Even the fight for Stalingrad is inferior to the battle for Berlin in terms of basic quantitative and qualitative indicators: the number of troops involved in the battles, the number of military equipment involved, as well as the size of the city and the nature of its development. To some extent, the assault on Budapest in January-February and Koenigsberg in April 1945 is comparable to the assault on Berlin. Modern battles, such as the battle for Beirut in 1982, remain a pale shadow of the grandiose battles of World War II.
Sealed "strasse"
The Germans had 2.5 months to prepare Berlin for defense, during which the front stood on the Oder, 70 km from the city. This preparation was by no means improvised. The Germans developed a whole system of turning their own and foreign cities into “festungs” - fortresses. This is the strategy that Hitler followed in the second half of the war. The “fortress” cities had to defend themselves in isolation, supplied by air. Their goal is to hold road junctions and other important points.
The Berlin fortifications of April-May 1945 are quite typical for German “festungs” - massive barricades, as well as residential and administrative buildings prepared for defense. Barricades in Germany were built at an industrial level and had nothing in common with the piles of rubbish that blocked the streets during the period of revolutionary unrest. Berlin ones, as a rule, were 2-2.5 m in height and 2-2.2 m in thickness. They were built from wood, stone, sometimes rails and shaped iron. Such a barricade easily withstood shots from tank guns and even divisional artillery with a caliber of 76-122 mm.
Some streets were completely blocked off with barricades, not even allowing passage. Along the main highways, the barricades still had a three-meter-wide passage, prepared for quick closure with a carriage loaded with earth, stones and other materials. The approaches to the barricades were mined. It cannot be said that these Berlin fortifications were a masterpiece of engineering art. In the Breslau area, Soviet troops faced truly cyclopean barricades, entirely cast from concrete. Their design included huge moving parts that were thrown across the passage. Nothing like this has ever been seen in Berlin. The reason is quite simple: German military leaders believed that the fate of the city would be decided on the Oder Front. Accordingly, the main efforts of the engineering troops were concentrated there, on the Seelow Heights and on the perimeter of the Soviet Kyustrin bridgehead.
Fixed tank company
The approaches to the bridges across the canals and the exits from the bridges also had barricades. In buildings that were to become defense strongholds, window openings were bricked up. One or two embrasures were left in the masonry for firing from small arms and anti-tank grenade launchers - faustpatrons. Of course, not all Berlin houses underwent such reconstruction. But the Reichstag, for example, was well prepared for defense: the huge windows of the German parliament building were walled up.
One of the “finds” of the Germans in the defense of their capital was the Berlin tank company, assembled from tanks incapable of independent movement. They were dug in at street intersections and used as fixed firing points in the west and east of the city. In total, the Berlin company included 10 Panther tanks and 12 Pz.IV tanks.
Map of the actions of Soviet troops in the Reichstag area
In addition to special defensive structures, the city had air defense facilities suitable for ground battles. It's about first of all, about the so-called flakturmas - massive concrete towers about 40 m high, on the roof of which anti-aircraft guns of up to 128 mm caliber were installed. Three such giant structures were built in Berlin. These are Flakturm I in the zoo area, Flakturm II in Friedrichshain in the east of the city and Flakturm III in Humbolthain in the north. (PM wrote in detail about the anti-aircraft towers of the Third Reich in No. 3 for 2009. - Ed.)
Fortress Berlin forces
However, any engineering structures absolutely useless if there is no one to defend them. This became the most important thing for the Germans big problem. IN Soviet time the number of defenders of the Reich capital was usually estimated at 200,000. However, this figure appears to be greatly overestimated. The testimony of the last commandant of Berlin, General Weidling, and other captured officers of the Berlin garrison lead to a figure of 100-120 thousand people and 50-60 tanks at the beginning of the assault. For the defense of Berlin, such a number of defenders was clearly not enough. This was obvious to professionals from the very beginning. The summary of the generalized combat experience of the 8th Guards Army that stormed the city stated: “For the defense of such large city, surrounded on all sides, there were not enough forces to defend each building, as was the case in other cities, so the enemy defended mainly groups of blocks, and inside them separate buildings and objects...” The Soviet troops that stormed Berlin numbered, as of April 26, 1945, 464,000 people and about 1,500 tanks. The 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies, the 3rd and 5th Shock Armies, the 8th Guards Army (all from the 1st Belorussian Front), as well as the 3rd Guards Tank and part of the forces took part in the assault on the city. 28th Army (1st Ukrainian Front). During the last two days of the assault, units of the 1st Polish Army took part in the fighting.
