The Road to Berlin (120 page)

Looking ahead of him, Katukov, 1st Guards Tank commander, felt his spirits droop at the prospect of committing his armour amidst the countless ditches and widespread minefields, all combining to limit his movement and deny him any manoeuvre. He at once issued orders to three corps—Yushchuk’s 11th, Babadzhanyan’s
11th Guards and Dremov’s 8th Guards Mechanized—to deploy into the Küstrin bridgehead. Zhukov issued formal attack orders to 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Army at 1630 hours, with 1st Guards Tank committed now to fighting with 8th Guards in order to overwhelm the German defences on the heights, while 2nd Guards Tank would operate with 5th Shock Army and attack towards Neu-Hardenberg-Bernau. In the late afternoon, both tank armies moved off, with Colonel I.I. Gusakovskii’s 44th Guards Tank Brigade leading for 1st Guards Tank Army (followed by the 40th and 45th Guards Brigades), crashing into the infantry units of 8th Guards and jamming the few roads open for movement. The tank columns pushed their way forward, only to hamper the transit of the artillery which Chuikov badly needed for his infantry assault on the heights. Shouting, sweating and cursing, the tanks edged forward but the supporting elements for rifle corps and division were hopelessly bogged down, forced off the roads and sent sprawling into the soft, sticky ground of the valley.

Chuikov could make progress only on his right flank, where the armour did not entirely monopolize the roads: 4th Guards Corps drew up to the town of Seelow itself and cut the railway line together with two motor-roads. Soviet tanks poked cautiously round bends and from corners, only to be reduced to burning wrecks by German 88s or
Panzerfausts
, while the infantry loping beside them were cut down by small-arms fire. Bogdanov’s two tank corps, 9th and 12th Guards, moved off to support both 3rd and 5th Shock Army, but in a very short time—7 o’clock in the evening—they could make no further progress, meeting heavy fire from 88s and the even heavier 155mm guns firing over open sights. Shortly before midnight on 16 April three houses in the northern part of Seelow had been captured by Chuikov’s infantry, and Katukov’s tanks continued their fight for the heights. On Zhukov’s express orders the attack continued by night, with more tanks crowding in, roaring and grinding towards German positions, only to be met by point-blank fire which sent them reeling and blazing out of control. The Soviet advance had reached a distance varying between two and five miles, but no breakthrough was as yet in sight. Zhukov, therefore, issued fresh attack orders for 17 April, when the assault on the second line of German defences would open with a 30–40 minute artillery bombardment and the tank armies would continue to fight with the infantry.

This disastrous day closed on yet another unnerving note for Zhukov when he encountered Stalin’s obvious displeasure in the course of a late-night conversation by radio telephone. Earlier in the day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Zhukov duly called the
Stavka
and reported that enemy defences had been breached by Soviet troops but that they were encountering stiff resistance on the Seelow Heights, hence the decision to send in both tank armies. Apparently unmoved, Stalin told Zhukov that Koniev had managed to force the Neisse ‘without difficulty’ and was already pressing ahead, whereas Zhukov should support his tank armies with bombers and then report later at night to describe the outcome. When Zhukov duly called in, late in the evening, his reception was less than
cordial and Stalin became increasingly roused at his tale of failure. Stalin rounded on Zhukov for having committed 1st Guards Tank Army on 8th Guards Army sector, all against the
Stavka’s
original instructions, and demanded of the Front commander with what certainty he could state that the Seelow Heights would be captured on 17 April. Taking a firm grip on himself, Zhukov spoke as calmly as he could, promising Stalin that the heights would indeed be taken the next day and there was at least the advantage that the more troops the Germans threw in now, the quicker Berlin would fall, for it would be easier to destroy the enemy in the open rather than in protracted street fighting. Obviously unconvinced, Stalin proceeded to tell Zhukov that ‘we’—the
Stavka
and himself—were toying with the idea of ordering Koniev to swing both his tank armies on to Berlin from the south, at the same time instructing Rokossovskii to speed up his attack on the Oder and then outflank Berlin from the north. The point was not lost on Zhukov. He agreed perforce that Koniev’s tank armies might be moved towards Berlin, but Rokossovskii could not attack before 23 April because he would be held up forcing the Oder.
Do svidaniya
—‘goodbye’—said Stalin tersely, and abruptly ended the conversation. At least Zhukov knew what he was up against.

