Berlin offensive operation 1945. Berlin strategic offensive operation (Battle of Berlin)

Illustration copyright RIA Novosti

On April 16, 1945, the Berlin War began offensive Soviet army, included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest battle in history. About 3.5 million people, 52 thousand guns and mortars, 7,750 tanks, and almost 11 thousand aircraft took part in it on both sides.

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

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

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

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

The irretrievable losses of the USSR amounted to 78,291 people, 1,997 tanks, 2,108 guns, 917 aircraft, and the Polish Army - 2,825 people.

In terms of the intensity of average daily losses, the Berlin operation surpassed the Battle of Kursk.

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

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

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

Military historian Mark Solonin points out that, contrary to popular belief, in 1945 there was nothing significant except Berlin operation, did not happen at the front, Soviet losses there amounted to less than 10% of the total losses for January-May (801 thousand people). The longest and fiercest battles took place in East Prussia and on the Baltic coast.

The Last Frontier

WITH German side The defense was held by about a million people, gathered in 63 divisions, 1,500 tanks, 10,400 artillery barrels, 3,300 aircraft. Directly in the city and its immediate surroundings there were about 200 thousand soldiers and officers, three thousand guns and 250 tanks.

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

In addition, there were about 60 thousand (92 battalions) of Volkssturm - militia fighters formed on October 18, 1944 by order of Hitler from teenagers, old people and people with disabilities. In open battle their value was small, but in the city Volkssturm men armed with Faustpatrons could pose a threat to tanks.

Captured Faust cartridges were also used Soviet troops, first of all, against the enemy holed up in the basements. The 1st Guards Tank Army alone stocked 3,000 of them on the eve of the operation.

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

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

The commander was a Colonel General (in the Wehrmacht this rank corresponded to Soviet rank General of the Army) Gotthard Heinrici.

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

Preparation

Since mid-1943, the Soviet army had an overwhelming superiority in men and equipment, learned to fight and, in the words of Mark Solonin, “overwhelmed the enemy not with corpses, but with artillery shells.”

On the eve of the Berlin operation, engineering units quickly built 25 bridges and 40 ferry crossings across the Oder. Hundreds of kilometers railways were converted to the broad Russian gauge.

From April 4 to April 15, large forces were transferred from the 2nd Belorussian Front operating in northern Germany to participate in the assault on Berlin over a distance of 350 km, mainly by road transport, for which 1,900 trucks were involved. According to the memoirs of Marshal Rokossovsky, it was the largest logistics operation during the entire Great Patriotic War.

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

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

Stalin's castling

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

Based on his merits and leadership talent, he had every right to claim part of the capture of the enemy capital, but Stalin replaced him with Georgy Zhukov, and sent Rokossovsky to the 2nd Belorussian Front to clear the Baltic coast.

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

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

Marshall's egos

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

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

On April 20, when units of the 1st Ukrainian Front began to advance more successfully than the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front, and the possibility arose that they would be the first to break into the city, Zhukov ordered the commander of the 2nd Tank Army, Semyon Bogdanov: “Send from each corps one one of the best brigades to Berlin and give them the task no later than 4 o’clock in the morning on April 21, to break through to the outskirts of Berlin at any cost and immediately deliver a report to Comrade Stalin and announcements in the press.”

Konev was even more frank.

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

On April 28, Zhukov complained to Stalin that Konev’s troops occupied a number of Berlin blocks, which according to the original plan were within his zone of responsibility, and the Supreme Commander ordered units of the 1st Ukrainian Front to give up the territory they had just occupied in battle.

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

Churchill's attempt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On April 12, the Americans reached the Elbe. According to commander Omar Bradley, the city, which was about 60 kilometers away, “lay at his feet,” but on April 15, Eisenhower forbade the offensive to continue.

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

Dissenting opinions

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

From a military point of view, there was no need to storm Berlin. It was enough to encircle the city, and it would have surrendered in a week or two. And during the assault on the very eve of victory in street battles, we killed at least one hundred thousand soldiers Alexander Gorbatov, army general

The other marshals gave him a sharp rebuke. Zhukov wrote to Khrushchev that Chuikov “hasn’t understood the situation in 19 years” and “vilifies the Berlin operation, which our people are rightfully proud of.”

When Chuikov refused to make amendments to the manuscript of his memoirs submitted to Voenizdat, he was given a dressing down in the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army.

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

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

Progress of the battle

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

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

When preparing the operation, we somewhat underestimated the complexity of the terrain in the Seelow Heights area. First of all, I must take the blame for the flaw in the issue Georgy Zhukov, “Memories and Reflections”

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

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

9 thousand guns and one and a half thousand Katyusha rockets were concentrated along the 27-kilometer section of the breakthrough. The massive artillery barrage lasted 25 minutes.

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

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

Illustration copyright RIA Novosti Image caption A lot of armored vehicles were brought into the city

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

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

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

“In the Berlin operation, tanks were used, alas, not in the best way,” said Marshal of the Armored Forces Amazasp Babajanyan.

This decision was defended by Marshals Zhukov and Konev and their subordinates, who accepted and implemented it.

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

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

Zhukov's dissatisfaction with the pace of advancement was such that on April 17, he banned the issuance of vodka to tank crews until further notice, and many generals received reprimands and warnings from him about incomplete performance.

