The Road to Berlin (112 page)

Molotov lashed out at once. In demanding that the talks in Switzerland be broken off at once, he went on to state brusquely that the Soviet government found it ‘inexplicable and incomprehensible’ that no place had been found for a Soviet military representative in these first exchanges, a view also pressed on the American ambassador. On 21 March Sir Archibald Clark Kerr informed the Soviet government that no negotiations as such had taken place, only to trigger off a furious Soviet reaction in a written note of 22 March which charged that negotiations had certainly taken place ‘behind the back of the Soviet Union’, the nation bearing the whole brunt of the war: here was no mere ‘misunderstanding’ and must be construed as ‘something worse’, an insinuation that this was nothing short of an attempt to conclude a separate peace with Nazi Germany, excluding the Soviet Union. The Prime Minister advised Eden that no reply need be forthcoming to this brutally insulting note, though a copy should go to the State Department in view of American insistence that no Soviet officers attend the first talks; meanwhile ‘let Molotov and his master wait’.

Molotov’s master, however, was not prepared to wait and his displeasure involved Molotov at once. In an abrupt withdrawal of co-operation Stalin removed Molotov from the Soviet delegation due to attend the San Francisco conference and substituted Gromyko, a decision which prompted the President in his message of 25 March to ask that Molotov be allowed to attend at least ‘for the vital opening sessions’. On the same day the President tried to stifle a growing storm with Stalin, but intimated that he could not call off the contacts designed to seek a German surrender in Italy on the grounds of Molotov’s objections, which were ‘for some reason completely beyond my comprehension’. This tone was reasonable and the reproof mild enough, but Stalin refused to give ground. He reported on 27 March that due to vital duties and the ‘imperative’ need for his services at the coming session of the Supreme Soviet, Molotov would not attend the San Francisco conference. Let the world think what it might.

The turbulence of these tripartite relations became even more agitated with the onset of a major Anglo–American argument, brought to sudden life when General Eisenhower addressed a telegram directly to Stalin on 28 March, a signal
which ruled out any direct Anglo–American advance on Berlin. The Supreme Commander intimated that after the destruction of German forces in the Ruhr encirclement, the main Allied thrust would be in the direction of Erfurt–Leipzig-Dresden, thus splitting the German defence in two once a junction with the Red Army had been effected; a supporting attack aimed at the Regensburg–Linz area would deal with the suspected ‘National Redoubt’ envisaged by Hitler as a final centre of resistance. General Eisenhower now waited on information about Soviet plans so that the operations of the armies advancing from west and east could be co-ordinated.

If this signal caused consternation in London, it brought Stalin substantial satisfaction. After pondering the telegram and its contents, he told General Deane that it met with his approval. Stalin asked about the starting point of the supporting attack and was told that it would also come from the Western Front rather than from Italy. To Ambassador Harriman’s query about the delay imposed on Soviet offensive operations until the end of March, Stalin responded by saying that things had improved remarkably, with early spring flooding and the roads already drying out. Though he must perforce consult with his staff, Stalin promised an early reply to General Eisenhower. That reply, duly sent on 1 April, lauded the Eisenhower plan as one entirely in conformity with the perceptions of the Soviet Command. Stalin agreed with the proposal to effect a junction in the Erfurt–Leipzig–Dresden area—Soviet forces would, therefore, launch their main attack in that direction. ‘Berlin has lost its former strategic importance’, for which reason the Soviet command would commit only secondary forces towards that objective. Subject to the dictates of changing circumstances, the Soviet command planned to launch its offensive in the second half of May.

Conceivably General Eisenhower intended through this confirmation of his plans to allay or smother Stalin’s suspicions aroused by the Anglo–American contacts with the German command, but the move misfired and may indeed have had the opposite effect. Even before replying to General Eisenhower, Stalin advised General Marshall in a message dated 30 March that the information passed to the Soviet command on 20 February concerning the movement of Sixth
Panzer
Army proved to be ‘at variance with the actual course of events on the Eastern Front in March’. Bluff of a deliberate and damaging kind from ‘certain sources of information’ could not be discounted. This time it was Stalin’s turn to bluff on his terms.

On the day Stalin received General Eisenhower’s communication about the line of the Allied advance Marshal Zhukov was in the process of presenting to the Soviet General Staff detailed plans—Plan A and Plan B—for an offensive operation aimed at Berlin. The following day, 29 March, Zhukov flew into Moscow at the urgent bidding of Stalin and joined him late that night in a preliminary discussion of the Berlin operation. On 31 March Marshal Koniev duly arrived in Moscow bearing his own Front plans for the Berlin operation
and went at once to a General Staff conference for a review of the overall attack plan. On the very day, 1 April, he sent his reply to General Eisenhower, a document dismissing Berlin as a major objective and fixing the Soviet offensive for later in May, Stalin convened a major command conference in order to finalize all plans and preparations for a gigantic Soviet offensive aimed directly at the very heart of the German capital—a mighty offensive to be launched
no later
than 16 April and to be carried through in the span of 12–15 days.

