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Overview
On April 16, 1945, the Red Army unleashed a colossal offensive against Berlin with the aim of destroying Hitler’s armies in the East and capturing the German capital before the Western Allies. Over two million soldiers confronted each other in the last act in the war against Nazi Germany.
In the course of the next three weeks, relentless Soviet assaults crashed against a desperate, sometimes suicidal defense, and the historic city was turned into a vast battleground. This was the climax of an awful conflict. It represented the death struggle of Hitler’s Third Reich and the supreme achievement of Stalin’s forces, and the story of the battle has fascinated students of warfare ever since. Yet this epic contest can only be understood by visiting the sites of the battle on the ground, on the outskirts of the city, in the suburbs, in the city center where the final dramatic combat took place. And this is the aim of Tony Le Tissier’s definitive guide to the Battle of Berlin.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783460625 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pen & Sword Books Limited |
| Publication date: | 02/20/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 58 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
THE SEELOW BATTLE SYNOPSIS
In mid-January of the severe winter of 1945, Marshal Koniev's 1st Ukrainian Front and Marshal Zhukov's 1st Byelorussian Front launched a major operation from the Vistula River just south of Warsaw. This operation secured an almost immediate success, smashing the 4th Panzer and 9th Armies of the German Army Group Vistula. Marshal Zhukov's troops made such rapid progress that the aim of the operation was altered in the hope of securing a crossing across the River Oder, the last natural obstacle before Berlin, while the ice still held. In this mad rush forwards vehicles had to tow one another to save fuel as they outstripped their logistical support.
On 31 January and 3 February respectively Zhukov's troops crossed the Oder unopposed north and south of Küstrin and established bridgeheads. Surprisingly enough no special effort was made at this juncture to seize Küstrin, where an ancient fortress at the junction of the Warthe and Oder Rivers dominated the only rail and road bridges for miles, and thus was of vital operational importance to either side. Another bridgehead was established south of Frankfurt an der Oder by the Soviet 33rd Army.
Zhukov was prepared there and then to risk an armoured thrust on Berlin, despite his poor logistical state, but Stalin called him off to clear East Pomerania, where German forces were gathering for a counterstroke. This left only limited forces to hold the bridgeheads in the Oderbruch against the troops the Germans hastily assembled to try to drive the Soviets back across the river. Throughout February the Soviets had to rely on artillery support from the east bank, so could do little to expand their positions in the Oderbruch, but the little town of Lebus at the base of the Reitwein Spur was seized on the 12th and this area became the scene of severe fighting that was to last another two months.
An attempt to expand the southern Oderbruch bridgehead in early March was only partially successful, and then bad weather put an end to further operations until 22 March when a two-day operation succeeded in combining the two bridgeheads and isolating the reinforced Küstrin garrison. The Germans counterattacked in strength with over four divisions on the 27th, hoping to relieve Küstrin, but their tanks foundered on the minefields laid by the Soviets and the attack had to be abandoned on the second day. The Soviets then directed their efforts on taking Küstrin, which fell on the 29th, although a thousand troops managed to break through to the German lines.
In the meantime the East Pomeranian operation had been successfully completed. Zhukov flew to Moscow to clear his plans for Operation Berlin with Stalin, and a massive logistical operation began to redeploy and restock his armies with personnel, equipment, ammunition and fuel, all within just two weeks. The Germans concentrated on preparing their defences for the inevitable onslaught to come.
Hitler made an unprecedented visit to the front, consulting with General Busse, the commander of the 9th Army, at CIst Corps Headquarters at Schloss Harnekop on 3 March, and Josef Goebbels, now Reichs Commissar for Defence, addressed some of the garrison at Frankfurt/Oder, Busse's home town.
Zhukov planned to use four combined-arms armies – the 47th, 3rd Shock, 5th Shock and 8th Guards – for the main thrust through the Oderbruch on the Seelow Heights, with the 61st Army and 1st Polish Army covering the northern flank with water crossings, while the 69th and 33rd Armies would destroy the German forces either side of Frankfurt, which could be ignored for the moment, and then thrust for the Berlin autobahn.
Operations commenced on 14 April with a two-day reconnaissance in force, in which the Soviets tried to seek out the German defence preparations; in addition, the ground gained enabled them to prepare ways through the dense minefields for their main offensive.
