Russian troops entered Berlin 1945. After Berlin: when the war with Nazi Germany actually ended

Banner over the Reichstag / Photo: www.mihailov.be

On May 2, 1945, Soviet troops completely captured the German capital Berlin during the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation, which was carried out from April 16 to May 8, 1945 during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War (1941-1945).

In the spring of 1945, on the territory of Nazi Germany, fighting armed forces of the Soviet Union, USA, Great Britain and France. Soviet troops were located 60 kilometers from Berlin, and the advanced units of the American-British troops reached the Elbe River 100-120 kilometers from the German capital.

Berlin was not only a political stronghold of Nazism, but also one of the largest military-industrial centers in Germany.

The main forces of the Wehrmacht were concentrated in the Berlin direction. In Berlin itself, about 200 Volkssturm battalions were formed (detachments people's militia Third Reich), and the total number of the garrison exceeded 200 thousand people.

The city's defense was carefully thought out and well prepared. The Berlin defensive area included three ring contours. The external defensive circuit ran along rivers, canals and lakes 25-40 kilometers from the center of the capital. It was based on large settlements, turned into nodes of resistance. The internal defensive contour, which was considered the main defense line of the fortified area, ran along the outskirts of the suburbs of Berlin. Anti-tank obstacles and barbed wire barriers were erected on their streets. The total depth of defense on this perimeter was six kilometers. The third, urban bypass ran along the circular railway. All streets leading to the city center were blocked with all kinds of barriers, and bridges were prepared to be blown up.

For ease of defense management, Berlin was divided into nine sectors. The most heavily fortified was the central sector, where the main government and administrative institutions were located, including the Reichstag and the Imperial Chancellery. On the streets and squares, trenches were dug for artillery, mortars, tanks and assault guns, and numerous firing points were prepared, protected by reinforced concrete structures. For covert maneuver by forces and means, it was planned to widely use the metro, total length the lines of which reached 80 kilometers. Majority defensive structures in the city itself and on the approaches to it, troops were engaged in advance.

Soviet operation plan Supreme High Command was to apply to wide front several powerful blows, dismember the enemy’s Berlin group, encircle and destroy it piece by piece. The operation began on April 16, 1945. After powerful artillery and aviation preparation, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front attacked the enemy on the Oder River. At the same time, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front began to cross the Neisse River. Despite the fierce resistance of the enemy, Soviet troops broke through his defenses.

On April 20, long-range artillery fire from the 1st Belorussian Front on Berlin marked the beginning of its assault. By the evening of April 21, his shock units reached the northeastern outskirts of the city.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front carried out a rapid maneuver to reach Berlin from the south and west. On April 21, having advanced 95 kilometers, tank units of the front broke into the southern outskirts of the city. Taking advantage of the success of tank formations, the combined arms armies of the shock group of the 1st Ukrainian Front quickly advanced westward.

On April 25, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts united west of Berlin, completing the encirclement of the entire Berlin enemy group (500 thousand people).

The troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front crossed the Oder and, having broken through the enemy’s defenses, advanced to a depth of 20 kilometers by April 25. They firmly pinned down the 3rd German Tank Army, preventing it from being used on the approaches to Berlin.

The Nazi group in Berlin, despite the obvious doom, continued stubborn resistance. In fierce street battles on April 26-28, it was cut by Soviet troops into three isolated parts.

The fighting went on day and night. Breaking through to the center of Berlin, soviet soldiers They stormed every street and every house. On some days they managed to clear up to 300 blocks of the enemy. Hand-to-hand combat broke out in subway tunnels, underground communication structures and communication passages. The basis of the combat formations of rifle and tank units during the fighting in the city were assault detachments and groups. Most of the artillery (up to 152 mm and 203 mm guns) was assigned to rifle units for direct fire. Tanks operated as part of both rifle formations and tank corps and armies, promptly subordinate to the command of combined arms armies or operating in their own offensive zone. Attempts to use tanks independently led to their big losses from artillery fire and faustpatrons. Due to the fact that Berlin was shrouded in smoke during the assault, the massive use of bomber aircraft was often difficult. Most powerful blows Aviation struck military targets in the city on April 25 and on the night of April 26; 2,049 aircraft took part in these attacks.

By April 28, only the central part remained in the hands of the defenders of Berlin, shot from all sides by Soviet artillery, and by the evening of the same day, units of the 3rd Shock Army of the 1st Belorussian Front reached the Reichstag area.

The Reichstag garrison numbered up to one thousand soldiers and officers, but it continued to continuously strengthen. He was armed with large number machine guns and faustpatrons. There were also artillery pieces. Deep ditches were dug around the building, various barriers were erected, and machine gun and artillery firing points were equipped.

On April 30, troops of the 3rd Shock Army of the 1st Belorussian Front began fighting for the Reichstag, which immediately became extremely fierce. Only in the evening, after repeated attacks, Soviet soldiers broke into the building. The Nazis put up fierce resistance. Hand-to-hand combat broke out on the stairs and in the corridors every now and then. The assault units, step by step, room by room, floor by floor, cleared the Reichstag building of the enemy. All the way Soviet soldiers from the main entrance to the Reichstag to the roof was marked with red flags and flags. On the night of May 1, the Victory Banner was hoisted over the building of the defeated Reichstag. The battles for the Reichstag continued until the morning of May 1, and individual groups of the enemy, holed up in basement compartments, capitulated only on the night of May 2.

In the battles for the Reichstag, the enemy lost more than 2 thousand soldiers and officers killed and wounded. Soviet troops captured over 2.6 thousand Nazis, as well as 1.8 thousand rifles and machine guns as trophies, 59 artillery pieces, 15 tanks and assault guns.

On May 1, units of the 3rd Shock Army, advancing from the north, met south of the Reichstag 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 Flakturm I (Zoobunker) concrete anti-aircraft defense tower.

By 15:00 on May 2, enemy resistance had completely ceased, the remnants of the Berlin garrison surrendered with a total of more than 134 thousand people.

During the fighting, out of approximately 2 million Berliners, about 125 thousand died, and a significant part of Berlin was destroyed. Of the 250 thousand buildings in the city, about 30 thousand were completely destroyed, more than 20 thousand buildings were in a dilapidated state, more than 150 thousand buildings had moderate damage. More than a third of metro stations were flooded and destroyed, 225 bridges were blown up by Nazi troops.

The fighting with individual groups breaking through from the outskirts of Berlin to the west ended on May 5. On the night of May 9, the Act of Surrender of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany was signed.

During Berlin operation Soviet troops surrounded and eliminated the largest group of enemy troops in the history of wars. They defeated 70 enemy infantry, 23 tank and mechanized divisions and captured 480 thousand people.

The Berlin operation cost the Soviet troops dearly. Their irrecoverable losses amounted to 78,291 people, and sanitary - 274,184 people.

More than 600 participants in the Berlin operation were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 13 people were awarded the second medal" Gold Star"Hero of the Soviet Union.

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The Berlin operation was not the most difficult for the Soviet troops. In 1945, when everyone, even the most inexperienced fighters, understood that there was very little left until the end of the war, when almost all native land, and the Soviet troops, superior to the enemy in both the quantity and quality of weapons, stood on the outskirts of Hitler’s lair, the fight, I think, was still easier than a year later, when they had to surrender to the enemy city after city, region after region. That an operation designed by the best Soviet commanders, would end in success, no one had any doubts: neither in Moscow, nor even in Berlin, which continued to agonize, from where the Fuhrer continued to send directives to army headquarters and call the piece of Central Europe torn apart by bombing and flooded with refugees an “empire.”

