v1.0.1 / chapter 13 of 15 / 01 mar 08 / greg goebel / public domain
* After almost four years of war, the Red Army was ready to begin the final push, driving on Berlin with massive armies in the face of desperate but faltering resistance. Although the outcome of the battle could not be in doubt, it would still prove to be as hard and painful as any other major battle in the East.
* The Soviet assault on Berlin was to involve a total of four Red Army fronts. Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front, having cleaned the Germans out of the Baltic states, would be on the northern flank of the attack, protecting Zhukov's First Belorussian Front, which was to drive on the city proper, more or less in coordination with Konev's First Ukrainian Front just to the south. Yeremenko's Fourth Ukrainian Front would keep up the pressure on the defense of southern Germany. The offensive would be conducted by about 2,500,000 men, 45,000 artillery pieces and Katyusha launchers, plus 6,250 tanks.
The Soviets were opposed by German Army Group Vistula under Colonel General Gotthardt Heinrici in the north and German Army Group Center under Field Marshal Ferdinand Schoerner in the south. Heinrici, who had replaced Himmler in the command just a few weeks earlier, was nothing like his predecessor. Heinrici a short, quiet, grim, blunt man who the Nazi leadership distrusted because he tended to speak his mind and who was also a devout churchgoer. In fact, he had been sidelined from command for a time after the disasters in the East in the summer of 1943. His troops trusted him, however, calling him "our tough little bastard." Schoerner, in contrast, was loud, overbearing, and bullying, his major virtue in the eyes of his superiors being that he was a 100% Nazi. Though his troops differed on the quality of his generalship, they were in agreement that he was a 100% bastard.
While the main show against Berlin was underway, Malinovsky's Second Ukrainian Front would drive into Austria, ensuring that Hitler couldn't shuttle troops north to brace up the defense of the city. Hitler understood the threat to Berlin from the East -- even in his shaky condition, it would have been hard to ignore the Red Army when it was all but camping on his doorstep -- and had engaged in some imaginative exercises to scrape up more troops.
In early April, Heinrici had attended a meeting in the Fuehrer's bunker in Berlin, where Hitler's chief lieutenants offered personnel to help hold the line on the Oder. Goering offered 100,000 Luftwaffe men; Himmler 25,000 SS troopers; and Admiral Doenitz offered 12,000 navy men. Heinrici was appalled and replied that such inexperienced soldiers would certainly be slaughtered. Goering took offense at the implied slight since he believed his people were "ubermenschen", and Hitler said that the reinforcements could be kept in the rear as reserves and brought up to standard in time.
In time? What time? Heinrici got about 35,000 of the men he was promised and found them, to no surprise, to be a completely mixed lot of old and young who were completely unprepared for frontline combat. There were even a few men who showed up in tuxedos, apparently having been press-ganged while they were out on the town. Heinrici informed Berlin that the only thing that the lot of them would be good for was digging ditches and the like. Berlin told him to shut up and arm them. Arm them? With what? All he could scrape up was about a thousand old rifles, many of which were not compatible with any ammunition he had in quantity.
In the city, Berliners were now throwing up barricades and digging trenches against the imminent assault. The work hadn't really started until March, and it was all somewhat pathetic. A black joke made the rounds that it would take the Soviets two hours and five minutes to get through one of the obstacles: two hours to laugh at it, five minutes to actually overrun it.
The Soviet forces that would drive on Berlin had an overwhelming advantage over the Germans in all categories of military power, ranging from three to one to five to one, and the Red Army was well-equipped with modern and thoroughly combat-proven weapons. The outcome of the coming battle could not be doubted by anyone with any sense; the only question was how long it would take and how much it would cost. German officers were appalled to find that when the Soviets blasted propaganda at young conscript soldiers in the frontline trenches, some of the soldiers would shout back and ask what kind of treatment they could expect to receive as prisoners.
Hitler remained in hiding in his bunker, still grasping at straws for a miracle victory. He was ecstatic when he heard on 13 April 1945 that American President Roosevelt had died the day before, seeing it as the turning point of his fortunes. Soon, Hitler predicted, the Soviets and the Western Allies would fall out and be at each other's throats. He continued to issue his ranting declarations, calling on Germans to fight to the death.
