David McCormack

YEAR ZERO: BERLIN 1945

For Jenny

The song is ours.

Prologue

Christmas has always been a magical time in Germany, even in Hitler’s atheistic state the yuletide season was celebrated (albeit in a modified form). By 1944, the focus on civil celebrations had shifted towards a commemoration of the nation’s war dead. That year, there was little to celebrate. In Berlin, people continued about their daily business, drawn and haggard from the relentless Allied bombing which had reduced much of their city to rubble. Food was in short supply. The public had been subject to strict rationing from the very beginning, all but the privileged few living on a monotonous starch based diet. For many, the traditional Christmas goose was a faraway memory.

The irrepressible wit of ordinary Berliners was expressed in its darkest form during the winter of 1944. The most common jokes doing the rounds were, ‘Be practical: Give a coffin’, ‘Enjoy the war while it lasts, the peace will be terrible’, and a prescient quip based around the initials for air raid shelters (LSR – Luftschutzraum) which became (LSR – Learnt Schnell Russisch) ‘Learn Russian Quickly’. Fear of invasion by the barbarian hordes from the east resulted in an atmosphere in which the individual consciousness began to reassert itself. People began to care for each other again, as the traditional greeting of ‘Heil Hitler’ gave way to the more solicitous ‘Survive’.

That Christmas, many wondered if it would be their last. They were fearful and uncertain. The world as they knew it, was about to come tumbling down. Their leaders had nothing to offer but more blood, more sacrifice. The enemy was at the gates. Berlin schoolgirl Ilse Shaffer reflected on the dark times which lay ahead:

Would there really be Christmas again? Was this the time to celebrate? Where did all the people live that one saw on the streets, the overcrowded streetcars and buses? Our army in the east has been defeated. The Russians are in East Prussia and the Allies are getting close to our western border. We can no longer trust the news, but we know that the end is not too far away… This is the sixth Christmas since the war began, and still no peace. Where is God in all the destruction, the dying, the bombings? We saw the first refugees from the east, pulling on little carts with their few possessions, walking in this cold winter, walking, walking, telling us horror stories of murders and rapes by Russian soldiers… What would the next months bring? The bombing has not stopped; it just gets worse, day and night, day and night.

There are no lights in the streets, not many goods on the shelves, only at night is the sky lit up by the ‘Christmas Trees’ that come down from heaven… If those bright lights shone over us, we knew that we were the target of their bombs… Mary and Joseph, tired and hungry, could not find a place to stay – so many peoples homes have been bombed, they have no place to live… The baby Jesus had no bed, he slept on a manger – our soldiers sleep on the floor, on straw… Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus had to leave in a hurry, fleeing Herod – whole families: we saw grandparents, mothers and children, fleeing from home. Christmas has taken on a new meaning.

As well as the refugees flooding into Berlin, this young schoolgirl also witnessed the call-up of young boys and old men to defend Hitler’s crumbling Reich. Any other nation would have long since accepted terms, no matter how harsh. Hitler was incapable of doing so, as an absolutist, he was only interested in victory. If the German people failed to give him that victory, they would go down with him.

Hitler’s hubristic approach to his role as warlord produced an apocalyptic clash with the steelily determined Stalin. The Generalissimo was prepared to take ‘the lair of the fascist beast’ at any cost. By 1944, the forces at his command were both enormous and highly capable. The three fronts available for the ‘Berlin Strategic Operation’ boasted a combined troop strength of 2,500,000 men, 6,250 tanks and self-propelled guns, 41,600 artillery pieces, 1000 rocket launchers, and 7,500 aircraft. The opposing German forces defending the eastern approaches to Berlin were constantly overestimated by the Soviet High Command. However, the erroneous assumption that German units were fully manned and equipped later served to enhance the prestige of the Soviet forces involved.

Stalin’s motives for taking Berlin before the Allies were in part political as it was a prestigious prize. He was further motivated by the prospect of seizing materials from the nuclear research facility in Berlin-Dahlem. The Cold War was already in its infancy as the cracks that had been papered over in the name of wartime cooperation began to appear again. Thanks to his spy network, Stalin was well briefed about the Anglo – American nuclear weapons programme. However, it came as something of a shock when a weapon was actually deployed against Japan. From this point on, the Cold War rapidly intensified. By the autumn of 1945, the Grand Alliance was all but finished. Roosevelt was dead, Churchill had been voted out of office. Only Stalin remained of the original ‘Big Three’. Berlin quickly became the focus of an ideological struggle between the superpowers.

In 1910, the German art critic Karl Scheffler wrote, ‘Berlin is a city condemned to becoming and never to being’, Never did his words appear so apposite as they did in the second half of 1945. Berlin was a city of ruins, a lunar landscape created by years of Allied bombing and the more recent Soviet bombardments. It was a tabula rasa on which the occupying powers could imprint their own culture and ideology. However, no matter what the occupying authorities did to restructure their own sectors, Berlin would always be Berlin.

Chapter One

The Good German – Fritz Elsas

By 1945, it was clear to all but the most die-hard supporters of the Nazi regime that the war was lost. Hitler had become a distant figure, all but invisible to the masses. The void was filled by his propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, whose dire warnings of retribution ensured that the majority of the population continued to acquiesce in the less savoury aspects of the regime. Despite this, there were those who remained opposed to the Nazi state’s regimentation of society and the genocidal policies carried out in their name. Their resistance was largely uncoordinated and manifested itself through various means, ranging from non-compliance to assassination attempts.

Any resistance against Hitler’s regime required an enormous amount of courage and determination on an individual level. The penalties for active resistance had from the beginning been most severe. Until 1943, the scope for resistance activities was limited, as the regime ruled with the consent of the majority of Germans. The catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad changed everything. Following this psychological turning point in the conduct of the war, the state focused the terror apparatus of the Gestapo and SS against asocial and subversive elements amongst the German people. Neither social position, nor previous service to the state provided immunity from a despotic tyranny which gave no quarter to either real or perceived enemies of the state. The failed attempt to assassinate Hitler at his East Prussian headquarters in July 1944 unleashed a furious response from the authorities in the form of mass arrests, show-trials and executions. The repression which followed broke the power of the Prussian military aristocracy for good and shattered what few remnants of political opposition were left. Amongst those who paid the ultimate price for their resistance activities was former Deputy Mayor of Berlin, Fritz Julius Elsas.

Elsas had been a dedicated servant of the Wilhelmine and Weimar states. Along with millions of other loyal Germans, he had volunteered for service with the army in 1914, however he was rejected because of his poor eyesight. Notwithstanding this setback, Elsas went on to serve his country with distinction whilst working for the Chamber of Commerce in Stuttgart. His greatest achievement was in designing a system of food supply which was later adopted throughout Germany. In 1919, Elsas joined the German Democratic Party which subsequently led to his appointment as a city councillor in Stuttgart. His political career suffered a setback in 1921 following a series of anti-Semitic attacks which forced him to withdraw his candidacy in the mayoral elections. Three years later, he effectively succeeded in resurrecting his moribund political career following an appointment to the state parliament of Wurttemberg. In 1926, Elsas moved to Berlin after taking up the vice-presidency of the German Cities Association.

In April 1931, Elsas was appointed Deputy-Mayor of Berlin. He served with distinction, but for all his successes, the changing political landscape worried him deeply. The dismal failure of the democratic experiment paved the way for the autocratic rule of General von Schleicher and Franz von Papen. These short-lived authoritarian administrations made a Hitler dictatorship possible. In a diary entry dated 27 February 1933, Elsas contemplated the end of his political career:

I am trying to find out from Steiniger what is going to happen after the elections. For two days there has been a rumour that a decree is being prepared in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior which will allow for the suspension of public officials. If it is true, then we are all out.

On 14 February 1933, Elsas applied for leave in order to be spared the ignominy of dismissal. Nonetheless, he was forced to resign from his post six months later. Although he had been hounded out of politics, Elsas was at least spared some of the state’s more repressive measures due to his mixed-marriage status.

Elsas used his skills to reinvent himself as a business and foreign exchange expert. He went on to provide valuable services to German-Jewish citizens fleeing Hitler’s oppressive policies. During this time, he also joined a resistance group led by District Judge Ernst Strassmann and businessman Hans Robinsohn. Like many of his associates in the Strassmann-Robinsohn group, Elsas was a left-wing libertarian. His liberal outlook was however tinged with a measure of romanticised nationalism. For Elsas, a ‘dictatorship of the centre’ was preferable to either a Communist or Nazi state.

Elsas’ foreign currency dealings came to the attention of the Gestapo in July 1937. However, a thorough search failed to uncover any incriminating evidence. Nonetheless, he was still charged with violating the strict codes that restricted the flow of currency in and out of Nazi Germany. Following a prolonged period of interrogation, he was sentenced to a term of five months imprisonment in Berlin’s Moabit prison. The investigation cost Elsas his secretary, his client base, and ultimately his business. After serving his time with quiet dignity, he returned to the modest Berlin-Dahlem apartment where he lived with his wife Maria.

Imprisonment and the subsequent trauma of the so-called ‘Night of the Broken Glass’ had a profound effect on Elsas. The outbreak of war in September 1939 provided a further stimulus for the intensification of his resistance activities. Elsas worked closely with the former Mayor of Leipzig, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. Anticipating a post-Hitler Germany, he and Goerdeler worked on framing a proclamation which would be broadcast to the public in the event of a successful coup. Elsas also developed contacts with many of the leading players in the 20 July plot. These leading conservatives trusted this German-Jewish liberal implicitly. His active involvement in the resistance movement hints at the lack of conviction of the German social, political and military elite towards Nazi anti-Semitic policies.

For Elsas, the dangers of active resistance were very real. In her diary, the White Russian exile Marie Vassiltchikov noted that, ‘The warrant for Goerdeler’s arrest had been issued before the coup, on 17 July’. Goerdeler was twice given shelter by Elsas. However, his lack of discretion finally led to his arrest in Marienwerder on 12 August 1944 (following a tip-off from an innkeeper named Lisbeth Schwaerzel). During his interrogations, Goerdeler overloaded the authorities with information in a bid to buy time for his fellow conspirators.

The authorities eventually saw through Goerdeler’s time wasting tactics. Unbeknown to him, the net had already began closing in on his fellow conspirators. Elsas had been picked up by the authorities two days earlier, and taken to the prison on Lehrter Strasse. Here, he underwent harsh interrogation and torture. Despite this rough handling, Elsas refused to cooperate. As a result, he remained in solitary confinement until his transfer to Sachsenhausen in December. On 4 January 1945, the former Deputy Mayor of Berlin was executed without due legal process at Sachsenhausen’s Station Z shooting facility. Two weeks later, the Deutsch Reichsanzeiger newspaper announced the confiscation of his estate. Under the kin liability laws, his wife, son, and two daughters were imprisoned. His son was sent to Buchenwald, whilst his wife and two daughters were sent to Ravensbruck. By some miracle, all four survived the war.

On 20 July 1954 (ten years to the day since the failed assassination attempt at Hitler’s Rastenburg HQ), Elsas was remembered at a commemorative event in Berlin, during which a street was named in his honour. Since then there have been many events commemorating both the anti-Nazi resistance movements and individuals engaged in resistance activities. Following a commemorative event at Berlin’s Plotzensee Prison in 2015, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen posed the following questions:

Did the majority of Germans lose their sense of humanity? Were they too afraid to help? Were they convinced Nazis? Did they hope to profit from the regime? Or did they tell themselves that everything would turn out OK? All of these will have played a part.

In a few short words, the Defence Minister articulated the thorny issue of why more Germans didn’t resist. People are individuals, each with their own drives, desires or fears. Elsas was a driven individual. To begin with, his overriding drive was to serve. Later, as the iniquities of the Nazi state became apparent, his focus switched to resistance. There were others like him, brave men and women who chose a noble path. They were the real heroes.

Chapter Two

Miracle on the Oder

Preparations for the Soviet offensive against Berlin were completed by early December 1944. The massive mechanised Red Army formations stood ready for the final assault on Hitler’s Reich. At the Magnuszew bridgehead, Marshal Georgy Zhukov concentrated Colonel General Vasily Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army, Colonel General P.A. Belov’s 61st Army, and Lieutenant General N.E. Bezarin’s 5th Shock Army for the initial thrust against the German 9th Army. The task assigned to these forces was to penetrate German defences up to a depth of thirty kilometres, thereby opening up their lines for tactical exploitation by Colonel General Mikhail Katukov’s 1st Guards Tank Army, Colonel General Semyon Bogdanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Army, and Lieutenant General Vladimir Kruikov’s 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps. To the south, Zhukov massed additional forces at the Pulawy bridgehead. These forces were comprised of Colonel General Vladimir Kolpakchi’s 69th Army and Colonel General Viacheslav Tsetaev’s 33rd Army. These formations were reinforced with substantial tank forces, whose mobility would facilitate the rapid link up with neighbouring forces to the west.

At front level, the normal pre-offensive preparations went ahead. In the crucial sector of operations, Zhukov had at his disposal eight combined-arms armies, two tank armies, two guards cavalry corps, and an air army. Supplying such a massive force created huge logistical problems, Zhukov later recalling that the colossal quantities of stores required, ‘had to be brought up as close as possible to the front line, to give us the necessary conditions for a breakthrough in depth’. Zhukov’s problems were compounded by a lack of partisan intelligence and the threat of hostile activities which threatened his lines of supply. It was also clear to him that the vanguard of 1st Belorussian Front would meet strong German resistance in their westward drive towards Berlin. Though convinced of ultimate victory, Zhukov knew that the coming battle would be a tough struggle.

A second Soviet Front was concentrated to the south of Zhukov’s forces at the Baranow and Sandomierz bridgeheads. Effective deception measures (Maskirovka) served to convince the German High Command that the main thrust of Marshal Ivan Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front would be towards Krakow. However, his real intention was to advance from Baranow towards Kielce, destroying any German forces barring his way. His troops would then continue their advance towards the Oder near the Silesian capital of Breslau. For the initial assault, he could deploy three armies and six breakthrough artillery divisions. The second echelon standing ready to exploit the initial breakthrough would consist of General Pavel Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army and General Dmitry Lelyushenko’s 4th Guards Tank Army. Konev enjoyed considerably more space for operational manoeuvre than his colleague and rival Zhukov. However, he too knew that his forces faced the prospect of a hard fight against skilful and determined opponents.

Like a gigantic coiled spring, the two massive Soviet Fronts tensed themselves to unleash their pent up energy. The only thing holding them back was the weather which was unseasonably mild and wet. On 8 January, the forecasters predicted that colder weather promising firmer going was expected in Poland. This came as good news to Stalin, as only two days before, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sent an urgent message requesting an acceleration of Soviet offensive plans in order to relieve the burden on the Western Front. Without delay, Stalin charged his head of operations, General Aleksei Antonov with making the necessary arrangements for the accelerated offensive schedule with the front commanders. Whist this late change made Stalin appear more than accommodating, it placed a huge strain on already overstretched logistic services. The planned Vistula-Oder and East Prussian operations would now have to be launched consecutively rather than simultaneously. Notwithstanding, the difficulties caused by the speeding up of his offensive timetable, Stalin could be well satisfied that the Allies would look favourably on his willingness to come to their aid.

On 12 January 1945, Konev launched his assault from the Baranow bridgehead against General Fritz-Hubert Graeser’s 4th Panzer Army. Poor weather had grounded his aircraft, yet despite this setback he remained confident of victory. On the first day of the offensive, Konev’s mechanised forces made good progress. However, the pace slackened as German resistance stiffened in the Kielce-Chmielnik area. Reacting quickly, Konev committed some of his mechanised reserves. These additional forces then enabled him to achieve a breakthrough into open country. On 17 January, the Warte was crossed, opening the way to the conquest of the valuable industrial area around Katowice. Konev intentionally left the German forces a ‘Golden Bridge’ as an escape route, thus ensuring that the mines and factories would be taken intact.

To the north, Zhukov launched his main attack from the Magnuszew bridgehead on 14 January, two days after Konev’s attack. The assault was preceded by a thunderous artillery barrage which as General Vasily Chuikov noted, ‘Made the earth heave and shake as if in fever’. In total, some 315,000 rounds were dumped on positions occupied by the German 9th Army. The attack went in immediately after the barrage was lifted, and quickly succeeded in opening up gaps in the German defence. By the end of the first day, forward elements had crossed the Pilica. A twelve kilometre deep wedge had been driven into the German lines.

Zhukov’s secondary attack launched from the Pulawy bridgehead was even more of a success, with troops crossing the Zwolenka and penetrating German defences up to a depth of twenty-two kilometres on the first day. As German forces were locked into a battle for Radom, General Heinz Guderian warned Hitler that the Eastern Front could not hold out without major reinforcements. There were none forthcoming, Hitler making it clear that for the time being, the Eastern Front would have to take care of itself. On 15 January, Soviet fighter-bombers and anti-tank units broke up a determined German counter-attack by the 19th and 25th Panzer Divisions aimed at relieving the shattered remnants facing the Magnuszew bridgehead. After successfully blunting the German attack, Zhukov’s troops broke out to threaten the Polish capital. Like a steamroller, the advance crushed everything in its path, General Kurt von Tippelskirch reporting that, ‘Units of the 9th Army still holding on the Vistula near Warsaw and south of it were in grave danger’. The shattered Polish capital would fall to the Red Army within days.

Hitler responded to the loss of Warsaw by lashing out at his own commanders. He was wholly convinced that German reverses on the battlefront were due to a lack of will. To remedy this situation, he sought to impose his own iron will upon the crumbling Eastern Front by increasingly interfering in the conduct of operations. This irrational approach robbed the German defence of tactical flexibility. By insisting on holding onto ground everywhere, Hitler doomed his defending formations to encirclement and destruction.

Whilst Hitler’s behaviour becoming ever more irrational, Stalin’s became increasingly cautious. For the supreme Soviet warlord, the fruits of victory appeared to be tumbling into his hands too quickly. Stalin was conscious that defeat had been snatched from the jaws of victory during the Battle of Warsaw in 1920. As such, he was determined that overconfidence should not once more lead to disaster. A Stavka (Soviet High Command) directive issued on 17 January redefined the objectives for the two main fronts involved in the Berlin Strategic Operation. Zhukov’s front was to secure the Poznan-Bydgozcz line no later than 2-4 February. Meanwhile, Konev’s forces were to advance towards Breslau, reaching the River Oder no later than 30 January. However, events soon overtook the latest directive.

The collapsing German battlefront reduced 4th Panzer Army and 9th Army to a drifting mass of men. Thousands of beleaguered troops organised themselves into ‘Roving Cauldrons’ in an attempt to hold off the Red Army and gain the comparative safety of the reorganised German lines. On 20 January, forward elements of Konev’s forces crossed the German frontier at Namslau. Two days later, 5th Guards Tank Army seized a bridgehead on the western bank of the Oder near Oppeln. The following night, 16th Guards Mechanised Brigade reached the Oder north of Steinau. By the evening of 23 January, Bromberg had been cleared of German troops, thereby opening the road into Hitler’s Reich.

Caution dominated Stalin’s thinking again on 25 January, following an intimation by Zhukov that he intended to continue his advance towards Kustrin. Stalin expressed concern that this advance would widen the gap between the two advancing fronts. Notwithstanding the supreme warlord’s concerns, Zhukov went on to persuasively argue his case, pointing out that by delaying, ‘It will become more difficult to penetrate the Miedzyrzecz fortified line’. Stalin agreed to think things over. Meanwhile, events took over following the capture of a group of German officers and men by a reconnaissance group from 1st Guards Tank Army. Interrogation of the prisoners revealed that the line was not yet fully manned and that units were still in the process of moving in to fill the gaps. After appraising Stalin of the situation, Zhukov was given permission to continue his advance, with the proviso that he safeguard his right flank. German resistance was quickly overcome. The last major water obstacle before Berlin was now in Zhukov’s sights.

On 31 January, forward elements of General Nikolai Bezarin’s 5th Shock Army crossed the frozen Oder to take the village of Kienitz by surprise. Over the course of the day, more units crossed over and expanded the initial lodgement to a width of six kilometres and a depth of two-and-a-half kilometres. Further reinforcements arrived in the form of a motorised battalion of the 219th Tank Brigade. The fragile ice on the river rendered the movement of armoured reinforcements impossible. As such, the lodgement remained vulnerable to counter-attack, however there were no major German formations available to clear up the Soviet bridgehead. An ad-hoc infantry-tank combat group was quickly assembled for an attack against the bridgehead. The attack launched on 1 February was supported by the teenage gunners of the 211th Flak Regiment who laid down a barrage. By sheer chance the attack turned into a meeting engagement as the advancing German troops and armour stumbled into a Soviet attack being launched at the same time. The German assault lost momentum and stalled. Thereafter, the Luftwaffe was responsible for attempting to reduce the Soviet bridgehead.

Air attacks on Kienitz continued, with the harbour area being given special attention by dive bombers. Those who could, fled. Some inhabitants managed to make it to relative safety in the nearby villages of Wriezen and Ortwig. Many others tried to escape from the harbour area, but were killed in the heavy aerial bombardments. Kustrin had barely been declared a fortress, when elements of the Soviet 219th Tank Brigade burst into the Neustadt on 31 January. The attempt to take Kustrin by storm failed after three Lend-Lease Shermans and a Valentine were destroyed. General Chuikov then elected to lay siege to the so-called gateway to Berlin.

In early February, there were unmistakable signs that German resistance was stiffening. German garrisons continued to hold out stubbornly in Thorn, Schneidemuhl and Poznan. Soviet radio intercepts also began picking up increased signals traffic from 11th SS Army and 3rd Panzer Army that appeared to indicate an imminent counter-thrust from East Pomerania and Silesia. The Stavka recognised the danger and subsequently ordered Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front to clear German forces from Pomerania and advance as far as Stettin.

On the night of 31 January, rain began to fall along the central sector of the Oder line. Over the following days, an early thaw set in, melting the snow and ice. In Berlin, chief press aide at the Propaganda Ministry, Wilfred von Oven, noted how the sudden change in the weather signalled a change for the better in the threatening situation in the east. His diary entry for 1 February has a distinctly optimistic tone:

The formerly threatening situation before Berlin has changed in our favour literally overnight. The splashing in the gutters sounds to our ears like the choirs of angels. The Oder and the Warthe, and the marshes of those two rivers and the Netze, together with a multitude of little water-courses have become obstacles which enable us to concentrate our defence on the threatened sectors.

The Oder ice melted at a satisfying rate, prompting Himmler to talk of a ‘miracle’. The Germans themselves contributed to speeding up the process by using explosives. The thaw turned dirt roads in western Poland into quagmires, further disrupting the flow of supplies to the Soviet fronts, whose logistical umbilical cord was already stretched to the limit. The thaw gave Hitler a moat and above all bought time in which the defences on the crucial central sector could be bolstered.

On 3 February, von Oven noted with some satisfaction the progress being made with defensive preparations during the unseasonably mild weather, ‘The thaw continues, mild spring air wafts through the streets of Berlin, and everywhere we are working energetically to build anti-tank obstacles and emplacements for the anti-tank guns’. That morning, the Americans attacked Berlin with a force of 1000 B-17 bombers and 575 P-51 Mustang fighters. This heavy raid destroyed large areas of Friedrichstadt, Luisenstadt, Kreuzberg, Mitte and Friedrichshain. In Mitte, the flooded air-raid shelter at the Adlon Hotel was crowded with Foreign Ministry officials. Press officer Hans Georg von Studnitz recorded his impressions of the raid:

The attack began at 10.45 am. and ended at 12.30. The Adlon shelter is a foot deep in water which has leaked through from the melting snow above. Many people had to wade about underground for two hours in icy water. Under the heavy explosions the massive shelter swayed and shivered like the cellar of an ordinary house. Finally all the lights went out and we felt that we had been buried alive.

The bombs used in the raid were mostly high explosive types. Fires raged in some areas for four days. This was the nearest Berlin ever came to experiencing a fire storm.

Meanwhile, back at the battlefront, the anticipated German counter-attack (code-named Operation Solstice) was launched on 16 February. Despite intelligence gained from radio intercepts, Zhukov lacked detailed information regarding the attack’s timing and objectives. Consequently, the assault made by the 11th SS Panzergrenadier Division achieved complete tactical surprise, resulting in a break-through to Arnswalde and the relief of its beleaguered garrison. Hot on the heels of this early success, elements of 11th SS Panzer Army attacked the following day and recaptured Pyritz. However, the hastily assembled and relatively inexperienced units committed to the attack failed to consolidate their early gains. Consequently, the attack lost momentum, due to a combination of stubborn Soviet resistance and the thaw which had turned the battlefield into a quagmire.

On 17 February, General Walter Wenck was seriously injured in a car accident whilst returning to the front after a meeting with Hitler in Berlin. The loss of this dynamic commander was a severe blow as he had led the attack with characteristic skill and vigour. His replacement, General Hans Krebs ordered the attack to continue, but the initiative had been lost. Following the costly failure of Operation Solstice, all the signs pointed to an impending drive on Berlin by Zhukov and Konev’s fronts. Unbeknown to the German High Command, their hastily conceived offensive had an impact on Soviet operational thinking which was totally out of proportion with the results achieved on the battlefield. The surprise German attack prompted the Stavka into considering the need to clear the flanks before launching their drive on Berlin. Between 17–22 February, Zhukov and Rokossovsky received orders to launch a joint attack aimed at Kolberg, Danzig and Gydnia. Rokossovsky attacked on 24 February, and within two days had smashed the German defences along a fifty kilometre front, penetrating to a depth of forty-five kilometres. Zhukov attacked northwards on 1 March, perplexing German planners who expected a full-blooded drive on Berlin. By 5 March, his forces had reached Stargard and Kolberg.

For Hitler, the Red Army’s halt on the River Oder signalled a lifeline. Surely the west would come to its senses and realise that the Soviet Union was the real enemy? Wiser heads dismissed Hitler’s assertions as sheer fantasy. Guderian saw the lull for what it was – a temporary reprieve. There was however still much to be gained from what little time there was left. For Guderian, replacing the dilettante commander of Army Group Vistula was a priority. Himmler had been an abject failure. His dreams of winning the coveted Knights Cross had come to nothing. In the event, Guderian experienced little trouble in persuading Himmler to relinquish his command. His successor, Colonel General Gotthard Heinrici was a man of a different stripe.

Heinrici was a noted expert in defence who had achieved considerable success whilst commanding 1st Panzer Army in Hungary. To hold back the massive Red Army forces building up on the Oder, he had at his disposal General Hasso von Manteuffel’s 3rd Panzer Army and General Theodor Busse’s 9th Army. Between them, these two formations covered a front of 281 kilometres stretching from the Baltic coast to the confluence of the Oder and the Neisse in Silesia. Heinrici’s strongest formation was Busse’s 9th Army which had succeeded in maintaining communications with Kustrin along a single narrow corridor.

Heinrici’s command did not get off to a good start, as a hastily prepared attack launched towards Kustrin on Hitler’s orders ended in a costly failure. The most high profile casualty of the Kustrin débâcle was Guderian who was sacked on 28 March after a particularly stormy Fuhrer conference. Despite Guderian’s dismissal, Heinrici still succeeded in gaining approval for a multi-layered defence of the eastern approaches to Berlin. Within a few short weeks, this exceptional defensive tactician and organiser worked miracles in transforming the German defences along the crucial central sector on the Seelow Heights. Heinrici was determined that Zhukov’s forces would face a hard fight to secure the easterly approaches to Berlin.

Chapter Three

Youthful Indifference – Brigitte Eicke

In Hitler’s Germany, the isolation of the Jewish community was accomplished within two years of the regime coming to power. Even before the promulgation of the Nuremberg laws for the protection of ‘Blood and Honour’ in 1935, Jews were already being shunned and marginalised. The so-called ‘Night of the Broken Glass’ in 1938 forever blurred the boundaries between persecutors and bystanders. To some degree, it is possible to understand the apathy of bystanders who saw their Jewish classmates, colleagues and neighbours disappear. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state which imposed strict codes of conduct upon its regimented population. In his seminal book Perpetrators Victims Bystanders, historian Raul Hilberg noted that, ‘It was difficult to revolt against established order in a society where people were more likely to revolt against revolution’. For every Fritz Elsas there were perhaps a thousand people whose daily concerns were far more important to them than the knowledge that murder was being carried out in their name.