On the 1st Ukrainian Front, Koniev could not fail to feel extraordinarily pleased at the day’s outcome. Though his first-echelon troops had not quite reached the target line running through Drewitz–Komptendorf–Weisswasser, the main breakthrough on the Forst—Muskau sector—preceded by the forcing of the Neisse—brought three armies (3rd Guards, 5th Guards and 13th Army) into the German defences to a depth of almost nine miles across a seventeen-mile front. During the evening the main body of the two tank armies proceeded to cross the Neisse and moved steadily towards the breach torn in the German defences, a breach which Koniev laboured to widen with every hour. German reserves moved up to check the Soviet advance and one operational order, which fell into Soviet hands, mentioned a stand on the ‘Matilda’ line—something of a surprise for the Soviet command, but Koniev was far from displeased that the Germans were now committing not only their tactical but also their operational reserves. For all the resistance put up by 21st
Panzer
Division, by the evening first-echelon divisions were fighting in the second line of enemy defences, roughly halfway between the Neisse and the Spree. A further cause for satisfaction lay with the progress made by the supporting attack mounted by the Polish 2nd Army and the Soviet 52nd Army driving in the direction of Dresden, all masking the direction of the main blow; after forcing the Neisse, both armies were now between three to six miles inside the German defences on the western bank of the river.

News of the ‘Matilda’ line, with two German tank divisions piling up against it, as well as the need to attain those first operational objectives, caused Koniev to issue immediate orders for night attacks, both to pile on the pressure and to increase the pace of his offensive. His orders for operations on 17 April prescribed
the penetration of the second line of enemy defences, the forcing of the Spree and an advance by the evening to a line running from Heide (north-west of Cottbus) to Rensdorf, Burghammer and Scheln. In addition, Koniev now alerted General Luchinskii with 28th Army to move forward in the wake of 3rd Guards Tank Army and advance along ‘the Berlin axis’, without waiting for the full concentration of the army. The two armies striking towards Dresden would also break through the second line of German defences and by the evening of 17 April reach a line some twelve miles east of Görlitz; 1st Guards Cavalry Corps was instructed to operate in the rear of the German forces, strike on through Kamenz and to the north-west of Bautzen, after which 1st Corps would make for the Elbe and thus secure the main assault armies from any German attack launched from the south-west.

Now unabashedly racing each other towards Berlin, Zhukov and Koniev renewed full-scale offensive operations on the morning of 17 April. During the night, in preparation for the breakthrough operation aimed at the second main line of German defences on the Seelow Heights, Zhukov regrouped artillery and armour, much of it scattered and disorganized as a result of the previous day’s frenzied but abortive fighting. To prepare the fresh offensive Zhukov launched 800 bombers from Long-Range Aviation in heavy night attacks on the German positions, while the artillery redeployed to support the infantry and tank assaults. At 10 o’clock on the morning of 17 April massed Soviet artillery again rained down shells on the German defences on the heights, thirty minutes of heavy bombardment supplemented by bombing attacks with wave after wave of Soviet aircraft. Once again huge columns of smoke and dust climbed over the Seelow Heights, with the first tanks and sections of assault infantry moving up before the barrage ceased; the main body of 8th Guards and 1st Guards Tank Army jumped off at exactly 1015 hours. In the broad morning light, hundreds of Soviet tanks were on the move with Soviet riflemen clinging to the T-34s lumbering along the roads to the heights. Some tanks burst into flames, slewed sideways or stopped, but more came on, and crunched over the trenches and gun-pits, facing dwindling fire from the 88s and
Panzerfausts
while heavy machine-guns cut into the Soviet infantry. Towards noon 11th Guards Tank Corps and 8th Guards Mechanized Corps straddled the railway line and captured both Friedersdorf and Dolgelin, only to be heavily attacked by units of the
Kurmark
division.

