The Road to Berlin (125 page)

The encirclement of Berlin was complete by 25 April. On the same day, some time during the afternoon, Soviet and United States troops linked up on the river Elbe, the final consummation of a cleaving blow which shattered the German front in its entirety and tore Hitler’s
Reich
apart, slicing it into two isolated segments to north and south. Marshal Koniev’s report to Stalin and the
Stavka
was very explicit with respect to time and place: at 1330 hours on 25 April in the area of Strela, units of 58th Guards Rifle Division from Zhadov’s 5th Guards Army made contact with a reconnaissance group from the United States 69th Infantry Division, attached to the 5th Army Corps of the US First Army, while on the same day the lead 2nd Battalion—commanded by Captain V.P. Neda—from the 173rd Guards Rifle Regiment (also with 58th Division) linked up with another United States Army patrol in the area of Torgau. Shortly after one o’clock that afternoon Lieutenant Albert Kotzebue of the US Army’s 69th Infantry Division had met a solitary Soviet soldier near the village of Leckwitz and crossing the river—the riverbank strewn with dead civilians, cut down in some unexplained butchery—had met more Red Army soldiers near Strehla. Both parties exchanged formal salutes, both groups of soldiers finding themselves thousands of miles from home, separated by steppe and ocean. Later in the afternoon another US patrol led by Lieutenant William D. Robinson from 69th Division came upon more Red Army soldiers at Torgau, some twenty miles north of Strehla, and thus an ‘official’ US-Soviet link-up was celebrated at 4.40 pm on 25 April 1945.

Whatever the euphoria about the US-Soviet junction, it was relatively short-lived since Marshal Koniev discovered that he had a major battle on his hands, a crisis developing along the ‘Dresden axis’ and which first burst upon him during
the night of 22 April. A German taskforce consisting of two divisions and supported by 100 tanks from Gräser’s Fourth
Panzer
, attacking from the area south-east of Bautzen, drove cleanly into the junction between Korotoyev’s 52nd Army and Swierczewski’s 2nd Polish Army; driving towards Spremberg, the German divisions broke through 48th Rifle Corps (52nd Army) and crashed on into the rear of the Polish army. Those Polish divisions advancing westwards with their right flank resting on Zhadov’s 5th Guards Army found themselves in serious trouble as the
Panzers
ripped into the supply columns and destroyed divisional communications.

Faced with a chaotic situation, Koniev sent his chief of staff, Petrov, to sort out the mess. The first task was to re-establish contact with General Swierczewski at 2nd Polish Army, a mission assigned to General Kostylëv, Chief of the Operations Administration, and one executed admirably under the circumstances. Petrov was charged with supervising the whole situation, checking the German breakthrough and then mounting a counter-attack. Genuinely weighed down with staff work at Front
HQ
Petrov could do little but drive out, survey the scene and then race back to
HQ
for his evening labour of co-ordinating all the reports on 1st Ukrainian Front operations for that day. It fell to Kostylëv to do all the spadework, co-ordinating the defensive operations of 52nd, 5th Guards and 2nd Polish Army, as well as bringing in the 2nd Air Army to beat back the German columns. The German breakthrough, skillfully timed and aimed with admirable precision at a weak Soviet junction, made some progress in the direction of Spremberg but, inevitably, the thrust was checked and by the evening of 24 April the German ‘Görlitz group’ had been brought to a complete halt.

The German armies thrashed about inside the Soviet encirclement ring and struggled to break the Soviet line from the outside. Recovered from his deranged spasms of 22 April, Hitler now pinned his faith on relief attacks aimed at Berlin from north-west, west and south, with Wenck and Twelfth Army driving from the south-west to link up with Busse’s Ninth Army surrounded in the Spree forests to the south-east of Berlin; to the north there was the ghost of
SS
General Steiner and what passed for his army, already ordered to attack towards Spandau. In the boiling battles around Berlin whole formations disappeared from sight, only to re-emerge battered and dreadfully thinned but still extant—as was the case with Weidling’s LVI
Panzer
Corps, nominally obliterated but actually on the outskirts of Berlin. Hitler had already ordered Weidling’s arrest for desertion, but the enraged corps commander reported his position by public telephone, rushed to the
Führer’s
headquarters and vehemently protested his innocence of this base charge. In a whirl of fortune typical of these frantic days—either promotion or the firing squad—Weidling found himself appointed the Battle Commandant of Berlin itself.

