Battle in Berlin

The battle in Berlin was an end phase of the Battle of Berlin. While the Battle ''of'' Berlin encompassed the attack by three Soviet Army Groups to capture not only Berlin but the territory of Germany east of the River Elbe still under German control, the battle ''in'' Berlin details the fighting and German capitulation that took place within the city.

The outcome of the battle to capture the capital of Nazi Germany was decided during the initial phases of the Battle of Berlin that took place outside the city. As the Soviets invested Berlin and the German forces placed to stop them were destroyed or forced back, the city's fate was sealed. Nevertheless, there was heavy fighting within the city as the Red Army fought its way, street by street, into the centre.

On 23 April 1945, the first Soviet ground forces started to penetrate the outer suburbs of Berlin. By 27 April, Berlin was completely cut off from the outside world. The battle in the city continued until 2 May 1945. On that date, the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, General Helmuth Weidling, surrendered to the commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, Lieutenant-General Vasily Chuikov. Chuikov was a constituent of Marshal Georgiy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front.

Prelude

Battle of the Oder–Neisse

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

On 19 April, the fourth day, the 1st Belorussian Front broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front, having captured Forst the day before, was fanning out into open country. One powerful thrust was heading north-west towards Berlin while other armies headed west towards a section of United States Army front line south-west of the city who were on the Elbe.

By the end of 19 April the German eastern front line north of Frankfurt around Seelow and to the south around Forst had ceased to exist. These breakthroughs allowed the two Soviet fronts to envelop the German 9th Army in a large pocket east of Frankfurt. Attempts by the 9th Army to break out to the west would result in the Battle of Halbe. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between 1 and 19 April, with over 2,807 tanks lost, including at least 727 at the Seelow Heights.

Encirclement of Berlin

On 20 April, Adolf Hitler's birthday, Soviet artillery of the 79th Rifle Corps of the 1st Belorussian Front first shelled Berlin. Thereafter, Soviet artillery continued the bombardment of Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered; the weight of explosives delivered by their artillery during the battle was greater than the tonnage dropped by the Western Allied bombers on the city. The 1st Belorussian Front advanced towards the east and north-east of the city.

The 1st Ukrainian Front had pushed through the last formations of the northern wing of General Ferdinand Schörner's Army Group Centre and had passed north of Jüterbog, well over halfway to the American front line on the Elbe at Magdeburg. To the north between Stettin and Schwedt, Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula, held by Hasso von Manteuffel's 3rd Panzer Army.

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

The next day, 25 April, the 2nd Belorussian Front broke through the 3rd Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin and crossed the Rando Swamp. They were now free to move west towards the British 21st Army Group and north towards the Baltic port of Stralsund. The Soviet 58th Guards Rifle Division of Zhadov's 5th Guards Army made contact with the 69th Infantry Division of the First United States Army near Torgau on the Elbe. The Soviet investment of Berlin was consolidated with leading units probing and penetrating the ''S-Bahn'' defensive ring. By the end of 25 April, there was no prospect that the German defence of the city could do anything but temporarily delay the capture of the capital by the Soviets as the decisive stages of the battle had already been fought and lost by the Germans fighting outside the city.

Preparation

On 20 April, Hitler ordered and the ''Wehrmacht'' initiated Operation Clausewitz, which called for the complete evacuation of all ''Wehrmacht'' and SS offices in Berlin; this essentially formalized Berlin's status as a frontline city.

The forces available to Artillery General Helmuth Weidling for the city's defence included several severely depleted ''Wehrmacht'' and ''Waffen-SS'' divisions, in all about 45,000 men. These formations were supplemented by the Berlin Police force, child soldiers in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the ''Volkssturm'' militia of males not already in the military. Many of the 40,000 elderly men of the ''Volkssturm'' had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I. Hitler appointed '' SS-Brigadeführer'' Wilhelm Mohnke commander of the city's central government district. Mohnke's command post was in bunkers under the Reich Chancellery. The core group of his fighting men were the 800 members of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Guard Battalion (assigned to guard the ''Führer''). He had a total of over 2,000 men under his command.The Soviets later estimated the number as 180,000, but this figure was calculated from the number of prisoners that they took and included many unarmed men in uniform, such as railway officials and members of the Reich Labour Service .