There were special complaints about the long-range bomber aviation, which repeatedly struck at its own. On April 19, Golovanov’s pilots mistakenly bombed Katukov’s headquarters, killing 60 people, burning seven tanks and 40 cars.

According to the chief of staff of the 3rd Tank Army, General Bakhmetyev, “we had to ask Marshal Konev not to have any aviation.”

Berlin in the ring

However, on April 20, Berlin was fired upon for the first time from long-range guns, which became a kind of “gift” for Hitler’s birthday.

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

“I will share the fate of my soldiers and accept death in battle. Even if we cannot win, we will drag half the world into oblivion,” he told those around him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In hindsight, we can say that he was right. After being captured by the Soviets, Weidling spent 10 years in the Vladimir special prison, where he died at the age of 64.

On the streets of the metropolis

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

On the Soviet side, 464 thousand people and 1,500 tanks directly took part in the assault on Berlin.

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

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

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

By April 30, only the government quarter of Tiergarten remained in German hands. At 21:30 part of the 150th rifle division Major General Shatilov and the 171st Infantry Division, Colonel Negoda, approached the Reichstag.

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

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

At 6 a.m. on May 2, General Weidling surrendered near the Potsdam Bridge. An hour later, the order of surrender he signed was conveyed to the German soldiers who continued to resist through loudspeakers.

Agony

The Germans fought in Berlin to the last, especially the SS and Volkssturm teenagers brainwashed by propaganda.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minister of Armaments Albert Speer, who was responsible for the engineering side of defense, was unable to prevent the flooding of the Berlin metro on Hitler's orders, but saved 120 of the city's 248 bridges from destruction.

The Volkssturm had 42 thousand rifles for 60 thousand people and five cartridges for each rifle and were not even supplied with a boiler allowance, and, being mainly residents of Berlin, ate whatever they had at home.

Victory Banner

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

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

Illustration copyright RIA Novosti Image caption Fireworks on the roof of the Reichstag

It subsequently turned out that nine banners had been prepared and a corresponding number of assault groups formed, so that it is difficult to determine who was first. Some historians give priority to the group of Captain Vladimir Makov from the 136th Rezhetsk Red Banner Artillery Brigade. Five Makovites were nominated for the title of Hero Soviet Union, but they were given only the Order of the Red Banner. The banner they erected has not survived.

Walking with Yegorov and Kantaria was the battalion’s political officer, Alexei Berest, a man of heroic strength, who literally dragged his comrades onto the dome shattered by shells in his arms.

However, the PR people of that time decided that, given Stalin’s nationality, Russians and Georgians should become heroes, and everyone else turned out to be superfluous.

The fate of Alexey Berest was tragic. After the war, he managed the regional cinema chain in Stavropol region and received 10 years in prison on charges of embezzlement, although 17 witnesses confirmed his innocence at trial. According to daughter Irina, the cashiers stole, and the father suffered because he was rude to the investigator during the first interrogation. Soon after his release, the hero died after being run over by a train.

Bormann's Mystery

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

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

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

It feels like our troops did a good job on Berlin. While passing, I saw only a dozen surviving houses. Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference

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

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

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

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

Uranium trophy

One of the goals of the Soviet army in Berlin, according to modern data, was Physics Institute Kaiser Wilhelm Society, which housed a functioning nuclear reactor and 150 tons of uranium purchased before the war in the Belgian Congo.

They failed to capture the reactor: the Germans took it in advance to the Alpine village of Haigerloch, where it was taken over by the Americans on April 23. But the uranium fell into the hands of the winners, which, according to Academician Yuli Khariton, a participant in the Soviet atomic project, brought the creation of the bomb closer by about a year.

T. Busse
G. Weidling Strengths of the parties Soviet troops:
1.9 million people
6,250 tanks
more than 7,500 aircraft
Polish troops: 155,900 people
1 million people
1,500 tanks
more than 3,300 aircraft Losses Soviet troops:
78,291 killed
274,184 injured
215.9 thousand units. small arms
1,997 tanks and self-propelled guns
2,108 guns and mortars
917 aircraft
Polish troops:
2,825 killed
6,067 injured Soviet data:
OK. 400 thousand killed
OK. 380 thousand captured

The Great Patriotic War

Invasion of the USSR Karelia Arctic Leningrad Rostov Moscow Sevastopol Barvenkovo-Lozovaya Kharkiv Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad Rzhev Stalingrad Caucasus Velikie Luki Ostrogozhsk-Rossosh Voronezh-Kastornoye Kursk Smolensk Donbass Dnieper Right Bank Ukraine Leningrad-Novgorod Crimea (1944) Belarus Lviv-Sandomir Iasi-Chisinau Eastern Carpathians Baltics Courland Romania Bulgaria Debrecen Belgrade Budapest Poland (1944) Western Carpathians East Prussia Lower Silesia Eastern Pomerania Upper Silesia Vein Berlin Prague

Berlin strategic offensive operation- one of the last strategic operations of Soviet troops in the European Theater of Operations, during which the Red Army occupied the capital of Germany and victoriously ended the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War in Europe. The operation lasted 23 days - from April 16 to May 8, 1945, during which Soviet troops advanced westward to a distance of 100 to 220 km. The width of the combat front is 300 km. As part of the operation, the following frontal offensive operations were carried out: Stettin-Rostok, Seelow-Berlin, Cottbus-Potsdam, Stremberg-Torgau and Brandenburg-Ratenow.