Evacuated explosives
One of the mysteries of the battles for Berlin is the preservation of many bridges across the Spree and the Landwehr Canal. Given that the banks of the Spree in central Berlin were lined with stone, crossing the river beyond the bridges would have been a difficult task. The answer was provided by the testimony of General Weidling in Soviet captivity. He recalled: “None of the bridges were prepared for the explosion. Goebbels entrusted this to the Shpur organization, due to the fact that when bridges were blown up by military units, economic damage was caused to surrounding properties. It turned out that all the materials for preparing the bridges for the explosion, as well as the ammunition prepared for this, were taken out of Berlin during the evacuation of the Shpur establishments "It should be noted that this concerned bridges in the central part of the city. On the outskirts everything was different. For example, all bridges over the Berlin-Spandauer-Schiffarts canal in the northern part of the city were blown up. The troops of the 3rd Shock Army and the 2nd the Guards Tank Army had to establish crossings.In general, it can be noted that the first days of the fight for Berlin were associated with crossing water barriers on its outskirts.
In the thick of the neighborhoods
By April 27, Soviet troops had largely overcome areas with low-rise and sparse buildings and entered the densely built-up central areas of Berlin. Advancing from different directions, Soviet tank and combined arms armies aimed at one point in the city center - the Reichstag. In 1945, it had long since 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 with different sides to the Reichstag, Red Army troops posed a threat to the Fuhrer's bunker under the Reich Chancellery.
The assault group became the central figure in the street battles. Zhukov's directive recommended including 8-12 guns with a caliber of 45 to 203 mm and 4-6 82-120 mm mortars in the assault detachments. The assault groups included sappers and “chemists” with smoke bombs and flamethrowers. Tanks also became constant participants in 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 Berlin operation The troops conducted experiments on shielding tanks. However, they did not give a positive result: even when a Faustpatron grenade exploded on the screen, the tank’s armor penetrated. Nevertheless, in some parts, screens were still installed - more for psychological support of the crew than for real protection.
"Panzerfaust" is a family of German single-use anti-tank grenade launchers. When the powder charge placed in the pipe was ignited, the grenade was fired. Thanks to its cumulative action, it was capable of burning through armor plate up to 200 mm thick. In Berlin they were used both against tanks and infantry. At the very bottom are images of Panzerfaust 60 and Panzerfaust 100.
Did the Faustians burn the tank armies?
The losses of tank armies in battles for the city can be assessed as moderate, especially in comparison with battles on open area against tanks and anti-tank artillery. Thus, Bogdanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Army lost about 70 tanks from Faust cartridges in the battles for the city. At the same time, it acted in isolation from the combined arms armies, relying only on its motorized infantry. The share of tanks destroyed by Faustians in other armies was smaller. In total, during the street battles 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 start of the operation). During the street fighting, Katukov’s 1st Guards Tank Army also irretrievably lost 104 armored units (15% of the combat vehicles that were in service at the start 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 become much bloodier. It should be noted that the Faust cartridges were used by the Germans not only against tanks, but also against infantry. Forced to walk ahead of the armored vehicles, the infantrymen came under a hail of shots from the Faustniks. Therefore, cannon and rocket artillery provided invaluable assistance in the assault. The specifics of urban battles forced divisional and attached artillery to be placed on direct fire. As paradoxical as it sounds, direct fire guns sometimes turned out to be more effective than tanks. The report of the 44th Guards Cannon Artillery Brigade on the Berlin operation stated: “The enemy’s use of ‘Panzerfausts’ led to a sharp increase in tank losses - limited visibility makes them easily vulnerable. Direct fire guns do not suffer from this drawback; their losses, in comparison with tanks, are small.” This was not an unfounded statement: the brigade lost only two guns in street battles, one of which was hit by the enemy with a Faustpatron.
The 203 mm tracked B-4 howitzer, placed at direct fire, crushed the walls of Berlin buildings. But even for this powerful weapon, the Flakturm I air defense turret turned out to be a “tough nut to crack.”
The brigade was armed with 152-mm ML-20 gun-howitzers. The actions of the artillerymen can be illustrated by the following example. The battle for the barricade on Sarland Strasse did not start very well. The Faustniki knocked out two IS-2 tanks. Then the gun of the 44th brigade was placed under direct fire 180 m from the fortification. Having fired 12 shells, the artillerymen made a passage in the barricade and destroyed its garrison. The brigade's guns were also used to destroy buildings turned into strongholds.
From a Katyusha direct fire
It was already mentioned above that the Berlin garrison defended only some buildings. If such a strong point could not be taken by an assault group, it was simply destroyed by direct fire artillery. So, from one strong point to another, the assaulters walked towards the city center. In the end, even Katyushas began to be used for direct fire. Frames of large-caliber M-31 rockets were installed in houses on window sills and fired at buildings opposite. A distance of 100-150 m was considered optimal. The projectile managed to accelerate, broke through the wall and exploded inside the building. This led to the collapse of partitions and ceilings and, as a consequence, the death of the garrison. At shorter distances the wall did not break through and the matter was limited to cracks on the facade. It is here that one of the answers to the question of why Kuznetsov’s 3rd Shock Army was the first to reach the Reichstag. Units of this army made their way through the streets of Berlin with 150 direct-fire M-31UK (improved accuracy) shells. Other armies also fired several dozen M-31 shells from direct fire.
