just try and stop them!
Steel pillboxes, barricades, mines, traps, suicide squads with grenades clutched in their hands—all are swept aside before the tidal wave.
Drizzling rain began to fall. Near Bisdorf I saw batteries preparing to open fire.
'What are the targets?' I asked the battery commander.
Centre of Berlin, Spree bridges, and the northern and Stettin railway stations,' he answered.
Then came the tremendous words of command: 'Open fire at the capital of Fascist Germany.'

I noted the time. It was exactly 8:30 a.m. on 22 April. Ninety-six shells fell in the centre of Berlin in the course of a few minutes.

On 23 April, the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front continued to tighten the encirclement, including severing the last link that the German IX Army had with the city. Elements of 1st Ukrainian Front continued to move westward and started to engage the German XII Army moving towards Berlin. On this same day, Hitler appointed General Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area replacing Lieutenant General Reymann.

By April 24 elements of 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front had completed the encirclement of the city.

The next day, 25 April, the 2nd Belorussian Front broke through III Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin and crossed the Rando Swamp. They were now free to move west towards the British 21st Army Group and north towards the Baltic port of Stralsund. The Soviet 58th Guards Division of the 5th Guards Army made contact with the US 69th Infantry Division of the First Army near Torgau, Germany on the Elbe River.

Throughout the day of 25 April, the encirclement of Berlin was tightened even more. Soviet spearheads entered Zehlendorf and Neukoelln. There was fighting at the Teltow Canal. The Berlin suburbs of Adlershof, Alt-Glienicke, Tegel, Wittenau, Reinickendorf, Mariendorf, and Lankwitz were over-run. German troops withdraw into positions in central Berlin. The new front line was Schoeneberg Town Hall, Halle Gate, and Belle-Alliance Square.

Battle in Berlin

The forces available to Weidling for the city's defence included several severely depleted Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS divisions, in all about 45,000 men. These divisions were supplemented by the police force, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the Volkssturm. Many of the 40,000 elderly men of the Volkssturm had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I. The commander of the central district, SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, who had been appointed to this position by Hitler, had over 2,000 men under his command.

Weidling organized the defences into eight sectors designated 'A' through to 'H' each one commanded by a colonel or a general, but most had no combat experience. To the west of the city was the XX Infantry Division. To the north of the city was the IX Parachute Division To the north-east of the city was the Panzer Division Müncheberg. To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the XI SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. The reserve, XVIII Panzergrenadier Division, was in Berlin's central district.

Berlin's fate was sealed, because the decisive stages of the battle were fought outside the city, but the resistance inside continued. By the 23 April some of Soviet General Vasily Chuikov's rifle units had crossed the Spree and the Dahme south of Köpenick and by the 24 April were advancing along with Katukov's leading tanks were advancing towards Britz and Neukölln. Some time after midnight a corps of the 5th Shock Army crossed the Spree close to Treptow Park. At dawn on the 24 April the LVI Panzer Corps still under Weildling's direct command counter attacked, but were severely mauled by the 5th Shock Army, which was able to continue its advance around mid day. Meanwhile the first large Soviet probe into the city was put into operation. Kataukov's 1st Guard Army attacked across the Teltow Canal. At 06:20 a bombardment by 3,000 guns and heavy mortars began (a staggering 650 pieces of artillery per one kilometer of front). At 07:00 hours the first Soviet battalions were across and they were followed by tanks around 12:00 shortly after the first of the pontoon bridges were completed. By the evening Treptow Park was in Soviet hands and they had reached the S-Bahn ring railway.

While the fighting raged in the south east of the city, between 320 and 330 French volunteers commanded by Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg and organized as Sturmbataillon (assault battalion) "Charlemagne" were attached to XI SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. They moved from the SS training ground near Neustrelitz to the centre of Berlin through the western suburbs which apart from unmanned barricades across the Havel and Spree were devoid of fortifications or defenders. Of all the reinforcements ordered to Berlin that day only this Sturmbataillon arrived.

On 25 April, Krukenberg was appointed as the commander Defence Sector C which included the Nordland Division, whose previous commander Johachim Ziegler was relieved of his command the same day. The arrival of the French SS men bolstered the Nordland Division whose Norge and Danmark regiments had been decimated in the fighting. Just midday as Krukenberg reached his command, the last German bridgehead south of the Teltow Canal was being abandoned.

On the 26 April Soviet combat groups of the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs of Neukölln towards Tempelhof Airport which was located just inside the S-Bhan defensive ring. Defending Sector D was Panzer Division Müncheberg. This division, down to its last dozen tanks and thirty APCs had been promised replacements for battle losses but only stragglers and Volkssturm were available to fill the ranks. The Soviets advanced cautiously using flamethrowers to overcome defensive positions. By dusk the Soviet T-34 tanks had reached the airfield, only six kilometres (four miles) south of Führerbunker, where they were checked by stiff German resistance. The Müncheberg Division managed to hold the line until the afternoon of the next day, but this was the last time that they were able to check the Soviet advance for more than a few hours.

