The long river of history is running endlessly, there are calm waves, there are also waves, let Xiaobian take you into history and understand history.
How tenacious the resistance of the German army in Stalingrad was, how crazy the enemy the Soviets encountered in Berlin was, because city defense warfare and street warfare were the most "meat-grinding" forms of warfare. However, it should be noted that the huge casualties of the Soviet army in the Battle of Berlin did not only appear in the city, because the "Battle of Berlin" was actually divided into three stages: the Battle of the West Bank of the Oder River, the Battle of the Division of the Siege and the final street battle, such a grand battle, the Soviet Army paid a total of 305,000 casualties, which is actually reasonable in terms of common sense of the war.
First, the two sides of the Battle of Berlin invested a huge amount of troops.
The Soviet army concentrated the First Ukrainian Front, the First and Second Belorussian Fronts, a total of 270 divisions of about 2.5 million people, divided into three assault groups in the east, south and north, of which the First Ukrainian Front on the eastern road was the main attack. The Germans gathered about 800,000 men from 63 divisions in two less complete armies, and recruited all the "People's Stormtroopers" and civilians who could take up arms, as well as about 200,000 SS members, in the berlin city area, with a total strength of almost 1 million, of course, the Soviet army also had an absolute superiority in technical weapons, which is not listed.
We may recall the Battle of Stalingrad, which was not just a street battle in the city, but a large-scale battle around the city on a vast battlefield, the ratio of troops was 3 million Soviet troops to 2 million German troops, the scale of the battle was about 1:0.7 compared with the Battle of Berlin, but the German losses during the entire battle were 1.5 million, and the Soviet casualties were closer to 2 million. In comparison, did the Soviets suffer 300,000 casualties in Berlin? Obviously not, for example, the 6th Army, which was actually responsible for attacking the city of Stalingrad, lost more than 140,000 people, and the number of wounded must have exceeded 300,000.
Zhukov did not perform well in the Battle of the West Bank of the Oder.
The Oder River is located 50 to 70 kilometers east of Berlin, straddling the main soviet route into Berlin, through which the so-called "Reich Route One" runs. Garrisoned here was the last elite "Vistula Army Group" of the German army on the Eastern Front, and the original commander-in-chief was actually the head of the SS, Himmler, until the Soviet soldiers arrived on the east bank of the Oder River, Hitler ordered General Heinrich, known as the "expert on the defense of the Eastern Front", to take over the troops.
Taking advantage of the favorable terrain on the west bank of the Oder, he constructed three fortified lines between the Oder and the Nice, up to a depth of 40 km. The second defensive line was the key defensive area of the German army, which was centered on the Zerov Heights, known as the "Key of Berlin", with a large number of anti-tank trenches, minefields and deer blocks, and Heinrich also opened the gates from the upstream to waterproof before the Soviets launched an attack, making the entire front of the position a swamp, which was indeed easy to defend and difficult to attack.
What was guarding here was the German "Vistula Army Group" plus all the reserve forces transferred from Germany, and even the cadets were on the front line, with a total strength of more than 550,000 troops, 512 tanks and a large number of artillery and assault guns. The First Ukrainian Front, on the other hand, had 77 divisions and 1.2 million men, but Zhukov was clearly a little light enemy, and the attacking infantry was trapped in the mud and harvested by German fire, and the number of casualties under the Zelov Heights alone reached 30,000.
Seeing the difficulty of the breakthrough, Zhukov proposed to the High Command that his two tank armies be detoured to the south and put into battle on the Konev front to tear up the breakthrough, but the latter refused, which showed the dilemma of the Ukrainian First Front on the west bank of the Oder River, which took a full five days to complete the breakthrough. According to the usual casualty ratio of one to three, the Soviet army lost at least about 150,000 people in the Oder-Nice Campaign, and in both the north and south directions, the First and Second Fronts of Belarus also suffered losses in the field battles, and when the battle division of more than 400,000 German troops was completed (more than 200,000 German troops were isolated), the two fronts also suffered about 60,000 casualties.
Third, the German firepower in the city of Berlin was actually very strong.
In other words, before entering the Berlin city, more than 200,000 Soviet officers and soldiers had fallen on the battlefield, but once the main Soviet army approached the city, in fact, the Battle of Berlin had no suspense, and in the absence of reinforcements, the fall of any city was only a matter of time. But at this time, it also marked the beginning of the most bitter street battle, every block, every building, the Soviet army had to exchange human lives for it. The Germans had enough time to divide the city into eight garrisons and a central special garrison, and the overall defensive line was divided into three layers: the outer sniper area, the outer city outline and the inner city outline.
The Germans not only set up barricades and anti-tank obstacles on the streets, and each building that could be used was full of shooting holes, but also made full use of the underground railway and underground sewer pipe network to play "tunnel warfare". In addition to the Wehrmacht troops retreating into the city, the SS troops, there were 200 battalions of "People's Stormtroopers" trained in street fighting alone, in addition, the Germans also used all 600 anti-aircraft guns of various calibers previously used for Berlin air defense for flat shooting, plus the army's anti-tank weapons and "iron fists", the Soviet light tanks were killed more than 1,000 (the entire battle lost 2156), which shows the cruelty of street fighting.
Fourth, the SS departments were very fanatical in the street fighting.
Why was Himmler appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Group? The problem was that by April 1945, most of the remaining 420,000 SS troops had been invested in the Battle of Berlin, which made the proportion of SS members and SS troops in the suburbs and urban areas very large, including the SS fighting with the "Vistula Army Group" and the SS garrison in the central area of Berlin.
These guys were not only very stubborn themselves, but also objectively played a role in supervising the Wehrmacht and civilians, becoming a combat team and a superintendent, forcing all Germans to fight to the death, and the 1500 people who held the Reichstag building were almost all members of the Foreign SS, which alone caused thousands of casualties to the Soviet army. After the capture of Berlin, more than 63,000 SS soldiers followed Hitler's suicide in a month, and more than 70,000 people hid in the corners of the city and refused to surrender, so the Soviet army must have paid a heavy price to deal with these fanatical guys.
Hitler's failure to flee also stimulated the frenzied resistance of the German army.
When the Soviets began to cross the river to attack german positions on the west bank of the Oder River, the main military and political organs and leaders of Nazi Germany began to withdraw, including the German high command, etc., but Hitler insisted on staying, just as Stalin did not withdraw during the Moscow Defense War, which did play a morale-boosting role. In order to defend the last fortress and spiritual symbol of the Nazis, the German army and civilians, and even some foreign SS troops, were dying, making the Soviet army pay a heavy price for every step forward, and the number of Soviet casualties in the urban area was at least more than 80,000.
It was not until Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945, that the German resistance tended to weaken, and 24 hours later, in the early morning of May 2, the German garrison commander in Berlin, Weidling, sent personnel to negotiate surrender, that is, if Hitler did not die, the Germans would have to resist for a few days, and the Soviet casualties would increase. It was not until 3 p.m. on May 2, 1945, that the remnants of the German army, which had received the order to surrender, stopped resisting and the Battle of Berlin came to an end.
Throughout the Battle of Berlin, the German casualties also exceeded 420,000, so the number of Soviet casualties in a super-large city offensive was not unexpected.
Well, today's sharing ends here, and we'll see you next time