In September 1944, after the Attempt to end the war in Europe by the end of 1944 was foiled by the Nazi Germans by the American Allies through Operation Market Garden, the Germans successfully held the Rhine Line on the Western Front, long blocking the attack of the American and British forces. In addition, at that time, Stalin did not believe that the United States and Britain would transfer the German territory they had occupied to the Soviet Union after the war, so in order to ensure that the Soviet Union had the strength to resist the United States and Britain in Germany after the war, it became the established goal of the Soviet Union to try to capture more land in Germany, and naturally included the occupation of Berlin alone.
Preparations by the Soviet Union for the Battle of Berlin
At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, U.S. President Roosevelt finally agreed to attack Berlin by the Soviet Union and to designate what would become East Germany's sphere of influence after the war. Since then, the Soviet army alone will launch a campaign to capture Berlin, which has become a foregone conclusion. Before and after this, the Soviet army also began to carry out a series of preparatory operations for the Battle of Berlin.
The pink area was roughly the area liberated by the Soviets through the Vistula-Oder Offensive
Prior to the Yalta Conference, the Soviets occupied large areas of East Prussia, Danzig and Poznan through the Vistula-Oder Offensive launched from 12 January to 2 February 1945, pushing the eastern front from the Polish capital Warsaw to the Oder River line about 60 kilometers east of Berlin.
On the southern front, the Soviets defeated the attempts of three German divisions to break the siege of the Hungarian capital, Budapest, and captured Budapest on 13 February. After that, Hitler ordered the German army to launch a counter-offensive in an attempt to reoccupy the Hungarian oil fields in the De Neva-Danube Triangle region, thus preserving Germany's last capital for continuing the war. However, the German offensive was thwarted by the Soviets on 16 March, and the counter-offensive Soviets regained all the land occupied by the German offensive in the previous 10 days within a day. On 30 March, Soviet forces attacking from the southeast invaded Austria, which was also part of Nazi Germany at the time, and on 13 April captured Vienna.
Soviet troops participating in the Battle of Vienna
To the northeast, after two and a half months of siege, the Soviets finally liberated Königsberg, the last German stronghold in East Prussia, on 9 April, allowing the Second Belorussian Front, led by Rokossovsky, to continue west and advance to the east bank of the Oder River. In this way, together with zhukov's First Belorussian Front and Konev's Ukrainian First Front, they formed an attack on Berlin, and the total strength of the Soviet army reached more than 2.3 million (including 150,000 to 200,000 Polish People's Army soldiers). On 20 March, the Germans reorganized the remnants of Army Group A and Army Group Center, and urgently formed the Vistula River Army Group led by Gothard Heinrich, plus the defenders of the Berlin Defense Zone itself, and also gathered an army of about 760,000 people.
On 19 April, the Soviets captured the Schaufer Heights outside Berlin after four days of fighting through the last trench battle in the European theater of World War II. However, in this battle, the Soviet army also received stubborn resistance from the German army, paying the price of 30,000 deaths. But after this battle, there was no geographical barrier between the Soviet army and Berlin. On 20 April, Hitler's 56th birthday, three Soviet fronts also advanced from the northeast to the outskirts of Berlin and began shelling it. It can be said that the preparations of the Soviet army for the Launch of the Battle of Berlin have been completely completed. On the same day, American and British troops terminated the bombing of Berlin.
Soviet artillery units that took part in the Battle of Schlaufer Heights
On 22 April, Hitler lost control of his emotions at a briefing, tears in his eyes to say that the war had been lost. But after scolding his generals, he said he would stay in Berlin and fight until the end. In order to calm Hitler's anger, the German War Chief Yödel proposed that the German 12th Army, which was facing the Americans in the Elbe Valley at the time, be transferred back to Berlin, because they also knew that the Americans would not participate in the attack on Berlin, and Hitler quickly approved the proposal. But at the same time, the three Soviet fronts also stepped up their advances and gradually formed a siege of Berlin.