Berlin teenager Brigitte Eicke began writing a diary in December 1942. She didn’t share Anne Frank’s ambitions to be a writer, her diary simply being a means to practice her shorthand skills as she trained to be a secretary. Nonetheless, her record is an authentic document of life in a world torn apart by war. Whilst Anne’s diary is a beautifully crafted tragedy written in a novelistic style, Brigitte adopts a more matter-of-fact approach. By juxtaposing their diary entries, it is possible to bring into focus the sharp contrast in their daily lives:

Brigitte Eicke – 13 January 1943

Mother whined as usual, there are some days when we get on terribly.

Anne Frank – 13 January 1943

Outside it is terrible. Day and night the poor people are being dragged away, with nothing more than a rucksack and a little money… there’s nothing more for us to do than to wait as quietly as possible for the end of our misery. The Jews wait, the Christians wait, and many more wait for their death.

Brigitte Eicke – 11 May 1944

Went in BDM uniform to the Admiralspalast to see Madame Butterfly. It was wonderful, my first opera.

Anne Frank – 11 May 1944

After the war I definitely want to publish a book with the title ‘The House Behind’. It is questionable whether it will appear, but my diary will serve as the basis.

Brigitte Eicke – 20 July 1944

Sunned myself on the roof. Failed assassination attempt on the Fuhrer. In the night we heard the speeches of the Fuhrer, Doenitz and Goering. Wonderful.

Anne Frank – 20 July 1944

Great news! There was an assassination attempt on Hitler… Sadly ‘divine providence’ saved the Führer’s life and he survived with a few grazes and scorch wounds.

Brigitte Eicke – 1 August 1944

It rained all day. We had a nap in the afternoon and were in bed already by 10. It’s a shame, such a waste of a lost evening.

Anne Frank – 1 August 1944

Dear Kitty… I’ve often told you that my soul is divided in two. One side contains my boisterous happiness… (and) squeezes out the other, much nicer, side that is more pure and deep. Nobody knows the nice side of Anne…

The banality of Brigitte’s diary entries demonstrate that politics held little fascination for her. Whilst world changing events were taking place all around her, she largely focused on the trivia of everyday life. The following entry from 27 February 1943 concludes with an aside about the deportation of Berlin’s Jews:

Waltraud and I went to the opera to see ‘The Four Ruffians’. I had a ticket for Gitti Seifert too. What a load of nonsense, it was ridiculous. We walked back to Wittenbergplatz and got the underground to Alexanderplatz. Three soldiers started talking to us. Gitti is so silly, she went all silent when they spoke to her. The least we can do is answer, even though we weren’t going to go anywhere with them. Jews all over the place are being taken away, including the tailor across the road.

The tailor which Brigitte alludes to worked in the Hackescher Markt which was located within Berlin’s pre-war Jewish district. Brigitte and her mother lived in an apartment on Immanuelkirchstrasse, a stones throw from the Rykestrasse Synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Kollwitzkiez. However, her youthful indifference was such that she saw nothing. Her life was as far removed from the experience of Anne Frank as it was possible to be.

In 2015, Brigitte was interviewed following the publication of her diary. When asked to explain her apathy, she replied, ‘I was busy with my own life… I can’t remember if we learned where they’d gone. We young people were indoctrinated to believe in the good of the regime to the end’. The historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that, ‘The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference’. Brigitte swam with the tide, her decision to join the Nazi Party in March 1944 was not out of political conviction, but from peer pressure. Brigitte was neither a perpetrator, nor a victim, she was merely a very small cog in the machine which powered the Nazi state.

By late 1944, this small cog had completed her secretarial training and was working for an Aryanised chain of department stores. Whilst Hitler was planning his desperate gamble in the Ardennes, Brigitte fretted about a disastrous perm. Her carefree existence went on, even as Soviet troops were digging-in on the Oder. In a 2 March 1945 diary entry, she wrote, ‘Margot and I went to the Admiralspalast to see ‘My Gentleman Son’. It was such a lovely film, but there was a power cut in the middle of it. How annoying’. Brigitte later witnessed the battle for Berlin and the downfall of the Nazi regime. On 2 May 1945, she wrote:

At 3 am Frau Schobs came into the cellar and said, ‘The Fuhrer is dead, the war is over’. I could only let out a scream… We went out onto the street and all the soldiers were withdrawing, it was so sad.

Brigitte was spared the terrible ordeal suffered by so many young girls and women at the hands of Soviet troops. She was also spared the fate of Anne Frank who succumbed to typhus in the filth of Bergen-Belsen in February 1945.

Within weeks of the Soviet authorities assuming control in Berlin, Brigitte forgot about her Nazi past and became a member of an anti-Fascist youth organisation. Once again, she was prepared to swim with the tide, albeit without much enthusiasm. In a July 1945 entry, she wrote, ‘I get the impression that they want the same thing as the Nazis, just under another name’. Whilst her diary may on first reading appear somewhat banal, it does open a window upon the most basic human instinct, survival.

Chapter Four

An Interesting Proposition at the Hotel Adlon

In 1905, wine merchant, coffee house owner, gastronome and hotelier Lorenz Adlon successfully lobbied the Kaiser for the construction of a first class hotel to rival those in London and Paris. His chosen location, close to the Brandenburg Gate was already occupied by the Palais Redern, a neoclassical style building designed by the noted architect Karl Schinkel and named after Count Wilhelm von Redern, who in 1828 became artistic director of the National Theatre. Following the Kaiser’s intercession, this fine building was demolished to make way for the new hotel. Designed by Carl Gause and Robert Leibnitz, the Hotel Adlon was completed at a cost of twenty-million gold marks. Behind a rather sober façade, the sumptuous interior was decorated in neo-baroque and Louis XVI styles. The hotel also boasted modern amenities including central heating, lifts and telephones.

The hotel opened on 23 October 1907. The Kaiser was a regular visitor. The Foreign Office used the hotel on a regular basis as an unofficial meeting place. Notable visitors before the outbreak of war in 1914 included Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the inventor Thomas Edison, industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company Henry Ford, and the business magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. After the death of Lorenz Adlon in a traffic accident close to the Brandenburg Gate in late 1918, the proprietorship of the hotel passed to his son Louis.

During the ‘Roaring Twenties’, the hotel was frequented by such luminaries as film stars Louise Brooks, Mary Pickford and Marlene Dietrich, celebrated operatic tenor Enrico Caruso, singer and entertainer Josephine Baker and writer Thomas Mann. Following Hitler’s rise to power in January 1933, the hotel continued to be a popular meeting place, particularly for Foreign Ministry officials. Following the first air-raids on Berlin by the RAF in 1940, huge underground shelters were constructed, along with a protective wall which extended upwards towards the first floor balconies. Louis Adlon lamented the graceless vista which the protective wall had produced:

It lent the building, of which the graceful architecture had been so essential a part of the Unter den Linden and Berlin, a strangely remote and repellent aspect, as though, from being a hotel which had become world-famous for its warmth and hospitality, it was now a fortress where no one might enter.

By some miracle, the ‘fortress’ was still standing and very much still in business following the conclusion of ‘Bomber Harris’ concentrated attack on the city between November 1943 and March 1944. Whilst much of Berlin had been battered and scarred by the protracted aerial bombardment, the Adlon continued to take in paying guests and provide facilities for Foreign Office staff.

On 2 February 1945, one of the most interesting incidents in the Adlon’s history took place. That morning, Major Johnny Dodge, who had been languishing in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp along with fellow ‘Great Escapees’ Harry ‘Wings’ Day and Sydney Dowse was suddenly freed. Six weeks earlier, he had been summoned to appear before Dr Hans Thost and Dr Theodor Paeffgen of the SS intelligence service. Dr Thost had opened the conversation by asking, ‘How do you think the German and British people can get closer together?’ Dodge replied by saying that:

The British people are offended most by the fact that Germany has overrun small nations and that Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland must be freed. Also that the Rhineland would have to be demilitarised. That all countries at present occupied by German forces would have to be evacuated of those forces… The persecution of the Jews would have to cease and that the German government would have to be reconstructed.

Both Dr Thost and Dr Paeffgen appeared to have been impressed by Dodge’s optimistic assessment of the situation. His underestimation of the Allies absolute detestation of the Nazi regime led Dr Thost to state that, ‘Germany wished to conclude an Armistice with the Western Allies and to be allowed a free hand to continue the fight against the Russians’. The meeting concluded with Dodge stating that he would be happy to directly convey any message that the German regime wished to send to the British government. As a cousin of the British Prime Minister, Dodge was well placed to deliver such a message. His captors had chosen well as Dodge’s innate optimism made him the ideal candidate.

Nothing further happened until the morning of Dodge’s release some six weeks later. He was driven through Berlin’s moonscape to a department store where he was given a set of civilian clothes. Following lunch at a Luftwaffe officers club, Dodge was driven to the Adlon Hotel where Dr Thost and Foreign Ministry interpreter Paul Otto Schmidt were already waiting for him. In room 403, Dodge was greeted by Schmidt who then wasted no time in opening the conversation by saying, ‘Major Dodge, you have escaped from almost every prison in Germany’. This somewhat clumsy opening remark naturally resulted in Dodge assuming a defensive posture. Sensing this, Schmidt quickly cut to the chase by explaining that the plan was to send him home so that he could speak with his ‘kinsman’ about the possibility of concluding an agreeable settlement with Germany. Dodge was to fly to Stockholm the following day with Dr Thost.

As a result of unexpected delays, Dodge and Dr Thost were delayed in Berlin for a week, during which time they travelled around the city by public transport. As Dodge had no capacity for learning foreign languages, their conversations were carried out entirely in English. In a newspaper article published in 1952, Dr Thost recalled how, ‘No one raised objection to our conversation in English, though some people may have possibly been surprised to hear English spoken in the worst bombed city in the world’. During the course of their excursions around the city, Dr Thost alluded to Dodge that both Hitler and Himmler were involved in the plan. It is doubtful that Hitler had ever heard of Dodge. However, it is possible that Himmler may well have been aware of, or had even sponsored the plan.

Meanwhile, the plan had changed, for they were now to head to Dresden. On 13 February Dodge and his chaperone were enjoying the evening show at the city’s Circus Sarrasani when the air-raid sirens brought about a mass exodus to the inadequate shelters which served as the populations only protection from Allied bombers. Dodge and Dr Thost were more fortunate than most in that they were able to take shelter in a bomb-proof bunker on the edge of the city. Having survived the devastating raid, Dodge and Dr Thost stayed in the home of Major Fritz von Alten for the next five days. They then continued their journey via Weimar, Regenstauf, Munich, Bad Tolz, Kempten, Bregenz, before finally reaching the Swiss frontier on 25 April.

The following morning, a guide escorted Dodge to the Swiss Customs Office at St Margarethen. He was then driven to the headquarters of the Swiss Intelligence Service in Bern where arrangements were made to fly him to England. After nearly five years in captivity, this brave officer finally came home on 28 April. By this time, the war was to all intents and purposes over. Events had since made the interesting proposition made at the Hotel Adlon back in February totally redundant. Dodge never did speak to his ‘kinsman’ about the interesting proposals made at the Hotel Adlon.

Chapter Five

Blonde Poison – Stella Goldschlag

As the Third Reich imploded in the spring of 1945, a young German-Jewish woman named Stella Goldschlag took shelter in the town of Liebenwalde. As SS troops from the Thomalla Battalion distributed ammunition to the local Volkssturm, they instructed them to conserve every round, ‘as if it’s your last piece of bread’. The hastily improvised defensive measures observed by Stella transformed her rustic retreat into a place of fevered activity. Indeed, the town had been in a state of turmoil for weeks. The impending attack by elements of Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front caused panic, many fled westwards. Those few that remained included the elderly, the sick and the frightened. Stella too remained behind as she was three months pregnant. Caught between a rock and a hard place, she had no other alternative than to stay put. The Jewish underground in Berlin had already warned her that she would face retribution, and she was almost certainly on a Soviet list of wanted Nazi war criminals. Stella was no ordinary young woman, she had already gained notoriety as the ‘Blonde Poison’. During her two year career as a ‘catcher’ with the Gestapo she had personally been responsible for uncovering and handing over between 600–3000 underground Berlin Jews.

The story of the ‘Blonde Poison’ is arguably one of the most intriguing and disturbing to come out of the Holocaust. It raises the question of just how far someone will go in order to survive. Stella went much further than most. To understand her motivation, we must go back to her childhood and adolescence in Berlin’s Westend. Stella was an only child, who was pampered and adored by parents who called her ‘Little Dot’. Whilst not quite living the life of a German-Jewish princess, she wanted for little, and was always well dressed. As a child she didn’t define herself as Jewish as she lived in a secular, fully-assimilated household. Her first inkling that she was ‘different’ came following the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. These laws effectively excluded Jews from civic life. Stella, along with thousands of other German-Jewish children was forced out of public school.

Life at the Jewish ‘Goldschmidt School’ opened up all sorts of new possibilities for Stella. It was here that she blossomed into womanhood. The transformation from being an adored child to becoming an object of desire was not lost on this mercurial adolescent. Peter Wyden was a classmate who was in thrall to this sexually knowing and seductive young woman. In a 1992 biography he recalled Stella’s allure:

Stella, my Stella, was a survivor of a different sort. I had no way to guess her vulnerability when we were teenagers, for the frustrating truth about ‘decent’ girls of my sheltered Berlin youth was their apparent aloofness. They did not neck, they did not hold hands. The very word ‘sex’ was unspeakable between the sexes, which made Stella’s sex education briefings so daring. Even my liberated mother never discussed sex. She informed me of the so-called facts of life by leaving a volume of Kraft-Ebing on prominent display on our bookshelves at home. I did have eyes in my head, and when they glimpsed Stella in those very short ruffled black gym shorts and her tight, thin white top, I didn’t need Kraft-Ebing or other middlemen to make the connection with my body.

Although I had many chances to become chummy with the adored one, inexperience keep me from pressing the luck of proximity. On most days I rode to school up Kurfurstendamm on either the No. 76 or the No. 176 tram, always picking my departure time with deliberation. My objective was to board the car on which ‘my’ girls were riding. If I didn’t spot them, I would wait until their car came along.

For Peter, Stella remained an unobtainable object of fantasy. In February 1937, he sailed with his parents on the S.S. Washington bound for New York. He was one of the fortunate few to be granted asylum in America. Stella’s family were neither as wealthy, nor well connected, and as such their own attempts to find refuge ended in dismal failure.

The state sponsored pogrom known as ‘The Night of the Broken Glass’ in November 1938 further served to ratchet up the repressive measures against Berlin’s Jews. Following the closure of the Goldschmidt School, Stella attended the Feige-Strassburger school of fashion design. In reality, she did little actual fashion design. For the most part, she posed as a nude model. As a model, Stella found herself very much in demand. Men queued up to catch a glimpse of this vision who was, ‘tall, slim, leggy, cool, with her light blue eyes, teeth out of a toothpaste ad, and pale satin skin’. Stella’s looks were to be her salvation, and later partly responsible for her utter damnation.

In September 1941, the Nazi authorities decreed that no Jew could be seen in public without having a large yellow Star of David stitched to their left breast. It was expressly forbidden to cover up this identifying symbol in any way. A former classmate of Stella named Klaus Scheurenberg later recalled his reaction to wearing the star following his conscription to work at the Otto Kolshon factory in Niederschonhausen, ‘The star seemed as big as a plate and to weigh a ton’. Like many others he felt vulnerable and humiliated. ‘Fair game, fingered!’ about summed it up.

For Stella, the order to wear the star was particularly traumatic as she neither felt, nor looked Jewish. By now she had been conscripted for work as an ‘armaments Jew’ at the Siemens Elmo Works. For ten hours a day she toiled away in Section 133, grinding parts for electric motors. Her fellow workers regarded her as something of a square peg in a round hole, Margot Levy later stating that, ‘She wasn’t one of us’. Neither was Stella a part of the Communist inspired anti-Nazi resistance movement led by Herbert Baum. Politics held little fascination for this blonde bombshell.

That October, Stella married her boyfriend Manfred Kubler in a hurried ceremony at Wilmersdorf City Hall. After the ceremony, the newly-weds took the U-Bahn to visit Manfred’s father who was serving time in the Moabit Prison on trumped-up charges of black marketeering. For Stella, marriage legitimised her sexual relationship with Manfred. Whilst her new husband also resented his Jewishness, Stella went a step further by refusing to wear the star outside of working hours. There was some risk involved, but in reality, her Aryan appearance made her all but invisible. During those precious hours when she could hide her Jewishness, Stella felt liberated. She felt that she belonged in the ranks of those who were born lucky – German Gentiles.

On 27 February 1943, Adolf Eichmann’s assistant Alois Brunner launched the so-called Fabrikaktion (Factory Action). The operation was planed months before, with factory bosses being advised to prepare for the replacement of Jewish workers with foreign slave labour. Jewish worker Hildegard Henschel who was transported to Theresienstadt later recalled the ‘action’:

27 February began like any normal work day. The music hall at the nurses’ dormitory of the Jewish Hospital was empty. In every corner sat a doctor and two nurses with cases of medicine and supplies, waiting for what was to come… Between 9 and 10 am. the phones started ringing. Oranienburg Street reported that all community officials had been arrested at their work places… People were loaded onto SS trucks and brought to four assembly camps… Large teams of aides and medical staff were taken there… I just want to state that this action was executed with terrible cruelty and no human consideration. The people were quickly loaded onto the SS trucks. The women came straight from work, in their work clothes, with no coats, no breakfast… It was hard, almost impossible to find out where people were… There was absolute chaos everywhere.

One of those netted during the operation was Stella’s husband. He was taken from his place of work, transported to Auschwitz and subsequently murdered.

Stella was more fortunate. A warning from a gentile supervisor gave her time to think. By hanging back as the Jewish workers assembled downstairs, she was able to slip away and hide in the cellar. She then waited until the shift change before striding confidently past the sleepy guard who did not notice her incriminating identification card. Stella’s Aryan appearance had made her escape possible. The guard didn’t bother to properly examine her identification card because she was blonde, the perfect image of Nazi-German womanhood.

Stella became a U-Boat (a term used for a Jew living below the surface – illegally). During that early spring of 1943, approximately 18,300 Jews were somehow surviving in Berlin. Their situation had become ever more precarious since the February ‘action’. To increase their survival chances, they needed papers. Fortunately for Stella, she bumped into an old acquaintance from the Feige – Strassburger fashion school, Guenther Rogoff. His own key to survival had been in the utilisation of his considerable talents as a forger. Throwing caution to the wind, Rogoff blurted out his secret, ‘I forge documents for people. Maybe I can help you too’. Stella casually replied that his help would be very welcome. This chance encounter set into motion a chain of events that would lead to Stella’s ‘turning’ by the Gestapo. She was to become a prime asset, not least because Rogoff was a wanted man.

True to his word, Rogoff produced a police identification card for Stella. He met her by appointment on a busy street, then disappeared. Rogoff’s sensitive radar told him that there was something not quite right about this blonde beauty. With new papers, Stella could now live openly and without fear. That spring, she met the dashing Rolf Isaaksohn whilst standing in line at a delicatessen on Olivaer Platz. His cousin Dorothy later recalled the charismatic young man who entranced Stella, ‘He had such presence. His bearing was so secure. And when you’re so very handsome, you can get away with a lot’. In a sense, this magnetic figure was a male version of Stella. As such, they were instantly drawn together. Within weeks, they set up home together in a shared three-room apartment on Lietzenburger Strasse.

Stella’s luck ran out on 2 July 1943. She was sitting in the Café Bollenmuller on Mittelstrasse at lunchtime when Inge Lustig (a former acquaintance) entered, waved nervously, and exited hurriedly. Seconds later, Gestapo men made a beeline for Stella. Escape was impossible, she was roughly handled, and bundled off for interrogation. The woman who denounced her was one of a new breed of Nazi-informers, a Jew who actively hunted down other Jews for the Gestapo.

Following her capture, Stella was kept in solitary confinement. Her only contact was with her interrogators who questioned her at irregular intervals about her suspicious paperwork which bore all the hallmarks of a Rogoff forgery. Unwilling to accept that Stella didn’t know Rogoff’s current whereabouts, her inquisitors resorted to crude torture methods in order to extract information. Stella described her treatment during her second trial in 1957:

They kicked both of my shins to the breaking point and kept beating the same spot on my spine. I was bleeding from the mouth, ears, and nose and couldn’t eat for days. They wanted to throttle me. Three times they took the safety off a pistol and put it against my temple. Totally shattered, I lay unconscious on the floor. Then they kicked me with their boots and I gave up on my life.

The harsh treatment meted out to Stella effectively destroyed her image of herself as a deified object of sexual desire. Since adolescence, she had used her looks to gain power over those who lusted after her. Her Gestapo interrogators cared little about her looks, their focus was the apprehension of the forger Rogoff.

When it became clear that their rough handling of Stella was not achieving the desired results, the Gestapo transferred her to the women’s prison located in the Tempelhof district. The prison was in reality no more than a collection of run-down barracks. Complaining of severe toothache (most probably a result of her beatings), Stella was taken to the police dental surgery on Scharnhorststrasse. The place was so lightly guarded, that she was able to slip out unnoticed. Even after her absence had been noticed, there were too few police personnel on duty to mount a pursuit. Stella remained at large for less than twelve hours before she was rearrested by the Gestapo. Once returned to custody, the questions and the beatings began again. This time the Gestapo wanted to know where they could find a passport forger named Mikki Hellman. Stella knew Hellman from their time together at the Feige – Strassburger school. Consequently, Hellman also knew Samson Schonhaus (a.k.a. Guenther Rogoff). The Gestapo forced Stella to write a card to Hellman, inviting him to a rendezvous. Hellman’s subsequent arrest marked Stella’s first operation as a ‘catcher’.

On 23 August 1943, the Gestapo prison was bombed-out during the opening phase of Bomber Harris’ ‘Battle of Berlin’. During the confusion, Stella was once more able to escape. Wandering alone in Berlin, Stella came to a decision:

I had phosphorous poisoning, contusions all over my body, my legs were green and blue, and my shoes fell off my feet like ashes… My emotions and my love of my parents caused me to decide to share their lot. I walked for three and a half hours after the raid ended and surrendered at Grosse Hamburger Strasse… I could have run, but I didn’t.

The interrogations began again, her inquisitor had several Rogoff forgeries already prepared as evidence. Stella finally admitted that Rogoff had produced false papers for her. The prison commandant Walter Dobberke suggested to Stella that she could be an asset in tracking down the elusive forger. Stella bluntly asked Dobberke, ‘What advantages will I have?’. The advantages were indeed numerous, ‘catchers’ like Inge Lustig were able to live like gentiles. There was no requirement to wear the star, no confinement to camp, food and pay was more than adequate, and government issue identity papers certified their immunity. Moreover, their names were taken off deportation lists. Further incentives came in the form of additional pay and immunity for family members if the ‘catcher’ proved effective.

Dobberke was impressed by Stella. She had escaped from Gestapo custody several times. Her appearance and demeanour suggested that she could be a valuable Gestapo asset. Not wishing to pass up this opportunity, he cut a deal. Stella, and her parents would be exempted from deportation to Auschwitz if she helped to catch the elusive forger. Later, Stella recounted how the deal was struck:

Dobberke announced that, starting the following day, I would be in the eternal service of the Gestapo. He said that he had already spoken to Sturmbannfuhrer Stock about it… and that written approval would follow.

After a slow start, Stella developed into a formidable operator, her remarkable memory for names, faces and places making her a prized asset. Her boyfriend Rolf Isaaksohn was arrested and ‘turned’ in October 1943. Soon, they were teamed-up as the ‘beautiful couple’ who hunted down Berlin’s underground Jews at some of their regular hang-outs. One such hang-out was the Staatsoper on the Unter den Linden. On 16 December 1943, Isaaksohn recognised two underground Jews, Abraham Zajdman, and his son Moritz. As the ‘beautiful couple’ closed in, Moritz made a run for it. Stella shouted out, ‘Keep him, Jew!’. Passers by apprehended Moritz in the street, dragging him back to where the Gestapo were already waiting. As a result of her actions, Stella soon gained a notorious reputation for ruthlessness and cruelty amongst Berlin’s Jewish U-Boat population. A reputation which was well deserved.

In February 1944, Stella was informed that her parents could no longer be exempted from transportation. She argued their case vociferously, but to no avail. It did however come as some relief when she learned that they were not bound for Auschwitz, but instead for the slightly more benign surroundings of Theresienstadt. Having rationalised the situation, she made the decision to go on working. Her own survival depended entirely upon her success as a ‘catcher’. During the spring and summer of 1944, the ‘beautiful couple’ seemed to materialise everywhere. The Swiss Embassy on Herman Goring Strasse, and Westend eateries including the Dobrin, Kranzler, Leon, Wien, Uhlandeck and the Teschendorf became part of their regular beat. Occasionally, Stella worked alone. Her modus operandi on these operations was to attend the funerals of mixed marriage couples as the death of the Aryan spouse automatically cancelled any immunity the Jewish partner enjoyed.

However, time was running out, as no matter how artfully the Propaganda Ministry put a spin on the latest news from the battlefronts, the truth was that the Allies were winning. The German Reich was shrinking. The deteriorating war situation coincided with a deterioration in Stella’s relationship with her handsome partner-in-crime. She questioned his sexuality (Rolf was bisexual). There were fights, slanging matches and fierce recriminations. Sensing that he was about to lose control over his most prized asset, Dobberke insisted that the pair marry. Reluctantly, they tied-the-knot in a simple ceremony on 29 October 1944. Although he had managed to keep control of Stella, Dobberke would soon have reason enough to doubt her loyalty.

Stella’s marriage was a sham, and as such it was doomed to failure. She soon became exasperated with a husband whom she regarded as a sexual fake. The thrill of the chase was also losing its appeal as there were fewer and fewer Jews left to hunt down. Increasingly she sought comfort in the company of other men. Stella became depressed, demotivated, and increasingly needy. Above all, she craved a man who could provide her with what she really needed, ‘Emotional anchorage, sex, and protection from worldly danger’.

By late 1944, Stella had managed to convince her Gestapo handlers that she was too well known to operate as a ‘catcher’. She continued to work as a ‘scout’, checking out addresses to see if Jews were still living there. She carried out the work with little enthusiasm, and her reports that there were no more Jews to be found went unchallenged by her superiors. At around this time, she had also met a new lover, an older man known as Heino Meissl. The two embarked upon a passionate affair. In February 1945, Stella discovered that she was pregnant. She thought that a child would bind her lover closer to her. The Red Army was closing in, and she needed the protection of her knight in shining armour. It turned out that Heino wasn’t the gallant protector that she imagined him to be. No sooner had she announced the pregnancy, than her knight errant made plans for his own escape from Berlin. He had a future, as a Nazi-collaborator she had none. ‘She only wanted me for an alibi’, he later recalled.

Stella gave birth to a baby girl in October 1945. Heino never returned to protect her from the vengeance of Berlin’s surviving Jews. Indeed, 1945 was to be Stella’s own ‘year zero’ as her past finally caught up with her. Since beginning her career as a Gestapo ‘catcher’ in August 1943, she had been responsible for hunting down anything up to 3000 Jews, most unknown to her, but many others had been friends and acquaintances. Her inevitable arrest by the Soviet authorities in Liebenwalde came after she was overheard saying that, ‘The GPU (Soviet Secret Police) is worse than the Gestapo’. Her baby was taken away by the woman who had denounced her to the authorities. Stella was then taken to the Alexanderplatz prison in Berlin to be interrogated. Her subsequent trial was a blur, conducted entirely in Russian. Following the guilty verdict, she was sentenced to ten years hard labour.

During the first two years of her sentence, Stella toiled in Soviet Special Camp No. 7 (formerly Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp). She served her remaining years at Torgau, Hoheneck Fortress, and finally at Waldheim Hospital (where she was recovering from TB). Following her release, ‘The Blonde Poison’ stated that she considered herself a victim of the Jews. In later years, she converted to Christianity and became an open and vocal anti-Semite. Her story is intriguing and disturbing. It is also one which raises important moral questions, chief amongst them must be: Just how far will a person go to survive?