The fall of Berlin demoralized the German troops and broke their will to resist. Still possessing considerable combat capabilities, the Wehrmacht capitulated within the next week after the Berlin garrison laid down its arms.
To victory - all the way!
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 Poznan fortress 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 into direct fire. These powerful tracked guns often appear in newsreels 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 Liden Strasse and Ritter Strasse 100-150 m from the enemy. Six fired shells were enough to destroy a 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 blow of the B-4 - it was the Flakturm am Zoo anti-aircraft defense tower, also known as Flakturm I. Units of the 8th Guards and 1st Guards Tank Armies entered the area of the Berlin Zoo. The tower turned out to be a tough nut to crack for them. The shelling of her with 152-mm artillery was completely ineffective. Then 105 concrete-piercing shells of 203 mm caliber were fired at the flakturm with direct fire. 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, it housed Weidling's command post. Our troops bypassed the air defense towers in Humbolthein and Friedriesshain, and until the surrender these structures remained on German-controlled territory of the city.
On September 7, 1945, IS-3 heavy tanks took part in the parade held in Berlin to mark the end of World War II. The vehicles of this new model never had time to fight in the capital of the Reich, but now 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 used these guns for direct fire anymore. They fired from positions 7-10 km from the battlefield. The 8th Guards Army was assigned the 34th separate division of special strength. His 280 mm mortars in last days The storming of Berlin hit Potsdam Station. Two such shells pierced the asphalt of the street, ceilings and exploded in the underground halls of the station, located at a depth of 15 m.
Why didn't they "smear" 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 historical center of Berlin. Heavy weapons were used to destroy strong stone buildings. The 280-mm mortar division hit the Gestapo building, fired more than a hundred shells and scored six direct hits. The 305-mm howitzer division fired 110 shells on the penultimate day of the assault, May 1, alone. In fact, only the absence accurate information the location of the Fuhrer's bunker prevented the early end of the fighting. Soviet heavy artillery had the technical capabilities to bury Hitler and his retinue in a bunker or even smear them in a thin layer throughout the labyrinths of the last refuge of the “possessed Fuhrer.”
It was Berzarin’s army, advancing in the direction of the Reichstag, that came closest to Hitler’s bunker. This caused the last burst of Luftwaffe activity in the battle for the city. On April 29, groups of FV-190 attack aircraft and Me-262 jet fighters attacked the battle formations of the 5th Shock Army. The jet Messerschmitts belonged to the 1st group of the JG7 squadron from the Reich air defense, but they could no longer significantly influence the course of hostilities. The next day, April 30, the Fuhrer committed suicide. On the morning of May 2, the Berlin garrison capitulated.
The total losses of the two fronts in the battle for Berlin can be estimated at 50-60 thousand people killed, wounded and missing. Were these losses justified? Undoubtedly. The fall of Berlin and the death of Hitler meant the demoralization of the German army and its surrender. There is no doubt that without the active use of various equipment, the losses of Soviet troops in street battles would have been much higher.
Alexey Isaev - candidate historical sciences, author of many books on the history of the Great Patriotic War
Never before in world history has such a powerful citadel been taken in such a short time: in just a week. The German command carefully thought out and perfectly prepared the city for defense. Stone bunkers with six floors, pillboxes, bunkers, tanks dug into the ground, fortified houses in which the “faustniks” settled, posing a mortal danger to our tanks. The center of Berlin, cut by canals, and the Spree River, was especially strongly fortified.
The Nazis sought to prevent the Red Army from capturing the capital, knowing that the Anglo-American troops were preparing an offensive in the Berlin direction. However, the degree of preference for surrender to Anglo-Americans over Soviet troops was greatly exaggerated during the Soviet era. On April 4, 1945, J. Goebbels wrote in his diary:
The main task of the press and radio is to explain to the German people that the Western enemy is harboring the same vile plans for the destruction of the nation as the Eastern one... We must point out again and again that Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin will ruthlessly and without regard for anything carry out their deadly plans, as soon as the Germans show weakness and submit to the enemy...».
Soldiers of the Eastern Front, if in the coming days and hours each of you fulfills your duty to the Fatherland, we will stop and defeat the Asian hordes at the gates of Berlin. We foresaw this blow and opposed it with a front of unprecedented power... Berlin will remain German, Vienna will be German...».