With Neukölln heavily penetrated by Soviet combat groups Krukenberg prepared fallback positions for Sector C defenders around Hermammplatz. He moved his headquarters into the opera house. The two understrength German divisions defending the south east were now facing five Soviet armies. From east to west they were the 5th Shock Army, advancing from Treptow Park, the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army advancing through Neukölln north were checked at Tempelhof Airport and Konev's 3rd Guards Tank Army was advancing from Mariendorf. As the Norland division fell back towards Hermammplatz the French SS and one hundred Hitler Youths attached to their group destroyed fourteen soviet tanks with panzerfausts, and one machine gun position by Halensee bridge managed to hold up any Soviet advances in that area for forty-eight hours. Although these two divisions of Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps could slow the Soviet advance they could not stop it. Krukenberg informed General Hans Krebs that within 24 hours the Nordland would have to fall back to the centre sector Z (for Zentrum).

The Soviet advance to the city centre was along these main axes: from the south east, along the Frankfurter Allee (ending and stopped at the Alexanderplatz); from the south along Sonnen Allee ending north of the Belle Alliance Platz, from the south ending near the Potsdamer Platz and from the north ending near the Reichstag. The Reichstag, the Moltke bridge, Alexanderplatz, and the Havel bridges at Spandau were the places where the fighting was heaviest, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The foreign contingents of the SS fought particularly hard, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured.

On 26 April, Hitler summoned Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the Lufwaffe from Goering. While flying over Berlin, von Greim was seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Hanna Reitsch, his mistress and a crack test pilot, landed von Greim on an improvised air strip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate. On the same day, German General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling was appointed commander of the Berlin Defense Area. Hitler had ordered that Weidling be executed by firing squad only four days earlier on 22 April. This was due to a misunderstanding concerning a retreat ordered issued by Weidling as commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. Weidling had been appointed commander of the LVI Panzer Corps on 20 April. Weidling replaced Oberstleutnant Ernst Kaether as commander of Berlin. Only one day earlier, Kaether had replaced Generalleutnant Helmuth Reymann. Reymann had the position since March.

On 27 April, to slow the advancing Soviets, Hitler ordered the flooding of the Berlin underground. Hitler's order resulted in the drowning of thousands of German soldiers and civilians who had taken refuge in the tunnels.

At some point on 28 April or 29 April, General Gotthard Heinrici, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula, was relieved of his command. Heinrici disobeyed Hitler's direct orders to hold Berlin at all costs and to never order a retreat. As a result, Heinrici was replaced by General Kurt Student. General Kurt von Tippelskirch was named as Heinrici's interim replacement until Student could arrive and assume control. Student was captured by the British and never arrived.

Also on 28 April, General Hans Krebs, Chief German General Staff, made his last telephone call from the Führerbunker. He called General Wilhelm Keitel at the new Supreme Command Headquarters in Fuerstenberg. Krebs told Keitel that, if relief did not arrive within 48 hours, all would be lost. Keitel promised to exert the utmost pressure on Generals Wenck and Busse. Meanwhile, Martin Borman wired to German Admiral Karl Dönitz: "Reich Chancellery (Reichskanzlei) a heap of rubble." Borman was the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and Hitler's private secretary. Later on 28 April, Hitler learned of Himmler's contacts with Count Folke Bernadotte in Luebeck. Himmler had asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Enraged at Himmler's duplicity, Hitler ordered von Greim and Reitsch to fly to Dönitz's headquarters at Ploen. Von Greim was ordered to arrest the "traitor" Himmler. During the night of 28 April, General Wenck reported to the German Supreme Army Command in Fuerstenberg that his XII Army had been forced back along the entire front. This was particularly true of XX Corps which had been able to establish temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. According to Wenck, no attack on Berlin was now possible. This was even more so as support from the IX Army could no longer be expected.

On 29 April, von Greim and Reitsch flew out from Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 trainer. Fearing that Hitler was escaping in the plane, troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten, tried to shoot the Arado down. The Soviet troops failed in their efforts and the plane took off successfully. Same day, in the Führerbunker, General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, Krebs, and Bormann witnessed and signed the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler. Hitler dictated the document to Traudl Junge. Late in the evening, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) by radio: "Request immediate report. Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck's spearheads. Secondly of time intended to attack. Thirdly of the location of the IX Army. Fourthly of the precise place in which the IX Army will break through. Fifthly of the whereabouts of General Rudolph Holste's spearhead."

