The Road to Berlin (95 page)

This type of criticism had some effect. Early in February, at Malinovskii’s express orders, the Soviet formations fighting in and for Buda regrouped. On 3 February 1945 Malinovskii issued a Front directive stipulating that a fresh, decisive effort must be made to reduce the encircled German garrison no later than the evening of 7 February. On the morning of 5 February Managarov’s assault formations duly opened their attack on the remaining German strongholds in Buda, with heavy Russian fire marking the points from which the ring was steadily narrowed. For four days heavy fighting went on in Buda for the possession of Sashegy Hill, the cemetery at Nemetvölgy and the area of the south station. Once Soviet units took Sashegy Hill, the next embattled step took them to the Gelerthey Heights and thence to Palace Hill. In this area the narrow twisting streets made the use of heavy artillery impossible, but elsewhere heavy guns fired at little more than ranges of 150 metres to blast away the concrete and iron barricades holding up the Russian advance.

By 11 February more than a hundred buildings had fallen to the Soviet troops, together with 25,000 prisoners. The Hungarians now fell away from the side of the Germans as the Russians literally hacked their way on to and into the heights which also comprised a whole network of caverns. The remnants of the German garrison fought one last desperate action to break out of Buda as the ring closed on them, with the German commander Pfeffer-Wildenbruch taking to the sewers only to emerge in the midst of a Soviet unit. During the night of 16 February some 16,000 German troops tried to fight their way out to the north-west; they cut a corridor through the Soviet 180th Rifle Division and made their escape—or so it seemed—along the Lipotmezö valley. Within forty-eight hours, however, this force was encircled in the area of Ferbal and wiped out almost to a man. Inside Buda itself, organized resistance ceased at 10am on the morning of 13 February, with the Red Army claiming over 30,000 prisoners. The entire Soviet tally for the period 27 October-14 February amounted to 50,000 ‘enemy troops’ (German and Hungarian) killed and 138,000 made prisoner.

The battle for Budapest had ended, though the fight for Hungary had yet to run its full course. Hitler not only intended that this should be so, but virtually conspired to produce such an outcome. After mid-January the German army in the west went over to the defensive, but the troops available for transfer to the east—in particular Sixth
Panzer
Army—were destined for Hungary, which for all the ferocity of the fighting had become a relatively unimportant theatre. The fate of the
Reich
hung on the Rhine and on the Oder rather than on the defence of the Danube. Clinging to the few oil-fields in Hungary could in no way compensate for the catastrophic weakness in German armoured forces to the north of the Carpathians. Out of a total of eighteen
Panzer
divisions operating with the
Ostheer
, no less than seven were committed in Hungary, four were located in East Prussia, two in Courland and only five on the all-important central sector covering Brandenburg. Along the line of the major Soviet thrust—the Warsaw–Berlin axis—German armoured forces were demonstrably at their very weakest, despite
Guderian’s pleading and cajoling. Armed with more of Gehlen’s chillingly precise reports, Guderian tried once more on 9 January to persuade Hitler of the enormous danger in the east. General Gehlen pinpointed the timing and probable objectives of the coming Soviet offensive (accurately, as it transpired) and announced its overall aim as the complete destruction of the German will and capacity to carry on the war—
‘Das Ziel
…
ist in der völligen Zerschlagung der deutschen Widerstandskraft’
, nothing less than the destruction of the
Ostheer
and the obliteration of the central industrial regions of Germany.

The
Führer
rounded on Guderian in a fury and described Gehlen’s reports as ‘completely idiotic’; the place for the man who compiled such drivel was a lunatic asylum. In a matching rage Guderian refused Hitler’s demand that Gehlen be relieved of his duties, at which the storm passed, but nothing further could be done to bolster the German armies in the east. Guderian lamented that ‘ostrich politics’ went hand in hand with ‘ostrich strategy’ and to Hitler’s soothing assurance that the reserves in the east had never been so powerful, Guderian could only reply that twelve and a half divisions in reserve simply invited disaster; in truth, the eastern front was nothing but a ‘house of cards’—one breakthrough and it must collapse.

Three days later, on 12 January 1945, the attack which Hitler and his circle had dismissed as Soviet ‘bluff’, or the lunatic ravings of an unhinged intelligence staff, materialized on a scale which grew more massive with each hour—after a mere seven days the Red Army was fighting inside the boundaries of the
Reich
, signalling what Guderian called ‘the beginning of the last act’.