Another thing is that the Nazis’ anti-Soviet propaganda was much more sophisticated than against the Anglo-Americans, and the local population of the eastern regions of Germany experienced panic at the approach of the Red Army, and the Wehrmacht soldiers and officers were in a hurry to make their way to the West to surrender there. Therefore, J.V. Stalin hurried the marshal Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov to begin the assault on Berlin as soon as possible. It began on the night of April 16 with a powerful artillery barrage and blinding the enemy with many anti-aircraft searchlights. After long and stubborn battles, Zhukov's troops captured the Seelow Heights, the main German defense point on the way to Berlin. Meanwhile, the tank army of Colonel General P.S. Rybalko, having crossed the Spree, attacked Berlin from the south. In the north on April 21, tankers of Lieutenant General S.M. Krivoshein were the first to break into the outskirts of the German capital.
The Berlin garrison fought with the despair of the doomed. It was obvious that he could not resist the deadly fire of Soviet heavy 203 mm howitzers, nicknamed by the Germans “Stalin’s sledgehammer”, volleys of Katyusha rockets and constant air bombing. Soviet troops operated on the streets of the city in highest degree professionally: assault groups with the help of tanks knocked out the enemy from fortified points. This allowed the Red Army to suffer relatively small losses. Step by step, Soviet troops approached the government center of the Third Reich. Krivoshein's tank corps successfully crossed the Spree and linked up with units of the 1st Ukrainian Front advancing from the south, encircling Berlin.
Captured defenders of Berlin - members of the Volksshurm (detachment people's militia). Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Who defended Berlin from Soviet troops in May 1945? The Berlin Defense Headquarters called on the population to prepare for street fighting on the ground and underground, using subway lines, sewer networks and underground communications. 400 thousand Berliners were mobilized to build fortifications. Goebbels began to form two hundred Volkssturm battalions and women's brigades. 900 square kilometers of city blocks turned into " impregnable fortress Berlin".
The most combat-ready Waffen-SS divisions fought in the southern and western directions. The newly formed XI Panzer Army operated near Berlin under the command of SS-Oberstgruppenführer F. Steiner, which included all the surviving SS units of the city garrison, reservists, teachers and cadets of the SS Junker Schools, personnel of Berlin headquarters and numerous SS departments.
However, during fierce battles with the Soviet troops of the 1st Belorussian Front, Steiner's division suffered such heavy losses that he, in his opinion, in my own words, “remained a general without an army.” Thus, the bulk of the Berlin garrison consisted of all sorts of improvised battle groups, and not regular Wehrmacht formations. The largest unit of the SS troops that the Soviet troops had to fight with was the SS division “Nordland”, its full name is the XI Volunteer SS Panzer-Grenadier Division “Nordland”. It was staffed mainly by volunteers from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. In 1945, the division included the grenadier regiments "Danmark" and "Norge", Dutch volunteers were sent to the emerging SS division "Nederland".
Berlin was also defended by the French SS division Charlemagne (Charlemagne), and the Belgian SS divisions Langemarck and Wallonia. On April 29, 1945, for the destruction of several Soviet tanks, a young native of Paris from the SS Charlemagne division, Unterscharführer Eugene Valot, was awarded the Order of the Knight's Cross, becoming one of its last holders. On May 2, a month before his 22nd birthday, Vazho died on the streets of Berlin. The commander of the LVII battalion from the Charlemagne division, Haupsturmführer Henri Fenet, wrote in his memoirs:
In Berlin there is a French street and a French church. They are named after the Huguenots who fled religious oppression and settled in Prussia in the earlyXVIIcentury, helping to build the capital. In the mid-20th century, other Frenchmen came to defend the capital that their ancestors had helped build.».
On 1 May the French continued to fight on Leipzigerstrasse, around the Air Ministry and at Potsdamerplatz. The French SS men of Charlemagne became the last defenders of the Reichstag and the Reich Chancellery. During the day of fighting on April 28, out of a total of 108 Soviet tanks destroyed, the French destroyed 62 of Charlemagne. On the morning of May 2, following the announcement of the capitulation of the capital III Reich, the last 30 Charlemagne fighters out of 300 who arrived in Berlin left the bunker of the Reich Chancellery, where, besides them, there was no one left alive. Along with the French, the Reichstag was defended by the Estonian SS. In addition, Lithuanians, Latvians, Spaniards and Hungarians took part in the defense of Berlin.
Members of the French SS division Charlemagne before being sent to the front. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Latvians in the 54th fighter squadron defended the Berlin sky from Soviet aviation. Latvian legionnaires continued to fight for the Third Reich and the already dead Hitler even when German Nazis stopped fighting. On May 1, the battalion of the XV SS Division under the command of Obersturmführer Neulands continued to defend the Reich Chancellery. Famous Russian historian V.M. Falin noted:
Berlin fell on May 2, and the “local fighting” ended there ten days later... In Berlin, SS units from 15 states resisted the Soviet troops. Along with the Germans, Norwegian, Danish, Belgian, Dutch, and Luxembourg Nazis operated there».
