Surrender of the German fascist troops surrounded in Berlin. Battle for Berlin: the end of the Great Patriotic War

Six decades ago, one of the largest battles in world history ended, not just a clash of two military forces, but the last battle with Nazism, which for many years brought death and destruction to the peoples of Europe.

Direction of the main attack

The war was ending. Everyone understood this, both the generals of the Wehrmacht and their opponents. Only one person, Adolf Hitler, in spite of everything, continued to hope for the strength of the German spirit, for a "miracle weapon", and most importantly for a split between his enemies. The grounds for this were despite the agreements reached at Yalta, England and the United States did not particularly want to cede Berlin to the Soviet troops. Their armies advanced almost unhindered. In April 1945, they broke into the center of Germany, depriving the Wehrmacht of its "forge" of the Ruhr Basin and gaining the opportunity to attack Berlin. At the same time, the 1st Belorussian Front of Marshal Zhukov and the 1st Ukrainian Front of Konev froze in front of the powerful German defense line on the Oder. The 2nd Belorussian Front of Rokossovsky finished off the remnants of enemy troops in Pomerania, and the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts advanced towards Vienna.

On April 1, Stalin convened a meeting of the State Defense Committee in the Kremlin. The audience was asked one question: "Who will take Berlin, we or the Anglo-Americans?" "Berlin will be taken by the Soviet Army," Konev was the first to respond. He, Zhukov's constant rival, was not taken by surprise by the question of the Supreme Commander either; he showed the GKO members a huge model of Berlin, where the targets of future strikes were precisely indicated. The Reichstag, the Imperial Chancellery, the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were all powerful centers of defense with a network of bomb shelters and secret passages. The capital of the Third Reich was surrounded by three lines of fortifications. The first was 10 km from the city, the second was in its suburbs, and the third was in the center. Berlin was defended by the elite units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, to which the last reserves were urgently mobilized - 15-year-old members of the Hitler Youth, women and old men from the Volkssturm (people's militia). Around Berlin in the army groups "Vistula" and "Center" there were up to 1 million people, 10.4 thousand guns and mortars, 1.5 thousand tanks.

For the first time since the beginning of the war, the superiority of the Soviet troops in manpower and equipment was not only significant, but overwhelming. Berlin was to be attacked by 2.5 million soldiers and officers, 41.6 thousand guns, more than 6.3 thousand tanks, 7.5 thousand aircraft. The main role in the offensive plan approved by Stalin was assigned to the 1st Belorussian Front. Zhukov was supposed to storm the line of defense on the Zelov heights from the Kustrinsky bridgehead, which towered over the Oder, blocking the road to Berlin. The Konev front was to cross the Neisse and hit the Reich capital with the forces of the tank armies of Rybalko and Lelyushenko. It was planned that in the west it would reach the Elbe and, together with the Rokossovsky front, would join the Anglo-American troops. The Allies were informed of the Soviet plans and agreed to stop their armies on the Elbe. The Yalta agreements had to be fulfilled, besides, this made it possible to avoid unnecessary losses.

The offensive was scheduled for 16 April. To make it unexpected for the enemy, Zhukov ordered to advance early in the morning, in the dark, blinding the Germans with the light of powerful searchlights. At five in the morning, three red rockets gave the signal to attack, and a second later, thousands of guns and Katyushas opened a hurricane of fire of such force that the eight-kilometer space turned out to be plowed overnight. "Hitler's troops were literally sunk in a continuous sea of ​​fire and metal," Zhukov wrote in his memoirs. Alas, on the eve of the captured Soviet soldier, he revealed to the Germans the date of the future offensive, and they managed to withdraw the troops to the Zelov Heights. From there, aimed shooting began at Soviet tanks, which, wave after wave, went to break through and died in a field that was being shot through. While the enemy's attention was riveted on them, the soldiers of Chuikov's 8th Guards Army managed to move forward and take up lines near the outskirts of the village of Zelov. By evening, it became clear that the planned pace of the offensive was frustrated.

At the same time, Hitler turned to the Germans with an appeal, promising them: "Berlin will remain in German hands", and the Russian offensive "will choke in blood." But few believed in it. People listened with fear to the sounds of cannon fire, which were added to the already familiar bomb explosions. At least 2.5 million of the remaining residents were forbidden to leave the city. The Fuhrer, losing his sense of reality, decided: if the Third Reich dies, all Germans should share his fate. Goebbels' propaganda intimidated the inhabitants of Berlin with the atrocities of the "Bolshevik hordes", urging them to fight to the end. The headquarters of the defense of Berlin was created, which ordered the population to prepare for fierce battles in the streets, in houses and underground communications. Each house was planned to be turned into a fortress, for which all the remaining residents were forced to dig trenches and equip firing positions.

At the end of the day on April 16, the Supreme Commander called Zhukov. He dryly reported that Konev overcame Neisse "happened without difficulty." Two tank armies broke through the front at Cottbus and rushed forward, not stopping the offensive even at night. Zhukov had to promise that during April 17 he would take the ill-fated heights. In the morning, General Katukov's 1st Tank Army moved forward again. And again, the “thirty-fours”, which passed from Kursk to Berlin, burned out like candles from the fire of the “faustpatrons”. By evening, Zhukov's units advanced only a couple of kilometers. Meanwhile, Konev reported to Stalin on new successes, announcing his readiness to take part in the storming of Berlin. Silence on the phone and the deaf voice of the Supreme: “I agree. Turn the tank armies to Berlin." On the morning of April 18, the armies of Rybalko and Lelyushenko rushed north to Teltow and Potsdam. Zhukov, whose pride suffered severely, threw his units into a last desperate attack. In the morning, the 9th German Army, which received the main blow, could not stand it and began to roll back to the west. The Germans still tried to go on the counterattack, but the next day they retreated along the entire front. From that moment on, nothing could delay the denouement.

Friedrich Hitzer, German writer, translator:

My answer regarding the storming of Berlin is purely personal, not of a military strategist. In 1945 I was 10 years old, and as a child of the war, I remember how it ended, what the defeated people felt. Both my father and the closest relative participated in this war. The latter was a German officer. Returning from captivity in 1948, he resolutely told me that if this happened again, he would go to war again. And on January 9, 1945, on my birthday, I received a letter from the front from my father, who also wrote with determination that we must “fight, fight and fight the terrible enemy in the east, otherwise we will be taken to Siberia.” Having read these lines as a child, I was proud of the courage of my father "liberator from the Bolshevik yoke." But very little time passed, and my uncle, that same German officer, told me many times: “We were deceived. Make sure this doesn't happen to you." The soldiers realized that this was the wrong war. Of course, not all of us were "deceived". One of his father's best friends warned him back in the 30s: Hitler is terrible. You know, any political ideology of the superiority of some over others, absorbed by society, is akin to drugs

The meaning of the assault, and the finale of the war in general, became clear to me later. The storming of Berlin was necessary; it saved me from the fate of being a conquering German. If Hitler had won, I would probably have become a very unhappy person. His goal of world domination is alien and incomprehensible to me. As an action, the capture of Berlin was terrible for the Germans. But really, it was a blessing. After the war, I worked in a military commission dealing with the issues of German prisoners of war, and once again I was convinced of this.

I recently met with Daniil Granin, and we talked for a long time about what kind of people they were who surrounded Leningrad

And then, during the war, I was afraid, yes, I hated the Americans and the British, who almost completely bombed my hometown of Ulm. This feeling of hatred and fear lived in me until I visited America.

I remember well how, evacuated from the city, we lived in a small German village on the banks of the Danube, which was the "American zone". Our girls and women then inked themselves with pencils so as not to be raped. Every war is a terrible tragedy, and this war was especially terrible: today they talk about 30 million Soviet and 6 million German victims, as well as millions of dead people of other nations.

last birthday

On April 19, another participant appeared in the race for Berlin. Rokossovsky reported to Stalin that the 2nd Belorussian Front was ready to storm the city from the north. On the morning of that day, the 65th Army of General Batov crossed the wide channel of the Western Oder and moved to Prenzlau, cutting into parts the German Army Group Vistula. At this time, Konev's tanks moved north easily, as if in a parade, meeting almost no resistance and leaving the main forces far behind. Marshal deliberately took risks, hurrying to approach Berlin before Zhukov. But the troops of the 1st Belorussian were already approaching the city. His formidable commander issued an order: "No later than 4 o'clock in the morning on April 21, at any cost, break through to the suburbs of Berlin and immediately convey a message to Stalin and the press about this."

On April 20, Hitler celebrated his last birthday. In a bunker submerged 15 meters into the ground under the imperial office, selected guests gathered: Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Bormann, the top of the army and, of course, Eva Braun, who was listed as the Fuhrer's "secretary". The comrades-in-arms offered their leader to leave the doomed Berlin and move to the Alps, where a secret shelter had already been prepared. Hitler refused: "I am destined to win or die with the Reich." However, he agreed to withdraw the command of the troops from the capital, dividing it into two parts. The north was under the control of Grand Admiral Dönitz, to whom Himmler went to help with his headquarters. The south of Germany was to be defended by Goering. At the same time, a plan arose to defeat the Soviet offensive by the forces of the armies of Steiner from the north and Wenck from the west. However, this plan was doomed from the start. Both the 12th Army of Wenck and the remnants of SS General Steiner's units were exhausted in battle and incapable of action. Army Group Center, on which hopes were also pinned, fought hard battles in the Czech Republic. Zhukov prepared a “gift” for the German leader in the evening, his armies approached the city border of Berlin. The first shells of long-range guns hit the city center. On the morning of the next day, General Kuznetsov's 3rd Army entered Berlin from the northeast, and Berzarin's 5th Army from the north. Katukov and Chuikov advanced from the east. The streets of the dull Berlin suburbs were blocked by barricades, "faustniks" fired at the attackers from the gates and windows of the houses.

Zhukov ordered not to waste time suppressing individual firing points and to rush forward. Meanwhile, Rybalko's tanks approached the headquarters of the German command in Zossen. Most of the officers fled to Potsdam, and the chief of staff, General Krebs, went to Berlin, where on April 22 at 15.00 Hitler's last military conference took place. Only then did they dare to tell the Fuhrer that no one was able to save the besieged capital. The reaction was stormy: the leader burst into threats against the "traitors", then collapsed into a chair and groaned: "It's all over, the war is lost ..."

And yet the Nazi elite was not going to give up. It was decided to completely stop the resistance to the Anglo-American troops and throw all their forces against the Russians. All military capable of holding weapons were to be sent to Berlin. The Führer still pinned his hopes on Wenck's 12th Army, which was to link up with Busse's 9th Army. To coordinate their actions, the command led by Keitel and Jodl was withdrawn from Berlin to the town of Kramnitz. In the capital, besides Hitler himself, only General Krebs, Bormann and Goebbels, who was appointed head of defense, remained among the leaders of the Reich.

Nikolai Sergeevich Leonov, Lieutenant General of the Foreign Intelligence Service:

The Berlin operation is the penultimate operation of the Second World War. It was carried out by the forces of three fronts from April 16 to April 30, 1945, from the raising of the flag over the Reichstag and the end of resistance on the evening of May 2. Pros and cons of this operation. Plus, the process went pretty quickly. After all, the attempt to take Berlin was actively promoted by the leaders of the allied armies. This is reliably known from Churchill's letters.

Cons Almost everyone who participated recalls that there were too many victims and, perhaps, without an objective need. The first reproaches to Zhukov were that he was at the shortest distance from Berlin. His attempt to enter frontally from the east is regarded by many participants in the war as a mistaken decision. It was necessary to cover Berlin from the north and from the south with a ring and force the enemy to capitulate. But the marshal went straight ahead. Regarding the artillery operation on April 16, we can say the following: Zhukov brought the idea of ​​​​using searchlights from Khalkhin Gol. It was there that the Japanese launched a similar attack. Zhukov repeated the same technique: but many military strategists argue that the searchlights had no effect. As a result of their application, a mess of fire and dust was obtained. This frontal attack was unsuccessful and poorly thought out: when our soldiers passed through the trenches, there were few German corpses in them. So the advancing units shot more than 1,000 wagons of ammunition in vain. Stalin specifically arranged competition between the marshals. After all, Berlin was finally surrounded on April 25. It would be possible not to resort to such sacrifices.

City on fire

On April 22, 1945, Zhukov appeared in Berlin. His armies, five infantry and four tank, destroyed the capital of Germany from all types of weapons. Meanwhile, Rybalko's tanks approached the city limits, occupying a bridgehead in the Teltow area. Zhukov gave his vanguard to the armies of Chuikov and Katukov the order to cross the Spre, no later than the 24th to be in Tempelhof and Marienfeld in the central regions of the city. For street fighting, assault detachments were hastily formed from fighters from different units. In the north, the 47th Army of General Perkhorovich crossed the Havel River along an accidentally surviving bridge and headed west, preparing to join Konev’s units there and close the encirclement. Having occupied the northern districts of the city, Zhukov finally excluded Rokossovsky from the number of participants in the operation. From that moment until the end of the war, the 2nd Belorussian Front was engaged in the defeat of the Germans in the north, pulling over a significant part of the Berlin group.

The glory of the winner of Berlin passed Rokossovsky, she also passed Konev. Stalin's directive, received on the morning of April 23, ordered the troops of the 1st Ukrainian to stop at the Anhalter station literally a hundred meters from the Reichstag. The Supreme Commander entrusted Zhukov with occupying the center of the enemy capital, thus noting his invaluable contribution to the victory. But Anhalter still had to be reached. Rybalko with his tanks froze on the banks of the deep Teltow Canal. Only with the approach of artillery, which suppressed German firing points, were the vehicles able to cross the water barrier. On April 24, Chuikov's scouts made their way to the west through the Schönefeld airfield and met Rybalko's tankers there. This meeting divided the German forces in half, about 200,000 soldiers were surrounded in a wooded area southeast of Berlin. Until May 1, this grouping tried to break through to the west, but was cut into pieces and almost completely destroyed.

