Battle of Berlin
At 8:30 in the morning on the 22nd of April 1945, ninety-six shells fell on the centre of Berlin in the space of a few minutes. A Soviet war correspondent watching the batteries open fire recorded what he heard the battery commander say when asked for his targets: "Centre of Berlin, Spree bridges, and the northern and Stettin railway stations." Then came the command: "Open fire on the capital of Fascist Germany." It was the beginning of the end of the war in Europe.
The Battle of Berlin, which the Soviet Union designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation, was one of the last major offensives of the entire European theatre of World War II. Two and a half million Soviet soldiers, along with thousands of tanks and aircraft, converged on a city whose defenders were a patchwork of depleted regular troops, elderly men who had fought in a previous war, and boys pressed into service by a government that had already lost. The questions worth asking are not simply who won, but how the city was taken, what it cost, and what happened to those who survived.
On the 12th of January 1945, the Red Army launched the Vistula-Oder Offensive across the Narew River and from Warsaw, a three-day operation on a broad front that incorporated four army Fronts. By the fourth day the advance had broken open, carrying Soviet forces westward at up to 30 to 40 km per day. They swept through East Prussia, Danzig, and Poznan, and drew up along the Oder River, 60 km east of Berlin.
The months before the final assault were shaped by German setbacks on every flank. Budapest fell to the Soviets on the 13th of February after three German relief attempts failed. Operation Spring Awakening, Hitler's bid to retake the Drau-Danube triangle and secure the oil region of Nagykanizsa, collapsed by the 16th of March; a Soviet counter-attack recaptured in 24 hours everything the Germans had spent ten days taking. On the 30th of March the Soviets entered Austria, and captured Vienna on the 13th of April.
On the 12th of April 1945, news reached the Fuhrerbunker that American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died. This briefly raised hopes among those around Hitler that the Allied coalition might fracture and Berlin be saved at the last moment. No such falling-out came. General Eisenhower, commanding the Western Allied Expeditionary Force, had already concluded that Berlin would fall in the post-war Soviet sphere and saw no reason to take casualties attacking a city he would hand over anyway. The main Western Allied contribution to the battle became the bombing campaign; for 36 successive nights, scores of RAF Mosquitos struck the German capital, with the last raid landing on the night of the 20th-the 21st of April 1945, just before Soviet forces reached the city.
General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula on the 20th of March, replacing Heinrich Himmler. Heinrici was considered one of the finest defensive tacticians in the German army. He correctly assessed that the main Soviet thrust would come along the Oder River and follow the main east-west Autobahn.
Rather than defending the river bank directly, Heinrici ordered engineers to fortify the Seelow Heights, a plateau some 17 km west of the Oder and 90 km east of Berlin. German engineers released water from an upstream reservoir to flood and saturate the Oder's flood plain, turning it into a swamp. On the plateau above, they constructed three belts of defensive emplacements stretching back toward Berlin, including anti-tank ditches, gun emplacements, and an extensive network of trenches and bunkers. The lines closer to Berlin were called the Wotan position.
Facing this prepared defence was an overwhelming Soviet force: 2.5 million men, including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army; 6,250 tanks; 7,500 aircraft; 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars; and 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rocket launchers, nicknamed "Stalin's Organ." The three Soviet fronts were commanded by Marshals Georgy Zhukov, Ivan Konev, and Konstantin Rokossovsky.
The Battle of the Seelow Heights, fought from the 16th through the 19th of April, was one of the last pitched battles of World War II. Almost one million Red Army soldiers and more than 20,000 tanks and artillery pieces were committed to breaking through what Soviet planners called the "Gates to Berlin," defended by roughly 100,000 German soldiers and 1,200 tanks and guns.
Zhukov's forces broke through, but at heavy cost. About 30,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in the fighting; approximately 12,000 German personnel died. By the 19th of April, the final line of the Seelow Heights had been pierced and no coherent German formation stood between the 1st Belorussian Front and Berlin. Between the 1st of April and the 19th of April, the Soviet forces lost over 2,807 tanks, including at least 727 at the Seelow Heights alone.
As the Soviet fronts pushed through the gap, the German 9th Army was enveloped in a large pocket west of Frankfurt. Attempts to break out west led to the Battle of Halbe, where the casualties on both sides were severe. Nearly 30,000 Germans were eventually buried in the cemetery at Halbe. About 20,000 Red Army soldiers also died trying to stop the breakout, most buried near the Baruth-Zossen road. Around 25,000 German soldiers of the 9th Army, along with several thousand civilians, ultimately succeeded in reaching the lines of the 12th Army. The exact civilian death toll from the pocket is unknown, but estimates reach as high as 10,000.
