The beams of the searchlights hit the smoke, nothing is visible, the Seelow Heights, fiercely snarling with fire, are ahead, and the generals fighting for the right to be the first to be in Berlin are driving from behind. When the defense was nevertheless broken through with a lot of blood, a bloody bath ensued in the streets of the city, in which tanks burned one after another from the well-aimed shots of the "faustics". Such an unattractive image of the last assault has developed over the post-war decades in the mass consciousness. Was it really so?
Like most major historical events, the Battle of Berlin was surrounded by many myths and legends. Most of them appeared in Soviet times. As we will see below, not least of all this was caused by the inaccessibility of primary documents, which forced to believe on the word of the direct participants in the events. Even the period preceding the Berlin operation itself turned out to be mythologized.
The first legend claims that the capital of the Third Reich could have been taken as early as February 1945. A cursory acquaintance with the events of the last months of the war shows that the grounds for such a statement seem to exist. Indeed, the bridgeheads on the Oder, 70 km from Berlin, were captured by the advancing Soviet units at the end of January 1945. However, the attack on Berlin followed only in mid-April. The turn of the 1st Belorussian Front in February-March 1945 to Pomerania caused in the post-war period almost more discussions than Guderian's turn to Kiev in 1941. The main troublemaker was the former commander of the 8th Guards. army V. I. Chuikov, who put forward the theory of "stop-order" emanating from Stalin. In a form cleared of ideological curlicues, his theory was voiced at a conversation for a narrow circle, which took place on January 17, 1966 with the head of the Main Political Directorate of the SA and the Navy, A. A. Episheva. Chuikov asserted: "Zhukov gave instructions to prepare for an offensive on Berlin on February 6th. On this day, during a meeting with Zhukov, Stalin called. Pomerania. "Zhukov is now rejecting this conversation, but he was."
Whether Zhukov talked with Stalin that day and, most importantly, about what, it is almost impossible to establish now. But this is not so important. We have ample circumstantial evidence. It is not even a matter of obvious reasons for anyone, such as the need to pull up the rear after 500-600 km, covered in January from the Vistula to the Oder. The weakest link in Chuikov's theory is his assessment of the enemy: "The 9th German Army was smashed to smithereens." However, the 9th Army defeated in Poland and the 9th Army on the Oder front are far from the same thing. The Germans managed to restore the integrity of the front at the expense of the withdrawn from other sectors and newly formed divisions. The "smashed to pieces" 9th Army gave these divisions only a brain, that is, its own headquarters. In fact, the Germans' defense on the Oder, which had to be rammed in April, took shape back in February 1945. Moreover, in February the Germans even launched a counteroffensive on the flank of the 1st Belorussian Front (Operation Solstice). Accordingly, Zhukov had to put a significant part of his troops on the protection of the flank. Chuikovskoye "smashed to smithereens" is definitely an exaggeration.
The need to defend the flank inevitably gave rise to a dispersion of forces. Turning to Pomerania, the troops of the 1st Byelorussian Front implemented the classic principle of the strategy "Beat the enemy in parts". Having defeated and captured the German group in Eastern Pomerania, Zhukov freed several armies at once to attack Berlin. If in February 1945 they stood with the front to the north in defense, then in mid-April they took part in the offensive against the German capital. In addition, in February there could be no question of IS Konev's participation in the attack on Berlin by the 1st Ukrainian Front. He was deeply stuck in Silesia and was also subjected to several counterattacks. In short, only a hardened adventurer could launch an offensive on Berlin in February. Zhukov, of course, was not such.
The second legend is perhaps more famous than the disputes about the possibility of taking the German capital back in February 1945. She claims that the Supreme Commander himself staged a competition between the two commanders, Zhukov and Konev. The prize was the glory of the winner, and the bargaining chip was the soldier's life. In particular, the well-known Russian publicist Boris Sokolov writes: “However, Zhukov continued the bloody assault. lives."