Citizens understood the "death" part of the declarations only too well. Lawyers were working overtime helping people make out wills, and rat poison and cyanide capsules were in great demand. That Christmas a black joke had been making the rounds in Berlin: "Be practical -- give a coffin." Another joke in circulation said that the signs that littered the city indicating "LSR" for "Luftschutzraum (Air Raid Shelter)" actually meant "Lernt Schnell Russiche (Learn Russian Quickly)". The "Heil Hitler" greeting had all but disappeared among the citizens.
* Starting on the night of 12 April, the Red Army sent out battalion-sized units to probe German defenses, gradually escalating the probes and backing them up with artillery barrages. Everyone on both sides knew the storm was coming within days. At 3:00 AM on 16 April the storm broke, with Zhukov's forces hammering on German positions in front of the Soviet bridgehead at Kustrin, on the west bank of the Oder, with 10,000 guns and 400 Katyusha barrage rocket launchers. Within a half hour, a half-million shells had fallen on the German Ninth Army. The thunder was audible in Berlin.
The bombardment was noisy and spectacular but not very effective. Heinrici had anticipated it and quietly pulled the bulk of his troops back from the front lines to defenses in the rear. There were two lines of defenses in front of the heights and a very solid line of defense with mortar pits and antitank gun positions on the top of the Seelowe Heights, rugged high ground well behind the front lines. When one of his officers protested at the pullback, Heinrici replied in his matter-of-fact way: "You don't put your head under a trip hammer, do you? You pull it back in time."
At 5:30 AM, three Soviet armies moved forward from the Soviet bridgehead into the churned-up German front lines. Their way was in principle illuminated by 143 searchlights on the east bank of the Oder, which Zhukov had arranged to help blind the Germans and give his people an advantage. In fact, in all the smoke and dust the searchlights simply confused the troops, and most of the soldiers halted to wait for daylight.
When the sun did come up, the troops were disturbed to find that the shattered frontline defenses into which they were moving into were empty of the remains of German soldiers. The lack of enemy artillery fire was also eerie, and experienced troops got the unpleasant suspicion they were advancing into a trap. They were absolutely correct. When Red Army tanks and infantry came well into range, they were hit by a storm of German artillery and machine-gun fire that stopped the advance in its tracks, at least for the moment. The lowlands in front of the Seelowe Heights were crisscrossed by streams and canals, creating obstacles to armor and other vehicles, and the ferocious bombardment had churned up the terrain. Soviet troops were mired down and easy targets.
Konev began his bombardment at 4:15 AM, which was followed up by massive air raids into the German rear. Konev did not have a bridgehead on the western bank of the Neisse and didn't think it would be practical to bridge the river in the dark. To provide cover for his engineers, he had aircraft lay down a thick cloud of smoke while rockets and artillery plastered German positions. Spearheads went across the river at 5:55 AM. By midmorning, engineers had set up twenty pontoon bridges. Tanks that were too heavy for the pontoon bridges were ferried across.
The Germans were expecting an attack to the south, towards Prague, and the First Ukrainian Front achieved tactical surprise, rapidly penetrating the first line of German defenses. They found shell-shocked Germans in the trenches, many of whom surrendered with little or no resistance, calling out in rough Russian: "Ivan, don't shoot!" One German prisoner told his interrogators: "The only promise Hitler has kept is the one he made before coming to power: Give me ten years and you will not be able to recognize Germany."
Konev's initial success contrasted sharply with Zhukov's difficulties. Zhukov normally scouted out enemy defenses personally before beginning an assault, but he had been distracted by Stalin's nagging and had relied on aerial reconnaissance photographs for planning his attack. Zhukov assumed that the sheer weight of the preliminary bombardment and his masses of troops would carry the day. He later admitted that he had greatly underestimated the strength of the German defenses. He still descended on General Vasily Chuikov, commander of the Eighth Guards Army and the hero of Stalingrad, and chewed him up one side and down the other. Chuikov, who disliked Zhukov for his arrogance and ambition, could only try to assure him that things would work out, but Zhukov went on with his tirade.