The opening barrage at 0300 hours (local time) on 16 April was the mightiest that had ever been recorded. Zhukov had concentrated 14,600 guns and mortars and over 1,500 rocket-launchers, to which was added the fire of his 3,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, all of which, whether aimed or not, produced the psychological effect he wanted in the thirty-minute concentration. Then 143 searchlights were switched on; this was the signal to advance, but the lights were also intended to blind the Germans and extend the daylight hours for his troops to achieve their aims. However, this was largely a flop, for the massive bombardment had created late First World War conditions for the advance and thrown up a cloud of muck and smoke so thick that the searchlights could rarely penetrate it, while at the same time causing night-blindness among the Russian troops. The worst effects of the bombardment on the defence had been countered by the German withdrawal from the first line of defence during the night in anticipation of what would occur.
When daylight came, the rate of advance was further slowed down by the numerous water obstacles and boggy ground encountered in their path. Eventually, goaded by Stalin with rival Marshal Koniev's success to the south, Zhukov ordered in his two tank armies to try to force the pace. The tank armies had not been expected to take part in the breakthrough battle, the aim of which was to open up the start lines for the armoured thrust on Berlin. Consequently they were unprepared for this move, as were the combined-arms armies already fighting the battle, which now found the deployment of their supporting artillery chaotically blocked by the tanks struggling to get through on the limited routes forward.
By the end of the first day the Soviets had gained a foothold on the Seelow Heights east of Friedersdorf, had reached the foot of the Heights at Werbig and had made a minor penetration into Seelow itself, but they were being held at these points. The main German defence line along the Seelow Heights, known as the Hardenberg-Stellung, was still relatively intact. Elsewhere progress had been disappointing.
On the second day the Soviets broke through at Werbig and Friedersdorf to bypass either side of Seelow, which remained in German hands. The deliberately flooded valley of Lietzen left only the main road from Seelow to Berlin and the area north of it passable to the 1st Guards Tank Army, whose armour was still entangled with the 8th Guards Army. In the north the 1st Polish and 47th Armies closed up to Wriezen, having destroyed the 606th Infantry Division between them, but the 61st Army on the flank had made little progress against the 5th Light Division, nor had the 69th and 33rd Armies on either side of Frankfurt been able to break the German defence. However, the 5th Shock Army in the centre had inflicted severe casualties on the 9th Parachute Division and forced it back across the Alte Oder, where crossing points were found for the 2nd Guards Tank Army. By this point, the Soviet casualties in infantry and armour had reached such staggering dimensions that the Rear Area was scoured for manpower capable of being used as infantry replacements.
Early on the third day the 8th Guards and 1st Guards Tank Armies approached the Stein-Stellung at Diedersdorf, where German survivors from the Hardenberg-Stellung were now occupying previously prepared positions. With the aid of the Luftwaffe, they inflicted heavy casualties on the Soviet tanks lined up nose to tail on the main road or coming down the open ground of the reverse slope opposite the German positions. That night Zhukov issued orders for the command and traffic control measures now seen to be necessary. He also, most unusually, combined the 1st Guards Tank Army with the 8th Guards Army under Colonel General Chuikov, the latter's commander.
Between them the 47th and 3rd Shock Armies had driven back the remains of the CIst Corps over the Heights, enabling the 2nd Guards Tank Army to reach the higher ground, where they faced the spirited defence put up by the SS Nordland Panzergrenadier Division, which had come down from the north during the night and was deployed in some haste behind the shattered 9th Parachute Division by the LVIth Panzer Corps, but was unable to withstand the overwhelming Soviet pressure and was forced to yield ground during the day, while the SS Nederland Panzergrenadier Division, of barely regimental strength, went to the support of the XIth SS Panzer Corps.
The fourth day saw the inevitable breach of the final German lines north of Buckow and at Müncheberg, but it had been an extremely costly victory. The Soviets admitted the loss of 763 tanks and SPGs, amounting to a quarter of Zhukov's armoured strength, and the Soviet dead are believed in fact to have numbered twice the admitted figure of 33,000 quoted, not counting Polish casualties, against German losses of about 12,000. The Soviet troops were exhausted from the four-day battle and Zhukov's plans for taking Berlin were in urgent need of revision.