The Nazis' last resistance
On 23 April, the 5th Strike Force and the 1st Guards Tank Corps of the Soviet First Belorussian Front took the lead in attacking the city of Berlin from the southwest. During the march, they were briefly counter-attacked by the German LVI Panzer Corps, but were quickly defeated and on the 24th advanced to the area around the Berlin City Railroad. At this time, a group of French Nazi SS from France but loyal to the Nazis became Nazi diehards and put up fierce resistance to the Soviet army.
Soviet tanks entered the streets of Berlin
The First Ukrainian Front also launched a series of attacks on Berlin at the same time, and its vanguard soon joined the First Belorussian Front division west of Berlin and completed the siege of Berlin. The 58th Guards Rifle Division and the 5th Guards Division, along with the American Divisions around the Elbe, divided the Germans south of Berlin into three pieces.
The main German 9th Army, south of Berlin, was surrounded by a pine forest outside the village of Halber. Knowing that the German 12th Army was pulling back to reinforce Berlin, the 9th Army launched a final offensive against the Soviets, trying to join the 12th Army. Hitler hoped that the 9th Army would be able to successfully break through and lift the Soviet siege of Berlin by joining the 12th Army division.
Defensive barricades constructed by the Germans on the streets of Berlin
North of Berlin, the Second Belorussian Front broke the defensive line of the German 3rd Panzer Army and surrounded it in a narrow area along the Elbe river around the 25th, completely relieving the German army of the threat it might pose to the besieging Soviets. On the 26th, trikov's 8th Guards and 1st Tank Corps broke through the German defensive line on the Berlin City Rapid Railroad, but were met with stubborn resistance from the German Minscheberg Panzer Division. Since then, the Soviet army has continued to increase its troops, and after 1 day, its attacking strength has increased to 5 corps. Minscheberg's panzer division was forced to retreat to the central berlin area, rebuilding the defensive line.
On 28 April, the Germans organized a group of cadets who were being trained at the officers' school and formed three divisions to reinforce Berlin from the southwest. At one point, the army had recently attacked an area 24 kilometers from Berlin. Attempting to join the 9th Army of the 12th Army and some of the Berlin civilians temporarily organized by the Germans, they managed to break the encirclement around the village of Halber and were at one point close to meeting the 12th Army, which had returned from the Elbe to Berlin.
Scenes after fierce fighting in the streets of Berlin
Soon after, however, the 12th Army was repulsed by the Soviets on all fronts, and attempts to counterattack Berlin were completely foiled. On the 29th, the 9th Army was again surrounded by soviet forces, and Hitler's attempt to break the Soviet encirclement of Berlin through the 12th Army and the 9th Army division was completely unsuccessful. However, this series of German combat operations on the southern front also caused relatively serious casualties to the Soviet army, and according to statistics, about 20,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. The German casualty figures were significantly higher, reaching 30,000 people whose bodies were later found and buried.
In the early morning of 29 April, the Soviets broke through the Mortko Bridge in Berlin, but the Germans dispersed into various buildings in the center of the city and engaged in street battles with the Soviets. At the same time, the Germans began to massively damage the bridge to the center of Berlin, in order to slow down the Soviet advance.
Scene of Soviet troops escorting German prisoners of war
At the same time, on Hitler's orders, the Germans began a large-scale sabotage operation throughout Berlin, pulling the citizens of Berlin to accompany them to the funeral. Not only did they blow up more than 100 bridges around Berlin, but they also began to blow up the protection of the Landville Canal in Berlin, flooding 1/4 of Berlin's subway stations and drowning thousands of Berliners who had taken refuge in it. However, at this time, some Berlin civilians turned against each other and dismantled the explosives installed by the SS in many power plants, water works, pumping stations, railway facilities and bridges, reducing the damage to Berlin.