War and politics

But despite all the obviousness of the outcome of the Berlin operation, on the eve of the upcoming battles, military aspects gave way to political ones. The closer the end of the war was, the more attention the Allied powers paid to the issue of post-war reconstruction of the world. The impending collapse of the Third Reich posed a lot of questions to the USSR, USA and Great Britain (at that time France had already joined them), which, even if they were discussed at Yalta Conference, still generated wariness and even distrust of each other. The command of the Soviet troops had to build their plans in accordance not with the convenience of the current military positions, but with the need to give more weight to Moscow's arguments during its future negotiations with its allies. That is why, at the last stage of the Great Patriotic War, political considerations sometimes so decisively interfered with the operational plans of Soviet military leaders.

For this reason alone, despite the victorious mood of the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, the Berlin operation cannot be called an easy walk. The high stakes of this battle made it one of the most stubborn and bloody on the Eastern Front. The Nazis defended their last line and had nothing to lose. Moreover, the Germans were not simply led by blind fanaticism. In addition to the actual defense of the Reich capital, they had another important goal - to hold back the advance of Soviet troops for as long as possible, so that most of German territory would come under Allied control. And the defenders of Berlin themselves were more attracted by the prospect of ending up in the hands of the Anglo-Americans than of falling into Russian captivity. Such views were universally instilled by Hitler’s propaganda, although it represented the British and Yankees as arrogant hillbillies, but did not attribute to them the satanic bloodthirstiness that, according to Dr. Goebbels, they were distinguished by “ Bolshevik Slavic-Tatar hordes«.

On the approaches to the lair

By mid-April, the Nazi army, despite the beating that had been given to it on all European fronts for two years, continued to remain in a very combat-ready state. The strength of the Wehrmacht was estimated at 223 divisions and brigades, the majority of which, including the most combat-ready, operated on the Soviet-German front. A series of defeats and heavy losses undermined morale German troops at the front and the population in the rear, but he was not completely broken.

In the Berlin direction, the fascist German command concentrated a large group consisting of the Vistula and Center army groups (in total about 1 million people, 10,400 guns and mortars, 1,530 tanks and assault guns, over 3,300 aircraft). On western shores On the Oder and Neisse rivers, a deeply layered defense was created, which included the Oder-Neisse line, which consisted of three stripes 20-40 kilometers deep, and the Berlin defensive area. The total number of the Berlin garrison exceeded 200 thousand people. For the convenience of troop control, the city was divided into 9 sectors. The central sector, which covered the main state and administrative institutions, including the Reichstag and the Imperial Chancellery, was most carefully prepared. All defensive positions were connected to each other by communication passages. The metro was widely used for covert maneuver by forces and means.

For an offensive in the Berlin direction Soviet command concentrated 19 combined arms (including 2 Polish), 4 tank and 4 air armies (2.5 million people, 41,600 guns and mortars, 6,250 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, 7,500 aircraft). The plan of the operation was to deliver several powerful blows on a wide front, dismember the enemy’s Berlin group, encircle and destroy it piece by piece. Main role during the capture of Berlin, it was assigned to the armies of Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, commander of the 1st Belorussian Front. At the same time, the Headquarters directives did not provide for the organization of operational-tactical cooperation with the 1st Ukrainian (commander Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev) and 2nd Belorussian Fronts (commander Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky). When breaking through the Oder-Neissen line, the 1st Belorussian Front was supposed to inflict main blow from a small bridgehead, advance with an open right flank, and attack the enemy’s deeply echeloned defenses head-on.

They tried to implement this plan back in February, but then the offensive did not work out - the Soviet command underestimated the enemy. In bloody battles, both sides suffered heavy losses, but the Germans still managed to stop the advance of the Soviet troops by transferring additional units to this section of the front.

Having relied on a lightning strike right in the heart of Hitler's Reich in order to get ahead of the allies and single-handedly put an end to Nazi Germany, Moscow, as always in such cases, pushed into the background the question of the cost of victory. If it were possible to squeeze the German troops concentrated around Berlin into a “cauldron”, dismember them into parts and destroy them individually, without rushing to storm the well-fortified Seelow Heights, which covered the capital of the Reich from the east, then the Soviet army would have avoided those losses. which she carried, striving at all costs to enter the city by the shortest route.

But it was here that operational expediency was forced to give way to political considerations. Despite the few days allotted to the Red Army to capture Berlin, the Allied troops, moving at an accelerated march, could well have reached there earlier - by Western Front By that time, the Germans had practically stopped resisting, surrendering entire corps and divisions. But, apparently, the blow inflicted in January by German tanks in the Ardennes had such an effect on the Allies that even in the absence of resistance they observed the greatest caution in Germany. But the pace of advance for the Soviet army during the Berlin operation was determined as follows: for combined arms armies - 8-14 kilometers, for tank armies - 30-37 kilometers per day.

To Berlin!

On April 16, at 3 o'clock local time, aviation and artillery preparation began in the sector of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts. After its completion, 143 searchlights were turned on, and the infantry, supported by tanks, attacked the enemy. Without encountering strong resistance, she advanced 1.5-2 kilometers. However, the closer our troops came, the stronger the enemy’s resistance grew.

In order to strengthen the onslaught, Zhukov brought tank armies into the battle in the afternoon. Their vanguards completed the breakthrough of the first line of defense. However, approaching the Seelow Heights, the infantry and tanks encountered unsuppressed enemy defenses. During the first day of the offensive, the front troops advanced only 3-8 kilometers and were unable to break through the defenses on the Seelow Heights. The premature introduction of tank formations created chaos in the operational formation of combined arms armies, caused a disruption in their rear communications, and confusion in command and control of troops.

Only towards the end of April 17 did the front troops overcome the second line of defense. Two days later the Oder line of German defense was finally broken through. As a result of a four-day fierce struggle, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front advanced to a depth of 34 kilometers.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, in turn, advanced 1-1.5 kilometers by the end of the first day of the offensive. The Germans began to retreat across the Spree River, and Marshal Konev on April 17 ordered troops “on the shoulders of the enemy” to cross the river in order to “open a non-stop route to Berlin.” Taking into account the hitch of Marshal Zhukov’s armies and the success of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the Supreme High Command Headquarters decided to encircle the city with the forces of three fronts, which was not initially included in the operation plan.

Despite the unrelenting resistance of the enemy, the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts resolutely “bite into” its defenses and, bypassing fortified settlements, approached Berlin. By the end of April 21, the tank armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front reached the outer defensive line German capital. On the same day, part of the forces of the 1st Belorussian Front bypassed Berlin and continued their accelerated advance towards the Elbe, where a meeting with the Allied troops was expected.

It was on the eve of the decisive assault on Berlin that a not entirely justified competition developed between Marshals Zhukov and Konev for the right to be the first to report on the breakthrough of the troops of their front to the capital of the Third Reich. In fact, the front command demanded that the troops move forward, regardless of any losses in manpower and equipment.

On April 22, the last operational meeting of the German High Command, at which Hitler was present, took place in the Imperial Chancellery. It was decided to withdraw Walter Wenck's 12th Army from its positions on the Elbe and send it east to meet the troops of the 9th Army, which was striking at Soviet troops, from the area southeast of Berlin. In an effort to delay the advance of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the German command launched a counterattack from the Görlitz area to the rear of the strike group of Soviet troops. By April 23, German troops had penetrated 20 kilometers into their location. However, by the end next day The enemy's advance was stopped.

