The Last Battle: The Classic History of the Battle for Berlin

by Cornelius Ryan

  Once that was accomplished, Koniev planned to dash for the cities of Spremberg and Cottbus. Past Cottbus he would head out on the roadnet for Lübben. That area held special interest for Koniev. It was the terminal point of the boundary line laid down by Stalin, separating Zhukov’s First Belorussian Front and his own First Ukrainian Front. If Koniev got there fast enough, he planned to ask Stalin immediately for permission to swing north and head for Berlin. Confident of the go-ahead, Koniev had already sent written orders to Colonel General Pavel Semenovich Rybalko of the Third Guards Tank Army “to be prepared to break into Berlin from the south with a tank corps reinforced with a rifle division from the Third Guards Army.” It looked to Koniev as though he might just beat Zhukov to the city. He was so engrossed in the progress of his attack that he did not realize how lucky he was to be alive. In the first moments of the assault a sniper’s bullet had drilled a neat hole through the tripod of his artillery glasses, inches away from Koniev’s head.*

  On the eastern fringes of Berlin the hammering of the guns, less than thirty-five miles away, was like the sullen thunder of a far-off storm. In small villages and towns nearer the Oder there were some strange concussion effects. In the police station at mahlsdorf books fell off their shelves and telephones rang for no reason. Lights dimmed and flickered in many areas. In Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten an air raid siren suddenly went berserk and no one could switch it off. Pictures fell from walls, windows and mirrors shattered. A cross hurtled down from the steeple of a church in muncheberg, and everywhere dogs began to howl.

  In the eastern districts of Berlin the muffled sound echoed and re-echoed in the skeletal, fire-blackened ruins. The fragrant smell of burning pines wafted across the fringes of Köpenick. Along the edges of Weissensee and Lichtenberg a sudden wind caused curtains to whip and flap with ghostly abandon, and in Erkner some inhabitants of air raid shelters were jolted out of sleep, not by noise but by a sickening vibration of the earth.

  Many Berliners knew the sound for what it was. In the möhrings’ Pankow apartment where the Weltlingers were hiding, Siegmund, who had been a World War I artilleryman, instantly recognized the far-off sound as that of a massive artillery bombardment; he woke his wife margarete to tell her about it. At least one Berliner claimed to have actually seen Zhukov’s rolling barrage. Shortly after 4 A.M. 16-year-old Horst Römling climbed a seven-story tower on the western edge of Weissensee and stared eastward through field glasses. Horst quickly informed the neighbors he had seen the “flash and glare of Russian guns,” but few believed him—he was considered a wild, fanciful boy at best.

  The sound did not penetrate the central districts, although here and there some Berliners claimed they heard something unusual. Most thought it was probably anti-aircraft fire, or the detonation of unexploded bombs dropped during the night’s two hour and twenty-five minute air raid, or perhaps the sudden collapse of a bomb-blasted building.

  One small group of civilians learned almost immediately that the Russian offensive had started. They were the operators in the main post office telephone building on Winterfeldtstrasse in Schöneberg. Within minutes of the opening barrage, long-distance and trunk-line sections of the exchange were jammed with calls. Nervous Nazi Party officials in areas near the Oder and Neisse called administrative heads in Berlin. Fire brigade chiefs asked whether they should try to put out the forest fires or move their equipment out of the areas. Police chiefs phoned their superiors and everybody tried to get through to relatives. As operators were to recall years later, nearly all those completing calls began their conversations with two words: “It’s begun!” Switchboard supervisor Elisabeth milbrand, a devout Catholic, took out her beads and silently said the Rosary.

  By 8 A.M. on April 16, most of Berlin had heard on the radio that “heavy Russian attacks continue on the Oder front.” The news announcements were guarded, but the average Berliner needed no elaboration. By word of mouth or from relatives outside the city, people learned that the moment they had dreaded had finally arrived. Curiously, at this time the man in the street knew more than Hitler. In the Führerbunker the leader was still sleeping. He had retired a little before 3 A.M. and General Burgdorf, his adjutant, had given strict instructions that the Führer was not to be awakened.