According to the French SS man A. Fenier: “ All of Europe gathered here for the last meeting", and, as always, against Russia.
Ukrainian nationalists also played a role in the defense of Berlin. On September 25, 1944, S. Bandera, Y. Stetsko, A. Melnik and 300 other Ukrainian nationalists were released by the Nazis from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, where the Nazis had once placed them for too zealous campaigning for the creation of an “Independent Ukrainian State.” In 1945, Bandera and Melnik received instructions from the Nazi leadership to gather all Ukrainian nationalists in the Berlin area and defend the city from the advancing Red Army units. Bandera created Ukrainian units as part of the Volkssturm, and he himself hid in Weimar. In addition, several Ukrainian air defense groups (2.5 thousand people) operated in the Berlin area. Half of the III company of the 87th SS Grenadier Regiment "Kurmark" were Ukrainians, reservists of the XIV Grenadier Division of the SS "Galicia" troops.
However, not only Europeans took part in the Battle of Berlin on Hitler's side. Researcher M. Demidenkov writes:
When our troops fought on the outskirts of the Reich Chancellery in May 1945, they were surprised that they came across the corpses of Asians - Tibetans. This was written about in the 50s, albeit in passing, and mentioned as a curiosity. The Tibetans fought to the last bullet, shot their wounded, and did not surrender. Not a single living Tibetan in SS uniform remains».
In the memoirs of veterans of the Great Patriotic War, there is information that after the fall of Berlin, corpses in a rather strange uniform were found in the Reich Chancellery: the cut was that of the everyday SS troops (not field), but the color was dark brown, and there were no runes in the buttonholes. Those killed were clearly Asians and distinctly Mongoloid with rather dark skin. They died, apparently, in battle.
It should be noted that the Nazis conducted several expeditions into Tibet along the Ahnenerbe line and established strong, friendly relations and a military alliance with the leadership of one of the largest religious movements in Tibet. Constant radio communications and an air bridge were established between Tibet and Berlin; a small German mission and a security company from the SS troops remained in Tibet.
In May 1945, our people crushed not just a military enemy, not just Nazi Germany. Nazi Europe was defeated, another European Union, previously created by Charles of Sweden and Napoleon. How can one not recall the eternal lines of A.S. Pushkin?
The tribes walked
Threatening disaster to Russia;
Wasn't all of Europe here?
And whose star was guiding her!..
But we have become a solid heel
And they took the pressure with their chests
Tribes obedient to the will of the proud,
And the unequal dispute was equal.
But the following stanza from the same poem becomes no less relevant today:
Your disastrous escape
Having boasted, they have now forgotten;
They forgot the Russian bayonet and the snow,
Buried their glory in the desert.
A familiar feast beckons them again
- The blood of the Slavs is intoxicating for them;
But their hangover will be severe;
But the guests' sleep will be long
At a cramped, cold housewarming party,
Under the grain of the northern fields!
Disputes continue between Russian and foreign historians about when the war with Nazi Germany ended de jure and de facto. On May 2, 1945, Soviet troops took Berlin. It was major success in military and ideological terms, however, the fall of the German capital did not mean the final destruction of the Nazis and their accomplices.
Achieve surrender
At the beginning of May, the leadership of the USSR set out to achieve the adoption of the act of surrender of Germany. To do this, it was necessary to come to an agreement with the Anglo-American command and deliver an ultimatum to representatives of the Nazi government, which since April 30, 1945 (after the suicide of Adolf Hitler) was headed by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.
The positions of Moscow and the West diverged quite strongly. Stalin insisted on the unconditional surrender of all German troops and pro-Nazi formations. The Soviet leader was aware of the Allies' desire to preserve part of the Wehrmacht's military machine in combat-ready condition. Such a scenario was absolutely unacceptable for the USSR.
In the spring of 1945, Nazis and collaborators left their positions on the Eastern Front en masse to surrender to Anglo-American troops. War criminals were counting on leniency, and the allies were considering using the Nazis in a potential confrontation with the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA). The USSR made concessions, but ultimately achieved its goal.
On May 7, the first act of surrender was signed in Reims, France, where Army General Dwight Eisenhower had his headquarters. The chief of the Wehrmacht operational headquarters, Alfred Jodl, put his signature on the document. The representative of Moscow was Major General Ivan Susloparov. The document came into force on May 8 at 23:01 (May 9 at 01:01 Moscow time).
The act was drawn up on English language and assumed the unconditional surrender of only the German armies. On May 7, Susloparov, having not received instructions from the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, signed a document with the proviso that any allied country may demand to conclude another similar act.
- Signing of the act of surrender of Germany in Reims
After the signing of the act, Karl Dönitz ordered all German formations to fight their way to the west. Moscow took advantage of this and demanded to immediately conclude a new act of comprehensive surrender.