In mid-afternoon, in an attempt to hurry things along, Zhukov ordered armored forces to the front. Chuikov was horrified, since he saw that would create a hideous traffic jam. That was exactly what happened, with vehicles immobilized while Red Army troops at the front continued to be chewed up by the Germans. The confused state at the front also led to Red Army units suffering more than the usual share of casualties from misdirected Soviet attack aircraft and artillery batteries. However, the Soviets did make some progress, helped by air strikes that destroyed much of Heinrici's heavy artillery on top of the heights, and the Germans were taking serious casualties themselves. That was not much consolation to Zhukov, who in his own turn had to endure being cut down to size by Stalin during a conversation over radio that evening: Koba taunted Zhukov with Konev's success to the south, demanded results, and then hung up abruptly.
Of course, the assault on Berlin couldn't be concealed from the Western Allies. For the moment, Stalin kept up the lie he had fed Eisenhower. The Americans were told that the Red Army was merely performing a "reconnaissance in force" to determine the strength of German defenses in the area.
* The German defense of the Seelowe Heights began to erode the next day, 17 April, with the simple size and weight of the attackers chewing up the defenders and eroding holes in their lines. Desperate and in some cases deliberately suicidal attacks by Luftwaffe pilots against the Red Army's bridges over the Oder proved largely futile. Such damage as they inflicted at the cost of their lives was quickly made good.
Heinrici wanted to counterattack, using 30,000 troops then stationed in the town of Frankfurt-on-Oder to the south (of course, not the same place as the city of Frankfurt to the west, by that time in Allied hands). These troops were in immediate danger of being encircled by Konev's First Ukrainian Front, which was moving forward rapidly. He needed these soldiers to halt Konev's advance so he could focus on Zhukov. However, Frankfurt-on-Oder had been designated as a "fortified place" by the Fuehrer, and though Heinrici called to request permission to use these troops, Hitler turned him down flat.
As a result, Konev's First Ukrainian Front continued to move west rapidly. Konev had a lot of good news to report to Stalin that night and Koba was appreciative. Stalin pointed out that Zhukov was having troubles and suggested that the First Belorussian Front be shifted from its hammering at the Seelowe Heights and join Konev's offensive. Konev knew this was logistically impractical, and also knew that if Zhukov came south Konev would be taking orders from him. Konev told Stalin that the First Ukrainian Front was strong enough to take Berlin, if Koba so wished. He did. Konev was authorized to shift his attack to the north and advance on the city.
Konev ordered his two tank armies to move on Berlin, instructing the commanders to cut off the western approaches to the city and isolate it, to go around strong points and to absolutely not perform frontal attacks. This would get them to the city quickly, with a minimum of wastage. The German units trapped behind the advance would then be cut off, to be given a choice between surrender and destruction. Konev's armor moved north the first thing in the morning of 18 April.
To the north, Zhukov continued to hammer in something resembling blind rage at the German defenses on the Seelowe Heights, throwing in everything he had and all but oblivious to the piles of casualties. Back in the Fuehrer's bunker there was rejoicing over the continued frustration of Zhukov's offensive, with Hitler once again believing that his fortunes might still be retrieved.
His excitement was short-lived. That same day, 18 April, Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front had jumped off across the lower section of the Oder. The Germans fought back furiously and it would take the Soviets two days to break through, but efforts elsewhere were now showing results. On 19 April, Zhukov's troops finally cracked German defenses. Zhukov had shown little finesse in the attack, losing at least 30,000 men in the meat grinder to the 12,000 casualties of the Germans, but the simple mass of the assault had finally ground down the defenders. Now Zhukov and Konev were truly in a race. Konev radioed his commanders to move faster.
