Berlin operation participants. The Battle of Berlin: the end of the Great Patriotic War
In November 1944, the General Staff began planning fighting on the approaches to Berlin. It was necessary to defeat the German Army Group “A” and complete the liberation of Poland.
At the end of December 1944, German troops launched an offensive in the Ardennes and pushed back the Allied forces, putting them on the brink of complete defeat. The leadership of the USA and Great Britain turned to the USSR with a request to conduct offensive operations to divert enemy forces.
Fulfilling our allied duty, our units went on the offensive eight days ahead of schedule and pulled back part of the German divisions. The offensive launched ahead of time did not allow for full preparation, which led to unjustified losses.
As a result of the rapidly developing offensive, already in February, units of the Red Army crossed the Oder - the last major obstacle in front of the German capital - and approached Berlin to a distance of 70 km.
The fighting on the bridgeheads captured after crossing the Oder was unusually fierce. Soviet troops waged a continuous offensive and pressed back the enemy all the way from the Vistula to the Oder.
At the same time, the operation began in East Prussia. Its main goal was to capture the Konigsberg fortress. Perfectly protected and provided with everything necessary, with a selected garrison, the fortress seemed impregnable.
Before the assault, heavy artillery preparation was carried out. After the capture of the fortress, its commandant admitted that he did not expect such a rapid fall of Koenigsberg.
In April 1945, the Red Army began immediate preparations for the assault on Berlin. The leadership of the USSR believed that delaying the end of the war could lead to the Germans opening a front in the west, concluding separate peace. The danger of Berlin's surrender to Anglo-American units was considered.
The Soviet attack on Berlin was carefully prepared. It was transferred to the city great amount ammunition and military equipment. Troops from three fronts took part in the Berlin operation. The command was entrusted to Marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev. 3.5 million people took part in the battle on both sides.
The assault began on April 16, 1945. At 3 a.m. Berlin time, under the light of 140 searchlights, tanks and infantry attacked German positions. After four days of fighting, the fronts commanded by Zhukov and Konev, with the support of two armies of the Polish Army, closed a ring around Berlin. 93 enemy divisions were defeated, about 490 thousand people and a huge amount of captured military equipment and weapons were captured. On this day there was a meeting between Soviet and American troops on the Elbe.
Hitler's command declared: “Berlin will remain German.” And everything possible was done for this. refused to capitulate and threw old people and children into street battles. He hoped for discord between the allies. The prolongation of the war led to numerous casualties.
On April 21, the first assault troops reached the outskirts of the German capital and started street battles. German soldiers put up fierce resistance, surrendering only in hopeless situations.
On May 1 at 3 o'clock, the Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, General Krebs, was delivered to the command post of the 8th Guards Army. He stated that Hitler had committed suicide on April 30 and proposed to begin armistice negotiations.
The next day, the Berlin Defense Headquarters ordered an end to resistance. Berlin has fallen. When it was captured, Soviet troops lost 300 thousand killed and wounded.
On the night of May 9, 1945, the act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. in Europe ended, and with it.
During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet troops carried out the Berlin strategic offensive operation, the purpose of which was to defeat the main forces of the German army groups Vistula and Center, capture Berlin, reach the Elbe River and unite with the Allied forces.
The Red Army troops, having defeated large groups of Nazi troops in East Prussia, Poland and Eastern Pomerania during January - March 1945, reached the end of March on a wide front to the Oder and Neisse rivers. After the liberation of Hungary and the occupation of Vienna by Soviet troops in mid-April, Nazi Germany was under attack from the Red Army from the east and south. At the same time, from the west, without encountering any organized German resistance, Allied troops advanced in the Hamburg, Leipzig and Prague directions.
The main forces of the Nazi troops acted against the Red Army. By April 16, there were 214 divisions (of which 34 tank and 15 motorized) and 14 brigades were on the Soviet-German front, and against the American-British troops the German command held only 60 poorly equipped divisions, of which five were tank. The Berlin direction was defended by 48 infantry, six tank and nine motorized divisions and many other units and formations (a total of one million people, 10.4 thousand guns and mortars, 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns). From the air, ground troops covered 3.3 thousand combat aircraft.
The defense of the fascist German troops in the Berlin direction included the Oder-Neissen line 20-40 kilometers deep, which had three defensive lines, and the Berlin defensive area, which consisted of three ring contours - external, internal and urban. In total, the depth of defense with Berlin reached 100 kilometers; it was intersected by numerous canals and rivers, which served as serious obstacles for tank forces.
During the Berlin offensive operation, the Soviet Supreme High Command envisaged breaking through the enemy's defenses along the Oder and Neisse and, developing an offensive in depth, encircling the main group of fascist German troops, dismembering it and subsequently destroying it piece by piece, and then reaching the Elbe. For this, troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front under the command of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, troops of the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov and troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev were brought in. The operation was attended by the Dnieper military flotilla, part of the forces of the Baltic Fleet, and the 1st and 2nd armies of the Polish Army. In total, the Red Army troops advancing on Berlin numbered over two million people, about 42 thousand guns and mortars, 6,250 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, and 7.5 thousand combat aircraft.