On the night of May 8–9, in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, the second act of surrender was solemnly signed. The signatories agreed that the Reims document was preliminary, and the Berlin document was final. The representative of the USSR in Karlshorst was Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief Marshal Georgy Zhukov.
Be proactive
Some historians consider the liberation of Europe by Soviet troops from the Nazi occupiers to be “a cakewalk” compared to the battles that were fought on the territory of the USSR.
In 1943, the Soviet Union solved all the main problems in the military-industrial complex and received thousands of modern tanks, aircraft and artillery pieces. Command staff army gained the necessary experience and already knew how to outplay the Nazi generals.
In mid-1944, the Red Army, part of Europe, was perhaps the most effective land military machine in the world. However, politics began to actively interfere in the campaign for the liberation of European peoples.
The Anglo-American troops that landed in Normandy sought not so much to help the USSR defeat Nazism as to prevent the “communist occupation” of the Old World. Moscow could no longer trust its allies with its plans and therefore acted proactively.
In the summer of 1944, the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief determined two strategic directions of attack against the Nazis: northern (Warsaw - Berlin) and southern (Bucharest - Budapest - Vienna). The regions between the main wedges remained under Nazi control until mid-May 1945.
In particular, Czechoslovakia turned out to be such a territory. The liberation of the eastern part of the country - Slovakia - began with the crossing of the Red Army of the Carpathians in September 1944 and ended only eight months later.
In Moravia (the historical part of the Czech Republic), Soviet soldiers appeared on May 2-3, 1945, and on May 6, the Prague strategic operation began, as a result of which the capital of the state and almost the entire territory of Czechoslovakia were liberated. Large-scale hostilities continued until May 11-12.
- Soviet troops cross the border of Austria during the Great Patriotic War
- RIA News
Rush to Prague
Prague was liberated later than Budapest (February 13), Vienna (April 13) and Berlin. The Soviet command was in a hurry to capture key cities in Eastern Europe and the German capital and thus move as far west as possible, realizing that the current allies could soon turn into ill-wishers.
The advance into Czechoslovakia was not of strategic importance until May 1945. In addition, the advance of the Red Army was slowed down by two factors. The first is the mountainous terrain, which sometimes negated the effect of the use of artillery, aircraft and tanks. The second is that partisan movement in the republic it was less widespread than, for example, in neighboring Poland.
At the end of April 1945, the Red Army needed as soon as possible finish off the Nazis in the Czech Republic. Near Prague, the Germans guarded Army Groups “Center” and “Austria” in the amount of 62 divisions (more than 900 thousand people, 9,700 guns and mortars, over 2,200 tanks).
The German government, led by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, hoped to preserve the “Center” and “Austria” by surrendering to Anglo-American troops. Moscow was aware of the preparation by the allies of a secret plan for war with the USSR in the summer of 1945, called “The Unthinkable.”
To this end, Great Britain and the United States hoped to preserve as many Nazi units as possible. Naturally, the lightning defeat of the enemy group was in the interests of the Soviet Union. After a not without difficulty regrouping of forces and means, the Red Army launched several massive attacks on the “Center” and “Austria”.
Early in the morning of May 9, the 10th Guards Tank Corps of the 4th Guards Tank Army was the first to enter Prague. On May 10-11, Soviet troops completed the destruction of the main centers of resistance. In total, over almost a year of fighting in Czechoslovakia, 858 thousand enemy troops surrendered to the Red Army. USSR losses amounted to 144 thousand people.
- A Soviet tank is fighting in Prague. 1st Belorussian Front. 1945
- RIA News
"Defense against the Russians"
Czechoslovakia was not the only country on whose territory fighting continued after May 9. In April 1945, Soviet and Yugoslav troops were able to clear most territory of Yugoslavia from the Nazis and collaborators. However, the remnants of Army Group E (part of the Wehrmacht) managed to escape from the Balkan Peninsula.
The Red Army carried out the liquidation of Nazi formations on the territory of Slovenia and Austria from May 8 to May 15. In Yugoslavia itself, battles with Hitler's accomplices took place until about the end of May. Scattered resistance of Germans and collaborators in the liberated Eastern Europe lasted about a month after the surrender.
The Nazis offered stubborn resistance to the Red Army on the Danish island of Bornholm, where infantrymen of the 2nd Belorussian Front landed on May 9 with fire support from the Baltic Fleet. The garrison, which, according to various sources, numbered from 15 thousand to 25 thousand people, hoped to hold out and surrender to the allies.
The commandant of the garrison, Captain 1st Rank Gerhard von Kamtz, sent a letter to the British command, which was stationed in Hamburg, asking for a landing on Bornholm. Von Kamptz emphasized that “until this time I am ready to hold the line against the Russians.”