Heinrici knew that disaster was finally on him and he once more called Berlin to ask that the troops in Frankfurt-on-Oder be released. He ended up talking to General Hans Krebs, the new German Army chief of staff. Krebs had replaced Guderian on 28 March, when Guderian finally decided to speak his mind to the Fuehrer. Witnesses described the confrontation between the two as a furious screaming match, with Hitler's face becoming paler and paler as Guderian's face got redder and redder. Some of the witnesses in attendance slipped out of the room and managed to arrange an "urgent call" for Guderian as a means of interrupting the quarrel. When Guderian returned, Hitler ordered him to take "six week's convalescent leave".
Krebs had been Guderian's deputy and moved up into his shoes. Krebs was apparently a good staff officer but not suited for the top command, more inclined to tell jokes than to bark orders and very quick to trim to changing winds. He was regarded as suitable for the job because he had little inclination to disagree with Hitler. In response to Heinrici's request, Krebs didn't even bother to talk to the Fuehrer; he simply barked at Heinrici to "hold all positions" and then hung up.
* The situation continued to fall apart at a rapid rate over the next few days. On 20 April, Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in his bunker, with his senior Nazi lieutenants in attendance, including Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler, and Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. The Americans had also given the Fuehrer a birthday present that morning: a massive bombing raid on Berlin that inflicted major damage on the city, cutting gas and water supplies. Many officials began to flee west.
Down in the bunker, Goering was dressed in an olive drab field uniform instead of his usual imperial silk-and-satin dress uniforms. There were whispers at the party that he looked like an American general, presumably because he wanted to put on an agreeable appearance when he surrendered. In fact, Goering had already fled his mansion at Karinhall estate to the northwest of Berlin, with a convoy of dozens of trucks loaded down with the loot he had stolen from Germany's conquests. He himself had pushed the plunger to blast the mansion into ruins when he left. The failure of Goering's Luftwaffe to help stop the Allied tide against Germany, a failure that had made even more vivid by Goering's tendency to make overblown boasts that he couldn't back up, had left him out of favor with the Fuehrer, but Hitler was feeling agreeable with Goering that day.
Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler was not in the Hitler's favor either. The Fuehrer was disappointed in Himmler's poor performance as commander of Army Group Vistula. Hitler would have been even more disappointed if he had known that Himmler was putting out feelers to make a deal with the Western Allies, going through the motions of smuggling a few Jews from the concentration camps to safety in hopes the Americans and British would think he had turned over a new leaf. He was almost as deluded as Hitler. Whatever misgivings and problems the Western Allies had with the Soviets, Hitler and his lieutenants were the enemy, pure and simple, and at that late date the Germans had no real bargaining position. The Allies would win the war and soon; what did they have to discuss with vermin like Himmler? One German Army colonel who was sounded out by one of Himmler's underlings on the Reichsfuehrer's scheme replied that it was too little, too late, and Himmler was "the most unsuitable man in the whole of Germany for such negotiations."
Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz's star was still bright in Hitler's eyes. To be sure, Doenitz's attempt to strangle Britain with his U-boat fleet had failed, but Hitler, in an unusual outburst of reasonableness, had recognized that submarine construction had been given low priority. Doenitz was a dedicated Nazi, so devoted to the Fuehrer that he was regarded in some quarters as an overgrown Hitler Youth, and Hitler admired his crisp military efficiency. Hitler saw Doenitz as a possible successor -- though the admiral had competition in the form of Martin Bormann, the low-profile master schemer, "dear Martin" to the Fuehrer.
The guests urged Hitler to flee Berlin and go south to the mountains to lead continued resistance. He refused to do it, saying he could not flee Berlin and expect his soldiers to go on fighting. The meeting soon broke up, with most of the guest departing. Goering went to his castle in Bavaria, where he would soon be under house arrest. Himmler went off to pursue his futile peace initiatives. Doenitz was dispatched to take command of the defense of the Reich in the south.
Goebbels remained behind. He was the purest of pure Nazis, Hitler's old and trusted friend. That morning he had performed one of his last propaganda broadcasts, calling on Germans to trust in the Fuehrer and saying Hitler would lead them out of difficulties. Some Berliners listening to the broadcast concluded that Goebbels had gone completely mad. In any case, Hitler had asked him to stay. Goebbels would share the fate of the Fuehrer.
