By Mid-April 1945, the outcome of
the war in Europe was in no doubt. On the Italian front the western allies were
pushing into Northern Italy and in the west, American, British and Canadian Forces
had crossed the Rhine and were poised to crush the Ruhr pocket and drive across the river
Elbe. Despite the inevitability of the outcome, Hitler clung on, directing his
last reserves eastwords in vain hopes of stopping the soviet juggernaught
descending on his crumbling Third Reich. In this video, we will combine the
latest technology, archive footage and veteran accounts to share the
story of the Battle for Berlin. It was then on the 16th of April, the Soviets
launched the ‘Berlin Operation’ – their plan: to cross the Rivers Oder and Neisse and
encircle and capture the capital of the Third Reich. A staggering 2.5 Million men and
6 thousand tanks, backed by massive artillery and aircraft firepower would begin that
assault westwards. Organised into 3 Fronts, or Army Groups, the two most important Soviet
formations were the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov and the
1st Ukrainian Front under the Marshal Ivan Konev. Both would vie in the coming weeks for
the honour of capturing Germany’s largest city, the target which Stalin had chosen as the
symbol for the defeat of Nazi Germany. The defenders, on the other hand, were in a
desperate situation. With a huge disadvantage in both manpower and materiel, they were
forced to call on mother nature to prop up their unstable defence. Digging in here on the
Oder-Neisse river line they could still muster around 1 million men, but of mixed quality,
and with very limited armour and artillery. The major point of focus for both sides would be
the heart of those German defences, some 60km east of Berlin – the Seelow Heights. Squarely in the
path of Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front, it was bitterly contested ground for over fours day of
intense fighting which cost the attackers dearly, with as many as 66,000 Russians falling in it’s
eventual capture. But captured it was, and by 21st April the route to Berlin was open and Soviet
tanks were racing headlong to surround the city. Slightly further south, Marshal Konev’s 1st
Ukrainian Front had had a somewhat easier time. Originally, the plan was to skirt south
of Berlin, but with Zhukov’s troubles at Seelow, Stalin now ordered him to move directly
toward the city from the south-east. Just a few days later on the 25th of
April, Soviet forces met and the city was finally surrounded by about 1.5 Million
troops, and the siege of Berlin could begin. Inside the encirclement, the situation was
chaotic. Swollen by refugees and relentlessly bombed by Allied airpower for years, Berlin was
a shell of its former self. Long gone were the days of triumphant processions down the Unter
Der Linden and through the Brandenburg gate. Instead, 2.5 Million civilians, living a
mostly a subterranean exisctence, found themselves trapped in a city desperately short
of supplies and under constant artillery fire. With the remnants of the nazi leadership fully
involved in preparing makeshift defences, the city’s population were
left to fend for themselves. Berlin itself had been hastily divided
into different defensive zones, with the Z or central zone forming the last
bastion around the heart of the city centre. Those defences, whilst impressive on paper,
were largely ad-hoc last ditch attempts to slow the enemy down – they rarely did.