According to the plan of the operation, the 1st Belorussian Front was supposed to capture Berlin and reach the Elbe no later than 12-15 days later. The 1st Ukrainian Front had the task of defeating the enemy in the Cottbus area and south of Berlin and on the 10-12th day of the operation to capture the line of Belitz, Wittenberg and further the Elbe River to Dresden. The 2nd Belorussian Front had to cross the Oder River, defeat the enemy's Stettin group and cut off the main forces of the German 3rd Tank Army from Berlin.
On April 16, 1945, after powerful aviation and artillery preparation, a decisive attack by troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts of the Oder-Neissen defensive line began. In the area of the main attack of the 1st Belorussian Front, where the offensive was launched before dawn, infantry and tanks, in order to demoralize the enemy, launched an attack in a zone illuminated by 140 powerful searchlights. The troops of the front's strike group had to successively break through several lines of deeply echeloned defense. By the end of April 17, they managed to break through the enemy’s defenses in the main areas near the Seelow Heights. The troops of the 1st Belorussian Front completed the breakthrough of the third line of the Oder defense line by the end of April 19. On the right wing of the front's shock group, the 47th Army and the 3rd Shock Army successfully advanced to cover Berlin from the north and northwest. On the left wing, conditions were created to bypass the enemy's Frankfurt-Guben group from the north and cut it off from the Berlin area.
The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the Neisse River, broke through the enemy’s main defense line on the first day, and wedged 1-1.5 kilometers into the second. By the end of April 18, front troops completed the breakthrough of the Niessen defense line, crossed the Spree River and provided conditions for encircling Berlin from the south. In the Dresden direction, formations of the 52nd Army repelled an enemy counterattack from the area north of Görlitz.
The advanced units of the 2nd Belorussian Front crossed the Ost-Oder on April 18-19, crossed the interfluve of the Ost-Oder and West Oder, and then began crossing the West Oder.
On April 20, artillery fire from the 1st Belorussian Front on Berlin marked the beginning of its assault. On April 21, tanks of the 1st Ukrainian Front broke into the southern outskirts of Berlin. On April 24, troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts united in the Bonsdorf area (southeast of Berlin), completing the encirclement of the enemy's Frankfurt-Guben group. On April 25, tank formations of the fronts, having reached the Potsdam area, completed the encirclement of the entire Berlin group (500 thousand people). On the same day, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front crossed the Elbe River and linked up with American troops in the Torgau area.
During the offensive, 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 pinned down the German 3rd Panzer Army, preventing it from launching a counterattack from the north against the Soviet forces encircling Berlin.
The Frankfurt-Guben group was destroyed by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts in the period from April 26 to May 1. The destruction of the Berlin group directly in the city continued until May 2. By 15:00 on May 2, enemy resistance in the city had ceased. The fighting with individual groups breaking through from the outskirts of Berlin to the west ended on May 5.
Simultaneously with the defeat of the encircled groups, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front reached the Elbe River on a wide front on May 7.
At the same time, the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front, successfully advancing in Western Pomerania and Mecklenburg, on April 26 captured the main strongholds of the enemy’s defense on the western bank of the Oder River - Poelitz, Stettin, Gatow and Schwedt and, launching a rapid pursuit of the remnants of the defeated 3rd tank army, on May 3 they reached the coast of the Baltic Sea, and on May 4 they advanced to the line of Wismar, Schwerin, and the Elde River, where they came into contact with British troops. On May 4-5, front troops cleared the islands of Wollin, Usedom and Rügen of the enemy, and on May 9 they landed on the Danish island of Bornholm.
The resistance of the Nazi troops was finally broken. On the night of May 9, the Act of Surrender of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany was signed in the Karlshorst district of Berlin.
Berlin operation lasted 23 days, the width of the combat front reached 300 kilometers. The depth of front-line operations was 100-220 kilometers, the average daily rate of attack was 5-10 kilometers. As part of the Berlin operation, the Stettin-Rostok, Seelow-Berlin, Cottbus-Potsdam, Stremberg-Torgau and Brandenburg-Ratenow front-line offensive operations were carried out.
During the 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 irretrievable losses amounted to 78,291 people, and sanitary losses - 274,184 people.
More than 600 participants in the Berlin operation were awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union. 13 people were awarded the second Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
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On April 16, 1945, the Berlin strategic offensive operation of the Soviet troops began, which became the most major battle in the history of mankind. More than three million people, 11 thousand aircraft and about eight thousand tanks were involved in it on both sides.
By the beginning of 1945, Germany had 299 divisions, of which 192 divisions were operating on the Eastern Front and 107 were opposing Anglo-American forces. The offensive operations of the Soviet troops at the beginning of 1945 created favorable conditions for the final blow in the Berlin direction. At the same time, the Allies launched an offensive on the Western Front and in Italy. In March 1945, German troops were forced to retreat beyond the Rhine. Pursuing them, American, British and French troops reached the Rhine, crossed the river on the night of March 24 and already encircled 20 German divisions in early April. After this, the Western Front practically ceased to exist. At the beginning of May, the Allies reached the Elbe, occupied Erfurt, Nuremberg, and entered Czechoslovakia. And Western Austria.