On April 24, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front linked up southeast of Berlin with the armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front. The encirclement to the west of the city has closed. At the same time, in the Torgau region, Soviet troops met with the Americans. Thus, the Berlin enemy group was divided into two isolated groups: Berlin and Frankfurt-Guben

Flag over the Reichstag

It took the Red Army five days to eliminate the then-strong Frankfurt-Guben group of Germans from the Red Army - from April 26 to May 2. The enemy fought with the desperation of a cornered beast, before which the hope of salvation suddenly loomed, since, if they had united with Wenck’s army, the Germans would have had a corridor to escape to the West, straight into captivity by the Americans. After stubborn fighting on the night of April 29, the Nazis managed to break through the encirclement of Soviet troops at the junction of two fronts. As a result, they formed a corridor up to two kilometers wide, through which they began to retreat west to Luckenwalde. But by the end of the day the enemy was stopped, and his troops were cut up, surrounded and destroyed by May 1. Only a few broke through to the West.

The assault on the German capital itself also began on April 26. The Soviet armies launched attacks in converging directions towards the city center. The fighting went on day and night. They were carried out on the ground, in underground communications and in the air. The next day, the enemy in Potsdam was destroyed, and in Berlin he was compressed into a strip up to 2-3 kilometers wide, stretching from east to west for another 16 kilometers.

The intensity of the fighting in Berlin increased as Soviet troops advanced towards the city center, towards the Reichstag and government buildings. The armies that stormed Berlin had predetermined offensive lines; units and subunits attacked specific objects - areas, streets, buildings and structures. The battles were fought, as a rule, by assault groups and detachments made up of units of all branches of the military; Tanks, direct fire guns, flamethrowers and even captured Faust cartridges were used.

It is difficult to talk about the intensity of the fighting in Berlin, even after reading the memories of the participants in those events. There was an assault on the real lair - the city from where fascism spread like a plague throughout Europe, where the craziest Nazi ideas were born and where every house was an enemy fortress. The whole city was full of defensive structures - the Reich Chancellery and the Reichstag were especially fortified, as already mentioned. A strong fortified area was created in Tiergaten Park. The Nazis made extensive use of tanks and heavy artillery, turning their capital into a pile of ruins without mercy. All measures were taken to contain the advance of the Soviet troops - the metro was flooded, houses were blown up to block the streets, and most importantly, until the very last moment people were driven to slaughter so that they would hold the line. In essence, it was a mass suicide - the behavior of the defenders of Berlin can probably be compared to the Japanese “kamikazes”. The same lack of alternative - only death in the name of the Fuhrer, who himself was already on the brink of the grave.

By the end of April 28, the encircled Berlin group was cut into three parts. The next day in the evening, the commander of the city's defense, General Weidling, presented Hitler with a plan for a breakthrough to the west, and Hitler approved it. The breakthrough was scheduled for April 30. One can only envy the optimism of this man, although perhaps the whole point is that in the last days of his life, seeing how the monstrous empire he built was crumbling to dust under the blows of Soviet troops, the Fuhrer practically lost the ability to think soberly.

On April 29, fighting began for the Reichstag, which was defended by about a thousand people. It is difficult to understand what these people were fighting for, but each floor of the building had to be taken with a fight. After a series of attacks, units of the 171st and 150th Infantry Divisions burst into the building. On April 30 at 14:25, sergeants Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria hoisted the Victory Banner over the Reichstag. The capture of the Reichstag had enormous political and moral significance. The courage, dedication and heroism of Soviet soldiers were actively promoted among the troops, the names of the heroes of those battles were heard in Sovinformburo reports throughout the country. And the very sight of the main building of Nazism, decorated with inscriptions of Soviet soldiers who carried all their hatred of the enemy and rejoicing at the victory from the banks of the Volga and Dnieper, told everyone - the Third Reich was crushed.

On May 1, at 3:50 a.m., the commander of the 8th Guards Army, commanded by the hero of Stalingrad, General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov, was delivered to the command post General Staff Wehrmacht ground forces General of Infantry Krebs. He stated that he was authorized to negotiate a truce and reported on Hitler's suicide. Zhukov’s deputy went to Chuikov for negotiations with Krebs with Stalin’s order not to conduct any negotiations with anyone other than unconditional surrender. Zhukov himself set an ultimatum: if consent to unconditional surrender is not given by 10 o’clock, Soviet troops will strike such a blow that “there will be nothing left in Berlin but ruins.” The leadership of the dying Reich was slow to respond. Therefore, at 10:40 a.m., Soviet troops opened heavy fire on the remnants of the defense in the center of Berlin. By 18:00 it became known that the enemy had rejected the demand for unconditional surrender. After this, the final assault began on the central part of the city, where the Imperial Chancellery was located.

The battle for this object continued throughout the night from May 1 to 2. The Germans made desperate attempts to push back the Soviet soldiers, but all their counterattacks were thwarted. By morning, all the premises were cleared of the enemy: Goebbels’s corpse was discovered near the entrance to the chancellery bunker, and in one of the rooms the bodies of his wife and six children were discovered. According to eyewitnesses, several corpses of Hitler's doubles were also found in the building, but the remains of the Fuhrer themselves were discovered later.

On the night of May 2 at 1:50 a.m., the radio station of the Berlin Defense Headquarters broadcast in German and Russian: “ We are sending our envoys to the Bismarck Strasse bridge. Let's stop hostilities". On May 2, Deputy Minister of Propaganda Dr. Fritsche turned to the Soviet command with a request for permission to speak on the radio with an appeal to the German troops of the Berlin garrison to end all resistance. By 15:00 on May 2, the remnants of the Berlin garrison with a total of more than 134 thousand people surrendered.

The price of victory

After the fall of Berlin, active hostilities were conducted essentially only in Czechoslovakia. On the territory of Germany itself, only individual units tried not even to hold off the Soviet troops, but to break through to the west in order to surrender to the allies. Despite the fact that Hitler-appointed Reich Chancellor, Admiral Karl Doenitz, continued to issue orders calling German soldiers not to lay down their arms, surrender became widespread.

Goebbels's propaganda machine worked brilliantly: the image of a bloodthirsty savage feeding on the meat of German babies was permanently entrenched in the minds of the subjects of the Third Reich. Of course, completely deny the facts of murders of civilians, rapes German women and robbery of the population by Soviet troops is impossible. And the allies often behaved German territory far from being liberators. However, in a war as in a war, especially since the Soviet troops, unlike the Americans and the British, almost until the very end of the war had to overcome fierce resistance at every step. Moreover, not only military personnel were involved in this resistance, but also civilians, hastily armed and stuffed with Hitler’s ideology. Elderly veterans of the First World War and 14-year-old boys armed with fauspatrons joined the ranks of the defenders of Berlin.

These Germans could be understood and humanly pitied - in front of them stood Soviet soldiers, who, thanks to Goebbels' tales, had turned into a horde of cannibals, and behind them were military courts, which, until the very last hours of the war, continued to impose death sentences for desertion. Moreover, in his hatred of everything Soviet Hitler ordered to turn the whole of Germany into a cemetery. On his orders, the retreating troops everywhere used scorched earth tactics, leaving destruction, hunger and death in their wake.

The fact that the Nazi resistance during the Berlin operation was in in every sense This word is desperate, as evidenced by the fact that the losses of Soviet troops in it amounted to 361,367 people killed and wounded (irretrievable losses - 81 thousand). And the average daily losses (15,712 people) were even higher than during the Battle of Stalingrad or Kursk. However, the desire of the Soviet Headquarters, primarily Marshal Zhukov, to take Berlin at any cost as soon as possible also played a role here.

The enemy also knew about the heavy losses of the Soviet troops trying to push through the defenses on the approaches to Berlin. The hitch in the attack on the Seelow Heights caused great joy at the German command headquarters. Hitler exclaimed with enthusiasm: “ We repulsed this blow. At Berlin, the Russians will suffer the bloodiest defeat that can ever happen!". The Fuhrer, as usual, turned out to be a bad seer, but it cannot be denied that Berlin was taken at a truly high price, even if we take into account the rapid pace of advance of the Soviet troops and the strength of the enemy opposing them - after all, in just 16 days the Red Army defeated about a hundred enemy divisions that did not surrender, but tried desperately to resist.