As in the case of the February storming of Berlin, the legend of the competition dates back to Soviet times. Its author was one of the "racers" - then the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Ivan Stepanovich Konev. In his memoirs, he wrote about it this way: “The break of the demarcation line at Lubben seemed to hint, prompted the proactive nature of actions near Berlin. And how could it be otherwise. Coming, in essence, along the southern outskirts of Berlin, knowingly leave it untouched on the right on the flank, and even in an environment where it is not known in advance how everything will turn out in the future, it seemed strange and incomprehensible. The decision to be ready for such a blow seemed clear, understandable and self-evident."
Now that the Stavka directives are available to us on both fronts, the cunning of this version can be seen with the naked eye. If the directive addressed to Zhukov clearly said "to seize the capital of Germany, the city of Berlin", then Konev was instructed only to "defeat the enemy grouping (…) south of Berlin", but nothing was said about Berlin itself. The tasks of the 1st Ukrainian Front were quite clearly formulated to a depth much greater than the edge of the cliff of the demarcation line. The Supreme Command Headquarters directive No. 11060 clearly states that the 1st Ukrainian Front is required to capture "the Beelitz-Wittenberg line and further along the Elbe River to Dresden." Beelitz lies much to the south of the outskirts of Berlin. Further, the troops of I. S. Konev are targeting Leipzig, i.e. generally to the southwest.
But the soldier who does not dream of becoming a general is bad, and the commander who does not dream of entering the capital of the enemy is bad. Having received the directive, Konev, secretly from the Headquarters (and Stalin), began to plan a rush to Berlin. The 3rd Guards Army of V. N. Gordova. In the general order to the front forces of April 8, 1945, the possible participation of the army in the battle for Berlin was assumed to be more than modest: "Prepare one rifle division for operations as part of a special detachment of the 3rd Guards TA from the Trebbin area to Berlin." This directive was read in Moscow, and it had to be flawless. But in the directive sent by Konev personally to the commander of the 3rd Guards. army, one division in the form of a special detachment was changed to "attack Berlin from the south with the main forces." Those. the whole army. Contrary to the unequivocal instructions of Headquarters, Konev had a plan to attack the city in the zone of the neighboring front even before the battle began.
Thus, the version of Stalin as the initiator of the "competition of the fronts" does not find any confirmation in the documents. After the start of the operation and the slow development of the offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front, he gave the order to turn the 1st Ukrainian and 2nd Belorussian fronts to Berlin. For the commander of the last K. K. Rokossovsky's Stalinist order was like snow on his head. His troops confidently but slowly made their way through the two channels of the Oder north of Berlin. He had no chance of being in time for the Reichstag before Zhukov. In a word, Konev personally was the initiator of the "competition" and, in fact, its only participant. Having received the "go-ahead" of Stalin, Konev was able to extract the "homework" and try to implement them.
A continuation of this topic is the question of the very form of the operation. A seemingly logical question is asked: "Why didn't they just try to encircle Berlin? Why did the tank armies enter the city streets?" Let's try to figure out why Zhukov did not send tank armies to bypass Berlin.
Supporters of the theory about the expediency of encircling Berlin overlook the obvious question of the qualitative and quantitative composition of the city's garrison. The 9th Army stationed on the Oder numbered 200 thousand people. They could not be given the opportunity to retreat to Berlin. Zhukov had before his eyes a chain of assaults on the encircled cities declared by the Germans as "festungs" (fortresses). Both in the zone of his front, and in the neighbors. Isolated Budapest defended itself from late December 1944 to February 10, 1945. The classic solution was to encircle the defenders on the outskirts of the city, preventing them from hiding behind its walls. The task was complicated by the small distance from the Oder front to the German capital. In addition, in 1945 Soviet divisions numbered 4-5 thousand people instead of 10 thousand in the state and their "margin of safety" was small.