The military-political situation in Europe in the spring of 1945

In January-March 1945, troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts, during the Vistula-Oder, East Pomeranian, Upper Silesian and Lower Silesian operations, reached the line of the Oder and Neisse rivers. The shortest distance from the Küstrin bridgehead to Berlin was 60 km. Anglo-American troops completed the liquidation of the Ruhr group of German troops and by mid-April advanced units reached the Elbe. The loss of the most important raw material areas caused a decline in industrial production in Germany. Difficulties in making up for the casualties suffered in the winter of 1944/45 have increased. Nevertheless armed forces Germany still represented an impressive force. According to the intelligence department of the General Staff of the Red Army, by mid-April they included 223 divisions and brigades.

According to the agreements reached by the heads of the USSR, USA and Great Britain in the fall of 1944, the border of the Soviet occupation zone was supposed to pass 150 km west of Berlin. Despite this, Churchill put forward the idea of ​​getting ahead of the Red Army and capturing Berlin, and then commissioned the development of a plan for a full-scale war against the USSR.

Goals of the parties

Germany

The Nazi leadership tried to prolong 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 became crucial.

USSR

The military-political situation that had developed by April 1945 required the Soviet command to prepare and carry out an operation in the shortest possible time to defeat a group of German troops in the Berlin direction, capture Berlin and reach the Elbe River to join the Allied forces. Successful completion of this strategic objective made it possible to thwart the plans of the Nazi leadership to prolong the war.

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

• Deliver a cutting blow south of Berlin, isolate the main forces of Army Group Center from the Berlin group and thereby ensure the main attack of the 1st Belorussian Front from the south
• Defeat the enemy group 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, protecting the right flank of the 1st Belorussian Front from possible enemy counterattacks from the north
• Press to the sea and destroy German troops north of Berlin

• Two brigades of river ships will assist the troops of the 5th Shock and 8th Guards Armies in crossing the Oder and breaking through enemy defenses on the Küstrin bridgehead
• The third brigade will assist the troops of the 33rd Army in the Furstenberg area
• Ensure mine defense of water transport routes.

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

Operation plan

The operation plan provided for the simultaneous transition of troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts to the offensive on the morning of April 16, 1945. The 2nd Belorussian Front, in connection with the upcoming major regrouping of its forces, was supposed to launch an offensive on April 20, that is, 4 days later.

When preparing the operation, special attention was paid to the issues of camouflage and achieving operational and tactical surprise. The front headquarters developed detailed action plans for disinformation and misleading the enemy, according to which preparations for an offensive by the troops of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts were simulated in the area of ​​​​the cities of Stettin and Guben. At the same time, intensified defensive work continued in the central sector of the 1st Belorussian Front, where the main attack was actually planned. They were carried out especially intensively in areas clearly visible to the enemy. It was explained to all army personnel that the main task was stubborn defense. In addition, documents characterizing the activities of troops in various sectors of the front were planted at the enemy’s location.

The arrival of reserves and reinforcement units was carefully disguised. Military echelons with artillery, mortar, and tank units on Polish territory were disguised as trains transporting timber and hay on platforms.

When conducting reconnaissance, tank commanders from the battalion commander to the army commander dressed in infantry uniforms and, under the guise of signalmen, examined crossings and areas where their units would be concentrated.

The circle of knowledgeable persons was extremely limited. In addition to army commanders, only the chiefs of army staffs, heads of operational departments of army headquarters and artillery commanders were allowed to familiarize themselves with the Headquarters directive. Regimental commanders received tasks verbally three days before the offensive. Junior commanders and Red Army soldiers were allowed to announce the offensive mission two hours before the attack.

Regrouping of troops

In preparation for the Berlin operation, the 2nd Belorussian Front, which had just completed the East Pomeranian operation, in the period from April 4 to April 15, 1945, had to transfer 4 combined arms armies over a distance of up to 350 km from the area of ​​​​the cities of Danzig and Gdynia to the line of the Oder River and replace the armies of the 1st Belorussian Front there. The poor condition of the railways and the acute shortage of rolling stock prevented full use of the opportunities railway transport Therefore, the main burden of transportation fell on motor transport. The front was allocated 1,900 vehicles. The troops had to cover part of the route on foot.

Germany

The German command foresaw the offensive of the Soviet troops and carefully prepared to repel it. From the Oder to Berlin, a deeply layered defense was built, and the city itself was turned into a powerful defensive citadel. First-line divisions were replenished with personnel and equipment, and strong reserves were created in the operational depths. A huge number of Volkssturm battalions were formed in Berlin and near it.

Nature of defense

The basis of the defense was the Oder-Neissen defensive line and the Berlin defensive region. The Oder-Neisen line consisted of three defensive lines, and its total depth reached 20-40 km. The main defensive line had up to five continuous lines of trenches, and its front edge ran along the left bank of the Oder and Neisse rivers. A second defense line was created 10-20 km from it. It was the most equipped in engineering terms at the Seelow Heights - in front of the Kyustrin bridgehead. The third stripe was located 20-40 km from the front edge. When organizing and equipping the defense, the German command skillfully used natural obstacles: lakes, rivers, canals, ravines. All settlements were turned into strong strongholds and were adapted to all-round defense. During the construction of the Oder-Neissen line, special attention was paid to the organization of anti-tank defense.