The German 9th Army now split into three separate parts, the CIst Corps withdrawing in the north to the screen of the Finow Canal and the LVIth Panzer Corps in the centre being driven back on Berlin as it sought to rejoin the bulk of the 9th Army by the first available bridges over the Spree. The XIst SS Panzer Corps, the Frankfurt Fortress and Vth SS Mountain Corps had held their ground on the southern flank, and General Busse now organised a fighting withdrawal south across the Spree into the complexity of the Spreewald, whose waterways provided scope for a more flexible defence.
CHAPTER 2SEELOW TOUR A: 8TH GUARDS ARMY BATTLEFIELD
OBJECTIVE: This tour covers the Oderbruch battleground of the Soviet 8th Guards Army between February and April 1945.
DURATION/LIABILITY: This day-long tour is dependent upon an introductory visit to the Seelow Heights Museum, which is closed on Mondays, and is about a two-hour drive from Berlin.
STAND A1: THE SEELOW HEIGHTS MUSEUM
DIRECTIONS: Leaving Berlin on the B-1, the former Reichsstrasse 1 that once linked Prussia from Cleve to Königsberg, you have a drive of about 70 kilometres to reach Seelow. When you pass through the village of Diedersdorf, you are only a short distance from Seelow. Avoiding the new bypass, turn off right into the town. On the right-hand side of the road there is a boundary stone showing the founding date of the town as 1252. Next on the left is an original Prussian milestone, the only survivor of those that once Prussia. Beware, there is a speed camera just beyond the yellow 'Seelow' sign.
Carry on straight through the town until the road starts dipping downhill and watch out for the museum on your right. The car park is signed off the road to the right beyond the museum office building, which has toilets conveniently situated on the ground floor next to the car park. Steps lead up to the left of the office block to the museum forecourt where there is a display of Soviet weaponry: a T-34/85 tank, a BM-13 'Stalin Organ' rocket-launcher, a 152mm howitzer, a 76mm ZIS-3 divisional artillery piece and a 120mm regimental mortar.
THE SITE: The museum was designed to resemble a log bunker and was built by the East German Government as a tribute to its 'liberators'. Symbolic parades were held here and a lingering emphasis on the Communist-inspired attitude towards the battle remains, while a post-Unification attempt to balance the situation has been made at the entrance with tributes to 'peace'.
Among the exhibits on the inside wall is a sample of the wooden posts the Soviet engineers used for bridge-building in a manner virtually unchanged since the days of the Romans. Then in the right-hand corner there is a model of a Mistel fighter-bomber combination that was used by the Germans against the Soviet bridges. Next comes a display showing the German contribution to the Soviet cause in the form of German Communist volunteers serving in the Red Army and the propaganda work of turn-coat prisoners-of-war, so-called Seydlitz-troops of the 'Free Germany' movement, against the Wehrmacht. It does not show anything about the use of these POWs in action against their former comrades, something we shall come across later in our tour.
Around the corner there is a picture of Second Lieutenant Karl-Hermann Tams, who commanded the forward company defending Seelow in the battle, about whom we will learn more later. Another interesting exhibit is a model showing an approach to the Seelow Heights from the Oderbruch in which the boggy state of the latter at the time of the battle is clearly demonstrated.
Far right, next to the entrance, is a model of General Chuikov's 8th Guards Army command post on the Reitwein Spur with the observation posts constructed for Marshal Zhukov and himself on the top. Next to it is a display of photographs showing a plan of the command post and its condition some forty years later. It was deliberately demolished by soldiers of the East German Army when it was at last in danger of collapse. The scorching by flamethrowers of the clay out of which it had been dug had held it virtually intact until then.
Among the items displayed in the centre of this room is a model of a river gunboat as used by sailors of the Red Fleet in this battle, together with a map showing how they were brought forward by rail and water to the Oder River from Pinsk in the Soviet Union.
The museum provides both slide-shows and films in its little cinema. The slide-show is accompanied by an illuminated panoramic model of the battlefield, but the accompanying English commentary is ponderous, and I would recommend asking for the film Roter märkischer Sand in English.