Therefore, Zhukov came up with a simple and, without exaggeration, ingenious plan. If the tank armies manage to break out into the operational space, then they must reach the outskirts of Berlin and form a kind of "cocoon" around the German capital. "Cocoon" would prevent the strengthening of the garrison at the expense of the 200,000-strong 9th Army or reserves from the west. It was not supposed to enter the city at this stage. With the approach of the Soviet combined-arms armies, the "cocoon" was opened, and Berlin could already be stormed according to all the rules. In many ways, the unexpected turn of Konev's troops to Berlin led to the modernization of the "cocoon" to the classical encirclement of two adjacent fronts by adjacent flanks. The main forces of the German 9th Army stationed on the Oder were surrounded in the forests southeast of Berlin. This was one of the major defeats of the Germans, undeservedly remaining in the shadow of the actual storming of the city. As a result, the capital of the "thousand-year" Reich was defended by Volkssturmists, Hitler Youths, policemen and the remnants of units defeated on the Oder front. They numbered about 100 thousand people, which was simply not enough for the defense of such a large city. Berlin was divided into nine defense sectors. According to the plan, the number of garrisons in each sector was supposed to be 25 thousand people. In reality, there were no more than 10-12 thousand people. There could be no question of any occupation of each house, only the key buildings of the quarters were defended. The entry into the city of a 400,000-strong grouping of two fronts did not leave the defenders any chance. This led to a relatively quick assault on Berlin - about 10 days.
What made Zhukov delay, and so much so that Stalin began to send orders to neighboring fronts to turn to Berlin? Many will give the answer straight away - "Seelow Heights". However, if you look at the map, the Seelow Heights "shade" only the left flank of the Kyustrinsky bridgehead. If some armies got bogged down on the heights, then what prevented the rest from breaking through to Berlin? The legend appeared due to the memoirs of V. I. Chuikova and M. E. Katukova. Attacking Berlin outside the Seelow Heights N. E. Berzarin (commander of the 5th Shock Army) and S. I. Bogdanov (commander of the 2nd Guards Tank Army) left no memoirs. The first died in a car accident immediately after the war, the second died in 1960, before the period of active writing of memoirs by our military leaders. Bogdanov and Berzarin could tell at best about how they viewed the Seelow Heights through binoculars.
Maybe the problem was in Zhukov's idea to attack by the light of searchlights? Backlit attacks were not his invention. The Germans used attacks in the dark under the light of searchlights since 1941. For example, they captured a bridgehead on the Dnieper near Kremenchug, from which they later surrounded Kiev. At the end of the war, the German offensive in the Ardennes began with floodlights. This case is closest to an attack by the floodlights from the Kyustrinsky bridgehead. The main task of this technique was to lengthen the first, most important day of the operation. Yes, the raised dust and smoke from the explosions prevented the beams of the searchlights; it was unrealistic to blind the Germans with several searchlights per kilometer. But the main task was solved, the offensive on April 16 was launched earlier than the time of the year allowed. The positions illuminated by searchlights, by the way, were overcome quite quickly. Problems arose already at the end of the first day of the operation, when the floodlights had been switched off long ago. The left-flank armies of Chuikov and Katukov rested on the Seelow Heights, the right-flank armies of Berzarin and Bogdanov hardly advanced through the network of irrigation canals on the left bank of the Oder. Near Berlin, the Soviet offensive was expected. It was initially harder for Zhukov than for Konev, who was breaking through the weak German defenses far south of the German capital. This hitch made Stalin nervous, especially in view of the fact that Zhukov's plan was revealed with the introduction of tank armies in the direction of Berlin, and not bypassing it.
