Battle of Berlin | Animated History

it is February 1945. soldiers of the Soviet eighth guards Army stand in silence as they observe the Rays of the morning sun glisten on the icy waters of the odor River among them is the war correspondent vasili Grossman Vasily has covered the war since the Battle of Moscow and like his comrades in arms he has counted every river he has crossed since the advance Westward from the Volga at Stalingrad now after a hellish Trek of over three years he stands at the bank of the final River before Berlin caught by the emotion of the moment he writes is hi I'm Griffin Johnson the armchair historian by early 1945 Hitler's Third Reich was on its last legs while the Allies prepared to make a dash across the Rhine in the East the Red Army was advancing toward the German border at lightning speed as its armies closed in on Berlin its men vowed to take revenge for the death and destruction the Germans had brought upon the motherland Hitler however would not go down without a fight and forced his defeated people into one more cataclysmic bloodletting that would not end until the hammer and sickle finally flew above the reichstag and the fuhrer lay dead in his underground bunker before we begin I'd like to thank our partner nordvpn for sponsoring today's video if you're like me and the members of our team you probably spent a huge chunk of your time surfing the internet for information and communicating with work colleagues or you're streaming videos and reaching out to family and friends in your spare time either way visit nordvpn.com history VPN and find out how Nord can help protect you and your online activities using military-grade encryption on up to six devices at once for every major platform including Linux and even Android TV tools like nordvpn help our team access historical information and region locked documentaries by routing connections through 5 600 servers in 59 countries while features like Nord threat Protection keep our researchers safe from malware and dodgy websites in a digital landscape where content is progressively becoming more segregated between regions and and continents nordvpn is the great equalizer putting everything at your fingertips as it should be support our Channel and try nordvpn today with a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee and get a two-year plan with a huge discount and four months for free by signing up using our Link in the description below or visiting nordvpn.com history VPN 1944 had been nothing short of a disaster for the Germans on the Eastern front after the annihilation of army group Center the seemingly Unstoppable Red Army had chased the Vermont to the gates of Warsaw in the South Romania and Bulgaria had capitulated and changed sides while Hungary verged on collapse as Soviet armies laid Siege to Budapest unwilling to admit defeat Hitler now made the momentous decision to deploy his final armored reserves to relieve the city's Defenders and secure hungary's oil fields this as it turned out was exactly what the Soviet High command better known as the istofka had hoped for by increasing pressure on the Hungarian front Stalin and his advisors aimed to lure the fuhrer into moving his vital armored reserves away from Poland while three Soviet fronts totaling some 2.5 million men would make a dash across the vestula river around Warsaw and drive straight toward Berlin to mentally prepare their men for the coming struggle political commissars handed out instructions that echoed the overwhelming sentiment felt among the embittered Soviet Soldiers the soldiers rage in battle must be terrible he does not merely seek to fight he must also be the embodiment of the court of his people's Justice fueled by a desire for Revenge Stalin's armies began breaking out of their bridgeheads on January 12th within days The outgunned Defenders were forced into a frenzied Retreat on the 15th General Heinz guderian pleaded with Hitler to send every available unit East the fuhrer in turn made great promises in the form of two SS panzerkor recently withdrawn from the ardenne however rather than arriving to salvage the situation in Poland they were thrown into yet another one of Hitler's armored pipe dreams in Hungary lacking sufficient mobile reserves the bulk of the ill-fated German Defenders were encircled and destroyed as the catastrophe unfolded the Berlin radio broadcasted apocalyptic news bulletins which compared the advancing Red Army to the Mongol hordes the Huns and the tartars who were out to bring total Destruction and the end of civilization driven by fear a growing mass of German refugees began a long deadly march across the icy roads leading westward in hopes of eluding the jaws of Soviet Vengeance the dreaded red horde however was moving at lightning speed and by the end of January its armies had Advanced some 500 kilometers or nearly 311 miles to the banks of the odor River just 60 kilometers or 37 miles from Berlin however the rapid Advance had stretched the red Army's Logistics to their