On May 11, almost all the Germans capitulated, but 4,000 people fought with the Red Army until May 19. The exact number of dead Soviet soldiers on the Danish island is unknown. You can find data on tens and hundreds of people killed. Some historians say that the British nevertheless landed on the island and fought with the Red Army.
This was not the first incident in which the Allies conducted joint operations with the Nazis. On May 9, 1945, German units stationed in Greece under the leadership of Major General Georg Bentack surrendered to General Preston's 28th Infantry Brigade, without waiting for the main British forces to arrive.
The British were locked in fighting with the Greek communists, who had banded together to form the People's Liberation Army ELAS. On May 12, the Nazis and the British launched an offensive against the partisan positions. It is known that German soldiers participated in battles until June 28, 1945.
- British soldiers in Athens. December 1944
Foci of resistance
Thus, Moscow had every reason to doubt that the Allies would not support the Wehrmacht fighters who found themselves both on the front line and in the rear of the Red Army.
Military publicist and historian Yuri Melkonov noted that powerful Nazi groups in May 1945 were concentrated not only in the Prague area. The 300,000-strong German troops in Courland (western Latvia and part of East Prussia) posed a certain danger.
“German groups were scattered throughout Eastern Europe. In particular, large formations were in Pomerania, Königsberg, Courland. They tried to unite, taking advantage of the fact that the USSR threw its main forces at Berlin. However, despite the difficulties in supply, the Soviet troops defeated them one by one,” Melkonov told RT.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, between May 9 and May 17, the Red Army captured about 1.5 million enemy soldiers and officers and 101 generals.
Of these, 200 thousand people were accomplices of Hitler - mainly Cossack formations and soldiers of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) of the former Soviet military leader Andrei Vlasov. However, not all collaborators were captured or destroyed in May 1945.
Fairly intense fighting in the Baltic states continued until 1948. It was not the Nazis who resisted the Red Army, but the Forest Brothers, an anti-Soviet partisan movement that arose in 1940.
Another large-scale center of resistance was Western Ukraine, where anti-Soviet sentiments were strong. From February 1944, when the liberation of Ukraine was completed, until the end of 1945, nationalists carried out about 7,000 attacks and sabotage against the Red Army.
The combat experience gained while serving in various German formations allowed Ukrainian fighters to actively resist Soviet troops until 1953.
The medal “For the Capture of Berlin” is awarded to soldiers of the Red Army, Navy and the NKVD troops - direct participants in the heroic assault and capture of Berlin in the period April 22 - May 2, 1945, as well as the organizers and leaders of military operations during the capture of this city.
The medal “For the Capture of Berlin” is worn on the left side of the chest and, in the presence of other USSR medals, is located after the medal “For the Capture of Vienna”
The assault on Berlin on April 21 - May 2, 1945 is one of the unique events in the world history of wars. It was a battle for a very large city with big amount strong stone buildings 
To some extent, the assault on Budapest in January-February and Koenigsberg in April 1945 is comparable to the assault on Berlin. Modern battles, such as the battle for Beirut in 1982, remain a pale shadow of the grandiose battles of World War II 
Sealed,strasse,
The Germans had 2.5 months to prepare Berlin for defense, during which the front stood on the Oder, 70 km from the city. This preparation was by no means improvised. The Germans developed a whole system of turning their own and foreign cities into “festungs” - fortresses. This is the strategy that Hitler followed in the second half of the war. "Fortress" cities had to defend themselves in isolation, supplied by air. Their goal was to hold road junctions and other important points. 
The Berlin fortifications of April-May 1945 are quite typical for German “festungs” - massive barricades, as well as residential and administrative buildings prepared for defense. Barricades in Germany were built at an industrial level and had nothing in common with the piles of rubbish that blocked the streets during the period of revolutionary unrest. Berlin ones, as a rule, were 2-2.5 m in height and 2-2.2 m in thickness. They were built from wood, stone, sometimes rails and shaped iron. Such a barricade easily withstood shots from tank guns and even divisional artillery with a caliber of 76-122 mm. 
Some streets were completely blocked off with barricades, not even allowing passage. Along the main highways, the barricades still had a three-meter-wide passage, prepared for quick closure with a carriage loaded with earth, stones and other materials. The approaches to the barricades were mined. It cannot be said that these Berlin fortifications were a masterpiece of engineering art. In the Breslau area, Soviet troops faced truly cyclopean barricades, entirely cast from concrete. Their design included huge moving parts that were thrown across the passage. Nothing like this has ever been seen in Berlin. The reason is quite simple: German military leaders believed that the fate of the city would be decided on the Oder Front. Accordingly, the main efforts of the engineering troops were concentrated there, on the Seelow Heights and on the perimeter of the Soviet Kyustrin bridgehead. 
A company of stationary tanks.