Weidling organised the defences into eight sectors designated 'A' to 'H', each commanded by a colonel or a general, but most had no combat experience. The 20th Infantry Division was to the west of the city; the 9th Parachute Division to the north; Panzer Division Müncheberg (Werner Mummert) to the north-east; the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland ( Joachim Ziegler) to the south-east; and to the east of Tempelhof Airport. The reserve, the 18th Panzergrenadier Division, was in Berlin's central district.

Tactics and terrain

A Soviet combat group was a mixed arms unit of about eighty men in assault groups of six to eight soldiers, closely supported by field artillery. These were tactical units which were able to apply the tactics of house to house fighting that they had been forced to develop and refine at each ''Festungsstadt'' ( fortress city) they had encountered since Stalingrad.

The German tactics used for urban warfare in Berlin were dictated by three considerations: the experience that they had gained during five years of war, the physical characteristics of the city, and the methods used by the Soviets. Most of the central districts of Berlin consist of city blocks with straight wide roads and contain several waterways, parks and large railway marshalling yards. It is a predominantly flat area, with some low hills such as Kreuzberg, which is above sea level."A Prussian law of 1875, enacted to cover the streets of Berlin, prescribed that the main avenues should be 95 feet or more in width, secondary thoroughfares from 65 to 95 feet and the local streets from 40 to 65 feet." "The Berlin streets are for the most part very broad and straight. They are surprisingly even; there is not a hill worthy of the name in the whole of the city" ."The highest hill in the ridge was the Kreuzberg, which stood at . It became the site of a Schinkel-designed monument erected in 1821 and gave its name to the most famous of Berlin's districts" . Much of the housing stock consisted of apartment blocks built in the second half of the 19th century. Most of those, thanks to housing regulations and few elevators, were five stories high and built around a courtyard that could be reached from the street through a corridor large enough to accommodate a horse and cart or a small delivery truck. In many places, these apartment blocks were built around several courtyards, one behind the other, each reached through the outer courtyards by a ground level corridor similar to that between the first courtyard and the road. The larger, more expensive flats faced the street while the smaller, more modest dwellings were grouped around the inner courtyards.

Just as the Soviets had learned a lot about urban warfare, so had the Germans. The ''Waffen-SS'' did not use makeshift barricades erected close to street corners, because these could be raked by artillery fire from guns firing over open sights further along the straight streets. Instead, they put snipers and machine guns on the upper floors and roofs because the Soviet tanks could not elevate their guns that high, and simultaneously they put men armed with ''Panzerfaust'' anti-tank weapons in cellar windows to ambush tanks as they moved down the streets. These tactics were quickly adopted by the Hitler Youth and the ''Volkssturm''.

Initially Soviet tanks advanced down the middle of the streets, but to counter the German tactics, they altered their own and started to hug the sides of the streets; this allowed for supporting cross-fire from tanks either side of the wider thoroughfares. The Soviets also mounted sub-machine gunners on the tanks who sprayed every doorway and window, but this meant the tank could not traverse its turret quickly. Another solution was to rely on heavy howitzers (152 mm and 203 mm) firing over open sights to blast defended buildings and to use anti-aircraft guns against the German gunners on the higher floors. Soviet combat groups started to move from house to house instead of directly down the streets. They moved through the apartments and cellars, blasting holes through the walls of adjacent buildings (making effective use of abandoned German ''Panzerfausts''), while others fought across the rooftops and through the attics. These enfilading tactics took the Germans lying in ambush for tanks in the flanks. Flamethrowers and grenades proved to be very effective, but as the Berlin civilian population had not been evacuated, these tactics inevitably killed many non-combatants.

Battle

Outer suburbs

With the decisive stages of the battle being fought outside the city, Berlin's fate was sealed, yet the resistance inside continued. On 23 April, Hitler appointed German Artillery General (''General der Artillerie'') Helmuth Weidling commander of the Berlin Defence Area. Only a day earlier, Hitler had ordered that Weidling be executed by firing squad. This was due to a misunderstanding concerning a retreat order issued by Weidling as commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. On 20 April, Weidling had been appointed commander of the LVI Panzer Corps. Weidling replaced Lieutenant-Colonel (''Oberstleutnant'') Ernst Kaether as commander of Berlin. Only one day earlier, Kaether had replaced Lieutenant-General (''Generalleutnant'') Helmuth Reymann, who had held the position for only about a month.