But this price was paid for the capture of the main stronghold of Nazism, and therefore for victory in the Great Patriotic War. On May 9 at 0:43 Moscow time, Field Marshal General Wilhelm Keitel, as well as representatives of the German Navy, who had the appropriate authority from Doenitz, signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany. A brilliantly executed operation, coupled with the courage of Soviet soldiers and officers who fought to end the four-year nightmare of war, led to a logical result: Victory.

STORM OF BERLIN

The last operation of the Great Patriotic War, upon closer examination, turns into a real tangle of mysteries and contradictions, and the threads from this tangle stretch both into the distant future and into the past. Within the framework of historical alternatives, we need to consider several basic issues. Was it necessary to storm Berlin at all? If it is still necessary, then when and how should it be done? To find answers to these questions, we will have to consider the background of the assault, and this consideration will begin not at Stalin's Headquarters, but at the headquarters of General Eisenhower.

The fact is that of all the big three, Winston Churchill thought more about politics and about politics than Roosevelt and Stalin combined. post-war structure Europe. It was he who constantly rushed around with various ideas that contradicted the preliminary agreements. Either he wanted to land in the Balkans in order to cut off the Red Army’s path to Central Europe, or he wanted to capture Berlin... This is something worth talking about. At Churchill's instigation, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, began to consider

options for a rapid rush of British troops to Berlin, although plans for such operations were not seriously developed. And there was no one to command the rapid rush. The British commander, Field Marshal Montgomery, was known for his pathological methodfulness and complete inability to make swift decisions and actions. Now, if Churchill had decided to talk to the American General Patton, then, you see, history could have taken a different path. By the way, here is another possible alternative for you - an attempt by the Allies to capture Berlin.

However, the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in Europe, General Eisenhower, refused to even consider such adventures. However, rumors about the intentions of the British could well have reached Stalin, and then his reaction would have been completely easy to predict. Let's take Berlin! Alas, the former seminarian was not organically capable of anything more reasonable. After that I inevitably got up next question: how to take? And here we are simply forced to consider in more detail the events immediately preceding the Berlin operation, or more precisely, the Vistula-Oder operation of the Red Army.

This operation is remarkable in many respects. First of all, few people thought about it, but the possibility cannot be ruled out that it was the course of the battles between the Vistula and Oder rivers and their results that once and for all discouraged the Allies from getting involved with the Soviet Union. It is not for nothing that the Anglo-American warriors based all their subsequent calculations solely on the use of some kind of miracle weapon that would help them defeat the damned Bolsheviks, but at the same time they did not even mention starting a conventional war. The Vistula-Oder operation showed in all its splendor the real power of the Red Army and its main striking force - tank troops. Moreover, the fact that during the operation the commanders, to put it delicately, did not shine with fresh ideas, made its results especially convincing. It was a monstrous force that crushed the vaunted Wehrmacht like a road roller crushing a rag doll.

Since the events of 1945 had several opportunities to turn onto an alternative track, we are simply forced to abandon the usual chapter structure: introduction and then alternative. Now we will highlight alternative scenarios in italics, since we will have to return to reality again and again.

The strategic situation before the start of the Vistula-Oder operation was crystal clear. The Red Army had three bridgeheads across the Vistula, and attacks were to be expected from them. In any case, the famous German historian and former general Tippelskirch writes that the German command foresaw this, but simply did not have enough strength to parry these attacks. I don’t know, I don’t know... If you remember Battle of Stalingrad, there the places for delivering decisive blows and the prospect of encircling Paulus’s army were also completely obvious, but for some reason none of the German generals had an insight. But about “not enough” Tippel-Skirch is absolutely right. Although even here he cannot resist telling a fable about the “tenfold” superiority of the Red Army in manpower. Apparently, the general had certain problems with arithmetic - common illness beaten commanders. If our generals in 1941 counted that the Germans had “three times more tanks,” then now it is the Germans’ turn to do multiplication and division. The number of German troops at Tippel-Skirch was well known, and if you believe his calculations, it turns out that everything that the Red Army had on the Eastern Front was collected against the unfortunate Army Group “A”. A heated scientific dispute even broke out between Tippelskirch and General von Buttlar: was our army 10 or 11 times superior to theirs?

In tanks, we had a sevenfold superiority, what was, was. But who is to blame for this? Who prevented the Germans from developing their industry at full speed? I have already written more than once that such excuses are simply pathetic evasions. This is the art of a commander, to concentrate at the decisive moment in the decisive place superior forces. And if the state and industry can give it these superior forces, this fact only speaks of the advantages of this state and that one should not try to fight with it.

However, not everything is clean with our history. Just look at the statement of the Military Encyclopedia about the 500-kilometer depth of the German defensive structures between the Vistula and Oder. It immediately becomes clear why they did not have enough tanks: all of Germany was digging trenches and trenches day and night. True, if you believe the map placed in the same second volume of the SVE, with all the efforts between the Vistula and Oder it is impossible to measure more than 350 kilometers of distance. Maybe our General Staff measured the distance from the lower reaches of the Oder to the upper reaches of the Vistula? Then it may turn out even more.

But distances played a role in this operation. During World War II, the maximum depth of operations was determined by the presence or absence of a supply system for the attacking troops. But even the Americans, who had a simply fantastic amount of vehicles, could not afford to go beyond certain limits. For example, the Germans have written more than once that it was supply problems that ultimately destroyed Paulus’s army at Stalingrad and the German troops in the North Caucasus. The most interesting thing is that in in this case They're not that wrong. It was the Americans who could afford to send supplies for the XIV Air Force to China along a risky route through the Himalayas, spending four tons of gasoline to deliver a fifth to General Chennall's planes. But no more! Even they could not supply the advancing armies of Patton and Bradley in this way. Therefore, almost all armies, after a breakthrough of about 500 kilometers, were forced to stop to regroup and pull up their rear, even if there was no enemy resistance in principle.

However, let’s return to January 1945 on the banks of the Vistula. For one reason or another, but Soviet offensive started on January 12th. The 1st Belorussian Front of Marshal Zhukov launched strikes from the Magnushevsky and Pulawy bridgeheads, and the 1st Ukrainian Front of Marshal Konev - one, but much more powerful, from the Sandomierz bridgehead. The force of this blow can be easily imagined if we remember that 8 combined arms and 2 tank armies, as well as 3 separate tank corps, took part in it. It is pleasant and easy to describe such operations. There are no sophisticated maneuvers, no subtle plans in them. The main idea can be characterized in two words: pace and power!

The troops of Marshal Konev were the first to go on the offensive, and the Sandomierz-Silesian operation began. The breakthrough was carried out within a 40-kilometer strip by the forces of three armies. The front troops had a deep operational formation, but at the same time, in the breakthrough sector, even in the first zone, Konev created an overwhelming superiority over the enemy. In total, almost 12,000 guns and more than 1,400 tanks were concentrated on the Sandomierz bridgehead, and all this force fell on the German XLVIII Panzer Corps. After a powerful artillery barrage, the infantry went on the attack, and after a couple of hours the main line of enemy defense was broken through. In the afternoon, the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies were thrown into battle, and the German defense simply fell apart.

Where were the German reserves at this time? Here we have Hitler to thank. Almost all generals write that, at his request, the reserves were located close to the front line, so they came under artillery fire and bomb attacks and were pretty battered by the time they had to go into battle. But only Guderian reveals another little secret. Army Group A had only 12 tank and mechanized divisions at its disposal. However, they were all evenly distributed along the front line. The Germans did not create a single shock fist. Who ordered this? Not known. However, Guderian, apparently retaining some shreds of honesty, in this case does not try to blame Hitler, from which we can conclude that either the German General Staff or someone in the High Command tried.

