After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (9 page)

In October 1944 Stalin and Churchill met up again in Moscow and drew up the so-called percentages agreement (a jotted note drafted by Churchill and approved by Stalin) roughly delineating areas of influence in Europe. Even if the two men did not fully trust each other, there was enough mutual respect for them to work through issues informally. And when Stalin allowed Britain greater influence in determining the future of Greece, he kept his promise even when Churchill sent in troops to crush the communist partisans’ attempt to form a government there.

But on the issue of Berlin, Stalin became uneasy. Eisenhower had given him an assurance that the Americans would not take the city. Stalin trusted Roosevelt to honour this agreement, but the American president was ill. The Soviet leader speculated that Churchill might pressurise Eisenhower to change his mind. He summoned his generals Zhukov and Konev on 1 April 1945. He wanted a firm assurance from them that Berlin would be taken rapidly. An offensive was planned for 16 April and Stalin reverted to an old, bad habit of toying with his commanders – saying that Berlin could be captured either by Zhukov or Konev: whoever got there first would take it. Unfortunately, both forces arrived in the city’s suburbs at the same time. As late as 28 April, Konev’s men were still trying to force their way through to the Reichstag ahead of Zhukov. This confusion could have been avoided if Stalin had delineated a clear battle strategy.

Stalin was nervous. He did not want the prize of Berlin snatched from his grasp by the Western Allies. And the death of President Roosevelt on 12 April 1945 had left him shaken. US ambassador Averell Harriman recalled that Stalin was genuinely saddened and moved by Roosevelt’s death. Stalin’s telegram to Churchill conveyed an unusual degree of emotion:

‘In President Franklin Roosevelt the Soviet people saw a distinguished statesman and an unswerving champion of close co-operation between our three countries,’ Stalin wrote on 15 April. ‘The friendly attitude of President Roosevelt will always be remembered and highly valued by our nation. As far as I am personally concerned, I feel exceptionally deeply the burden of the loss of this great man, who was our mutual friend.’

The new American president, Harry Truman, was not known to the Soviet leader – and he could not easily anticipate what stance he might take. And the role of an arbiter of power within Europe was something neither Stalin nor his recently forged Bolshevik state had any experience of. Although his position appeared strong, his people were exhausted by the war and his country’s economy – for all its wartime production – needed to be completely rebuilt. The United States had a new president and Britain and America remained his ideological opponents. And yet, as the war drew to its close, Stalin felt that some form of accommodation with both countries might be possible, if Russia’s security was not in any way compromised.

Anatoly Smriga, on the staff of Lieutenant General Chuikov’s Soviet 8th Guards Army, recalled:

At the time of Berlin’s surrender, in political meetings, we were warned: ‘The war has not only been caused by Hitler and the Germans, but by the imperialist system.’ And of course the representatives of this system included our allies – Britain, America and France. It was not said directly, but an idea was being planted: yesterday’s allies might become tomorrow’s enemies – be vigilant. But we were also aware that Britain and America were sending us arms and equipment, and of the importance of lend-lease. This seemed a guarantor that in the immediate future at least these countries would remain our friends – for they would not keep sending us weapons if they intended to fight us.

The Soviet leader remained pragmatic. The one issue he would not compromise on was Poland: he believed it vital to install and maintain a regime there friendly to the Soviet government. Britain and America wanted a Polish government to be formed after free and fair elections. Stalin did not. He already had a communist administration in place at Lublin to run the country and did not want to jeopardise it. The Soviet leader now demonstrated renewed solidarity with the Lublin government, invoking powerful ritual to bind both Poles and Russians to his cause.

Stalin knew Polish soldiers representing the rival London government had fought with great courage in Italy. Polish troops had stormed the German stronghold at Monte Cassino and planted their flag atop the summit of the ruined monastery – an event which was photographed and became famous throughout the world. The Soviet leader wished to create a rival photo opportunity, showing Poles and Russians as comrades-in-arms in the capital of the Third Reich. In the last days of the battle for Berlin, Stalin decided that Polish soldiers representing his client regime at Lublin would share battle honours with the Red Army.