* Fate was approaching rapidly. At exactly 11:30 AM the next day, 21 April, the first Soviet shells slammed into Berlin, taking citizens by surprise and scattering dead and wounded on the pavement. Hitler thought that the Red Army must have been using long-range railroad guns, but was told that there were no rail lines in condition to bring such a weapon so far forward. The shells were from conventional heavy field artillery. In fact, the Soviets were close enough that they could see the landmarks of the city through field glasses.
Hitler, having woken up to the fact that the enemy was literally at the gates, threw together new elaborate plans to deal with the attackers. They were all fantasies; there were simply no resources left to take the counter-offensive. Heinrici, having reached the limit of his ability to endure such nonsense, told Chief of Staff Krebs that he wished to be relieved of command so he could fight in the ranks. Krebs didn't want to relay the request to the Fuehrer, but Heinrici insisted. The Fuehrer denied the request.
At midday on 21 April, the German Army cleared out of the big underground headquarters complex at Zossen, south of Berlin, just ahead of Konev's forces. The Red Army occupied the complex later that afternoon, finding only a caretaker and four soldiers. Three of the soldiers surrendered without any hesitation, the fourth failing to do so only because he was too drunk to stand up. The caretaker took the amazed Russians on a tour of the facility. Suddenly a phone rang. One of the soldiers picked up the phone to hear a voice asking questions in German. The soldier answered in Russian: "Ivan is here, go to hell." -- and hung up.
On 22 April, Hitler tried to get reports on the progress of the counter-offensives he had ordered. Of course, he soon found out that nothing was happening. He flew into a mad rage, far more wild and raving than the tantrums to which everyone had become accustomed; he all but foamed at the mouth, cried out: "The war is lost!" -- and then, spent, collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His staff, appalled, tried to encourage him, saying he should leave Berlin and go to the mountains in the south. That brought him out of his stupor. He told his generals that they should leave, but he would stay and fight this one last battle.
On the afternoon of 22 April Hitler sent Keitel southwest of the city to give General Walther Wenck and his 12th Army orders to come to the rescue of Berlin and send the Red hordes packing. Keitel met with Wenck the next morning, 23 April, and blustered on at length. One witness reported: "We let him talk and we let him leave." Wenck was a soldier's soldier, highly professional and a great inspiration to his men, and he knew perfectly well that he had been ordered to lead his troops to futile destruction. He shrugged and rearranged the orders to conform to reality: the 12th Army would attack, but it would simply be a rescue operation to help survivors of trapped German forces to the east escape the grasp of the Red Army.
On 24 April, Wenck's 12th Army to the southwest began its "relief operation". One of his officers wrote: "Who would have ever thought that it would be just a day's march from the Western Front to the Eastern Front?" There was no thought of defeating the Red Army, only to do everything that could be reasonably done to reach trapped German civilians and soldiers, and then withdraw west. Wenck hardly bothered to acknowledge most of the orders sent him, though communications and organization were in such a bad state that it wasn't much trouble to ignore them.
* The fact that the Germans didn't have the resources to conduct a counter-offensive didn't mean that they had given up the fight. In fact, as the Red Army approached Berlin, German resistance stiffened and Soviet progress slowed.
Konev's First Ukrainian Front encountered a particularly nasty obstacle, in the form of the Teltow Canal, which ran along the southern side of the city. The canal was wide and too deep to be easily forded; the Germans had heavily mined the approaches, blown all the bridges, and built up a set of strongpoints on the far side of the canal. They were manned by 15,000 troops, who were well-armed by the standards of the time.
Cracking the Teltow Canal line fell to General Pavel Rybalko and his Third Guards Tank Army. He spent all of 23 April bringing up 3,000 artillery pieces, mortars, and Katyusha rocket launchers, concentrating them on a narrow front. At 6:20 AM on 24 April, they all opened up, and then assault teams crossed the canal in collapsible boats to dig out strongpoints with flame throwers and explosive charges. The Germans didn't die easily, wiping out some of the teams or forcing them to fall back, but the outcome of the fight was never in doubt. By early afternoon, Soviet armor was rolling across the canal on top of pontoon bridges, even while fighting continued to crush German resistance up and down the waterway. There were no more serious obstacles in front of Konev's troops to keep them from reaching downtown Berlin.