Two days later, the 1st Ukrainian Front went on the offensive. And here we are faced with the first of the mysteries of the Vistula-Oder operation. The configuration of the front simply suggested the idea of ​​encircling the LVI tank and XL1I with simultaneous attacks from the Magnushevsky and Sandomierz bridgeheads army corps Germans who were already in the bag. Another small alternative. However, this did not happen. Why? Maybe, after all, stories about, to put it mildly, not better relations between Zhukov and Konev are not without grounds? After all, both fronts did not even try to create another cauldron, but rushed together to the west, as if not noticing each other. Moreover, Zhukov’s 69th Army, with a blow from the Pulawy bridgehead, threw the Germans out of the cauldron, which could have arisen by itself, even against the will of the commanders. What was the point of the offensive from a tiny patch of the Puławy bridgehead is not clear, because this offensive had no tactical or operational significance. Although, on the other hand, both commanders were not seen making brilliant decisions, and no matter how hard A. Isaev tries to promote Zhukov, if you carefully read everything he wrote, Isaev’s books prove the complete mediocrity of the marshals.

Organized German resistance ceased on the second day of fighting, and the offensive entered the pursuit stage. This may also partly explain the abandonment of attempts to create an encirclement ring. Why waste time on cunning maneuvers if you can use the second advantage of tank forces - striking power? But even this had to be used skillfully. The heavy roller of a tank army may well turn into a thin pancake all the divisions that find themselves in its path, you just need to aim it correctly and ensure the possibility of linear and non-stop movement. But our generals constantly had problems with this. By the way, straightforwardness still had a right to exist. If we compare the composition of the German 9th Army, which took the main blow, at the beginning of January and the end of the same month, it turns out that not a single one of the originally listed divisions remained in it. Everything that came under the frontal attack of Zhukov and Konev died.

Hitler, naturally, blamed his generals for everything and began feverishly shuffling the commanders of armies and corps. The first to fly from his post was the commander of Army Group A, General Oberst Harpe, followed by other generals. It seems that in January 1945, all the commanders of the army groups and armies operating in Poland were replaced, but it was impossible to correct the situation.

The offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front began on January 14 and at first did not develop so successfully. The advance on the first day of the offensive was no more than 3 kilometers, but then the Germans simply could not stand it. As we already mentioned, they did not have enough forces on the front line or reserves. After the destruction of the main forces of the 9th Army, Zhukov’s tanks also rushed further. Finally, our tankers stopped looking up to the infantry divisions and began to act independently. They were 30-50 kilometers ahead of the infantry divisions, at times this gap could reach 100 kilometers, and then the actions of Guderian and Rommel are immediately remembered.

Our historians somehow do not notice this, but the same Guderian admits that around September 19, the German front in Poland ceased to exist, as it did last year in Belarus. The task set by the operation plan to reach the line Zychlin - Lodz - Radomsko - Czestochowa - Miechow was completed on the sixth day instead of the twelfth as planned. At the same time, the line of advance of both fronts gradually deviated north into Pomerania. If you look at the map, you can see some parallels with Operation Gelb. In the same way, a large group of enemy troops, which was in East Prussia. The only difference was that the Germans did not line up on the parade ground to lay down their arms in an organized manner, but tried to fight back.

But here a new portion of incomprehensible moments begins. The 1st Belorussian Front finally turns north and, instead of moving towards Berlin, breaks into Pomerania. There is a formal explanation for this. The Germans created a shock (allegedly) group here that threatened the flank of the front, and it was necessary to defeat it first. But even General Routh himself, who commanded this parody offensive, honestly writes that he had no forces. Do you catch the subtlety? Not “not enough,” but “none at all.” His own words: “10 divisions with 70 tanks.” Against such a background, even a freshly formed tank division“Clausewitz”, which, scary to think, had as many as 12 tanks and 20 self-propelled guns. There is one good example effectiveness of such counterattacks. Tippel-Skirch and von Buttlar write about the attempt of the German 4th Army to jump out of East Prussia. But look carefully at all our publications, starting with the same old SVE and ending with the completely modern issues of Front-line Illustration. There is not a word about this “breakthrough” anywhere. It is not reflected on any map. History, as we have said more than once, loves evil things. In 1941, the Germans did not even suspect that they were participating in a great tank battle near Rovno and Brody, and in 1945, Zhukov and Rokossovsky, without noticing it themselves, repelled the attack of General Hossbach’s divisions. So such an explanation should be considered precisely as formal.

As a last resort, the German command renamed Army Group Center to Army Group North, and Army Group A was given the name Army Group Center. But even this did not help stop the Soviet tanks.

Meanwhile, the all-crushing wave of Soviet tanks continued to roll towards the Oder. The 1st Belorussian Front crossed the Warta River, bypassed the city of Poznan, which was declared another “festung,” and continued the offensive, although now only the 1st Guards Tank Army remained its vanguard. By the way, here is an excerpt from the memoirs of the commander of the 1st Guards Tank Army, which best characterizes the change in views Soviet commanders and the doctrine of the Red Army: “On the fifth day of the offensive, the 11th Guards Corps of A. Kh. Babajanyan, having fought about 200 kilometers, approached the Warta River - the sixth line of German defense. In the place where Gusakovsky’s advanced brigade reached, the Varta flowed strictly north. Then, near the city of Kolo, it turned sharply to the west and, having reached the Poznan meridian, again headed north. I ordered Babajanyan and Dremov to bypass the enemy reserves concentrated in the eastern bend of the river and take the Poznan-Warsaw highway in pincers. Having crossed the Warta and leaving the German group on the flank across the river, both corps rushed to Poznan. Under these conditions, the enemy group was doomed to inaction. She could no longer prevent the further advance of our troops.”

Notice the end of the quote. If only our tank generals had acted like this in 1944, without getting involved in the destruction of every isolated strong point!

Already on January 22-23, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front reached the Oder and crossed it in a number of sectors. But this front also lost one of its tank armies, which had to turn south to decide the outcome of the battles in Silesia and around Krakow. By February 3, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front also reached the Oder in the Küstrin area. They also crossed the river and created a small bridgehead. The Oder also did not become a serious obstacle for Katukov’s tankers.

This is what the army commander wrote: “The brigade commanders decided to cross the river together. They pulled self-propelled guns, rocket launchers and all other artillery to the shore. After a massive fire strike on enemy positions on the opposite bank, chains of motorized riflemen descended onto the ice. Having quickly crossed the river, they, with the support of artillery from the eastern bank, knocked down small barriers of the Nazis and captured a bridgehead 5 kilometers along the front and 4 kilometers in depth. Motorized rifle battalions reached the Reitwein - Wooden line.

Having received a message that Gusakovsky and Fedorovich crossed the Oder, I ordered A. Kh. Babajanyan to transfer all the forces of the corps to help the forward detachments, establish crossings and expand the bridgehead. But only seven tanks from Gusakovsky’s brigade managed to cross the ferry crossing to the bridgehead. The fact is that I received a new order: the army was transferred to Eastern Pomerania, to the region north of the city Landsberg (Gurovo-Ilavetske). She was given a new task.”

This ended the Vistula-Oder operation, which became one of the largest in scope during the entire war. As we have already said, it fully demonstrated the qualities of tank forces that Fuller, Liddell-Hart, Tukhachevsky and others dreamed of before the war. Mobility allowed tanks to cover distances unimaginable for foot armies, and firepower and armor made resistance attempts by rear units and modest reserves collected from the pine forest pointless. The steel roller crushed everything that came in its way. The infantry could only reap the fruits of the victories of the tankers and engage in the elimination of scattered centers of resistance such as Poznan, Schneidemühl and the like. The main issue remained providing the advancing tank corps with all the necessary supplies and, first of all, fuel.