Chapter Six

Intrigues and Deceptions

On 28 March 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote a personal message to Stalin. He considered the matters contained in the message of such significance that he bypassed the Chiefs of Staff, leaving the Allied military missions in Moscow to inform Stalin directly of his intentions. The message was indeed significant in that it represented nothing less than a complete volte-face concerning his former strategic outlook which had placed Berlin at the centre of Allied planning. The previous day, Eisenhower had spoken to the press, for the first time openly conceding that Stalin would win the race for Berlin by stating that, ‘I think mileage alone ought to make them do it. After all they are thirty-three miles away. They have a shorter race to run’. Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery was disappointed by Eisenhower’s statement. However, Eisenhower was quite correct in his thinking as he was fully aware of the extent to which the strategic picture had changed following the rapid advances of the Red Army from the Vistula to the Oder.

Eisenhower’s strategic outlook was to a large degree influenced by General Omar Bradley, who pointed out the practical difficulties of advancing from the Elbe. Furthermore, it was the centrally placed American 12th Army Group that was best placed to effect a link up with the Red Army in the Dresden area. In the process they would split the German forces and sever land communications between Berlin and the anticipated site of a last stand in the mountains of Bavaria. To this end, Eisenhower took the 9th Army from Montgomery’s 21st Army Group in order to reinforce Bradley’s southern thrust. Later, he justified his decision stating that, ‘I could see no political advantage accruing from the capture of Berlin that would offset the need for the quick destruction of the German army on our front’. Notwithstanding, the British response was both swift and condemnatory. On 29 March, Churchill’s main military advisor Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke wrote in his diary:

To start with, he has no business to address Stalin direct, his communications should be through the Combined Chiefs of Staff; secondly he produced a telegram which was unintelligible; and finally, what was implied in it appeared to be entirely adrift and a change from all that had been previously agreed on.

Two days later, Churchill penned a private memorandum to the British Chiefs of Staff which read:

It seems to me that the chief criticism of the new Eisenhower plan is that it shifts the axis of the main advance upon Berlin to the direction through Leipzig to Dresden, and thus raises the question of whether the 21st Army Group will not be so stretched as to lose its offensive power, especially after it has been deprived of the 9th United States Army. Thus we might be condemned to an almost static role in the north and virtually prevented from crossing the Elbe until an altogether different stage in the operations has been reached. All prospect also of the British entering Berlin with the Americans is ruled out.

Churchill was aggrieved, but felt powerless to act against an ally whose massive economic might meant that it was inevitable that they would dominate the conduct of the war. To this end, he warned the British Chiefs of Staff that their American counterparts would ‘riposte heavily’ to any criticisms of Eisenhower’s decision. Nonetheless, the British Chiefs sent a lengthy telegram protesting that Eisenhower had exceeded his authority.

The breach within the Allied command structure prompted the American Chief of Staff General George Marshall to pass on the British complaints to Eisenhower for his further consideration. Having received Marshall’s telegram, Eisenhower contacted the American military representative in Moscow, General John R. Deane to enquire if it was not too late to delay sending the message concerning his strategic intentions to Stalin. Much to his relief, Deane confirmed that the message had not yet been sent. In the meantime, the anticipated riposte by the American Chiefs arrived in the form of a combative message supporting Eisenhower’s new strategy. The tone of the message was such that there could be no doubt about the future direction of strategy. It stated that:

…Eisenhower is the best judge of the measures which offer the earliest prospect of destroying the German armies or their power to resist… His strategic concept is sound from the overall viewpoint of crushing Germany as expeditiously as possible and should receive full support.

With the support of General Marshall and the American Chiefs, Eisenhower presented Churchill, Montgomery and the British Chiefs with a fait accompli. Neither British, nor American forces would be going to Berlin.

On the evening of 31 March, Eisenhower’s delayed message was at last handed over to Stalin, who after reading it, conferred with Marshal Georgy Zhukov, General Aleksei I. Antonov and General Sergei M. Shtemenko. Whilst Stalin considered that Eisenhower’s planning ‘seemed good’, there remained serious doubts as to the real intentions of the Western Allies. Only the day before, General Antonov had sent a barbed message to General Deane, berating the Americans for supposedly misleading the Soviet High Command (Stavka). To understand the degree of mistrust, it is worth quoting the message in extensio:

On February 20 of this year I received a message from General Marshall that the Germans were deploying two groups for a counter-offensive on the Eastern Front: one in Pomerania for an attack against Thorn and another in the Vienna – Moravska – Ostrava area for an offensive towards Lodz. The southern group was to include the SS 6th Panzer Army. A similar report was received on February 12 from the head of the army section of the British military mission Colonel Brinkman.

I am extremely grateful to General Marshall for the information intended to help attain our common goals which he so graciously offered us. However, I am compelled to inform him that the military actions on the Eastern Front failed to confirm the information communicated, because the fighting has shown that the main group of German troops, including the SS 6th Panzer Army, was deployed not in Pomerania and not in the Moravska – Ostrava area, but in the Lake Balaton Region. From here, the Germans advanced with the aim of reaching the Danube and force-crossing it south of Budapest. This fact shows that the information General Marshall has used did not correspond to the actual course of events on the Eastern Front in the month of March.

It is not to be deduced that certain sources of that information were specifically intended to confuse the Soviet High Command and in doing so divert attention away from the area the Germans were preparing for their main operation on the Eastern Front.

Despite the above, I request General Marshall, if possible, to continue communicating available information concerning the enemy. I regard it as my duty to send this message to General Marshall exclusively so that he would be able to draw the relevant conclusions regarding the source of that information…

Whilst Antonov’s message betrays the depth of suspicion in the Soviet camp, Stalin nonetheless agreed with the general thrust of Eisenhower’s plan, as he too believed in the probability of a German last-stand in Bavaria. Stalin remained convinced however that his allies were deceiving him. Now it was time to carry out some deceptions of his own.

Stalin’s reply to Eisenhower was delivered by General Deane on 1 April. In his reply, he praised the idea of a junction of attacking forces in the Erfurt – Leipzig – Dresden area as conforming entirely with plans drawn up by the Stavka:

Your plan to cut the German forces by joining up the Soviet forces with your forces entirely coincides with the plan of the Soviet High Command. I agree with you also that the place for the joining up of your forces and the Soviet forces should be in the area Erfurt – Leipzig – Dresden. The Soviet High Command considers that the main blow of the Soviet forces should be delivered in that direction. Berlin has lost its former strategic importance. The Soviet High Command therefore plans to allot secondary forces in the direction of Berlin.

That same day, General Antonov delivered his report on the plan for the Berlin offensive. The ‘secondary forces’ involved would consist of no less than three Red Army Fronts with a combined strength of 2,700,000 troops (including the Polish 1st Army), 6,250 tanks and self propelled guns, 41,600 artillery pieces and 7,500 aircraft. Stalin’s determination to take Berlin set in motion a contest between Zhukov and Konev following his changes to the previously agreed boundaries between the two Fronts. Whilst Zhukov had been given the honour of taking Berlin, Stalin also opened up possibilities for Konev by saying:

In case the enemy puts up stiff resistance on the eastern approaches to Berlin, which will undoubtedly happen, and the First Byelorussian Front is delayed, the First Ukrainian Front is to be ready to attack Berlin from the south with the tank armies.

During the early hours of 2 April, Stalin signed the directive for the 1st Belorussian Front’s operations. Following the necessary changes to the Stavka plan which took into account the boundary changes between the two main Fronts involved, Stalin signed the directive for the 1st Ukrainian Front’s operations the following day. The enforced delay in the 2nd Belorussian Front’s operations meant that Zhukov’s forces would advance towards Berlin with an open flank. Zhukov later recorded his thoughts about the impending operation:

Of course, it would have been better to wait five or six days and begin the Berlin operation with three Fronts simultaneously. However, in view of the existing military-political situation, the Stavka could not put off the operation until a later date. We had very little time left before April 16 and very many measures to be urgently taken. Troops were to be grouped, extensive logistical support provided for, and large-scale operational, tactical and special preparations of the Front carried out for an exceptionally important and unusual operation such as the taking of Berlin.

Zhukov flew to his command the day after receiving Stalin’s directive and immediately began to prepare for the attack which it was anticipated would lead to the capture of Berlin and a junction with Allied forces on the Elbe within 12-15 days.

The British Chiefs were still not satisfied with the decision to leave Berlin to the Red Army. On 3 April, they met to discuss the situation. This meeting led to the drafting of a message which stressed ‘the desirability of Anglo-American forces capturing Berlin as soon as possible’ being sent out to their American counterparts the following day. Churchill finally put the matter to rest, as he realised, more than the British Chiefs did, that the American position was unshakeable. In a message to President Roosevelt he acknowledged the position regarding Berlin and made assurances that it did not in any way affect his relationship with Eisenhower:

My personal relations with General Eisenhower are of the most friendly character. I regard the matter as closed, and to prove my sincerity I will use one of my very few Latin quotations: Amantium irae amoris integratio est (The quarrels of lovers renew their love).

Churchill understood clearly that America was the dominant partner, due to its vast resources in men and war material. On 9 April, he amplified the point, by telling guests at Chequers:

There was no greater exhibition of power in history than the American army fighting the battle of the Ardennes with its left hand and advancing from island to island towards Japan with its right.

At the political level, the issue of Berlin was finally settled. The prize of Berlin would go to the Red Army.

Three days later, Roosevelt died at his retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia. That same day, Vice President Truman automatically took on the mantle of leadership. The American people were stunned by the death of Roosevelt. In Britain, his loss was keenly felt, particularly by Churchill, who later in the House of Commons said:

…In war he raised the strength, might and glory of the great Republic to a height never attained by any nation in history… But all this was no more than worldly power and grandeur, had it not been that the causes of human freedom and of social justice to which so much of his life had been given, added a lustre to all this power and pomp and warlike might, a lustre which will long be discernible among men. He has left behind him a band of resolute and able men handling the numerous interrelated parts of the vast American war machine. He has left a successor who comes forward with firm step and sure conviction to carry on the task to its appointed end. For us, it remains only to say that in Franklin Roosevelt there died the greatest American friend we have ever known and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the new world to the old.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, the sense of grief was no less palpable. To some degree Roosevelt had exercised a modifying influence upon Stalin, his manipulative geniality soothing the Soviet leader’s suspicious mind. However, the new man in the White House was something of an unknown quantity, and as such Stalin had to tread warily. Despite reassurances from Washington that it was a case of business as usual, the Soviet dictator was somewhat concerned about reports of German surrenders to Anglo-American units. On the Eastern Front German units were putting up fanatical resistance, whilst on the Western Fronts they appeared to be surrendering en masse. His jaundiced appreciation of the situation no doubt included a scenario in which German troops were being rearmed and re-equipped by the Anglo-American alliance for an anti-Communist crusade. Truman’s unplanned ascent to the presidency came at a time of a decline in mutual political confidence between the great powers. With this decline, the Americans and the Soviets pursued policies which were based on their own long-held principles, thus sowing the seeds of the Cold War.

In Berlin, Dr Joseph Goebbels had of late managed to rekindle some of the intimate friendship he had shared with Hitler before his disastrous affair with the Czech actress Lida Baarova which had nearly brought his marriage (and his political career) to an end. Baarova later recalled:

Hitler made a huge fuss about it. He called Goebbels in and told him to drop me and return to his wife and children. I couldn’t take the pressure and I returned to Prague. Goebbels never tried to contact me again.

Now in the gloomy depths of the Berlin bunker, Goebbels repaid his leader for not expelling him from his post by comforting him with readings of long passages from Thomas Carlyle’s Frederick the Great. Historical parallels were drawn between the seemingly miraculous deliverance of this revered figure in his darkest moments of despair and the death of Roosevelt. The incredible turnaround of fortunes which brought the Seven Years’ War to an end following the sudden death of the Czarina Elizabeth provided hope that history may just repeat itself. The passage which had the greatest effect on Hitler was the one in which Carlyle describes how fate had brought her nephew Peter to the throne:

We promised Frederick a wonderful star-of-day; and this is it – though it is long before he dare quite regard it as such. Peter, the successor, he knows to be secretly his friend and admirer; if only in the new Czarish capacity and its chaotic environments and conditions, Peter dare and can assert these feelings? What a hope to Frederick, from this time onward! Russia may be counted as the bigger half of all he had to strive with; the bigger, or at least the far uglier, more ruinous and incendiary; and if this were at once taken away, think what a daybreak when the night was at the blackest!

Incredibly, daybreak arrived within hours of a visit by Goebbels to the headquarters of 9th Army on the morning of 12 April, where during the course of an address to the assembled officers, he made a pointed reference to the ‘Second Miracle of the House of Brandenburg’. Following his address, one officer said, ‘Well, what Czarina is going to die this time?’. Goebbels replied, ‘I don’t know, but fate holds all kind of possibilities’. For Goebbels, news of Roosevelt’s death which had reached the Propaganda Ministry later that day, opened up new possibilities. Fate had seemingly intervened.

Goebbels was enraptured by the news of Roosevelt’s death. He ordered that the best champagne be brought out to celebrate. For a while, he could not quite believe it, the reports appeared so incredible. Just after midnight, he telephoned Hitler with the news, and in a tense and excited voice he said:

My Fuhrer, I congratulate you! Roosevelt is dead. It is written in the stars that the second half of April will be the turning point for us. This is Friday, April the thirteenth! Fate has laid low your greatest enemy. God has not abandoned us. Twice he has saved you from savage assassins. Death, which the enemy aimed at you in 1939 and 1944, has now struck down our most dangerous enemy. It is a miracle!

The telephone call ended with some speculation as to who would succeed Roosevelt. Perhaps the more moderate Truman might take on the role of Peter, bringing about the much anticipated change of fortune that might yet master fate. The following morning, Finance Minister Count Schwerin von Krosigk furthered the mood of jubilation by writing exultantly to Goebbels:

…I myself see in Roosevelt’s death a divine judgement, but it is also a gift from God that we shall have to earn in order to possess. This death eliminates the block that has obstructed all roads leading to contacting America. Now they’ll have to exploit this God-sent opportunity and do everything to get negotiations started. The only promising way, it seems to me, is through the intermediary of the Pope. As the American Catholics form a strong, united block – in contrast to the Protestants, who are split into numerous sects – the Pope’s voice would carry great weight in the U.S.A. Considering the seriousness of the military situation, we must not hesitate…

It was incredible that men such as Goebbels and von Krosigk could believe in the intervention of divine fate and providence, whilst their world collapsed around them. Be that as it may, their belief in historical parallels helped, for a while at least, to provide hope. Although, perhaps, this was the greatest deception of all.

Goebbels’ euphoria lasted until the first reports from the front on 13 April indicated that no discernible change of attitude by the Allies had been observed. Later that day, he confided in his Press Secretary, saying that, ‘Perhaps fate has again been cruel and made fools of us’. That day, Vienna fell to the Red Army. Four days later, Field Marshal Model’s Army Group B which had been defending the strategically important Ruhr area ceased all resistance against American forces. Sharing Goebbels’ delusions, Hitler still could not concede that the war was lost, Field Marshal Kesselring later observed that:

He was still optimistic. How far he was play-acting it is hard to decide. Looking back, I am inclined to think that he was literally obsessed with the idea of some miraculous salvation, that he clung to it like a drowning man to a straw.

Buoyed by his belief in providence and his own military genius, Hitler remained convinced that Berlin was not threatened by any immediate danger. Indeed, he considered that the anticipated Soviet offensive would be aimed at Prague, not Berlin. Had he too been taken in by Stalin’s disinformation which pointed towards an attack in that direction?

Whilst Hitler appeared sure where the next mighty blow by the Red Army would fall, Soviet strategic priorities appeared somewhat opaque to the Anglo-American Allies, largely due to Stalin’s obfuscations. On 15 April, a carefully worded query from the American Ambassador in Moscow regarding Soviet aims and objectives was skilfully parried by Stalin. He indicated that Eisenhower already knew that the impending major offensive on the Eastern Front was aimed at capturing Dresden. Indeed, Stalin had indicated as much at the Yalta conference in February. However, even as he spoke, final preparations were under way for the massive assault on Berlin.

Chapter Seven

The Paladins Depart

On 16 April, those Berlin cinemas still open were screening the patriotic films Comrades and Hallgarten Patrol, along with the light hearted comedies A Merry House, It All Started So Gaily, The Ideal Husband and the circus themed film The Big Number. Those with more elevated tastes could still visit the Berlin Philharmonic to see Robert Heger conduct a programme consisting of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Brahms’ Double Concerto and Death and Transfiguration by Strauss. Life somehow went on, even after the first indications of the Soviet onslaught were felt in the Berlin districts of Weissensee, Lichtenberg, Kopenick and Erkner. The sound and vibrations of the opening Soviet barrage did not penetrate as far as the more central Berlin districts, but news of the attack came quickly enough following a somewhat cautious radio announcement which said no more than that, ‘Heavy Russian attacks continue on the Oder Front’. The average Berlin citizen needed no elaboration, the moment they had long been dreading had finally arrived.

At 05.00hrs (Moscow time), Colonel-General Gotthard Heinrici’s Army Group Vistula was attacked by powerful Soviet forces following a huge artillery barrage. In the critical central sector, Lieutenant-General Helmuth Weidling’s 56th Panzer Corps defended the Seelow Heights with great skill and bravery. Zhukov’s attempt to storm the heights ended in dismal failure, the commander of 8th Guards Army General Vasily Chuikov later recalled the debacle:

The artillery bombardment, using every gun and mortar, and reinforced by bombers and dive-bombers, lasted twenty-five minutes. In its wake, and under cover of a double moving barrage, the infantry and tanks moved forward. Hundreds of powerful searchlights lit up the ground in front of the advancing troops. The plan of attack was carried out strictly, to the letter, but real conditions made alterations of their own… On many sectors the troops came to a halt in front of streams and canals running across the Oder valley, waiting for the light of dawn to show them clearly the obstacle they had to overcome… The enemy put up particularly stubborn resistance on the Haupt canal, which runs along the valley round the foot of the Seelow hills. The spring floods had turned it into an impassable barrier for our tanks and self-propelled guns. The few bridges in the area were kept under enemy artillery and mortar fire from beyond the Seelow Heights and from dug-in tanks and self-propelled guns, all well camouflaged.

Here the advance of our troops slowed down more than ever. Until the engineers had crossings ready, they were brought to a dead halt. Any kind of manoeuvre by motor vehicles or tanks was out of the question; the roads were jammed, and to try and move across country, in this marshy valley with its well-mined fields, would have been fatal.

The chaotic scenes which characterised Zhukov’s initial attempt to take the Seelow Heights were later graphically described by Vladimir Abyzov who served as a rifleman in the 236th Guards Rifle Regiment. His memoir entitled The Final Assault makes for interesting reading, in it he recalls:

We hugged the ground, waiting for the combat engineers to arrive. Shells continued to burst around us. Flares shot up into the grey sky. Eventually someone shouted, ‘We have a bridge!’ and the platoon jumped up and started to run again. We felt no fatigue and we didn’t realise that we were soaked to the skin. We didn’t even notice night change into day. Beyond the canal there was no mud, though there were many shell craters in the ground. The field was green with silky winter wheat. We ran across this field till the enemy met us with a wall of fire. We fell to the ground and quickly began to dig in. For the first time, the sky was clear of clouds. We saw hills before us. They were not high, but rather steep, some of them crowned by church spires … The Germans could see us clearly as if we were in the palm of their hand. They spared neither shells nor bullets, but we held our ground. We did not fire back – it would have been useless, because they were well out of range of our sub-machine guns.

Zhukov did not take the news that Chuikov’s troops were pinned down calmly, as every minute lost would give his rival Konev some advantage in the race towards Berlin. In order to facilitate a more rapid breakthrough, he changed his tactics by throwing his tank armies into the fray. Far from achieving the breakthrough he so desperately needed, this ill considered move produced further chaos and confusion on the battlefield as his armour floundered on the muddy terrain. A German counter-barrage inflicted heavy casualties on Zhukov’s troops and armour.

Spurred on by the news that Stalin had directed Konev’s tank armies north towards Berlin, Zhukov renewed his attack the following day. By nightfall, the second German defensive line had been overrun, but resistance on the Seelow Heights continued. The following morning, Zhukov attacked again following another series of artillery barrages. At 07.00hrs, 5th Shock Army launched an assault towards Reichenberg and Munchehof. Heavy defensive fire soon brought the advance to a shattering halt. Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army attacked at the same time in the direction of Muncheberg. Ignoring the danger of his exposed left flank, he urged his troops on towards the eastern approaches to Berlin. His determination paid off, and by the evening his troops had advanced to the Treibutz-Jahnsfelde line. Muncheberg was taken the following day after a brief check by a German flak unit near the Jahnsfelde crossroads. To the south, Konev’s tank forces were heading towards Zossen.

Despite the unfolding crisis, the authorities in Berlin seemed unable or unwilling to accept that the decisive moment had come. During his weekly ‘War Council’ meeting, Goebbels, in his role as the defender of Berlin, gave fanciful assurances to Hitler’s appointed military commander of the Berlin defence area (Lieutenant-General Hellmuth Reymann) that the city could hold out, stating that:

If the battle for Berlin was on right now you would have at your disposal all sorts of tanks and field pieces of different calibres, several thousand light and heavy machine guns, and several hundred mortars, in addition to large quantities of corresponding ammunition.

Shrouding himself from reality, Goebbels took to the airwaves on the evening of 19 April to congratulate Hitler on his forthcoming birthday and to praise his genius. In an impassioned, over-long and somewhat discursive address to the shrinking Reich, Goebbels attempted to rally the people with these words:

…Once more, the armies of the enemy powers storm our defences; in their wake, foaming at the mouth, international Jewry, which does not want peace because their diabolical aim is to see the world destroyed. But in vain. God will throw back Lucifer, as he has done before when the dark angel stood before the gates of power, back into the abyss from whence he came… Germany is still the land of loyalty; in the hour of danger she will celebrate her greatest triumph. Never shall history say that the people have abandoned their Fuhrer, or that the Fuhrer has abandoned his people. And this means victory.

That same night, Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky reported to Stalin that his 2nd Belorussian Front was now ready to go on the offensive. The following day General Hasso von Manteuffel’s 3rd Panzer Army bore the brunt of Rokossovsky’s assault. The spirited defence mounted by Manteuffel’s troops over the next few days prevented a direct northern thrust against Berlin. However, their involvement in blunting Rokossovsky’s drive also precluded them from taking a more direct role in the defence of Berlin.

On the morning of 20 April, the 125th Rifle Corps of Lieutenant-General Frants I. Perkhorovich’s 47th Army stormed and captured Bernau. Meanwhile, General Semyon Bogdanov’s 2nd Guards Tank Army had forged ahead of the infantry, cutting a swathe to the outskirts of Berlin at Ladenburg and Zepernick. At 11.00hrs, Major A.I. Zyukin ordered his artillery battery to fire on Berlin. Zhukov was then able to report to Stalin that elements of his forces were already engaged in the battle for the city.

That morning, Hermann Goering, the corpulent second man in the sinking ship of state awoke early at his estate near Eberswalde. His country house, named Carinhall in honour of his first wife who had died in 1931 was wired-up with explosives. As Rokossovsky’s guns boomed in the distance, a convey of Luftwaffe trucks prepared to head south, all were laden with Goering’s most treasured possessions. After speaking a few words to the commander of the departing truck column, Goering pressed down on the plunger which set off a tremendous explosion reducing his beloved Carinhall to ruins. Without looking back, he stepped into his waiting car which would take him to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin for Hitler’s birthday celebrations.

Meanwhile, the man whom Hitler referred to as ‘My loyal Heinrich’ was making plans of his own. His special-plenipotentiary, Brigadier-General Walter Schellenberg, along with his masseur and confidant Felix Kersten had arranged meetings that day with Count Folke Bernadotte, the vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross, and Norbert Masur, who at short notice had replaced Gilel Storch as the visiting representative of the World Jewish Congress. Both Bernadotte and Masur had assumed that Himmler had wanted to discuss the possible release of concentration camp prisoners. This was certainly part of Himmler’s thinking at the time, though his main concern was in opening up channels of communication with General Eisenhower.

When Count Bernadotte arrived in Berlin, Schellenberg informed him that Himmler was unable to see him immediately. Following an air-raid alert, he set off for the comparative safety of the Swedish Legation air raid shelter, on the way noting that ‘Berlin had become a silent city’. After spending several hours in the shelter, Bernadotte was driven to Hohenlychen Sanatorium where medical superintendent Dr Karl Gebhardt was waiting to welcome him. Several more hours passed, largely as a consequence of Himmler’s vacillation. Evidently, he could still not fully commit to what amounted to treason against his beloved Fuhrer.

Meanwhile, Masur had also arrived in Berlin, accompanied on the flight from Stockholm by Kersten. Masur and Kersten were the only passengers and during the flight the representative of the World Jewish Congress reflected on his mission:

For me as a Jew, it was a deeply moving thought, that, in a few hours, I would be face to face with the man who was primarily responsible for the destruction of several million Jewish people. But my agitation was dampened by the thought that I finally would have the important opportunity to be of help to many of my tormented fellow Jews. I had been in the midst of other missions before, but always from the safety of Stockholm. This time it was action at the front lines.

Masur was indeed stepping into the lion’s den. However, his composure was only to be admired. Thankfully, the journey to Berlin was without incident. Later, Masur documented his experiences in detail. As such, we have an accurate record of the run-up to the meeting, and later, the meeting itself. Masur’s recollections of his arrival in Berlin effectively chronicle the slow death of a once great city, and as such they are worth quoting in extensio:

The North-German plain passed peacefully in front of our eyes. The fields seemed to be tended carefully. Only once did I discern a bomb crater, the first sign of war, otherwise there were no traces. No soldiers or motorised columns were visible, only an occasional farmer. However, when we approached Berlin, the signs of war became more evident, bombed out houses, factories without roofs…

At the Templehof airport, my companion showed his passport, however I kept mine in my pocket. I did not have a visa, because only Himmler and his closest associates knew about our visit, it was held in complete secrecy from all the other Nazi bosses. Because of this, I could not apply for a visa at the German embassy in Stockholm. The Gestapo simply ordered that a man in the company of Dr Kersten should be admitted without passport control.

At the airport, the limousine of the Swedish embassy was waiting to take us into the city. However, we could not use this car, and had to wait for a Gestapo car, as we were to proceed to an estate approximately 70 km north of Berlin. Unfortunately, we had to wait almost 2 hours. In the meantime, I had the opportunity to get a first impression of the atmosphere in Berlin. I had a conversation with some of the workers at the airport, and was able to discern that they were war-weary and without hope. Every night, air-raids lasting 5 to 7 hours, therefore they had to spend a long time in uncomfortable air-raid shelters without sleep, that is too much for even the strongest person. The air-raids occur with the punctuality of a time table. Every evening, shortly after dark, the Russians begin the attacks, followed by the Americans, and the British would finish the raids.

Because of this it was important for us to get out of town before the beginning of the air-raids. Around 10 pm, the car arrived, and the excuse was that the telephone connection with Stockholm was interrupted, and they did not know for sure if we were coming. The car left immediately, it was dark, and the moon was shining. The ruins of the houses were like ghosts. The driver sped through the city, which looked as if it were dead… We passed rows of destroyed houses, and drove through the narrow openings of tank-traps. Several times we had to take a detour to avoid streets that had recently been closed because of the bombings.

Finally, after an hour, we were out of Berlin and on the highway. It only took a few minutes before a military patrol stopped us and asked the driver to turn off the headlights, as there was an air alert. The nightly show over Berlin had started… The anti-aircraft searchlights began to play in the sky, and we stopped and got out of the car to watch the sinister, but fascinating show. From all sides we heard the whirring of propellers, which our driver, with his trained ears, identified as Russian. We saw how illumination flares spread out like a carpet, slowly descending to the ground, lighting up the entire area, how planes would be trapped in the spotlights, but we did not hear any flak. At my question as to why there was no shooting, I got the significant answer that all the flak ammunition had been sent to the front.

We continued, past suddenly appearing military vehicles, past mounds of destruction in the town of Oranienburg, which had suffered an air raid recently. For me, the name Oranienburg was ominous, as here many of my closest relatives became acquainted with the terror of the concentration camps, before I was able to rescue them to emigrate into Sweden.

Finally, close to midnight, we arrived at our destination, an estate belonging to Dr Kersten. Here we were supposed to await the visit by Himmler. That night I was not able to sleep. Not because of the constant noise from the planes, but the tension at the thought of my meeting with Himmler… Even though I knew that Himmler’s reason for negotiating was the catastrophic war situation in Germany, I believed that many important results might come out of these negotiations.