8

No Time to Die: April–May 1945

‘Tak kto zhe budet brat Berlin, my ili soyuzniki?’
(‘Well, now, who is going to take Berlin, will we or the Allies?’) Stalin exploded this question in his office on 1 April 1945 against the intense quiet of the main planning conference, which was made up of the seven members of the State Defence Committee (the
GKO)
, Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Koniev, together with General Antonov from the General Staff and Col.-Gen. Shtemenko, Chief of the Main Operations Directorate. As usual, Stalin set the scene carefully. The conference opened with a survey of the situation on the Soviet–German front and an appreciation of both Allied operations and their intentions. Summarizing the position, Stalin then called on Shtemenko to read aloud a telegram to the meeting: Anglo–American forces, Shtemenko intoned, were about to mount an operation designed to capture Berlin before the Red Army, Field-Marshal Montgomery was even now assuming command of these forces, which would attack to the north of the Ruhr and thus take the shortest route to Berlin, with assault forces presently being readied since the Allied command believed the operation to be eminently feasible. At that Stalin fired his question, aimed directly at the two Marshals. Koniev recovered first and assured Stalin that the Red Army would be the first to take Berlin. Koniev had risen too readily to the bait and Stalin swung on him, asking him how he could regroup his forces in time when the bulk of his striking power was dispersed to the southern, left flank. Koniev promised timely reorganization, while Zhukov tersely reported that his Front was ready to take Berlin and pointed straight at the city.

General Antonov then presented the main operational plan to the conference. From Stettin to just north of Görlitz three Soviet fronts, supported by Long-Range Aviation bombers, would pierce the German defences by striking along several axes, cut the enemy ‘Berlin grouping’ into a few isolated elements, destroy them and then seize Berlin: between the twelfth and fifteenth day of operations Soviet assault forces should reach the Elbe on a broad front and link up with Anglo–American troops. In view of the urgency of the situation, all fronts would have only 12–14 days in which to prepare. Seen in greater detail, this General Staff plan called for Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front to mount three simultaneous
attacks to destroy German opposition on a 55-mile sector between the Hohenzollern canal and the Oder–Spree rivers, eliminating the bulk of the German Ninth Army at the approaches to Berlin, storming the German capital and then developing this offensive westwards to reach the Elbe not later than twelve or fifteen days after the beginning of the offensive. Zhukov’s main attack would be carried by four rifle armies and two tank armies, launched from the bridgehead on the western bank of the Oder west of Küstrin. (This corresponded to Zhukov’s own Plan A, while Plan B envisaged improving the general operational position of 1st Belorussian Front, followed by the capture of a fresh bridgehead south of Schwedt from which three rifle armies would be launched, while the Frankfurt bridgehead was expanded in order to accommodate the Front’s main striking force made up of three rifle and two tank armies.)

Two supporting attacks were designed to cover Zhukov’s main assault force from the north and south, each attack utilizing two armies: the first would strike along a northerly route in the direction of Eberswalde–Fehrbellin, the second would come from the Oder north and south of Frankfurt and aim in the general direction of Fürstenwalde, Potsdam and Brandenburg, thus outflanking Berlin from the south and isolating the German ‘Frankfurt-Guben grouping’ from the main body of German defenders. Artillery densities were fixed at not less than 250 guns per kilometre of attack frontage, a stupefying concentration designed to put one gun in position every thirteen feet across this front. By way of reinforcement Zhukov was to receive an additional rifle army (the 3rd), eight artillery ‘breakthrough divisions’ and more combat support.

Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front received formal orders to carry out the speedy destruction of Fourth
Panzer
Army in the areas of Cottbus and to the south of Berlin; this accomplished, Koniev would drive west and north-west to reach the Belzig–Wittenberg line and the river Elbe up to Dresden no later than the 10th-12th day of operations. The main attack would be mounted with five rifle and two tank armies from the area of Triebel in the general direction of Spremberg–Belzig, with elements of right-flank forces co-operating with 1st Belorussian Front in the capture of Berlin. The same artillery densities—250 guns per kilometre—would prevail as on 1st Belorussian Front, for which the
Stavka
would provide an additional seven artillery divisions. Meanwhile forces on the left flank would cover Breslau; cover for the main striking force would be provided by a supporting attack with two rifle armies in the direction of Dresden.

Now Antonov broached a very delicate subject, virtually a taboo. In November 1944 Stalin had dictated that Zhukov with 1st Belorussian Front should undertake the conquest of Berlin. The present attack plans certainly accorded this role to Zhukov’s Front, but for weeks—even months—the General Staff had wrestled with the problem of co-ordinating the operations of 1st Belorussian with 1st Ukrainian Front. How should the demarcation line between these fronts be fixed? The line which the General Staff had tentatively delineated on its own operational
map shut Koniev out of the Berlin operation for all practical purposes, but this could mean major difficulties in carrying through the attack as planned. Koniev himself not unnaturally argued fiercely against this exclusion, suggesting that he aim his tank armies specifically in the direction of Berlin’s south-western suburbs. Only Stalin could decide a matter of this magnitude. The result was a cunning compromise. He deleted the boundary line between 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts running from the Neisse to Potsdam, the line pencilled in on the General Staff operations map and which effectively barred Koniev from Berlin. Stalin now let it run only as far as Lübben, just short of forty miles from the German capital and then announced:
‘Kto pervyi vorvetsya, tot pust i beret Berlin’
—‘Whoever breaks in first, let him take Berlin.’ He also officially advised Koniev to work out an ‘operational variant’ which would utilize 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies in an attack on Berlin from the south, once they had broken through the German lines on the Neisse. In effect, Stalin left Zhukov and Koniev to race each other, all without nullifying his November edict. The odds were on Zhukov, but Koniev had—literally—a fighting chance.