Koniev kept a very wary eye on Wenck’s Twelfth Army and the growing pressure along the Beelitz–Treuenbrietzen sector: intelligence reported that Twelfth Army was somewhat battered but could still muster a substantial force, made
up of 41st and 48th
Panzer
Corps plus 39th and 20th Army Corps. Working at this moment on the final orders to be issued to Zhadov’s 5th Guards Army as it approached the Elbe and preoccupied with eliminating the disorder created by the ‘Görlitz group’s’ thrust—a German blow which certainly delayed the advance on Dresden—Koniev was also obliged to ponder the implications of the German pressure on his left between Wittenberg and Jüterborg. Wenck was stirring, much as Koniev expected that he might; in the course of 24 April the first
Panzer
attacks fell on the Beelitz–Treuenbrietzen sector, striking into Yermakov’s 5th Guards Mechanized Corps and units from Pukhov’s 13th Army—the long left flank of Lelyushenko’s 4th Guards Tank Army.

Yermakov’s corps rushed to strengthen its defensive positions, setting up a mobile anti-tank reserve with a tank company from 51st Guards Tank Regiment, siting anti-tank positions and tank or artillery ambush positions: to fill out these defences the corps command mobilized those prisoners just released from German concentration camps, issued them with captured
Panzerfausts
and gave them some rudimentary training in how to use them. Some 20–25 men usually manned an anti-tank strong-point, making plentiful use of
Panzerfausts
. Elements of three divisions from the German 20th Army Corps attacked under cover of an artillery barrage on 24 April, aiming the thrust at Treuenbrietzen and trying to break through to Lückenwalde. Beaten back by day, German troops then put in a night attack in an attempt to take Treuenbrietzen, only to meet fierce Soviet resistance: the Soviet units allowed German units to come within close range, then cut loose with heavy machine-guns and speeded the tanks out of the ambushes to grind the infantry to pieces under their tracks, with 10th Guards Mechanized Brigade holding Treuenbrietzen fast.

On the morning of 25 April elements of two German divisions supported by the 243rd Assault Gun Regiment again fell on 10th Mechanized Brigade, with another attack developing on the Beelitz–Buchholz sector defended by two mechanized brigades. This time the mechanized troops called in Lt.-Gen. V.G. Ryazanov’s 1st Guards Ground–Attack Air Corps, attacking at low altitude and unloading their anti-tank bombs on the German tanks. At the same time the 147th Rifle Division from 102nd Rifle Corps (13th Army) was drawing up to Treuenbrietzen; though 10th Mechanized had been fighting in semi-encirclement, during the afternoon of 25 April the Soviet 15th Rifle Regiment moved into the southern part of Treuenbrietzen and linked up with 10th Mechanized, breaking the encirclement. The advance of the main body of 147th Rifle Division then secured the main defence line and stiffened the entire left flank of 5th Guards Mechanized Corps. Holding off Wenck, however, was only part of Koniev’s problem: together with Marshal Zhukov he had yet to deal with the ‘Frankfurt-Guben group’, the remnants of Ninth and Fourth
Panzer
Army, trapped in the woods to the south-east of Berlin and presently preparing to break out in order to fight towards Wenck. The German force amounted to at least 200,000 men with 300 tanks and 2,000 guns—not to be either despised or ignored, as Koniev
himself recognized, ‘especially when they fight purposefully and desperately’. The Soviet armies hemming in Ninth and Fourth
Panzer
included three armies from Zhukov’s front (3rd, 69th and 33rd) and two armies (3rd Guards and 28th Army) from Koniev’s front, amounting in all to 277,000 men with over 7,000 guns, and 280 tanks and
SP
guns.

With so much at stake, both sides prepared for hard and desperate fighting. Ninth Army command planned to use 5th
Jäger
and XI
SS Panzer
Corps to cover the movement of the encircled units from the north and south-east, while 5th Army Corps attacked in the direction of Halbe and Baruth. As much as possible of the available ammunition would be used in the opening artillery barrage, with guns being jettisoned once no ammunition was to hand for them; fuel for the tanks was syphoned from wrecked lorries and every man carrying a weapon was assigned to a battle group. Some supply drops had been made by the
Luftwaffe
, but there were too few planes and the drops simply failed to reach the Ninth, certainly never enough to remedy the critical supply position. The night of 26 April passed in making final preparations for the break-out attempt in which a battle group formed from 21st
Panzer
, the
Kurmark
motorized and 712th Infantry Division would take the lead.