While Rybalko's artillery was beginning their bombardment that morning, elements of his army were linking up in the northeast with their counterparts in Chuikov's Eighth Guards Army. Chuikov reported the incident to Frontal headquarters, and quickly got a reply from Zhukov to document all the details of the encounter. Chuikov, no doubt shaking his head, concluded that Zhukov wanted to make sure that he was properly credited as being the first to actually reach Berlin. In fact, troops of Zhukov's First Belorussian Front were already fighting their way into the northern districts of the city. Resistance was stubborn and it appeared likely that Konev would reach the city center first, but Stalin then intervened in Zhukov's favor, reserving that district for the First Belorussian Front.
* In the meantime, armored columns of the Second Belorussian Front had been circling around the city to the north, while counterparts in the First Ukrainian Front were moving up along the west side of city to meet them. Their progress was blocked by a group of Hitler Youth along with some elderly Volkssturm troops, armed mostly with the panzerfaust, an oversized one-shot antitank grenade launcher, sometimes called the "Foot Stuka" after the Stuka tank-buster aircraft. Many German commanders had refused to commit Hitler Youth to battle, feeling it would be irresponsible and dishonorable to send kids out to be slaughtered, but the defenders fought stubbornly for two days until they were overwhelmed. Zhukov and Konev's tanks finally linked up at noon on 25 April. Berlin was now surrounded.
That same day, 25 April, American and Soviet units finally joined hands on the Elbe, cutting Germany in half. The two forces had been very cautious about making contact with each other because of the risk of potentially disastrous "friendly fire" incidents. Radio signals had been going back and forth for a few days, with Soviet radio operators careful not to reveal unit locations because the Germans were listening in. In fact, German operators had even broken in on the conversations every now and then to make sarcastic remarks.
An advance patrol of Americans that had been sent to free some Allied prisoners made contact first, to be shot at until they got a Soviet prisoner to shout at his comrades and tell them to cease fire. After that, everyone got along famously, with the Russians hugging and even kissing startled Americans. Commanders of US General Patton's and Konev's armies met together for a steak banquet to celebrate the meeting, polished off by a victory cake and with plenty of champagne to wash it down.
* Despite the cameraderie between the troops, tensions were evident under the surface. Patton felt that his armies should keep on going; there were Soviet generals who felt the same way. The generals did not determine policy. Marshal Budyonny told Stalin that he felt Soviet tanks should keep right on rolling until they reached the English Channel, but Stalin broke him off and mocked the idea. The Western Allies wanted Hitler defeated and were only hesitantly coming to grips with the potential menace of Stalin. Stalin on his part knew that the Soviet Union had to rest and rebuild with whatever help he could still pry out of his allies. He also had detailed knowledge from his spies of the fearsome weapon the Americans were building in the New Mexico desert.
Stalin would rebuild, get the atomic bomb himself, and deal with the West on more equal terms later. The battle for Berlin also factored into that consideration. On 25 April, the Red Army captured the Max Planck Institute for Physics in the city, which had been a center for Nazi nuclear research. The physicists, led by Werner Heisenberg, had fled West to surrender to the British, but the Soviets captured some real trophies, in the form of 250 kilograms (400 pounds) of refined uranium and tonnes of unrefined uranium oxide. NKVD specialists descended on the institute to pick its bones clean. The institute was in a sector of Berlin marked for later occupation by the Western Allies, and the Soviets wanted to make sure that nothing was left behind.
In the meantime, Red Army artillery pounded the center of Berlin, while assault teams worked block by block, building by building, backed up by flame-throwers, as well as antitank guns and armor firing into German strongpoints at point-blank range. The assault troops tunneled through buildings by blasting holes in walls or crept through sewers to infiltrate and compromise German positions.