And Zhukov's shock forces continued to rush towards the city center. Many fighters and commanders had no experience of fighting in a big city, which led to huge losses. The tanks moved in columns, and as soon as the front one was knocked out, the entire column became easy prey for the German "faustniks". I had to resort to merciless, but effective tactics of military operations: at first, artillery fired at the target of a future offensive, then volleys of Katyushas drove everyone alive into shelters. After that, the tanks went forward, destroying the barricades and smashing the houses, from where the shots were heard. Only then did the infantry come into play. During the battle, almost two million gunshots of 36 thousand tons of deadly metal fell upon the city. Fortress guns were delivered from Pomerania by rail, firing at the center of Berlin with shells weighing half a ton.

But even this firepower did not always cope with the thick walls of buildings built in the 18th century. Chuikov recalled: "Our guns sometimes fired up to a thousand shots at one square, at a group of houses, even at a small garden." It is clear that at the same time, no one thought about the civilian population, trembling with fear in bomb shelters and flimsy basements. However, the main blame for his suffering lay not with the Soviet troops, but with Hitler and his entourage, who, with the help of propaganda and violence, did not allow residents to leave the city, which had turned into a sea of ​​fire. Already after the victory, it was estimated that 20% of the houses in Berlin were completely destroyed, and another 30% partially. On April 22, for the first time in history, the city telegraph office closed, having received the last message from the Japanese allies, "good luck." Water and gas were turned off, transport stopped running, food distribution stopped. Starving Berliners, ignoring the continuous shelling, robbed freight trains and shops. They were more afraid not of Russian shells, but of SS patrols, who grabbed men and hung them on trees as deserters.

The police and Nazi officials began to flee. Many tried to make their way to the west to surrender to the Anglo-Americans. But the Soviet units were already there. April 25 at 13.30 they went to the Elbe and met near the town of Torgau with the tankers of the 1st American Army.

On this day, Hitler entrusted the defense of Berlin to Panzer General Weidling. Under his command were 60 thousand soldiers, who were opposed by 464 thousand Soviet troops. The armies of Zhukov and Konev met not only in the east, but also in the west of Berlin, in the Ketzin area, and now they were separated from the city center by only 78 kilometers. On April 26, the Germans made a last desperate attempt to stop the attackers. Fulfilling the order of the Fuhrer, the 12th Army of Wenck, which included up to 200 thousand people, attacked the 3rd and 28th armies of Konev from the west. Unprecedentedly fierce even for this fierce battle, the fighting continued for two days, and by the evening of the 27th, Venck had to retreat to his previous positions.

The day before, Chuikov's soldiers occupied the Gatov and Tempelhof airfields, fulfilling Stalin's order to prevent Hitler from leaving Berlin at any cost. The Supreme Commander was not going to let the one who treacherously deceived him in 1941 slip away or surrender to the allies. Corresponding orders were also given to other Nazi leaders. There was another category of Germans who were intensively searched for, specialists in nuclear research. Stalin knew about the work of the Americans on the atomic bomb and was going to create "his own" as soon as possible. It was already necessary to think about the world after the war, where the Soviet Union was to take a worthy, blood-paid place.

Meanwhile, Berlin continued to suffocate in the smoke of fires. Volkssturmovets Edmund Heckscher recalled: “There were so many fires that the night turned into day. You could read the newspaper, but there were no more newspapers in Berlin.” The roar of guns, shooting, explosions of bombs and shells did not stop for a minute. Clouds of smoke and brick dust filled the center of the city, where, deep under the ruins of the Imperial Chancellery, Hitler again and again tormented his subordinates with the question: “Where is Wenck?”

On April 27, three-quarters of Berlin was in Soviet hands. In the evening, Chuikov's strike forces reached the Landwehr Canal, one and a half kilometers from the Reichstag. However, their path was blocked by elite units of the SS, who fought with special fanaticism. Bogdanov's 2nd Panzer Army was stuck in the Tiergarten area, whose parks were dotted with German trenches. Each step here was given with difficulty and considerable bloodshed. Rybalko's tankers had chances again, who on that day made an unprecedented rush from the west to the center of Berlin through Wilmersdorf.

By nightfall, a strip 23 kilometers wide and up to 16 kilometers long remained in the hands of the Germans. The first batches of prisoners, still small, came out of the basements and entrances of houses with raised hands. Many were deafened by the incessant roar, others, who had gone mad, laughed wildly. The civilian population continued to hide, fearing the revenge of the victors. The Avengers, of course, were bound to be after what the Nazis did on Soviet soil. But there were also those who, risking their lives, pulled German old people and children out of the fire, who shared their soldier's rations with them. The feat of Sergeant Nikolai Masalov, who saved a three-year-old German girl from a destroyed house on the Landwehr Canal, went down in history. It is he who is portrayed by the famous statue in Treptow Park in memory of Soviet soldiers who kept humanity in the fire of the most terrible of wars.

Even before the end of the fighting, the Soviet command took measures to restore normal life in the city. On April 28, General Berzarin, appointed commandant of Berlin, issued an order to dissolve the National Socialist Party and all its organizations and transfer all power to the military commandant's office. In areas cleared of the enemy, soldiers were already beginning to put out fires, clear buildings, and bury numerous corpses. However, it was possible to establish a normal life only with the assistance of the local population. Therefore, on April 20, the Headquarters demanded that the commanders of the troops change their attitude towards German prisoners of war and the civilian population. The directive put forward a simple justification for such a step: "A more humane attitude towards the Germans will reduce their stubbornness in defense."

Former foreman of the 2nd article, member of the international PEN club (International Organization of Writers), Germanist writer, translator Evgeny Katseva:

The greatest of our holidays is approaching, and my soul is scratched by cats. Recently (in February) of this year, I was at a conference in Berlin, supposedly dedicated to this great date, I think not only for our people, and I became convinced that many have forgotten who started the war and who won it. No, this stable phrase "win the war" is completely inappropriate: you can win and lose in the game in the war, but either win or lose. For many Germans, the war is only the horrors of those few weeks when it went on their territory, as if our soldiers came there of their own free will, and did not fight their way to the west for 4 long years on their native scorched and trampled land. So, Konstantin Simonov was not so right, he believed that there was no such thing as someone else's grief. It happens, how it happens. And if you forgot who put an end to one of the most terrible wars, defeated German fascism, where can you remember who took the capital of the German Reich, Berlin. Our Soviet Army, our Soviet soldiers and officers took it. Entirely, fighting for every district, quarter, house, from the windows and doors of which shots rang out until the last moment.

It was only later, after a whole bloody week after the capture of Berlin, on May 2, our allies appeared, and the main trophy, as a symbol of the joint Victory, was divided into four parts. Into four sectors: Soviet, American, English, French. With four military commandant's offices. Four or four, even more or less equal, but in general, Berlin was divided into two completely different parts. For the three sectors soon joined, and the fourth eastern and, as usual, the poorest, turned out to be isolated. It remained so, although it later acquired the status of the capital of the GDR. To us, the Americans, in return, “generously” rolled off the Thuringia they occupied. The land is good, but for a long time the disappointed residents harbored resentment for some reason not against the apostate Americans, but against us, the new occupiers. Here's an aberration

As for looting, our soldiers did not come there on their own. And now, 60 years later, all sorts of myths are being spread, growing into ancient proportions.

Reich Convulsions

The fascist empire was disintegrating before our eyes. On April 28, Italian partisans caught dictator Mussolini trying to escape and shot him. The next day, General von Wietinghoff signed the act of surrender of the Germans in Italy. Hitler learned about the execution of the Duce at the same time as other bad news: his closest associates Himmler and Goering started separate negotiations with the Western allies, bargaining for their lives. The Fuhrer was beside himself with rage: he demanded the immediate arrest and execution of traitors, but this was no longer in his power. It was possible to recoup Himmler's deputy, General Fegelein, who fled from the bunker, a detachment of SS men grabbed him and shot him. The general was not saved even by the fact that he was the husband of Eva Braun's sister. In the evening of the same day, Commandant Weidling reported that there was only two days of ammunition left in the city, and there was no fuel at all.

General Chuikov received from Zhukov the task of linking up from the east with the forces advancing from the west through the Tiergarten. The Potsdamer Bridge, leading to the Anhalter station and Wilhelmstrasse, became an obstacle to the soldiers. The sappers managed to save him from the explosion, but the tanks that entered the bridge were hit by well-aimed shots of faustpatrons. Then the tankers tied sandbags around one of the tanks, doused it with diesel fuel and let it go forward. From the first shots, the fuel flared up, but the tank continued to move forward. A few minutes of enemy confusion was enough for the rest to follow the first tank. By the evening of the 28th, Chuikov approached the Tiergarten from the southeast, while Rybalko's tanks entered the area from the south. In the north of the Tiergarten, Perepelkin's 3rd Army liberated the Moabit prison, from where 7,000 prisoners were released.

The city center has turned into a real hell. There was nothing to breathe from the heat, the stones of buildings cracked, water boiled in ponds and canals. There was no front line, a desperate battle went on for every street, every house. In the dark rooms and on the stairs, the electricity in Berlin had long gone out, hand-to-hand fights broke out. Early in the morning of April 29, soldiers of the 79th Rifle Corps of General Perevertkin approached the huge building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs "Himmler's house". Having shot the barricades at the entrance with cannons, they managed to break into the building and capture it, which made it possible to come close to the Reichstag.

Meanwhile, nearby, in his bunker, Hitler was dictating a political testament. He expelled the "traitors" Göring and Himmler from the Nazi party and accused the entire German army of failing to maintain "commitment to duty to death." Power over Germany was transferred to "President" Dönitz and "Chancellor" Goebbels, and command of the army to Field Marshal Scherner. Toward evening, the official Wagner, brought by the SS from the city, performed the ceremony of the civil marriage of the Fuhrer and Eva Braun. The witnesses were Goebbels and Bormann, who stayed for breakfast. During the meal, Hitler was depressed, muttering something about the death of Germany and the triumph of the "Jewish Bolsheviks." During breakfast, he presented two secretaries with ampoules of poison and ordered them to poison his beloved shepherd Blondie. Outside the walls of his office, the wedding quickly turned into a drinking bout. One of the few sober employees was Hitler's personal pilot Hans Bauer, who offered to take his boss to any part of the world. The Fuhrer once again refused.

On the evening of April 29, General Weidling reported the situation to Hitler for the last time. The old warrior was frank, tomorrow the Russians will be at the entrance to the office. Ammunition is running out, there is nowhere to wait for reinforcements. Wenck's army was thrown back to the Elbe, nothing is known about most of the other units. We need to capitulate. This opinion was also confirmed by SS Colonel Monke, who had previously fanatically carried out all the orders of the Fuhrer. Hitler forbade surrender, but allowed the soldiers to “small groups” leave the encirclement and make their way to the west.

Meanwhile, Soviet troops occupied one building after another in the center of the city. The commanders had difficulty navigating on the maps; there was not indicated that heap of stones and twisted metal, which was previously called Berlin. After the capture of the "Himmler's house" and the town hall, the attackers had two main goals - the imperial chancellery and the Reichstag. If the first was the real center of power, then the second was its symbol, the tallest building in the German capital, where the banner of Victory was to be hoisted. The banner was already ready; it was handed over to one of the best units of the 3rd Army, the battalion of Captain Neustroev. On the morning of April 30, units approached the Reichstag. As for the office, they decided to break through the zoo in the Tiergarten to it. In the devastated park, the soldiers rescued several animals, including a mountain goat, which was hung around the neck of the German "Iron Cross" for bravery. Only in the evening was the defense center, a seven-story reinforced concrete bunker, taken.

Near the zoo, Soviet assault troops were attacked by SS men from the wrecked subway tunnels. Pursuing them, the fighters penetrated underground and found passages leading towards the office. On the move, a plan arose to "finish off the fascist beast in its lair." The scouts went deep into the tunnels, but after a couple of hours water rushed towards them. According to one version, having learned about the approach of the Russians to the office, Hitler ordered to open the floodgates and let the Spree water into the metro, where, in addition to Soviet soldiers, there were tens of thousands of wounded, women and children. Berliners who survived the war recalled that they heard an order to urgently leave the subway, but due to the ensuing crush, few were able to get out. Another version refutes the existence of the order: water could break into the subway due to continuous bombing that destroyed the walls of the tunnels.

If the Führer ordered the flooding of his fellow citizens, this was the last of his criminal orders. On the afternoon of April 30, he was informed that the Russians were at Potsdamerplatz, a block from the bunker. Shortly thereafter, Hitler and Eva Braun said goodbye to their comrades-in-arms and retired to their room. At 15.30 a shot rang out from there, after which Goebbels, Bormann and several other people entered the room. The Fuhrer, with a pistol in his hand, was lying on the couch with his face covered in blood. Eva Braun did not mutilate herself, she took poison. Their corpses were carried out into the garden, where they were placed in a shell crater, doused with gasoline and set on fire. The funeral ceremony did not last long, the Soviet artillery opened fire, and the Nazis hid in the bunker. Later, the charred bodies of Hitler and his girlfriend were discovered and transported to Moscow. For some reason, Stalin did not show the world evidence of the death of his worst enemy, which gave rise to many versions of his salvation. Only in 1991, Hitler's skull and his dress uniform were discovered in the archive and shown to everyone who wanted to see these gloomy evidence of the past.

Zhukov Yuri Nikolaevich, historian, writer:

Winners are not judged. And that's it. In 1944, it turned out to be quite possible to withdraw Finland, Romania, and Bulgaria from the war without serious battles, primarily through the efforts of diplomacy. An even more favorable situation for us developed on April 25, 1945. On that day, on the Elbe, near the city of Torgau, the troops of the USSR and the USA met, and the complete encirclement of Berlin was completed. From that moment on, the fate of Nazi Germany was sealed. Victory became inevitable. Only one thing remained unclear: exactly when the complete and unconditional surrender of the agonizing Wehrmacht would follow. Zhukov, having removed Rokossovsky, took over the leadership of the storming of Berlin. Could just squeeze the blockade ring hourly.