Trams filled with rubble and anti-tank ditches proved a minor convenience at most for
the overwhelming forces descending on the city. Those soldiers manning them too, were
in many cases, of little real threat. Left to hold the city were a mix of old men and
young boys, and a scattering of admittedly able veteran units, but often far understrength
and always exhausted from months of fighting. But Berlin itself was far from
an easy prospect to assault, even for a numerically superior force. Let’s take
a look. As we see here, the city is criss-crossed by canals and waterways linked by bridges, and
with wide streets surrounded by high buildings with plenty of windows – often a death trap
for tanks advancing without infantry support. But the soviets, ever resourceful, were adept at
urban fighting by this stage of the war. Their primary tactic for clearing stubborn defences
was one based on firepower. Heavy artillery, like this 203mm Howitzer, firing over
open sights directly down streets, was used to literally pulverize buildings
before infantry and armour drenched an area with high explosive shells
and sub-machine-gun fire. Street by street, and house-by-house, the
soviets ground their way towards the Z-zone. So let’s take a quick look at the famous Z-Zone,
the area where the fighting would be fiercest, and some of the key buildings it contained in 1945…
Bounded by the Landwehr Canal in the South and the Spree river in the North, the zone was roughly
formed along the line of the city’s S-Bahn railway network. Flying south to North through the
city we see in relatively quick succession; The site of the Gestapo Headquarters on Prinz
Albrecht Strasse, Goering’s enormous Air Ministry, which still stands to this day, the sites of the
Old and New Reichs Chancellory, behind which, approximately nine meters down lay Hitler’s
Fuhrerbunker. This complex was actually two bunkers, the Vorbunker and then the later addition
of the Fuhrerbunker proper – it was here on 30th April that Hitler and his new wife would end their
lives. Moving further north across the impressive modern Holocaust memorial, we find the famous
Brandenburg Gate and Unter Din Linden, on the side of which is the Hotel Adlon, which at the time
was a makeshift field hospital. But of course, our target for today, and that of the Soviets in
late April 1945 is this building, the Reichstag. It was this imposing structure which, despite
not being in use during the Nazi dictatorship after the fire of 1933, was turned into
a political symbol by Soviet propaganda: “The heart of the fascist state”. And so, it
was of crucial importance for Stalin to raise the Soviet flag, as a sign of victory over
Nazi Germany, on the roof of the Reichstag. The key to capturing it,
was the then “Königsplatz “. Today the area looks entirely different compared
to 1945. With the new Chancellery building on the left and the now named ‘Square of the Republic’
in the centre, It's a popular place for tourists. It is hard to imagine the brutal battle that
took place here in the last days of the Reich.
In this image from the 1930’s, we can see
the old Konigsplatz or Kings Square with the Reichstag to the right, the Diplomatic
Quarter and the old Interior Ministry. Of course, by 1945, it was far less peaceful and
years of relentless bombing had taken their toll. But to really understand the fighting around the
Reichstag, we need to understand the battlefield, so let's move forward to this aerial shot from
April 1945. The Interior Ministry also known as ‘Himmler’s House’ is to the left, and a bit
nearer us, the site of the Kroll Opera House, both are heavily damaged but would play
a key part in the fighting to come. The Square looks entirely different as well.
In the centre at the time was a major obstacle, an abandoned subway construction
site that had filled with water, serving as a defensive line
in front of the Reichstag. When we move a little further north
to the bend in the Spree river, we can also see the ruins of the diplomatic
quarter. The only building left here today is the Swiss embassy, but at the time
it was a fully formed city block, beyond which were the keys to capturing the
Reichstag, the Moltke and Crown Prince Bridges. Turning now to an incredibly rare piece
of aerial footage and slowing it down, we can explore the actual battlefield as it
looked shortly after the fighting had ended. Travelling west-east over Berlin’s main Tiergarten
park towards the Brandenburg Gate, with the camera pointing left or north outside the aircraft, we
can see; the remnants of the Kroll Opera House in the foreground, with the shattered Interior
Ministry behind that overlooking the vital Moltke bridge beyond. On the other side of the Spree
River is the shell of the huge Lehter Bahnhof, one of the city’s major stations at the time.