Operating with the 35th Guards Rifle Division from 4th Guards Corps (8th Guards Army), Yushchuk’s 11th Tank Corps enjoyed some substantial success on the morning of 17 April: jumping off at 1030 hours, the tanks and infantry fought their way to the north of Seelow, smashing down German resistance by noon, with tank brigades assaulting Seelow from the north and the south. The village of Seelow was a vital point in the German defences, since it was located close to the southern extremity of the defensive system near the western bank of
the Oder. The Küstrin-Berlin motorway ran along the crest of the heights and through Seelow itself, so that once Soviet troops occupied the crest of the ridge an open highway stretched away into Berlin itself. Yushchuk, a bluff and genial veteran, pushed his tanks forward as best he could, hamstrung as he was by all the clutter of infantry and menaced by the over-enthusiasm of Soviet gunners—already one of his brigade commanders had remonstrated in very earthy Russian with 5th Shock Army about just where they were putting down their shells, much to the fury of General Sokolovskii, a real stickler for discipline, who witnessed this distinctly uncultured scene. The
Panzerfausts
presented continuous dangers, but Yushchuk was intrigued to see Soviet tank crews grabbing wire mattresses from German houses and wrapping them round the front of the tanks to deflect the bazooka rounds.

Seizing on this chance, Katukov directed Babadzhanyan’s 11th Guards Tank Corps into the gap ripped open by Yushchuk’s two brigades, the 20th and 65th. But still the armour could not break out and cut loose from the infantry, since heavy German opposition from numerous strong-points and terrain chopped up with small lakes, little rivers and canals constantly slowed movement. Elsewhere Zhukov’s assault armies edged their way into the main German defences, with the 3rd Shock Army supported by 9th Guards Tank Corps driving on Kunersdorf and 5th Shock Army supported by two armoured corps (12th Guards Tank and 1st Mechanized Corps) also biting into this defensive line, having forced the Alt-Oder. Towards the end of the day Chuikov’s 8th Guards with Babadzhanyan’s tanks managed to take the village of Seelow, and the German lines, hammered mercilessly by ground fire and air bombardment, began to crack—though the flanks still held against the assaults of 3rd Shock and 47th Army.

Koniev’s main assault force went into the attack promptly at 0900 hours on the morning of 17 April, preceded by a short but powerful artillery bombardment. With the woods burning about them, Soviet tank columns raced for the river Spree, fighting off German counter-attacks and leaving scores of small but ferocious battles in their wake as German tanks and infantry tried to stem the Soviet advance. As he hurried on to the Spree in order to watch 3rd Guards Tank Army take this obstacle in its stride, Koniev passed a great litter of gutted and burning machines, the forests hiding most of the dead jammed into the small streams and strewn haphazardly across the line of advance. The gaunt frames of tanks and the spiky remnants of guns presented a whole panoply of battle, but the fight was over here. Only the thunder of artillery ahead and the continuous roar of Soviet aircraft reminded Koniev of the unfinished battle as he pushed along the corridor carved out by Soviet troops, the sappers having cleared paths through the spreading minefields.

To his disappointment Koniev discovered that his lead elements had not been able to beat the Germans to the Spree, though sporadic preliminary fire indicated a defence as yet uncoordinated. There was no time wasted in forcing the Spree, an expanse of water 50–60 yards wide in places. Without waiting for bridging
equipment and after talking with Rybalko, 3rd Guards Tank commander, Koniev proposed that a single tank, with a handpicked crew, try a rush-crossing in view of rumours about a ford. The lead tank hit the water and ploughed ahead in water only about three feet deep, the water washing merely up to its tracks; the light German weapons simply pinged against and bounced off the T-34. Tank after tank followed, until the lead brigades were over the Spree and the German line broken with exemplary speed. Koniev knew at last that the crunch had come and lost no time in reporting his striking gains to Stalin.

Quartered for the moment in a castle near Cottbus, fitted out with all the baronial accoutrements, Koniev pondered his final talk with Lelyushenko and Rybalko—both of whom knew that the Front commander was talking about Berlin, for all the general injunctions about pressing ahead, outflanking, manoeuvring, conserving equipment. The offensive was rolling forward at speed, but Koniev was obliged to think about the fact that the tank formations were about to enter a deep gap ahead of 13th Army, while Gordov’s 3rd Guards to the right and Zhadov’s 5th Guards to the left held off furious German counter-attacks. The corridor was narrow, the flanks were under heavy pressure but the tanks must press on. At least, however, Koniev had planted himself in the centre of the breakthrough zone and here was token enough that he would see his tank commanders through, come what may. All this went unspoken but it sufficed. Koniev was now in a position to consult with Stalin.