Early on 30 April, after consultation with the Lublin government, Stalin phoned Marshal Zhukov and asked that units from the 1st Polish Army – which had taken a supporting role in the attack on the German capital – be brought urgently to the centre of Berlin. Regiments and artillery units from the 1st (Warsaw) Infantry Division were hurriedly mobilised. The 2nd Infantry Regiment was transported to the front line, arriving at 7.00 a.m. that morning, where it stormed the Berlin Technical College and advanced through the Zoological Gardens. The 3rd Infantry Regiment went into action around the Tiergarten railway station on the same day. The division’s combat journal referred to it being involved in heavy street fighting, capturing the station building and taking over 450 German soldiers prisoner. It then pushed westwards across Tiergarten Park on May Day, and after further fighting reached the Brandenburg Gate at 6.55 a.m. on 2 May, where it joined forces with Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army. The Polish red and white flag was raised over Berlin’s Victory Monument and jointly with Red Army banners on the Brandenburg Gate. Russian photographers and film crews recorded these events.

Polish artilleryman Antonin Jablonski spoke of the emotional impact of seeing his national flag raised over Berlin. Jablonski had been recruited to the 1st Polish Army in 1944. ‘We fought hard to free our native land from the Germans,’ he said. ‘Our countrymen had greeted us joyfully as we advanced westwards.’ The 1st Polish Army was fighting with Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front – and many Poles were in fact less than enthusiastic as Russian troops reoccupied their country. But Jablonski spoke with unmistakable pride about his regiment’s arrival in the German capital: ‘At Berlin, my five-man unit climbed to the top of the 70 metre high Victory Column, erected to commemorate German success in the Franco-Prussian War. We used a wooden pole we had cut from a nearby forest and draped our flag around it. Then we unfurled it over the city. It was an unforgettable moment.’

These Polish troops well knew the cruelties inflicted by the Germans upon their country. As they were now fighting with the Russians, they had to turn a blind eye to the suffering meted out by Stalin in 1939–40. For some – flushed with victory – the Germans became convenient scapegoats for all that they had endured. Poles looted, raped and killed German civilians with as much vehemence as the Russians. Shortly before the battle for Berlin, the 1st Polish Army was forced to draw up a disciplinary ordinance to curb the wilder excesses of its soldiers – although attempts to do so began in inflammatory fashion:

‘The Germans started this war – and have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Poland. They tried to systematically exterminate our nation. The German Army and the Nazi Party are not the only culprits – it is clear that the whole German people supported this policy.’

However, its tone then changed: ‘The Polish soldier is nonetheless obliged to maintain his discipline, follow the orders of his High Command and not mete out punishment to German civilians. We only bring shame upon us by attacking the weak and the unprotected. Such lawlessness undermines our army and the moral cause for which we fight. Any transgressions will be dealt with severely by the military courts.’

The Red Army – advancing alongside these Polish forces – was struggling with much the same issue. In a private conversation with Yugoslav partisan Milovan Djilas, Stalin had shown scant concern for the suffering of Germany’s civilians:

‘You have, of course, read Dostoevsky,’ he began.

Do you see what a complicated thing is a man’s soul, a man’s psyche? Well then, imagine a man who has fought from Stalingrad to Belgrade, over thousands of kilometres of his own devastated land, across the dead bodies of his comrades and dearest ones. How can such a man react normally? And what is so awful in his having fun with a woman after such horrors? You have imagined the Red Army to be ideal. And it is not ideal – and never can be. The important thing is it is fighting the Germans – and it is fighting them well. The rest doesn’t matter.

But Stalin also had a change of heart. On 20 April 1945 he sent out a decree to Red Army officers and soldiers demanding that their behaviour towards German civilians be improved. Soviet lieutenant Nikolai Inozemtsev saw a flurry of orders prohibiting arson, robbery and harm to the native population. But he also recognised the power of war correspondent Ilya Ehrenburg’s ‘revenge’ articles, which for years had permeated the consciousness of ordinary Russian soldiers. Now
Pravda
was accusing him of presenting an oversimplified view of the war. But Russian troops loved the man – ‘Our Ilya’, they called him – and were intoxicated by his writing. ‘Kill the German and jump on his woman!’ Ehrenburg had enjoined. Lieutenant Inozemtsev observed in his diary: ‘It will require much effort from our commanders and officers to erase the effect of this.’

