Topic summary
Battle of Berlin
Soviet Union
Poland
Germany- 155,900–200,000 Polish People's Army
- 41,600 artillery pieces
- 7,500 aircraft
- 6,250 tanks and SPGs
In the Berlin Defence Area:
- ~1,500,000 troops
- 9,303 artillery pieces
- 2,224 aircraft
- 1,519 AFVs
In the Berlin Defence Area:
- ~45,000 troops plus Berlin Police and Hitler Youth
- 40,000 Volkssturm
- 81,116 dead or missing
- 280,251 sick or wounded
- 92,000–100,000 dead (incomplete archival data)
- 220,000+ wounded
- 480,000 captured
The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II.
After the Vistula–Oder Offensive of January–February 1945, the Red Army had temporarily halted on a line 60 km (37 mi) east of Berlin. On 9 March, Germany established its defence plan for the city with Operation Clausewitz. The first defensive preparations at the outskirts of Berlin were made on 20 March, under the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici.
When the Soviet offensive resumed on 16 April, two Soviet fronts (army groups) attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of Berlin. Before the main battle in Berlin commenced, the Red Army encircled the city after successful battles of the Seelow Heights and Halbe. On 20 April 1945, Hitler's birthday, the 1st Belorussian Front led by MarshalGeorgy Zhukov, advancing from the east and north, started shelling Berlin's city centre, while Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front broke through Army Group Centre and advanced towards the southern suburbs of Berlin. On 23 April General Helmuth Weidling assumed command of the forces within Berlin. The garrison consisted of several depleted and disorganised Army and Waffen-SS divisions, along with poorly trained Volkssturm and Hitler Youth members. Over the course of the next week, the Red Army gradually took the entire city.
On 30 April, Hitler killed himself. The city's garrison surrendered on 2 May but fighting continued to the northwest, west, and southwest of the city until the end of the war in Europe on 8 May (9 May in the Soviet Union) as some German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.