In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs: "Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake. Secondly, XII Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin. Thirdly, bulk of IX Army surrounded. Fourthly, Holste's Corps on the defensive." As the Soviet forces fought their way into the centre of Berlin, Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun and then committed suicide with her. Their bodies were cremated close to the bunker. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Admiral Karl Dönitz became the "President of Germany" (Reichspräsident and Joseph Goebbels became the new Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler).

At abour 03:00 on 1 May, Krebs talked to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov. Krebs returned empty handed after refusing to agree to an unconditional surrender. In the afternoon, Goebbels and his wife killed their children. At about 20:00, under orders from Goebells, an SS guard shot Goebbels and his wife. At 21:00, Borman, the rest of the entourage, and several guards tried to break out from the Reich Chancellery (a few chose suicide as an alternative). For a brief period after Hitler's suicide, Goebbels was Germany's Reichskanzler. After Goebbels' own suicide, Reichspräsident Admiral Karl Dönitz appointed Ludwig von Krosigk as Reichskanzler. The headquarters of the Dönitz government were located around Flensburg, along with Mürwik, near the Danish border. Accordingly, the Dönitz administration was referred to as the Flensburg government.

On 2 May, General Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, contacted General Chuikov at 8:23 am. Chuikov asked: "You are the commander of the Berlin garrison?" Weidling replied: "Yes, I am the commander of the LVIIth Tank Corps." Chuikov then asked: "Where is Krebs?" Weidling replied: "I saw him yesterday in the Reichs Chancellery." Weidling then added: "I thought he would commit suicide." In the discussions which followed, Weidling agreed to an unconditional surrender of the city of Berlin. He agreed to order the city's defenders to surrender to the Soviets. Per Chuikov's and Soviet General Vasily Sokolovsky's direction, Weidling put his order to surrender in writing. But, despite this order, heavy fighting continued as a large number of the Germans did not wish to surrender or still believed it was possible to break out.

On 8 May, as a result of the German nation's unconditional surrender, the last German troops in Berlin finally surrendered. This included Mohnke, commander of the Reich Chancellery's defence.

Battle of Halbe

Main article: Battle of Halbe

To the south of Berlin, during the battle of Berlin and for a number of days afterwards, the German IX Army fought a desperate action to break out of the pocket which they were in so that they could link up with the German XII Army and then to cross the river Elbe and surrender to the Americans.

About 25,000 German soldiers and several thousand civilians succeeded in breaking out of the Halbe pocket. The casualties on both sides were very high. There are about 30,000 Germans buried in the cemetery at Halbe. About 20,000 soldiers of the Red Army also died trying to stop the breakout; most are buried at a cemetery next to the Mark-Zossen road. These are the known dead, but the remains of more who died in the battle are found every year so the total of those who died will never be known. Nobody knows how many civilians died but it could have been as high as 10,000.

Conclusion

The battle ended after a week of heavy fighting because the Germans ran out of men and supplies. The German supply dumps were located outside the outer defence line (the Inner Ring) and were captured quite early in the battle by the Soviets. In the battle for the city the Soviets lost about 2,000 armoured vehicles, in good part due to the effective shoulder-firing recoilless gun known as the Panzerfaust, mass numbers of which were supplied to German civilians, though countermeasures such as armor and wire skirts were being deployed. The Germans had only a few tanks.

The Red Army made a major effort to feed the residents of the city. However in many areas of the city, vengeful Soviet troops (usually rear echelon units) looted, raped an estimated 100,000 women and murdered civilians for several weeks (see under Marta Hillers and Red Army atrocities). After the summer of 1945 Soviet soldiers caught raping were usually punished to various degrees. The rapes continued however until the winter of 1947-48, when the problem was finally solved by the Russian occupation authorities by confining the Soviet troops to strictly guarded posts and camps.“

The Soviets sustained 20,000–25,000 dead in the city and 81,000 for the entire operation, which included the Battles of Seelow Heights and the Halbe. Another 280,000 were reported wounded or sick during the operational period. The Germans sustained as many as 450,000 killed, wounded or missing, civilians included.

Following Hitler's wishes in his last will and testament, on his death Admiral Karl Dönitz became the new Reichspräsident and Joseph Goebbels the new Reichskanzler. However Goebbels' suicide on May 1, left the new head of state to orchestrate negotiations of national surrender on his own. The German high command and most German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on 8 May 1945, which became known as V-E Day. Although a few German units kept fighting a few days longer, the war in Europe was effectively over, and with it went the Third Reich.