The saturation of defensive positions with enemy troops was uneven. The highest density of troops was observed in front of the 1st Belorussian Front in a 175 km wide zone, where the defense was occupied by 23 divisions, a significant number separate brigades, regiments and battalions, with 14 divisions defending against the Küstrin bridgehead. In the 120 km wide offensive zone of the 2nd Belorussian Front, 7 infantry divisions and 13 separate regiments defended. There were 25 enemy divisions in the 390 km wide zone of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

In an effort to increase the resilience of their troops in defense, the Nazi leadership tightened repressive measures. So, on April 15, in his address to the soldiers of the eastern front, A. Hitler demanded that everyone who gave the order to withdraw or would withdraw without an order be shot on the spot.

Composition and strengths of the parties

USSR

Total: Soviet troops - 1.9 million people, Polish troops - 155,900 people, 6,250 tanks, 41,600 guns and mortars, more than 7,500 aircraft

Germany

Following the orders of the commander, on April 18 and 19 the tank armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front marched uncontrollably towards Berlin. The rate of their advance reached 35-50 km per day. At the same time, the combined arms armies were preparing to eliminate large enemy groups in the area of ​​Cottbus and Spremberg.

By the end of the day on April 20, the main strike group of the 1st Ukrainian Front was deeply wedged into the enemy’s position and completely cut off the German Army Group Vistula from Army Group Center. Sensing 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, infantry and tank units were urgently sent to the area of ​​​​the cities of Zossen, Luckenwalde, and Jutterbog. Overcoming their stubborn resistance, Rybalko’s tankers reached the outer Berlin defensive perimeter on the night of April 21. 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 perimeter of Berlin, and by the end of the day reached the southern bank of the Teltow Canal. There, encountering strong and well-organized enemy resistance, they were stopped.

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 occurred. An hour and a half later, General Baklanov's 34th Guards Corps of the 5th Guards Army met with American troops on the Elbe.

From April 25 to May 2, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front fought fierce battles in three directions: units of the 28th Army, 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies took part in the assault on Berlin; part of the forces of the 4th Guards Tank Army, together with the 13th Army, repelled 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 Army Group Center sought to disrupt the offensive of the Soviet troops. On April 20, German troops launched 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 German troops advanced 20 km in the general direction of Spremberg, threatening to reach the rear of the front.

2nd Belorussian Front (April 20-May 8)

From April 17 to 19, troops of the 65th Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front, under the command of Colonel General P.I. Batov, conducted reconnaissance in force and advanced detachments captured the Oder interfluve, thereby facilitating subsequent crossings 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, which was largely due to the engineering troops of the army. Having established two 16-ton pontoon crossings by 1 p.m., the troops of this army captured a bridgehead 6 kilometers wide and 1.5 kilometers deep by the evening of April 20.

We had a chance to observe the work of sappers. Working up to their necks in icy water amid exploding shells and mines, they made a crossing. Every second they were threatened with death, but people understood their soldier’s duty and thought about one thing - to help their comrades on the west bank and thereby bring victory closer.

More modest success was achieved on the central sector of the front in the 70th Army zone. The left-flank 49th Army met stubborn resistance and was unsuccessful. All day and all night on April 21, front troops, repelling numerous attacks by German troops, persistently expanded bridgeheads on the western bank of the Oder. In the current situation, 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, front troops 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 transported to the western bank of the Oder. At the first stage of the operation, the 2nd Belorussian Front, through its actions, shackled 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 took Stettin by storm. Subsequently, the armies of the 2nd Belorussian Front, breaking enemy resistance and destroying suitable reserves, stubbornly advanced 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 surrounded group of German troops began to be called the Frankfurt-Gubensky group. Now the Soviet command was faced with the task of eliminating the 200,000-strong enemy group and preventing its breakthrough to Berlin or to the West. To accomplish the last 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 of 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 put up stubborn resistance, but also repeatedly made attempts to break out of the encirclement. By skillfully maneuvering and skillfully creating superiority in forces on narrow sections of the front, 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 the 12th Army of General Wenck. Only a few small groups managed to penetrate through the forests and go west.

Assault on Berlin (April 25 - May 2)

A salvo of Soviet Katyusha rocket launchers hits Berlin

At 12 noon on April 25, the ring closed around Berlin when the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps of the 4th Guards Tank Army crossed the Havel River and linked up 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 city's defense was carefully thought out and well prepared. It was based on a system of strong fire, strongholds and resistance units. The closer to the city center, the denser the defense became. Massive stone buildings with thick walls gave it particular strength. The windows and doors of many buildings were sealed and turned into embrasures 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 context of street battles 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 to maneuver troops, as well as to shelter 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, consisting of rifle battalions or companies, reinforced with tanks, artillery and sappers. The actions of assault troops, 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 two fronts that had deeply advanced to 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 after block, Soviet troops advanced deeper into enemy defenses. So, by the evening of April 28, units of the 3rd Shock Army reached 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 Internal Affairs, adjacent to the parliament building, was stormed at the cost of considerable losses. The path to the Reichstag was open.