The Soviets kept on creeping closer to the center of the city. If they encountered resistance in an area, they pounded it with Katyusha barrages to soften it up, turning Berlin into rubble as they went. The rubble actually helped the defenders, allowing them to quickly set up strongpoints and roadblocks that had to be dug out with steel and blood. In fact, the Germans gradually began to destroy buildings themselves to set up obstacles to the Soviets.
Many of the Volkssturm surrendered under the pressure, but hardcore Waffen SS troops often fought to the last man. About half of them weren't even Germans, instead being survivors of foreign Waffen SS units. They fought very hard, since they had signed up to fight the loathesome Bolshevik, and in the new European order of the near future, their prospects were very dim anyway.
SS death squads also did what they could to brace up less motivated troops, executing on the spot anyone who seemed to be less than enthusiastic about carrying on the struggle. Any civilian flying a white flag from a window was likely to be hanged immediately. The squads were manned by junior SS officers, blindly fanatical youngsters with no real combat experience.
Such disciplinary actions were not so easy when the potential victims were well armed and perfectly willing to shoot back. Along with the Volkssturm and Hitler Youth on the lines, there were also scarred combat veterans, survivors of Army Group Vistula who had fallen back on the city. The German Army had never had much liking for the SS and the dislike had been growing rapidly over the previous few months, since they found the SS much more willing to execute deserters, real or imagined, than to come to grips with the Red Army. German Army soldiers had little tolerance for being bullied by what amounted to overgrown Hitler Youth and were more than a match for them. Major General Walter Mummert, commander of the Muencheburg panzer division, bluntly ordered the SS to stay out of his sector, saying his troops would shoot them on sight if they didn't.
A particular focus of the Red Army's drive into Berlin was the Tempelhof airport, in the south of the city, since Stalin wanted to make sure that Hitler couldn't fly out of the trap. The defenders fought back very stubbornly, but the airfield finally fell at about midday on 26 April. Actually, if Hitler had wanted to escape, Tempelhof wasn't necessary. That same day, General Robert Ritter von Greim, the Luftwaffe commander in the Munich area, flew into Berlin with his lover, Hannah Reitsch, in a little Fiesler Storch lightplane. Greim had been ordered by the Fuehrer to come to Berlin in haste. He had been wounded by flak but Reitsch took the controls and got the aircraft in to safety.
Reitsch had completely broken the mold of the Nazi stereotype that a woman's place was in the home and gotten away with it, having become a national celebrity. She had been awarded the Iron Cross First Class and was a personal confidante of the Fuehrer. She pleaded with Hitler to fly out of the city with her in the Storch and save himself, but he said he would remain in Berlin and die there. He asked her to join him in his fate, and she agreed.
It was only a matter of time for Berlin now, as the Red Army pushed into the city. The Germans had to be crushed, building by building, block by block. Many German troops surrendered but others fought on bitterly, shooting at Soviet troops from the windows of buildings or trying to ambush Red tanks with panzerfausts. The confusion of the fighting, aggravated by Stalin's pushiness and his insistence on throwing massive forces into the battle, led to a large number of friendly-fire casualties, particularly from artillery.
Red Army battalions were ground up and destroyed in the fighting and new ones thrown in to replace them. New recruits were sent into the fight with little training, and even liberated Soviet prisoners were handed weapons and immediately put into the struggle. The Red Army was now breaking through the outer lines of Berlin's defenses, gradually pushing German forces into the core of the city around the Tiergarten, the great central park and zoo. Its eastern entrance was marked by the Brandenburg Gate. The Reichstag, the old German legislature building, was to the north of the gate, and his bunker was to the south. It was the last stand of the Third Reich.
* Elsewhere German troops were giving up the fight. The British and the Americans were now encountering little opposition, and when any was offered it was usually quickly overcome after a brief exchange of fire, some Germans being reluctant to give up without at least putting up a token show of resistance. Walter Model, in charge of Army Group B in the Ruhr, found his command disintegrating underneath him. This was too much of a catastrophe even for Model, and he shot himself on 21 April.