Force Hitler and his henchmen to commit suicide not on April 30, but a few days later. But Zhukov acted differently. For a week, he ruthlessly sacrificed thousands of soldiers' lives. He forced units of the 1st Belorussian Front to conduct bloody battles for every quarter of the German capital. For every street, every house. Achieved the surrender of the Berlin garrison on May 2. But if this capitulation had followed not on May 2, but, say, on the 6th or 7th, tens of thousands of our soldiers could have been saved. Well, Zhukov would have gained the glory of the winner anyway.

Molchanov Ivan Gavrilovich, participant in the storming of Berlin, veteran of the 8th Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front:

After the battles at Stalingrad, our army under the command of General Chuikov passed through the whole of Ukraine, the south of Belarus, and then through Poland went to Berlin, on the outskirts of which, as you know, the very difficult Kyustrinsky operation took place. I, a scout of an artillery unit, was then 18 years old. I still remember how the earth trembled and a flurry of shells plowed it up and down. How, after a powerful artillery preparation on the Zelov Heights, the infantry went into battle. The soldiers who drove the Germans from the first line of defense later said that after being blinded by the searchlights that were used in this operation, the Germans fled clutching their heads. Many years later, during a meeting in Berlin, German veterans of this operation told me that they then thought that the Russians had used a new secret weapon.

After the Zelov Heights, we moved directly to the German capital. Due to the high water, the roads were so muddy that both equipment and people could hardly move. It was impossible to dig trenches: at a depth, water came out from the bayonet of a shovel. We reached the ring road by the twentieth of April and soon found ourselves on the outskirts of Berlin, where incessant battles for the city began. The SS men had nothing to lose: they strengthened residential buildings, metro stations, and various institutions thoroughly and in advance. When we entered the city, we were horrified: its center turned out to be completely bombed by Anglo-American aircraft, and the streets were littered so that vehicles could hardly move along them. We moved with a map of the city, the streets and quarters indicated on it were difficult to find. On the same map, in addition to objects of fire targets, museums, book depositories, and medical institutions were indicated, at which it was forbidden to shoot.

In the battles for the center, our tank units also suffered losses: they became easy prey for the German faustpatrons. And then the command applied a new tactic: first, artillery and flamethrowers destroyed enemy firing points, and after that the tanks cleared the way for the infantry. By this time, only one gun remained in our unit. But we kept going. When approaching the Brandenburg Gate and the Anhalt railway station, they received an order “not to shoot”, the accuracy of the battle here turned out to be such that our shells could hit their own. By the end of the operation, the remnants of the German army were cut into four parts, which began to be squeezed by rings.

Shooting ended on May 2nd. And suddenly there was such a silence that it was impossible to believe. Residents of the city began to leave the shelters, they looked at us frowningly. And here, in establishing contacts with them, their own children helped. The ubiquitous guys approached us for 1012 years, we treated them to cookies, bread, sugar, and when we opened the kitchen, we began to feed them cabbage soup, porridge. It was a strange sight: gunfire was resumed somewhere, volleys of guns were heard, and there was a queue for porridge near our kitchen

And soon a squadron of our horsemen appeared on the streets of the city. They were so clean and festive that we decided: “Probably, somewhere near Berlin they were specially dressed, prepared.” This impression, as well as a visit to the destroyed Reichstag G.K. Zhukov, he drove up in an unbuttoned overcoat, smiling, crashed into my memory forever. There were, of course, other memorable moments. In the battles for the city, our battery had to be redeployed to another firing point. And then we came under German artillery attack. Two of my comrades jumped into the hole that had been torn apart by the shell. And I, not knowing why, lay down under the truck, where after a few seconds I realized that the car above me was full of shells. When the shelling ended, I got out from under the truck and saw that my comrades were killed Well, it turns out that I was born that day for the second time

last fight

The assault on the Reichstag was led by the 79th Rifle Corps of General Perevertkin, reinforced by strike groups of other units. The first onslaught on the morning of the 30th was repulsed in a huge building, up to one and a half thousand SS men dug in. At 18.00 a new assault followed. For five hours, the fighters moved forward and up, meter by meter, to the roof, decorated with giant bronze horses. Sergeants Egorov and Kantaria were instructed to hoist the flag, and they decided that Stalin would be pleased to take part in this symbolic act of his fellow countryman. Only at 22.50 two sergeants reached the roof and, risking their lives, inserted the flagpole into the hole from the projectile at the very horse's hooves. This was immediately reported to the headquarters of the front, and Zhukov called the Supreme Commander in Moscow.

A little later, another news came, Hitler's heirs decided to negotiate. This was announced by General Krebs, who appeared at Chuikov's headquarters at 3.50 am on May 1. He began by saying, "Today is the first of May, a great holiday for both our nations." To which Chuikov, without too much diplomacy, replied: “Today is our holiday. It's hard to say how things are going for you." Krebs spoke about Hitler's suicide and the desire of his successor Goebbels to conclude a truce. A number of historians believe that these negotiations should have stretched out while waiting for a separate agreement between the "government" of Dönitz and the Western powers. But they did not reach the goal, Chuikov immediately reported to Zhukov, who called Moscow, waking Stalin on the eve of the May Day parade. The reaction to Hitler's death was predictable: “Finished, scoundrel! Too bad we didn't take him alive." The answer to the proposal for a truce came: only complete surrender. This was passed on to Krebs, who objected: "Then you will have to destroy all the Germans." The response silence was more eloquent than words.

At 10.30 Krebs left the headquarters, having managed to drink cognac with Chuikov and exchange memories, both commanded units near Stalingrad. Having received the final "no" of the Soviet side, the German general returned to his troops. In pursuit of him, Zhukov sent an ultimatum: if Goebbels and Bormann's consent to unconditional surrender is not given before 10 o'clock, the Soviet troops will strike such a blow, from which "nothing but ruins will remain" in Berlin. The leadership of the Reich did not give an answer, and at 10.40 Soviet artillery opened heavy fire on the center of the capital.

The shooting did not stop all day, the Soviet units suppressed pockets of German resistance, which weakened a little, but was still fierce. In different parts of the vast city, tens of thousands of soldiers and Volkssturm men were still fighting. Others, throwing down their weapons and tearing off their insignia, tried to escape to the west. Among the latter was Martin Bormann. Upon learning of Chuikov's refusal to negotiate, he, along with a group of SS men, fled from the office through an underground tunnel leading to the Friedrichstrasse metro station. There he got out into the street and tried to hide from the fire behind a German tank, but he was hit. Axman, the leader of the Hitler Youth, who turned out to be there, who shamefully abandoned his young pets, later stated that he had seen the dead body of Nazi No. 2 under the railway bridge.

At 18.30, the soldiers of the 5th Army of General Berzarin went to storm the last stronghold of Nazism of the Imperial Chancellery. Prior to this, they managed to storm the post office, several ministries and the heavily fortified building of the Gestapo. Two hours later, when the first groups of attackers had already approached the building, Goebbels and his wife Magda followed their idol, taking poison. Before that, they asked a doctor to administer a lethal injection to their six children, they were told that they would give an injection from which they would never get sick. The children were left in the room, and the corpses of Goebbels and his wife were taken out into the garden and burned. Soon everyone who remained below, about 600 adjutants and SS men, rushed out: the bunker began to burn. Somewhere in its bowels, only General Krebs, who fired a bullet in the forehead, remained. Another Nazi commander, General Weidling, took charge and radioed Chuikov to agree to an unconditional surrender. At one in the morning on May 2, German officers with white flags appeared on the Potsdam Bridge. Their request was reported to Zhukov, who gave his consent. At 0600, Weidling signed an order to surrender to all German troops, and he himself set an example for his subordinates. After that, the shooting in the city began to subside. From the cellars of the Reichstag, from under the ruins of houses and shelters, the Germans came out, who silently laid down their weapons on the ground and lined up in columns. They were observed by the writer Vasily Grossman, who accompanied the Soviet commandant Berzarin. Among the prisoners, he saw old men, boys and women who did not want to part with their husbands. The day was cold, light rain pouring down on the smoldering ruins. Hundreds of corpses lay on the streets, crushed by tanks. There were also flags with a swastika and party cards lying around. Hitler's followers were in a hurry to get rid of the evidence. In the Tiergarten, Grossman saw a German soldier with a nurse on a bench, they were sitting embracing and not paying any attention to what was going on around.

In the afternoon, Soviet tanks began to roll through the streets, transmitting an order to surrender through loudspeakers. At about 3:00 pm, the fighting finally stopped, and only in the western regions did explosions rumble, there they pursued the SS men who tried to escape. An unusual, tense silence hung over Berlin. And then she was torn apart by a new flurry of shots. Soviet soldiers crowded on the steps of the Reichstag, on the ruins of the Imperial Chancellery, and fired again and again, this time into the air. Strangers threw themselves into each other's arms, danced right on the pavement. They couldn't believe the war was over. Ahead, many of them had new wars, hard work, difficult problems, but they had already done the main thing in their lives.

In the last battle of the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army crushed 95 enemy divisions. Up to 150 thousand German soldiers and officers were killed, 300 thousand were captured. The victory came at a heavy price. During the two weeks of the offensive, three Soviet fronts lost from 100,000 to 200,000 people killed. Senseless resistance claimed the lives of approximately 150 thousand civilians in Berlin, a significant part of the city was destroyed.

Chronicle of the operation

April 16, 5.00.
The troops of the 1st Belorussian Front (Zhukov), after a powerful artillery preparation, begin an offensive on the Zelov Heights near the Oder.
April 16, 8.00.
Parts of the 1st Ukrainian Front (Konev) force the Neisse River and move west.
April 18, morning.
The tank armies of Rybalko and Lelyushenko are turning north towards Berlin.
April 18, evening.
The German defenses on the Zelov Heights have been broken through. Parts of Zhukov begin to advance towards Berlin.
April 19, morning.
Troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front (Rokossovsky) cross the Oder, slicing apart the German defenses north of Berlin.
April 20, evening.
Zhukov's armies approach Berlin from the west and northwest.
April 21, day.
Rybalko's tanks occupy the headquarters of the German troops in Zossen, south of Berlin.
April 22, morning.
Rybalko's army occupies the southern outskirts of Berlin, and Perkhorovich's army occupies the northern parts of the city.
April 24, day.
Meeting of the advancing troops of Zhukov and Konev in the south of Berlin. The Frankfurt-Gubenskaya group of Germans is surrounded by Soviet units, its destruction has begun.
April 25, 13.30.
Parts of Konev went to the Elbe near the city of Torgau and met there with the 1st American Army.
April 26, morning.
The German army of Wenck launches a counterattack on the advancing Soviet units.
April 27, evening.
After stubborn fighting, Wenck's army was driven back.
April 28th.
Soviet units surround the city center.
April 29, day.
The building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the town hall were taken by storm.
April 30, day.
Busy Tiergarten area with a zoo.
April 30, 15.30.
Hitler committed suicide in a bunker under the Imperial Chancellery.
April 30, 22.50.
The assault on the Reichstag, which had lasted since morning, was completed.
May 1, 3.50.
The beginning of unsuccessful negotiations between the German General Krebs and the Soviet command.
May 1, 10.40.
After the failure of the negotiations, the Soviet troops begin to storm the buildings of the ministries and the imperial chancellery.
May 1, 22.00.
The Imperial Chancellery is taken by storm.
May 2, 6.00.
General Weidling gives the order to surrender.
May 2, 15.00.
The fighting in the city finally stopped.

Capture of Berlin, 1945

The assault on Berlin is the final part of the Berlin offensive operation of 1945, during which the Red Army captured the capital of Nazi Germany. The operation lasted from April 25 to May 2.

Storming Berlin

At 12 a.m. on April 25, the 6th Guards Mechanized Corps of the 4th Guards Tank Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the Havel River and connected with units of the 328th Division of the 47th Army of the 1st Belorussian Front, thereby closing the encirclement around Berlin .

By the end of April 25, the Berlin garrison was defending on an area of ​​​​about 327 km². The total length of the front of Soviet troops in Berlin was about 100 km.

The Berlin grouping, according to the Soviet command, consisted of about 200 thousand soldiers and officers, 3 thousand guns and 250 tanks, including the Volkssturm - the people's militia. The defense of the city was carefully thought out and well prepared. It was based on a system of strong fire, strongholds and nodes of resistance. Nine defense sectors were created in Berlin - eight around the circumference and one in the center. The closer to the city center, the tighter the defense became. Massive stone buildings with thick walls gave it special strength. The windows and doors of many buildings were closed up and turned into loopholes for firing. In total, the city had up to 400 reinforced concrete long-term structures - multi-storey bunkers (up to 6 floors) and pillboxes equipped with guns (including anti-aircraft guns) and machine guns. The streets were blocked by powerful barricades up to four meters thick. The defenders had a large number of faustpatrons, which in the conditions of street fighting turned out to be a formidable anti-tank weapon. Of no small importance in the German defense system were underground structures, including the metro, which were widely used by the enemy for covert maneuver of troops, as well as for sheltering them from artillery and bomb attacks.

A network of radar observation posts was deployed around the city. Berlin had a strong anti-aircraft defense provided by the 1st Anti-Aircraft Division. Its main forces were located on three huge concrete structures - Zoobunker in the Tiergarten, Humboldthain and Friedrichshain. The division was armed with 128-, 88- and 20-mm anti-aircraft guns.

