The Soviet plan of attack envisioned, as the Germans anticipated, several simultaneous blows along a broad front, with Zhukov’s First Belorussian Front providing the main thrust directly opposite Berlin. To his north, Rokossovsky’s Second Belorussian Front would support Zhukov’s right flank, with its primary task being to strike quickly toward the Baltic ports of Stettin and Rostock. To the south, Konev’s Third Ukrainian Front was to attack across the Neisse and Spree Rivers, with the main force advancing west and northwest toward the Elbe and the southern outskirts of Berlin, while a secondary attack aimed in the direction of Dresden. Rather pointedly, however, Stalin refused to draw an exact boundary line between Konev’s and Zhukov’s army groups, thus inviting each of his ambitious marshals to entertain notions of capturing the great prize of the war. In operational terms, in order to ensure that this would finally be the war-ending operation, the Stavka aimed at shattering and destroying German forces east of Berlin, surrounding and seizing the capital quickly, and splitting Germany in two by advancing to the Elbe no later than two weeks after the beginning of the offensive. This latter move would, Stalin believed, not only limit any further German resistance but also have the salutary effect both of impressing his Western allies and of keeping them as far from Berlin as possible.35
Early on 14 April, in order to draw as many enemy troops as possible into the front line and, thus, expose them to artillery bombardment once the main attack began, Soviet forces began a preliminary assault against German defenses in the Oderbruch. In some areas, the weight of the attack was so great that already in this opening phase the Germans had to dispatch troops from the reserve to maintain the line. The pressure continued the next day, and, in places, the Soviet attackers wedged their way three miles into the first line of defense, but the Germans, by now familiar with this Soviet tactic, refused to allow more of their troops to be drawn forward. Not until 3:00 A.M. on 16 April did the Russians launch the main offensive. In the hope of providing some element of surprise, Zhukov had chosen to attack two hours before sunrise, relying on 143 searchlights to illuminate the battlefield. Neither the extended preliminary assault of the previous two days nor the intense thirty-minute artillery barrage accomplished the Russians’ goals, however, for the Germans had simply withdrawn much of their strength to the second and third positions, with the result that the shells fell largely on empty trenches. Moreover, since dust and smoke filled the predawn air, the powerful searchlights merely disoriented the attacking troops, who floundered about while trying desperately to see the enemy positions behind the dense dust clouds. As waves of concentrated infantry stumbled blindly forward on the narrow fronts, the troops inevitably piled on top of each other in the withering German fire. By daybreak, the confusion was complete. Nor could tanks come to the aid of the infantry since the roads quickly became jammed and the shoulders and fields were too swampy and heavily mined to allow vehicles to advance. Even when the infantry managed to reach the base of the Seelow Heights, it could go no further since a canal running in front proved difficult to cross and the slopes were too steep for the accompanying vehicles. By late morning, then, the attack had made disappointingly little progress.36
Zhukov, anxiously watching the scene from a forward command post, now compounded the problem by making an error more typical of Soviet commanders in 1942–1943 than in the late stage of the war. Impatient, he ordered his armored exploitation force to move forward in an effort to hasten the penetration of German defenses. Not only did this play to the German strength in antitank defenses, but it also caused the attacking units to become hopelessly entangled. Each time they attempted to move forward through the maze of fortified villages, German infantry armed with Panzerfausts swarmed around, destroying vehicles and further blocking the roads, while armored units launched tactical counterattacks. The opening day for the Soviets had, thus, resembled a comic opera more than a well-planned attack by five Russian armies against vastly inferior enemy forces. Despite high losses, they had not been able to penetrate the first German line of defense, let alone achieve any sort of breakthrough. Disappointed, Zhukov telephoned Stalin with the bad news, which the ill-tempered dictator took surprisingly calmly. This was likely because he had already received a report from Konev indicating that his attack had gone off splendidly, information that he gleefully passed on to the chagrined Zhukov. Moreover, given the disappointing lack of progress of the First Belorussian Front, Stalin the next day deliberately provoked a competition between his commanders to see who could be the first to Berlin. In a tense telephone conversation with Zhukov and Konev late on the seventeenth, Stalin erased even the indistinct boundary line between the two army groups, thus encouraging the bitter rivals to intensify their efforts. Although risky in the sense that it increased the danger of Soviet units slamming into and firing on each other by mistake, this move certainly accomplished its practical purpose, which was to speed the advance.37
The defensive success of the Ninth Army had exacted a stiff toll, however, as already on the first day of the attack it had been forced to commit its reserves to the battle, even those intended for operational counterattacks. Thus, when the attack resumed the next day, the lack of German strength began to have noticeable consequences. As Soviet forces pushed inexorably forward in a slow, grinding battle, the brittle German front began to crack in numerous sectors. The most intense fighting had now developed around two key cities, Wriezen to the north and Seelow in the center, where all day on the seventeenth the two sides traded attack and counterattack. Although reinforcements were rushed to the front on Berlin city buses and Hitler allowed tactical withdrawals in some areas to furnish yet more troops, the Germans had begun to approach the limits of their strength. For the Soviets, too, the culmination point appeared near, for Zhukov had thrown service troops into the battle and threatened all who refused to advance with the death penalty. The breaking point came on the eighteenth. Zhukov, now feeling Stalin’s whip on account of the increased tempo of the American advance in the west, drove his troops forward ruthlessly. By noon, Seelow had fallen and the Ninth Army’s front between that city and Wriezen begun to crumble. Still, not until the next day did the Germans give up the struggle for Wriezen, and not until the twentieth did the Soviets manage finally to break through the third and final line of defense. It had taken four days (six if the two-day preliminary attack is included) for the First Belorussian Front to break the resistance of nine understrength divisions and achieve the objectives set for it for the first day. Russian attacks had bogged down so severely that most of the Landsers had managed to extricate themselves and withdraw. Still, even the most determined of defenders were bound sooner or later to run short of men and ammunition, a weakness exploited by Zhukov in his brute force tactics. The operation had not been a thing of beauty, and the Soviets had paid their usual high price—in less than a week, they had lost thirty thousand men and seven hundred tanks—but at last the Oder line had been broken. In the final irony, at the Oder the Soviets finally reached their manpower limits, as Hitler had always anticipated, but by then it was too late.38