Upon leaving the museum bunker, turn sharp left up the steps to the higher level behind. There in the left-hand corner you will see one of the 143 searchlights used by Marshal Zhukov in the battle of 16 April 1945 to provide his troops with a couple of extra hours of light to work in. Taken from the anti-aircraft defences in Moscow and elsewhere in the Soviet Union, these searchlights were tested in great secrecy to evaluate their use in providing light not only to illuminate the battlefield, but also to denote inter-unit boundaries and to blind the enemy. (The British technique of creating artificial moonlight by reflecting off the clouds was not attempted.) However, the test did not allow for the accompanying bombardment that filled the air with smoke and muck, so that in the end the use of searchlights proved a failure, generally adding to the confusion, and causing night-blindness among their own troops and silhouetting them to the waiting Germans.
Next come two rows of red granite gravestones. These are the graves of Soviet soldiers killed in Seelow and originally buried there but later moved here in a tidying-up operation. The red granite is said to have come from a stock purchased by the Germans from Sweden for the erection of a series of victory columns to mark the expansion to the east. The columns were never built, but the Soviets were able to use this material for the construction of their war memorials and as gravestones. Note that many are shown as 'unknown', for the Soviet soldier had to provide his own form of identity disc, usually a scrap of paper with his details in a tiny tube on a cord necklace. Only the next of kin of those registered as members of the Communist Party had the privilege of receiving notification of a death in action.
The main cemetery here is reserved for sixty-nine holders of the 'Hero of the Soviet Union' medal, the highest Soviet award; all were killed in the battle. Some are buried in double graves, where the initial burial involved using a German wardrobe as a double coffin. One gravestone bears the deceased's photograph; this was stolen soon after Unification and then returned anonymously several years later by post.
The memorial facing this cemetery, which was the focal point for remembrance parades over the years, bears an inscription in Russian and German that translates roughly as: 'Soviet soldiers you will be remembered for ever, chiselled in stone, the names endure, the deeds alive in our memory. You gave your lives to free us from Fascism and war; what burned inside you will remain a torch within us. What you hated, we will hate even more, what you loved, we will love deeply. The cause you died for, will be our reason for living.'
Above is a symbolic statue combining a Russian infantryman with the turret of a T-34/76 tank.
In the far corner of the cemetery is an observation point overlooking the Oderbruch valley below with a small concrete table model of the terrain. From this viewpoint you can look down on to the Oderbruch below. This valley bottom was drained on the orders of Frederick the Great in the eighteenth century and dykes constructed along the banks of the Oder to prevent the flooding that used to occur twice a year. The reclaimed land, an area about 40 kilometres long and 16 wide (25 x 10 miles), was then occupied by thirty groups of settlers from all over his domains. The main characteristic of the terrain is its absolute flatness, broken only by water channels. Little has changed over the centuries except that the fields now tend to be larger as a result of the collective farming of the Communist era.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Berlin Battlefield Guide"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Tony Le Tissier.
Excerpted by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
Abbreviations and Symbols Used,
Part I – Seelow Battlefield,
1. The Seelow Battle Synopsis,
2. Seelow Tour A: 8th Guards Army Battlefield,
3. Seelow Tour B: The Southern Oderbruch,
4. Seelow Tour C: The Northern Oderbruch,
5. Seelow Tour D: Falkenhagen Secret Village,
6. Seelow Tour E: The Ostwall Fortifications at Miedzyrzecz (Meseritz),
7. Seelow Tour F: The Soviet 33rd Army's Cemeteries at Cybinka (Ziebingen),
8. Seelow Tour G: The Advance on Berlin,
Part II – Berlin Battlefield,
9. Introduction to Berlin,
10. The Berlin Battle Synopsis,
11. Berlin Tour A: Central Berlin,
12. Berlin Tour B: Western Berlin,
13. Berlin Tour C: Eastern Berlin,
14. Berlin Tour D: Southern Berlin,
15. Berlin Tour E: Wannsee and Potsdam,
16. Berlin Tour F: Cold War Options,
17. Berlin Tour G Halbe–Brand–Baruth–Kummersdorf Ranges–Wünsdorf Garrison Museum,
Part III – Reichstag Battlefield,
18. Reichstag Battle Synopsis,
19. Reichstag Battlefield Tour,
Notes,
Bibliography,