Be that as it may, the Germans continued to resist. On the approaches to Berlin it became even more desperate. The Germans had 2.5 months to prepare Berlin for defense, during which the front stood on the Oder, 70 km from the city. This preparation was by no means improvised. The Germans developed a whole system of turning their own and foreign cities into “festungs” - fortresses. To the east of the German capital, on the Oder and Neisse rivers, a fortified line was created, stretching to the city outskirts. The Nazis turned Berlin itself into a fortress: the streets were blocked by barricades, most houses were turned into firing points, and at every intersection there was a heavily fortified resistance center. Barricades in Germany were built at an industrial level and had nothing in common with the piles of rubbish that blocked the streets during the period of revolutionary unrest. Berlin ones, as a rule, were 2-2.5 meters in height and 2-2.2 meters in thickness. They were built from wood, stone, sometimes rails and shaped iron. Such a barricade easily withstood shots from tank guns and even divisional artillery with a caliber of 76-122 mm. When defending the city, the Germans intended to use the metro system and underground bunkers.
To organize the defense of the capital, the German command hastily formed new units. In January - March 1945, young people and old people were called up for military service. They formed assault battalions, tank destroyer squads and Hitler Youth units. Thus, Berlin was defended by a powerful group of German troops, which included about 80 divisions and about 300 Volkssturm battalions. One of the “finds” of the Germans in the defense of their capital was the Berlin tank company, assembled from tanks incapable of independent movement. They were dug in at street intersections and used as fixed firing points in the west and east of the city. In total, the Berlin company included 10 Panther tanks and 12 Pz tanks. IV. In addition to special defensive structures, the city had air defense facilities suitable for ground battles. We are talking primarily about the so-called flakturmas - massive concrete towers about 40 m high, on the roof of which anti-aircraft guns of up to 128 mm caliber were installed. Three such giant structures were built in Berlin. These are Flakturm I in the zoo area, Flakturm II in Friedrichshain in the east of the city and Flakturm III in Humbolthain in the north.
To carry out the Berlin operation, the Headquarters attracted 3 fronts: 1st Belorussian under the command of G.K. Zhukov, 2nd Belorussian under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky and the 1st Ukrainian under the command of I.S. Koneva. It was proposed to use part of the forces of the Baltic Fleet to help the ground fronts, commander Admiral V.F. Tributs, Dnieper Military Flotilla, Commander Rear Admiral V.V. Grigoriev and units military aviation. Soviet troops significantly outnumbered the enemy; in the direction of the main attacks, the advantage was overwhelming. The troops that stormed Berlin numbered, as of April 26, 1945, 464,000 people and about 1,500 tanks. The Soviet command set the following tasks for the troops concentrated in the Berlin direction: the 1st Belorussian Front, delivering the main blow from the Küstrin bridgehead, was supposed to defeat the enemy on the approaches to Berlin and on the fifteenth day after the start of the operation, having captured the city, go to the Elbe. The 2nd Belorussian Front was supposed to cross the Oder, defeat the enemy and, no later than the fifteenth day from the start of the operation, capture the Anklam - Demin - Malkhin - Wittenberg line. With this, the front troops supported the actions of the 1st Belorussian Front from the north. The 1st Ukrainian Front was tasked with defeating German troops in the Cottbus area and south of Berlin. On the tenth - twelfth day after the start of the offensive, the front troops were supposed to capture Wittenberg and the line running along the Elbe to Dresden.
The Berlin operation began on April 16, 1945 with the offensive of the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts. A night attack was carried out in the offensive zone of the 1st Belorussian Front using anti-aircraft searchlights. The searchlights blinded the Germans, preventing them from taking aim. Thanks to this technique, the Soviet troops overcame the first line of enemy defense without major losses, but the Germans soon came to their senses and began to put up fierce resistance. It was especially difficult at the Seelow Heights, which were turned into a continuous defense hub. This fortified area was captured only in the evening of the third day of the offensive, after the German firing points were literally wiped off the face of the earth by the attacks of 800 Soviet bombers. By the end of April 18, units of the Soviet armed forces broke through the enemy’s defenses and began to capture Berlin. Suffering huge losses, especially in tanks, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts united in the Potsdam area, encircling Berlin. And on April 25, the advanced units of the Soviet army met American patrols on the Elbe River. The allied armies united.