On April 30, 1945 at 14:25, 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 literally 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.

Helmut Weidling (left) and his staff officers surrender to Soviet troops. Berlin. May 2, 1945

On May 1, only the Tiergarten and the government quarter remained in German hands. The imperial chancellery was located here, in the courtyard of which there was a bunker at Hitler's headquarters. On the night of May 1, by prior agreement, the chief arrived at the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army General Staff German ground forces General Krebs. He informed the army commander, General V.I. Chuikov, about Hitler’s suicide and the proposal of the new German government to conclude a truce. The message was immediately transmitted to G.K. Zhukov, who himself called Moscow. Stalin confirmed his categorical demand for unconditional surrender. At 18:00 on May 1, the new German government rejected the demand for unconditional surrender, and Soviet troops were forced to new strength continue the assault.

At one o'clock in the morning on May 2, the radio stations of the 1st Belorussian Front received a message in Russian: “We ask you to cease fire. We are sending envoys 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 a.m. on May 2, Artillery General 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, with the help of loudspeaker installations and radio, delivered to enemy units defending in the center of Berlin. As this order was communicated to 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. Some units that did not want to surrender tried to break through to the west, but were destroyed or scattered.

Losses of the parties

USSR

From April 16 to May 8, Soviet troops lost 352,475 people, of which 78,291 were irretrievable. Losses Polish troops for the same period amounted to 8892 people, of which 2825 were irrevocable. The losses of military equipment amounted to 1,997 tanks and self-propelled guns, 2,108 guns and mortars, and 917 combat aircraft.

The Berlin operation is called the “final chord” of the Great Patriotic War. This military offensive operation was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest battle in history. On the part of both parties to the conflict, the following took part in the Berlin operation:

• about 3.5 million people,
• 52 thousand guns and mortars,
• 7750 tanks,
• almost 11 thousand aircraft.

The losses on the part of the Soviet troops were also enormous:

• 78291 people,
• 1997 tanks,
• 2108 guns,
• 917 aircraft,
• Polish troops - 2825 people.

Berlin operation. How it all began?

The middle of 1943 became a turning point in the Great Patriotic War, when the Soviet army began to have numerical superiority and showed itself to be a serious opponent of Nazi Germany. Preparations for the Berlin operation began in April 1945, and the operation ended, according to various sources, on May 2 or at the time of the complete surrender of Germany.

From April 4 to April 15, large forces were transferred from the 2nd Belorussian Front operating in northern Germany to storm Berlin. Marshal Rokossovsky called it the largest logistics operation of the war.

Thanks to reconnaissance aviation, the command had about 15 thousand photographs at its disposal, from which a detailed model of Berlin and the surrounding area was created.

The operation was supposed to be carried out by the troops of the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, but Rokossovsky was suddenly removed from his post in order to be appointed commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front. Rokossovsky went to fight in East Prussia, hundreds of kilometers from Berlin; this decision of I. Stalin at one time greatly offended the great commander.

“Having received General Headquarters’ tentative assumptions about the direction of action of the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front, my team and I began to work out the elements of the plan for a new offensive operation. But I was not destined to lead the troops of this front...

I returned to my checkpoint after a trip to the Puławy bridgehead beyond the Vistula. As soon as we gathered in the dining room to have dinner, the officer on duty reported that Headquarters was calling me. The apparatus had Stalin. He said that I was being appointed commander of the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front. This was so unexpected that I rashly asked:

– Why such disgrace that I am being transferred from the main direction to a secondary area?

Stalin replied that I was mistaken: the sector to which I was being transferred was part of the general western direction, in which troops of three fronts would operate; the success of this decisive operation will depend on the close cooperation of these fronts,”wrote Rokossovsky.

Rokossovsky spoke very honorably about who was appointed in his place:

“Regarding my transfer, Stalin announced that G.K. had been appointed to the 1st Belorussian Front. Zhukov.

– How do you look at this candidacy?

I replied that the candidate was quite worthy, that, in my opinion, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief chooses an assistant from among the most capable and worthy generals, which is Zhukov.”

Berlin operation. Progress of the battle

On April 20, it became clear that units of the 1st Ukrainian Front were advancing more successfully than the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front. There was a possibility that they would enter the city first, then G.K. Zhukov gave the order to the commander of the 2nd Tank Army, Semyon Bogdanov:

“Send one of the best brigades from each corps to Berlin and give them the task no later than 4 o’clock in the morning on April 21 to break through to the outskirts of Berlin at any cost and immediately report to Comrade Stalin and announce in the press.”

The competition between military leaders was so open that Marshal Konev wrote directly to the commanders of the 3rd and 4th Tank Armies:

“Marshal Zhukov’s troops are 10 km from the eastern outskirts of Berlin. I order you to be the first to break into Berlin tonight.”

Interestingly, Franklin Roosevelt gave similar orders in 1943 in the hope that the US military would be the first to enter Berlin.

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

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

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front carried out a rapid maneuver to reach Berlin from the south and west. On April 25, troops of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts united west of Berlin, completing the encirclement of the entire Berlin enemy group. Literally every street had to be recaptured in heavy battles and with heavy losses. On April 29, battles began for the Reichstag, the capture of which was entrusted to the 79th Rifle Corps of the 3rd Shock Army of the 1st Belorussian Front.