The center of Berlin, cut by canals, with the Spree River, was especially strongly fortified, which in fact became one huge fortress. Having superiority in people and technology, the Red Army could not fully use its advantages in urban areas. First of all, it concerned aviation. The ram force of any offensive - tanks, once on the narrow city streets, became an excellent target. Therefore, in street battles, the 8th Guards Army of General V.I. Chuikov used the experience of assault groups, proven back in the Battle of Stalingrad: 2-3 tanks, a self-propelled gun, a sapper unit, signalmen and artillery were attached to a rifle platoon or company. The actions of the assault detachments, as a rule, were preceded by a short but powerful artillery preparation.

By April 26, six armies of the 1st Belorussian Front (47 A; 3, 5 Ud. A; 8 Guards A; 1, 2 Guards TA) and three armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front (28, 3 , 4 Guards TA).

By April 27, as a result of the actions of the armies of the two fronts that had deeply advanced towards the center of Berlin, the enemy grouping stretched out in a narrow strip from east to west - sixteen kilometers long and two or three, in some places five kilometers wide.

The fighting went on both in the morning and at night. Breaking through to the center of Berlin, Soviet soldiers broke through the houses on tanks, knocking out the Nazis from the ruins. By April 28, only the central part remained in the hands of the defenders of the city, which was shot through by Soviet artillery from all sides.

Allied refusal to storm Berlin

Roosevelt and Churchill, Eisenhower and Montgomery believed that they, as the Western allies of the USSR, had the opportunity to take Berlin.

At the end of 1943, US President Franklin Roosevelt, aboard the battleship Iowa, set the task for the military:

We must reach Berlin. The US should get Berlin. The Soviets can take territory to the east.

Winston Churchill also considered Berlin a primary target:

Soviet Russia became a deadly threat to the free world. We must immediately create a united front against its rapid advance. This front in Europe should go as far as possible to the East. The main and true goal of the Anglo-American armies is Berlin.

Churchill, from post-war memoirs.

And back in late March - early April 1945, he insisted:

I... attach even more importance to the entry into Berlin... I consider it extremely important that we meet the Russians as far in the East as possible.

Churchill, from correspondence with the British and American command.

According to Field Marshal Montgomery, Berlin could have been captured in the early autumn of 1944. Trying to convince the commander in chief of the need to storm Berlin, Montgomery wrote to him on September 18, 1944:

I think that the best object of attack is the Ruhr, and then to Berlin by the northern route ... since time is of the utmost importance, we must decide that it is necessary to go to Berlin and end the war; everything else should play a secondary role.

However, after the unsuccessful landing operation of September 1944, called "Market Garden", in which, in addition to the British, also American and Polish paratrooper formations and units participated, Montgomery admitted:

Berlin was lost to us when we failed to develop a good operational plan in August 1944, after the victory in Normandy.

Subsequently, the allies of the USSR abandoned their plans to storm and capture Berlin. Historian John Fuller calls Eisenhower's decision to abandon the capture of Berlin one of the strangest in military history. Despite a large number of guesses, the exact reasons for the refusal of the assault have not yet been clarified.

Capture of the Reichstag

By the evening of April 28, units of the 3rd Shock Army of the 1st Belorussian Front reached the Reichstag area. On the same night, to support the Reichstag garrison, an assault force consisting of cadets from the Rostock Naval School was dropped by parachute. This was the last visible operation of the Luftwaffe in the skies over Berlin.

On the night of April 29, the actions of the advanced battalions of the 150th and 171st rifle divisions under the command of Captain S. A. Neustroev and senior lieutenant K. Ya. Samsonov captured the Moltke bridge across the Spree River. At dawn on April 30, the building of the Ministry of the Interior was stormed at the cost of considerable losses. The way to the Reichstag was open.

An attempt to take the Reichstag on the move was unsuccessful. The building was defended by a 5,000-strong garrison. An anti-tank ditch filled with water was dug in front of the building, making it difficult to attack frontally. On Royal Square there was no large-caliber artillery capable of making breaches in its powerful walls. Despite heavy losses, all capable of attacking were assembled into consolidated battalions on the first line for the last decisive push.

Basically, the Reichstag and the Reich Chancellery were defended by SS troops: units of the SS division "Nordland", the French battalion Fene from the SS division "Charlemagne", the Latvian battalion of the 15th SS Grenadier Division (Latvian No. 1), as well as the personal guard units of Adolf Hitler's SS (their was, according to some sources, about 600-900 people).

According to the combat log of the 150th Infantry Division, at 14:25 on April 30, 1945, Lieutenant Rakhimzhan Koshkarbaev and Private Grigory Bulatov were the first to hoist the flag on the stairs of the main entrance of the Reichstag.

On the evening of April 30, through a breach in the northwestern wall of the Reichstag, made by sappers of the 171st division, a group of Soviet soldiers broke into the building. Almost simultaneously, soldiers of the 150th Infantry Division stormed it from the main entrance. This passage to the infantry was pierced by the cannons of Alexander Bessarab.

The tanks of the 23rd Tank Brigade, the 85th Tank Regiment and the 88th Heavy Tank Regiment provided great assistance during the assault. So, for example, in the morning, several tanks of the 88th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, having crossed the Spree along the surviving Moltke bridge, took up firing positions on the Kronprinzenufer embankment. At 13:00, the tanks opened direct fire on the Reichstag, participating in the general artillery preparation that preceded the assault. At 18:30, the tanks supported the second assault on the Reichstag with their fire, and only with the start of fighting inside the building did they stop shelling it.

On April 30, 1945, at 9:45 pm, units of the 150th Infantry Division under the command of Major General V. M. Shatilov and the 171st Infantry Division under the command of Colonel A. I. Negoda captured the first floor of the Reichstag building.

Having lost the upper floors, the Nazis took refuge in the basement and continued to resist. They hoped to break out of the encirclement, cutting off the Soviet soldiers who were in the Reichstag from the main forces.

In the early morning of May 1, the assault flag of the 150th Infantry Division was raised over the Reichstag, but the battle for the Reichstag continued all day and only on the night of May 2 did the Reichstag garrison capitulate.

Chuikov's negotiations with Krebs

Late in the evening of April 30, the German side requested a ceasefire for negotiations. On May 1, at about 03:30 am, the Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, General Krebs, arrived at the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army of General Chuikov, who announced Hitler's suicide and read out his will. Krebs conveyed to Chuikov a proposal from the new German government to conclude a truce. The message was immediately passed on to Zhukov, who called Moscow himself. Stalin reaffirmed his categorical demand for unconditional surrender. On May 1 at 18:00, the new German government rejected the demand for unconditional surrender, and Soviet troops resumed the assault on the city with renewed vigor. A massive blow was dealt to the quarters of Berlin, still in the hands of the enemy, by the forces of all available artillery.

End of battles and surrender

On the night of May 1, the Berlin metro was flooded - the 2nd assault engineering and sapper brigade under the 8th army of General V.I. the offensive of the 29th Guards Rifle Corps of General G. I. Khetagurov.

Thus, in the area of ​​the Anhalt station, the enemy made extensive use of tunnels, entrances and exits of the subway to maneuver manpower and inflict unexpected strikes on our units. Three-day attempts by units of the 29th Guards Rifle Corps to destroy the enemy in the subway or drive him out of there were unsuccessful. Then it was decided to flood the tunnels, undermining the lintels and floors of the subway in the section that passed under the Teltow Canal. On the night of May 1, an explosion of 1800 kg of explosives, laid on the goats under the subway ceiling, formed a large breach, where water poured from the canal. As a result of the flooding of the tunnel, the enemy was forced to flee rapidly, having suffered significant losses. The collapse of tunnels and collectors of the underground urban economy in order to prevent the maneuver of enemy manpower underground was widely carried out in other parts of the city.

Nikolai Ivanovich Nikoforov, Colonel in the Reserve, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Deputy Head of the Scientific Research Institute (Military History) of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, “Assault Brigades of the Red Army in Battle”, p. 65.

The explosion led to the destruction of the tunnel and its subsequent filling with water over a 25-kilometer stretch. Water gushed into the tunnels, where a large number of civilians were hiding, hospitals for the wounded were located, and the headquarters of the German defense units were also located.

Subsequently, the fact of the destruction and flooding of the metro in Soviet propaganda was covered exclusively as one of the last ominous orders of Hitler and his entourage, and was heavily exaggerated (both in fiction and in documentary works) as a symbol of the senseless death agony of the Third Reich. At the same time, thousands of dead were reported, which was also an extreme exaggeration.

Information about the number of victims ... is different - from fifty to fifteen thousand people ... The data that about a hundred people died under water look more reliable. Of course, there were many thousands of people in the tunnels, among whom were the wounded, children, women and the elderly, but the water did not spread through the underground communications too quickly. Moreover, it spread underground in various directions. Of course, the picture of the advancing water caused genuine horror in people. And some of the wounded, as well as drunken soldiers, as well as civilians, became its inevitable victims. But talking about thousands of dead would be a strong exaggeration. In most places, the water barely reached a depth of one and a half meters, and the inhabitants of the tunnels had enough time to evacuate themselves and save the many wounded who were in the "hospital cars" near the Stadtmitte station. It is likely that many of the dead, whose bodies were subsequently brought to the surface, actually died not from water, but from wounds and diseases even before the destruction of the tunnel.

Anthony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin. 1945". Ch. 25.

By May 1, only the Tiergarten and the government quarter remained in German hands. The imperial office was located here, in the courtyard of which there was a bunker at Hitler's headquarters.

On May 1, units of the 1st Shock Army, advancing from the north, south of the Reichstag, connected with units of the 8th Guards Army, advancing from the south. On the same day, two important Berlin defense centers surrendered: the Spandau citadel and the anti-aircraft tower of the Zoo (“Zoobunker” is a huge reinforced concrete fortress with anti-aircraft batteries on the towers and an extensive underground bomb shelter).

In the first hour of the night on May 2, the radio stations of the 1st Belorussian Front received a message in Russian: “Please cease fire. We are sending parliamentarians to the Potsdam Bridge.” A German officer who arrived at the appointed place on behalf of the commander of the defense of Berlin, General Weidling, announced the readiness of the Berlin garrison to stop resistance. At 6 am on May 2, Artillery General Weidling, accompanied by three German generals, crossed the front line and surrendered. An hour later, while at the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army, he wrote an order to surrender, which was reproduced and, using loud-speaking installations and radio, brought to the enemy units defending in the center of Berlin. As this order was brought to the attention of the defenders, resistance in the city ceased. By the end of the day, the troops of the 8th Guards Army cleared the central part of the city from the enemy.

Separate German units, who did not want to surrender, tried to break through to the west, but for the most part were destroyed or dispersed. The main direction of the breakthrough was the western suburb of Berlin, Spandau, where two bridges over the Havel River remained intact. They were defended by members of the Hitler Youth, who were able to sit on the bridges until the surrender on May 2. The breakthrough began on the night of May 2. Parts of the Berlin garrison and civilian refugees who did not want to surrender, frightened by Goebbels' propaganda about the atrocities of the Red Army, went into the breakthrough. One of the groups under the command of the commander of the 1st (Berlin) anti-aircraft division, Major General Otto Sydow, was able to seep to Spandau through the metro tunnels from the Zoo area. In the area of ​​​​the exhibition hall on the Masurenallee, she connected with the German units retreating from the Kurfürstendamm. The units of the Red Army and the Polish Army stationed in this area did not engage in battle with the retreating units of the Nazis, apparently due to the exhaustion of the troops in previous battles. The systematic destruction of the retreating units began in the area of ​​​​the bridges over the Havel and continued throughout the flight towards the Elbe.

On May 2, at 10 o'clock in the morning, everything suddenly calmed down, the fire ceased. And everyone understood that something had happened. We saw white sheets that were “thrown away” in the Reichstag, the Chancellery building and the Royal Opera and cellars that had not yet been taken. Entire columns were toppled from there. Ahead of us was a column, where there were generals, colonels, then soldiers behind them. It must have been three hours.

Alexander Bessarab, participant in the Battle of Berlin and the capture of the Reichstag.

The last remnants of the German units were destroyed or captured by May 7th. The units managed to break into the area of ​​the Elbe crossings, which until May 7 were held by units of the 12th army of General Wenck, and join the German units and refugees who managed to cross into the zone of occupation of the American army.

Part of the surviving SS units defending the Reich Chancellery, led by SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, attempted to break through to the north on the night of May 2, but were destroyed or captured in the afternoon of May 2. Mohnke himself was captured by the Soviets, from which he was released as an unamnestied war criminal in 1955.

Operation results

Soviet troops defeated the Berlin grouping of enemy troops and stormed the capital of Germany - Berlin. Developing a further offensive, they reached the Elbe River, where they joined up with American and British troops. With the fall of Berlin and the loss of vital areas, Germany lost the opportunity for organized resistance and soon capitulated. With the completion of the Berlin operation, favorable conditions were created for the encirclement and destruction of the last large enemy groupings on the territory of Austria and Czechoslovakia.

The losses of the German armed forces in killed and wounded are not known for certain. Of the approximately 2 million Berliners, about 125,000 died. The city was badly damaged by bombing even before the arrival of Soviet troops. The bombing continued during the battles near Berlin - the last bombing of the Americans on April 20 (Adolf Hitler's birthday) led to food problems. The destruction intensified as a result of the actions of Soviet artillery.

tank losses

According to the TsAMO of the Russian Federation, the 2nd Guards Tank Army under the command of Colonel General S. I. Bogdanov during the street fighting in Berlin from April 22 to May 2, 1945 irretrievably lost 52 T-34s, 31 M4A2 Sherman, 4 IS- 2, 4 ISU-122, 5 SU-100, 2 SU-85, 6 SU-76, which accounted for 16% of the total number of combat vehicles before the start of the Berlin operation. It should be taken into account that the tankers of the 2nd Army acted without sufficient rifle cover and, according to combat reports, in some cases, tank crews were engaged in combing houses. The 3rd Guards Tank Army under the command of General P.S. Rybalko during the fighting in Berlin from April 23 to May 2, 1945 irretrievably lost 99 tanks and 15 self-propelled guns, which amounted to 23% of the combat vehicles available at the beginning of the Berlin operation. The 4th Guards Tank Army under the command of General D. D. Lelyushenko was only partially involved in street fighting on the outskirts of Berlin from April 23 to May 2, 1945 and irretrievably lost 46 combat vehicles. At the same time, a significant part of the armored vehicles was lost after the defeat from faustpatrons.