The assault on Berlin began on April 26. The fighting in the city was carried out by assault groups, under the directive of G.K. Zhukov recommended including 8-12 guns with a caliber of 45 to 203 mm and 4-6 mortars of 82-120 mm in the assault detachments. IN assault groups Sappers and “chemists” entered with smoke bombs and flamethrowers. Tanks also became constant participants in these groups. It is well known that their main enemy in urban battles in 1945 was hand-held anti-tank weapons—faustpatrons. It should be said that shortly before the Berlin operation, the troops conducted experiments on shielding tanks. However, they did not give a positive result: even when a Faustpatron grenade exploded on the screen, the tank’s armor penetrated. In any case, the massive use of Faustpatrons made it difficult to use tanks, and if the Soviet troops had relied only on armored vehicles, the battles for the city would have become much bloodier. It should be noted that the Faust cartridges were used by the Germans not only against tanks, but also against infantry. Forced to walk ahead of the armored vehicles, the infantrymen came under a hail of shots from the Faustniks. Therefore, cannon and rocket artillery provided invaluable assistance in the assault. The specifics of urban battles forced divisional and attached artillery to be placed on direct fire. As paradoxical as it sounds, direct fire guns sometimes turned out to be more effective than tanks. The report of the 44th Guards Cannon Artillery Brigade on the Berlin operation stated: “The enemy’s use of Panzerfausts led to a sharp increase in losses in tanks - limited visibility makes them easily vulnerable. Direct fire guns do not suffer from this drawback; their losses, in comparison with tanks, are small.” This was not an unfounded statement: the brigade lost only two guns in street battles, one of which was hit by the enemy with a Faustpatron. In the end, even Katyushas began to be used for direct fire. Frames of large-caliber M-31 rockets were installed in houses on window sills and fired at buildings opposite. A distance of 100-150 m was considered optimal. The projectile managed to accelerate, broke through the wall and exploded inside the building. This led to the collapse of partitions and ceilings and, as a consequence, the death of the garrison.
Another “destroyer of buildings” was heavy artillery. In total, during the assault on the German capital, 38 high-power guns, that is, 203-mm B-4 howitzers of the 1931 model, were put into direct fire. These powerful tracked guns often appear in newsreels dedicated to the battles for the German capital. The B-4 crews acted boldly, even boldly. For example, one of the guns was installed at the intersection of Liden Strasse and Ritter Strasse 100-150 m from the enemy. Six fired shells were enough to destroy a house prepared for defense. Turning the gun, the battery commander destroyed three more stone buildings. In Berlin, there was only one building that withstood the blow of the B-4 - it was the Flakturm am Zoo anti-aircraft defense tower, also known as Flakturm I. Units of the 8th Guards and 1st Guards Tank Armies entered the area of the Berlin Zoo. The tower turned out to be for them tough nut to crack. The shelling of her with 152-mm artillery was completely ineffective. Then 105 concrete-piercing shells of 203 mm caliber were fired at the flakturm with direct fire. As a result, the corner of the tower was destroyed, but it continued to live until the capitulation of the garrison.
Despite the desperate resistance of the enemy, Soviet troops captured most of the city and began to storm the central sector. The Tiergarten park and the Gestapo building were taken in battle. On the evening of April 30, the storming of the Reichstag began. The battle was still going on, and dozens of red banners soared over the building of the German parliament, one of which Sergeant M. Egorov and Junior Sergeant M. Kantaria strengthened above the central pediment. After two days of resistance, the 5,000-strong German group defending the Reichstag laid down its arms. On April 30, Hitler committed suicide, appointing Admiral Dennitz as his successor. On May 2, the Berlin garrison capitulated. During the assault, the garrison lost 150 thousand soldiers and officers killed. 134,700 people surrendered, including 33,000 officers and 12,000 wounded.
At midnight from May 8 to 9, 1945, in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, the act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. On the Soviet side, the act was signed by Marshal Zhukov, on the German side by Field Marshal Keitel. On May 10-11, the German group in Czechoslovakia capitulated, unsuccessfully trying to break through to the west in order to surrender to the Anglo-American troops. The war in Europe was over.
The Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces established the medal “For the Capture of Berlin,” which was awarded to more than 1 million soldiers. 187 units and formations that most distinguished themselves during the assault on the enemy capital were given the honorary name “Berlin”. More than 600 participants in the Berlin operation were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 13 people were awarded the 2nd Gold Star medal.
Gabriel Tsobekhia
Oleg Kozlov
Military University of the Russian Defense Ministry
Literature:
- Military history "Voenizdat" M.: 2006.
- Wars and battles "AST" M.: 2013.
- Battles in the history of Russia “House of Slavic Books” M.: 2009.
- G.K. Zhukov Memories and reflections. In 2 volumes. M.: 2002.
- I.S. Konev Forty-fifth "Voenizdat" M.: 1970.
- TsAMO USSR f.67, op.23686, d.27, l.28
The capture of Berlin was the necessary final point in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people.
An enemy who came to Russian soil and brought incredible losses, terrible destruction, plunder cultural values and who left behind scorched territories should not only have been expelled.
He must be defeated and defeated on his own soil. During all four bloody years of the war, the Soviet people associated it as a lair and stronghold of Hitlerism.
Complete and final victory in this war was to end with the capture of the capital of Nazi Germany. And it was the Red Army that had to complete this victorious operation.
This was demanded not only by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin, but it was necessary for the entire Soviet people.
Battle of Berlin
The final operation of World War II began on April 16, 1945 and ended on May 8, 1945. The Germans defended themselves fanatically and desperately in Berlin, which had turned into a fortress city by order of the Wehrmacht.