limit and heavy resistance in East Prussia had left Marshall Georgie zhukov's flank dangerously exposed to counter-attack from German troops massing in Pomerania as a result the estofka decided to Halt the final assault on Berlin until the flanks were secured by mid-april the Red Army had reached the odor Niza River Line on a front that stretched from steten in the North to the Czech Border in the south the eyes of the world were now converging on Berlin as Stalin's armies prepared for their final Act of Vengeance that would eradicate Nazi Germany once and for all although the Allies had promised to leave Berlin to the Red Army the ever paranoid Stalin still urged haste in the capture of the city the final Plan called for a three-pronged attack on the Berlin axis to encircle and capture the city within 12 to 15 days then move on to meet the Allies at the Elbow River zhukov's first Bella Russian front would be at the center of the thrust while Marshall Ivan koneff's first Ukrainian front to the South was set to attack across the naiza river in the direction of Potsdam and Dresden finally Marshall Constantine rokusovsky's second belarussian front would tie down German forces to the north in the stetenshvet sector to prevent them from reinforcing Berlin having become accustomed to fighting on wide open terrain few in the Red Army had much experience in large-scale urban street fighting it was up to General vasili troykov's eighth guards army veterans of the Battle of Stalingrad to distribute pamphlets on Urban Warfare while special combined arms task forces were formed Red Army Engineers on their part worked day and night to construct hundreds of bridges and thousands of wooden assault boats to cross the odor and naiza rivers to achieve this Soviet planners had to find a way to move 29 armies over hundreds of kilometers to create shock groups capable of penetrating the German line in areas only 2.5 to 10 kilometers or 1.5 to 6 miles in width when it was all said and done the Red Army would Advance on Berlin with some 2.5 million men 6 250 tanks and self-propelled guns and 7500 combat aircraft aiming to make the Invaders bleed for every inch of German soil the vermacht constructed a series of well-entrenched defensive lines which barricaded the way into Berlin Manning these positions were the remains of army group fistula and fourth Panzer Army as well as the Berlin Garrison combined this Force consisted of 750 000 German soldiers supported by 1519 tanks and assault guns 9 303 guns and mortars and 2 200 aircraft however these numbers looked more impressive on paper than they did in reality as virtually all of its formations were under strength although many units were led by battle-hardened Veterans of the Eastern Front their Rank and file was often made up of a mix of wounded unfit and inexperienced soldiers and even boys from the Hitler Youth moreover some 60 000 of the Defenders came from under-trained and barely armed volkster militia battalions the Infantry would not be able to count much on its armored and air assets either as the Germans lacked the fuel reserves to keep its otherwise considerable force of fighting Vehicles operational for any extended period of time morale was also at an all-time low most suffered from malnutrition and a lack of hygiene and saved for the most fanatical Nazis few now believed in the promise of final victory even so every effort was made to convince the men that the much anticipated wunderwaffen would still turn the tide of the war and that peace talks with the Western allies were soon to bear fruit but if these motivations were only marginally effective the widespread fear of Soviet Vengeance and barbarism drove even the most cynical to continue fighting on April 12th the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra gave its last performance among the music played was Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries four days later another type of Orchestra began to play as thousands of katyusha rocket launchers and field guns of zhukov's front opened up on the first German defensive line along these Halo Heights miles away in Berlin's Eastern suburbs houses began to shake as terrified citizens gathered in the street to listen to the start of the coming storm a stunned Russian engineer described to the unfolding spectacle along the whole lengths of the Horizon it was bright as daylight on the German side everything was covered with smoke and thick foundations of Earth and clumps flying up there were huge flocks of scared birds flying around in the sky a constant humming Thunder explosions we had to cover our ears to prevent our eardrums breaking as the sound of artillery gradually faded hundreds of men began shouting to Berlin as tank engines roared and the elite assault elements began advancing toward the heights many of the German Defenders unfortunate enough to have been caught in the preceding Onslaught had disappeared in the blink of an eye while dazed and panic-stricken survivors rushed back toward the second defensive