On 2 May Lieutenant General Chuikov finally received the surrender that had eluded him at Stalingrad. General Helmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin garrison, now arrived at 8th Guards Army HQ and agreed on the unconditional surrender of all troops in the capital. It was to come into effect at noon. Many German soldiers had given up already. There was a last hiatus. At 1.00 p.m. Dönitz came on the radio, countermanding Weidling’s order and instructing the Wehrmacht to continue fighting in Berlin. Some isolated strongholds continued to resist – but by the evening all were in Russian hands.

For ordinary Russian civilians, now far away from the brutality of front-line fighting, there was an extraordinary sense of relief and joy as the war drew to a close. Nina Koshova wrote from Moscow to a friend on 1 May 1945:

I send my best wishes for the holiday! For the first time in years everyone in Moscow is truly happy. Joy is everywhere – we know the downfall of the German fascists is so close. Our troops have met up with those of our Allies. And most important of all – our army is in the centre of Berlin! The most longed-for dream has come to pass – our army has taken Berlin. Now we can truly celebrate!

Yesterday all black-out restrictions were lifted in Moscow. Now the city is bathed in light. Already it is the second evening I do not have to lower the black net curtains. The room seems different – bright and cosy.

And there has been more good news today. There has been a salute [gun salvo] for the Ukrainian Front for capturing Ostrava [in Czechoslovakia]. And another one, for Rokossovsky, who has taken a whole procession of German towns. It is only 11.00pm. It is possible that at midnight we may hear another – that is the way things are going.

Now our people can draw a deep breath. War may soon become a thing of the past.

Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s troops – praised in Koshova’s letter – were pushing forward hard. Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front had launched its offensive later than Konev and Zhukov but on 26 April 1945 it smashed flimsy enemy defences at Stettin on the Oder and raced across northern Germany. On 29 April the German front opposing it disintegrated completely. General Hasso von Manteuffel’s 3rd Panzer Army was now fleeing towards the Anglo-American forces, desperate to surrender to them rather than the Russians.

Rokossovsky’s troops had committed terrible atrocities against the civilian population when they entered Germany in January 1945. Soviet private Efraim Genkin witnessed the destruction of the town of Gumbinnen: ‘It answers for the torment of thousands of our Russian brethren, turned into ashes by the Germans in 1941,’ he said. Lieutenant Yuri Uspensky added: ‘This is revenge for all they have done to us.’ Genkin and Uspensky initially felt that harsh treatment of German civilians was justified. Both men were then increasingly dismayed by the robbery and rape that came in their army’s wake. ‘This picture provokes repulsion and horror in me,’ Genkin confessed.

Rokossovsky demanded that ‘exemplary order and iron discipline be imposed an all units’, stressing that officers of all ranks were expected ‘to eradicate all activities shameful to the Red Army with the force of a red-hot iron’. A measure of order had indeed been restored, but killing, looting and rape were still occurring with worrying regularity. Events would now put his army’s discipline to the test.

At Greifswald, townspeople and the local commander took matters into their own hands. Colonel Rudolf Hagen gathered emissaries and negotiated directly with the approaching Russians. University rector Karl Engel was one of the intermediaries. His diary entry for 30 April 1945 recorded a capitulation offer to the Red Army. ‘We are making preparations to meet with the Russian divisional commander General Bortschev to discuss the surrender of Greifswald,’ Engel noted. Hagen, Engel and an interpreter met with Bortschev at 3.00 a.m. The meeting was successful. At 11.00 a.m. the first Russian tanks entered the town and an orderly surrender was enacted. On 1 May Engel’s diary revealed that isolated cases of robbery, theft and rape were occurring. Again, a meeting with the Russian commander was arranged and police constables were put in place, with the agreement of both sides, to preserve public order. Greifswald had been spared the full horror of war.

At Demmin matters were rather different. On 30 April a Red Army advance column of troops from the Soviet 65th Army and 1st Guards Tank Corps approached the town at noon. A white flag was hoisted on the church tower and three Soviet negotiators approached the anti-tank ditch on its outskirts, promising to spare the civilian population from looting and robbery if Demmin surrendered without a fight.