Literally every street was prepared for a long and bloody battle. 900 square kilometers, including not only the city itself, but also its suburbs, were turned into a well-fortified area. All sectors of this area were connected by a network of underground passages.
The German command hastily removed troops from the Western Front and transferred them to Berlin, sending them against the Red Army. The allies of the Soviet Union in the anti-Hitler coalition planned to take Berlin first; this was their priority task. But for the Soviet command it was also the most important.
Intelligence provided the Soviet command with a plan of the Berlin fortified area, and on the basis of this a plan was drawn up military operation for the capture of Berlin. Three fronts under the command of G.K. took part in the capture of Berlin. a, K.K. and I.S. Koneva.
With the forces of these fronts, it was necessary to gradually break through, crush and crush the enemy’s defenses, encircle and dismember the main forces of the enemy, and squeeze the fascist capital into a ring. An important aspect of this operation, which was supposed to bring tangible results, was a night attack using searchlights. Previously, the Soviet command had already used a similar practice and it had a significant effect.
The amount of ammunition used for shelling was almost 7 million. A huge number of manpower - more than 3.5 million people were involved in this operation on both sides. It was the largest operation of times. Almost all forces on the German side took part in the defense of Berlin.
Not only professional soldiers, but also militia took part in the battles, regardless of age and physical capabilities. The defense consisted of three lines. The first line included natural obstacles - rivers, canals, lakes. Large-scale mining was used against tanks and infantry - about 2 thousand mines per sq. km.
A huge number of tank destroyers with Faust cartridges were used. The assault on Hitler's citadel began on April 16, 1945 at 3 a.m. with a strong artillery attack. After its completion, the Germans began to be blinded by 140 powerful searchlights, which helped to successfully carry out an attack by tanks and infantry.
After just four days of fierce fighting, the first line of defense was crushed and the fronts of Zhukov and Konev closed a ring around Berlin. During the first stage, the Red Army defeated 93 German divisions and captured almost 490 thousand Nazis. A meeting between Soviet and American soldiers took place on the Elbe River.
The Eastern Front linked up with Western Front. The second defensive line was considered the main one and ran along the outskirts of the suburbs of Berlin. Anti-tank obstacles and numerous barbed wire barriers were erected on the streets.
Fall of Berlin
On April 21, the second line of defense of the Nazis was crushed and fierce, bloody battles were already taking place on the outskirts of Berlin. German soldiers fought with the desperation of the doomed and surrendered extremely reluctantly, only if they realized the hopelessness of their situation. The third line of defense ran along the circular railway.
All the streets that led to the center were barricaded and mined. Bridges, including the metro, are prepared for explosions. After a week of brutal street fighting, on April 29, Soviet fighters began storming the Reichstag, and on April 30, 1945, the Red Banner was hoisted over it.
On May 1, the Soviet command received news that he had committed suicide the day before. General Krabs, Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, was brought to the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army with a white flag and negotiations for an armistice began. On May 2, the Berlin Defense Headquarters ordered an end to resistance.
The German troops stopped fighting and Berlin fell. More than 300 thousand killed and wounded - such losses were suffered by Soviet troops during the capture of Berlin. On the night of May 8-9, an act of unconditional surrender was signed between defeated Germany and members of the anti-Hitler coalition. The war in Europe was over.
conclusions
By taking Berlin, which symbolized for all progressive humanity the stronghold of fascism and Hitlerism, the Soviet Union confirmed its leading role in the Second World War. The victorious defeat of the Wehrmacht led to complete surrender and the fall of the existing regime in Germany.
Berlin operation 1945
After the end of the Vistula-Oder operation, the Soviet Union and Germany began preparations for the Battle of Berlin as the decisive battle on the Oder, as the culmination of the war.
By mid-April, the Germans concentrated 1 million people, 10.5 thousand guns, 1.5 thousand tanks and 3.3 thousand aircraft on a 300-kilometer front along the Oder and Neisse.
The Soviet side accumulated enormous forces: 2.5 million people, over 40 thousand guns, more than 6 thousand tanks, 7.5 thousand aircraft.
Three Soviet fronts operated in the Berlin direction: 1st Belorussian (commander - Marshal G.K. Zhukov), 2nd Belorussian (commander - Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky) and 1st Ukrainian (commander - Marshal I.S. Konev).
The attack on Berlin began on April 16, 1945. The heaviest battles took place in the sector of the 1st Belorussian Front, where the Seelow Heights were located, covering the central direction. (The Seelow Heights are a ridge of heights on the North German Lowland, 50–60 km east of Berlin. It runs along the left bank of the old riverbed of the Oder River with a length of up to 20 km. At these heights, a well-equipped 2nd defense line was created in engineering terms Germans, which was occupied by the 9th Army.)
To capture Berlin, the Soviet High Command used not only a frontal attack by the 1st Belorussian Front, but also a flank maneuver by formations of the 1st Ukrainian Front, which broke through to the German capital from the south.
The troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front advanced towards the Baltic coast of Germany, covering the right flank of the forces advancing on Berlin.