Berlin operation and the Victory banner

When the outcome of the Berlin operation was practically predetermined, immediately before the storming of the Reichstag, the Military Council of the 3rd Shock Army presented its divisions with nine Red Banners, which were specially made to resemble the State Flag of the USSR. One of these Red Banners, known as No. 5 as the Victory Banner, was given to the 150th Rifle Division. It was customary to present such banners to assault groups.

Historians report that the first to hoist the Victory Banner on the roof of the Reichstag at 22:30 Moscow time on April 30, 1945 were reconnaissance artillerymen of the 136th Army Cannon Artillery Brigade, senior sergeants G.K. Zagitov, A.F. Lisimenko, A.P. Bobrov and Sergeant A.P. Minin from the assault group of the 79th Rifle Corps, commanded by Captain V.N. Makov. And just three hours later, on another Reichstag sculpture, on the orders of the commander of the 756th Infantry Regiment of the 150th Infantry Division, Colonel F.M. Zinchenko erected Red Banner No. 5, which later became famous as the Victory Banner. Red Banner No. 5 was hoisted by scouts Sergeant M.A. Egorov and junior sergeant M.V. Kantaria, who were accompanied by Lieutenant A.P. Berest and machine gunners from the company of senior sergeant I.Ya. Syanova.

Berlin operation. End of the war

The fighting for the Reichstag ended only on May 1. On the morning of May 2, the chief of defense of Berlin, artillery general G. Weidling, surrendered and ordered the remnants of the Berlin garrison to stop resistance. On the same day, surrounded groups of German troops southeast of Berlin were liquidated.

On May 9 at 0:43 Moscow time, Field Marshal General Wilhelm Keitel and representatives of the German Navy, who had such authority from Doenitz, in the presence of Marshal G.K. Zhukov, on the Soviet side, signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany.

Military historians evaluate the Berlin operation as “brilliant” and call it one of the important steps towards the Great Victory.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Berlin 1945 was largest city Reich and its center. Here were the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, the Reich Chancellery, the headquarters of most armies and many other administrative buildings. By spring, Berlin was home to more than 3 million residents and about 300 thousand deported civilians from the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition.

The entire top of Nazi Germany remained here: Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Goering and others.

Preparing the operation

The Soviet leadership planned to take the city at the end of the Berlin offensive. This task was assigned to the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and Belorussian fronts. At the end of April, the advanced units met, the city was besieged.
The USSR allies refused to participate in the operation. Berlin in 1945 represented an extremely important strategic goal. In addition, the fall of the city would invariably lead to a victory in propaganda terms. The Americans developed a plan for the assault back in 1944. After consolidating the troops in Normandy, it was planned to make a rush north to the Ruhr and begin an attack on the city. But in September the Americans suffered huge losses in Holland and abandoned the operation.
Soviet troops on both fronts had more than 2 million manpower and about 6 thousand tanks. Of course, all of them could not participate in the assault. 460 thousand people were concentrated for the strike, and Polish formations also took part.

City defense

The defense of Berlin in 1945 was prepared very carefully. The garrison numbered over 200 thousand people. It is quite difficult to give an exact figure, since the civilian population was actively involved in the defense of the Nazi capital. The city was surrounded by several lines of defense. Every building was turned into a fortress. Barricades were built on the streets. Almost the entire population was obliged to take part in the construction of engineering structures. Concrete bunkers were hastily installed on the approaches to the city.

Berlin in 1945 was defended by the best troops of the Reich, including the SS. The so-called Volkssturm was also created - militia units recruited from civilians. They were actively armed with Faust cartridges. This is a single-shot anti-tank gun that fires cumulative projectiles. Machine gun crews were located in buildings and simply on city streets.

Offensive

Berlin in 1945 had already been under regular bombing for several months. In 1944, raids by the British and Americans became more frequent. Prior to this, in 1941, on the personal orders of Stalin, a number of secret operations were carried out by Soviet aviation, as a result of which a number of bombs were dropped on the city.
On April 25, massive artillery preparation began. Soviet aviation ruthlessly suppressed firing points. Howitzers, mortars, and MLRS hit Berlin with direct fire. On April 26, the fiercest fighting of the entire war began in the city. For the Red Army, the density of the city's buildings was a huge problem. It was extremely difficult to advance due to the abundance of barricades and dense fire.
Large losses in armored vehicles were caused by many Volkssturm anti-tank groups. To take one city block, it was first treated with artillery.

The fire stopped only when the infantry approached the German positions. Then the tanks destroyed the stone buildings blocking the path, and the Red Army moved on.

Liberation of Berlin (1945)

Marshal Zhukov ordered to use the experience of the Stalingrad battles. In a similar situation, Soviet troops successfully used small mobile groups. Several armored vehicles, a group of sappers, mortarmen and artillerymen were attached to the infantry. Also, sometimes flamethrowers were included in such a unit. They were needed to destroy the enemy hidden in underground communications.
The rapid advance of Soviet troops led to the encirclement of the Reichstag area within 3 days after the start of active fighting. 5 thousand Nazis concentrated in a small area in the city center. A ditch was dug around the building, making a tank breakthrough impossible. All available artillery fired at the building. On April 30, shells breached the Reichstag. At 14:25 a red flag was raised over the buildings.