Zhukov had already made his own plans to deal with the Frankfurt-Guben group: at 1600 hours on 25 April he ordered 3rd Army, 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, 69th and 33rd Armies to start their own attack from the north and north-west to split the German divisions, with 3rd Army driving towards Mittenwalde in order to link up with Koniev’s formations, 69th Army aiming to the south and south-east, and 33rd Army advancing from Beeskow in a westerly direction. Koniev also issued a flurry of orders and redeployed as fast as possible to build up a barrier against the German thrust which would no doubt be directed towards Baruth; he moved Aleksandrov’s 3rd Rifle Corps from 28th Army into the Baruth area, at the same time organizing a second defensive line behind 3rd Guards Army, while one corps (24th Rifle) with three divisions from 13th Army took up defensive and reserve positions. Koniev’s orders to Gordov’s 3rd Guards Army emphasized the danger of a German breakthrough on the Schönewalde–Teupitz–Mittenwalde sector and instructed the Army commander to hold one division in reserve at Teupitz, block roads through the woods leading to the west and organize strong-points supported by artillery along the Berlin–Cottbus road. By way of further insurance Koniev also called in most of the available bomber, ground-attack and fighter strength of 2nd Air Army, reinforced with one corps and one division from the 16th Air Army.

Flanked by tanks and
SP
guns, the first German columns moved off at 0800 hours on 26 April and struck at the junction between 3rd Guards and 28th Army in the area of Halbe. Within a matter of two hours German battle groups pounded on towards Baruth and had cut the main Baruth–Zossen road—the main supply line for 3rd Guards Tank and 28th Army. Hand-to-hand fighting and strenuous defensive actions failed to hold the German thrust, which was
slowed but not halted by bombing attacks launched by 4th Bomber Corps; 395th Rifle Division managed to hold on in Baruth, while two more rifle divisions—50th and 96th—attacked from the south and slowly pushed the German units into the woods north-east of Baruth, where they were again encircled. The breach in 3rd Guards Army’s front near Halbe was momentarily sealed and the German troops involved in this attack once again cut off from the main body.

To the west and south-west Wenck’s attacks with Twelfth Army slackened appreciably on 26 April. Koniev felt that Wenck was fighting ‘by the book’, virtually going through the motions, while Ninth Army was fighting with all the fury and tenacity of doomed but determined men. Beleaguered in his bunker, Hitler fed on fragments of fact and the concoctions of his military command: he placed an undimmed hope in Wenck and was momentarily elated by the success of Busse’s Ninth Army to the south-east of Berlin, but towards the close of 26 April a gnawing doubt entered his mind—Ninth Army was assuredly moving westwards but its track could well take it past Berlin and thence into some void away from the decisive battle. Inflamed with suspicion Hitler instructed Jodl to insist that Ninth Army swing to the north and close on Berlin. There was a hint of disobedience here, but north of the city, where Steiner dallied and temporised insubordination was blatant. The threat from Rokossovskii’s 2nd Belorussian Front had finally materialized, placing von Manteuffel’s Third
Panzer
in mortal danger; after a slow start and a struggle against soggy terrain, Rokossovskii’s assault armies managed finally to build a front out of Batov’s bridgehead—three corps from 65th Army, two corps from Popov’s army and two tank corps (3rd Guards and 1st Don Guards) well over to the western bank of the West Oder.

On 23 April the
Stavka
cancelled its instruction of 18 April to Rokossovskii to outflank Berlin from the north—already accomplished by Zhukov’s right-flank armies—and re-instated the original operational objectives set out in the
Stavka
directive of 6 April, a drive to the west and the destruction of German forces at Stettin. Assigning the reduction of Stettin to Fedyuninskii’s 2nd Shock Army, Rokossovskii pushed Batov and Popov to the west, breaking von Manteuffel’s front and reaching the river Randow. On the morning of 25 April both Rokossovskii and von Manteuffel had reached an identical conclusion: with the front-line units battered to pieces and reserves all but expended, Third
Panzer
could not hold for more than a day at the most. Rokossovskii now intended to envelop Third
Panzer
from the south and south-west, to cut it off from Berlin and also to cut its escape route to the west. He accordingly instructed Batov with 1st Don Guards tanks to advance to the north-west and isolate German troops located north-east of the Stettin–Neubrandenburg–Rostock line. All that now remained of Heinrici’s shattered Army Group Vistula was Third
Panzer
, and this army Heinrici determined to save by hook or by crook. Against every express order of the
Führer
, Heinrici authorized von Manteuffel to withdraw—on a sudden visit to the front, Field–Marshal Keitel to his stupefaction stumbled upon a steady, systematic, premeditated
retreat instead of discovering well-manned and orderly defences supposedly running along the Angermünde-Ückerheim sector.