In addition, it was planned to use part of the forces of the Baltic Fleet (Admiral V.F. Tributs), the Dnieper Military Flotilla (Rear Admiral V.V. Grigoriev), the 18th Air Army, and three air defense corps.
Hoping to defend Berlin and avoid unconditional surrender, the German leadership mobilized all the country's resources. As before, the German command sent the main forces of the ground forces and aviation against the Red Army. By April 15, 214 German divisions were fighting on the Soviet-German front, including 34 tank and 14 motorized and 14 brigades. 60 German divisions, including 5 tank divisions, acted against the Anglo-American troops. The Germans created a powerful defense in the east of the country.
Berlin was covered to great depth by numerous defensive structures erected along the western banks of the Oder and Neisse rivers. This line consisted of three stripes 20–40 km deep. In engineering terms, the defense in front of the Küstrin bridgehead and in the Kotbu direction, where the strongest groups of Nazi troops were concentrated, was especially well prepared.
Berlin itself was turned into a powerful fortified area with three defensive rings (outer, inner, city). The central sector of the capital, where the main government and administrative institutions were located, was especially carefully prepared in terms of engineering. There were more than 400 reinforced concrete permanent structures in the city. The largest of them were six-story bunkers dug into the ground, each holding up to a thousand people. The subway was used for covert maneuver of troops.
The German troops occupying the defensive position in the Berlin direction were united into four armies. In addition to the regular troops, Volkssturm battalions, which were formed from young people and old men, were involved in the defense. Total number The Berlin garrison exceeded 200 thousand people.
On April 15, Hitler addressed the soldiers of the Eastern Front with an appeal to repel the offensive of the Soviet troops at all costs.
The plan of the Soviet command envisaged powerful strikes by troops from all three fronts to break through the enemy’s defenses along the Oder and Neisse, encircle the main group of German troops in the Berlin direction, and reach the Elbe.
On April 21, the advanced units of the 1st Belorussian Front broke into the northern and southeastern outskirts of Berlin.
On April 24, southeast of Berlin, troops of the 1st Belorussian Front met with formations of the 1st Ukrainian Front. The next day, these fronts were united to the west of the German capital - thus completing the encirclement of the entire Berlin enemy group.
On the same day, units of the 5th Guards Army of General A.S. Zhadov met on the banks of the Elbe in the Torgau region with reconnaissance groups of the 5th Corps of the 1st American Army of General O. Bradley. The German front was cut. The Americans have 80 km left to Berlin. Since the Germans willingly surrendered to the Western allies and stood to the death against the Red Army, Stalin feared that the Allies might capture the capital of the Reich before us. Knowing about these concerns of Stalin, the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in Europe, General D. Eisenhower, forbade the troops to move to Berlin or take Prague. Nevertheless, Stalin demanded that Zhukov and Konev clear Berlin by May 1. On April 22, Stalin gave them orders for a decisive assault on the capital. Konev had to stop parts of his front on a line that ran through the railway station just a few hundred meters from the Reichstag.
Since April 25, there have been fierce street battles in Berlin. On May 1, the red flag was raised over the Reichstag building. On May 2, the city garrison capitulated.
The struggle for Berlin was life and death. From April 21 to May 2, 1.8 million artillery shots (more than 36 thousand tons of metal) were fired at Berlin. The Germans defended their capital with great tenacity. According to the memoirs of Marshal Konev, “German soldiers still surrendered only when they had no choice.”
As a result of the fighting in Berlin, out of 250 thousand buildings, about 30 thousand were completely destroyed, more than 20 thousand were in a dilapidated state, more than 150 thousand buildings had moderate damage. City transport did not work. More than a third of metro stations were flooded. 225 bridges were blown up by the Nazis. The whole system utilities stopped functioning - power plants, water pumping stations, gas plants, sewage systems.
On May 2, the remnants of the Berlin garrison, numbering more than 134 thousand, surrendered, the rest fled.
During the Berlin operation, Soviet troops defeated 70 infantry, 23 tank and motorized divisions of the Wehrmacht, captured about 480 thousand people, captured up to 11 thousand guns and mortars, over 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns, and 4,500 aircraft. (“The Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. Encyclopedia.” P. 96).
Soviet troops suffered heavy losses in this final operation - about 350 thousand people, including over 78 thousand - irrevocably. 33 thousand died on the Seelow Heights alone Soviet soldiers. The Polish army lost about 9 thousand soldiers and officers.
Soviet troops lost 2,156 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, 1,220 guns and mortars, and 527 aircraft. (“The classification of secrecy has been removed. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts.” M., 1993. P. 220.)
According to Colonel General A.V. Gorbatov, “from a military point of view, there was no need to storm Berlin... It was enough to encircle the city, and it would have surrendered in a week or two. Germany would inevitably capitulate. And during the assault, at the very end of the victory, in street battles, we killed at least a hundred thousand soldiers...” “This is what the British and Americans did. They blocked German fortresses and waited for months for their surrender, sparing their soldiers. Stalin acted differently." (“History of Russia in the 20th century. 1939–2007.” M., 2009. P. 159.)