By 23 April, some of Chuikov's rifle units had crossed the Spree and Dahme rivers south of Köpenick and by 24 April were advancing towards Britz and Neukölln. Accompanying them were the leading tanks of Colonel-General Mikhail Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army. Sometime after midnight, a corps of Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin's 5th Shock Army crossed the Spree close to Treptow Park. At dawn on 24 April the LVI Panzer Corps still under Weidling's direct command, counterattacked but were severely mauled by the 5th Shock Army, which was able to continue its advance around mid-day. Meanwhile, the first large Soviet probe into the city was put into operation. Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army attacked across the Teltow Canal. At 06:20 a bombardment by 3,000 guns and heavy mortars began (a staggering 650 pieces of artillery per kilometer of front). At 07:00 hours the first Soviet battalions were across, to be followed by tanks around 12:00, shortly after the first of the pontoon bridges were completed. By the evening Treptow Park was in Soviet hands and they had also reached the ''S-Bahn''.

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

On 25 April, Krukenberg was appointed commander of Defence Sector C which included the ''Nordland'' Division, whose previous commander, Joachim Ziegler, was relieved of his command the same day. The arrival of the French SS men bolstered the ''Nordland'' Division whose ''Norge'' and ''Danmark'' regiments had been decimated in the fighting. Just midday as Krukenberg reached his command, the last German bridgehead south of the Teltow Canal was being abandoned. During the night Krukenberg informed General Hans Krebs, Chief of the General Staff of ''Oberkommando des Heeres'' (OKH) that within 24 hours the ''Nordland'' would have to fall back to the central sector Z (Z for '' Zentrum'' or ''Mitte'').Beevor states the centre sector was known as Z for Zentrum ; while Fischer and Tiemann, quoting General Mohnke directly refers to the smaller centre government quarter/district in this area and under his command as Z-Zitadelle ("''Citadel''") (, and ).

Soviet combat groups of the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs of Neukölln towards Tempelhof Airport which was located just inside the ''S-Bahn'' defensive ring. Defending Sector D was Panzer Division ''Müncheberg''. This division, down to its last dozen tanks and thirty armoured personnel carriers (APC)s, had been promised replacements for battle losses but only stragglers and ''Volkssturm'' were available to fill the ranks. The Soviets advanced cautiously, using flamethrowers to overcome defensive positions. By dusk Soviet T-34 tanks had reached the airfield, only six kilometres (four miles) south of the '' Führerbunker'', where they were checked by stiff German resistance. The ''Müncheberg'' Division managed to hold the line until the afternoon of the next day, but this was the last time they were able to check the Soviet advance for more than a few hours.

On 26 April, with Neukölln heavily penetrated by Soviet combat groups, Krukenberg prepared fallback positions for Sector C defenders around Hermannplatz. He moved his headquarters into the opera house. The two understrength German divisions defending the south-east were now facing five Soviet armies. From east to west they were: the 5th Shock Army, advancing from Treptow Park; the 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army moving through Neukölln north (temporarily checked at Tempelhof Airport), and Colonel-General Pavel Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army (part of Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front) advancing from Mariendorf. As the ''Nordland'' Division fell back towards Hermannplatz, the French SS and one-hundred Hitler Youth attached to their group destroyed 14 Soviet tanks with ''panzerfausts''; one machine gun position by the Halensee bridge managed to hold up any Soviet advances in that area for 48 hours. The ''Nordlands remaining armour, eight Tiger tanks and several assault guns, were ordered to take up positions in the Tiergarten, because although these two divisions of Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps could slow the Soviet advance, they could not stop it. SS-''Oberscharführer'' Schmidt recalled, "I was assigned as platoon leader of a 'dwindled company' which included a squad of Hungarian volunteers, ''Volkssturm'' men, ''Hitlerjugend'', as well as members of the ''Heer'' rmy.. Daily, the Russians advanced closer to the government quarter, which we were to defend. It became more and more difficult to hold the line 'under all circumstances'..."

Hitler summoned Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the German Air Force (''Luftwaffe'') from Hermann Göring. While flying over Berlin in a Fieseler Storch, von Greim was seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Hanna Reitsch, his mistress and a crack test pilot, landed von Greim on an improvised air strip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate.

