April20091945ThisMonthInHistory

April 16, 1945:

By April of 1945, whatever Hitler may have hoped for, the European War's end game
was at hand. The Red Army's clearing operations in Silesia and Pomerania had crushed
any German resistance capable of threatening a Soviet drive on Berlin, and the stage
was set for the long awaited direct assault on the German capital. The overwhelming
bulk of the German Wermacht concentrated along the Oder River, Neisse River and the
Czech border. Germany left far weaker armies in the west to face the allies. All told,
some 1.6 million German soldiers and 850 tanks in Army Group Vistula and Army Group
Center prepared to defend Berlin and Saxony.

On April 1, 1945, Stalin pitted Zhukov and Konev against each other in an egotistical
race to take Berlin. Stavka scheduled the attack to begin on April 16, 1945 and
planned for the campaign to reach completion within approximately two weeks. Stalin
placed additional pressure on his senior military leadership when he accelerated the
planned timetable considerably in light of allied success in the west. Nevertheless, the
focus was always on Berlin. Only after seizing Berlin would the Red Army deal with the
bulk of Army Group Center, in Czechoslovakia. Throughout April's first two weeks both
Konev and Zhukov frantically prepared their respective assaults. Meanwhile, just to the
north of Zhukov's armies, Rokossovsky, still clearing fanatical German defensive efforts
in Prussia, received orders to wheel his 2nd Belorussian Front to the west in order to
cover Zhukov's northern flank.

Terrain worked for and against the Red Army. On one hand, the province of
Brandenburg, where Berlin was located, featured mostly flat sandy easily traversable
terrain. Nonetheless, unlike earlier offensives, the Russian plans faced considerable
restrictions imposed by Berlin's looming presence as a huge urban center spreading
across the 35 miles separating Berlin's heart from the front. Consequently, The Red
Army gathered enormous resources to force crossings over the Oder and Neisse Rivers
and envelope Berlin. Berlin was a well-built, modern city, with strong buildings, an
underground subway network, and in spite of relentless Allied bombing, some 75% of
the city remained intact early in April 1945. The quarter of the city destroyed by allied
bombing only made things harder for the Red Army; the rubble and shattered buildings
provided excellent cover for Berlin's defenders.

Remarkably, Hitler had prepared only a relatively weak defensive force to assist his last
stand. To defend Berlin's direct approaches Army Group Vistula fielded 320,000 men in
the Third Panzer Army and Ninth Army. These armies featured few first class divisions.
Only the 18th Panzer Division, SS Nordland Division, and elements from the Ninth
Parachute Division, 20th Panzer Grenadier Division and SS Wallonien Division, along with
some Heavy Tank Battalions stood out for their combat abilities. In total, the Germans
could only field 754 tanks and 750 guns to defend Berlin. Meanwhile, 380,000 German
men and hundreds of tanks and assault guns sat in the Courland pocket or vainly
awaited an Allied invasion of Norway.

Regardless, of the poor quality of the German army facing the Russians, the Red Army
knew the sacrifice taking a city entailed and massed tens of thousands of artillery
pieces to support the offensive. Huge amounts of bridging equipment and enormous
ammunition dumps were set up to fuel the twin assaults on the city. Konev had orders
to drive his 1st Ukrainian Front south of the city while Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front
would advance directly on Berlin. All told, 2.5 million men and 6,250 tanks prepared to
take the German capital. On April 20th Rokossovksy would join the attack to the north
of Zhukov. Rokossovsky faced the daunting task of crossing the lower Oder at its split
near the Baltic, with flooded marshland in between the river's two branches. It was
here where German defensive efforts received a boost from the presence of the
brilliant General Manteuffel; albeit commanding the pitiful 105,000 man strong remnants
from the shattered Third Panzer Army.

Zhukov's assignment was even more difficult than Rokossovsky's as Zhukov needed to
conquer the Seelow Heights overlooking the Soviet bridgehead over the Oder River, no
easy task as the Germans had prepared substantial defensive positions reaching nearly
sixty miles in depth if one includes Berlin and its suburbs. To assist in breaching the
German defenses Zhukov prepared a short but intense artillery barrage, in order to
maintain surprise, but proving the very definition of "shock and awe" as Zhukov ordered
up 7,147,000 artillery rounds so the nearly 10,000 massed guns could fire without
pause through the initial assault's duration. The Germans facing Zhukov countered
however, at the behest of the Ninth Army's commander Heinrici - one of Germany's
better defensive specialists - by withrdrawing the bulk of the Ninth Army to its second
line of defenses thereby ostensibly avoiding the brunt of the Soviet onslaught.

Konev took a different tack than did Zhukov. Konev chose to cover his assault
engineers with a rolling artillery barrage that would rank as one of the most massive
displays of concentrated bombardment in the war. Konev's barrage was scheduled to
last 145 minutes, with liberal use of smoke, and fired from tens of thousands of
rockets, mortars, and artillery pieces massed at nearly 300 per kilometer of front - a
stupendous display of firepower. With the Red Army's preparations completed, on the
morning of April 16th one of the bloodiest battles in history began.

by Steven Douglas Mercatante

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