To the west of the city was the 20th Infantry Division. 92nd Independent Tank Regt 'They weren't human beings for us. Truman ignored these arguments and decided that the US Army would start withdrawing on 21 June while the military chiefs would sort out the quadripartite occupation of Berlin and the access to it by road, rail and air. That afternoon, Hitler and Braun committed suicide and their bodies were cremated not far from the bunker. 1st Guards, 3rd, 6th & 13th Air Fighter Corps 28th SS ‘Wallonien’ Grenadier Division, 3rd Panzer Army (Gen Hasso von Manteuffel) In an attempt to coax Hitler out of his rage, General Alfred Jodl speculated that General Walther Wenck's XII Army, which was facing the Americans, could move to Berlin because the Americans, already on the Elbe River, were unlikely to move further east. 169th Infantry Division As more and more Soviet troops broke in, close quarters fighting spread out over the whole building with the Germans putting up very stiff resistance, using every weapon they could lay their hands on and the Soviets trying to find their way in the darkened, unfamiliar rooms. 19th, 35th & 37th Mechanised Bdes By 6 May many German Army units and individuals had crossed the Elbe and surrendered to the US Ninth Army. 503rd SS Heavy Tank Btn What is not so easy to understand is that, given Eisenhower's insistence that military operations should be in pursuit of political aims (and therefore in line with Clausewitz's dictum of "war is the continuation of state policy by other means"), and given Berlin's enormous importance as a political objective, why he suddenly made a complete turnabout and pronounced it as having no significance, as well as it having the one military objective that would destroy the German will to resist with its capture or demise – Adolf Hitler. ', Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 by Antony Beevor (Viking, 2002), The Fall of Berlin by Anthony Read and David Fisher (Pimlico, 1999), Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy (Pimlico, 1996), Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis by Ian Kershaw (Penguin, 2001). Fourthly, the Germans were reinforcing the eastern front with the 6th SS Panzer Army, as well as three divisions from Italy and two from Norway. 12th SP Assault Artillery Bde Additionally, 280 Red Army enlisted personnel would earn the Soviet Order of Glory First Class and attain status as Full Cavaliers of the Order of Glory for their heroism during the Battle of Berlin. Instead, Heinrici arranged for engineers to fortify the Seelow Heights, which overlooked the Oder River at the point where the Autobahn crossed them. In the Berlin Defence Area: about 45,000 soldiers, supplemented by the police force, Originally published in "World War II" at Suite101.com on 1 May 1999. To the south-west the 8th Guards Army attacked north across the Landwehr canal into the Tiergarten. Marshals of the Soviet Union Zhukov and Konev received their third and second HSU awards respectively, for their roles in the battle's outcome. Antony Beevor After the battle, more than a hundred thousand German prisoners of war were marched to labour camps in the Soviet Union. My purpose is to destroy the enemy forces and his power to resist." Marshal Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front, which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt (Oder) in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow Heights. But the human cost of the battle for Berlin had been enormous. 1st Mechanised Corps (Lt Gen S. I. Krivosheina) 396th Guards & 1504th SP Assault Artillery Regts, 8th Guards Army (Col Gen V. I. Chuikov) 920th SPG Training Bde 26th Guards Corps (Maj Gen P. A. Firsov) The Red Army then drove on to Pomerania, clearing the right bank of the Oder River, thereby reaching into Silesia. 257th Independent Tank Regt On 20 April 1945, Hitler's 56th birthday, Soviet artillery of the 1st Belorussian Front began shelling Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered. During and immediately following the assault, in many areas of the city, vengeful Soviet troops (often rear echelon units) engaged in mass rape, pillage and murder. Later in the day, when Steiner explained that he did not have the divisions to do this, Heinrici made it clear to Hitler's staff that unless the IX Army retreated immediately, it would be enveloped by the Soviets. In the south the Siege of Budapest raged. 342nd Infantry Division 380th, 525th & 783rd Rifle Regts But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin. The foreign contingents of the SS fought particularly hard, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured. 1st Guards, 240th, 282nd & 286th Air Fighter Divisions Read more. Oleg Budnitskii, historian at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told a BBC Radio programme that Red Army soldiers were astounded when they reached Germany. On 20 March, General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula replacing Himmler.  © A number of refugee groups, including both civilian and military personnel managed to break out and flee westwards, but at 15.00 the Soviet artillery stopped firing, the sudden silence as they say, was deafening. The Battle for Berlin in April – May 1945 may not have been the final battle of the World War II in Europe, but it was certainly the concluding one. On 23 April General Helmuth Weidling assumed command of the forces within Berlin. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 6th Polish Infantry Divisions Berliners amongst the ruins It was the Nazi forces' desperate last stand.

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