On the eve of the Berlin operation, the 2nd Guards Tank Army tested various anti-cumulative screens, both solid and made of steel rod. In all cases, they ended with the destruction of the screen and burning through the armor. As A. V. Isaev notes:

The mass installation of screens on tanks and self-propelled guns advancing on Berlin would be a waste of time and effort. The screening of tanks would only worsen the conditions for landing a tank assault on them. ... The tanks were not shielded not because the inertia of thinking interfered or because there were no decisions of the command. Shielding was not widely used in the last battles of the war due to its negligible effectiveness, proven by experience.

Criticism of the operation

In the years of perestroika and after, critics (for example, B. V. Sokolov) repeatedly expressed the opinion that the siege of a city doomed to inevitable defeat, instead of the assault planned a year earlier, would have allowed, perhaps sacrificing the status of surrender or the time given to the enemy to search for new "trump cards", and the allies who came to the rescue with a chance of a different resolution of the situation, for example, the conclusion of a peace treaty, to save, nevertheless, many human lives and military equipment. A participant in the Berlin operation, General A.V. Gorbatov, expressed the following opinion:

From a military point of view, Berlin did not need to be stormed ... It was enough to encircle the city, and he himself would have surrendered in a week or two. Germany would capitulate inevitably. And on the assault, on the very eve of victory, in street battles, we put at least a hundred thousand soldiers. And what kind of people they were - golden, how long everyone had gone, and everyone thought: tomorrow I will see my wife, children ...

The situation of the civilian population

A significant part of Berlin, even before the assault, was destroyed as a result of British-American air raids, from which the population hid in basements and bomb shelters. There were not enough bomb shelters and therefore they were constantly overcrowded. By that time, in Berlin, in addition to the three million local population (which consisted mainly of women, the elderly and children), there were up to three hundred thousand foreign workers, including Ostarbeiters, most of whom were forcibly deported to Germany. They were forbidden from entering bomb shelters and cellars.

Although the war for Germany had long been lost, Hitler ordered to resist to the last. Thousands of teenagers and old people were drafted into the Volkssturm. From the beginning of March, on the orders of Reichskommissar Goebbels, responsible for the defense of Berlin, tens of thousands of civilians, mostly women, were sent to dig anti-tank ditches around the German capital. Civilians who violated the orders of the authorities, even in the last days of the war, were threatened with execution.

There is no exact information on the number of civilian casualties. Different sources indicate a different number of people who died directly during the Battle of Berlin. Even decades after the war, during construction work, previously unknown mass graves are found.

After the capture of Berlin, the civilian population faced the threat of starvation, but the Soviet command organized the distribution of rations to civilians, which saved many Berliners from starvation.

By April 27, Soviet troops had mostly overcome areas with low-rise and sparse buildings and went deep into the densely built-up central districts of Berlin. Soviet tank and combined-arms armies advancing from different directions aimed at one point in the city center - the Reichstag. In 1945, it had long lost its political significance and had a conditional value as a military facility. However, it is the Reichstag that appears in the orders as the target of the offensive of Soviet formations and associations. In any case, moving from different directions to the Reichstag, the troops of the Red Army created a threat to the Fuhrer's bunker under the Reich Chancellery.

The assault group became the central figure in street fighting. Zhukov's directive recommended that 8-12 guns with a caliber from 45 to 203 mm, 4-6 mortars 82-120 mm be included in the assault squads. The assault groups included sappers and "chemists" with smoke bombs and flamethrowers. Tanks also became permanent members of these groups. It is well known that their main enemy in urban battles in 1945 was hand-held anti-tank weapons - Faust cartridges. Shortly before the Berlin operation, experiments were carried out in the troops on shielding tanks. However, they did not give a positive result: even when a bazooka grenade exploded on the screen, the tank's armor made its way. Nevertheless, in some parts, the screens were still installed - more for the psychological support of the crew than for real protection.

"Panzerfaust" (Panzerfaust) - a family of German single-use anti-tank grenade launchers. When the gunpowder charge placed in the pipe was set on fire, the grenade was fired. Thanks to the cumulative action, it was able to burn through armor plate up to 200 mm thick. In Berlin, they were used against both tanks and infantry. At the very bottom are images of the Panzerfaust 60 and Panzerfaust 100.

Did the Faustniks burn down tank armies?

The losses of tank armies in the battles for the city can be assessed as moderate, especially in comparison with the battles in open areas against tanks and anti-tank artillery. So, Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army lost about 70 tanks from faustpatrons in the battles for the city. At the same time, she acted in isolation from the combined arms armies, relying only on her motorized infantry. The proportion of tanks knocked out by "faustniks" in other armies was less. In total, during the street fighting in Berlin from April 22 to May 2, Bogdanov's army irretrievably lost 104 tanks and self-propelled guns (16% of the number of combat vehicles at the beginning of the operation). The 1st Guards Tank Army of Katukov during the street fighting also irretrievably lost 104 armored units (15% of the combat vehicles that were in service at the beginning of the operation). Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army in Berlin itself from April 23 to May 2 irretrievably lost 99 tanks and 15 self-propelled guns (23%). The total losses of the Red Army from faustpatrons in Berlin can be estimated at 200-250 tanks and self-propelled guns out of almost 1800 lost during the operation as a whole. In a word, there is no reason to say that the Soviet tank armies were burned by the Faustniks in Berlin.

However, in any case, the massive use of faustpatrons made it difficult to use tanks, and if the Soviet troops relied only on armored vehicles, the battles for the city would have become much more bloody. It should be noted that faustpatrons were used by the Germans not only against tanks, but also against infantry. Forced to go ahead of the armored vehicles, the infantrymen fell under a hail of shots from the Faustniks. Therefore, cannon and rocket artillery provided invaluable assistance in the assault. The specifics of urban battles made it necessary to put divisional and attached artillery on direct fire. As paradoxical as it sounds, direct-fire guns were sometimes more effective than tanks. The report of the 44th Guards Cannon Artillery Brigade on the Berlin operation stated: “The use of 'Panzerfausts' by the enemy led to a sharp increase in losses in tanks - limited visibility makes them easily vulnerable. Direct-fire guns do not suffer from this drawback, their losses, in comparison with tanks , small". This was not an unfounded statement: the brigade lost only two guns in street battles, one of them was hit by the enemy with a faustpatron.

203 mm howitzer B-4 on caterpillar tracks, put on direct fire, crushed the walls of Berlin buildings. But even for this powerful weapon, the Flakturm I air defense tower turned out to be a tough nut to crack.

The brigade was armed with 152-mm ML-20 howitzer guns. The actions of artillerymen can be illustrated by the following example. The battle for the barricade on Sarlandstrasse did not start well. Faustniki knocked out two IS-2 tanks. Then the gun of the 44th brigade was put on direct fire 180 meters from the fortification. Having fired 12 shells, the gunners punched a passage through the barricade and destroyed its garrison. The brigade's guns were also used to destroy buildings turned into strongholds.

From "Katyusha" direct fire

It has already been said above that the Berlin garrison defended only some buildings. If such a stronghold could not be taken by an assault group, it was simply destroyed by direct-fire artillery. So, from one strong point to another, the attackers went to the city center. In the end, even Katyushas began to be put on direct fire. Frames of M-31 large-caliber rockets were installed in houses on window sills and fired at the buildings opposite. The distance of 100-150 m was considered optimal. The projectile had time to accelerate, broke through the wall and exploded already inside the building. This led to the collapse of partitions and ceilings and, as a result, the death of the garrison. At shorter distances, the wall did not break through and the matter was limited to cracks in the facade. It is here that lies one of the answers to the question of why Kuznetsov's 3rd shock army was the first to reach the Reichstag. Parts of this army made their way through the Berlin streets with 150 direct-fired M-31UK (improved accuracy) shells. Other armies also fired several dozen M-31 shells at direct fire.

The fall of Berlin led to the demoralization of the German troops and broke their will to resist. With still considerable combat capabilities, the Wehrmacht capitulated within the next week after the Berlin garrison laid down their arms.

To victory - ahead!

Another "destroyer of buildings" was heavy artillery. As stated in the report on the actions of the artillery of the 1st Belorussian Front, "in the battles for the fortress of Poznan and in the Berlin operation, both during the operation itself and especially in the battles for the city of Berlin, artillery of great and special power was of decisive importance." In total, during the assault on the German capital, 38 high-power guns, that is, 203-mm B-4 howitzers of the 1931 model, were put up for direct fire. These powerful tracked guns often appear in newsreel dedicated to the battles for the German capital. The B-4 crews acted boldly, even boldly. For example, one of the guns was installed at the intersection of Liedenstrasse and Ritterstrasse, 100-150 m from the enemy. Six shells fired were enough to destroy the house prepared for defense. Turning the gun, the battery commander destroyed three more stone buildings.

In Berlin, there was only one building that withstood the B-4 strike - it was the Flakturm am Zoo anti-aircraft defense tower, aka Flakturm I. Parts of the 8th Guards and 1st Guards Tank Armies entered the area of ​​the Berlin Zoo. The tower proved to be a tough nut to crack for them. The shelling of her 152-mm artillery was completely ineffectual. Then, 105 concrete-piercing shells of 203-mm caliber were fired at direct fire on the flakturm. As a result, the corner of the tower was destroyed, but it continued to live until the capitulation of the garrison. Until the last moment, Weidling's command post was located in it. The air defense towers in Gumbolthein and Friedrichshain were bypassed by our troops, and until the surrender, these structures remained on the territory of the city controlled by the Germans.

On September 7, 1945, heavy tanks IS-3 took part in the parade held in Berlin on the occasion of the end of World War II. The machines of this new model did not have time to make war in the capital of the Reich, but now they announced with their appearance that the power of the victorious army would continue to grow.

The Flakturm am Zoo garrison was somewhat lucky. The tower did not come under fire from Soviet artillery of special power, 280-mm Br-5 mortars and 305-mm Br-18 howitzers of the 1939 model. Nobody put these guns on direct fire. They fired from positions 7-10 km from the battlefield. The 34th separate division of special power was attached to the 8th Guards Army. In the last days of the storming of Berlin, his 280-mm mortars hit the Potsdam railway station. Two such shells pierced the asphalt of the street, floors and exploded in the underground halls of the station, located at a depth of 15 m.

Why not "smeared" Hitler?

Three divisions of 280-mm and 305-mm guns were concentrated in the 5th shock army. Berzarin's army was advancing to the right of Chuikov's army in the historic center of Berlin. Heavy guns were used to destroy solid stone buildings. The 280-mm mortar division hit the Gestapo building, fired over a hundred shells and scored six direct hits. The division of 305-mm howitzers only on the penultimate day of the assault, May 1, fired 110 shells. In fact, only the lack of accurate information about the location of the Fuhrer's bunker prevented the early completion of the fighting. Soviet heavy artillery had the technical ability to bury Hitler and his entourage in a bunker, or even smear them in a thin layer over the labyrinths of the last refuge of the "possessed Fuhrer."

Berlin strategic offensive operation (Berlin operation, Capture of Berlin)- offensive operation of the Soviet troops during Great Patriotic War, which ended with the capture of Berlin and victory in the war.

The military operation was conducted on the territory of Europe from April 16 to May 9, 1945, during which the territories occupied by the Germans were liberated and Berlin was taken under control. Berlin operation was the last in Great Patriotic And World War II.

As part of Berlin operation the following smaller operations were carried out:

• Stettin-Rostock;
• Zelovsko-Berlinskaya;
• Cottbus-Potsdam;
• Stremberg-Torgauskaya;
• Brandenburg-Rathenow.

The purpose of the operation was the capture of Berlin, which would allow the Soviet troops to open the way to connect with the Allies on the Elbe River and thus prevent Hitler from dragging out Second World War for a longer period.

The course of the Berlin operation

In November 1944, the General Staff of the Soviet troops began planning an offensive operation on the outskirts of the German capital. During the operation, it was supposed to defeat the German Army Group "A" and finally liberate the occupied territories of Poland.

At the end of the same month, the German army launched a counteroffensive in the Ardennes and was able to push back the Allied troops, thereby putting them almost on the brink of defeat. To continue the war, the allies needed the support of the USSR - for this, the leadership of the United States and Great Britain turned to the Soviet Union with a request to send their troops and conduct offensive operations in order to distract Hitler and give the allies the opportunity to recover.

The Soviet command agreed, and the USSR army launched an offensive, but the operation began almost a week earlier, due to which there was insufficient preparation and, as a result, heavy losses.

By mid-February, Soviet troops were able to cross the Oder, the last obstacle on the way to Berlin. A little more than seventy kilometers remained to the capital of Germany. From that moment on, the fighting took on a more protracted and fierce character - Germany did not want to give up and tried with all its might to restrain the Soviet offensive, but it was quite difficult to stop the Red Army.

At the same time, preparations began on the territory of East Prussia for the assault on the Königsberg fortress, which was extremely well fortified and seemed almost impregnable. For the assault, the Soviet troops carried out a thorough artillery preparation, which as a result bore fruit - the fortress was taken unusually quickly.

In April 1945, the Soviet army began preparations for the long-awaited assault on Berlin. The leadership of the USSR was of the opinion that in order to achieve the success of the entire operation, it was necessary to urgently carry out an assault without delay, since the prolongation of the war itself could lead to the Germans being able to open another front in the West and conclude a separate peace. In addition, the leadership of the USSR did not want to give Berlin to the Allied forces.