For what was demonstrably one of the mightiest strategic operations of the whole war—the massive thrust into the
Reich
along the Warsaw–Berlin axis—the Soviet command assembled a force of infantry, armour, artillery and aircraft on an appropriate scale. Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian and Marshal Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front disposed of no less than 163 rifle divisions, 32,143 guns and heavy mortars, almost 6,500 tanks, and 4,772 aircraft, involving in all just under two and a quarter million men. These two fronts alone disposed between them of almost one-third of all Soviet infantry formations and almost a half (43 per cent) of all Soviet armour committed at that time on the Soviet–German front. Both fronts deployed ten armies (eight infantry, two tank), a full air army and 4–5 mobile formations (tank, mechanized and cavalry corps). Soviet superiority was both absolute and awesome, fivefold in manpower, fivefold in armour, over sevenfold in artillery and seventeen times the German strength in the air. The average density in infantry formations was one rifle division per 3.7 kilometres, with 64 guns and 12 tanks to a kilometre, all along an offensive front which stretched for some 300 miles. The Soviet objective, an advance to the river Oder, lay more or less the same distance—300 miles—from the start line on the middle reaches of the Vistula.

In addition to the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts committed to the two massive and parallel armoured offensives aimed at the Oder, the full picture of this strategic assault on Germany also involved Col.-Gen. Chernyakhovskii’s 3rd Belorussian Front in an operation to destroy the ‘Tilsit–Insterburg group’ of German forces (with 1st Baltic Front co-operating in the reduction of the Tilsit group) and an advance along the river Pregel in the direction of Königsberg; while Marshal Rokossovskii’s 2nd Belorussian Front—heavily reinforced for the purpose—was to attack from the north-east of Warsaw in a north-westerly direction and drive to the Baltic in the area of Danzig. Rokossovskii’s operations would thus seal off East Prussia from the remainder of Germany and also furnish some protection for Zhukov’s right flank. Such a design set almost every Soviet army on the move from the Carpathians to the Baltic, and in the Baltic Soviet naval forces were ordered to intensify submarine and naval air activity against German lines of communication. The very accumulation of fronts, however, demanded careful planning and effective execution of inter-front operations. No one was more conscious of this than Zhukov himself, who ever since the inception of the main operational plan in November had kept the possible threat to his right flank from East Prussia under careful and constant review. Events quickly proved him correct and justified all his misgivings over the defective co-ordination of operations on his right.

The regrouping of 3rd and 2nd Belorussian Fronts, together with transfers from 1st Baltic Front, went on throughout December 1944 and into early January 1945. Rokossovskii, who took over 2nd Belorussian Front command from General G.F. Zakharov, (who was effectively demoted and dispatched as a mere army commander to another front), was left in no doubt by Stalin as to the importance of his new command: 1st Belorussian, 1st Ukrainian and 2nd Belorussian Fronts were ‘probably the ones destined to end the war in the West’. In his briefing, Stalin concentrated exclusively on Rokossovskii’s co-operation with Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front; as yet nothing was said about co-ordination with Rokossovskii’s neighbour to the north, Chernyakovskii’s 3rd Belorussian, which would ‘deal’ with German forces in East Prussia. In Rokossovskii’s own words, ‘no complications’ were expected on his northern flank, an assumption which turned out to be wishful thinking. Rokossovskii’s Front command comprised three field armies—3rd, 48th and 50th Armies—as its basic strength, to which were added the 2nd Shock Army transferred from the 3rd Baltic Front and Volskii’s 5th Guards Tank Army which had previously been attached to the 1st Baltic Front. Grishin’s 49th Army was also transferred to Rokossovskii, while he received the 65th and 70th Armies when his Front boundary was shifted southwards to take in the confluence of the rivers Narew and Vistula. This gave him seven field armies, one tank army and 4th Air Army under Vershinin. Meanwhile on the 3rd Belorussian Front Chernyakhovskii deployed five armies—the 5th, 11th Guards, 28th, 31st and 39th—as the main attacking force, supported by 1st Air Army. The total strength of these two Fronts—2nd and 3rd Belorussian—finally amounted
to fourteen field armies, one tank army, two air armies and six mobile corps (tank, mechanized and cavalry), with a combined strength of 1,670,000 men, 28,360 guns and heavy mortars (including more than 1,000
Katyusha
rocketlaunchers), 3,300 tanks and
SP
guns, and some 3,000 aircraft.

In sum, for the four major breakthrough operations—in the direction of Königsberg (Chernyakhovskii), in the direction of Danzig (Rokossovskii), across the Vistula south of Warsaw (Zhukov) and from the Sandomierz bridgehead (Koniev)—the Soviet command concentrated thirty field armies, five tank armies and four air armies, as well as independent mobile formations and special artillery ‘breakthrough divisions’ equipped with heavy guns.