The photograph that captured this moment would later become one of

The Fall of Berlin (1945)

After the capture of the Reichstag, the Germans began to flee en masse. Chief of the General Staff Krebs requested a ceasefire. Zhukov conveyed the proposal of the German side personally to Stalin. The commander-in-chief demanded only the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. The Germans rejected such an ultimatum. Immediately after this, heavy fire fell on Berlin. The fighting continued for several more days, as a result of which the Nazis were finally defeated and ended in Europe. in Berlin in 1945 showed the whole world the power of the liberating Red Army and Soviet people. The capture of the Nazi lair has forever remained one of the most important moments in the history of mankind.

On April 16, 1945, the Berlin strategic offensive operation of the Soviet troops began, which became the largest battle in human history. More than three million people, 11 thousand aircraft and about eight thousand tanks were involved in it on both sides.

By the beginning of 1945, Germany had 299 divisions, of which Eastern Front 192 divisions operated and 107 opposed the Anglo-American troops. The offensive operations of the Soviet troops at the beginning of 1945 created favorable conditions for the final blow in the Berlin direction. At the same time, the Allies launched an offensive on the Western Front and in Italy. In March 1945, German troops were forced to retreat beyond the Rhine. Pursuing them, American, British and French troops reached the Rhine, crossed the river on the night of March 24 and already encircled 20 German divisions in early April. After that Western Front practically ceased to exist. At the beginning of May, the Allies reached the Elbe, occupied Erfurt, Nuremberg, and entered Czechoslovakia. And Western Austria.

Be that as it may, the Germans continued to resist. On the approaches to Berlin it became even more desperate. The Germans had 2.5 months to prepare Berlin for defense, during which the front stood on the Oder, 70 km from the city. This preparation was by no means improvised. The Germans developed a whole system of turning their own and foreign cities into “festungs” - fortresses. To the east of the German capital, on the Oder and Neisse rivers, a fortified line was created, stretching to the city outskirts. The Nazis turned Berlin itself into a fortress: the streets were blocked by barricades, most houses were turned into firing points, and at every intersection there was a heavily fortified resistance center. Barricades in Germany were built at an industrial level and had nothing in common with the piles of rubbish that blocked the streets during the period of revolutionary unrest. Berlin ones, as a rule, were 2-2.5 meters in height and 2-2.2 meters in thickness. They were built from wood, stone, sometimes rails and shaped iron. Such a barricade easily withstood shots from tank guns and even divisional artillery with a caliber of 76-122 mm. When defending the city, the Germans intended to use the metro system and underground bunkers.

To organize the defense of the capital, the German command hastily formed new units. In January - March 1945, on military service young people and old people were called up. They formed assault battalions, tank destroyer squads and Hitler Youth units. Thus, Berlin was defended by a powerful group of German troops, which included about 80 divisions and about 300 Volkssturm battalions. One of the “finds” of the Germans in the defense of their capital was the Berlin tank company, assembled from tanks incapable of independent movement. They were dug in at street intersections and used as fixed firing points in the west and east of the city. In total, the Berlin company included 10 Panther tanks and 12 Pz tanks. IV. In addition to special defensive structures, the city had air defense facilities suitable for ground battles. We are talking primarily about the so-called flakturmas - massive concrete towers about 40 m high, on the roof of which anti-aircraft guns of up to 128 mm caliber were installed. Three such giant structures were built in Berlin. These are Flakturm I in the zoo area, Flakturm II in Friedrichshain in the east of the city and Flakturm III in Humbolthain in the north.

To carry out the Berlin operation, the Headquarters attracted 3 fronts: 1st Belorussian under the command of G.K. Zhukov, 2nd Belorussian under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky and the 1st Ukrainian under the command of I.S. Koneva. It was proposed to use part of the forces of the Baltic Fleet to help the ground fronts, commander Admiral V.F. Tributs, Dnieper Military Flotilla, Commander Rear Admiral V.V. Grigoriev and units military aviation. Soviet troops significantly outnumbered the enemy; in the direction of the main attacks, the advantage was overwhelming. The troops that stormed Berlin numbered, as of April 26, 1945, 464,000 people and about 1,500 tanks. The Soviet command set the following tasks for the troops concentrated in the Berlin direction: the 1st Belorussian Front, delivering the main blow from the Küstrin bridgehead, was supposed to defeat the enemy on the approaches to Berlin and on the fifteenth day after the start of the operation, having captured the city, go to the Elbe. The 2nd Belorussian Front was supposed to cross the Oder, defeat the enemy and, no later than the fifteenth day from the start of the operation, capture the Anklam - Demin - Malkhin - Wittenberg line. With this, the front troops supported the actions of the 1st Belorussian Front from the north. The 1st Ukrainian Front was tasked with defeating German troops in the Cottbus area and south of Berlin. On the tenth - twelfth day after the start of the offensive, the front troops were supposed to capture Wittenberg and the line running along the Elbe to Dresden.