Masur’s tension was further exacerbated the following morning when Schellenberg informed him that Himmler would be delayed as he was attending Hitler’s birthday celebrations at the Reich Chancellery. Masur later recorded his thoughts, stating with incongruity that, ‘Hitler should only have known that Himmler, after the birthday party, would be negotiating with a Jew!’. Whilst he waited for Himmler, Masur had a long conversation with Schellenberg, whom he found to be sincere. Later, he spoke with workers on the estate, and after gaining their trust, was able to learn more about the mood of the German people.

In Berlin, a few posters and banners had gone up by way of celebrating the Fuhrer’s birthday. In Moabit, a large banner was strung across a street near to the prison. The citizens of Berlin were well noted for their sense of humour, as such the message on the banner, which read, ‘We all pull on the same rope. Up the Fuhrer’ was interpreted with a wry smile by many. As was the norm on Hitler’s birthday, the weather was fine. There would however be no parades, no visible confirmation of a German culture triumphant. This last gathering of the Nazi elite was more of a wake than a celebration.

On the morning of his birthday, Hitler arose at 11.00hrs. Following brief birthday felicitations from the bunker entourage, he asked about the current military situation. The latest news from the crumbling battle fronts was hardly encouraging. It was clear that American and Soviet spearheads would soon link-up, cutting Germany in two. Hitler was urged to leave Berlin for the comparative safety of the Bavarian mountains. He rejected any suggestion that he should abandon Berlin by saying, ‘How am I to call on the troops to undertake the battle for Berlin, if at the same moment I withdraw myself to safety!’. The matter was thus irrevocably closed. Indeed, Hitler stated with some conviction that the Red Army would be destroyed at the very gates of Berlin.

Shortly before the scheduled military conference, Hitler emerged from the depths of the bunker into the chancellery gardens to meet a group of Hitler Youth members who were to be awarded decorations for knocking out Soviet tanks. The trembling in Hitler’s left arm meant that he was unable to present the awards personally. After giving a brief speech, he returned to the bunker for the military conference. By this time Goering had arrived, his huge bulk necessitating that he was given a seat opposite Hitler. As the conference dragged on, Goering had increasing difficulty in camouflaging his restlessness. The minutes slowly ticked by, Goering’s anxiety no doubt increasing as he wondered if the road to the south was still open. Eventually, the conference ended, the only concrete decision made being the confirmation by Hitler that the German command structure would be split into a northern command headed by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, and a southern command headed by Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring. Goering left immediately after the conference was adjourned, claiming ‘urgent tasks in South Germany’. Hitler looked right through him as if he no longer existed. Albert Speer, the talented and ambitious Minister of Armaments was also present at the conference where he noted, ‘a sense of being present at a historic moment’. Later that day, he left Berlin along with the leader of the Labour Front Dr Robert Ley, and the arrogant Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Himmler also left that day as he had his own urgent business to attend to. After a brief stop at his headquarters at Ziethen, he was driven to Gut Harzwalde to see Masur. Kersten was waiting as the car drew up in the pouring rain in the early hours of 21 April. Masur later recalled Himmler’s arrival:

During the course of the evening, we received a telephone call to tell us that Himmler would not come until around 2:30 am. We were sitting in the living room by candlelight, as the electricity, as always during air raids, was turned off. I was greatly worked up. Would this man, who was the real ruler of Germany, whose days however were numbered, appear as a man at the top of his power or would he already reflect the shadow of defeat? I was excited at the thought that in a few minutes I would be face to face with one of the greatest murderers of the Jewish people.

At exactly 2:30 we heard the noise of a car arriving. Kersten went outside, and after a few minutes, Heinrich Himmler entered, followed by Brigade Commander Schellenberg, adjutant Dr Brandt, and Kersten. In spite of my inner excitement, I appeared outwardly perfectly cool. Himmler greeted me with ‘Guten Tag’, instead of ‘Heil Hitler’, and conveyed his satisfaction at the fact that I came to see him.

We sat at a table, which was set up for coffee for five persons. Himmler was dressed impeccably in his uniform with the insignias of rank and shiny decorations. He looked well groomed, seemed fresh and lively in spite of the late hour, outwardly quiet, and in control. He looked better in person than in photographs. Perhaps his beady eyes and piercing gaze was an expression of sadism and harshness, however, had I not known his past, I would never have believed that this man was singularly responsible for the most extensive mass murders in history.

Indeed, Himmler went out of his way to appear cooperative. After telling Masur how happy he was to see him, Himmler opened the discussion by saying, ‘I want to bury the hatchet between us and the Jews. If I’d have had my way, many things would have been done differently’. He then went on to offer a feeble defence of the Nazi policies:

In our Generation, we have not known any peace. When the First World War began, I was 14 years old. The war hardly ended when the Civil War began, and the Jews were deeply involved in the Spartacist revolt. The Jews were a foreign element in our midst, which always evoked irritation… After coming into power, we wanted to settle this issue once and for all, and I was in favour of a humane solution through emigration. I conferred with American organisations, to arrange for a quick emigration, but even countries who claimed to be friendly toward the Jews did not want to admit Jews…

Then the war brought us into contact with the Jewish masses of the East, who were mostly part of the proletariat. Because of this, many new problems arose. We could not tolerate such an enemy at our backs. The Jewish masses were infected with many diseases, especially typhoid fever. I lost thousands of my SS troops through these diseases. Also the Jews were helping the partisans.

This litany of self justification for the worst crimes in history went on and on, much to Masur’s growing sense of exasperation. Nonetheless, he somehow kept his nerve and was able to stem Himmler’s flow of self pity by suggesting that he release prisoners in order to gain some credibility with the Anglo-American Allies. Himmler took the bait and agreed to the release of 1000 Jewish women from the concentration camp at Ravensbruck.

It was significant, that Himmler wanted the freed prisoners designated as Polish, Masur noting that, ‘He did not want to create any friction between himself and Hitler on account of the Jews’. Even now, Hitler’s most trusted paladin was treading carefully with the implementation of his treasonous activities. The meeting ended at 05.00hrs, by which time Schellenberg was becoming increasingly anxious regarding Count Bernadotte who had been left waiting at Hohenlychen. Himmler bade farewell to Masur, after which he walked outside towards his car with Kersten. To his most trusted confidante he then said:

Oh! Herr Kersten, we have made serious mistakes. We wanted greatness and security for Germany and we are leaving behind us a pile of ruins, a crumbling world. But it is still true that Europe must rally to a new standard, else all is lost. I always wanted what was best, but very often I had to act against my real convictions. Believe me Kersten, that went very much against the grain and it was bitter to me. But the Fuhrer decreed that it should be so, and Goebbels and Bormann were a bad influence on him. As a loyal soldier I had to obey, for no state can survive without obedience and discipline. It rests for me alone to decide how long I have to live, since my life has now become meaningless. And what will history say of me? Petty minds, bent on revenge, will hand down to posterity a false and perverted account of the great and good things which I, looking further ahead, have accomplished for Germany. The blame for many things which others have done will be heaped on me. The finest elements of the German people perish with the National Socialists; this is the real tragedy. Those who are left, those who will govern Germany, hold no interest for us. The Allies can do what they like with Germany.

Kersten, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the years in which you have given me the benefit of your medical skill. My last thoughts are for my poor family. Farewell!

The parting with Kersten betrayed the extent to which Himmler was fatigued by his own intrigues. With his enthusiasm visibly waning, he set off for the delayed meeting at Hohenlychen.

Himmler arrived at the sanatorium at 06.00hrs in time for breakfast with Bernadotte. His fatigue must have been evident as he explained to Bernadotte that he had hardly slept at all for the past few nights. Following breakfast they proceeded to discuss the proposed humanitarian measures, including Bernadotte’s suggestion that released Scandinavian prisoners be allowed to continue their journey from Denmark to Sweden. Himmler refused this reasonable request. Bernadotte however continued to press the issue, later recalling:

…I again put forward the request that the Scandinavian prisoners, who were at the time being transported to Denmark, should be allowed to continue the journey to Sweden, but Himmler once more refused. Schellenberg subsequently told me that Hitler had again forbidden any concession on this point.

Himmler, however agreed to some of my other requests. He agreed that if Denmark should become a battle-ground, the Scandinavian prisoners of war were to be transported to Sweden through the help of the Swedish Red Cross. He also showed genuine interest in my proposal that the Swedish Red Cross be allowed to fetch all French women interned at Ravensbruck concentration camp, and said that he not only agreed to this, but that he wished us to remove women of all nationalities from there, as the camp in question was shortly to be evacuated. I promised him that I would immediately give our detachments orders to this effect.

A few hours earlier in his meeting with Masur, Himmler had limited the number of prisoner releases at Ravensbruck to 1000, now after this remarkable volte-face, he retired to his bed, utterly exhausted.

Himmler slept fitfully. A few hours later, he complained of feeling ill to Schellenberg. His right hand man could only state in exasperation, ‘There’s nothing more I can do for you’. Later, after discussing the deteriorating military situation, Schellenberg accompanied Himmler to their headquarters located near Wustrow. After being delayed by marauding enemy aircraft, Himmler said, ‘Schellenberg, I dread what is to come’. That evening, they discussed the war situation again, Schellenberg was highly critical of policy regarding the remaining concentration camp prisoners:

After dinner, when we were alone again, we spoke of various problems of food supplies, the danger of epidemics, reconstruction, prisoner-of-war administration, and so on, I told him of Kaltenbrunner’s blind and unrealistic attitude in insisting on the evacuation of all the concentration camps…

Schellenberg went on to say that he considered the evacuation of the camps to be a crime. He argued that it would be better to leave the prisoners in situ, where in due course they would be relieved by the advancing Allies. Himmler retorted, ‘Schellenberg, don’t you start too! Hitler has been raging for days because Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen were not completely evacuated’. Notwithstanding, Himmler’s vacillations, he had in effect finally crossed the Rubicon. His contacts with Masur and Bernadotte initiating a process which within a matter of days would lead to a complete break with Hitler.

Chapter Eight

‘Are the Russians already so near?’

The civilian population of Berlin had long since become accustomed to Allied bombing raids. They were frequent, noisy and violent, yet they had a certain predictability. However, following the last Allied raid on Berlin, carried out by American bombers on the morning of 21 April, that sense of predictability vanished. The first Soviet artillery strike delivered on the heart of Berlin shortly after the last American B-17 departed was an altogether different experience. That morning, the streets were busier than usual as civilians rushed to secure what would probably be their last supplies before the siege began. There were particularly heavy queues outside the boarded up, but still very much in business, Karstadt department store on Hermannplatz. Many others took the opportunity after the expected lull following the air raid, to fill whatever containers they had with water from pumps or standpipes.

When it came, the sound of artillery fire momentarily transfixed shoppers who realised too late that the incoming deluge of hot metal was heading straight for them. Seconds later, shells began to plough up the area. Unprotected bodies were hurled into the air, or smashed against the boarded up sides of the department store. The scene was one of utter carnage. Those who could, fled in panic. The dreaded Ivan was at the gates.

Hitler’s realisation that Berlin was now a front line city came shortly afterwards as the intensity of the Soviet barrage increased. By now, shells were landing everywhere across the city. Even Hitler’s bunker was not totally immune as vibrations rocked the structure. Being an old infantryman, Hitler was quickly able to discern that this latest attack was shellfire and not aerial bombs. He emerged from his room unshaven, demanding to know from General Burgdorf what exactly was going on. Burgdorf answered that Berlin was under fire from Soviet artillery. Hitler could not quite bring himself to accept the reality of the situation asking, ‘Are the Russians already so near?’. The suggestion that the gunfire was directed from long range batteries on the Oder prompted Hitler to telephone the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff for clarification. General Karl Koller was at his headquarters in the Werder Game Park when the call came through:

Hitler: Do you know that Berlin is under artillery fire?

Koller: No.

Hitler: Can’t you hear it?

Koller: No, I am in the Werder Game Park.

Hitler: There is great agitation in the city over this long-range artillery fire. They tell me the Russians have brought up heavy guns on railway trucks. They are supposed to have built a railway bridge over the Oder. The Luftwaffe must attack and eliminate these bridges at once.

Koller: The enemy has no railway bridges over the Oder. He may have captured a German heavy battery and turned it around. But he is probably using his own medium guns – he is close enough to hit the city with them.

Despite his conversation with Koller, Hitler still could not concede that the Red Army was within effective striking range of the city. Angrily, he threatened Koller and the Luftwaffe staff with execution. His anger was perhaps a sign of his recognition that he could no longer influence events, but merely react to them. His mood improved somewhat later in the day, perhaps as a result of Dr Morrell’s drugs, perhaps as a result of his self delusion that the so-called ‘Army Detachment Steiner’ could blunt Zhukov’s advance. For ordinary citizens of Berlin, all this would have meant nothing as their thoughts were fixed on survival.

The bombing of Berlin had been carried out by young men from Britain and the Commonwealth Nations, Americans and men whose countries had been occupied. They had delivered their ordnance from the anonymity of the skies, never actually seeing the enemy. The bombing was impersonal, distant and almost abstract. The shelling however was carried out by a vengeful enemy who would soon be rampaging through the capital. Many people knew of the terrible atrocities that had taken place in Russia. Now they feared that the barbarity that had for so long been practised in their name would rebound on them.

On 21 April, Goebbels summoned his aides and associates to a meeting held in the private projection room of his Berlin residence. He arrived late, unshaven and anxious. After issuing the instructions for the day, he launched into a vicious denunciation of the German people:

What can you do with a people whose men don’t even fight when their women are raped! All the plans, all the ideas of National Socialism are too high, too noble for such a people… They deserve the fate that will now descend on them. And you – why have you worked with me? Now you’ll have your little throats cut! But when we step down, let the whole earth tremble.

The following day, Goebbels acting as Reichs Commissar for the defence of Berlin spoke to a group of civil servants, reminding them of their oaths and threatening dire consequences for all those contemplating surrender. He let them know in no uncertain terms that he would end his life in Berlin and that he expected them to do the same by stating that, ‘My family is now at home. We are staying here. And I demand of you, gentlemen, that you too remain at your posts. If necessary, we shall know how to die here’.

Goebbels’ determination to fight to the last in Berlin was echoed in his last published article which also appeared on the same day in the weekly newspaper Das Reich. The article ‘Resistance at any price’ was a rallying cry to the defenders of Berlin:

The war has reached a stage at which only the full efforts of the nation and of each individual can save us. The defence of our freedom no longer depends on the army fighting at the front. Each civilian, each man and woman and boy and girl must fight with unequalled fanaticism. The enemy expects that, once his tanks have broken through, they will find no resistance. He believes that we will be so disconcerted by his material superiority that we will let things take their course, without caring how they turn out. We must prove the enemy’s hopes wrong. No village and no city may give in to the enemy. The enemy is strong, but not strong enough to hold all of the territory of the Reich without our help. If he persuades us to capitulate, he will have an easy time with us. The enemy has laid waste to our cities and provinces through the worst and most terrible bombing terror. As long as we are determined to resist at all costs, we cannot be beaten, and for us not being beaten means to be victorious.

This war of nations demands heavy sacrifice. Still, these sacrifices do not begin to compare with those that we would have to make if we lose… In the midst of a thousand battles, burdens and defeats, our people stand unbroken. Our hearts are proud when we hear from the enemy the wild fanaticism they encounter, how fathers, mothers and even children gather to resist the invaders, how boys and girls throw hand grenades and mines or shoot from cellar windows without regard to danger… The enemy’s attacks are riskier than the methods we use to resist… A nation that defended its freedom with all its resources has never yet been defeated…

Our entire war effort requires revolutionary changes. The old rules of war are outdated, and have no use at all in our present situation… When whole peoples are threatened, whole peoples must defend themselves. The enemy does not wish to take a province from us or push us back to more favourable strategic borders, he wants to cut our very arteries by destroying our mines and factories, destroying our national substance. If he succeeds, Germany will become a cemetery. Our people will starve and perish, aside from the millions who will be deported to Siberia as slave labour…

Each must start with himself, banishing all weakness and lethargy. He must stand firm and give an example to others, he must be on guard when he hears defeatism… No one can leave it to anyone else. We are all in the same boat that is ploughing through the storm… That is how things are… Raising up the white flag means giving up the war and shamefully losing one’s life…

We still live and breathe, and have mountains of resistance left in us that we only need to draw upon… A fourteen-year-old lad crouching with his bazooka behind a ruined wall on a burned out street is worth more to the nation than ten intellectuals who attempt to prove that our chances are nil… Whether things balance or not depends on us alone… Final victory will be ours. It will come through tears and blood, but it will justify all the sacrifices we have made.

The tone of Goebbels’ appeal to the people was simple. He was basically saying fight on, or die horribly at the hands of victors who would demand their pound of flesh. In truth, this last publication was nothing more than a mass invitation to suicide for what remained of the shrinking German Reich.

During the course of 22 April, the Soviet stranglehold threatened to cut off Berlin completely as Zhukov and Konev deployed their combined total of five rifle and four tank armies for the final push. At 10.00hrs, 3rd Shock Army attacked, taking the former Communist area of Weissensee quickly. Meanwhile, 5th Shock Army, supported by 12th guards Rifle Corps and 11th Tank Corps smashed their way into Kaulsdorf, Biesdorf and the eastern defences at Karlshorst. To the south, the command headquarters at Zossen had been captured intact. Konev’s troops quickly moved on with one column of tanks heading for Potsdam, another for the southern defensive zones along the Teltow Canal. While the Soviet juggernaut ground relentlessly on, Hitler waited nervously for news of Steiner’s attack. With each passing hour, Hitler became more irritable as General Krebs was unable to offer him any definite information.

The military situation conference was held in the bunker at 15.00hrs that afternoon. Overriding Krebs’ usual sugar coating of the situation, General Jodl informed Hitler that the Oder Front had all but collapsed, that 9th Army was surrounded and that General Weidling’s 56th Panzer Corps could not be located. He went on to say that the city was almost cut off and that within a week the forces of Zhukov and Konev would meet up thus sealing off the Reich capital completely. Irritated by Jodl’s gloomy prognosis, Hitler demanded to know when Steiner’s forces would come to the relief of the city. Krebs was forced to concede that Steiner had been unable to mobilise enough men and that as a consequence no relief from that source could be expected.

What followed was one of the most astonishing moments in the history of the Third Reich. Hitler, the man who had brought about the catastrophe completely lost control, hurling accusations against the officer corps who he claimed had failed to carry out his great schemes because of their cowardice, treachery and lies. After this explosion of anger, Hitler collapsed into his chair exhausted. To the astonishment of those present, he then declared that the war was lost. He would remain in the city to meet his death, but those who wished to leave could, because he no longer felt able to lead them. It was left to Jodl to point out that their Fuhrer could not desert the nation in its greatest hour of need, going on to say that there was still hope, in that reserves in the form of General Walther Wenck’s 12th Army were still available. Later that day, Hitler’s mood improved somewhat as he was persuaded by Keitel, Krebs, Burgdorf and Jodl that Schorner’s Army Group was still strong, that Wenck’s 12th Army could be turned around from the Elbe, and that given a few days, Steiner would be able to launch an attack from the north.

Meanwhile, news of Hitler’s collapse had reached Goering who had left Berlin for the comfort of his residence at Obersalzberg. General Koller arrived at noon to confirm the reports and to urge the indolent Reich Marshal to take immediate action. Also present was Philipp Bouhler, a senior government official and Chief of the Chancellery of the Fuhrer. Goering was at first cautious, asking if Hitler had appointed Bormann as his successor. Bormann was regarded by Goering as his enemy, and as such he pondered the possibility that the Machiavellian eminence grise of the Nazi court may have laid a trap for him, stating that, ‘If I act, he will call me a traitor; if I don’t, he will accuse me of having failed at a most critical time’. Goering sent for Hans Lammers, a legal expert and head of the Reich Chancellery to get his opinion. Lammers could only say that as far as he was aware, Goering was still Hitler’s nominated successor.

For Goering, the question of whether Hitler was still able to exercise command remained. Until this question was answered, a legal assumption of power was not possible. Therefore, a carefully worded telegram was sent by Goering to Berlin in order to clarify the position regarding the future leadership of the Reich:

My Fuhrer: General Koller today gave me a briefing on the basis of communications given to him by Colonel General Jodl and General Christian, according to which you had referred certain decisions to me and emphasised that I, in case negotiations would become necessary, would be in an easier position than you in Berlin. These views were so surprising and serious to me that I felt obligated to assume, in case by 22.00 o’clock no answer is forthcoming, that you have lost your freedom of action. I shall then view the conditions of your decree as fulfilled and take action for the well being of Nation and Fatherland. You know what I feel for you in these most difficult hours of my life and I cannot express this in words. God protect you and allow you despite everything to come here as soon as possible. Your faithful Hermann Goering.

Hitler received Goering’s telegram calmly, however, Bormann succeeded in changing his perception of Goering’s motives by presenting the message as a mutinous ultimatum and lustful grab for power. Within moments, Hitler was denouncing Goering as a lazy, corrupt failure. A radio message, written by Bormann stripped Goering of all his offices. No doubt he would have preferred him executed, but Hitler thought that he might still have some role to play stating, ‘Well, all right, let Goering negotiate the surrender. If the war is lost anyhow, it doesn’t matter who does it’. Bormann did however manage to ensure that Goering was kept under house arrest, thus effectively eliminating his rival for the succession.

The day following Hitler’s collapse was marked by the emergence of the General destined by a trick of fate to defend Berlin. During the night, Weidling had been forced to relocate his headquarters to Rudow, a borough located between Neukolln and Schonfeld. His unit was now well within the city limits and in close contact with Soviet forces. It therefore came as some relief when he received orders from General Busse to break through the Soviet forces and link up with the northern flank of 9th Army near Konigs Wusterhausen. As his troops were preparing to disengage from the enemy on the morning of 23 April, Weidling was at last able to re-establish contact with Berlin. His telephone call to the bunker was passed on to General Krebs. Guderian’s successor greeted him with barely concealed contempt, informing Weidling coldly that he had been sentenced to death for pulling his troops back to the Olympic Village at Doberitz, located to the west of the city. To Weidling, this was utter nonsense, as his troops were attempting to disengage from the Soviet forces on the eastern sector of the city. He then made, what was in the circumstances, a brave decision to put his case personally to Hitler.

Weidling arrived at the bunker in the early evening to be met by General Krebs and General Burgdorf who received him coolly. Unfazed, Weidling launched into a spirited defence, stating that the only troops that he had sent to the west were a small number of foreign ‘volunteers’ attached to labour battalions and some sick and wounded. Asked for the present whereabouts and situation of his Corps, Weidling replied that his troops were currently in the process of disengaging from the enemy in order to move south as ordered. Krebs assured Weidling that it had all been a misunderstanding. Before seeing Hitler, the orders for his Corps to move south were cancelled and he was given fresh instructions to concentrate on the defence of the city.

The subsequent meeting with Hitler resembled a one act farce, as the death sentence was rescinded and replaced by an appointment as commandant of the Berlin defence area (replacing Colonel Ernst Kaether who had been in post for less than a day). Weidling later recalled his meeting with Hitler:

Behind a table covered with maps sat the Fuhrer of the German Reich. He turned his head as I entered. I saw a bloated face and delirious eyes. When he tried to stand up, I noticed to my horror that his hands and one of his legs were trembling. He managed to stand up with great difficulty. He offered me his hand. With a distorted smile and in a barely audible voice he asked whether we had met before. When I replied that he had decorated me with the oak leaves to my Knight’s Cross on 13 April 1944, he said: ‘I recall the name, but I can’t remember the face’. His own was like a grinning mask. He then laboriously got back into his armchair. Even while he was sitting down, his left leg kept twitching. His knee moved like the pendulum of a clock, only faster.

After having made Weidling responsible for the defence of Berlin, Hitler issued instructions for his Corps to deploy in the southern and eastern sectors of the city. He then went on to expound his own ideas for the defence of the city which involved pulling in the forces of Wenck, Busse and Steiner. That day, Weidling started to disengage his forces. The reduced 56th Panzer Corps consisting of remnants of the 9th Parachute Division, the badly mauled Muncheberg Panzer Division, the 20th Panzer Grenadier Division, the 11th Panzer Grenadier Division ‘Nordland’ and the 18th Panzer Grenadier Division. His units were used to stiffen the defence sectors held by a miscellany of trained troops and poorly equipped home guard units.

On the morning of 24 April, 20th Panzer Grenadier Division were engaged in hard fighting along the Teltow Canal, successfully eliminating a Soviet bridgehead at Lankwitz. However, they were too thinly spread to prevent the establishment of a small lodgement at Stahnsdorf. Watching the unfolding drama from a rooftop observation post, Marshal Konev surveyed the scene:

From the roof of this building we had a fine view of Berlin, especially its southern and south-western districts. The left flank could be seen as far as Potsdam. Our field of vision extended to the right flank where, on the outskirts of Berlin, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and the 1st Belorussian fronts were to link up.

I remember how vast the city appeared to me. I noted the massive old buildings, in which the district that lay before me abounded, and the density of these buildings; I took note of everything that might complicate our task of capturing Berlin. I also noticed the canals, rivers and streams that crossed Berlin in different directions and were plainly visible from above. Such a multiplicity of water obstacles promised additional difficulties.

Before us lay a front-line city, besieged and prepared for defence. Had there been a reasonable government at the head of Germany it would have been logical, under the circumstances, to expect from it an immediate surrender. Only surrender could have preserved what still remained of Berlin; it would also have saved the lives of many of its citizens. But it was apparently futile to expect a reasonable decision and we had to fight it out. As I gazed upon Berlin I reflected that its end would spell the end of the war and that the sooner we took the city the sooner the war would be over.

Konev’s hopes came a step closer following the main breakthrough which came in the centre of the line at Teltow itself. By late morning 6th Guards Tank Corps crossed the canal establishing a firm bridgehead which was soon strengthened by the addition of a tank bearing bridge. Later, General David Abramovitch Dragunski described the assault on the German defences:

The attack began. The approaching dusk was submerged by the artillery preparation’s sea of fire. A mighty shock wave pressed us into the earth… I had not seen firing of such intensity for a long time. The breakthrough near Kiev, the battle of Lvov, the attack on the Sandomierz bridgehead, all these vast operations could not be compared with what occurred on the Teltow Canal in the morning hours of 24 April… A whole artillery corps concentrated within two days on a narrow breakthrough sector, effecting a density of 600 gun barrels per kilometre of front, massing together mortars, organising the fire plan, measuring out the firing positions while on the move and finally coordinating everything that could be achieved by a talented army commander like Marshal Konev… Then thousands of shells roared over the heads of our tank troops. Behind us rumbled the dull thumps of the mortars. The fire trails of the Katiushas ripped apart the sky. General Riasanov’s bombers and fighters attacked, while Pokryschkin’s fighters covered them from above.

The north bank of the canal and the southern boundary of Berlin were in flames. Buildings and fortified positions fell in rubble and ashes as thick clouds of smoke rose up… Thousands of enemy soldiers were killed… Futilely, Goebbels cried out that the Russians would never get into the city. In vain, many of his believing audience put their hopes in the so-called wonder weapons… Right until the last minute they hoped for some miracle or other, but the miracle kept them waiting…

The watches hand crept slowly forward. The murderous artillery fire moved off to the north. The bombs were already exploding somewhat to the side of us. The time for our attack came even closer… A series of green verey lights climbed into the sky. The reconnaissance parties, engineers and submachine-gunners climbed out of their trenches and cover to storm the canal bank, the engineers dragging up the boats to cross by, and behind them came the landing troops… The riflemen had it somewhat easier than us as they did not have to get heavy tanks and self-propelled guns across… It looked as if everyone was convinced that the result of the battle depended entirely on his personal efforts.

Once it became light we could see several dark objects on the opposite bank. These were the members of our storm groups… I knew precisely how important it was to support the men. What could they achieve on the other bank with their light weapons… The commanders of two brigades of the Breakthrough Artillery Division suddenly appeared near me. They had assessed the situation and were already giving the necessary orders. Some stout hearted gunners hastened past us on their way to establish a forward observation post on the other bank. Shortly afterwards the guns thundered, clearing the way for our battalion.