The demise of Nazi Germany
At 4 a.m. that day, Hitler, knowing that the end was coming, signed his will and married his mistress Emma Braun. At dawn, the Soviets captured Prince Albrecht Avenue, the headquarters of the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo.
The Soviets captured the Reichstag in Berlin
On 30 April, soviet troops, who had restored some bridges through rush repairs, brought a large number of heavy artillery into the city of Berlin and began an onslaught on the Reichstag. However, the Germans also used the heavy artillery in their hands to return sniper fire with higher terrain. Finally, after a day of fierce fighting, the Soviet army entered the Parliament Building that night. But the Germans had dug a large number of trenches in it beforehand and ambushed a large number of soldiers in the basement. So after the Soviets entered, the two sides soon engaged in fierce fighting room by room.
On the same day, the German general Weidlin, who was in charge of the defense of the city, informed Hitler that the ammunition of the defenders of the city would be exhausted that night. In the afternoon, Hitler and Emma committed suicide, and their bodies were cremated near the ground where they were hiding. Later, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Dönitz, became the "President of the Nazi Empire" and the Minister of National and Propaganda, Goebbels, became the "Reich Chancellor". By this time, german positions on the outskirts of Berlin had been lost, and a large number of remnants of the German army had fled back to the downtown area, but this also made the center of Berlin a highly dense area of the remnants of the German army, gathering about 10,000 German troops.
However, the Soviet 3rd Strike Force and the 8th Guards divided the remnants of the Germans and began to eliminate them one by one. On 1 May, Krebs, the German chief of the general staff, who knew that the tide was over, began to contact Trikov to negotiate surrender and inform Trikov that Hitler was dead. However, the last Nazi chancellor, Goebbels, still opposed the unconditional surrender of the German army, so the negotiations were at an impasse. However, in the afternoon, Goebbels himself realized that he was unable to return to heaven, so he and his wife killed his 6 children one by one by injecting poison, and then the two also committed suicide.
Mr. and Mrs. Goebbels with their children
After Goebbels' death, no one stopped the Germans from surrendering. However, at this time, Weidlin did not immediately let the army surrender, but commanded the remaining part of the German army to break through from three directions, hoping to break through the Soviet encirclement and surrender to the American and British troops. The reason why the Germans wanted to surrender to the Soviets was also very simple, because they were well aware that the Germans had committed countless war atrocities during the invasion of the Soviet Union, so they feared that surrendering to the Soviets would be punished by the Soviets.
Classic scene of World War II: The flag is planted at the Reichstag in Berlin
However, of the 3rd breakthrough of the German army, only a small number of soldiers broke through the Soviet defense line on the way to the west, and only a very small number of them eventually successfully escaped to the American and British army defense areas, and the vast majority of the other German troops were killed or captured by the Soviet army. In the early hours of May 2, soviets captured the German Chancellery. At 6 a.m., Weidling led his retinue to surrender to the Soviets. On the same day, the Soviet army also completely eliminated the residual resistance of the Reichstag, and the Battle of Berlin was basically over.
The final theater of World War II, the battle-related battlefields of the Battle of Berlin, basically coincided with the later East Germany
According to post-mortem research, the Soviets lost about 81,000 people during the entire Battle of Berlin, including the aforementioned Battle of Schaufer Heights. The german casualties were at least 100,000, and another 480,000 were captured. Although the Soviets suffered considerable losses at the Battle of Berlin, they eventually achieved their goals completely. The capture of Berlin not only brought about the complete demise of the Nazi regime, but also hastened the end of world war II. At the same time, the Soviet army's capture of Berlin also allowed the Soviet Union to capture a large number of German scientific and technological talents, and also laid the foundation for the establishment of East Germany after the war, so that the Soviet Union also obtained many long-term strategic gains, which can be said to have had a greater impact on the international situation in the decades after World War II, so on the whole it was still very worthwhile for the Soviet Union. (The picture is from the Internet, and the copyright of the picture belongs to its original author)