  The strange subterranean world of the bunker had an almost cheerful look this morning: there were vases of bright tulips in the little anteroom, the corridor lounge and the small conference room. Earlier one of the Reichskanzlei gardeners had cut them from the few flowerbeds that still remained in the bomb-pitted gardens. It had seemed a good idea to Burgdorf because Eva Braun loved tulips. The Reich’s unwed first lady had arrived the night before. With her she had brought some presents for the Führer from old friends in Munich. One was a book sent by Baroness Baidur von Schirach, wife of the former Reich Youth Leader. The novel’s hero bore every misfortune without losing hope. “Optimism,” he was made to say “is a mania for maintaining that all is well when things are going badly.” The Baroness had thought the book a most appropriate choice. It was Voltaire’s Candide.

  At first Zhukov did not believe the news. Standing in the Küstrin command post surrounded by his staff, he stared incredulously at Chuikov and then spluttered in rage. “What the hell do you mean—your troops are pinned down?” he yelled at the Eighth Guards Army commander, and this time there was no friendly use of the General’s given names. Chuikov had seen Zhukov angry before and he remained perfectly calm. “Comrade marshal,” he said, “whether we are pinned down temporarily or not, the offensive will most certainly succeed. But resistance has stiffened for the moment and is holding us up.”

  Heavy artillery fire from the Seelow Heights had hit the troops and supporting tank units as they advanced, Chuikov explained. Also the terrain through which they were moving was proving extremely difficult for armor. In the marshes and irrigation canals of the Oder Bruch self-propelled guns and tanks were thrashing and churning helplessly. A number of mired tanks had been hit, one after another, and had gone up in flames. Up to now, said Chuikov, his Eighth Guards had advanced only fifteen hundred yards. Zhukov, according to General Popiel, gave vent to his fury with “a stream of extremely forceful expressions.”

  What had happened to the supposedly irresistible offensive? There were a variety of opinions, as General Popiel quickly discovered when he checked Zhukov’s senior officers. General mikhail Shalin, a corps commander of the First Guards Army, told Popiel he was certain “the Germans had been pulled out of the front lines before the attack and placed in a second defensive line along the Seelow Heights. Therefore,” said Shalin, “the majority of our shells fell in open country.” General Vasili Kuznetsov, commander of the Third Shock Army, was bitterly critical of the First Belorussian plan. “As usual,” he told Popiel, “we stuck to the book and by now the Germans know our methods. They pulled back their troops a good eight kilometers. Our artillery fire hit everything but the enemy.” General Andreya Getman, a ranking tank expert and corps commander in Katukov’s First Guards Tank Army was both critical and angry, particularly about the searchlights. “They didn’t blind the main forces of the enemy,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what they did do—they absolutely spotlighted our tanks and infantry for the German gunners.”

  Zhukov had never expected the attack to be easy, but although he had anticipated heavy casualties he had deemed it virtually impossible for the Germans to halt his advance. As he later put it, he had counted on “a rapid reduction of the enemy’s defenses”; instead, he added in a massive understatement, “the blow by the front’s first echelon had proved to be inadequate.” He had no doubt that by sheer weight of armies alone he could overwhelm the enemy, but he was bothered by “the danger which now arose that the offensive might be slowed.” Zhukov decided to change his tactics. Quickly he rapped out a series of orders. His bomber fleets were to concentrate on the enemy gun positions; at the same time, artillery was to begin pounding the Heights. Then Zhukov took one more step. Although originally his ta
nk armies were not to be committed until after the Seelow Heights had been seized, Zhukov now decided to throw them in immediately. General Katukov, Commander of the First Guards Tank Army, who happened to be in the bunker, got his orders direct. Zhukov left no doubt as to what he wanted: the Heights was to be captured, whatever the cost. Zhukov was going to bludgeon the enemy into submission and, if necessary, bulldoze his way to Berlin. Then, followed by his staff, the stocky marshal left the command post, his anger over the delay still evident. Zhukov had no intention of being slowed up by a few well-placed enemy guns—nor did he intend to be beaten into Berlin by Koniev. On his way out of the bunker, as officers stood aside respectfully to let him pass, he suddenly turned to Katukov and snapped, “Well! Get moving!”