The remains of the diplomatic quarter can be seen to it’s right on the near side of
the river, including the Swiss Embassy. Moving slightly further east, in the foregound
we see the flooded remains of the subway workings which formed that unusually shaped defensive
barrier, the other side of which is the open ground in front of the Reichstag which was
lined with trenches and would play host to bitter fighting. In the distance stands the
Kronbrinzbrucke over the Spree and finally, the Reichstag itself comes into view, badly
damaged but clearly recognisable in the shot. As the aircraft carries on to fly
through the heart of destroyed Berlin, we can turn back north-westwards to pick
up the story, from the soviet perspective… It was men of the 3rd Shock Army, a part of
Zhukov’s front, which first arrived in this area from the north on 28th April with the 150th
rifle division lining up along the Spree river. Their first task: Take the Moltke bridge. A tall order, as the Germans had mined and
barricaded bridge and could overlook it from defensive positions within the Interior
Ministry and the Diplomatic Quarter. And so, it was around this spot, under a wreath
of heavy smoke covering the entire city, that the first Soviet attempt to storm the bridge was
made. Repulsed under withering fire and a German counter-attack, the soviets took heavy losses in
that first direct assault, but, unsurprisingly, were soon ready to go again. That next attempt
led by soviet armour, including several enormous Stalin II heavy tanks, now pushed forward. Moments
later huge explosions rocked the bridge as, according to SS soldier Willi Rogmann, the leading
tanks simply ‘disintegrated’ on the bridge.
But what was the cause of this? Unknown to the
attackers, the Moltke Bridge was actually under fire from the Germans most potent defences in
the area, several miles away in the grounds of the Berlin Zoo. It was in fact one of three
huge anti-aircraft flak towers covering the city which had turned its guns on the bridge.
Encased in reinforced concrete and armed with four powerful twin 128mm anti-aircraft guns on
its roof, designed to shoot down four-engine bombers at a height of 20,000 feet, the guns
made short work of the much closer targets. During the respite between attacks, the Germans
also made an attempt to blow the bridge, which only partially succeeded, and a narrow strip
of roadway, crossable by tanks, still remained. But the Soviets tried again in a third attempt.
Eventually, under cover of heavy artillery fire, Red Army tanks forced a passage and
gained a foothold on the far side of the bridge as infantry began the process
of clearing the stubborn defences in the Diplomatic Quarter and Interior Ministry.
By the evening of 29th April both were largely in soviet hands and for the very
first time, the objective was in sight. Lets just for a moment pause the action to look
at the interior ministry. By this stage of the war as we know it had been badly damaged and the
fight for these ruins was particularly brutal. Room by room fighting was the order of the
day, in fact the success here came down to a single window, forcing a passage into the
building right here on the ground floor corner over the course of that evening thousands of
Soviet troops passed through this very opening until by dawn on the following day the area was
secure and the route to the Reichstag was open. An unusual episode took place shortly afterwards
when a group of men, the remnants of the 9th Fallschrimjager division appeared from the Lehter
train station behind the soviet positions and rushed through the shocked troops to rejoin
with those fighting around the Reichstag. Their eventual fate remains unknown, but
likely it was not a positive outcome. The prospect of taking the final objective for the
attackers was far from straightforward. Let’s take a look. By the early morning of 30th April,
the situation was something like this. Soviet troops had crossed the Moltke Bridge here, and
now occupied most of the interior ministry and diplomatic quarter. But, the Kroll Opera House and
the edge of the Tiergarten park were both still in German hands. Besides the formidable water-barrier
which bottlenecked the soviet approach, lines of trenches along with 3 powerful 88’s covered
the front of the building, along with numerous machine guns and firing positions in the front
façade of the bricked-up and sandbagged Reichstag windows. Any soviet assault would have to brave a
storm of fire before reaching the main building. One of the men preparing to take part in the
inevitable assault was Vladimir Pereverzev, who wrote a letter to his wife
on the eve of the attack from the ground floor of the interior ministry: “So far I am alive and healthy, only
I am slightly drunk the whole time. But this is necessary to keep up your courage.
I am just 500 metres from the Reichstag. We have already crossed the Spree and in a few
days the Fritzes and the Hanses will be kaput…You write that part of the kitchen ceiling collapsed,
but that’s nothing. A six-storey building collapsed on us and we had to dig our boys
out. This is how we live and beat the Germans.” Inside the Reichstag, a Garrison of around 300
men made up the bulk of the defences. Knowing that only death awaited them, most were prepared
to sell their lives dearly, but, that wasn’t true of all German defenders in the vicinity.