At last Bystrov reported that the bridge, which the enemy had made impassable the day before, was now usable. Nevertheless, only light tanks could pass over the temporarily repaired bridge under heavy fire… The enemy had recovered from our artillery preparation and was now conducting a massive resistance. We even had to reckon with counter-attacks… The artillery and tank fire fight had lasted for over an hour already. The Fascists were increasingly active… Bystrov had only been able to get three self-propelled guns across the canal, two others having fallen into the water with the wrecked bridge…

We tied down the enemy’s forces, but that was all we achieved. The same applied to our right hand neighbour. But our action lightened the load of other units. In the centre the 22nd Guards Motorised Rifle Brigade, followed by the 23rd, was able to force the canal, form a bridgehead and get its main forces across. Several hours later, a bridge had been established over which the tank brigades and corps rolled. The battle for the Teltow Canal was decided, the gateway to Berlin had been opened.

The defence of Teltow served to demonstrate to the Red Army that the battle for the capital of the Reich would be a hard fought affair.

The battle for Tempelhof would be equally as bitter, as the Red Army was determined to cut off this major airfield and possible escape route for the Nazi elite. General Chuikov sent in elements of the 39th and 79th Guards Rifle Divisions in a flanking manoeuvre. He then launched his main attack with elements from 8th Guards Army and 1st Guards Tank Army against the southern perimeter. Chuikov later recalled in his memoirs the savage fight for the airfield:

The aerodrome was defended by anti-aircraft units, SS troops, and tanks, the latter being drawn up in a large L-shape along the southern and eastern edges of the field. Most of them were dug into the ground, and thus made invulnerable fire points. It looked as though the Berlin garrison had no more fuel supplies for their tanks; all the petrol and diesel fuel, according to depositions from captured tank crews, had been taken by the air force for their planes.

In the underground hangars of the aerodrome planes were standing ready, tanks filled with fuel, able to take off at any minute; beside them were their crews, standing on duty every hour in the twenty-four, and amongst these men were pilots and navigators who in the past had been entrusted with the duty of flying Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann and other Nazi leaders to destinations all over Germany. From this information one might conclude that Hitler and his closest associates were still in Berlin, and might – who knows what the devil has up his sleeve! – slip out through this last loop-hole. So we had to do everything possible to ensure that this did not happen…

We did not know the precise location and other details of the exit gates from the underground hangars, so storm groups reinforced with tanks were assigned to the job of cutting off all access to the runways themselves by fire from guns and machine guns, and so keeping the planes bottled up underground. The plan worked perfectly. From the evening of 25 April on, not a single plane took off from the field, and by midday on 26 April the aerodrome itself, and the whole airport complex of Tempelhof – hangars, communications, installations, and the main ‘Affluence’ building were in our hands.

The Red Army advances came at a high price in terms of both men and machines. Weidling’s forces had inflicted heavy losses, albeit at high cost to themselves. Whilst the Red Army could sustain high losses, the German garrison could not. What Weidling needed more than anything at this time was reinforcements.

Remarkably, some German reinforcements made it into the beleaguered city. On the evening of 24 April, approximately ninety men, including most of the officers, the best non-commissioned officers and the divisional chaplain Monsignor Count Mayol de Lupe arrived at the Olympic Stadium. The volunteers who had accompanied their commander General Gustav Krukenberg to Berlin were on the whole fierce anti-Communists, arguably none more so than the divisional chaplain. The Monsignor was a larger than life character who was highly decorated, having been awarded the Legion d’ Honneur and the Iron Cross first and second class. Aged seventy two, he had been twice wounded in combat and was not adverse to anointing the dying with one hand, whilst firing his revolver with the other. His staunch anti-Communist credentials were laid out in this statement:

The world must choose; on the one hand Bolshevist savagery, an infernal force; on the other Christian civilisation. We must choose at all costs. We cannot loyally remain neutral any longer! It’s Bolshevist anarchy, or Christian order!

The uncompromising cleric joined his comrades in the defence of Neukolln. Later, the remnants of the volunteer force were pushed back into the central government district which had been designated as Defence Sector Z. Here, the Frenchmen fighting for Hitler’s lost cause acquitted themselves exceedingly well, turning the streets of Berlin into a graveyard for Soviet armour.

Chapter Nine

Banner of Victory

At noon on 25 April 1945, the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front effected their link-up at Ketzin, thus cutting off Berlin from the outside world. A ring of steel formed by four tank armies and a further five infantry armies choked off the vital arterial lifelines leading into the city. To the north, Marshal Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front was on the point of breaking through the eastern flank of General Manteuffel’s 3rd Panzer Army, his aim being to prevent these German forces from moving south to reinforce the Berlin garrison. Meanwhile, to the south, General Busse’s 9th Army was gradually being pushed away to the south-west of Berlin. An attack by German battle-groups on the morning of 26 April achieved some success with the severing of Soviet communications on the Baruth-Zossen road. However, dogged defence by the 395th Rifle division prevented a breakthrough at Baruth. Thereafter, the German forces were once again enveloped, this time in the woods north-east of the town.

As the Soviet stranglehold tightened, Berlin began to die. The grand neo-baroque telegraph office on Oranienburger Strasse ceased operations entirely, following the receipt of a last message from Tokyo which simply said ‘GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL’. The civilian telephone network somehow continued to function as outlying districts of the city were overrun, though links with areas outside Berlin ceased altogether on 26 April. Incredibly, a young Soviet officer named Victor Boev used the civilian network to phone Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry, and even more incredibly was put through to the minister himself. Boev, who spoke excellent German held a brief conversation with Goebbels:

Boev: I am a Russian officer, speaking from Siemensstadt. I should like to ask you a few questions.

Goebbels: Please go ahead.

Boev: How long can you hold out in Berlin?

Goebbels: Several (remainder inaudible)

Boev: Weeks?

Goebbels: Oh, no. Months. Why not? Your people defended Sevastopol for nine months. Why shouldn’t we do the same in our capital?

Boev: Another question. When, and in what direction will you escape from Berlin?

Goebbels: That question is far too insulting to deserve an answer.

Boev: You must remember that we will find you, even if we have to comb the ends of the earth. And we have prepared a scaffold for you. Is there anything you would like to ask me.

Goebbels: No (hangs up).

Boev’s somewhat clumsy attempt to pry into the mind of the minister failed to elicit any real information, or insights into Goebbels’ mind. He could have got the same information from reading a four-paged propaganda sheet entitled Der Panzerbar (The Armoured Bear) which appeared following the closure of Berlin’s newspapers. For the citizens of Berlin, few gained much solace from reading hackneyed old lines such as, ‘The Reich is at stake – Berlin will be faithful to itself and to its past’, or warnings about life under Soviet overlords, ‘A Negro slave’s life is no goal for us’. Even fewer chose to believe the assurances that German reinforcements were coming to the rescue of besieged Berlin. Most people looked to their immediate problems, a lack of food following the breakdown of distribution services and a daily quest to find clean water.

It was not only the civilian population of Berlin that was being starved of provisions. General Weidling also desperately needed ammunition and medical supplies for his hard pressed troops. Some attempts at bringing in supplies by air were made, but with limited landing facilities on the improvised runway along the East-West Axis, it was a case of too little, too late. The desperate supply situation was later described by Weidling, following a visit to Major-General Barenfanger, commandant of the eastern sector of the central defence zone:

Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Strasse were under heavy artillery fire. The dust from the rubble hung in the air like a thick fog. Shells burst all around us… Dodging Russian mortars, we made our way to the U-Bahn station by bounds. The roomy U-Bahn station, two storeys deep, was crowded with terrified civilians. It was a shattering sight… From Platform ‘E’ we walked through the tunnel as far as Schillingstrasse station to General Barenfanger’s HQ. Barenfanger reported strong Russian attacks near Frankfurter Strasse… A considerable number of enemy tanks had been destroyed in his sector. He now pressed me for more men and ammunition, but I could promise him neither. Most of Barenfanger’s men were Volkssturm troopers that had been sent into the fighting with captured weapons, French, Italian, etc. No ammunition for these weapons could be found anywhere in Berlin… On my way back, I visited one of the hospitals. It was terribly overcrowded. The doctors simply could not cope with the number of wounded. There was hardly any light or water.

There was to be no respite. Gradually, Weidling’s forces were squeezed into a pocket which by the close of the following day measured some ten miles from east to west and a mere three and a half miles wide. The air-drops on which Weidling now depended for supplies were temporarily disrupted following the blocking of the improvised airstrip by a Ju-52 transport plane which had crashed whilst attempting to take-off with its cargo of wounded troops. Parachute drops were planned, but they could deliver only a fraction of the supplies needed.

By the end of 27 April, Chuikov’s forces were converging on the main prize, the Reichstag. To the east, Berzarin’s forces had advanced as far as the Lustgarten. Whilst to the north, Kuznetzov’s troops had broken into Moabit. Zhukov was clearly winning the race to the Reichstag. However, Konev had not yet given up hope of taking the prize as spearheads from his own forces had advanced as far as the Hohenzollerndamm. He then issued orders for Rybalko’s tank troops and Luchinsky’s 20th Corps to capture the whole south-western sector of Berlin, followed by an advance to the Landwehr Canal by the end of 28 April. With Chuikov’s troops advancing in the same direction, there arose the very real possibility of a collision between the two forces. Therefore, Konev took the decision to turn Rybalko’s forces to the west, away from the main prize. Konev later recalled his conversation with Rybalko:

The telephone conversation I had with Rybalko on the subject was quite unpleasant. He said he did not understand why his corps which were already aimed at the centre of the city should, by my order, be turned west and the direction of their advance changed. I appreciated his feelings as army commander, but all I could say was that the offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front against Berlin was going well, and that the centre of Berlin was, according to the established line of demarcation, in the zone of the 1st Belorussian Front.

Knowing Rybalko, as I did, I must say that his dissatisfaction was not due to the fact that he wanted to take a few more streets and squares in order to become famous. He had already won enough fame. But finding himself in the very thick of the fight and seeing a direct chance to speed up the clearing of Berlin, he literally had to crush his own impulse in order to carry out my order. I am certainly not inclined to censure him for feelings I can very well appreciate.

Konev then went on to state his own views regarding the situation. Though it has to be remembered that his memoirs were written in accordance with Soviet protocols which at the time aimed to portray a unified command structure:

As for my own personal views, I believe that at that period an exact line of demarcation between the two fronts had to be established. It was necessary to rule out any chance of confusion, losses caused by our own fire and other trouble caused by troops getting mixed up, especially in street fighting. I accepted the corrections made in the line of demarcation as necessary and considered them dictated by higher interests.

In truth, Konev was as bitterly disappointed as Rybalko. The prize would after all go to his rival, Zhukov.

On 28 April, General Weidling informed Hitler at the evening conference that the supply situation was so critical that his units had only enough ammunition left for two further days of combat. He then put the case forward for a breakout, ‘Speaking as a soldier, I think the time has come to risk breaking out of encircled Berlin, so as to put an end to the incredible suffering of the population’. The propaganda minister and self-styled defender of Berlin was the first to react to the suggestion of a break out, Weidling recalling that ‘Goebbels pounced on me and, using some strong language, tried to make much of my solid presentation sound ridiculous’. Perhaps Goebbels took the lead in denouncing Weidling’s suggestion as Hitler’s mind appeared to be elsewhere. As indeed it was.

Earlier in the day, word reached Hitler via the Reuters news agency that Himmler had made an offer of capitulation to the western Allies. For Hitler, this was the worst betrayal of all. The aviatrix Hanna Reitsch, who had made a hair-raising flight into Berlin with General Robert Ritter von Greim two days previously, later described Hitler’s reaction by stating that, ‘Hitler raved like a madman. He turned a dark red, and his face became almost unrecognisable’. Later that night, Hitler composed himself and ordered Reitsch and the newly appointed commander of the practically non-existent Luftwaffe to leave Berlin. Their task was to ensure that Himmler was found in order to receive his just punishment. Unable to take his wrath out on Himmler directly, Hitler satisfied his thirst for vengeance by having Himmler’s adjutant General Hermann Fegelein executed. Eva Braun made little attempt to intercede for her brother in law, who by a process of calculation and opportunism had inveigled himself into Hitler’s court circle. After his execution, all she could say was ‘Poor, poor Adolf. They have all deserted you; they have all betrayed you’.

Over the next few hours, Hitler came around to the view that it was time to bring things to an end. As renowned Hitler scholar Joachim Fest noted, ‘Once he had made up his mind after long vacillation, he made his decisions rapidly and without hesitation’. To this end, he set about dictating his personal and political testaments. Significantly, he also chose this time to marry his long-term partner, Eva Braun. As leader of the Reich, he could not allow himself close personal ties to anyone. Now that time was coming to an end, it simply didn’t matter any more. Walter Wagner, a local government official was brought to the bunker to carry out the ceremony, which because of the circumstances would be a simple ‘War Wedding’. Dr Naumann acted as registrar, and Bormann and Goebbels were the witnesses. The simple ceremony conducted in the early hours of 29 April proceeded as follows:

Wagner: I come herewith to the solemn act of matrimony. In the presence of the above-mentioned witnesses… I ask you, my leader Adolf Hitler, whether you are willing to enter into matrimony with Miss Eva Braun. If such is the case, I ask you to reply yes.

Hitler: Yes.

Wagner: Herewith I ask you, Miss Eva Braun, whether you are willing to enter into matrimony with my leader Adolf Hitler. If such is the case, I ask you to reply yes.

Braun: Yes.

Wagner: Now, since both these engaged persons have stated their willingness to enter into matrimony, I herewith declare the marriage valid before the law.

The marriage was more than an act of gratitude towards one of the few who had remained loyal to the end, it was in essence Hitler’s abdication from his role as a world historical figure. Nurse Erna Flegel who was caring for the sick and wounded in the Chancellery later recalled her impressions of the wedding. Readers should note that her date of the ceremony (28 April) is incorrect. This mistake is understandable given the conditions in the bunker at the time. Flegel’s account is taken from an interrogation by the U.S. Strategic Services Unit on 30 November 1945:

The marriage of Hitler to Eva Braun took place on 28 April… It was immediately clear to me that this signified the end of the Third Reich, for if Hitler had believed a continuation of it possible, he would never have taken this step. Now, with death facing him, he wished to thank this woman for her self-sacrificing loyalty by giving her his name. After all, she was still young and had voluntarily stayed with him in order to share his fate… The incident was of little importance to us; at any rate, we saw nothing unusual in it, for Eva was a completely colourless personality. When she was with a crowd of stenographers, she was in no way conspicuous among them. For example, the fact that Hitler had poisoned his wolfhound somehow affected us more. The dog received in Hitler’s presence a large dose of the poison with which later others were poisoned. He was very fond of that dog, and took its death very much to heart.

Nurse Flegel was absolutely correct in that Hitler’s marriage symbolised the final act in the terrible saga of the Third Reich. Hitler’s marriage to Eva Braun marked his divorce from the German people, a people whom he believed had failed him. As such, he now welcomed his coming death as a merciful release.

At 07.00hrs on the morning of 29 April, a powerful Soviet artillery and mortar barrage was unleashed against the buildings shielding the Reichstag. The two main buildings, the Kroll Opera House and the Ministry of the Interior came under intense fire which succeeded in suppressing at least part of the German defences. Meanwhile, the 756th Rifle Regiment of the 150th Rifle Division prepared to cross the Moltke Bridge. Some troops managed to smash their way through the barricades, but a crossing in force could not be effected until German resistance in the Ministry of the Interior had been totally eliminated. Throughout the night of 29/30 April, units of the Soviet 150th Rifle Division’s 756th and 674th Rifle Regiments and the 171st Rifle Division’s 380th Rifle Regiment carried out the grim task of clearing the Ministry of the Interior of its determined defenders. By 04:00hrs on 30 April, the building was finally captured and troops consolidated their positions on the lower floor which looked across the Konigsplatz towards the Reichstag. Meanwhile, fighting continued in other parts of the city as 1st Belorussian Front’s right-flank formations secured the western approaches to the city.

As the Soviet forces closed in on the Reichstag on 29 April, Hitler sent for General Mohnke in order to clarify what exactly was happening. Mohnke reported to those present at the midday situation conference. The latest news from the front lines was catastrophic. With the aid of a map, Mohnke outlined the situation:

In the north the Russians have moved close to Weidendammer Bridge. In the East they are at the Lustgarten. In the south, at Potsdamer Platz and the Aviation Ministry. In the west they are in the Tiergarten, somewhere between 170 and 250 feet from the Reich Chancellery.

When Hitler asked, ‘How long can you hold out?’. The answer given by Mohnke was unequivocal, ‘At most twenty to twenty-four hours my Fuhrer, no longer’. With this shattering news Hitler prepared his final withdrawal from the world stage. He first gave orders for his dog Blondi to be poisoned. Whilst he could not bear the thought of his beloved German Shepherd falling into Russian hands, the killing of Blondi would also provide an opportunity to test the cyanide capsules left by Himmler.

That evening news filtered through into the bunker via radio that Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci had been executed. This news awakened fears in Hitler that if captured by the Russians (dead or alive), he would be taken to Moscow for the amusement of Jews and Communists. Shortly afterwards Hitler spoke with the overseer of the bunker garages Obersturmbannfuhrer (Unit Leader) Erich Kempka:

Hitler: How are things with you, Kempka? How are your men?

Kempka: Their morale is good and they’re waiting for relief from Wenck.

Hitler: Yes… We’re all waiting for Wenck. Good bye, Kempka, and take care of yourself.

At the evening situation conference Weidling again suggested a breakout with the remaining troops. Hitler replied rather confusingly that whilst he would permit the breakout of small groups, capitulation was still anathema to him. Somewhat nonplussed by Hitler’s reply, Weidling later arranged to meet his commanders the following morning at his Bendlerblock HQ.

That night Hitler bade farewell to his remaining entourage, telling them that he did not want either his living body or mortal remains falling into Russian hands. At some time between 01.00hrs and 03.00hrs, Hitler received confirmation that all efforts to relieve Berlin had failed. It was now 30 April and the Soviet assault on the Reichstag and central government district had began in earnest. The first direct assault on the building was a failure as attacking troops came under a murderous crossfire from German defenders holed-up in the Kroll Opera House. The Soviet Army General Staff report compiled after the battle went into some detail with regard to the storming of the Reichstag:

The German’s powerful strong-point – the Kroll Opera House – interfered with the unfolding of the subsequent attack on the Reichstag. The Germans had configured the opera house for all-round defence. Barricades had been erected in the lanes and avenues north and east of the Kroll Opera House. On the building’s roof, as well as on the second floor, the enemy had set up guns that fired on the windows of ‘Himmler’s House’ which we had captured. The enemy could also sweep from the Kroll Opera House the southern face of ‘Himmler’s House’ and the Konigsplatz.

Moreover, it was from this building that the Germans were able to keep under fire the Moltke Bridge and the quays north and south of it, which made the crossing of the 79th Rifle Corps tanks and artillery over the Spree River’s southern bank more difficult. We only managed to cross a few self-propelled guns and 122mm and 153mm guns along the bridge during the night of 29/30 April and concentrate in the courtyard of ‘Himmler’s House’…

At 05.00hrs a concentrated artillery-mortar fire was opened up on the Kroll Opera House and the Reichstag from the northern bank of the Spree River, and direct fire from ‘Himmler’s House’ and the corner building on the Al Moabit Strasse and the Kronprinzenufer… The 207th Rifle Division’s 598th and 597th Rifle Regiments, which had crossed to the southern bank of the Spree River, by 09:00hrs had occupied positions west of ‘Himmler’s House’, but could not advance further because of the powerful fire which the Germans, holed up in the Kroll Opera House, were pouring on them. However, the 207th Rifle Division’s offensive actions drew the fire of the Kroll Opera House’s garrison on to itself. Thus the Germans could not wage intensive fire on our units storming the Reichstag.

By 12.00hrs elements of the 150th and 171st Rifle Divisions had occupied their jumping off positions for storming the Reichstag in a German trench having high embankment sides and breastworks. At 12.00hrs more than a company of enemy infantry, supported by machine gun fire and fire from anti-aircraft artillery mounted on the Reichstag, counter-attacked elements of the 525th Rifle Regiment, which had consolidated in the block between the Kronprinzenufer and the Alsenstrasse. This enemy counter-attack was successfully repulsed by the timely opening of our artillery’s fire. Then the Germans changed the direction of their counter-attack. Up to a company of infantry, along with two tanks, began to attack the flank of the 380th Rifle Regiment’s second battalion, which had occupied its jumping-off position for storming the Reichstag east of ‘Himmler’s House’… The 380th Rifle Regiment’s second battalion repulsed the German counter-attack in savage hand to hand fighting.

At 13.30hrs the artillery preparation for the storming of the Reichstag started. All the guns, which had been crossed over to the southern bank of the Spree River, as well as tanks, self-propelled guns and guards mortars, opened direct fire on the Reichstag… The artillery left behind on the northern bank also concentrated its fire on the Reichstag… A solid cloud of dust and smoke stood over and about the building…

The artillery barrage lasted for twenty minutes. At 13.50hrs, Captain Neustroev’s 1st Battalion of the 756th Rifle Regiment of the 150th Rifle Division broke into the Reichstag, carrying with them Banner No 5.

Fighting alongside Neustroev’s battalion were the seasoned troops of Senior Lieutenant Samsonov’s 1st Battalion of the 380th Rifle Regiment and Captain Davydov’s 1st Battalion of the 674th Rifle Regiment, each carrying their own banners. The assaulting troops entered the circular vestibule through breaches in the walls. They were immediately met with intense small arms fire. Return fire from automatic weapons and grenades suppressed the defenders, enabling the attacking troops to rush the main staircase. The first floor was then cleared of defenders, room by room. Meanwhile, the 2nd Battalion of the 380th Rifle Regiment, which had seized the half-smashed concrete structures to the to the north-west corner of the building, were subjected to a company-strength counter-attack backed up by four tanks. The counter-attack was repulsed by the 171st Rifle Division’s 185th Independent Anti-Tank Battalion which put the German tanks out of action.

Meanwhile, the fighting inside the Reichstag intensified as Neustroev’s troops fought for control of the second floor. Sergeants Yegorov and Kantariya of the reconnaissance troop blasted their way to the half ruined staircase leading to the third floor, but were halted in their tracks by German machine gun fire. The Red Banner was waved from a second story window at 14.25hrs. Colonel Zinchenko, commanding 756th Rifle Regiment was not satisfied, demanding to know, ‘Where is the banner?’. The attempt to secure the whole building had failed at the first attempt. German troops still controlled the basement and parts of the upper floors. A second assault would be needed. All knew that the clock was ticking as Stalin wanted the Red Banner flying over the Reichstag in time for the important May Day holiday and parade.

Whilst the first attempt to storm the Reichstag was taking place, Hitler sat down to lunch with his remaining secretaries Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge, also present was his cook Constanze Manziarly. Eva Braun did not attend, as presumably she had no appetite. Hitler’s last meal of spaghetti in a light sauce was taken in near silence. Then after finishing this last meal he thanked his cook, after which he stood from the table and in a barely audible voice said, ‘The time has come; it’s all over’. His decision to commit suicide on this day came following his conversation with Mohnke earlier in the morning. Mohnke confirmed that the end was approaching as his troops could only hold on for a few hours more. To this end, Hitler instructed his adjutant Otto Gunsche to take steps in order to ensure that his remains were ‘forever undiscovered’.

Now it was time for the final farewells. On his way to the conference room, Hitler was stopped by his faithful valet Heinz Linge who wanted to say goodbye. Hitler told him that he should attempt to break out of the Soviet encirclement. Linge asked for whom should he make such an effort? Hitler replied, ‘For the coming man’. He then bade a formal farewell of sorts to Goebbels, his wife Magda, Bormann, Generals Krebs and Burgdorf, diplomat Walther Hewel, Vice-Admiral Hans-Erich Voss, the head of the Reich Security Service bodyguard Brigadier-General Johann Rattenhuber, Gunsche, Linge, head of Department 1 and criminal director of the Reich Security Service Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Hogl and the remaining secretaries Christian and Junge. After a few words in response to those making up the mournful gathering , Hitler returned to his private rooms with his wife.

His last moments of reflection (no doubt concerning those he believed had betrayed him) were interrupted by an almost hysterical Magda Goebbels who insisted on speaking to her beloved leader. Gunsche later recalled the scene:

The Fuhrer was standing in his study. Eva was not in the room, but there was a tap running in the bathroom so I assume she was there. He was very annoyed at me for interrupting. I asked him if he wanted to see Frau Goebbels. ‘I don’t want to speak to her any more’, he said.

The excellent film Downfall which showed Hitler speaking briefly with Magda. However, the reality was that he had heard enough and wanted to be left alone. She returned to her room sobbing. The lower bunker area was cleared in an attempt to provide a semblance of dignity for the final act. Seeking a release from the unbearable tension, many went to the canteen where a macabre imitation of a party was taking place. The noise penetrated to the lower depths but attempts to stop the carousing of those involved met with little response.

Unable to stand the tension, Hitler’s youngest secretary ran upstairs where she bumped into the Goebbels’ children. It transpired that none had eaten since breakfast, so she went to fetch them something to eat. On her return, she prepared the food and attempted to distract the children. Then, at some time between 15.15hrs and 15.30hrs Hitler and his wife committed suicide. There is some dispute as to whether the actual shot from Hitler’s pistol was heard (the constant noise from the generators and ventilation system would have made distinguishing individual sounds difficult). The tension was finally broken by Linge who entered Hitler’s room. On surveying the scene he reported to Bormann very matter-of-factly, stating ‘It’s done’. Gunsche then went into the room to see for himself before confirming to those waiting in the conference room that Hitler was dead.

Time was running out fast, therefore the removal of the bodies to their cremation site above ground took place very quickly. Hitler and his wife’s lifeless forms were wrapped in blankets and carried to a small trench close to the bunker exit. The bodies were doused in petrol provided by Kempka and set alight. The heavy shellfire meant that there was little opportunity for those present to stage a Wagnerian funeral, instead the disposal of the bodies was hurried and somewhat undignified. At approximately 23.00hrs, the charred (and much reduced) remains of Hitler and his wife were gathered up, and as Gunsche later recalled, ‘were let down into a shell hole outside the exit from the bunker, covered with earth, and the earth pounded firm with a wooden rammer’. Nurse Flegel later recounted how by failing to answer her simple question of, ‘Is Hitler still alive’, Professor Hasse confirmed his death to her on the late afternoon of 30 April:

As he gave me no answer, I knew the truth. It was natural that such an event was not discussed, and yet it affected us all very deeply, also that at such a time unimportant matters were of no interest at all. For, of course, we all believed that we, too, should not come out of this hell alive; we knew precisely what might be in store for us, everyone had made up his mind to that, there was no more question about it, we were paying attention to only what was essential.

Like those others trapped in the bunker, Nurse Flegel knew that the death of Hitler would not bring an automatic end to the horror. The advancing Red Army would want its revenge. In the ever shrinking last bastion based around the government district, desperate defenders fought on to delay the moment of reckoning. Meanwhile, final preparations for the storming of the Reichstag were complete.

The second attempt to fully secure the Reichstag and raise Red Banner No 5 was made at 18.00hrs. Yegorov and Kantariya were summoned by Zinchenko, who pointing to the roof of the building said, ‘Well then, off you go lads, and stick the banner up there’. Fighting in near darkness, the Soviet assault groups drew German fire, whilst the banner party made their way to the roof. Progress was slow, as determined German resistance showed no signs of slackening. Writing in the Soviet Voenno–istoricheskii Zhurnal in 1960, Neustroyev recalled the severity of the fighting:

Everywhere in the pitch-dark, smoke-filled Reichstag was soon confused and deadly. Knives and bayonets and rifle-butts were the weapons of those pitched medieval-style battles in the two side-chambers on the ground floor and on the main staircase. Then a grenade exploded, which blew to pieces Russians and Germans quite indiscriminately. There was a moments stunned silence… More explosions. Fire. Flames spread quickly over the plush furniture and wood panels and in some of the rooms actually stopped the fighting while men gasped for breath or desperately tried to stop their scorched uniforms burning…

It should therefore come as no surprise that it took the best part of five hours for Yegorov and Kantariya to claw their way to their final objective. At 20.50hrs, Red Banner No 5 was finally raised above the smouldering Reichstag, seventy minutes before Stalin’s deadline. Order No 6 of the 1st Belorussian Front’s Military Council marked the significance of this great moment:

1. The Reichstag district in the city of Berlin was defended by crack SS units. In the early hours on April 28, 1945, the enemy parachuted in a battalion of marines to reinforce the defences of the district. In the Reichstag district the enemy resisted desperately, their troops having turned every building, stairway, room, cellar into strongpoints and defensive positions. The fighting within the main building of the Reichstag repeatedly took the form of hand-to-hand combat.