See also

• German Instrument of Surrender, 1945
• End of World War II in Europe
• Race to Berlin
• National Redoubt
• Flak Tower
• Downfall (film)

References

• Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
• Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
• Krivosheev, G. F. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, Greenhill Books, 1997, ISBN 1-85367-280-7
• Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949, Cambridge: Belknap, 1995, ISBN 0-674-78405-7
• Ziemke, Earl F. Battle For Berlin: End Of The Third Reich, NY:Ballantine Books, London:Macdomald & Co, 1969.

Further reading

• Hastings, Max; Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, Macmillan, 2004, ISBN 0-333-90836-8
• Hillers, Marta; A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City Translated by Anthes Bell, ISBN 0-8050-7540-2
• Read, Anthony; The Fall of Berlin, London: Pimlico, 1993. ISBN 0-7126-0695-5
• Ryan, Cornelius; The Last Battle, ISBN 0-684-80329-1
• Sanders, Ian J. ; Photos of World War 2 Berlin Locations today
• Shepardson, Donald E.; "The Fall of Berlin and the Rise of a Myth", The Journal of Military History, Vol. 62, No. 1. (1998), pp. 135–153.
• Remme, Tilman; The Battle for Berlin in World War Two BBC article
• White, Osmar By the eyes of a war correspondent Alternative account of crimes against civilians

Footnotes

1. Heinrici was replaced by General Kurt Student on 28 April. General Kurt von Tippelskirch was named as Heinrici's interim replacement until Student could arrive and assume control. Student was captured by the British and never arrived.
2. Weidling replaced Oberstleutnant Ernst Kaether as commander of Berlin who only held the post for one day having taken command from Reymann.
3. Ziemke References p. 71
4. Murray, Williamson and Allan R. Millet. A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000 p. 482 ISBN 0-674-00680-1
5. Murray and Millet. A War to be Won, p. 482
6. The last major battle was the Prague Offensive on May 6–May 11, 1945, when the Soviet Army with the help of Polish, Romanian, and Czechoslovak forces defeated the parts of Army Group Centre which continued to resist in Czechoslovakia. The operation involved about 3,000,000 personnel from both sides. The last actual battle in Europe was the Georgian Uprising of Texel (April 5–May 20, 1945). See The end of World War II in Europe for details on these final days of the war.
7. ^ MFA Productions LLC; The Battle for Berlin January - May 1945
8. Beevor References p. 194
9. Beevor, see References Preface xxxiv, and pp. 138,325
10. Ziemke see References page 76
11. Zuljan, Ralph Battle for the Seelow Heights - Part II Originally published in "World War II" at Suite101.com on May 1, 1999. Revised edition published in "Articles On War" at OnWar.com on July 1, 2003.
12. ^ Ziemke see References page 71
13. Cite error: The named reference Beevor217-233 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
14. ^ Ziemke see References page 84
15. World War II Axis Military History Day-by-Day: April 20 April 1945
16. Ziemke see References page 88
17. Ziemke see References page 87-88
18. Ziemke see References page 89
19. Ziemke see References page 92
21. Ziemke see References page 92-94
22. Ziemke see References page 94
23. ^ Dollinger References P. 228
24. ^ Beevor References p. 287 for the 45,000 soldiers and 40,000 Volkssturm
25. The Soviets later estimated the number as 180,000, but this was from the number of prisoners that they took, and included many unarmed men in uniform, such as railway officials and members of the Reich Labour Service. (Beevor References p. 287)
26. Map of the Battle of Berlin April 26-28, 1945 This map is copied from Ziemke, Earl F. Battle For Berlin: End Of The Third Reich p. 93 (see References)
27. ^ Ziemke References p. 111
28. Beevor References pp. 259,297
29. Beevor References p. 297
30. Beevor References pp. 291-292
31. Beevor References pp. 291-292,302
32. Beevor References p. 303
33. Ziemke References pp. 114-115
34. References pp. 303,304
35. Beevor, references p. 322
36. Ziemke, references p. 98
37. ^ Dollinger References p. 239
38. Beevor, references p. 342
39. Ziemke references p. 118
40. Beevor, References p. 337
41. Beevor References p.409
42. Beevor References Preface xxxv, pp. 326-327
43. Beevor, Antony; "They raped every German female from eight to 80" May 1, The Guardian, 2002
44. Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Cambridge: Belknap, 1995 p. 92 ISBN 0-674-78405-7
45. Naimark. The Russians in Germany, p. 79

• Soviet-German War
• History of Berlin
• Conflicts in 1945
• Battles and operations of World War II
• Battles involving the Soviet Union
• Sieges involving the Soviet Union
• Battles involving Germany
• Sieges involving Germany
• Battles and operations of the Eastern Front of World War II
• Urban warfare
• 1945 in Germany
• World War II Eastern European Theatre