Young conscript Gunter Debski, who had been assigned to a penal battalion after he had tried
to desert a view weeks earlier, found himself next to the Reichstag on the 30th of April.
Gunter Debski: “We got the order to defend the south side of
the Reichstag – the Russians were not to take it. There was an SS unit inside the Reichstag,
and we were to be on the southern side. Then the commanding officer said to us: ‘I have
received an order to send a negotiating party to the Russians at the other end of the Reichstag.’
My goodness I really thought he was an idiot. He told me to take off my undershirt, tie it
to a broom handle, and go over with Podgorsky.” To Debski’s good fortune, the officer was
mortally wounded moments later, so Debski, along with Podgorsky, considered the order,
which would likely have resulted in their deaths, as invalid, and retreated out of sight.
Let's head back to the soviet perspective. They were now faced with the prospect of crossing
this 280 metres of largely open ground . Today, it’s a peaceful 5-min stroll, but in
1945, for a time at least, the most heavily fought over stretch of ground in Europe.
At 4:30am on 30th April the soviets made their first move to reach the water obstacle. Aided
by smoke and brick dust from the shelling, they pushed forward, but to no avail. The
German return fire was simply too strong. At 11:30, the soviets made a second attempt,
but this too was driven back, in part by the sustained fire from the zoo Flak Tower.
Three hours later a third assault was launched, and this time they did manage to reach the
water obstacle, having knocked out several key positions and likely the 88’s defending the
front of the Reichstag. Half way down, half to go. By this time, the soviets had managed to bring
up large concentrations of Field Artillery, and firing from outside the Lehrter Station,
an area today known as Washingtonplatz, began to hammer the Reichstag building from
almost point blank range, in an attempt to diminish the German return fire.
Seeing the writing on the wall, and increasingly desperate, the officer
commanding the defence of the Reichstag, Gerhard Babick, put in a call for armoured
support, and perhaps surprisingly, received it. Several Stug III’s and an enormous King tiger
from the SS Nordland Division arrived around this corner on the Southside of the Reichstag,
where Debski had been a short time earlier. Inside the King Tiger was commander Georg
Diers. In his memoir he recalled the scene. “The Reichstag building was already badly bombed,
the plenary hall burned out. At the front of the building we looked over to the Kroll Opera
building, and saw a large number of T 34s sitting to our right, about thirty of them, their gun
barrels pointing at the Reichstag building, at us. After a thorough briefing of the crew, we
dared to race around the corner and opened fire on this large number; with success.”
But one king tiger could never make a lasting difference. More and more soviet armour was
by now pouring across the Moltke Bridge and the newly captured Kronprinzbrucke to the
north-east. With the northern flank of the Königsplatz in Soviet hands, the attackers were
ready to make a final push to the Reichstag. It was no secret that Stalin took a close personal
interest in the fighting at this time. In fact, he had made it abundantly clear that
he wanted the Reichstag to be captured, and for the soviet hammer and sickle to fly over
the building by 1st May, international labour day, an important date in the soviet calendar.