The Berlin operation began on April 16, 1945 with the offensive of the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts. A night attack was carried out in the offensive zone of the 1st Belorussian Front using anti-aircraft searchlights. The searchlights blinded the Germans, preventing them from taking aim. Thanks to this technique, the Soviet troops overcame the first line of enemy defense without major losses, but the Germans soon came to their senses and began to put up fierce resistance. It was especially difficult at the Seelow Heights, which were turned into a continuous defense hub. This fortified area was captured only in the evening of the third day of the offensive, after the German firing points were literally wiped off the face of the earth by the attacks of 800 Soviet bombers. By the end of April 18, units of the Soviet armed forces broke through the enemy’s defenses and began to capture Berlin. Suffering huge losses, especially in tanks, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts united in the Potsdam area, encircling Berlin. And on April 25, the advanced units of the Soviet army met American patrols on the Elbe River. The allied armies united.

The assault on Berlin began on April 26. The fighting in the city was carried out by assault groups, under the directive of G.K. Zhukov recommended including 8-12 guns with a caliber of 45 to 203 mm and 4-6 mortars of 82-120 mm in the assault detachments. The assault groups included sappers and “chemists” with smoke bombs and flamethrowers. Tanks also became constant participants in these groups. It is well known that their main enemy in urban battles in 1945 was hand-held anti-tank weapons—faustpatrons. It should be said that shortly before the Berlin operation, the troops conducted experiments on shielding tanks. However, they did not give a positive result: even when a Faustpatron grenade exploded on the screen, the tank’s armor penetrated. In any case, the massive use of Faustpatrons made it difficult to use tanks, and if the Soviet troops had relied only on armored vehicles, the battles for the city would have become much bloodier. It should be noted that the Faust cartridges were used by the Germans not only against tanks, but also against infantry. Forced to walk ahead of the armored vehicles, the infantrymen came under a hail of shots from the Faustniks. Therefore, cannon and rocket artillery provided invaluable assistance in the assault. The specifics of urban battles forced divisional and attached artillery to be placed on direct fire. As paradoxical as it sounds, direct fire guns sometimes turned out to be more effective than tanks. The report of the 44th Guards Cannon Artillery Brigade on the Berlin operation stated: “The enemy’s use of Panzerfausts led to a sharp increase in losses in tanks - limited visibility makes them easily vulnerable. Direct fire guns do not suffer from this drawback; their losses, in comparison with tanks, are small.” This was not an unfounded statement: the brigade lost only two guns in street battles, one of which was hit by the enemy with a Faustpatron. In the end, even Katyushas began to be used for direct fire. Frames of large-caliber M-31 rockets were installed in houses on window sills and fired at buildings opposite. A distance of 100-150 m was considered optimal. The projectile managed to accelerate, broke through the wall and exploded inside the building. This led to the collapse of partitions and ceilings and, as a consequence, the death of the garrison.

Another “destroyer of buildings” was heavy artillery. In total, during the assault on the German capital, 38 high-power guns, that is, 203-mm B-4 howitzers of the 1931 model, were put into direct fire. These powerful tracked guns often appear in newsreels dedicated to the battles for the German capital. The B-4 crews acted boldly, even boldly. For example, one of the guns was installed at the intersection of Liden Strasse and Ritter Strasse 100-150 m from the enemy. Six fired shells were enough to destroy a house prepared for defense. Turning the gun, the battery commander destroyed three more stone buildings. In Berlin, there was only one building that withstood a B-4 strike - it was the Flakturm am Zoo anti-aircraft defense tower, also known as Flakturm I. Units of the 8th Guards and 1st Guards entered the area of ​​the Berlin Zoo tank armies. The tower turned out to be a tough nut to crack for them. The shelling of her with 152-mm artillery was completely ineffective. Then 105 concrete-piercing shells of 203 mm caliber were fired at the flakturm with direct fire. As a result, the corner of the tower was destroyed, but it continued to live until the capitulation of the garrison.

Despite the desperate resistance of the enemy, Soviet troops captured most of the city and began to storm the central sector. The Tiergarten park and the Gestapo building were taken in battle. On the evening of April 30, the storming of the Reichstag began. The battle was still going on, and dozens of red banners soared over the building of the German parliament, one of which Sergeant M. Egorov and Junior Sergeant M. Kantaria strengthened above the central pediment. After two days of resistance, the 5,000-strong German group defending the Reichstag laid down its arms. On April 30, Hitler committed suicide, appointing Admiral Dennitz as his successor. On May 2, the Berlin garrison capitulated. During the assault, the garrison lost 150 thousand soldiers and officers killed. 134,700 people surrendered, including 33,000 officers and 12,000 wounded.

At midnight from May 8 to 9, 1945, in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, the act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. On the Soviet side, the act was signed by Marshal Zhukov, on the German side by Field Marshal Keitel. On May 10-11, the German group in Czechoslovakia capitulated, unsuccessfully trying to break through to the west in order to surrender to the Anglo-American troops. The war in Europe was over.

The Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces established the medal “For the Capture of Berlin,” which was awarded to more than 1 million soldiers. 187 units and formations that most distinguished themselves during the assault on the enemy capital were given the honorary name “Berlin”. More than 600 participants in the Berlin operation were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 13 people were awarded the 2nd Gold Star medal.

Gabriel Tsobekhia

Oleg Kozlov

Military University of the Russian Defense Ministry

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