Of the five German army groups holding the Eastern Front in January 1945, two—Reinhardt’s Army Group Centre and Harpe’s Army Group A—lay directly in the path of this mass of men and machines. Army Group North with its Sixteenth and Eighteenth Armies lay locked in Soviet encirclement in Courland and thus could do nothing to influence the defensive battle. Reinhardt’s Group (with Third
Panzer
, Fourth and Second Armies) held East Prussia and an area of northern Poland along the river Narew to its junction with the Vistula. Harpe’s Group A with Fourth
Panzer
, Ninth and Seventeenth Army was deployed along the middle reaches of the Vistula from the north of Warsaw down to the Carpathians, German strength consisting of thirty divisions (four of them
Panzer
divisions plus two motorized divisions), two brigades and numerous independent battalions—400,000 men, 1,136 tanks and
SP
guns, and 270 aircraft. Reinhardt’s Centre Group holding East Prussia had forty-one divisions (thirty-four infantry, three
Panzer
and four motorized) at its disposal, with 580,000 men, 700 tanks and
SP
guns, and 515 aircraft.

The principal features and main objectives of the coming Soviet offensive had already been established during the first half of November 1944. The ‘main effort’ was to be made along the Warsaw–Berlin axis, thus assigning the major task to Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front. At the end of November, Stalin accepted not only the basic strategic plan but also the related Front plans and proposals submitted to him, though apparently not without several individual briefings and consultations with Front commanders. No opening date for the offensive had been fixed, but Stalin let it be known that it should be within the period 15–20 January 1945. (Some small mystery attends this question of the timing, for particular operational records and testimony by individual commanders—Marshal Koniev among them—cite 20 January 1945 as the specific date set for launching the offensive.) It is also apparent that a final review and the ultimate approval of the general plan was conducted by Stalin at the end of December 1944, with Marshal Zhukov in attendance at this crucial meeting. Unlike previous offensive planning, however, Front commanders were not on this occasion summoned to a single conference but rather reported individually to the General Staff—and to Stalin—on their own Front assignments.

The formal
Stavka
directives to the Front commanders took full account of these many consultations and the singular role of Stalin as
‘Stavka
co-ordinator’ for all four fronts concerned with the offensive along the ‘Berlin axis’. At the end of November Marshal Zhukov reported to Stalin that an advance by 1st Belorussian Front due west would be well-nigh impossible owing to the existence of what appeared to reconnaissance to be well-manned defensive positions. Zhukov, therefore, recommended swinging the main attack in the direction of Lodz with the subsequent blow aimed at Poznan. (Zhukov’s offensive operations were initially designated the ‘Warsaw–Poznan Operation’.) Stalin did not disagree: the axis of Zhukov’s advance was aligned to Poznan, and in the light of this decision Marshal Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front was given Breslau rather than Kalisz as its main objective. A special feature of Koniev’s operations was the need to preserve the Silesian industrial area intact. When Koniev presented his operational proposals to Stalin at the end of November, Stalin’s finger carefully traced the outline of the massive Silesian industrial basin, at which he uttered only a single word: ‘Gold’. Koniev needed no further explanation; liberating this region must at all costs preclude destroying it.

Marshal Zhukov’s formal instructions from the
Stavka
prescribed the launching of the main attack from the Magnuszew bridgehead with a force of no less than four field armies, two tank armies and one cavalry corps striking westwards in the direction of Kutno–Lodz, moving thereafter on Bydgoszcz–Poznan. A secondary attack launched from the Pulawy bridgehead by two field armies, two tank corps and one cavalry corps was to be aimed along the Radom–Lodz axis, with units of 1st Belorussian Front co-operating with the right-flank units of 1st Ukrainian Front to destroy the ‘Kielce-Radom grouping’ of enemy forces. A supporting attack was also to be carried out from the region north of Warsaw by the Soviet 47th Army co-operating with the left-flank units of 2nd Belorussian Front designed to clear German troops from the area between the Vistula and the western Bug, thereby outflanking Warsaw from the north-west. Troops of the 1st Polish Army, which came under Zhukov’s Front command, would be used for the liberation of Warsaw itself. The direction of Rokossovskii’s main attack with 2nd Belorussian Front was fixed in a north-westerly direction and aimed at Marienburg, on the Baltic and within reach of Danzig. This great sweeping movement was designed to isolate East Prussia from Germany proper, while left-flank units of Rokossovskii’s outflanked Modlin from the west, took positions to cross the Vistula and thus cut the escape route for German troops holding Warsaw.