The Berlin operation is one of the largest operations of the Second World War. The victory of the Soviet troops in it became a decisive factor in completing the military defeat of Germany. With the fall of Berlin and other vital areas, Germany lost the ability to organize resistance and soon capitulated.
On May 5-11, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts advanced towards the capital of Czechoslovakia - Prague. The Germans were able to hold the defense in this city for 4 days. On May 11, Soviet troops liberated Prague.
On May 7, Alfred Jodl signed an unconditional surrender to the Western Allies in Reims. Stalin agreed with the allies to consider the signing of this act as a preliminary protocol of surrender.
The next day, May 8, 1945 (more precisely, at 0 hours 43 minutes on May 9, 1945), the signing of the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany was completed. The act was signed by Field Marshal Keitel, Admiral von Friedeburg and Colonel General Stumpf, who were authorized to do so by Grand Admiral Dönitz.
The first paragraph of the Act read:
"1. We, the undersigned, acting on behalf of the German High Command, agree to the unconditional surrender of all our armed forces on land, sea and air, as well as all forces currently under German command, to the Supreme Command of the Red Army and at the same time to the Allied High Command expeditionary forces."
The meeting to sign the Act of German Surrender was led by the representative of the Supreme High Command of the Soviet Forces, Marshal G.K. Zhukov. British Air Marshal Arthur W. Tedder, U.S. Strategic Air Commander General Carl Spaats, and French Army Commander General Jean Delattre de Tassigny were present as representatives of the Allied Supreme Command.
The price of victory was the undeserved losses of the Red Army from 1941 to 1945. (Information from the declassified storage facilities of the General Staff, published in Izvestia on June 25, 1998.)
The irretrievable losses of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War amounted to 11,944,100 people. Of these, 6,885 thousand people were killed or died from wounds, various diseases, died in disasters, or committed suicide. Missing, captured or surrendered - 4559 thousand. 500 thousand people died on the way to the front under bombing or for other reasons.
The total demographic losses of the Red Army, including losses from which 1,936 thousand people returned from captivity after the war, military personnel re-conscripted into the army who found themselves in occupied and then liberated territory (they were considered missing in action), 939 thousand people are subtracted, amount to 9,168 400 people. Of these, the payroll (i.e., those who fought with weapons in their hands) is 8,668,400 people.
Overall, the country lost 26,600,000 citizens. The civilian population suffered the most during the war - 17,400,000 killed and died.
By the beginning of the war, 4,826,900 people served in the Red Army and Navy (the state numbered 5,543 thousand military personnel, taking into account 74,900 people serving in other formations).
34,476,700 people were mobilized to the fronts (including those who had already served at the time of the German attack).
After the end of the war, 12,839,800 people remained on the army lists, of which 11,390 thousand people were in service. There were 1,046 thousand people undergoing treatment and 400 thousand people in the formation of other departments.
21,636,900 people left the army during the war, of which 3,798 thousand were dismissed due to injury and illness, of which 2,576 thousand remained permanently disabled.
3,614 thousand people were transferred to work in industry and local self-defense. It was sent to staff the troops and bodies of the NKVD, the Polish Army, the Czechoslovak and Romanian armies - 1,500 thousand people.
More than 994 thousand people were convicted (of which 422 thousand were sent to penal units, 436 thousand were sent to places of detention). 212 thousand deserters and stragglers from the echelons on their way to the front have not been found.
These numbers are amazing. At the end of the war, Stalin said that the army had lost 7 million people. In the 60s, Khrushchev called “more than 20 million people.”
In March 1990, the Military Historical Journal published an interview with the then Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, Army General M. Moiseev: gratuitous losses among military personnel amounted to 8,668,400 people.
In the first period of fighting (June - November 1941), our daily losses at the fronts were estimated at 24 thousand (17 thousand killed and 7 thousand wounded). At the end of the war (from January 1944 to May 1945 - 20 thousand people a day: 5.2 thousand killed and 14.8 thousand wounded).
During the war, our army lost 11,944,100 people.
In 1991, the work of the General Staff to clarify losses in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 was completed.
Direct losses.
The direct losses of the Soviet Union in the Second World War are understood as the losses of military personnel and civilians who died as a result of hostilities and their consequences, due to an increase in the mortality rate compared to peacetime, as well as those people from the population of the USSR on June 22, 1941, who left territory of the USSR during the war and did not return. The human losses of the Soviet Union do not include indirect demographic losses due to a decrease in the birth rate during the war and an increase in mortality in the post-war years.
A complete assessment of all human losses can be obtained using the demographic balance method, by comparing the size and structure of the population at the beginning and end of the war.
The assessment of human losses in the USSR was carried out for the period from June 22, 1941 to December 31, 1945 in order to take into account the deaths of the wounded in hospitals, the repatriation of prisoners of war and displaced civilians to the USSR, and the repatriation of citizens of other countries from the USSR. For the calculation, the borders of the USSR were taken as of June 21, 1941.
According to the 1939 census, the population on January 17, 1939 was determined to be 168.9 million people. About 20.1 million more people lived in the territories that became part of the USSR in the pre-war years. The natural increase over the 2.5 years to June 1941 amounted to about 7.91 million people.