2. Continuing the offensive the troops of Colonel-General Kuznetsov’s 3rd Shock Army overcame enemy resistance, took the main building of the Reichstag and today, on April 30, 1945, raised our Soviet flag on it. Major-General Perevertkin’s 79th Rifle Corps and Colonel Negoda’s 171st Rifle Division and Major-General Shatilov’s 150th Rifle Division won particular distinction in the fighting for the district and the main building of the Reichstag.

3. Congratulating with the victory won, I commend all the men, sergeants, officers and generals of the 171st and the 150th Rifle Divisions and the commander of the 79th Rifle Corps, Major-General Perevertkin, who personally directed the fighting for the daring they displayed, and skilful and successful fulfilment of their combat mission. The privates, sergeants, officers and generals who won particular distinction in the fighting for the Reichstag will be selected for government awards by the Military Council of the 3rd Shock Army.

4. The hour of the final victory over the enemy is nearing. The Soviet flag is already flying over the main building of the Reichstag in the centre of Berlin.

‘Comrade soldiers, sergeants, officers and generals of the 1st Belorussian Front! Forward against the enemy – with our last swift blow let us finish off the Nazi beast in its lair and bring the hour nearer of final and complete victory over Nazi Germany.

‘The order is to be read in all companies, squadrons and batteries of the front’

Stirring words. However, raising the banner of victory did not in itself signal the end of the battle, as substantial numbers of German troops still held out in the basement. With complete victory over Hitler’s Germany imminent, the decision was made to sit on the German defenders holed up in the basement and wait until they inevitably saw sense and surrendered.

Chapter Ten

Surrender

The suicide of Adolf Hitler left Goebbels as the senior political figure in Berlin. On his authority, plans for a break-out were cancelled and General Weidling was summoned to the bunker. After a difficult journey across Berlin’s moonscape, Weidling arrived at the bunker where he was met by Goebbels, Bormann and General Krebs. Soon after, he was notified of Hitler’s death which was for the time being to remain a secret pending negotiations with the Soviet forces in Berlin. The main thrust of these negotiations would be to buy time in order to bring Hitler’s political testament into force by means of Soviet recognition of the new Doenitz administration.

Lieutenant-Colonel Seifert (commanding Sector Z of the Berlin defence zone) was empowered by Goebbels to to make contact with the Soviet command in Berlin in order to make arrangements for General Krebs to discuss a request for an armistice. At 23.30hrs Seifert crossed the suspension bridge over the Landwehr Canal, carrying with him a packet containing papers for the attention of the Soviet command. Seifert explained his mission to Lieutenant-General V.A. Glazunov (commander of 14th Corps). Wasting no time, Glazunov contacted General Chuikov to inform him of this startling development. Chuikov had been enjoying a rare moment of relaxation in the company of the war correspondents Vsevolod Vishnevsky and Konstantin Simonov, the poet Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky and the composers Tikhon Khrennikov and Matvei Blanter when the call came. He instantly recognised the importance of this historic development, issuing orders for a ceasefire in the sector designated for the German envoys to cross. Chuikov set off for his command post, and once there, waited. As he did so, he ruminated on the past:

Through my mind flash recollections of days and nights of battle from all four years of the war. Episodes then lived through pass before my eyes. There it lies, our Volga, distant now yet at the same time so close; over it spreads the burning petroleum, and the raging flames devour everything – barges, timber, boats… There are Goebbels’ propaganda leaflets, in which the Nazi’s threatened that they would treat as deserters all those who did not surrender on the west bank of the Volga, and list as wilful deserters all those who crossed to the east bank… There is Zaporozhye and its capture by night. There is Nikopol, Odessa, Lublin, Lodz… And finally, Berlin. Having fought for and held the sacred ground by the Volga, our warriors have come to the Spree. Now, our arms lowered for the time being, we await envoys who will parley in the name of the Wehrmacht’s leaders – of those same men who not only dreamt of a speedy end to the Soviet state, but were sure they would achieve it. Envoys coming to parley for the leaders of the Third Reich. Were they perhaps imagining, those leaders, that our memories were short, and that we had already forgotten the millions of dead, the tens of millions of widows and orphans?

The waiting played on the nerves of Chuikov who chain-smoked whilst pacing back and forth around his gloomy command post. As it approached 03.30hrs, the tension heightened even further. In Berlin it was still dark, whilst in Moscow, celebrations for May Day had already begun.

Finally, at 03.50hrs, General Krebs arrived, accompanied by a Latvian SS officer named Neilands. Krebs had no need of an interpreter as he spoke good Russian. However, he chose to take Neilands with him in order to give himself extra thinking time during the negotiations. Krebs began the talks without any preamble (nor formal introductions). The first phase of the talks proceeded as follows:

Krebs: I shall speak of exceptionally secret matters. You are the first foreigner to whom I give the information that on 30 April Hitler passed from us of his own will, ending his life.

Chuikov: We know that.

Krebs: According to the Fuhrer’s testament… (reads from document). The aim of this declaration – to find the most favourable way out for those peoples who have borne the greatest loses in the war. The document may be passed to your command.

Chuikov: Is this document concerned with Berlin or with the whole of Germany?

Krebs: I am empowered to speak on behalf of the entire German Army. I am Goebbels’ plenipotentiary.

Chuikov: I shall report to Marshal Zhukov.

Krebs: My first question: there will be no firing during the talks?

Chuikov: You are introducing yourself in two capacities as: a military representative of an army which has been defeated; and a representative of a government which is seeking talks with my government. I am a military man and I see no other way out for your army but for it to lay down its arms forthwith, to surrender, in order that blood shall not be shed in vain. In the given situation Goebbels and Bormann are not strengthening your army or its fighting capacity. Therefore would it not be better for you and Goebbels to give orders to your troops to cease all resistance?

Krebs: There are other possibilities for ending the war. For it is essential to make possible a meeting of the new government, headed by Doenitz, which will decide this question by means of talks with the Soviet government.

Chuikov: What government can there be if your Fuhrer has ended his life and thus admitted the invalidity of the regime he headed? It may be that he leaves behind him one of his deputies, who has the right to decide whether or not there shall be further bloodshed. Who is now in Hitler’s place?

Krebs: Now Goebbels is in Hitler’s place. He has been appointed Chancellor. But before his death, Hitler created a new government, headed by Grand-Admiral Doenitz.

At this point, Chuikov contacted Marshal Zhukov with news of these developments. Zhukov in turn contacted Stalin, rousing him from the much needed sleep he required before the May Day parade. Always a man of few words, Stalin responded to the news of Hitler’s death by saying, ‘So – that’s the end of the bastard. Too bad that we did not manage to take him alive’. With regard to the negotiations, Stalin insisted on unconditional surrender.

Having been informed by Zhukov that there was no room for negotiation, Chuikov went about his task of forcing Krebs to accept that there was no alternative other than a complete surrender. Krebs, desperately trying to buy time, continued to sidestep the issue of a surrender which he knew would in effect draw a final line under any lingering hopes of a continuation of the regime. The discussions dragged on, developing into a circular argument in which Krebs continued to make a case for the recognition of the Doenitz government. As the following exchange demonstrates, Chuikov was wise to his scheming and was having none of it:

Krebs: For the purpose of enabling us to discuss your demands, I ask that there be a temporary cessation of hostilities, and for help in arranging a meeting of our new government here, in Berlin. Particularly in Berlin, not in any other place.

Chuikov: We can understand what your new government wants. All the more easily since we know about the attempts made by your friends Himmler and Goering to find out the lie of the land with our allies. You surely cannot be unaware of this.

Krebs: I am an envoy with powers from the new government which was formed in accordance with Hitler’s will. A new government may appear in the south, but it will be illegal. So far there is only a government in Berlin, it is the legal one, and we are asking for an armistice so that all members of the government can meet together, discuss the situation and conclude a peace advantageous to you and to us.

Chuikov: The question of an armistice or of peace can be settled only on the basis of a general surrender. That is our decision and the decision of our allies and no talks nor promises will enable you to break this united front of the anti-Hitlerite coalition.

Krebs: We think that the U.S.S.R. will take account of the new legal government. This is advantageous and convenient to both parties. If you gain control of the area in which the government is, and destroy us all, then the Germans will have no chance to work with you and….

Chuikov: We came not to destroy Germans, but to liberate them from Fascism. And Germans, honourable Germans, are already working with us to avoid further bloodshed.

Krebs: We ask you to recognise the new government of Germany up to the time of a complete surrender, to establish contact with it and to give it the opportunity to enter into relations with your government. It is only you who will gain by this.

Exasperated and exhausted by the interminable wrangling, Chuikov once again conferred with Zhukov by telephone. Zhukov gave instructions to keep the talks going and in the meantime try to discern the real reason behind Krebs’ proposals. After nearly an hour of fruitless discussions, Chuikov sat down for round two. Krebs was the first to speak:

Krebs: I am not able to carry on any other talks. I am only an envoy and cannot answer for my government. It is in your interest to hold talks with the new government of Germany… It is you who are strong – we know that, and it is what you think yourselves.

Chuikov: You must understand General, that we know what you want of us. You are intending to warn me that you will carry on the struggle, or to be more precise, your senseless resistance, which will increase the number of victims… What is the point of your struggle?

Krebs: We will fight on to the last.

Chuikov: General, what have you left? With what forces do you mean to fight? I am waiting for complete surrender.

Krebs: No! In the event of a complete surrender we shall not exist as a government.

It was now 05.00hrs. It was clear to Chuikov that Krebs had no authority to authorise a complete surrender and that his sole task as an envoy was to seek legitimacy for the new government. Chuikov pressed on his demands for surrender by injecting a dose of reality into the discussions:

Chuikov: You are insisting on an armistice, you are proposing to engage in peace talks, and this at a time when your troops are surrendering of their own accord, giving themselves up.

Krebs: Where?

Chuikov: Everywhere.

Krebs: Without orders?

Chuikov: Our men are advancing, yours are surrendering.

Krebs: Perhaps in some isolated cases?

After reading out loud a Soviet news report on Himmler’s attempt at starting negotiations with Britain and America, Chuikov pressed home his point that Hitler’s regime was finished and as such any new government formed in the wake of his political testament was invalidated:

Chuikov: Your so-called new government will not agree to a general surrender because it has bound itself in advance by Hitler’s will, and intends to carry on the war. Your new government, or new cabinet as Hitler calls it in his political testament, wants to carry out his will in the future…

For Chuikov, the hands on the clock appeared to be moving even more slowly. He could do nothing but wait for a final decision from Moscow regarding the formal surrender terms.

In order to pass the time, Chuilov turned to more personal matters, by asking Krebs about his service in the army. The two then talked about the progress of the war, particularly Stalingrad, which both regarded as a turning point. It was only now that Krebs came to realise that he was sitting opposite the famous defender of Stalin’s city on the Volga.

The arrival of General Sokolovskii (Zhukov’s representative) marked a turning point in the negotiations. Speaking plainly, he reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender (which had in the meantime been confirmed by Moscow). Sokolovskii proposed that after the surrender of German forces in Berlin, the new government would be announced and provided with facilities to contact the western allies:

Sokolovskii: …You have Goebbels and others here, you can announce surrender.

Krebs: Only with the permission of Doenitz, and he is outside Berlin. We could send Bormann to Doenitz, as soon as we declare a pause. I have no aircraft nor radio…

Sokolovskii: Lay down your arms, then we will talk about the rest…

Krebs: If you will permit a pause, we can reach an agreement.

Sokolovskii: Only on the basis of surrender, after which Doenitz can come to us as you have done.

Krebs: Doenitz should be sent for…

Sokolovskii: I am not empowered to decide that. Surrender forthwith. Then we will arrange for Doenitz to make the trip here.

Krebs: …I cannot surrender without Doenitz. But I could ask Goebbels about this, if you will send my aide (Colonel von Dufving) to him.

Sokolovskii: So far we have reached the following: The German Colonel goes to Goebbels to find out whether he agrees to immediate surrender.

Krebs: Will there be an armistice, or must Goebbels agree to surrender before an armistice?

Sokolovskii: We will not permit any question of an armistice to be put to Goebbels.

Krebs: Without Doenitz neither I nor Goebbels can allow surrender.

Sokolovskii: Then you will not form your government.

Krebs: No, the government must be formed. Then decide the question of surrender.

As the talks had reached an impasse again, Sokolovskii contacted Zhukov for further instructions. The mantra was to remain the same, unconditional surrender. Meanwhile Krebs conferred with his aide. When Sokolovskii returned to the room following his talk with Zhukov, Krebs exclaimed, ‘The government of Germany must have authority’. Sokolovskii refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of any government sanctioned by Hitler. His response amounted to a reiteration of Moscow’s unalterable position. Realising this, Krebs reluctantly agreed to contact being initiated with Goebbels. With a heavy heart, he dispatched von Dufving to report on the substance of the negotiations.

Attempts to lay a telephone cable direct to Goebbels in the bunker were only partially successful. All contact was thus solely in the hands of von Dufving. After making a perilous journey from Chuikov’s command post to the German lines, von Dufving was briefly held by SS troops. Released on Bormann’s orders, he eventually made his way to the bunker in order to report to Goebbels. Predictably Goebbels rejected the Soviet proposals, saying, ‘I shall never, never agree to that’. He then ordered von Dufving to fetch Krebs back to the bunker. After having spent just over nine hours at Chuikov’s command post, Krebs returned to the bunker. At noon, every Soviet gun in the sector opened up on the remaining German bastion. Half of the first day of May had been wasted in fruitless discussions. Now the Soviet command in Berlin were determined to use their massive combat power to forcibly bring down the curtain on this epic drama.

General Weidling was in the bunker with Goebbels when Krebs made his report signalling the failure of his attempts to negotiate an armistice. He confirmed that the Soviet command in Berlin would accept nothing less than a complete surrender. Goebbels and Bormann baulked at the very notion of surrender, citing Hitler’s determination to continue the struggle. Exasperated beyond belief, Weidling exclaimed, ‘But the Fuhrer is dead!’. This cut no ice with Hitler’s loyal paladins. Weidling could only explain that prolonged resistance was no longer possible. Taking his leave from what he regarded as a madhouse, Weidling invited Krebs to accompany him back to his command post. Krebs politely refused, stating that he intended to commit suicide in the bunker.

With the final acceptance that the uncompromising stand made by the Soviet command in Berlin signalled the end of Nazism, Goebbels and his wife Magda prepared to take their exit from the world stage. The children would die too, as Magda Goebbels could see no future for them in a world deprived of Hitler’s genius. On 22 April, she arrived in the bunker with her six children, all of whom’s names began with the letter H, in honour of her idol. For Magda, just being in close proximity to Hitler was exhilarating. Following his capture, Colonel Kempka was asked about her relationship with Hitler. Responding in his typically earthy style, he said that, ‘Whenever she was in the presence of the Fuhrer, I could hear her ovaries rattling’. Indeed, her love for Hitler was so great that it blinded her to reality. It was in this state of intoxication that she murdered her children at approximately 18.00hrs by first giving them chocolate laced with Finodin to induce sleep, then crushing cyanide capsules between their teeth. The eldest child, twelve-year-old Helga, clearly put up a struggle, as when her lifeless body was discovered the following day, her face and neck showed signs of bruising.

After she had killed her children, Magda played solitaire, chain-smoking all the while. In the meantime, her husband reminisced with the Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann about the early days of the struggle against the Communists in Berlin. At 20.15hrs, Goebbels informed the SS guards that both he and his wife intended to commit suicide in the New Chancellery courtyard. Carefully dressing for his last public appearance, Goebbels donned his kid gloves, hat, scarf and coat. He then took Magda’s arm, and together they made their way to the bunker entrance. The film Downfall shows Goebbels shooting his wife at close range. In reality, she bit on a cyanide capsule which acted quickly, leaving her in a kneeling position on the ground. Her husband then personally administered the coup de grace with a shot from his pistol into the back of her head. Goebbels himself made doubly sure of his own suicide by copying the method earlier employed by his master. However, the similarities ended here as there was precious little time left for formalities. Without ceremony, the bodies of Goebbels and his wife were hastily cremated in the open with the available petrol.

That evening, General Weidling gathered his staff together at his command post on the Bendlerstrasse. Recognising that Soviet advances in the city had rendered the possibility of a successful breakout too risky, the gathered officers agreed that there was no other course open to them other than surrender. At 00.40hrs, the Soviet 79th Guards Division picked up the following transmission from Weidling’s 56th Panzer Corps:

Hello, hello. This is the 56th Panzer Corps. We ask you to cease fire. At 00.50hrs Berlin time we are sending envoys to parley at the Potsdamer Bridge. The recognition sign – white flag. We await reply.

The transmission was repeated five times over a one hour period until it was picked up. The message was acknowledged by 79th Guards Division with the reply that the request for a cease fire had been forwarded up the chain of command. The end game had begun.

Meanwhile, an exhausted Chuikov received another German delegation, this time headed by Senior Executive Officer Heinersdorf of the Ministry of Propaganda. He came bearing a pink folder containing a letter from Dr Hans Fritzsche, who following the death of Goebbels and the disappearance of Bormann was now the most senior Nazi official left in Berlin. The letter stated:

As you have been informed by General Krebs, former Reich-Chancellor Goering cannot be reached. Dr Goebbels no longer lives. I, as one of those remaining alive, request you to take Berlin under your protection. My name is known. Director of the Ministry of Propaganda, Dr Fritzsche.

After reading the letter aloud, Chuikov asked Heinersdorf about the circumstances of Goebbels’ death and the whereabouts of General Krebs. The questions then turned to the inevitable matter of surrender:

Chuikov: Are you aware of our terms – that we can speak only of unconditional surrender?

Heinersdorf: Yes, we are aware of that. That is what we came to do, and we offer our help.

Chuikov: And what can you do to help your people?

Heinersdorf: Dr Fritzsche asks that he be given the opportunity to speak over the radio to the German people and army, calling on them to stop pointless bloodshed and to accept unconditional surrender.

Chuikov: Will the troops accept orders from Fritzsche?

Heinersdorf: His name is known to all Germany, and to Berlin especially.

Following a discussion on the telephone with Marshal Zhukov, Chuikov ordered Colonel Vaigachel to escort the German delegation back to their own lines. He also ordered Vaigachel to make arrangements for the proposed broadcast to the German people and army.

However, events were now proceeding apace. As the delegation was leaving, they unexpectedly came face to face with Weidling, who snarled, ‘You should have done this sooner’. Weidling was ushered into Chuikov’s presence. Without preamble, Chuikov began the interrogation:

Chuikov: You command the garrison of Berlin?

Weidling: Yes, I am the commander of 56th Panzer Corps.

Chuikov: Where is Krebs? What did he tell you?

Weidling: I saw him yesterday in the Imperial Chancellery. I believe that he has committed suicide. To begin with he reproached me because capitulation had started yesterday, unofficially. Today an order for surrender was issued to the troops of the Corps. Krebs, Goebbels and Bormann yesterday refused the idea of surrender, but before long Krebs was himself convinced of the closeness of our encirclement and decided – in spite of Goebbels – to stop the senseless bloodshed. I repeat, I have given orders for my Corps to surrender.

Chuikov: And the whole garrison? Does your authority extend to it all?

Weidling: Yesterday evening I issued an order to continue resistance, but… later I issued another order.

General Sokolovskii: Where have Hitler and Goebbels gone?

Weidling: As far as I know, Goebbels and his family must have committed suicide. The Fuhrer did the same on 30 April. His wife…took poison.

Chuikov: Did you hear this, or see it?

Weidling: Towards evening on 30 April I was in the Imperial Chancellery. I was informed of this by Krebs, Bormann and Goebbels.

Chuikov: So this is the end of the war?

Weidling: In my opinion, to waste a single life more would be a crime, a madness.

Chuikov: Quite right… Have you served long in the army.

Weidling: Since nineteen hundred and eleven. I started in the ranks…

General Sokolovskii: You must issue an order for full surrender.

Weidling: I was not able to issue orders for surrender at all, since I had not got contact. So there may still be isolated groups in a number of places which will continue resistance. Many people do not know of the Fuhrer’s death, since Dr Goebbels forbade announcement of it.

Chuikov: We have ceased hostilities entirely, and even grounded the air force. You are not aware of the latest developments? Your troops started to surrender, and after that a delegation came here from Fritzsche with a declaration of surrender, and we stopped all action in order to make it easier for them to put this into effect.

Weidling: I shall be glad to help in getting our troops to cease hostilities… The SS want to break through to the north. My authority does not extend to them.

Chuikov: Issue an order for full surrender… So that resistance may not be kept up in even isolated sectors.

Weidling: We have no reserves of ammunition. Resistance cannot therefore go on for long.

Chuikov: We know this. Write an order for full surrender, and then your conscience will be clear.

Weidling conceded that it was a case of better late than never. Commenting that this was the second war in which he had ended up on the losing side, Weidling appeared resigned to his fate, and that of Germany as a defeated nation. He then sat down to draft the surrender order which took him only a short time to write. When it was completed, he started to read it aloud:

Weidling: On 30 April the Fuhrer ended his own life by his own hand…

Sokolovskii (interrupts Weidling): It has come to our knowledge that Doenitz has announced this to the world.

Weidling: No. Yesterday Dr Goebbels told me that only Stalin had learnt of this.

Sokolovskii: Yesterday there was a transmission from an unidentified German radio station, saying that Hitler had died a heroic death.

Not knowing how to respond to Sokolovskii’s assertion, Weidling simply handed over the completed order which read as follows:

On 30 April the Fuhrer ended his life by his own hand and thus we who swore loyalty to him are left alone. According to the Fuhrer’s orders you, the German troops, were still to fight for Berlin, in spite of the fact that ammunition had run out, and regardless of the general situation, which makes further resistance on our part senseless. My orders are: to cease resistance forthwith. Weidling, General of Artillery, former Commandant of the Berlin defence area.

The order was read by Chuikov, Sokolovskii and General Pozharski who had now joined them. According to Chuikov, the formulations in the order were quite satisfactory. However, Sokolvskii thought differently, sparking off a discussion on the exact wording of the order:

Sokolovskii (to Weidling): You need not say ‘former’, you are still Commandant.

Pozharski (to Chuikov): Should we have that formulation about swearing loyalty.

Chuikov: There is no need to alter it. It is his order.

Weidling (to Chuikov): Should it be an order, or an appeal?

Chuikov: An order.

Interpreter (to Chuikov): How many copies.

Chuikov: Twelve. No, as many as possible.

Weidling: I have a large staff. I have two Chiefs of Staff, and two more Generals who have retired but who came to me and put their services at my disposal. They can organise the surrender.

At 11.30hrs, Chuikov gave instructions for copies of the surrender order to be distributed by one of Weidling’s officers accompanied by one of his own officers. Shortly afterwards, Fritzsche arrived in person to accept the terms of unconditional surrender demanded by the Soviet command in Berlin. Fritzsche, Chuikov and Sokolovskii then proceeded to discuss the implementation of the surrender, along with security arrangements which clearly were a matter of concern for the senior Nazi official:

Sokolovskii (to Fritzsche): We have an interest in ensuring calm in Berlin. We can provide a guard for anyone who is concerned for his safety.

Fritzsche: The German police organs have broken up and fled, but they can be brought together again.

Sokolovskii: We are not interested in the police. Thy will be numbered among the prisoners of war. We are interested in the administrative officials. We will provide guards for them. They will come to no harm.

Fritzsche: I do not understand. Who would do them harm, and where? Who would dare to commit excesses?

Sokolovskii: Some of our soldiers, and the German population, may show cruelty to you in return for the actions of the Gestapo, etc.

Fritzsche: Yes, that is possible.

Sokolovskii: We have provided for everything, and made the appropriate announcements. A Commandant of Berlin has been appointed, the Soviet General Bezarin. A Komendatura has been set up for each district, and these will take all measures. Have you any other wishes?

Fritzsche: I wrote a letter to you, being the last responsible representative of the government. I wrote it in order to avoid bloodshed.

Sokolovskii: We understand your enforced gesture.

Fritzsche: I would like to expand this document, for which purpose I need to establish contact with Doenitz.

Chuikov (to Fritzsche): At nine o’clock this morning, Doenitz addressed himself to the army and the people with a declaration that he had taken the leadership upon himself and that he would continue the struggle against Bolshevism to the end, and likewise against the Americans and the British if they hindered him. But we are not afraid of him; he has bitten off more than he can chew.

Fritzsche: I did not know that. Where am I to remain?

Sokolovskii: Here. Await our further instructions.

Fritzsche was then led away, his part in the drama effectively over. Later he would be transferred to the notorious Lubyanka Prison in Moscow where he underwent torture. Later, he was tried as a major war criminal at Nuremberg, subsequently being acquitted along with fellow defendants Franz von Papen and Hjalmar Schacht.

Following Fritzsche’s departure, Chuikov and Sokolovskii visibly relaxed, chatting informally as the tension created by the protracted surrender negotiations evaporated. Meanwhile, news came in confirming that the fighting for the Reichstag had finally come to an end with the surrender of the last remaining German defenders. With the end of a long and cruel war now clearly in sight, Sokolovskii remarked, ‘The end of the war is approaching’. Chuikov quipped, ‘Yes, let’s smoke a pipe of peace!’. The end was indeed approaching, as in the shattered streets of Berlin, Soviet vehicles equipped with amplifiers played recordings of Weidling’s surrender order.

At 15.00hrs, the Soviet guns fell silent. The time for reflection would come later. For the victors, it was a time of celebration as they broke out the food and drink. Along the East-West Axis, the crews of T-34 and IS-II tanks embraced, thankful that they had somehow survived. In his memoirs, Chuikov wrote about the end of hostilities. His words contain an inevitable note of nationalistic pride, but also a sense of relief that the long struggle was over:

We went into the streets outside. All around was quiet – an unaccustomed quiet that rang in our ears. Somewhere not far off, ranks of soldiers were marching smartly, in perfect time. It was hard to believe that our Guardsmen had already found time to acquire such harmony and precision with drill movements. Yet how else could it be at such a time! Weariness had given way to pride and joy. The marching men came nearer. It was a company from the 79th Guards Division… The company was led by Captain N.I. Kruchinin; he had just completed the clearing of the east bunker of some Nazis who had tried to continue resistance. The last shot in the Berlin fighting had just been fired there. The last shot!.. Step for step, foot to foot, shoulder to shoulder. The heroes of the land of Russia came through the streets of conquered Nazism’s capital. And a ringing song came through the clear air of the city where the leaders of the Third Reich had matured their plans for world domination. The war was over. A long and hard road had been travelled.

As Soviet troops celebrated and congratulated each other on their own survival, the last survivors of the break-out groups which had set off from the Chancellery the night before were being rounded up. There were numerous other break-out attempts, most of which ended in complete failure. Only a few determined individuals made it through the Soviet lines to reach safety west of the Elbe.

In the gloomy depths of the bunker, the atmosphere following Hitler’s suicide was a mixture of high tension and Wagnerian melodrama. Those who planned to break-out anticipated the moment of their release, whilst the few who had opted for suicide made speeches about loyalty and honour. After the suicide of Goebbels, all remaining obstacles to the proposed break-out were removed. The first group to leave was led out by Mohnke at 23.00hrs on 1 May. He had formed ten groups of between twenty and thirty people, each of which would set off at ten minute intervals. The basic plan was for all groups to make their way as far as the Stettiner Railway station by using U-Bahn and S-Bahn tunnels as much as possible. In theory, this would bring the groups out behind the Soviet lines. From here, they would head towards the Gesundbrunnen Railway Station. Then each group would attempt to make its own way to Neuruppin, where they would find safety with the main German forces. Such was the plan. In reality, it had little chance of success as Mohnke was unaware of the collapse of German units fighting to the north of Berlin around Oranienburg.