  The Führer’s Order of the Day reached General Theodor Busse’s Ninth Army headquarters a little after midday. It was dated April 15 but apparently had been held until Hitler’s staff was certain that the main Russian offensive had begun. Commanders were ordered to disseminate the paper at once, down to company level, but on no account was it to be published in the public newspapers.

  “Soldiers of the German Eastern Front,” it read. “For the last time the deadly Jewish Bolshevist enemy is going over to the attack with his hordes. He is trying to smash Germany and exterminate our people. You soldiers in the East already know the fate which threatens … German women, girls and children. The old men and children will be murdered; women and girls will be reduced to army camp whores. The remainder will go to Siberia.

  “We have expected this attack, and since January everything has been done to build up a strong front. The enemy is confronted by a tremendous amount of artillery. Losses in our infantry have been filled in with countless new units. Alarm units, newly organized units and the Volkssturm are reinforcing our front. This time the Bolshevist will experience the old fate of Asia: he must and shall fall before the capital city of the German Reich.

  “Whoever does not do his duty at this moment is a traitor to our people. Any regiment or division which leaves its position acts so disgracefully that it must be ashamed before the women and children who are withstanding the bomb terror in our cities. Take heed especially of the few traitorous officers and soldiers who, in order to save their miserable lives, will fight against us for Russian pay, perhaps even wearing German uniforms. Anyone ordering you to retreat, unless you know him well, is to be taken prisoner at once and if necessary killed on the spot, no matter what his rank may be. If every soldier at the Eastern Front does his duty in the coming days and weeks, the last onrush of Asia will be broken, exactly as in the end the penetration of our enemy in the West will fail in spite of everything.

  “Berlin will remain German, Vienna* will be German once more and Europe will never be Russian.

  “Swear a solemn oath to defend, not the empty concept of a Fatherland but your homes, your wives, your children and thus, our future.

  “In these hours the whole German people look to you, my warriors in the East, and only hope that thanks to your constancy, your fanaticism, your weapons, and your leadership the Bolshevist onrush will be smothered in its own blood. At the moment when fate has removed the greatest war criminal* of all time from the earth, the turning point of this war will be decided.”

  Busse did not need an Order of the Day to tell him that the Russians had to be stopped. Months ago he had told Hitler that if the Russians broke through the Oder line Berlin and the remainder of Germany would fall. But he was angry to read the talk of a strong front; of an enemy confronted by “a tremendous amount of artillery” and “countless new units.” Bold words would not stop the Russians. Hitler’s Order of the Day was, for the most part, fiction. On one point, however, it was crystal clear: Hitler intended German soldiers to fight to the death—against both West and East.

  Busse had harbored a secret hope, so guarded that he had never voiced it aloud to anyone except Heinrici and certain of his closest commanders. He had wanted to stand fast on the Oder long enough for the Americans to arrive. As he put it to Heinrici, “If we can hold until the Americans get here we will have fulfilled our mission before our people, our country and history.” Heinrici had responded tartly. “Don’t you know about Eclipse?” he asked. Busse had never heard of it. Heinrici told him of the captured plan showing the Allied lines of demarcation and projected zones of occupation. “I doubt,” said Heinrici, “that the Americans will even cross the Elbe.” Despite all, Busse had continued for a time to cling to the idea. Now he finally abandoned it. Even if Elsenhower’s forces were to cross the Elbe and drive for Berlin, it was probably too late. Among other things, Hitler was obviously prepared to contest bitterly every mile of an American advance; he was making no distinction between the democracies and the Communists. Germany’s position was hopeless; so, Busse believed, was the Ninth Army’s, but as long as Hitler continued the war and refused to capitulate Busse could only try to hold the Russians, as he was doing, up to the very last moment.