But the crisis was soon over. And this happened precisely thanks to the tank armies. One of the mechanized brigades of Bogdanov's army managed to find a weak spot in the Germans and break deep into the German defenses. Behind it, the mechanized corps was first drawn into the breach, and the main forces of the two tank armies followed the corps. The defense on the Oder front collapsed on the third day of the fighting. The introduction of reserves by the Germans could not change the situation. Tank armies simply bypassed them on both sides and rushed towards Berlin. After that, it was enough for Zhukov only to slightly turn one of the corps to the German capital and win the race that he had not started. Losses at the Seelow Heights are often confused with losses throughout the Berlin operation. Let me remind you that the irrecoverable losses of Soviet troops in it amounted to 80 thousand people, and the total - 360 thousand people. These are the losses of three fronts advancing in a strip 300 km wide. To narrow these losses down to a patch of Seelow Heights is simply stupid. It is more stupid to turn 300 thousand total losses into 300 thousand killed. In reality, the total losses of the 8th Guards and 69th armies during the offensive in the Seelow Heights area amounted to about 20 thousand people. Irrecoverable losses amounted to about 5 thousand people.
The breakthrough of the German defense by the 1st Belorussian Front in April 1945 is worthy of study in tactics and operational art textbooks. Unfortunately, because of Zhukov's disgrace, neither the brilliant plan with a "cocoon" nor the daring breakthrough of tank armies to Berlin "through the eye of a needle" were included in the textbooks.
Summarizing all of the above, the following conclusions can be drawn. Zhukov's plan was comprehensively thought out and suited the situation. German resistance turned out to be stronger than expected, but was quickly broken. Konev's throw on Berlin was not necessary, but improved the balance of forces during the assault on the city. Also, the turn of Konev's tank armies accelerated the defeat of the German 9th Army. But if the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front simply fulfilled the directive of the Headquarters, that 12th Army of Wenk would be defeated much faster, and the Fuhrer would not even have the technical ability to rush around the bunker with the question "Where is Wenk ?!"
The last question remains: "Was it worth it to enter Berlin with tanks?" In my opinion, the best formulated arguments in favor of the use of mechanized formations in Berlin, the commander of the 3rd Guards. tank army Pavel Semenovich Rybalko: "The use of tank and mechanized formations and units against settlements, including cities, despite the unwillingness to constrain their mobility in these battles, as shown by the great experience of the Patriotic War, very often becomes inevitable. Therefore, this type is necessary. combat well to teach our tank and mechanized troops. " His army was storming Berlin, and he knew what he was talking about.
The archival documents that have been opened today make it possible to give a quite definite answer about what the storming of Berlin cost to the tank armies. Each of the three armies entered into Berlin lost about a hundred combat vehicles on its streets, of which about half were lost from faust cartridges. The exception was the 2nd Guards. Bogdanov's tank army, which lost 70 tanks and self-propelled guns out of 104 lost in Berlin from hand-held anti-tank weapons (52 T-34, 31 M4A2 Sherman, 4 IS-2, 4 ISU-122, 5 SU-100, 2 SU-85, 6 SU-76). However, given that before the start of the operation, Bogdanov had 685 combat vehicles, these losses can in no way be regarded as "the army was burned on the streets of Berlin." Tank armies provided support for the infantry, becoming its shield and sword. Soviet troops have already accumulated sufficient experience in countering the "faustists" for the effective use of armored vehicles in the city. Faust cartridges are still not RPG-7s, and their effective firing range was only 30 meters. Often, our tanks simply stood up a hundred meters from the building where the "faustists" had settled and shot him point-blank. As a result, in absolute terms, the losses from them were relatively small. A large share (% of the total) of losses from faust cartridges is a consequence of the loss by the Germans of traditional means of fighting tanks on the way to retreat to Berlin.
The Berlin operation is the pinnacle of the Red Army's skill in World War II. It's a shame when its real results are belittled due to rumors and gossip, which gave rise to legends that did not correspond to reality. All the participants in the Battle of Berlin did a lot for us. They gave our country not just a victory in one of the countless battles of Russian history, but a symbol of military success, an unconditional and unfading achievement. Power can change, you can destroy former idols from the pedestals, but the Victory Banner raised over the ruins of the enemy capital will remain an absolute achievement of the people.