At Tempelhof Airport, the flak batteries conducted direct fire against advancing Soviet tanks until they were overrun. On the following day, 27 April, 2,000 German women were rounded up and ordered to help clear Tempelhof Airport of debris so that the Red Army Air Force could start to use it. Marshal Zhukov appointed Colonel-General Berzarin to start organising the German civil administration in the areas that they had captured. ''Bürgermeister'', just as the directors of the Berlin utilities, were summoned to appear before Berzarin's staff.

Inner suburbs

As the Soviet armies of the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front converged on the centre of the city there were many accidental 'friendly fire' incidents involving artillery shelling because the spotter planes and the artillery of the different Soviet Fronts were not coordinated and frequently mistook assault groups in other armies as enemy troops. Indeed, the rivalry between the Soviet armies to capture the city centre was becoming intense. A corps commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front joked with laconic humour, "Now we should be scared not of the enemy, but of our neighbour... There's nothing more depressing in Berlin than learning about the successes of your neighbour". Beevor has suggested that the rivalry went further than just jokes and says that Chuikov deliberately ordered the left flank of the 8th Guards Army (of 1st Belorussian Front) across the front of the 3rd Guards Tank Army (of the 1st Ukrainian Front), blocking its direct path to the Reichstag. As Chuikov did not inform Rybalko, commander of the 3rd Guards Tank Army, that the 8th was doing this, the troops ordered to carry out this manoeuvre suffered disproportionate casualties from friendly fire.

In the south-west, Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army, supported by Lieutenant-General Luchinsky's 28th Army, were advancing through the wooded park and suburbs of the Grunewald, attacking what remained of the XVIII ''Panzergrenadier'' Division on their eastern flank and entering Charlottenburg. In the south, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army crossed the Landwehr Canal on 27 April, the last major obstacle between them and the ''Führerbunker'' next to the Reich Chancellery less than away. In the south-east, Berzarin's 5th Shock Army had bypassed the Friedrichshain ''flak'' tower and was now between Frankfurter Allee and the south bank of the Spree, where its IX Corps was fighting.

By 27 April the Soviet Armies had penetrated the German's ''S-Bahn'' outer defensive ring from all directions. The Germans had been forced back into a pocket about long from west to east and about wide at its narrowest, just west of the old city centre, near the Tiergarten. In the north-west, Lieutenant-General F.I. Perkohorovitch's 47th Army was now approaching Spandau, and was also heavily involved in a battle to capture Gatow airfield, which was defended by ''Volkssturm'' and Luftwaffe cadets using the feared 88 mm anti-aircraft guns in their anti-tank role. In the north, Colonel-General Semyon Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army was bogged down just south of Siemensstadt. Colonel-General Vasily Kuznetsov's 3rd Shock Army had bypassed the Humboldthain flak tower (leaving it to follow-up forces), and had reached the north of the Tiergarten and Prenzlauerberg.Map of the Battle of Berlin 26–28 April 1945
This map is copied from , ''Battle For Berlin: End of the Third Reich''

On the morning of 27 April, the Soviets continued the assault with a heavy bombardment of the inner city. The 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army were ordered to take Belle-Alliance-Platz (Belle-Alliance being an alternative name for the Battle of Waterloo) that in a twist of history was defended by French SS soldiers of ''Sturmbataillon'' "Charlemagne" attached to the ''Nordland'' Division. That night Weidling gave a battle situation report to Hitler and presented him with a detailed breakout plan which would be spearheaded with just under forty tanks (all the combat-ready German tanks available in Berlin). Hitler rejected the plan, saying he would stay in the bunker and that Weidling would carry on with the defence.

In sector Z (centre) Krukenberg ''Nordland'' divisional headquarters was now a carriage in the ''Stadtmitte U-Bahn'' station. The ''Nordland's'' armour was reduced to four captured Soviet armoured personnel carriers and two half-tracks, so Kruneberg's men's chief weapon was now the ''Panzerfaust'' which were used for close quarters battle against both Soviet armour and in house to house fighting against Soviet combat groups.

At dawn on 28 April, the youth divisions ''Clausewitz'', ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Theodor Körner'', attacked from the south-west in the direction of Berlin. They were part of Wenck's XX Corps and were made up of men from the officer training schools, making them some of the best units the Germans had left. They covered a distance of about , before being halted at the tip of Lake Schwielow south-west of Potsdam and still from Berlin. In the evening of 28 April, the BBC
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