line however the awesome bombardment obscured serious problems in zhukov's plan the destruction caused by the shelling had been so great in scope that it had severely worsened the condition of the terrain that his men now had to Traverse these searchlights intended to Blind the enemy instead reflected onto the smoke-filled air and obscured the vision of the advancing infantry in the resulting chaos units lost contact with each other as Soviet artillery and aircraft began attacking friendly formations worse still German intelligence had had prior knowledge of the coming offensive which meant that many of the first-line troops had been evacuated to the safety of the rear what ensued was nothing less than what a member of the gross Deutschland guard regiment described as a slaughterhouse countless soldiers were cut down as they struggled to advance across the flood Plains and through German minefields in other sectors too the attackers were cut down and repulsed as they attempted to cross the odor sensing disaster and increasingly agitated zhukov ordered his two tank armies to attack at once however most of the infantry's artillery and Supply Vehicles were still trying to make their way to the front causing the tank armies to become hopelessly stuck in an endless traffic jam even when the lead armor finally approached the heights they found themselves ambushed by concealed 88 gun emplacements Tiger 1 tanks and infantry armed with deadly Panzer fouls to recoilless anti-tank launchers foreign ly zhukov's decimated men had made little progress at the end of the first day and it would take three more days and countless more dead before his armies finally forced their way through the final defensive line naturally Stalin was infuriated but he could rest easy in the fact that conebs front to the South had seen more success by the end of April the 18th his tank armies were across the spray River and were racing toward Berlin lacking sufficient reinforcements and ammunition the surviving defenders in both sectors were forced into a headlong retreat with the German defensive lines in the South and in the center broken and with vital troops in the north still tied down in heavy fighting the road to Berlin lay open lacking the supplies to keep on fighting German morale now visibly began to collapse thousands of encircled men surrendered while masses of stragglers deserter and refugees made their way into the doomed City all the while an increasingly delusional Hitler continued to demand fanatical resistance until The Bitter End on April 20th the fuhrer's birthday was rudely interrupted by Soviet artillery shelling Berlin's Northeastern suburbs as its citizens fled into Sellers zhukov and konaf's tank armies began a frantic race to these City's outskirts in the meantime many senior officials of the Nazi party engaged in a similar type of competition to be the first one to get permission to flee the city soldiers on the ground enjoyed no such Privileges and those who tried to run or displayed signs of cowardice were summarily hanged throughout the city with messages such as I was a coward or I was a deserter dangling from their chests the next morning Soviet artillery fired a frenzied barrage into Berlin's City Center while the remains of General Helmut vaidling's 56th Panzer Corps of the German ninth Army conducted a desperate withdrawal across Berlin's Autobahn ring while being mercilessly strafed by Soviet aircraft other remnants of the German defense attempted in vain to stop zhukov's armies from pushing into the city from the southwestern and Northern flanks however its depleted units could only delay the enemy and zhukov and konaf's forces both reached the city's outskirts that evening believing himself to be the next Frederick the great Hitler remained confident that a massive counter-stroke by the newly created Army Detachment Steiner and Ninth Army against zhukov's flanks would trap the Invaders In The City in a ploy similar to what had befallen the Germans at Stalingrad two years prior when it became clear on the following day that Schneider's Army Detachment lacked sufficient strength and ammunition to attack the fearer finally cracked and openly admitted for the first time that all was hopelessly lost with the Soviets breaking into the city General weidling was appointed commander of the Berlin defense area however by the time weidling took command only about 45 000 Vermont and SS troops just over 40 000 men of the volkstorm and a measly 60 fuel starved tanks were left standing to defend the city against some 1.5 million Soviet troops unsurprisingly zhukov's armies had managed to push the Defenders out of the eastern and Southeastern suburbs by the end of the 23rd while other fronts tightened their grasp around these City's flanks with Inevitable Defeat looming on the horizon many of the Defenders began to lay down their arms others however continued to resist fanatically at the templehof airport a mixed group of ss-led German Defenders including some 100 Hitler Youth wreaked