On the 20th of April 1945, Hitler's 56th birthday, Soviet artillery of the 1st Belorussian Front began shelling Berlin. The barrage would not stop until the city surrendered. The weight of ordnance delivered by Soviet artillery over the course of the battle exceeded the total tonnage dropped by Western Allied bombers across the entire campaign against the city.
On the 22nd of April, at his afternoon situation conference, Hitler fell into what witnesses described as a tearful rage when he grasped that the plans formed the previous day could not be executed. He declared the war lost, blamed his generals, and announced he would remain in Berlin until the end. General Alfred Jodl then suggested that General Walther Wenck's 12th Army, currently facing the Americans, might be redirected toward Berlin; Jodl reasoned that the Americans, already at the Elbe, were unlikely to push further east. Hitler immediately ordered Wenck to disengage and move north-east.
By the 24th of April, elements of the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front had completed the encirclement of the city. The following day, Soviet units penetrated the S-Bahn defensive ring. At a point south of Schwielow Lake, youth divisions Clausewitz, Scharnhorst, and Theodor Korner, drawn from officer training schools and considered among the best remaining German reserves, had advanced roughly 24 km but were halted still 32 km from Berlin. General Wenck reported that no attack on Berlin was possible. Within the city, General Helmuth Weidling assumed command of the Berlin Defence Area on the 23rd of April with roughly 45,000 soldiers in several severely depleted formations, supplemented by the Berlin Police, boys of the Hitler Youth, and some 40,000 elderly Volkssturm men, many of them veterans of World War I.
SS-Brigadefuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke commanded the central government district, which included the Reich Chancellery and the Fuhrerbunker, with over 2,000 men. General Weidling divided the city's defences into eight sectors labelled A through H, each commanded by a colonel or general, though most had no combat experience. The fighting moved inward from the edges, with the heaviest combat concentrated around the Reichstag, the Moltke bridge, Alexanderplatz, and the Havel bridges at Spandau.
On the 26th of April, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought into the southern suburbs and attacked Tempelhof Airport, where they encountered stiff resistance from the Muncheberg Division. By the 27th of April, two understrength divisions in the south-east faced five Soviet armies and were forced back toward the centre, regrouping around Hermannplatz. The foreign SS volunteers who arrived to reinforce the city, including a small contingent of French SS troops under SS-Brigadefuhrer Gustav Krukenberg, fought with particular intensity. Krukenberg was appointed commander of Defence Sector C, the sector under the heaviest pressure.
In the early hours of the 29th of April, the Soviet 3rd Shock Army crossed the Moltke Bridge and fanned out into the surrounding streets. At 4 am, in the Fuhrerbunker, Hitler signed his last will and testament and married Eva Braun. The Reichstag itself had not been in use since it burned in February 1933 and had stood in ruins for over a decade. Soviet forces attacked it on the 30th of April, but fire from 12.8 cm FlaK 40 guns mounted on the roof of the Zoo flak tower, 2 km away, delayed entry until the evening. Room-to-room fighting continued; by the 2nd of May, the Red Army controlled the building entirely. The famous photograph of soldiers planting the flag on the roof was a re-enactment taken the day after the building was taken.
During the early hours of the 30th of April, General Weidling told Hitler in person that the defenders would likely exhaust their ammunition before the day was out. Hitler granted permission for a breakout attempt. That afternoon, Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide; their bodies were cremated near the bunker. In accordance with Hitler's last will, Admiral Karl Donitz became President of the Reich and Joseph Goebbels became Chancellor.
In the early hours of the 1st of May, General Hans Krebs contacted Soviet General Vasily Chuikov to inform him of Hitler's death and signal a willingness to negotiate a citywide surrender. The talks failed; the Soviets insisted on unconditional surrender and Krebs said he lacked the authority to agree. That afternoon, Goebbels and his wife killed their children and then themselves. With Goebbels gone, the final impediment to Weidling's acceptance of unconditional surrender was removed, though Weidling delayed until morning to allow a planned breakout under cover of darkness.
On the night of the 1st-the 2nd of May, the Berlin garrison attempted to break out through three corridors. Only those who went west through the Tiergarten and crossed the Charlottenbrucke into Spandau managed to breach Soviet lines. Most were killed or captured by the Red Army's outer encirclement forces west of the city. At 6 am on the 2nd of May, General Weidling surrendered with his staff. He was taken to see General Chuikov at 08:23 and ordered the city's defenders to lay down their arms. The 350-strong garrison of the Zoo flak tower filed out of the building. Fighting in some isolated pockets, where SS troops refused to surrender, was resolved when the Soviets reduced those buildings to rubble.