Mohnke’s group, containing among their number Gunsche (Hitler’s Adjutant), Walther Hewel (Diplomat), Hans-Erich Voss (Vice-Admiral) and the female secretaries, crawled out through a cellar window in the Chancellery which led on to the devastated Wilhelmplatz. From here, the group descended into the depths of the Kaiserhof U-Bahn Station. Using their torches to penetrate the enveloping darkness, the group made their way along the tracks to the Stadtmitte Station. From here, they continued their trek to Friedrichstrasse Station. Strangely, the group’s progress was halted at the entrance of a nearby tunnel running under the Spree by two watchmen. Having received no new orders in over a week, the watchmen refused to open the water-tight bulkhead. Accepting the situation without demur, Mohnke led the group back to Friedrichstrasse Station, from where they were forced to continue their attempted break-out above ground. The Weidendammer Bridge was blocked by a German anti-tank barrier. However, the group were able to make their way across the Spree via a nearby metal footbridge. From the ruins of the Natural History Museum, they witnessed Friedrichstrasse and the Weidendammer Bridge coming under heavy Soviet fire.

The other groups had set off as planned. Bormann was a member of the third group which was led by Werner Naumann (Promoted to Minister of Propaganda in Hitler’s political testament). However, the original plan unravelled quickly as the groups lost touch with each other in the underground gloom. Naumann’s group had become disorientated in the murky underground tunnels and so decided to continue their break-out above ground. Meanwhile, Soviet troops had become aware that an attempt to break through their lines was occurring. The mounting confusion was added to by an ad hoc break-out attempt by some of SS Major-General Krukenberg’s foreign volunteers from the Nordland Division who employed five Tiger tanks to blast their way through the anti-tank defences north of the Weidendammer Bridge. Fierce battle ensued in which all five tanks were destroyed and the Nordland volunteers suffered heavy casualties. Bormann and Hans Baur (Hitler’s personal pilot) were caught up in the battle. In the chaos they temporarily lost sight of each other. After approximately twenty minutes had passed, Baur noticed Bormann sitting alone at the entrance of a burnt out building on the corner of Friedrichstrasse and Schifffbauerdamm.

Meanwhile, Mohnke had taken advantage of the confused and chaotic situation to take his group up Chausseestrasse. From here, they made their way to the goods yard near the Stettiner Railway Station, where they were later joined by the survivors of the Nordland troop’s break-out attempt. Mohnke’s group had now swelled to some 150-200 people as they had been joined by more German troops along the way. Stopping briefly at the Humboldthain Flak Tower which was still strongly defended, the group then pressed on to the Schultheiss Brewery on Prinzenallee. Here, the group took shelter with several hundred other troops (including naval personnel flown in by Doenitz). Their predicament was made more comfortable by the large stocks of beer still stored on the premises. By early evening it was clear that there was no way out and that surrender was their only option.

Mohnke sent Colonel Claussen to negotiate the surrender. He returned with news that a surrender order had been issued and broadcast several hours earlier. For some, the end of the Third Reich meant that they had no reason to go on living. A young SS officer named Gert Stehr proclaimed, ‘Others may surrender, but Waffen SS officers should not survive the death of the Fuhrer’. He then put his pistol to his head and shot himself. Hewel, the diplomat who regretted not killing himself earlier, now followed suit. Dr Schenck witnessed his suicide, later recalling that, ‘Hewel had put the pistol to his temple and squeezed the trigger as he bit on a cyanide capsule’. Shortly afterwards at approximately 20.00hrs, the surrender was completed. For those who chose to live, years of imprisonment lay ahead.

Bormann and Baur had in the meantime faced their own difficulties in finding a way out, as neither knew Berlin intimately. They made their way along the railway embankment to the Lehrter Railway Station, passing close to the burnt out Reichstag. Three other survivors of the break-out, including Dr Stumpfegger had by now joined them. As they approached the station, they were surrounded by boisterous Soviet troops who mistook the group for Volkssturm men. These Soviet troops appeared to pose no immediate threat as they happily shared their food and cigarettes. In this convivial atmosphere, Bormann and Dr Stumpfegger took their opportunity to slip away unnoticed. They made their way up the Invalidenstrasse, but could not progress any further as the route was blocked by more Soviet troops. As their world closed in around them, they made their way back towards the Lehrter Station. There appeared to be Soviet troops everywhere. With no possible way out, Bormann and Dr Stumpfegger resorted to biting on their cyanide capsules. Later, at Nuremberg, Bormann would be tried in absentia as rumours of his escape to South America persisted. It was not until 1972, that his remains were discovered close to the Lehrter Railway Station. Later, advances in forensic science were used to positively identify his remains.

Not all of the troops tenaciously holding on to their shrinking perimeter received the order to break-out. The Latvian SS troops defending the Air Ministry and the French SS troops defending an administrative building near to the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrecht Strasse were thus effectively abandoned to their fate. The Latvian troops broke-out independently, getting as far as Pankow. Here, they split up, leaving each man to fend for himself. The much reduced French volunteer force fought on, in what was fast becoming an apocalyptic scene of destruction. Soviet sappers used incendiary devices to create a searing mass of flame which forced the defenders to take up new positions.

Later that night, General Krukenberg acted on his own initiative by ordering his own SS volunteers from the Nordland Division to gather around Friedrichstrasse Station in preparation for a break-out to the north-west. The majority of the remaining French volunteers received the order which was delivered by one of Krukenberg’s squad leaders named Patzak. However, Patzak didn’t reach SS Captain Henri Fenet’s unit of French volunteers which was still holding out in the Ministry of Security building. Fenet’s troops realised that they were on their own when scouting parties revealed that there were no friendly forces in their vicinity. Later, they made their way to the Air Ministry, where on hearing that the surrender had come into force, gave themselves up.

Meanwhile, the 1,500 troops who gathered for the break-out inevitably drew the attention of Soviet units in the area. Using their last remaining armoured vehicles in the vanguard, the Nordland troops attempted to smash their way through to safety. They were met everywhere by Soviet tanks and artillery which exacted a heavy toll on their lightly armed troops. On Lortzingstrasse (close to the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn Station) the previous commander of the of the Nordland Division (General Ziegler) was killed by shrapnel from a Soviet mortar round. With no possibility of the break-out succeeding and with his unit shattered and fragmented, Krukenberg hid out in a workshop, having taken off his uniform and disguising his identity by donning a pair of old overalls which he had found. Despite his attempts to melt away, he was discovered and taken prisoner the following day.

On the same day, a sizeable column of troops and civilians struck-out from Ruhleben towards Spandau. The attempt was spearheaded by the remaining tanks and armoured vehicles from the Muncheberg Panzer Division and the 18th Panzer Grenadier Division. Meanwhile, word had spread quickly amongst the civilian population that General Wenck’s 12th Army was at Nauen. There were also rumours that hospital trains were waiting to take the wounded to Hamburg. Desperate to escape the Soviet stranglehold, thousands of civilians joined the troop column heading towards the Havel bridges which were being tenaciously held by the Hitler Youth.

The initial thrust was successful, albeit at a high cost in lives. As the column rushed the Charlotte Bridge, 20mm quick firing guns gave covering fire. The bridge became a scene of bloody chaos, as desperate people scrambled over each other to reach the far side. One of those killed in the mad scramble for safety was Ernst Himmler (brother of Heinrich Himmler). Sheer weight of numbers enabled the column to overwhelm the Soviet defence and break through into Spandau. The town was heavily occupied, with strong defences in and around the town hall. German tanks shelled the building as a preliminary to an assault by troops of 9th Parachute Division. The developing battle provided cover for trucks laden with troops and civilians to make a dash for safety.

One of the would-be escapees was Helmuth Altner, a seventeen year old veteran of the Oder battles and Berlin street fighting. Somehow, he managed to clamber onto the mudguard and bonnet of an overcrowded truck. Holding on for dear life as the truck picked up speed, he was one of the few to survive the pursuing Soviet troops as they sped through Staaken and on to Ketzin. This successful German break-out greatly agitated the Soviet command who were concerned that members of Hitler’s inner circle may have used the opportunity to escape. Burnt-out German tanks and vehicles were checked thoroughly. Much relieved, Zhukov was later able to report that, ‘Among the crews killed, none of Hitler’s entourage were found’. One can only imagine Stalin’s wrath if there was even the slightest suggestion that senior Nazi figures were making a last minute bid to escape.

Meanwhile, Altner had been wounded in the foot. Whilst his wound was painful, he remained hopeful as his column had advanced to within almost touching distance of friendly forces. However, his mood quickly turned to despair as the route through to the nearest German positions was blocked by Soviet troops occupying the village of Pasewin. An attempt to outflank the Soviet position by skirting around the hamlets of Zachow and Roscow ended in failure. Altner then found himself alone, as his foot wound prevented him from keeping up with the others. The area was now swarming with Soviet troops. There was no way out. Altner later recalled the moment of his capture:

I had fallen behind a little, as the pain in my foot had become unbearable. The Russians are walking scattered among us… Suddenly one of the Russians stops and waits for me, as I am the last… I slowly go up to him. Then he takes my arm. I am afraid that he will take me aside somewhere where no one will see us, and put an end to me, but then I notice that he is supporting me, walking in step with me and guiding me… I am astonished. The immense tension of the last few days gives way inside me, and I am suddenly unable to hold back the tears…

Altner’s foot wound proved to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of being marched off to the east, he was taken for treatment in a hospital in Brandenburg. Many others were not so fortunate.

Chapter Eleven

After Hitler

In Berlin, the end of hostilities brought about a sense of relief, mixed with feelings of anxiety about what was to come. The master race were now the conquered, subject to the whims of a people whom Goebbels had characterised as Asiatic barbarians. Indeed, there were acts of barbarism, in which mainly second echelon troops indulged in an orgy of looting and rape. The women of Berlin soon learned to make themselves scarce at night, only emerging in the morning as Soviet troops slept following the drunken excesses of the night before. The number of rape victims in Berlin remains difficult to determine accurately, as some women and young girls were subjected to multiple assaults. For the depersonalised and desexualised young frontovki, rape was very much a group activity. Estimates suggest that there were as many as 100,000–130,000 victims of this appalling crime. If the terrible experiences of the female population of East Prussia are taken as an indication, this figure is certainly not too high, rather it may be something of a conservative estimate.

For all the terrible events that accompanied the fall of Berlin, the occupation policies of the newly established Soviet military administration largely contradicted Goebbels’ terrifying predictions of what would happen to a conquered German population. In what little remained of the Nazi state, Hitler’s theories of racial hatred were perpetuated by his appointed successor and his government in Flensburg. On 2 May, Schwerin von Krosigk (Foreign Minister in Doenitz government) took to the airwaves to highlight the suffering of German civilians at the hands of the rapacious Red Army:

The world can only find peace if the Bolshevik tide does not flood Europe. In a heroic struggle without parallel, for four years Germany fought to its last reserves of strength as Europe’s bulwark, and that of the world, against the Red menace. In the east, an iron curtain is advancing, and behind it, hidden from the eyes of the world, the work of exterminating those who have fallen into Bolshevik hands goes on.

Krosigk’s speech was an outrageous distortion of history which made no mention of the Nazi terror apparatus. Whilst the Soviet administration was unquestionably harsh, there were no ghettoes, no gas chambers. Germans living in the Soviet zone of occupation were not to be killed en masse, but converted to the cause. Whilst the German armed forces formally surrendered to the Allies on 8 May at Karlshorst (Berlin), the Doenitz administration continued to enact a sham form of government until it was wound up by the British authorities on 23 May.

Meanwhile, in Berlin the issues facing the conquerors were very real. Before the political indoctrination of the defeated population could begin, the shattered city had to begin functioning again. The infrastructure of the once great city of Berlin had collapsed. Streets were choked with debris, trains and trams no longer functioned, power plants, pumping stations and gas works were largely destroyed. However, the most pressing problem was food. Stalin made a political decision to feed the German population.

With Nazi Germany defeated, the differences between the incompatible political systems which made up the Grand Alliance became more marked. During this early stage of the Cold War, Stalin prioritised the needs of Germans above his own citizens. In his memoirs, Zhukov recalled the implementation of Stalin’s policy:

The population of Berlin had to be saved from starvation. The supply of foodstuffs, which had been stopped before the Soviet troops entered Berlin had to be organised. It turned out that large groups of the population had received no food for several weeks. The Soviet troops stationed in Berlin began to extinguish the fires, organise the removal and burial of corpses, and de-mine whole areas. The Soviet command, however, could not solve all these problems without involving masses of the local population in active work.

With few men left, the workforce available to the Soviet administration consisted mainly of women. Soon, the ‘Rubble Women’ became a feature around Berlin’s shattered streets. Work meant food, and in the ruined capital there was certainly no shortage of clearance work.

It was left to General Berzarin (Military Commander of Berlin) to put Stalin’s plans into practice. He soon became a well liked and respected figure in Berlin as he mingled with German civilians queuing at field kitchens. His tenure was however short-lived, as after only fifty-five days in office, he was tragically killed in an accident. Rumours spread that he had been murdered by the NKVD, or even by Nazi Werewolf fanatics (Bezarin was killed in a tragic road traffic accident). During his short time in office, this energetic officer achieved minor miracles by establishing order, reintroducing essential services and feeding the population. The long process of winning over the German population had begun.

The catastrophic defeat of Hitler’s Germany was greeted with mixed feelings by ordinary Berliners. By July 1945, the city was full of American, British, French and Soviet troops. The famed wit of Berliners largely focused on lampooning the occupiers. A popular joke of the time concerned the old Berliner who was asked which nationality he liked most. After ruminating for a while, the man replied – ‘The Siamese’. When it was pointed out to him that there were no Siamese occupying forces in Berlin, he put his head to one side and said – ‘Ah, so? Why come to think of it, there aren’t’. Whilst you won’t need treatment for cracked ribs after laughing too much at this joke, it does nonetheless serve to demonstrate how humour was used by many as a coping strategy.

Richard Brett-Smith, a young officer serving with the 11th Hussars in Berlin (July 1945 – March 1946) was a keen observer and chronicler of Berlin life. His observations go some way towards explaining the attitude of the average Berlin citizen towards defeat and occupation:

In Berlin I found most people more resilient than in other German cities, and certainly as quick-witted, sharp, and cheerful as the London Cockney. Perhaps Berlin is the one place in Germany where a sense of humour near to that of the English is often found. It was amazing that in 1945 a people in such straits could laugh at all, and miraculous that they should laugh at and make jokes about their own troubles and afflictions, such as the Russians, the Black Market, the Red Caps (British Military Police) or ‘Snowballs’ (American Military Police) and food rationing… To me, it was the Berliners’ sense of humour and individuality which most distinguished him from other Prussians. So often it depends upon a lampooning of authority with that wry cynicism about one’s own plight

The wry wit which Brett-Smith observed was both an acknowledgement by Berliners of their own much reduced circumstances and their resilience in the face of adversity. They had survived the bombing and the coming of the Soviet armies. Through their humour, toughness and adaptability, they would survive the occupation too.

Hitler once said, ‘Give me ten years and you won’t recognise this country’. In the event, Hitler’s dictatorship lasted twelve years, by which time the country was indeed unrecognisable. The great cities of Germany lay in ruins. Factories were either destroyed or lay idle due to acute shortages of fuel and raw materials. Public utilities had ceased to function. Life revolved around securing the basic necessities of food, shelter and warmth. People lived a troglodyte existence in the cellars of bombed and burnt-out buildings. As they scurried around the ruins like ants, thick dust clung to their clothes and faces, giving them a ghostly appearance. The celebrated war correspondent Alan Moorhead described life in these shattered German cities as ‘sordid, aimless, leading nowhere’.

During the first eight months of the Allied occupation, there was hunger amongst the population, but no famine. There were incidents of diseases such as typhoid fever, typhus and diphtheria, but not on an endemic scale. Statistics compiled by the British authorities provided valuable information regarding disease, suicide, crime and employment rates. However, first hand observations of the reality of life in post-war Berlin were more valuable still. Brett-Smith’s recollections say far more than bare statistics ever can. In his memoir, one particular passage vividly encapsulates the daily struggle faced by ordinary Berliners:

I see in my mind an old woman grubbing among the swill-tubs near a soldiers’ mess, until warned off, for this food is for the pigs; a vamp collapsing in a night-club from drinking two glasses of wine on a stomach that had been empty for two days from necessity, not from folly: a free fight among half a dozen citizens, men and women of varying age and children too, which started after four potatoes had rolled off a cornering British Army three-cornered. Two old men, fag end collectors, knocking heads as they both dive for a cigarette stump thrown from a passing Jeep. Corpses of refugees in cattle trucks at the Lehrter Station – had they died from starvation or from cold? These instances could be multiplied.

The hunger experienced by the population led in some extreme circumstances to serious crime, including murder. Between May and December 1945, between fifty and sixty murders were committed in Berlin every month. Most of the murders had robbery as their prime motive. Indeed, there had been a spate of armed robberies on the S-Bahn system by multinational gangs. The arming of the German police in early 1946 led to a substantial reduction in the murder rate, though not in other serious crimes. Organised and opportunistic vehicle theft remained a serious issue for the occupying authorities as Brett-Smith recalled:

It was courting disaster to leave a Jeep parked in the street without having immobilised it. Sometimes even that precaution did not prevent thieves from towing it away or removing all four tyres and the spare, and there were even some who, having padlocked their steering-wheel with a grim satisfaction an hour or so earlier, laughed on the other side of their faces when they returned to find steering-column and padlock arranged on the kerb, but no sign of a car.

As winter approached, coal thefts rose dramatically. Until conditions in the city improved markedly, the needy, the desperate, the opportunists and the unscrupulous would continue their illegal activities.

Chapter Twelve

Corruption in Low Places

Black market trading and prostitution proliferated across Berlin. To some extent, the American and Soviet occupying forces were responsible for the growth of the black market as they had allowed barter-shops to operate freely. This growing trade went some way to satisfying not just the needs of the population, but the occupying troops themselves. For the average soldier serving with the occupying forces, Berlin was an opportunity not to be missed. Like many others, American G.I. Peter Wyden profited from the burgeoning black market. However, unlike many of his colleagues working on a German language newspaper for the military administration, he felt uneasy about exploiting others for profit:

My worst discomfort was ethical. I didn’t like what the occupation was doing to me and my colleagues. We were becoming corrupted and we were liking it. Quite a few were becoming rich – I mean truly wealthy. I knew no one who wasn’t trading in the black market. American PX cigarettes (rationed but generously so) were the preferred medium of exchange. A few smokes paid for anything, including women, some of them respectable. Prices were quoted as on a stock exchange for our full inventory: GI shirts and socks, even Zagnut candy bars issued by the PX, although they seemed to consist of bone glue. Army friends stationed outside Berlin were jealous of us because they couldn’t share the action. They sent us merchandise for sale on a commission basis. Anything went for preposterous prices in Berlin; among the items delivered to my office for immediate clearance were a set of used dentures and an aerial camera freshly dismounted from a Luftwaffe bomber.

Wyden was a small time player on the black market scene. Like many others, he simply wanted to get something out of a posting he had never asked for in the first place. Like many others, he was able to rationalise what he was doing, and by doing so set any qualms he had aside.

For some of those posted to Berlin, the black market was an opportunity to experience the thrill of illicit trading. In his unpublished memoir, R.A.F. radio operator John (Jack) Hanwell recounted his own experience of the Berlin black market:

At one end of the Kurfurstendamm was Berlin’s main black market area. A pack of cigarettes or a tin of corned beef could easily be bartered for jewellery and other valuables. By the early evening it was heaving with people… Through the black market, I obtained a Walther pistol with six or seven rounds in the magazine, some opal earrings with a matching necklace, a couple of Leica cameras and some porcelain crockery…

The experience of this young wireless operator is fairly typical. As such, he cannot be compared to the legendary (and probably mythical) Lance Corporal who was said to have been the proud owner of whole apartment blocks in the eastern part of the city. Whilst there were undoubtedly some very dubious activities going on, most trading on the black market was innocent enough. Soldiers are known for their love of souvenirs. There was a particularly brisk trade in wrist-watches between American and Soviet troops. Colonel Frank Howley (American sector commandant) later explained the background to this trade:

On the Russian G.I’s level, the immediate goal was a watch. Russians love watches for a number of reasons. They have always been associated in the Muscovite mind with affluence and an established, even exalted, position in life. Peasants never owned watches! A wrist-watch – well! Watches soon became a universal commodity because troops had no confidence in the Russian currency. Also, a soldier could send a watch home and his wife could barter it for a cow. Even our G.I’s realised the fortune, in Russian eyes, represented by a watch and started to sell their own watches, converting the money into American dollars, although the men were forbidden to enter these markets… A Mickey Mouse watch was worth more than a jewel-studded trinket from Cartier.

Such was the extent of trade with the Soviet occupying troops, that the authorities tended to turn a blind eye. Although, there were occasional high profile raids on established black market areas in the Tiergarten, Alexander-Platz, Potsdamer-Platz, Friedrichstrasse and the Kurfurstendamm.

In October 1945, the ban on fraternisation with the German population in Berlin was lifted. Predictably, there was an explosion in prostitution with approximately 500,000 women working the streets and clubs by the end of the year. Considering that many of the occupations available to women in the immediate post-war period involved the fetishisation of their bodies in the seedy clubs which proliferated, it is not surprising that many took the next logical step by turning to prostitution. Some dressed their activities in an aura of romance as they secretly hoped that they would be whisked away by an American or British soldier who wanted to marry them. One married British Private later recalled his feelings over an affair with an eighteen year old German girl:

I felt a bit sick at times about the power I had over that girl. If I gave her a three-penny bar of chocolate she nearly went crazy. She was just like my slave. She darned my socks and mended my things. There was no question of marriage. She knew that it was not possible.

The comments by the married Private accurately reflect the moral double-standards of the time. This eighteen year old girl was good enough for sex, but quite unsuitable for marriage. Some Germans lamented the apparent collapse in traditional moral standards. In Hitler’s Germany, a woman’s place was determined by the so-called three K’s (Kinder, Kuche and Kirche), which translated to children, home and church. One German police official stated:

It is impossible to distinguish between good girls and bad girls in Germany. Even nice girls of good families, good education and fine background have discovered their bodies afford the only real living. Moral standards have crashed to a new low level. At the present rate, in two months time I wonder if there will be a decent moral woman left.

The police officials comments display a staggering lack of understanding for the reasons why so many women prostituted themselves. Terms such as ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘nice’ ceased to mean anything as so many women from all strata of society could be bought cheaply. In this new world, an impoverished Baroness might struggle to find work as a waitress in a seedy club. Traditional social roles became blurred as nearly all women faced the same struggle for survival.

Wives longed for their husbands to return. However, when their menfolk finally returned from captivity, they could not comprehend what their partners had endured. They had no inkling of the initial explosion of sexual violence. Nor could they understand the desperate shortages of everyday necessities which had forced their loved ones into finding protection and sustenance in the arms of a Soviet officer or soldier. How could they have demeaned themselves in this way? Therefore, for many, there was no joyful reunion, but blame, accusation, recrimination, and ultimately, separation. When we think of the end of the war in Europe, we tend to picture the joyous scenes in Trafalgar Square or the ecstatic crowds thronging Times Square in New York. Such scenes befitted the hard fought for victory won by the Allies. In Berlin, the very different scenes witnessed by chroniclers of events characterised the trauma and degradation of defeat.

Chapter Thirteen

Renaissance

In Berlin, the extent of the devastation was almost too much to comprehend. Several months after the end of hostilities, some basic services had been restored, but life remained a daily struggle. Brett-Smith was both amazed and impressed by how people managed to live in the midst of such widespread devastation. He wrote:

Houses that were nothing but empty shells or gutted skeletons emitted cave-dwellers from their basements, and how often did you not see and notice with surprise that one room in a whole block of flats was still occupied, the rest being ruins, and the survivor betrayed only by the glow of an electric bulb or by the dismal line of washing hanging outside! Indeed some dwellings were so invisible to the eye, their entrances down slopes or steps concealed by weeds, bushes, or stones, that you felt you had been pitchforked back many centuries into the company of Neanderthal man. Fully to realise the devastation you had to leave Berlin for a few weeks, and then, on returning, you saw it with new eyes. Living among so much ruin you tended to become oblivious to it all. Yet you could walk for miles in the middle of the city, starting, say, from the Brandenburger Tor or from the Belle Alliance-Platz, and see nothing but destruction, with the sour smell of death and corruption rising from the Spree, which was hardly more than an open sewer. But among it all life was going on, shops were springing up (though heavens knew where they found anything to sell) and blades of grass poked up through the rubble.

However, it was from above that the devastation of Berlin could best be appreciated. Brett-Smith went on to describe his own impressions of the ruined city from the air:

…As your plane climbed sharply away, or came in to land over the streets of Berlin, it seemed to you as you looked down as if some fantastic collection of empty match-boxes and hollow bricks from a child’s nursery had been shuffled together and strewn about, densely but untidily, for many of them were upended or bent. From a little farther away this gallimaufry took on an apparent symmetry, so that an arriving visitor at first would be deceived by the regularity of the cratered landscape below him, and would not realise that the orderliness was only an orderliness of destruction, of absence of roofs and walls and outstanding landmarks. Many church spires and various towers still survived, it is true, whether above their own shattered foundations or, less frequently, on the summits of whole buildings, but much of the usual give and take, as it were, of a city’s outline had disappeared.

Such was the devastation in Berlin, that there appeared no future for the city, only the present, dominated as it was by the ruins which began to take on a permanent appearance. Yet, in this city of smashed monuments and ruined buildings, life in the form of culture, religion and politics emerged from the cellars.

The desperate need to escape the drudgery of daily life in Berlin led to an artistic revival in the city. Under National Socialism, music had been the subject of strict regulation. Scores by Jewish composers were prohibited. New musical trends were also frowned upon, particularly ‘degenerate’ jazz which was seen as a damaging foreign import. Now, following the collapse of Hitler’s Wagnerian fantasy, music of all types flourished. There was a great revival in classical music, in which the previously proscribed works of Mendelssohn were greeted with enthusiasm bordering on ecstasy. In the Theatre des Westens in Charlottenburg, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Professor Robert Hager and Sergiu Celibidache played to entranced audiences, eager to be a part of the classical revival. Leo Borchard, the orchestra’s senior conductor had been shot dead by an American sentry in one of those stupid and silly incidents which were a less than rare occurrence in those early days of the occupation. Borchard had been travelling as a passenger in a British vehicle, whose driver failed to respond to the American sentry’s challenge.

Jazz music also flourished. During the era of cultural prohibition, it had been the outlet for the frustrations of dissident groups such as the ‘Swing Kids’. Now, it proliferated in the numerous establishments that had sprung up between Adolf-Hitler-Platz (later renamed as Theodor-Heuss-Platz) and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at the end of the Kurfurstendamm. Not everyone embraced jazz as there were those who were still influenced by Goebbels’ propaganda. For the most part, it was the younger generation who saw jazz as a vehicle for releasing desires and emotions which had been suppressed by the social mores of the National Socialist state. For these people, jazz represented freedom, individuality and modernism.

In the summer of 1945, jazz musician Coco Schumann returned to his native Berlin. Schumann had been an active member of the underground jazz scene. In 1943, he was denounced as being half-Jewish and subsequently deported to the holding camp at Theresienstadt and then on to Auschwitz. Here, he came face-to-face with the infamous Dr Josef Mengele. He was saved from the gas chambers by a chance encounter with a guard, who, being a one-time jazz fan recognised Schumann from his many appearances on the underground music scene. The guard placed Schumann in a Roma musical group. Whilst a member of the group, he played tunes such a ‘La Poloma’ for the guards who were supervising the murder of hundreds of thousands of people during the last six months of 1944. Schumann later stated that, ‘For a long time, I suppressed what I saw – the eyes of children who were led to the gas chamber, the bodies being offloaded’. Delirious with spotted fever, Schumann almost succumbed just as the liberators were arriving. Yet, he survived and returned to war ravaged Berlin where he met his future wife whilst walking along the Kurfurstendamm. After spending several years in Australia, Schumann and his wife returned to Berlin. He quickly re-established himself on the Berlin jazz scene and in time became Germany’s most renowned swing guitarist.