This meant, that several ‘banner parties’ with the express purpose of reaching the roof
of the Reichstag were to now enter the fray. Unfortunately, further pressure was added when a
mistaken report of a red banner being seen on the Reichstag at 2:30pm on 30th was transmitted
to Moscow and to the desk of Stalin himself. When the error was realised, the commanders
responsible, likely, and probably rightly, fearing the consequences of their mistake
being made known, began concerted efforts to make it a reality, including trying to drop
a banner on the roof by aircraft. It failed, and so, with time ever more of the
essence, an all-out attack was launched. There has long been debate about where exactly
the Reichstag was first entered. Some sources give a ground floor window on the north side
closest to the river spree, others state an area on the southern façade, but most likely it
was men of the 756th Rifle Regiment at about 6pm on 30th April through the main ground floor
entrance. Staff Sergeant Ilya Syanov, awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union as one of the first
to enter the building, said this of the moment: Initially we got into a long hallway. It turned
out that the entire enormous building was in motion. Somewhere steps were heard rumbling,
somewhere people were shouting in German. It was not immediately possible to take
stock of the situation. One thing was clear, there were a lot of Germans in the building
and we would have to do some fighting. What Syanov didn’t have, but we do, is a detailed
map showing just how complex the layout of the Reichstag was. A labrynth of small and large
rooms, extending both above and below ground, it was a nightmarish prospect
for attacker and defender alike, and a prolonged and brutal fight began for
control of the building. With long hallways, wide staircases, hundreds of individuals rooms
and the building on fire in multiple places, the fight descended into room-to-room and
hand to hand battles for hours on end. Eventually, the soviets managed to drive
a wedge in the German defences by gaining control of the ground floor, forcing some
surviving Germans to the upper floors and others into the multi-storey basement. This
caused artillery to once again take part, with the soviets shelling the upper floor and the few
remaining German guns targeting the ground floor. The fight went on throughout the entire evening
of the 30th and long into the night. Again records are unclear, but it is likely that the first
soviet banner to fly from the Reichstag, sometime during that night, was actually placed here,
above the main entrance, lashed on with belts. Despite that hammer and sickle flying, the
fighting was far from over and the last pockets of die-hard German resistance in the Reichstag
would fight on until 2nd May before finally, out of ammunition and completely surrounded, they were
forced to surrender. All told the fight inside the Reichstag would last for more than 30 hours.
By the time those last shots had been fired in the Reichstag, all defenders of Berlin
were emerging from basements and buildings into a shattered and dust filled city and
the surrendering to the waiting victors. Let’s head to the roof of the Reichstag
to explore one last iconic photograph. It is of course this one, taken by Russian
photographer Yvgeny Khaldei - its perhaps the best known photograph of the entire Second
World War. This image, despite it’s fame, is of course staged, and whilst it does show
a Red Banner flying over the ruins of Berlin, it is taken, probably on the 2nd May, some time
after the first banners flew on the building. As a matter of interest, it was also later edited to
remove one of the two watches worn by the main in this photograph – a small but important detail
which alludes to the looting and far darker episodes which would take place in the city in the
days to come – a story perhaps for another day. For both sides, the cost of the fighting
for Berlin had been incredibly heavy. Numbers vary, but all told it is believed that
80,000-100,000 Soviet and 100,000 German troops fell in the fighting, along with perhaps as
many as 20,000 of the civilian population. In the days that followed the first scenes
of the fighting, and the destruction that had been wrought would be shown to the world.
The Reichstag, still the centre of attention, became a mecca for soviet soldiers in Berlin, many
of whom marked their visit by chalking and carving their names into the walls of the building. It was
still present when the first western newsmen and women arrived in the city to document the fight
which ultimately brough an end to Nazi Germany. Of course, the story of Berlin does not end
there. Within months it would once again become the centre of attention, in the formative months
of the Cold War this time, and would remain so for the next five decades. Today Berlin as a city is
much changed, and the signs that war passed this way in 1945 are few and far between. But, if you
look beneath the surface of the modern buildings and skyscrapers, there are still small symbols to
be found, such as the battle damaged Griffon which once adorned the Moltke Bridge, the last remnants
of soviet graffiti on the roof of the Reichstag and of course, the memorials, commemorating
the many thousands who fell here in the closing days of the Second World War in Europe.
That brings us to the end of this video, we hope you found it interesting. If you
would like to know more about Berlin be sure to check out the excellent series 16 days
in Berlin from our friends at RealTime History, which provides in an depth look at the entire
fight for the city. If you would like to support us in our work to continue to share stories like
this with as wide an audience as possible then please consider joining our ever-growing Patreon
community, your support is hugely appreciated. That’s all this time, thanks
again and we will see you soon.