Fighting continued beyond Berlin's perimeter until the 8th of May (the 9th of May in the Soviet Union), as German units pushed westward to surrender to the Western Allies rather than to Soviet forces. Von Saucken's 2nd Army, which had been fighting north-east of Berlin in the Vistula Delta, surrendered to the Soviets on the 9th of May.
Declassified archival data, compiled by Grigoriy Krivosheev, records 81,116 Soviet dead for the entire operation, including the Seelow Heights and Halbe. Another 280,251 were reported wounded or sick. The operation cost the Soviets about 1,997 tanks and self-propelled guns. Historian John Erickson places the total Soviet casualties for the three weeks from the 16th of April to the 8th of May at 304,877 men killed, wounded, and missing. The Soviets reported capturing nearly 480,000 German soldiers; German research estimated German dead at between 92,000 and 100,000. Around 125,000 civilians are estimated to have died during the entire operation. Erickson's summary is stark: the battle "cost half a million beings their lives, their well-being or their sanity."
Within the city the destruction was enormous. Hitler's Nero Decree had ordered the systematic wrecking of urban infrastructure; 128 of 226 bridges had been blown up, 87 pumps rendered inoperative, and a quarter of the subway stations flooded when the SS destroyed the protective devices on the Landwehr Canal. Workers acting on their own initiative successfully prevented the destruction of the Klingenberg power station, the Johannisthal waterworks, and several other facilities. One month after the surrender, the average Berliner was receiving only 64 percent of a daily ration of 1,240 calories. Over a million people across the city were without homes.
Among the Soviets who took part, 402 Red Army personnel were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for valor in Berlin's suburbs and the city itself. Marshals Zhukov and Konev received their third and second such awards respectively. Combat medic Guards Senior Sergeant Lyudmila S. Kravets, serving in the 1st Rifle Battalion, 63rd Guards Rifle Regiment, 23rd Guards Rifle Division, became the battle's only female recipient of the award. Some 1.1 million Soviet personnel who took part in the capture of Berlin between the 22nd of April and the 2nd of May 1945 received the Medal "For the Capture of Berlin." Poland marks its official Flag Day each year on the 2nd of May, the last day of the battle, in commemoration of the day the Polish Army raised its flag on the Berlin Victory Column.
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Common questions
When did the Battle of Berlin start and end?
The Soviet offensive toward Berlin resumed on the 16th of April 1945 with the Battle of the Seelow Heights. The city's garrison formally surrendered on the 2nd of May 1945, though fighting continued in the surrounding area until the end of the war in Europe on the 8th of May 1945.
How many Soviet soldiers fought in the Battle of Berlin?
The three Soviet fronts committed 2.5 million men to the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation, including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army. They were supported by 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, and 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars.
How many people died in the Battle of Berlin?
Declassified Soviet archival data records 81,116 Soviet dead for the operation, with another 280,251 wounded or sick. German military dead are estimated at between 92,000 and 100,000. Around 125,000 civilians are estimated to have died during the entire operation. Historian John Erickson concluded the battle cost half a million people their lives, well-being, or sanity.
When did Hitler die during the Battle of Berlin?
Adolf Hitler committed suicide on the 30th of April 1945. His body and that of Eva Braun, whom he had married in the Fuhrerbunker in the early hours of that morning, were cremated near the bunker. In accordance with his last will and testament, Admiral Karl Donitz became President of the Reich.
What was the Battle of the Seelow Heights in the Berlin campaign?
The Battle of the Seelow Heights, fought from the 16th to the 19th of April 1945, was the last major defensive line outside Berlin and one of the last pitched battles of World War II. Almost one million Red Army soldiers and more than 20,000 tanks and artillery pieces attacked roughly 100,000 German defenders; about 30,000 Soviet and 12,000 German personnel were killed before the line broke.
Who was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for the Battle of Berlin?
A total of 402 Red Army personnel received the title Hero of the Soviet Union for valor in Berlin's suburbs and the city itself. Marshals Zhukov and Konev received their third and second such awards respectively. Combat medic Guards Senior Sergeant Lyudmila S. Kravets, of the 63rd Guards Rifle Regiment, was the battle's only female recipient of the honor.
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1 references cited across the entry
- 1bookBerlin: Endgame 1945Prit Buttar — Bloomsbury USA — 2026-05-05