Thus, in mid-1941 the population of the USSR was approximately 196.7 million people. The population of the USSR as of December 31, 1945 was estimated at 170.5 million people, of which 159.6 million were born before June 22, 1941. Total number those who died and found themselves outside the country during the war years amounted to 37.1 million people (196.7-159.6). If the mortality rate of the USSR population in 1941–1945 had remained the same as in pre-war 1940, the number of deaths during this period would have been 11.9 million people. Subtracting this value (37.1-11.9 million), the human losses of generations born before the start of the war amounted to 25.2 million people. To this figure it is necessary to add the losses of children born during the war, but who died due to an increased level of infant mortality compared to the “normal” level. Of those born in 1941–1945, approximately 4.6 million did not live to see the beginning of 1946, or 1.3 million more than would have died at the 1940 mortality rate. These 1.3 million should also be attributed to losses as a result of the war.
As a result, the direct human losses of the USSR population as a result of the war, estimated by the demographic balance method, amount to approximately 26.6 million people.
According to experts, the net increase in mortality as a result of deteriorating living conditions can be attributed to 9-10 million deaths during the war.
Direct losses of the population of the USSR during the war years amounted to 13.5% of its population by mid-1941.
Irreversible losses of the Red Army.
By the beginning of the war, there were 4,826,907 military personnel in the army and navy. In addition, 74,945 military personnel and military construction workers served in the formations of civilian departments. Over the 4 years of the war, minus those re-conscripted, another 29,574 thousand were mobilized. In total with staffing 34,476,700 people were recruited into the army, navy and paramilitary forces. Of these, about one third were in service annually (10.5-11.5 million people). Half of this composition (5.0–6.5 million people) served in the active army.
In total, according to the General Staff commission, during the war, 6,885,100 military personnel were killed, died from wounds and illnesses, or died as a result of accidents, which amounted to 19.9% of those conscripted. 4,559 thousand people were missing or captured, or 13% of those conscripted.
Total total losses personnel The Soviet armed forces, including border and internal troops, during the Second World War amounted to 11,444,100 people.
In 1942–1945, in the liberated territory, 939,700 military personnel from among those previously in captivity, surrounded and in occupied territory were re-conscripted into the army.
About 1,836,600 former military personnel returned from captivity at the end of the war. These military personnel (2,775 thousand people) were rightly excluded by the commission from the irretrievable losses of the armed forces.
Thus, the irretrievable losses of personnel of the USSR Armed Forces, taking into account the Far Eastern campaign (killed, died from wounds, went missing and did not return from captivity, as well as non-combat losses) amounted to 8,668,400 people.
Sanitary losses.
The commission established them in the amount of 18,334 thousand people, including: 15,205,600 people were wounded and shell-shocked, 3,047,700 people were sick, 90,900 people were frostbitten.
In total, 3,798,200 people were demobilized from the army and navy during the war due to injury or illness.
Every day on the Soviet-German front, an average of 20,869 people were out of action, of which about 8 thousand were irretrievably lost. More than half - 56.7% of all irretrievable losses - occurred in 1941–1942. The largest average daily losses were noted in the summer-autumn campaigns of 1941 - 24 thousand people and 1942 - 27.3 thousand per day.
The losses of Soviet troops in the Far Eastern campaign were relatively small - over 25 days of fighting, losses amounted to 36,400 people, including 12,000 killed, died or went missing.
About 6 thousand partisan detachments - more than 1 million people - operated behind enemy lines.
Head of the Department of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for perpetuating the memory of fallen defenders of the Fatherland, Major General A.V. Kirilin, in an interview with the weekly “Arguments and Facts” (2011, No. 24), provided the following data on the losses of the Red Army and Germany during the war of 1941–1945:
From June 22 to December 31, 1941, the losses of the Red Army exceeded 3 million people. Of these, 465 thousand were killed, 101 thousand died in hospitals, 235 thousand people died from illnesses and accidents (military statistics included those shot by their own in this category).
The disaster of 1941 was determined by the number of missing and captured people - 2,355,482 people. Most of These people died in German camps on the territory of the USSR.
The figure for Soviet military losses in the Great Patriotic War is 8,664,400 people. This is a figure that is confirmed by documents. But not all the people listed as casualties died. For example, in 1946, 480 thousand “displaced persons” went to the West - those who did not want to return to their homeland. In total, 3.5 million people are missing.
Approximately 500 thousand people drafted into the army (mostly in 1941) did not make it to the front. They are now classified as general civilian losses (26 million) (disappeared during the bombing of trains, remained in the occupied territory, served in the police) - 939.5 thousand people re-conscripted into the Red Army during the liberation of Soviet lands.
Germany, excluding its allies, lost 5.3 million killed, died from wounds, went missing, and 3.57 million prisoners on the Soviet-German front. For every German killed, there were 1.3 Soviet soldiers. 442 thousand captured Germans died in Soviet captivity.
Of the 4,559 thousand Soviet soldiers who fell into German captivity, 2.7 million people died.
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