Berlin offensive operation prepared very carefully. Huge stocks of military equipment and ammunition were transferred to the outskirts of the city, and the forces of three fronts were pulled together. The operation was commanded by marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev. In total, more than 3 million people participated in the battle on both sides.

Storming Berlin

Berlin operation characterized by the highest density of artillery shells in the history of all world wars. The defense of Berlin was thought out to the smallest detail, and it was not so easy to break through the system of fortifications and tricks, by the way, the loss of armored vehicles amounted to 1800 units. That is why the command decided to bring up all the nearby artillery to suppress the defense of the city. The result was a truly hellish fire that literally wiped out the enemy's front line of defense.

The assault on the city began on April 16 at 3 am. In the light of searchlights, one and a half hundred tanks and infantry attacked the defensive positions of the Germans. A fierce battle was fought for four days, after which the forces of three Soviet fronts and the troops of the Polish army managed to encircle the city. On the same day, Soviet troops met with the allies on the Elbe. As a result of four days of fighting, several hundred thousand people were captured, dozens of armored vehicles were destroyed.

However, despite the offensive, Hitler was not going to surrender Berlin, he insisted that the city must be held at all costs. Hitler refused to surrender even after the Soviet troops came close to the city, he threw all available human resources, including children and the elderly, onto the field of operations.

On April 21, the Soviet army was able to reach the outskirts of Berlin and start street fighting there - German soldiers fought to the last, following Hitler's order not to surrender.

On April 30, the Soviet flag was hoisted on the building - the war ended, Germany was defeated.

The results of the Berlin operation

Berlin operation put an end to the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War. As a result of the rapid offensive of the Soviet troops, Germany was forced to surrender, all chances for opening a second front and making peace with the allies were cut off. Hitler, having learned about the defeat of his army and the entire fascist regime, committed suicide. More awards were given for the storming of Berlin than for the rest of the military operations of the Second World War. 180 units were awarded honorary "Berlin" distinctions, which in terms of personnel - 1 million 100 thousand people.

Six decades ago, one of the biggest battles in world history ended - not just a clash of two military forces, but the last battle with Nazism, which for many years brought death and destruction to the peoples of Europe.

Direction of the main attack

The war was ending. Everyone understood this, both the generals of the Wehrmacht and their opponents. Only one person Adolf Hitler , in spite of everything, continued to hope for the strength of the German spirit, for a “miracle weapon”, and most importantly for a split between his enemies. The reasons for this were despite the agreements reached at Yalta, England and the United States did not particularly want to cede Berlin to the Soviet troops. Their armies advanced almost unhindered. In April 1945, they broke into the center of Germany, depriving the Wehrmacht of its "forge" Ruhr basin and getting the opportunity to throw on Berlin. At the same time, the 1st Belorussian Front of Marshal Zhukov and the 1st Ukrainian Front of Konev froze in front of the powerful German defense line on the Oder. The 2nd Belorussian Front of Rokossovsky finished off the remnants of enemy troops in Pomerania, and the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts advanced towards Vienna.

On April 1, Stalin convened a meeting of the State Defense Committee in the Kremlin. The audience was asked one question: "Who will take Berlin we or the Anglo-Americans?" "Berlin will be taken by the Soviet Army", Konev was the first to respond. He, Zhukov's constant rival, was not taken by surprise by the question of the Supreme Commander either: he showed the GKO members a huge model of Berlin, where the targets of future strikes were precisely indicated. The Reichstag, the Imperial Chancellery, the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - all these were powerful centers of defense with a network of bomb shelters and secret passages. The capital of the Third Reich was surrounded by three lines of fortifications. The first passed 10 km from the city, the second along its suburbs, the third in the center. Berlin was defended by the elite units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, to whose aid the last reserves were urgently mobilized - 15-year-old members of the Hitler Youth, women and old men from the Volkssturm (people's militia). Around Berlin in the army groups "Vistula" and "Center" there were up to 1 million people, 10.4 thousand guns and mortars, 1.5 thousand tanks.

For the first time since the beginning of the war, the superiority of the Soviet troops in manpower and equipment was not only significant, but overwhelming. Berlin was to be attacked by 2.5 million soldiers and officers, 41.6 thousand guns, more than 6.3 thousand tanks, 7.5 thousand aircraft. The main role in the offensive plan approved by Stalin was assigned to the 1st Belorussian Front. Zhukov was supposed to storm the line of defense on the Zelov heights from the Kustrinsky bridgehead, which towered over the Oder, blocking the road to Berlin. The Konev front was to cross the Neisse and hit the Reich capital with the forces of the tank armies of Rybalko and Lelyushenko. It was planned that in the west it would reach the Elbe and, together with the Rokossovsky front, would join the Anglo-American troops. The Allies were informed of the Soviet plans and agreed to stop their armies on the Elbe. The Yalta agreements had to be fulfilled, besides, this made it possible to avoid unnecessary losses.

The offensive was scheduled for 16 April. To make it unexpected for the enemy, Zhukov ordered to advance early in the morning, in the dark, blinding the Germans with the light of powerful searchlights. At five in the morning, three red rockets gave the signal to attack, and a second later, thousands of guns and Katyushas opened a hurricane of fire of such force that the eight-kilometer space turned out to be plowed overnight. "Hitler's troops were literally sunk in a continuous sea of ​​fire and metal," Zhukov wrote in his memoirs. Alas, on the eve of the captured Soviet soldier, he revealed to the Germans the date of the future offensive, and they managed to withdraw the troops to the Zelov Heights. From there, aimed shooting began at Soviet tanks, which, wave after wave, went to break through and died in a field that was being shot through. While the enemy's attention was riveted on them, the soldiers of Chuikov's 8th Guards Army managed to move forward and take up lines near the outskirts of the village of Zelov. By evening, it became clear that the planned pace of the offensive was frustrated.

At the same time, Hitler turned to the Germans with an appeal, promising them: "Berlin will remain in German hands", and the Russian offensive "will choke in blood." But few believed in it. People listened with fear to the sounds of cannon fire, which were added to the already familiar bomb explosions. The remaining residents - at least 2.5 million - were forbidden to leave the city. The Fuhrer, losing his sense of reality, decided: if the Third Reich dies, all Germans should share his fate. Goebbels' propaganda intimidated the inhabitants of Berlin with the atrocities of the "Bolshevik hordes", urging them to fight to the end. The headquarters of the defense of Berlin was created, which ordered the population to prepare for fierce battles in the streets, in houses and underground communications. Each house was planned to be turned into a fortress, for which all the remaining residents were forced to dig trenches and equip firing positions.

At the end of the day on April 16, the Supreme Commander called Zhukov. He dryly reported that Konev overcame Neisse "happened without difficulty." Two tank armies broke through the front at Cottbus and rushed forward, not stopping the offensive even at night. Zhukov had to promise that during April 17 he would take the ill-fated heights. In the morning, General Katukov's 1st Tank Army moved forward again. And again, the “thirty-fours”, which passed from Kursk to Berlin, burned out like candles from the fire of the “faustpatrons”. By evening, Zhukov's units advanced only a couple of kilometers. Meanwhile, Konev reported to Stalin on new successes, announcing his readiness to take part in the storming of Berlin. Silence on the phone and the deaf voice of the Supreme: “I agree. Turn the tank armies to Berlin." On the morning of April 18, the armies of Rybalko and Lelyushenko rushed north to Teltow and Potsdam. Zhukov, whose pride suffered severely, threw his units into a last desperate attack. In the morning, the 9th German Army, which received the main blow, could not stand it and began to roll back to the west. The Germans still tried to go on the counterattack, but the next day they retreated along the entire front. From that moment on, nothing could delay the denouement.

Friedrich Hitzer, German writer, translator:

My answer regarding the storming of Berlin is purely personal, not of a military strategist. In 1945 I was 10 years old, and as a child of the war, I remember how it ended, what the defeated people felt. Both my father and the closest relative participated in this war. The latter was a German officer. Returning from captivity in 1948, he resolutely told me that if this happened again, he would go to war again. And on January 9, 1945, on my birthday, I received a letter from the front from my father, who also wrote with determination that we must “fight, fight and fight the terrible enemy in the east, otherwise we will be taken to Siberia.” Having read these lines as a child, I was proud of the courage of my father, "the liberator from the Bolshevik yoke." But very little time passed, and my uncle, that same German officer, told me many times: “We were deceived. Make sure this doesn't happen to you." The soldiers realized that this was the wrong war. Of course, not all of us were "deceived". One of his father's best friends warned him back in the 1930s: Hitler is terrible. You know, any political ideology of the superiority of some over others, absorbed by society, is akin to drugs

The meaning of the assault, and the finale of the war in general, became clear to me later. The storming of Berlin was necessary it saved me from the fate of being a conquering German. If Hitler had won, I would probably have become a very unhappy person. His goal of world domination is alien and incomprehensible to me. As an action, the capture of Berlin was terrible for the Germans. But really, it was a blessing. After the war, I worked in a military commission dealing with the issues of German prisoners of war, and once again I was convinced of this.

I recently met with Daniil Granin, and we talked for a long time about what kind of people they were who surrounded Leningrad

And then, during the war, I was afraid, yes, I hated the Americans and the British, who almost completely bombed my hometown of Ulm. This feeling of hatred and fear lived in me until I visited America.

I remember well how, evacuated from the city, we lived in a small German village on the banks of the Danube, which was the "American zone". Our girls and women then inked themselves with pencils so as not to be raped. Every war is a terrible tragedy, and this war was especially terrible: today they talk about 30 million Soviet and 6 million German victims, as well as millions of dead people of other nations.

last birthday

On April 19, another participant appeared in the race for Berlin. Rokossovsky reported to Stalin that the 2nd Belorussian Front was ready to storm the city from the north. On the morning of that day, the 65th Army of General Batov crossed the wide channel of the Western Oder and moved to Prenzlau, cutting into parts the German Army Group Vistula. At this time, Konev's tanks moved north easily, as if in a parade, meeting almost no resistance and leaving the main forces far behind. Marshal deliberately took risks, hurrying to approach Berlin before Zhukov. But the troops of the 1st Belorussian were already approaching the city. His formidable commander issued an order: "No later than 4 o'clock in the morning on April 21, at any cost, break through to the suburbs of Berlin and immediately convey a message to Stalin and the press about this."

On April 20, Hitler celebrated his last birthday. In a bunker submerged 15 meters into the ground under the imperial office, selected guests gathered: Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Bormann, the top of the army and, of course, Eva Braun, who was listed as the Fuhrer's "secretary". The comrades-in-arms offered their leader to leave the doomed Berlin and move to the Alps, where a secret shelter had already been prepared. Hitler refused: "I am destined to win or die with the Reich." However, he agreed to withdraw the command of the troops from the capital, dividing it into two parts. The north was under the control of Grand Admiral Dönitz, to whom Himmler went to help with his headquarters. The south of Germany was to be defended by Goering. At the same time, a plan arose to defeat the Soviet offensive by the forces of the armies of Steiner from the north and Wenck from the west. However, this plan was doomed from the start. Both the 12th Army of Wenck and the remnants of SS General Steiner's units were exhausted in battle and incapable of action. Army Group Center, on which hopes were also pinned, fought hard battles in the Czech Republic. Zhukov prepared a "gift" for the German leader - in the evening his armies approached the city border of Berlin. The first shells of long-range guns hit the city center. On the morning of the next day, General Kuznetsov's 3rd Army entered Berlin from the northeast, and Berzarin's 5th Army from the north. Katukov and Chuikov advanced from the east. The streets of the dull Berlin suburbs were blocked by barricades, "faustniks" fired at the attackers from the gates and windows of the houses.

Zhukov ordered not to waste time suppressing individual firing points and to rush forward. Meanwhile, Rybalko's tanks approached the headquarters of the German command in Zossen. Most of the officers fled to Potsdam, and the chief of staff, General Krebs, went to Berlin, where on April 22 at 15.00 Hitler's last military conference took place. Only then did they dare to tell the Fuhrer that no one was able to save the besieged capital. The reaction was violent: the leader burst into threats against the "traitors", then collapsed into a chair and groaned: "It's all over the war is lost ..."

And yet the Nazi elite was not going to give up. It was decided to completely stop the resistance to the Anglo-American troops and throw all their forces against the Russians. All military capable of holding weapons were to be sent to Berlin. The Führer still pinned his hopes on Wenck's 12th Army, which was to link up with Busse's 9th Army. To coordinate their actions, the command led by Keitel and Jodl was withdrawn from Berlin to the town of Kramnitz. In the capital, besides Hitler himself, only General Krebs, Bormann and Goebbels, who was appointed head of defense, remained among the leaders of the Reich.

Nikolai Sergeevich Leonov, Lieutenant General of the Foreign Intelligence Service:

The Berlin operation is the penultimate operation of the Second World War. It was carried out by the forces of three fronts from April 16 to April 30, 1945 - from the raising of the flag over the Reichstag and the end of the resistance - on the evening of May 2. Pros and cons of this operation. Plus the operation was completed quickly enough. After all, the attempt to take Berlin was actively promoted by the leaders of the allied armies. This is reliably known from Churchill's letters.

Cons almost everyone who participated recalls that there were too many victims and, perhaps, without an objective need. The first reproaches to Zhukov he was at the shortest distance from Berlin. His attempt to enter frontally from the east is regarded by many participants in the war as a mistaken decision. It was necessary to cover Berlin from the north and from the south with a ring and force the enemy to capitulate. But the marshal went straight ahead. Regarding the artillery operation on April 16, we can say the following: Zhukov brought the idea of ​​​​using searchlights from Khalkhin Gol. It was there that the Japanese launched a similar attack. Zhukov repeated the same technique: but many military strategists argue that the searchlights had no effect. As a result of their application, a mess of fire and dust was obtained. This frontal attack was unsuccessful and poorly thought out: when our soldiers passed through the trenches, there were few German corpses in them. So the advancing units shot more than 1,000 wagons of ammunition in vain. Stalin specifically arranged competition between the marshals. After all, Berlin was finally surrounded on April 25. It would be possible not to resort to such sacrifices.