havoc on the attacking Soviet tanks and infantry who had to resort to massive aerial and artillery bombardment to finally capture the airport a day later by that time the encirclement of Berlin had been completed however a manic Hitler promised weidling that yet another massive counter-offensive by General venk's 12th Army in the southwest was sure to come to the rescue of the beleaguered Defenders venk however had no intention on embarking in a futile suicide mission and instead moved to relieve encircled German troops further to the east with no further hope of relief weidling urged the fearer to Stage a breakout Westward to join up with remnants of army group fistula Hitler however rejected the plan and restated his intention to fall at the head of his troops during the next three days the Red Army tightened its hold on Berlin as the advancing armies closed in on the inner defensive line protecting the governmental District the lack of clear demarcation lines between the fronts however led to various formations competing for space and getting hopelessly confused in the ensuing Quagmire after careful deliberation it was decided that most of konaf's frustrated men were to be redeployed to Czechoslovakia while zhukov was to go in for the final kill by the end of the 29th the eighth guards Army had blasted its way through the heavily defended tiergarten sector while the third shock Army had crossed the spray over the maltika bridge just to the north in front of them lay the Ultimate Prize the blackened walls of the reichstag the former Parliamentary Building widely regarded as the symbolic heart of the Third Reich capturing it would be nothing less than the culmination of the entire Soviet war effort the defense of the building and its surroundings was led by a determined group of mostly foreign SS Fighters with little less to lose in the morning of the following day Soviet artillery opened fire as a few hundred assault troops rushed forward after a heavy fire fight the men reached the main entrance and proceeded to clear the building in brutal Close Quarters combat after hours of bitter fighting the red banner was spotted hanging from the second floor at around 2 30 PM but it wouldn't be until late in the evening before a path to the roof had finally been cleared two sergeants identified as mikayo yagorov and melaton kantaria managed to reach the top and hoisted the hammer and sickle on top of the reichstag marking the symbolic end of Hitler's Third Reich as this historic moment unfolded an even more momentous event occurred barely a kilometer away with Soviet troops converging on his bunker complex the embittered fuhrer knew that he had reached the end of the line the German people had failed him and his vision of a Thousand-Year Reich after giving weidling the go-ahead to attempt a belated breakout the fury set his farewells to his remaining staff poisoned his dog Blondie and retired to his study room to commit suicide together with his newly wedded bride Ava Brown but Hitler's death did not put an immediate end to the fighting the new Chancellor Joseph Goebbels rejected Stalin's demand for an unconditional surrender of the Garrison prompting the Red Army to blast the remaining German positions until the defense was reduced to little more than a few isolated pockets with gerbil's subsequent suicide being announced that night the door to peace in Berlin could finally be opened at 6am on May 2nd General weidling officially ordered his remaining men to lay down their arms when the guns finally fell silent in the afternoon an eerie silence descended on the city of which troykov would later write the flame of world war was quenched there once it arose although fighting in Europe would continue until Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8th the war had come to a climax at the Battle of Berlin the capture of Germany's capital had cost the Red Army an estimated 78 000 men killed in action and over 274 000 wounded in return the Germans had lost some 90 to 100 000 men killed in action as well as at least another 200 000 wounded during their Advance into Germany the vengeful Red Army had left a trail of pillage and destruction in its wake an estimated 95 000 to 130 000 women in Berlin alone are said to have been sexually assaulted of which ten thousand would later commit suicide still many Germans were relieved that the conflict was finally over and that a semblance of normal human life was slowly returning under shared Allied Soviet occupation however the alliance between the two Victors would prove short-lived and the star of the Cold War would Usher a new type of crisis in the city which had suffered so much during the second World War foreign

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 1,473,079

Keywords: berlin offensive, germany in ww2, the soviets in ww2, the fall of berlin, end of ww2, how did the second world war end?, world war ii in 1945

Id: 1--FQTBdN9s

Length: 23min 0sec (1380 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 03 2022