This is where we come to the most interesting issue of the Vistula-Oder operation, its alternative option. Was it possible, without stopping, to continue the offensive further directly towards Berlin? After all, this would allow us to avoid bloody battles for the Seelow Heights and protracted battles in the city itself. Alas, a rather categorical answer should be given here: “No!” First of all, during the operation, Soviet troops advanced deep into enemy territory to a distance of about 400 kilometers, which was the limit for the army supply systems of that time. Even the Wehrmacht ideal conditions The blitzkriegs of 1940-1941 made stops in such cases to put the troops in order and tighten up the rear. And the rear services of the Red Army, unfortunately, even at the very end of the war did not at all resemble a well-oiled machine. Moreover, as we have seen, the offensive has lost its penetrating power. Two tank armies were diverted to other directions, and the two that reached the Oder suffered some losses and, accordingly, did not have the same strength. Therefore, to make a breakthrough of another 100 kilometers and start fighting in Berlin itself was clearly beyond their capabilities.

And yet one “but” remains. Reading Katukov’s memoirs, it is impossible to escape the impression that his army and the army of General Badanov, after crossing the Oder, could have advanced a little further. After all, the width of the Seelow Heights is small, no more than 10 kilometers. At that time, there was simply no one to defend this line. Let me remind you that the 9th Army, which occupied this section of the front, the Germans had to form anew, all its divisions to the last were killed on the Vistula, and it could not provide any serious resistance. In fact, it is impossible to find anything like this in the history of war: in three weeks the composition of the entire army completely changed!

Therefore, if generals Katukov and Badanov had advanced only 15-20 kilometers further, even later handing over their sectors to the approaching infantry armies, we would have had a full-fledged bridgehead at our disposal, and not the Kyustrin patch, and the Germans would have lost their main line of defense. By the way, Zhukov understood all this, because in an order dated February 4 he demanded that the 5th Shock Army expand the bridgehead to 20 kilometers along the front and to 10 kilometers in depth. The task was made easier by the fact that the command of the German troops at the Oder line was entrusted to the great commander Heinrich Himmler. In addition, it was during these days that Hitler launched the Balaton operation, after which the Panzerwaffe finally ceased to exist. But the main thing was done - the last remnants of German tank units and formations were tied up on another sector of the front, and the Germans could not do anything to oppose the 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies.

If the Seelow Heights had been occupied by an attack on the move, the Germans simply had nothing with which to repel them. The state of the German troops at that moment is best characterized by the same Guderian: “On January 26, Hitler ordered the formation of a tank destroyer division. The name of this new compound sounded beautiful and promising. But there was nothing more. In reality, this formation should have consisted of companies of scooters under the command of brave lieutenants; The crews of these companies armed with Faustpatrons were supposed to destroy G-34s and heavy Russian tanks. The division was brought into battle in squadrons. It was a pity for the brave soldiers!” Apparently, the Fuhrer was greatly impressed by the actions of the Soviet tank armies if he gave such an order. But such improvised formations were, as they say, “one tooth at a time” for the Soviet armies. We will not even consider the German attempts to recapture the Seelow Heights, we will simply give a small excerpt from the list of the 9th Army on January 26, that is, after the end of the Vistula-Oder operation: 608th Special Division Headquarters; remnants of the 19th Panzer Division; remnants of the 25th Panzer Division; Well, there are some other little things there.

That is, the Soviet command had real opportunity occupy the Seelow Heights and freely obtain an excellent starting position for the subsequent assault on Berlin and avoid the colossal problems and losses that took place in reality. In addition, the opportunity arose after regrouping to strike directly at Berlin instead of a large-scale operation to encircle the capital of the Reich. Probably, in this case the war would have ended a month and a half earlier. It may seem like a small amount, but it still means thousands of soldiers’ lives.

After this, we come to the second fork in the spring of 1945 - the Berlin offensive operation of the Red Army. What was she? Golden exclamation point, which crowned the most difficult war in the history of our country? Or a bloody blot that casts a dark shadow over the entire victory? Like anything grandiose historical event, the assault and capture of Berlin cannot be assessed unambiguously.

Everyone understood the importance of the Küstrin bridgehead, even the Fuhrer. He therefore ordered General Busse's revived 9th Army to eliminate him. In February and March, Busse carried out a series of attacks, but their only result was the loss of 35,000 people, whom he never received again. During these attacks, one of the Vlasov divisions especially distinguished itself, and Iron crosses These soldiers were given by Heinrich Himmler. Of course, there was no point in expecting that Hitler himself would reward the traitors. Thus, even before the start of the decisive battles, the German forces in the main direction were weakened. After this, Busse decided to hold the city of Küstrin itself, which blocked the direct road to Berlin, at any cost. It separated two Soviet bridgeheads, at Reitwein and Kienitz, and was a real bone in the throat of the 1st Belorussian Front. However, the Germans did not succeed in this either; on March 30, the city fell. The Soviet armies consolidated the bridgehead and could calmly prepare a decisive offensive.

But it didn’t work out calmly. Here we will completely unwittingly have to enter into a small polemic with A. Isaev, more precisely, with his book “Georgy Zhukov. The King's Last Argument." By the way, very interesting name. Without a doubt, the enlightened public knows the historical roots of this curious phrase, although for some reason the author did not consider it possible to decipher them, at least in the preface. But I do not completely rule out the possibility that he also knows the beautiful-sounding Latin original “Ultima ratio regis”, and he may well know that this inscription was on the barrels of the cannons of the most Christian kings of France, Louis, with rather large numbers. So whose gun should we consider Marshal Zhukov to be?

However, certain doubts still arise. When you criticize and expose others, you should be more precise yourself. The simplest example. Isaev writes that Zhukov’s troops were the first to reach the Oder, although in fact Konev was a couple of days ahead of him. And so on. By the way, Zhukov himself was never an artilleryman, so where is the connection here? On the other hand, this motto perfectly describes Zhukov’s manner of communicating with the outside world, so the name is quite appropriate.

However, we digress a little, let’s return to the events at the Seelow Heights. The roots of Zhukov's more than controversial decisions should still be sought in his hostile relationship with Konev and his desire to please Stalin. To talk about some kind of socialist competition to take the Reichstag, of course, is stupid, here I agree 150 percent with Isaev. But there was rivalry, and in addition to quite natural causes(jealousy for the success of a neighbor has always existed and will remain forever and ever) there was another one, artificially introduced. I don’t know for what purpose Stalin tried to pit the two marshals against each other before the start of the decisive offensive, but he did it. Let us turn to the memoirs of Zhukov himself, in which he describes the meetings at Headquarters preceding the Berlin operation:

"He's right there<Сталин>said to Marshal I. S. Konev:

“In the event of stubborn enemy resistance on the eastern approaches to Berlin, which will certainly happen, and a possible delay in the offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front, the 1st Ukrainian Front should be ready to strike with tank armies from the south towards Berlin.”

There are misconceptions that

The 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies were introduced into the battle for Berlin, allegedly not by the decision of J.V. Stalin, but on the initiative of the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front. In order to restore the truth, I will quote the words of Marshal I. S. Konev on this issue, which he said at a meeting of the senior command staff of the central group of forces on February 18, 1946, when everything was still so fresh in memory:

“When, at about 24 hours on April 16, I reported that the offensive was going well, Comrade Stalin gave the following instructions: “It’s going hard at Zhukov, turn Rybalko and Lelyushenko to Zehlendorf, remember how we agreed at Headquarters.”

Therefore, the maneuver that Rybalko and Lelyushenko performed is a direct order from Comrade Stalin. Consequently, all fabrications on this issue should be excluded from our literature.”