  The Ninth had taken the full brunt of the Russian attacks; it could not take much more. Yet Busse’s forces were still holding nearly everywhere. At Frankfurt, they had actually thrown the Russians back. The guns and troops on the Seelow Heights, though mercilessly bombed and shelled, had doggedly persisted, and had pinned the enemy down. But although Busse’s men were stopping the Russians nearly everywhere, it was at terrible cost. In some areas officers reported that they were outnumbered at least ten to one. “They come at us in hordes, in wave after wave, without regard to loss of life,” one division commander had telephoned. “We fire our machine guns, often at point-blank range, until they turn red hot. My men are fighting until they run out of ammunition. Then they are simply wiped out or completely overrun. How long this can continue I don’t know.” Nearly every message was alike. There were frantic calls for reinforcements: guns, tanks and, above all, ammunition and gasoline were needed. One item was irreplaceable: troops. Busse’s few reserves were either already committed or were moving up. Most of them were being hurriedly thrown into battle in the crucial Seelow region.

  Holding this central area of the Ninth Army was the 56th Panzer Corps. It bore a famous name, but that was about all. The 56th had been shattered and reconstituted many times. Now, once more, it was undergoing a rebuilding process. About all that remained of the original corps was a group of key staff members. But despite all, the corps had one definite asset—a highly experienced, much decorated commander, Lieutenant General Karl Weidling, a rough-spoken officer known to his friends as “Smasher Karl.”

  Busse had placed the miscellaneous units in the vital Seelow region under Weidling’s command. At the moment Weidling had three divisions: Goering’s skittish and unreliable 9th Parachute, the badly mauled 20th Panzer Grenadiers and the understrength Müncheberg Division. Supported by a corps on either side—the 101st on the left, the 11th SS on the right—Weidling’s 56th Corps was opposing the Russians’ main thrust on Berlin. Although Weidling had arrived only a few days before and was fighting in unfamiliar terrain with weak and often inexperienced forces, the 60-year-old veteran had so far repulsed all attacks.

  But he badly needed the remainder of his units and as yet, on this April 16 morning, they had not arrived. Weidling’s problems were only beginning. Before the week was out he would be facing crises far greater than any he had ever encountered on a battlefield. Smasher Karl was shortly destined to be condemned to death both by Busse and Hitler—and then, in a strange quirk of fate, in Germany’s last hours he would become the defender of Berlin.

  On the western front General Walther Wenck, commander of the Twelfth Army, was both pleased and puzzled. The success of his young and inexperienced units in throwing back the enemy and wiping out their bridgehead south of magdeburg was a greater achievement than Wenck had dared hope for. The bridgehead at Barby, however, was a different story. Wenck’s men had tried everything they could think of to destroy the Barby bridges, from floating mines down the river to using frogmen. Some of the la
st remaining Luftwaffe planes in the area had also made a bombing attack; that, too, had failed. The bridgehead was well established by now and American troops and armor had been pouring across the river for more than forty-eight hours. What puzzled Wenck was that, although the Americans were strengthening and consolidating their hold on the Elbe’s eastern bank, they were making no effort whatever to drive toward Berlin. Wenck could not understand it.

  The furious assault by the Americans between April 12 and 15 had given Wenck every reason to believe he would be forced to fight a bloody defensive battle in the west. Yet now the Americans gave every appearance of having come to a halt. “Frankly, I’m astonished,” Wenck told Colonel Reichhelm, his Chief of Staff. “maybe they’ve outrun their supplies and need to reorganize.” Whatever the reason, Wenck was glad of the respite. His forces were widely scattered and in many places were still being organized. He needed all the time he could get to whip his army into shape and to reinforce his troops with whatever armor he could lay his hands on. Some tanks and self-propelled guns had arrived, but Wenck had little hope of getting more. Nor did he have any illusions that he would receive the full complement of divisions he had been promised. Wenck suspected that there was simply nothing left to send him. One thing was certain: the Twelfth Army, spread thinly along the Elbe before Berlin, could not hold any sort of onslaught for long. “If the Americans launch a major attack they’ll crack our positions with ease,” he told Reichhelm. “After that, what’s to stop them? There’s nothing between here and Berlin.”

  The news was like a blow to Carl Wiberg. He stared incredulously at his boss, Hennings Jessen-Schmidt, the head of the OSS Berlin unit. “Are you sure?” Wiberg asked. “Are you quite sure?”