City on fire

On April 22, 1945, Zhukov appeared in Berlin. His armies five infantry and four armored destroyed the capital of Germany from all types of weapons. Meanwhile, Rybalko's tanks approached the city limits, occupying a bridgehead in the Teltow area. Zhukov gave his vanguard - the armies of Chuikov and Katukov - the order to cross the Spree, no later than the 24th to be in Tempelhof and Marienfeld - the central districts of the city. For street fighting, assault detachments were hastily formed from fighters from different units. In the north, the 47th Army of General Perkhorovich crossed the Havel River along an accidentally surviving bridge and headed west, preparing to join Konev’s units there and close the encirclement. Having occupied the northern districts of the city, Zhukov finally excluded Rokossovsky from the number of participants in the operation. From that moment until the end of the war, the 2nd Belorussian Front was engaged in the defeat of the Germans in the north, pulling over a significant part of the Berlin group.

The glory of the winner of Berlin passed Rokossovsky, she also passed Konev. Stalin's directive, received on the morning of April 23, ordered the troops of the 1st Ukrainian to stop at the Anhalter railway station - literally a hundred meters from the Reichstag. The Supreme Commander entrusted Zhukov with occupying the center of the enemy capital, thus noting his invaluable contribution to the victory. But Anhalter still had to be reached. Rybalko with his tanks froze on the banks of the deep Teltow Canal. Only with the approach of artillery, which suppressed German firing points, were the vehicles able to cross the water barrier. On April 24, Chuikov's scouts made their way to the west through the Schönefeld airfield and met Rybalko's tankers there. This meeting divided the German forces in half, with about 200,000 soldiers surrounded in a wooded area southeast of Berlin. Until May 1, this grouping tried to break through to the west, but was cut into pieces and almost completely destroyed.

And Zhukov's shock forces continued to rush towards the city center. Many fighters and commanders had no experience of fighting in a big city, which led to huge losses. The tanks moved in columns, and as soon as the front one was knocked out, the entire column became easy prey for the German "faustniks". I had to resort to merciless, but effective tactics of military operations: at first, artillery fired at the target of a future offensive, then volleys of Katyushas drove everyone alive into shelters. After that, the tanks went forward, destroying the barricades and smashing the houses, from where the shots were heard. Only then did the infantry come into play. During the battle, the city was hit by almost two million gunshots - 36 thousand tons of deadly metal. Fortress guns were delivered from Pomerania by rail, firing at the center of Berlin with shells weighing half a ton.

But even this firepower did not always cope with the thick walls of buildings built in the 18th century. Chuikov recalled: "Our guns sometimes fired up to a thousand shots at one square, at a group of houses, even at a small garden." It is clear that at the same time, no one thought about the civilian population, trembling with fear in bomb shelters and flimsy basements. However, the main blame for his suffering lay not with the Soviet troops, but with Hitler and his entourage, who, with the help of propaganda and violence, did not allow residents to leave the city, which had turned into a sea of ​​fire. Already after the victory, it was estimated that 20% of the houses in Berlin were completely destroyed, and another 30% were partially destroyed. On April 22, for the first time in history, the city telegraph office closed, having received the last message from the Japanese allies "good luck." Water and gas were turned off, transport stopped running, food distribution stopped. Starving Berliners, ignoring the continuous shelling, robbed freight trains and shops. They were more afraid not of Russian shells, but of SS patrols, who grabbed men and hung them on trees as deserters.

The police and Nazi officials began to flee. Many tried to make their way to the west to surrender to the Anglo-Americans. But the Soviet units were already there. April 25 at 13.30 they went to the Elbe and met near the town of Torgau with the tankers of the 1st American Army.

On this day, Hitler entrusted the defense of Berlin to Panzer General Weidling. Under his command were 60 thousand soldiers, who were opposed by 464 thousand Soviet troops. The armies of Zhukov and Konev met not only in the east, but also in the west of Berlin, in the Ketzin area, and now they were separated from the city center by only 78 kilometers. On April 26, the Germans made a last desperate attempt to stop the attackers. Fulfilling the order of the Fuhrer, the 12th Army of Wenck, which included up to 200 thousand people, attacked the 3rd and 28th armies of Konev from the west. Unprecedentedly fierce even for this fierce battle, the fighting continued for two days, and by the evening of the 27th, Venck had to retreat to his previous positions.

The day before, Chuikov's soldiers occupied the Gatow and Tempelhof airfields, fulfilling Stalin's order to prevent Hitler from leaving Berlin at any cost. The Supreme Commander was not going to let the one who treacherously deceived him in 1941 slip away or surrender to the allies. Corresponding orders were also given to other Nazi leaders. There was another category of Germans who were intensively searched for, specialists in nuclear research. Stalin knew about the work of the Americans on the atomic bomb and was going to create "his own" as soon as possible. It was already necessary to think about the world after the war, where the Soviet Union was to take a worthy, blood-paid place.

Meanwhile, Berlin continued to suffocate in the smoke of fires. Volkssturmovets Edmund Heckscher recalled: “There were so many fires that the night turned into day. You could read the newspaper, but there were no more newspapers in Berlin.” The roar of guns, shooting, explosions of bombs and shells did not stop for a minute. Clouds of smoke and brick dust filled the center of the city, where, deep under the ruins of the Imperial Chancellery, Hitler again and again tormented his subordinates with the question: “Where is Wenck?”

On April 27, three-quarters of Berlin was in Soviet hands. In the evening, Chuikov's strike forces reached the Landwehr Canal, one and a half kilometers from the Reichstag. However, their path was blocked by elite units of the SS, who fought with special fanaticism. Bogdanov's 2nd Panzer Army was stuck in the Tiergarten area, whose parks were dotted with German trenches. Each step here was given with difficulty and considerable bloodshed. Rybalko's tankers had chances again, who on that day made an unprecedented rush from the west to the center of Berlin through Wilmersdorf.

By nightfall, a strip 23 kilometers wide and up to 16 kilometers long remained in the hands of the Germans. The first batches of prisoners, still small, leaving with raised hands from the basements and entrances of houses, stretched to the rear. Many were deafened by the incessant roar, others, who had gone mad, laughed wildly. The civilian population continued to hide, fearing the revenge of the victors. The Avengers, of course, were could not help but be after what the Nazis did on Soviet soil. But there were also those who, risking their lives, pulled German old people and children out of the fire, who shared their soldier's rations with them. The feat of Sergeant Nikolai Masalov, who saved a three-year-old German girl from a destroyed house on the Landwehr Canal, went down in history. It is he who is portrayed by the famous statue in Treptow Park in memory of Soviet soldiers who kept their humanity in the fire of the most terrible of wars.

Even before the end of the fighting, the Soviet command took measures to restore normal life in the city. On April 28, General Berzarin, appointed commandant of Berlin, issued an order to dissolve the National Socialist Party and all its organizations and transfer all power to the military commandant's office. In areas cleared of the enemy, soldiers were already beginning to put out fires, clear buildings, and bury numerous corpses. However, it was possible to establish a normal life only with the assistance of the local population. Therefore, on April 20, the Headquarters demanded that the commanders of the troops change their attitude towards German prisoners of war and the civilian population. The directive put forward a simple justification for such a step: "A more humane attitude towards the Germans will reduce their stubbornness in defense."

Former foreman of the 2nd article, member of the international PEN club (International Organization of Writers), Germanist writer, translator Evgeny Katseva:

The greatest of our holidays is approaching, and my soul is scratched by cats. Recently (in February) of this year, I was at a conference in Berlin, supposedly dedicated to this great date, I think not only for our people, and I became convinced that many have forgotten who started the war and who won it. No, this stable phrase "win the war" is completely inappropriate: you can win and lose in the game in a war, you either win or lose. For many Germans, the war is only the horrors of those few weeks when it went on their territory, as if our soldiers came there of their own free will, and did not fight their way to the west for 4 long years on their native scorched and trampled land. So, Konstantin Simonov was not so right, he believed that there was no such thing as someone else's grief. It happens, how it happens. And if you forgot who put an end to one of the most terrible wars, defeated German fascism, where can you remember who took the capital of the German Reich, Berlin. Our Soviet Army, our Soviet soldiers and officers took it. Entirely, fighting for every district, quarter, house, from the windows and doors of which shots rang out until the last moment.

It was only later, after a whole bloody week after the capture of Berlin, on May 2, our allies appeared, and the main trophy, as a symbol of the joint Victory, was divided into four parts. Into four sectors: Soviet, American, English, French. With four military commandant's offices. Four or four, even more or less equal, but in general, Berlin was divided into two completely different parts. For the three sectors soon connected, and the fourth east and, as usual, the poorest turned out to be isolated. It remained so, although it later acquired the status of the capital of the GDR. To us, the Americans, in return, “generously” rolled off the Thuringia they occupied. The land is good, but for a long time the disappointed residents harbored resentment for some reason not against the apostate Americans, but against us, the new occupiers. Here's an aberration

As for looting, our soldiers did not come there on their own. And now, 60 years later, all sorts of myths are being spread, growing into ancient proportions.

Reich Convulsions

The fascist empire was disintegrating before our eyes. On April 28, Italian partisans caught dictator Mussolini trying to escape and shot him. The next day, General von Wietinghoff signed the act of surrender of the Germans in Italy. Hitler learned about the execution of the Duce at the same time as other bad news: his closest associates Himmler and Goering started separate negotiations with the Western allies, bargaining for their lives. The Fuhrer was beside himself with rage: he demanded the immediate arrest and execution of traitors, but this was no longer in his power. It was possible to recoup on Himmler's deputy, General Fegelein, who fled from the bunker, a detachment of SS men grabbed him and shot him. The general was not saved even by the fact that he was the husband of Eva Braun's sister. In the evening of the same day, Commandant Weidling reported that there was only two days of ammunition left in the city, and there was no fuel at all.

General Chuikov received from Zhukov the task of linking up from the east with the forces advancing from the west through the Tiergarten. The Potsdamer Bridge, leading to the Anhalter station and Wilhelmstrasse, became an obstacle to the soldiers. The sappers managed to save him from the explosion, but the tanks that entered the bridge were hit by well-aimed shots of faustpatrons. Then the tankers tied sandbags around one of the tanks, doused it with diesel fuel and let it go forward. From the first shots, the fuel flared up, but the tank continued to move forward. A few minutes of enemy confusion was enough for the rest to follow the first tank. By the evening of the 28th, Chuikov approached the Tiergarten from the southeast, while Rybalko's tanks entered the area from the south. In the north of the Tiergarten, Perepelkin's 3rd Army liberated the Moabit prison, from where 7,000 prisoners were released.

The city center has turned into a real hell. There was nothing to breathe from the heat, the stones of buildings cracked, water boiled in ponds and canals. There was no front line a desperate battle went on for every street, every house. Hand-to-hand fights broke out in the dark rooms and on the stairways—the electricity in Berlin had long since gone out. Early in the morning of April 29, soldiers of General Perevertkin's 79th Rifle Corps approached the huge building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the "Himmler House". Having shot the barricades at the entrance with cannons, they managed to break into the building and capture it, which made it possible to come close to the Reichstag.

Meanwhile, nearby, in his bunker, Hitler was dictating a political testament. He expelled the "traitors" Göring and Himmler from the Nazi party and accused the entire German army of failing to maintain "commitment to duty to death." Power over Germany was transferred to "President" Dönitz and "Chancellor" Goebbels, and command of the army to Field Marshal Scherner. Toward evening, the official Wagner, brought by the SS from the city, performed the ceremony of the civil marriage of the Fuhrer and Eva Braun. The witnesses were Goebbels and Bormann, who stayed for breakfast. During the meal, Hitler was depressed, muttering something about the death of Germany and the triumph of the "Jewish Bolsheviks." During breakfast, he presented two secretaries with ampoules of poison and ordered them to poison his beloved shepherd Blondie. Outside the walls of his office, the wedding quickly turned into a drinking bout. One of the few sober employees was Hitler's personal pilot Hans Bauer, who offered to take his boss to any part of the world. The Fuhrer once again refused.

On the evening of April 29, General Weidling reported the situation to Hitler for the last time. The old warrior was frank tomorrow the Russians will be at the entrance to the office. Ammunition is running out, there is nowhere to wait for reinforcements. Wenck's army was thrown back to the Elbe, nothing is known about most of the other units. We need to capitulate. This opinion was also confirmed by SS Colonel Monke, who had previously fanatically carried out all the orders of the Fuhrer. Hitler forbade surrender, but allowed the soldiers to “small groups” leave the encirclement and make their way to the west.

Meanwhile, Soviet troops occupied one building after another in the center of the city. The commanders had difficulty orienting themselves on the maps - there was not indicated that heap of stones and twisted metal, which was previously called Berlin. After the capture of the "Himmler's house" and the town hall, the attackers had two main goals - the imperial chancellery and the Reichstag. If the first was the real center of power, then the second was its symbol, the tallest building in the German capital, where the banner of Victory was to be hoisted. The banner was already ready - it was handed over to one of the best units of the 3rd Army, the battalion of Captain Neustroev. On the morning of April 30, units approached the Reichstag. As for the office, they decided to break through the zoo in the Tiergarten to it. In the devastated park, the soldiers rescued several animals, including a mountain goat, which was hung around the neck of the German "Iron Cross" for bravery. Only in the evening the defense center was taken - a seven-story reinforced concrete bunker.