That is, the notorious race was organized by order from above. What, after Stalin’s direct order to turn the tank armies to Berlin, will Konev voluntarily give up the opportunity to be the first to capture the same Reichstag? In addition, there was another race with an imaginary opponent. But the assumption that the Soviet command was in a hurry to capture Berlin before the Allies should be discarded. After all, the plan of the operation provided for the encirclement of Berlin. Will the British or Americans really begin to fight their way to Berlin, breaking through the positions of Soviet troops?! Well, this is complete nonsense, you will agree. But we will return to the question of the storming of Berlin later.

Let us remember: Stalin had every reason to expect that the assault on Berlin would not be delayed. The Red Army had an overwhelming superiority in manpower and equipment. As usual, one should not believe either the SVE, which writes about a two- or four-fold superiority, or the memoirs of German generals, which tell tales of a twenty-fold superiority. The truth, as always, lies in the middle.

But there are many nuances that are quite capable of changing these ratios. As already noted, the entire first part of the German 9th Army, defending in the Berlin direction, died during the Vistula-Oder operation, and in front of the 1st Belorussian Front in March there were motley formations hastily assembled everywhere. By the beginning of the Berlin operation, the composition of the army had changed again, and again entirely! 9th Army December 31, 1944, January 26, March 1 and April 12, 1945 - these are four completely different armies! You yourself understand that in such a situation there can be no talk of any normal interaction of compounds. And so it happened.

The operation plan developed by Headquarters was very optimistic. On the very first day, it was planned to break through the German defenses on the Seelow Heights and introduce the 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies into the breakthrough. Berlin was scheduled to be taken on the sixth day of the operation, and by the eleventh day the 3rd Shock Army was heading to the Elbe to meet with the Americans.

Marshal Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front attacked in the direction of Brandenburg, Rathenow and Dessau. In the same way, immediately after the breakthrough of the German defense, the 3rd and 4th tank armies entered the operational space. Moreover, it was initially assumed that one of the corps of General Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army was supposed to attack Berlin from the south. But there was an option in which both Konev’s tank armies could be sent to Berlin.

Moreover, this is written by SVE, and if Isaev intended to refute a certain myth, then it was necessary to do this in more detail.

Solved an auxiliary, but very important problem

2nd Belorussian Front of Marshal Rokossovsky. He was supposed to advance in the Stettin-Swedge area and defeat the German 3rd Tank Army, which, naturally, would not allow it to move its forces to help Berlin.

The offensive began early in the morning of April 16. After a 30-minute artillery barrage, 140 powerful anti-aircraft searchlights were turned on, which were supposed to blind the Germans. It looked very nice in the movie Deliverance, but in reality it did more harm than good. A word from Marshal Chuikov: “I must say that at the time when we admired the power and efficiency of the searchlights at the training ground, none of us could accurately predict what it would look like in a combat situation. It is difficult for me to judge the situation on other sectors of the front. But in the zone of our 8th Guards Army, I saw how powerful beams of light from searchlights rested on a swirling curtain of burning, smoke and dust raised above the enemy’s positions. Even searchlights could not penetrate this curtain, and it was difficult for us to observe the battlefield. As luck would have it, the wind was also blowing in the opposite direction. As a result, height 81.5, where the command post was located, was soon shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Then we stopped seeing anything at all, relying only on radiotelephone communication yes on the messengers.”

The infantry and some tanks advanced about 2 kilometers, after which the offensive stalled. The artillery strike was carried out on the first line of defense that the Germans had left, and now the Soviet troops had to storm the heights themselves, which were almost untouched by the artillery barrage.

“German prisoners could also see huge columns of Soviet equipment waiting for the troops of Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army and Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army to open the way to the west for them. However, there was very little progress that day. At his observation post, Zhukov began to lose patience. He urged the commanders on, threatening to remove them from their positions and send them to a penal company. General Chuikov also got it. Its units were stuck in a swamp in front of German positions located on a hill.”

And then Zhukov makes the most controversial of his decisions. Isaev is trying to present the matter as if all changes in strategic plans were made by both Zhukov and Konev according to own initiative. Well, don't! All these changes were made only after consultation with Headquarters and approval by Stalin. The front commander could decide where and how to use the corps subordinate to him, but he could never turn several armies in a different direction! Actually, Zhukov himself writes about this, and, if you believe this passage, he is misleading Stalin just in case.

Zhukov: “At 15 o’clock I called Headquarters and reported that we had broken through the first and second positions of the enemy’s defense, the front troops advanced up to six kilometers, but encountered serious resistance at the line of the Seelow Heights, where, apparently, the enemy’s defenses had mostly survived. To strengthen the impact of the combined arms armies, I brought both tank armies into the battle. I believe that by the end of the day tomorrow we will break through the enemy’s defenses.”

His troops did not advance 6 kilometers and did not break through the second line of defense. This is where the January delay before the Seelow Heights came back to haunt us! Moreover, in the same conversation, Stalin thinks out loud about whether it is worth turning Konev’s army towards Berlin. Please note that Zhukov writes about all this, not Konev. And the marshal decides to break through the defenses at any cost, throwing the tank armies of Katukov and Bogdanov into battle. Apparently, Zhukov did not learn the lessons of the Battle of Kursk. Tank formations can break through prepared defenses, but only at the cost of absolutely monstrous losses, especially since the German anti-tank weapon-45 was better than the Soviet weapon-43.

General Katukov writes: “The rest of the day did not bring joyful messages. WITH with great difficulty, suffering heavy losses, the tankers bit into the enemy’s defenses and did not advance beyond the positions occupied by the infantry. It was not easy for V.I. Chuikov’s rifle divisions, with whom the tank corps commanders worked closely.”

On the same day, a second conversation took place with Stalin, in which Zhukov promised to break through the defenses on the Seelow Heights at any cost, and immediately the Headquarters encouraged him, informing him of the order for Konev to attack Berlin from the south, and Rokossovsky from the north. I repeat once again, so as not to be biased, I am presenting all this exclusively based on the memoirs of Zhukov himself. Actually, strictly speaking, it turns out that Headquarters approved Zhukov’s decision and thus absolved him of some of the blame.

One way or another, in the afternoon of April 16, a tank battle began, which continued the next day. All this was very much reminiscent of Montgomery’s actions at El Alamein, when he pushed through the German front in the same way. He didn’t break through, but rather pushed through. Only on April 19, the Germans could not withstand the onslaught and began to retreat to Berlin. During these days, according to German data, more than 700 Soviet tanks were burned. Whether this is true or not - the question remains open. But even the book “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed” reports that during the Berlin Operation the Red Army lost about 2000 tanks. That is, during the assault on the Seelow Heights, Zhukov gave a textbook example of the improper use of tanks.

Reluctantly, he is forced to admit: “The offensive of the 1st Ukrainian Front developed at a faster pace from the very first day. As expected, the enemy’s defenses in the direction of his attack were weak, which made it possible to bring both tank armies into action there on the morning of April 17. On the very first day they advanced 20-25 kilometers, crossed the Spree River and on the morning of April 19 began to advance to Zossen and Luckenwalde.”