The approaches to the bridges across the canals and the exits from the bridges also had barricades. In buildings that were to become defense strongholds, window openings were bricked up. One or two embrasures were left in the masonry for firing from small arms and anti-tank grenade launchers - faustpatrons. Of course, not all Berlin houses underwent such reconstruction. But the Reichstag, for example, was well prepared for defense: the huge windows of the German parliament building were walled up. 
One of the “finds” of the Germans in the defense of their capital was the Berlin tank company, assembled from tanks incapable of independent movement. They were dug in at street intersections and used as fixed firing points in the west and east of the city. In total, the Berlin company included 10 Panther tanks and 12 Pz.IV tanks. 
In addition to special defensive structures, the city had air defense facilities suitable for ground battles. We are talking primarily about the so-called flakturmas - massive concrete towers about 40 m high, on the roof of which anti-aircraft guns of up to 128 mm caliber were installed. Three such giant structures were built in Berlin. These are Flakturm I in the zoo area, Flakturm II in Friedrichshain in the east of the city and Flakturm III in Humbolthain in the north. 
Forces, fortresses Berlin,
However, any engineering structures are absolutely useless if there is no one to defend them. This became the biggest problem for the Germans. During Soviet times, the number of defenders of the Reich capital was usually estimated at 200,000. However, this figure appears to be greatly overestimated. The testimony of the last commandant of Berlin, General Weidling, and other captured officers of the Berlin garrison lead to a figure of 100-120 thousand people and 50-60 tanks at the beginning of the assault. For the defense of Berlin, such a number of defenders was clearly not enough. This was obvious to professionals from the very beginning. A summary of the generalized combat experience of the 8th Guards Army that stormed the city stated: “To defend such a large city, surrounded on all sides, there were not enough forces to defend every building, as was the case in other cities, so the enemy defended mainly groups quarters, and within them separate buildings and objects...” The Soviet troops that stormed Berlin numbered, according to April 26, 1945, 464,000 people and about 1,500 tanks. The 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies, the 3rd and 5th Shock Armies, the 8th Guards Army [all from the 1st Belorussian Front], as well as the 3rd Guards Tank and part of the forces took part in the assault on the city. 28th Army (1st Ukrainian Front). During the last two days of the assault, units of the 1st Polish Army took part in the fighting. 
Evacuated explosives.
One of the mysteries of the battles for Berlin is the preservation of many bridges across the Spree and the Landwehr Canal. Given that the banks of the Spree in central Berlin were lined with stone, crossing the river beyond the bridges would have been a difficult task. The answer was provided by the testimony of General Weidling in Soviet captivity. He recalled: “None of the bridges were prepared for the explosion. Goebbels entrusted this to the Shpur organization, due to the fact that when military units blew up bridges, economic damage was caused to surrounding properties. It turned out that all the materials for preparing the bridges for the explosion, as well as the ammunition prepared for this, were taken out of Berlin during the evacuation of the Shpur institutions. It should be noted that this concerned bridges in the central part of the city. On the outskirts, everything was different. So, for example, all bridges across the Berlin-Spandauer-Schiff-farts canal in the northern part of the city were blown up. Troops of the 3rd Shock Army and the 2nd Guards Tank Army had to establish crossings. In general, it can be noted that the first days of the fight for Berlin were associated with crossing the waterways barriers on its outskirts. 
In the thick of neighborhoods.
By April 27, Soviet troops had largely overcome areas with low-rise and sparse buildings and entered the densely built-up central areas of Berlin. Advancing from different directions, Soviet tank and combined arms armies aimed at one point in the city center - the Reichstag. In 1945, it had long since 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 towards the Reichstag, the Red Army troops created a threat to the Fuhrer's bunker under the Reich Chancellery 
The assault group became the central figure in the street battles. Zhukov's directive recommended including 8-12 guns with a caliber of 45 to 203 mm and 4-6 mortars of 82-120 mm in assault detachments. The assault groups included sappers and “chemists” with smoke bombs and flamethrowers. Tanks also became constant participants in these groups. It is well known that their main enemy in urban battles in 1945 was hand-held anti-tank weapons—faustpatrons. Shortly before the Berlin operation, the troops conducted experiments on shielding tanks. However, they did not give a positive result: even when a Faustpatron grenade exploded on the screen, the tank’s armor penetrated. Nevertheless, in some parts, screens were still installed - more for psychological support of the crew than for real protection. 
Did the Faustians burn the tank armies?
The losses of tank armies in battles for the city can be assessed as moderate, especially in comparison with battles in open areas against tanks and anti-tank artillery. Thus, Bogdanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Army lost about 70 tanks from Faust cartridges in the battles for the city. At the same time, it acted in isolation from the combined arms armies, relying only on its motorized infantry. The share of tanks destroyed by Faustians in other armies was smaller. In total, during the street battles in Berlin from April 22 to May 2, Bogdanov’s army irretrievably lost 104 tanks and self-propelled guns)