Near the zoo, Soviet assault troops were attacked by SS men from the wrecked subway tunnels. Pursuing them, the fighters penetrated underground and found passages leading towards the office. On the move, a plan arose to "finish off the fascist beast in its lair." The scouts went deep into the tunnels, but after a couple of hours water rushed towards them. According to one version, having learned about the approach of the Russians to the office, Hitler ordered to open the floodgates and let the Spree water into the metro, where, in addition to Soviet soldiers, there were tens of thousands of wounded, women and children. Berliners who survived the war recalled that they heard an order to urgently leave the subway, but due to the ensuing crush, few were able to get out. Another version refutes the existence of the order: water could break into the subway due to continuous bombing that destroyed the walls of the tunnels.

If the Führer ordered the flooding of his fellow citizens, this was the last of his criminal orders. On the afternoon of April 30, he was informed that the Russians were at Potsdamerplatz, a block from the bunker. Shortly thereafter, Hitler and Eva Braun said goodbye to their comrades-in-arms and retired to their room. At 15.30 a shot rang out from there, after which Goebbels, Bormann and several other people entered the room. The Fuhrer, with a pistol in his hand, was lying on the couch with his face covered in blood. Eva Braun did not mutilate herself - she took poison. Their corpses were carried out into the garden, where they were placed in a shell crater, doused with gasoline and set on fire. The funeral ceremony did not last long Soviet artillery opened fire, and the Nazis hid in the bunker. Later, the charred bodies of Hitler and his girlfriend were discovered and transported to Moscow. For some reason, Stalin did not show the world evidence of the death of his worst enemy, which gave rise to many versions of his salvation. Only in 1991, Hitler's skull and his dress uniform were discovered in the archive and shown to everyone who wanted to see these gloomy evidence of the past.

Zhukov Yuri Nikolaevich, historian, writer:

Winners are not judged. And that's it. In 1944, it turned out to be quite possible to withdraw Finland, Romania, and Bulgaria from the war without serious battles, primarily through the efforts of diplomacy. An even more favorable situation for us developed on April 25, 1945. On that day, on the Elbe, near the city of Torgau, the troops of the USSR and the USA met, and the complete encirclement of Berlin was completed. From that moment on, the fate of Nazi Germany was sealed. Victory became inevitable. Only one thing remained unclear: exactly when the complete and unconditional surrender of the agonizing Wehrmacht would follow. Zhukov, having removed Rokossovsky, took over the leadership of the storming of Berlin. Could just squeeze the blockade ring hourly.

Force Hitler and his henchmen to commit suicide not on April 30, but a few days later. But Zhukov acted differently. For a week, he ruthlessly sacrificed thousands of soldiers' lives. He forced units of the 1st Belorussian Front to conduct bloody battles for every quarter of the German capital. For every street, every house. Achieved the surrender of the Berlin garrison on May 2. But if this capitulation had followed not on May 2, but, say, on the 6th or 7th, tens of thousands of our soldiers could have been saved. Well, Zhukov would have gained the glory of the winner anyway.

Molchanov Ivan Gavrilovich, participant in the storming of Berlin, veteran of the 8th Guards Army of the 1st Belorussian Front:

After the battles at Stalingrad, our army under the command of General Chuikov passed through the whole of Ukraine, the south of Belarus, and then through Poland went to Berlin, on the outskirts of which, as you know, the very difficult Kyustrinsky operation took place. I, a scout of an artillery unit, was then 18 years old. I still remember how the earth trembled and a flurry of shells plowed it up and down How, after powerful artillery preparation on the Zelov Heights, the infantry went into battle. The soldiers who drove the Germans from the first line of defense later said that after being blinded by the searchlights that were used in this operation, the Germans fled clutching their heads. Many years later, during a meeting in Berlin, German veterans of this operation told me that they then thought that the Russians had used a new secret weapon.

After the Zelov Heights, we moved directly to the German capital. Due to the high water, the roads were so muddy that both equipment and people could hardly move. It was impossible to dig trenches: at a depth, water came out from the bayonet of a shovel. We reached the ring road by the twentieth of April and soon found ourselves on the outskirts of Berlin, where incessant battles for the city began. The SS men had nothing to lose: they strengthened residential buildings, metro stations, and various institutions thoroughly and in advance. When we entered the city, we were horrified: its center turned out to be completely bombed by Anglo-American aircraft, and the streets were littered so that vehicles could hardly move along them. We moved with a map of the city - the streets and quarters marked on it were difficult to find. On the same map, in addition to the objects of fire targets, museums, book depositories, and medical institutions were marked, at which it was forbidden to shoot.

In the battles for the center, our tank units also suffered losses: they became easy prey for the German faustpatrons. And then the command applied a new tactic: first, artillery and flamethrowers destroyed enemy firing points, and after that the tanks cleared the way for the infantry. By this time, only one gun remained in our unit. But we kept going. When approaching the Brandenburg Gate and the Anhalt railway station, they received an order “not to shoot” the accuracy of the battle here turned out to be such that our shells could hit their own. By the end of the operation, the remnants of the German army were cut into four parts, which began to be squeezed by rings.

Shooting ended on May 2nd. And suddenly there was such a silence that it was impossible to believe. Residents of the city began to leave the shelters, they looked at us frowningly. And here, in establishing contacts with them, their own children helped. The ubiquitous guys, 10-12 years old, came up to us, we treated them to cookies, bread, sugar, and when we opened the kitchen, we began to feed them cabbage soup, porridge. It was a strange sight: gunfire was resumed somewhere, volleys of guns were heard, and there was a queue for porridge near our kitchen

And soon a squadron of our horsemen appeared on the streets of the city. They were so clean and festive that we decided: “Probably, somewhere near Berlin they were specially dressed, prepared” This impression, as well as a visit to the destroyed Reichstag G.K. Zhukov he drove up in an unbuttoned overcoat, smiling, crashed into my memory forever. There were, of course, other memorable moments. In the battles for the city, our battery had to be redeployed to another firing point. And then we came under German artillery attack. Two of my comrades jumped into the hole that had been torn apart by the shell. And I, not knowing why, lay down under the truck, where after a few seconds I realized that the car above me was full of shells. When the shelling ended, I got out from under the truck and saw that my comrades were killed Well, it turns out that I was born that day for the second time

last fight

The assault on the Reichstag was led by the 79th Rifle Corps of General Perevertkin, reinforced by strike groups of other units. The first onslaught on the morning of the 30th was repulsed, and up to one and a half thousand SS men dug in in the huge building. At 18.00 a new assault followed. For five hours, the fighters moved forward and up, meter by meter, to the roof, decorated with giant bronze horses. Sergeants Egorov and Kantaria were instructed to hoist the flag, and they decided that Stalin would be pleased to take part in this symbolic act of his countryman. Only at 22.50 two sergeants reached the roof and, risking their lives, inserted the flagpole into the hole from the projectile at the very horse's hooves. This was immediately reported to the headquarters of the front, and Zhukov called the Supreme Commander in Moscow.

A little later, other news came Hitler's heirs decided to negotiate. This was announced by General Krebs, who appeared at Chuikov's headquarters at 3.50 am on May 1. He began by saying, "Today is the first of May, a great holiday for both our nations." To which Chuikov, without too much diplomacy, replied: “Today is our holiday. It's hard to say how things are going for you." Krebs spoke about Hitler's suicide and the desire of his successor Goebbels to conclude a truce. A number of historians believe that these negotiations should have stretched out while waiting for a separate agreement between the "government" of Dönitz and the Western powers. But they did not reach the goal Chuikov immediately reported to Zhukov, who called Moscow, waking Stalin on the eve of the May Day parade. The reaction to Hitler's death was predictable: “Finished, scoundrel! Too bad we didn't take him alive." The answer to the proposal for a truce came: only complete surrender. This was passed on to Krebs, who objected: "Then you will have to destroy all the Germans." The response silence was more eloquent than words.

At 10.30 Krebs left the headquarters, having managed to drink cognac with Chuikov and exchange memories, both commanded units near Stalingrad. Having received the final "no" of the Soviet side, the German general returned to his troops. In pursuit of him, Zhukov sent an ultimatum: if Goebbels and Bormann's consent to unconditional surrender is not given before 10 o'clock, the Soviet troops will strike such a blow, from which "nothing but ruins will remain" in Berlin. The leadership of the Reich did not give an answer, and at 10.40 Soviet artillery opened heavy fire on the center of the capital.

The shooting did not stop all day the Soviet units suppressed pockets of German resistance, which weakened a little, but was still fierce. In different parts of the vast city, tens of thousands of soldiers and Volkssturm men were still fighting. Others, throwing down their weapons and tearing off their insignia, tried to escape to the west. Among the latter was Martin Bormann. Upon learning of Chuikov's refusal to negotiate, he, along with a group of SS men, fled from the office through an underground tunnel leading to the Friedrichstrasse metro station. There he got out into the street and tried to hide from the fire behind a German tank, but he was hit. Axman, the leader of the Hitler Youth, who turned out to be there, who shamefully abandoned his young pets, later stated that he had seen the dead body of Nazi No. 2 under the railway bridge.

At 18.30, the soldiers of the 5th army of General Berzarin went to storm the last stronghold of Nazism - the imperial office. Prior to this, they managed to storm the post office, several ministries and the heavily fortified building of the Gestapo. Two hours later, when the first groups of attackers had already approached the building, Goebbels and his wife Magda followed their idol, taking poison. Before that, they had asked a doctor to give their six children a lethal injection—they were told that they would get an injection that would never make them sick. The children were left in the room, and the corpses of Goebbels and his wife were taken out into the garden and burned. Soon everyone who remained below - about 600 adjutants and SS men - rushed out: the bunker began to burn. Somewhere in its bowels, only General Krebs, who fired a bullet in the forehead, remained. Another Nazi commander, General Weidling, took charge and radioed Chuikov to agree to an unconditional surrender. At one in the morning on May 2, German officers with white flags appeared on the Potsdam Bridge. Their request was reported to Zhukov, who gave his consent. At 0600, Weidling signed an order to surrender to all German troops, and he himself set an example for his subordinates. After that, the shooting in the city began to subside. From the cellars of the Reichstag, from under the ruins of houses and shelters, the Germans came out, who silently laid down their weapons on the ground and lined up in columns. They were observed by the writer Vasily Grossman, who accompanied the Soviet commandant Berzarin. Among the prisoners, he saw old men, boys and women who did not want to part with their husbands. The day was cold, light rain pouring down on the smoldering ruins. Hundreds of corpses lay on the streets, crushed by tanks. Flags with swastikas and party cards were also lying there - Hitler's followers were in a hurry to get rid of the evidence. In the Tiergarten, Grossman saw a German soldier with a nurse on a bench, they sat embracing and did not pay any attention to what was going on around.

In the afternoon, Soviet tanks began to roll through the streets, transmitting an order to surrender through loudspeakers. At about 3:00 pm, the fighting finally stopped, and only in the western regions did explosions rumble, where the SS men who tried to escape were pursued. An unusual, tense silence hung over Berlin. And then she was torn apart by a new flurry of shots. Soviet soldiers crowded on the steps of the Reichstag, on the ruins of the Imperial Chancellery, and fired again and again, this time in the air. Strangers threw themselves into each other's arms, danced right on the pavement. They couldn't believe the war was over. Ahead, many of them had new wars, hard work, difficult problems, but they had already done the main thing in their lives.

In the last battle of the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army crushed 95 enemy divisions. Up to 150 thousand German soldiers and officers were killed, 300 thousand were captured. The victory came at a heavy price: in two weeks of the offensive, three Soviet fronts lost from 100,000 to 200,000 people killed. Senseless resistance claimed the lives of approximately 150 thousand civilians in Berlin, a significant part of the city was destroyed.

Chronicle of the operation

April 16, 5.00.
The troops of the 1st Belorussian Front (Zhukov), after a powerful artillery preparation, begin an offensive on the Zelov Heights near the Oder.
April 16, 8.00.
Parts of the 1st Ukrainian Front (Konev) force the Neisse River and move west.
April 18, morning.
The tank armies of Rybalko and Lelyushenko are turning north towards Berlin.
April 18, evening.
The German defenses on the Zelov Heights have been broken through. Parts of Zhukov begin to advance towards Berlin.
April 19, morning.
Troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front (Rokossovsky) cross the Oder, slicing apart the German defenses north of Berlin.
April 20, evening.
Zhukov's armies approach Berlin from the west and northwest.
April 21, day.
Rybalko's tanks occupy the headquarters of the German troops in Zossen, south of Berlin.
April 22, morning.
Rybalko's army occupies the southern outskirts of Berlin, while Perkhorovich's army occupies the northern districts of the city.
April 24, day.
Meeting of the advancing troops of Zhukov and Konev in the south of Berlin. The Frankfurt-Gubenskaya group of Germans is surrounded by Soviet units, its destruction has begun.
April 25, 13.30.
Parts of Konev went to the Elbe near the city of Torgau and met there with the 1st American Army.
April 26, morning.
The German army of Wenck launches a counterattack on the advancing Soviet units.
April 27, evening.
After stubborn fighting, Wenck's army was driven back.
April 28th.
Soviet units surround the city center.
April 29, day.
The building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the town hall were taken by storm.
April 30, day.
Busy Tiergarten area with a zoo.
April 30, 15.30.
Hitler committed suicide in a bunker under the Imperial Chancellery.
April 30, 22.50.
The assault on the Reichstag, which had lasted since morning, was completed.
May 1, 3.50.
The beginning of unsuccessful negotiations between the German General Krebs and the Soviet command.
May 1, 10.40.
After the failure of the negotiations, the Soviet troops begin to storm the buildings of the ministries and the imperial chancellery.
May 1, 22.00.
The Imperial Chancellery is taken by storm.
May 2, 6.00.
General Weidling gives the order to surrender.
May 2, 15.00.
The fighting in the city finally stopped.

Anatoly Utkin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Ivan Izmailov