And now it is simply absolutely necessary to say a few words about what Konev supposedly had to do, linking his main forces to this task, so that, God forbid, they would not decide to attack Berlin. It's about on the liquidation of the so-called Frankfurt-Guben enemy group. What was she like? These were the remnants of the once again defeated 9th Army, which was joined by separate units

4th Tank Army. Dedicating the forces of an entire front to destroy them was, to put it mildly, unreasonable. In addition, Busse saw a categorical order above General: to hold the front on the Oder. Of course, at that time Konev could not have known about this order, but he saw very well that the Germans were not trying to move towards Berlin. Later, Busse received a new order: to retreat west to join the 12th Army of General Wenck in order to liberate Berlin. I highly recommend paying attention to this interesting formulation. That is, General Busse did not have the strength at his disposal to somehow really threaten Konev’s front; one could not even dream of a breakthrough to Berlin in such conditions. He had no order to retreat to Berlin, and everyone knew very well what they did with those who violated orders in the last days of the Reich’s existence. For example, General Weidling, commander of the LVI Tank Corps, who suffered the main blow of Zhukov, was sentenced to death for not holding his position, but, however, he was also pardoned. Did Theodor Busse need such adventures? His path to Berlin was blocked only by the 40th Rifle Corps of the 3rd Army, but this was enough. So Konev correctly decided not to fight the ghosts, allocated a couple of buildings to block the one stuck in the forests and lakes German group, and went to Berlin.

At 12 noon on April 25, west of Berlin, the advanced units of the 4th Guards Tank Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front met with units of the 47th Army of the 1st Belorussian Front. On the same day, another significant event occurred. An hour and a half later, on the Elbe, the 34th Guards Corps of General Baklanov of the 5th Guards Army met with American troops.

It is here that we get another historical fork in the road. No danger of getting out Western allies to Berlin was no longer there. The breakthrough of German troops to the capital also looked like a complete chimera. So was it necessary to storm the city? It was quite possible to limit ourselves to what Hitler intended to do with Leningrad: a tight blockade, constant artillery shelling and air bombing. Well, the last one wasn't going well, Soviet aviation did not have the ability to deliver powerful strikes due to the lack of strategic bombers. But the artillery of the Red Army has always been the subject of envy and hatred of both enemies and allies. Moreover, April 20 was marked by an artillery strike on Berlin, delivered by long-range artillery on the 79th rifle corps 3rd Shock Army. The Red Army gave the Fuhrer a birthday present.

But in this case we will be forced to give a negative answer. It was necessary to storm Berlin, although not at all for the reasons that were voiced

Soviet historiography. It's just that the process of slowly strangling such a huge city would take too long. Civilian casualties? Sorry, this is war, and it was not the Soviet army that invaded Germany in 1941, but quite the opposite. After all, the Germans themselves came up with the concept of "Kriegsraison" - "Military necessity" which always and unconditionally prevails over "Kriegsmanier" - "Method of warfare."

The strangulation of Berlin led to an unjustifiable prolongation of the war, because Hitler should not have even dreamed of any surrender, unless his own guards would have crushed him in the bunker like a rat... And it is likely that there would have been protests from the Western allies about “unjustified sacrifices” " Of course, one could remind them about the bombings of Hamburg and Dresden, but there was no point in starting political discussions. Not the time and not the place. That is, an assault!

But with the assault, not everything is clear either. It began on April 20, 1945 (by the way, Hitler’s birthday), the artillery of the 1st Belorussian Front opened fire on the city center. After the war, our historians claimed that our guns dropped more explosives on the city than Allied heavy bombers. Zhukov writes: “11 thousand guns of different calibers opened simultaneous fire at certain intervals. From April 21 to May 2, one million eight hundred thousand artillery shots were fired at Berlin. And just for enemy defense“More than 36 thousand tons of metal were collapsed in the city.”

The Germans did not have a single chance to defend the capital of the Reich. The garrison of the city by this time consisted of approximately 45,000 soldiers from scattered, battered units and approximately 40,000 of all sorts of rabble from the Volkssturm, police, and so on. The main force of the garrison was considered to be the LVI Corps of General Weidling: Panzer Division "Munchenberg" (formed on March 8, 1945!), 9th Parachute Division, 18th and 20th Panzer Grenadiers, 11th SS Panzer " Norland" and the 503rd heavy tank battalion. Everything would be great if at least one of these divisions had more than 400 soldiers. By the way, it was the first two divisions that defended the Seelow Heights, so their condition is not at all difficult to imagine.

Well, purely for educational purposes, we will list others who had to save the capital of the Third Reich. French volunteer assault battalion"Charlemagne"; a naval battalion sent by Grand Admiral Doenitz; 15th Lithuanian fusilier battalion; 57th Fortress Regiment; 1st Anti-Aircraft Division "Berlin", Hitler's personal guard; the Hitler Youth regiment, hastily formed from Berlin boys and had nothing to do with the SS division of the same name. Oddly enough, Himmler’s personal guards were also stuck right there. That's all...

They were opposed by approximately one and a half million seasoned soldiers of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts. For the first time, the Germans had every right to talk about the enemy’s tenfold superiority. There is probably no point in describing in detail the course of the battles for the city, since this has been done in several works

A. Isaev, although everyone preaches one simple truth: Berlin was taken by Zhukov, once again by Zhukov and again by Zhukov. And the rest were just present.

In reality, of course, everything was more complicated. Let's start with the fact that the race to Berlin did take place. As proof, I will cite two orders given two hours apart. Let the participants in the events speak for themselves, and the reader can draw his own conclusions.

BATTLE ORDER OF THE COMMANDER OF THE 1ST UKRAINIAN FRONT TO THE COMMANDER OF THE 3RD AND 4TH GUARDS TANK ARMIES ON THE NECESSITY TO ENTER BERLIN BEFORE THE TROOPS

1ST BELARUSIAN FRONT

Marshal Zhukov's troops are 10 km from the eastern outskirts of Berlin. I order you to be the first to break into Berlin tonight. Deliver the execution.

Krainyukov

RF. F. 236. Op. 2712. D. 359. L. 36. Original.

BATTLE ORDER FROM THE COMMANDER OF THE 1ST BELARUSIAN FRONT TO THE COMMANDER OF THE 2ND GUARDS TANK ARMY WITH THE DEMAND TO BE THE FIRST TO BREAK INTO BERLIN

The 2nd Guards Tank Army is entrusted with the historical task of being the first to break into Berlin and hoist the Victory Banner. I personally instruct you to organize the execution.

Send one of the best brigades from each corps to Berlin and give them the task: no later than 4 o’clock in the morning on April 21, 1945, to break through to the outskirts of Berlin at any cost and immediately report to Comrade Stalin and advertise in the press.

RF. F. 233. Op. 2307. D. 193. L. 88. Original.

Moreover, note that Zhukov perfectly understands the importance of the report “on the authorities” and newspaper PR. It is interesting that General Lelyushenko in his memoirs slightly corrected Konev’s order, cutting out the word “first” from it, or the editors did it for him.

Meanwhile in German command The fever of changing commanders could not stop. On April 22, Hitler removes General Reimann, replacing him with Colonel Ernst Koether, promoting him first to major general and then to lieutenant general in one day. On the same day, he gives the order to shoot the commander of the LVI tank corps, General Weidling, who failed to hold the line of defense on the Oder, and immediately cancels his order. After this, the Fuhrer decides to personally take command of the Berlin garrison, and then appoints Weidling to this position. This series of events clearly shows that the Fuhrer's headquarters has simply turned into a madhouse. Despite the complexity of the situation at the height of the battle for Moscow, with the panic that arose in the Soviet capital (it happened, it happened!), our command did not reach such insanity.

Weidding divided the city into eight defensive sectors to make the defense easier to manage. However, nothing could stop the Soviet troops. On April 23, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army crossed the Spree and, with the support of General Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army, began to advance in the direction of Neukölln. On April 24, General Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army also crossed the Spree in the Treptower Park area. The remnants of the LVI Panzer Corps, still partly commanded by Weidling, attempted to counterattack but were simply destroyed. On the same day, after a powerful artillery barrage - 650 guns per kilometer! Never before in history has such a density of artillery been seen! - Soviet troops launched a decisive offensive. By evening Treptower Park was busy.