In the early stages of the occupation the Allies worked in tandem to support the revival of cultural life in Berlin. The Soviet authorities of course had a head start. As early as 16 May, orders were issued granting permission for theatre performances to take place. On 18 May, the first classical music concert took place in the city. On the following day, some thirty of the surviving cinemas reopened. The theme of cultural revival was the basis of an interview by Amy Beal with former Berlin Philharmonic double bassist Erich Hartmann in 2006. When asked about the context of the cultural revival, Hartmann stated:

One of the miracles of this period was that, despite all of the unfortunate circumstances of the bombed-out cities, attempts were made to continue cultivating culture even while most concert halls, theatres and cinemas were destroyed. One didn’t just think of making money, rather that life should just go on.

Hartmann’s sentiments were not altogether uncommon, as there was a feeling that culture was essential for the nation’s spiritual survival in the wake of stories emerging concerning the scale of atrocities committed by the National Socialist regime in the people’s name. Experimental musician Arno Huth was unable to practice his art during the National Socialist era. The shattering defeat of May 1945 brought with it the uncertainties of occupation by the victorious powers. However, for people like Huth, it also brought new opportunities. Interviewed in January 1946, he stated:

After the surrender, hardly any opera groups or complete orchestras were left, nor were many theatres or concert halls usable because heavy bombings during the last months of the war had destroyed or badly damaged most buildings of any size. In spite of this, artistic life has picked up rapidly, thanks chiefly to aid from the Allied occupation forces.

Just how rapidly artistic and cultural life revived in Berlin can be demonstrated in the remarkable figure of some 120 premières being hosted in the city between July and December 1945. By early 1946, there were approximately 200 stages and halls available in the city for artistic performances. However, the co-operation of the Allied occupation forces was doomed to failure as long buried ideological differences came to the fore. Over the next two years, the various cultural instruments created by the four occupying powers began to mirror the increasing divide between east and west.

Chapter Fourteen

Hearts and Minds

The Allied sponsored cultural revival in Berlin was but one element in winning the battle for hearts and minds. Whilst the Western powers aimed to replace Hitler’s dictatorship with freedom of expression within a democratic multi-party system, Stalin had other ideas. His decision to send the German Communists back to Berlin represented his own attempt to win over the hearts and minds of the German people by creating a national party of the workers that would also appeal to the intelligentsia. His ultimate goal was to complete the revolution of 1848 by eliminating feudalism in a united Germany. The revolution would be subject to political control from Moscow. To this end, the so-called ‘Moscow emigrates’ were the perfect conduits for his planned social remodelling.

The group chosen for the mission was led by Walter Ulbricht. All were dedicated Communists and totally loyal to their masters in Moscow. By and large, Stalin and Beria regarded the group as no more than ‘useful idiots’. Nonetheless, Ulbricht and his group had something to prove as they had been subject to withering attacks regarding the German Communist Party’s lack of opposition to Hitler. The main task of the group was to support the Soviet occupation authorities and to convince the people that Stalin was their liberator, not their enemy. Little did the group know at this time of the terrible suffering of the civil population at the hands of their ‘liberators’. Their illusions would soon be shattered.

On 27 May 1945, the group arrived in the devastated city. Such was the level of destruction that greeted them, that their task appeared at first to be utterly futile. Markus Wolf (later head of intelligence) was a member of the group. Given the pseudonym ‘Michael Storm’, he worked as a journalist and propagandist for a Soviet controlled radio station. The topics of rape, the fate of German prisoners of war in the East and the future boundary lines with Poland were never to be broadcast. As these were all topics which were of intense interest to the German population he was able to quickly glean from numerous sources the full picture of what the early stages of the Soviet occupation had meant. In his diary he wrote:

Our frontoviki have wrought havoc. All women raped. Berliners have no more watches… Then came the experience, the reality, and as a result the absolute majority of Germans, especially those east of the Elbe, were very, very anti-Soviet.

Wolf’s reflections accurately characterise the prevailing mood amongst the population. Yet, none of this mattered to Ulbricht, his immediate superior. This charmless, ambitious and unscrupulous individual was totally guided by his loyalty to Stalin and Soviet policy.

The goals of the German Communist Party had been laid out as, ‘The establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic republic with all democratic rights and freedoms for the people’. However, Ulbricht’s vision was somewhat different. His plans for the new Germany were based around authoritarian leadership and strict controls over all elements of civil society. Nonetheless, he understood the requirement for a democratic façade, stating that, ‘It must appear democratic, but we must control everything’. Ulbricht went on to create the foundations for a virtual dictatorship by pressurising the Social Democrats to merge with the Communists (on his terms) which subsequently led to the creation of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Ulbricht’s dictatorship marked the beginning of a new era in German politics. A line had been drawn under the National Socialist era. With the establishment of incompatible systems of government in those areas of Germany controlled by the democratic powers in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, a new era had begun.

Chapter Fifteen

The Balance Destroyed

To the general public in America and Great Britain, Stalin was known by the affectionate title of ‘Uncle Joe’. This appellation gave the impression that the Soviet leader was a genial, benevolent figure whose life and work was devoted to serving the interests of his people. In reality, nothing could have been further from the truth, as behind his somewhat unremarkable and benign appearance lay almost unfathomable levels of viciousness and jealousy which arose from his love of power. Wearied to near exhaustion by the demands of war, Stalin was nonetheless determined to rebuild his shattered state. Therefore, the last thing he wanted was another war. The engine of history would take care of the capitalist nations in due course.

Stalin firmly believed that time was on his side, as the greedy and rapacious Americans and British would enter into conflict with each other as they sought to dominate world trade. All he had to do was sit back and wait for the inevitable clash which would result in the destruction, or the fatal weakening of these rival powers, then, and only then would a rejuvenated Soviet state step in to claim the spoils. His thinking was clearly influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology which argued that capitalist states could only cooperate for a limited period as their self interests would inevitably come to the fore sooner or later. Stalin remained stubbornly wedded to the dialectics of Marxist-Leninist ideology. His assertions regarding the inevitability of a clash between competing capitalist states were published in Pravda:

Some comrades affirm that in consequence of the development of international conditions after the Second World War, wars among capitalist countries have ceased to be inevitable… These comrades are mistaken. They see the external appearances which glitter on the surface but they fail to see those profound forces which, though at present operating imperceptibly, will nevertheless determine the course of events… It is said that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism are greater than the contradictions between the capitalist countries. Theoretically this is of course true. It is true not only now, at the present time, but it was also true before the Second World War. And this the leaders of the capitalist countries did more or less understand. Yet the Second World War began not with a war against the USSR, but with a war among the capitalist countries.

After the First World War it was believed that Germany had been finally put out of action… Yet in spite of this Germany revived and rose to her feet as a great power… It is typical in this regard that none other than Britain and the USA should have helped Germany to revive economically and to raise her economic war potential. Of course, through helping Germany to revive, they intended to direct her against the USSR. However, Germany directed her forces in the first place against the Anglo-French-American bloc. When Hitler attacked the USSR, The Anglo-French-American bloc not only failed to join with Hitler, but, on the contrary, were obliged to enter into a coalition with the USSR. Consequently, the capitalist countries struggle for markets and their desire to crush their competitors turned out to be actually stronger than the contradictions between the camp of capitalism and the camp of socialism… It follows that the inevitability of wars amongst the capitalist countries remains.

It would be easy to dismiss Stalin’s assertions as wishful thinking. However, his views have some credibility in that the First World War was essentially a war amongst capitalist states. It should also not be forgotten that the unwelcome interventions by foreign powers during the 1918-20 Civil War left a lasting impression on the Soviet body-politic. There were those, including Stalin himself who thought that the capitalist powers would intervene again in Soviet affairs, given the chance to do so.

Whilst Stalin had enjoyed a good relationship with Roosevelt, his successor was far more business like and less accommodating. He was in many respects an unknown quantity. If Stalin thought that it was going to be business as usual, he was in for a rude awakening. Shortly after assuming office, Truman met with his Moscow ambassador Averell Harriman, State Secretary Edward Stettinius, Under Secretary Joseph C. Grew and Charles ‘Chip’ Bohlen. Prior to the meeting, he had stayed up late every night for a week studying the minutes of the Yalta negotiations in the map room of the White House. His nocturnal work schedule was necessary as he had been kept woefully ill-informed by his predecessor. However, thanks to his own efforts, he was now almost up to speed on the state of current affairs and international relations. Ambassador Harriman used the meeting both as a conduit to pour out his frustrations concerning relations with the Soviet Union and as an opportunity to appraise the president about some ‘unpleasant facts’ concerning Stalin’s intentions in Eastern Europe. Bohlen’s memorandum of the meeting provides a clear picture of how the tone set by Roosevelt for the conduct of U.S. relations with the Soviet Union was to harden considerably:

At the President’s request Ambassador Harriman made a brief report on his opinion of the present problems facing the United States in relation to the Soviet Union. He said that he thought the Soviet Union had two policies which they thought they could successfully pursue at the same time – one, the policy of cooperation with the United States and Great Britain, and the other, the extension of Soviet control over neighbouring states through unilateral action. He said that he thought our generosity and desire to cooperate was being misinterpreted in Moscow by certain elements around Stalin as an indication that the Soviet Government could do anything it wished without having any trouble with the United States. He said that he thought the Soviet Government did not wish to break with the Soviet States since they needed our help in order to reduce the burden of reconstruction and that he felt we had nothing to lose by standing firm on issues that were of real importance to us… The President said that he was not afraid of the Russians and that he intended to be firm but fair since in his opinion the Soviet Union needed us more than we needed them… He said that only on a give and take basis could any relations be established.

Ambassador Harriman said that in effect what we were faced with was a “barbarian invasion of Europe”, that Soviet control over any foreign country did not mean merely influence on their foreign relations but the extension of the Soviet system with secret police, extinction of freedom of speech, etc., and that we had to decide what should be our attitude in the face of these unpleasant facts. He added that he was not pessimistic and felt that we could arrive at a workable basis with the Russians but that this would require a reconsideration of our policy and the abandonment of the illusion that for the immediate future the Soviet Government was going to act in accordance with the principles which the rest of the world held to in international affairs…

It could be argued that the assumption made by Harriman and Truman that the Soviet Union would be dependent on aid from the U.S. was as big a miscalculation as that made by Stalin regarding future American policy. With neither side really understanding the other, the scene was set for a complete break in relations and the beginnings of the Cold War.

Truman had two trump cards to play in his dealings with Stalin, his nation’s economic power, and since the successful Trinity Test, a monopoly in nuclear weaponry. He was therefore determined to wring as many concessions from the Soviet dictator as possible. American industrial and economic might was indeed something to behold as the economy had more than doubled during the war years. The days of harsh economic tariffs were well and truly over as this powerhouse nation was now ready and able to trade on a worldwide scale. Furthermore, many former allies now looked to the U.S. for financial relief. Bloodied and battered Britain received a three and three quarter million dollar loan which was partially used to found the welfare state. The Soviet Union too considered tapping into this seemingly inexhaustible well of prosperity, but later pulled-out of negotiations, regarding the political cost as being unacceptable.

The nuclear monopoly provided tantalising political possibilities which Truman was willing to exploit whilst the going was good. The timing and manner of the announcement of the successful Trinity Test was discussed by Truman and Churchill during a break at the Potsdam Conference. Truman mused, ‘I think. I had best just tell him after one of our meetings that we have an entirely novel form of bomb, something quite out of the ordinary, which we think will have decisive effects upon the Japanese will to continue the war’. Churchill agreed, albeit with some deep-seated concerns as he contemplated the ever growing economic and military power of the U.S. vis-a-vis the declining power of Great Britain. Whilst the nineteenth-century had belonged to the British, the twentieth-century unquestionably belonged to the Americans.

After a particularly difficult and combative session on 24 July 1945, Truman casually sauntered over to where Stalin was sitting. Churchill knew what was going to happen and was determined to catch not just every word, but also the Soviet Dictator’s reaction. Speaking through Vladimir Pavlov (Stalin’s interpreter), Truman casually stated that America now possessed ‘a weapon of unusual destructive force’. Equally casually, Stalin replied, ‘Glad to hear it. I hope you will make good use of it against the Japanese’. Churchill later recalled the encounter, stating:

I was sure that Stalin had no idea of the significance of what he was being told… If he had had the slightest idea of the revolution in world affairs which was in progress his reactions would have been obvious. Nothing would have been easier for him to say, “Thank you so much for telling me about your new bomb. I of course have no technical knowledge. May I send my expert in these nuclear sciences to see your expert tomorrow morning?” But his face remained gay and genial and the talk between these two potentates soon came to an end. As we were waiting for our cars I found myself near Truman. “How did it go?’ I asked. “He never asked a question”, he replied.

Both Churchill and Truman had completely underestimated Stalin. His apparent indifference was nothing but a ploy. Thanks to his spy network, he knew considerably more about the Manhattan Project than the American President. Later that evening, Stalin conferred with Molotov about Truman’s disclosure. Molotov reacted decisively by saying, ‘We’ll have to talk it over with Kurchatov and get him to speed things up’. Later, the actual deployment of nuclear weapons against Japan served to further accelerate the Soviet research programme. The nuclear arms race was now under way. The Cold War had begun in earnest, Berlin would be its focal point in Europe.

After Potsdam, the Grand-Alliance disintegrated as relations between the former comrades-in-arms soured. There was little if any common ground with which to form a basis of mutual understanding. Indeed, Stalin’s policy of ‘tenacity and steadfastness’ contributed greatly to the vortex of mistrust that was destroying any hopes of future cooperation between the occupying powers. The role of nuclear weapons in this process was ‘subtle, but not unimportant’. Stalin once remarked that, ‘Atomic bombs are meant to frighten those with weak nerves’. By remaining steadfast, he appeared strong. In reality this amounted to a resounding ‘Nyet’ to every proposal put forward by the Americans and British. In Berlin, this meant the end of any active cooperation between the occupying powers.

Chapter Sixteen

Orderly and Humane?

Stalin was determined to alter the Polish political landscape to his satisfaction. Never again would Poland serve as a staging-post for a German invasion of the Soviet Union. Polish lands would now provide a buffer zone against future incursions by the forces of capitalism. To create this buffer zone, the German population in those areas of eastern Germany ceded to Poland would be forcibly expelled. After much discussion, the new Polish border had been finally ratified at Potsdam. The new German-Polish border would now run along the Oder-Neisse line. Millions of Germans living in those areas east of the newly agreed territorial zone faced an uncertain future. The Polish population was on the move too, as those populating the areas ceded to Stalin under the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 1939 were forced westwards. This reordering of populations inevitably raised concerns with the Allies. Truman later recalled how Stalin responded to concerns about the border issue:

I remember at Potsdam, we got to discussing a matter in eastern Poland, and it was remarked by the Prime Minister of Great Britain that the Pope would not be happy over the arrangements for that Catholic end of Poland. The Generalissimo leaned on the table, and he pulled his moustache like that, and looked over to Mr Churchill, and said, ‘how many divisions does the Pope have?’

The protocols developed during the Potsdam Conference had requested the suspension of population transfers until the Allied Control Council could guarantee that they were carried out in an ‘orderly and humane manner’. However, Stalin’s intransigence and impatience meant that the removal of the German population from what was now Polish-Soviet administered territory east of the Oder was anything but orderly and humane.

The displacement of Germans from East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia was much on the mind of Washington’s new ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane when he took up his post in Warsaw. In August 1945, Soviet representatives on the Allied Control Council estimated that some five and a half million Germans had already been expelled. Part of Lane’s brief was to attempt to bring some order to the chaos reigning in Poland. The Polish Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Zygmunt Modzelewski claimed that his government had no wish to add to the apparent chaos, but indicated that the expulsions in Stettin, Oppeln, and Silesia would continue. In a letter to the State Department in Washington, Lane outlined his impressions of the Poles feelings towards the Germans, stating that, ‘The hatred against the Germans is great – as can be readily understood after seeing Warsaw as it is now’.

On 18 September, Lane met with the political advisor Robert Murphy in Berlin. The ‘unnecessary harshness’ of the Poles was to be regretted. However, it was agreed that any open criticism would be counterproductive as it would be adversely reported on in the Polish state-controlled press. On 12 October, Murphy put into writing his concerns regarding the movement of people in a letter to the Office of European Affairs. In it he wrote:

I am uncomfortable in the thought that somehow in the future we may be severely blamed for consenting to be party to an operation which we cannot ourselves control and which has caused and is causing such large scale human suffering.

Murphy’s concern was not so much about the plight of the German people, but the failure of his administration in standing up for the very principles which had brought America into the war.

Notwithstanding Murphy’s concerns, the trains continued to roll westwards, carrying with them their human cargo of misery consisting of ‘blind mutilated soldiers, homeless boys, starving verminous mothers, infants’. Hardly a day went by without Red Cross workers having to remove dozens of corpses from the overcrowded and freezing trains. For Murphy, the scenes at Berlin’s train stations represented, ‘retribution on a grand scale, but practised not on the Nazi activists, but on women and children, the poor, the infirm’. Just like the trains before them which had rolled eastwards towards the ghettos and death camps, these trains too took as long as a week to cover distances which in peacetime would have taken less than a day. For those that survived the harsh deportation process and the journey, there were further dangers in store as they were easy pray for thieves in a city which had become lawless. The authorities in the American sector where most of the trains arrived wrung their hands, but did nothing, Berlin was becoming a city of refugees.

The numbers were staggering, during the summer of 1945, some 550,000 Germans from the eastern territories were dumped in Berlin, many of them without any other possessions than the clothes on their backs. That summer, a trainload of deportees from Pomerania arrived in the capital. Of the 300 children forced onto the train, half were dead when the train finally pulled into Berlin. There were also several hundred hospital patients on board, all whom had been brutally ejected from their beds without any consideration for their individual medical conditions. Another transport, this time carrying Sudeten Germans from Troppau arrived in Berlin after a hellish eighteen day journey. Of the 4,250 women, children and old men on board, only 1,350 survived.

The tragic scenes being played out were witnessed by Lieutenant-Colonel Byford Jones who served on Montgomery’s Berlin staff. His reports elicited some sympathy in Britain, particularly with some sections of the press. In a published personal account entitled Berlin Twilight he wrote:

In the course of two or three months, I made periodic visits to various railway stations… Everywhere I found men and women who had lost, together with their homes, families and property, all human dignity, and had become animals, sleeping like animals on the floor… They looked like tramps who had spent a lifetime on the road. When I saw their passport photos, taken a few months before, I was staggered. The change these people had undergone was incredible. They had all lost weight, aged ten years, had lined faces. They were sick and mentally unbalanced… I went around some of the refugee camps – former barracks, schools, quarantine stations, Red Cross centres – which were like a crown of thorns around the festering head of Berlin – and I saw such human degradation, depravity and tragedy that I was physically sick after a few hours of it.

Not everyone displayed the same degree of empathy as Byford-Jones. Indeed, some of Berlin’s permanent residents were hostile to the newcomers, referring to them as ‘Polacken’ and ‘Schmarotzer’. The refugee reception centres, including the one set up at Templehof Airport became known by the disparaging terms as ‘New Poland’ and ‘Garlic Settlements’.

For many years, the suffering of the German expellees remained all but forgotten. In Berlin, it took until 2006 for a temporary exhibition to be mounted in their memory. The exhibition, ‘Forced Paths: Flight and Expulsion in 20th Century Europe’ was not without controversy. On the very day it opened, the Polish Prime Minister made a public visit to Auschwitz. During an interview, he stated that, ‘It is important to remember who the perpetrators of WWII were, and who were the victims’. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder entered the fray by arguing that, ‘A permanent exhibit would risk a disproportionate focus on German suffering’. Irene Runge, Director of Berlin’s Jewish Cultural Association said, ‘I don’t think it would be fair not to give them a chance to remember their own path. On the other hand, I’m not much interested in hearing about it’. Nazi Germany sowed the wind, they eventually reaped the whirlwind in the form of almost unimaginable human suffering. A tragic postscript to a terrible war, in which Berlin was at the very epicentre.

Epilogue

Relations between the occupying powers in Berlin continued to deteriorate as 1945 neared its close. The Soviets on one side, and the Americans, British and French on the other were by now totally convinced that the obligations laid out at Potsdam were not being met. Stalin was not in the least bit interested in fulfilling the commitments he had made regarding free and fair elections in Eastern Europe. For their part, the Americans were stalling on the thorny issue of German reparations. The cracks which had been papered over in the name of wartime cooperation were becoming ever more apparent with each disagreement which arose. Stalin’s long-serving Foreign Minister still believed that it was possible to do a deal with the Allies. His master quickly disabused him of any such notions. Stalin’s stinging rebuke cut Molotov to the quick:

At some point you gave in to pressure and intimidation on the part of the US, began to stumble, adopted the liberal course with regard to foreign correspondents and let your own government be pilloried by those correspondents in expectation that this would placate the US and Britain. Of course, your calculation was naïve. I feared that with this liberalism you would undercut our policy of of tenacity and thereby let our state down. At that time the entire foreign press yelled that Russians were caving in and would make concessions… It is obvious in dealing with such partners as the US and Britain we cannot achieve anything serious if we begin to give in to intimidation or betray uncertainty.

Stalin instructed a chastened Molotov to remove the ‘veil of amity’ which had thus far characterised relations with the Allies. From now on the Soviet Union would ‘stand firm’. In short, Molotov’s brief was to ‘display complete obduracy’.

Exhausted by the strains of war, Stalin decamped to his dacha located in the mountains of northern Georgia for a ‘rest-vacation’. However, it was not all rest and relaxation for the weary titan. Stalin devoted several days of his holiday towards the political machinations that would result in considerable reductions in Molotov’s power and influence. He also agreed to see President Truman’s emissary Averell Harriman. Their meeting went well enough, although it was clear to Harriman that Stalin’s policy of ‘increased militancy and self-reliance’ would signal trouble ahead. Notwithstanding, the administration in Washington prepared to meet the challenge of Stalin’s belligerence head on, as their attitude towards their erstwhile ally was hardening by the day.

In Berlin, Stalin’s hard-line approach had heralded the division of the city into distinct political camps. Attempts by the Catholic and Protestant churches to offer religious education were stymied by Soviet authorities, whose agenda was the complete political indoctrination of the German people. Indeed, political indoctrination became the main focus of the Soviet administration as the year of victory came to a close. In concert with indoctrination came a crack down on deserters, malingerers, black marketeers and anyone who was deemed to hold ‘questionable’ political views. The prisons in and around Berlin began to fill with those who had committed genuine crimes and those who were just unlucky. Berlin resident Gerda Drews later recalled that, ‘People were afraid to talk. If you said something wrong, you would disappear’.

Stalin was determined not only to impose his own political system on lands conquered by the Red Army, he also wanted to ensure that the Soviet Union got what it needed for post-war reconstruction. During the course of the war against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union suffered approximately twenty-seven-million civilian and military casualties. Indeed, it would take decades for the population to return to pre-war levels. In addition to the incredible human toll exacted by the most terrible conflict in history, some 32,000 factories had been destroyed, along with 3000 towns and cities. The rebuilding of Stalin’s shattered state would be partially dependent upon war reparations. However, as this issue was never properly settled, Stalin simply stepped outside of the legal process by authorising the looting of homes and factories in Berlin and other towns and cities.

The result of Stalin’s reparations policy was the inevitable near crippling of the German economy in the eastern territories. Berlin was particularly badly effected, with food and fuel shortages becoming the norm. Yet, Berlin somehow survived the winter of what came to be known as ‘Year Zero’. The following year would bring more uncertainty, more tension, as the vortex of mistrust developed into outright enmity.

Selected Bibliography

Books

Adlon, H., Hotel Adlon (Horizon 1960)

Allen, D.J., The Oder-Neisse Line: The United States, Poland, and Germany in the Cold War (Greenwood Publishing Group 2003)

Altner, H., Berlin Soldier: An Eyewitness Account of the Fall of Berlin (The History Press 2016)

Beevor, A., Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (Penguin 2007)

Bellamy, C., Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (Macmillan 2007)

Birstein, V.J., Smersh: Stalin’s Secret Weapon (RuLit 2015)

Boldt, G., Hitler’s Last Days: An Eye Witness Account (Pen & Sword 2006)

Bullock, A., Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (Fontana Press 1998)

Byford-Jones, W., Berlin Twilight (Hutchinson 1947)

Chaney, O.P., Zhukov (David & Charles 1972)

Chuikov, I.V., The Fall of Berlin (Ballantine Books 1967)

Dobbs, M., Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill and Truman – From World War to Cold War (Alfred A. Knopf – New York 2012)

Douglas, R.M., Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War (Yale University Press 2012)

Duffy, C., Red Storm on the Reich (Routledge 2014)

Erickson, J., The Road to Berlin: Stalin’s War with Germany Vol 2 (W&N 2003)

Forbes, R., For Europe: The French Volunteers of the Waffen SS (Helion & Company 2006)

Fest, J.C., Hitler (Penguin Books 1973)

Gaddis, J.L., The Cold War (Penguin Books 2005)

Gearson, J., and Schake, K., The Berlin Wall Crisis: Perspectives of Cold War Alliances (Palgrave 2002)

Glantz, D.M., and House, J., When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (University Press of Kansas 1995)

Hastings, M., Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45 (Pan books 2004)

Hillberg, R., Perpetrators Victims Bystanders (Harper Collins 1992)

Holloway, D., Nuclear Weapons and the escalation of the Cold War (Cambridge University Press 2010)

Huber, C., The Dying Days of the Third Reich: German Accounts From World War II (The History Press 2016)

Issacs, J & Downing, T., The Cold War (Abacus 2008)

Kempka, E., I Was Hitler’s Chauffeur: The Memoir of Erich Kempka (Frontline Books 2010)

Kershaw, I., Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis (Penguin 2001)

Kershaw, I., The End: Germany 1944-45 (Penguin 2012)

Kuby, E., The Russians and Berlin 1945 (Hill and Wang 1968)

Ladd, B., Companion Guide to Berlin (Companion Guides 2004)

Le Tissier, T., The Battle of Berlin (St Martin’s Press 1988)

McAteer, S.M., 500 Days: The War in Eastern Europe 1944-45 (Dorrance Publishing 2002)

Merridale, C., Ivan’s War: The Red Army 1939-45 (Faber & Faber 2005)

Montefiore, S.S., Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (W&N 2014)

Overy, R., Russia’s War (Penguin 2010)

Overy, R., The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia (Penguin 2005)

Read, A., and Fisher, D., The Fall of Berlin (Pimlico 2002)

Roberts, G., Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov (Icon Books Ltd 2013)

Ryan, C., Berin 1945: The Last Battle (New English Library 1966)

Seaton, A., The Russo-German War 1941-45 (Presidio 1971)

Sherman III, C.A., Exciting Stories of my Personal Brushes with Greatness: Memoirs of Another Time 1922-1956 (Author House 2011)

Spahr, W.J., Zhukov: The Rise & Fall of a Great Captain (Presidio 1993)

Thorwald, J., Defeat in the East (Bantam Books 1980)

Toland, J., The last 100 Days (Mayflower 1968)

Vassiltchikov, M., The Berlin Diaries 1940-45 (Random House 1999)

Vogt, H., My Memories of Berlin: A Young Boy’s Amazing Survival Story (Xlibris Corporation 2008)

Wyden, P., Stella (Simon & Schuster 1992)

Zhukov, G., Marshal of Victory: The Autobiography of General Georgy Zhukov (Pen & Sword 2014)

Papers

German Historical Institute

‘I am no anti-Semite, but I am also no Jew’: German liberalism and the Jewish question in the Third Reich. GHI Bulletin, No 42 (Spring 2008)

Woodrow Wilson International Centre For Scholars

Foreign policy correspondence between Molotov and other Politburo members (September 1945 – December 1946) Working Paper No 26.

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 David McCormack

KINDLE edition

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Content

David McCormack
YEAR ZERO: BERLIN 1945

Prologue

Chapter One The Good German – Fritz Elsas

Chapter Two Miracle on the Oder

Chapter Three Youthful Indifference – Brigitte Eicke

Chapter Four An Interesting Proposition at the Hotel Adlon

Chapter Five Blonde Poison – Stella Goldschlag

Chapter Six Intrigues and Deceptions

Chapter Seven The Paladins Depart

Chapter Eight ‘Are the Russians already so near?’

Chapter Nine Banner of Victory

Chapter Ten Surrender

Chapter Eleven After Hitler

Chapter Twelve Corruption in Low Places

Chapter Thirteen Renaissance

Chapter Fourteen Hearts and Minds

Chapter Fifteen The Balance Destroyed

Chapter Sixteen Orderly and Humane?

Epilogue

Selected Bibliography

Copyright