Ilya Ehrenberg wrote that the Germans were surrendering to the British and Americans "with fanatical persistence". Surprisingly, this comment was not mockery of the Germans but a display of bitter resentment over the fact that the Western Allies were having a much easier war. Stalin had even specifically complained about the disparity between German resistance from East to West in a message to Roosevelt on 7 April, hinting strongly that there was double-dealing behind it -- apparently oblivious to the fact that it was the Red Army's harshness that had forced the Germans to fight like trapped animals, and completely oblivious to the fact that Red Army tactical doctrine all but encouraged excessive losses of men.
The Germans had done much in the USSR to provoke Red Army brutality, but that did not change the simple logic of the situation. A Berlin teenager recollected later how he was riding in a railroad car where the passengers were bitterly cursing their lot, when a grizzled and heavily decorated veteran sitting among them loudly told all of them to shut up. The veteran explained with staggering honesty that Germans had to fight to the last: "If others win the war, and if they do to us only a fraction of what we have done in the occupied territories, there won't be a single German left in a few weeks."
Stalin had figured out the logic of the situation by that time. In mid-April Soviet propaganda had abruptly reversed its line and began to encourage good treatment of German civilians and prisoners, leaving Ehrenberg hanging in the wind -- a condition that could have a literal interpretation in the Soviet Union. The change in policy made little difference to the frontoviki, who went on conducting themselves as they had, with some asking why they didn't see articles by Ehrenberg any more. It was likely only Ehrenberg's popularity with the troops that kept him from being arrested.
In some cities in the south of the Reich, groups of Germans who had become disillusioned with Naziism, if they had ever had any sympathy for it, organized to take matters into their own hands. Rebel groups helped to hand Augsburg over to the Americans, though the rebels had less luck in Munich. The US Army entered the city only to find a miniature civil war in progress that took a few days of violence and confusion to sort out.
German units facing the Red Army around Berlin were now only fighting to escape west and surrender to the British and Americans. To the north of the city all effective resistance to the Soviets had crumbled by 27 April. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the long-standing OKW chief of staff, paid a visit to the area and was enraged to find that German soldiers were falling back. Keitel called together Heinrici, who was trying to hold the line with Army Group Vistula, and General Hasso von Manteuffel, in command of the group's Third Panzer Army. They showed up, with several of Manteuffel's staff officers armed with submachine guns as if to suggest that an attempt to arrest their commanders might not be wise. Whether Keitel took the hint or not, he lit into Heinrici in a fury: "The Fuehrer ordered you to hold! He ordered you not to move! Yet you -- you ordered the retreat!"
Heinrici, unfazed, responded that unless he got substantial reinforcements there was no possibility of conducting an effective defense -- and so he would continue his retreat. He saw no sense in throwing away the lives of his troops for nothing. Keitel was beyond any such considerations of reason, shouting back: "There are no reserves left!" -- and then ordering Manteuffel: "You will hold your positions! You will turn your army around here and now!"
Heinrici replied: "As long as I am in command, I will not issue that order to Manteuffel."
Keitel went purple and raved at Heinrici, calling him a coward and a traitor, accusing him of being weak for not being willing to execute more of his men. Heinrici finally displayed a bit of irritation: "If you want these men sent to the rear to be shot, why don't you do it?"
Keitel, dumbfounded, got into his staff car and left. Heinrici was sacked that evening, for whatever difference it made. Nobody was going to stand and fight in the north. Thanks to Heinrici's sensibility in disobeying orders, about 155,000 of his troops managed to escape and surrender to the British and Americans, with 140,000 men of the German 21st Army going into captivity alongside them.
To the southeast of the city the German 9th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army, which had been surrounded by Zhukov and Konev's pincers, was desperately trying to break out to the west. General Theodor Busse, commander of the 9th Army, received hysterical messages from Berlin, ordering him to come to the rescue of the city. Like Wenck, Busse ignored the orders. The trapped soldiers suffered heavily from Soviet artillery and attack planes, but managed to break through the ring on 30 April. They used the last available operational tank and joined up with Wenck's 12th Army on its rescue mission. Only about 30,000 troops of the 9th and 4th Panzer, a seventh of their original strength, and about 70,000 men of the 12th Army survived to surrender to the British and Americans.