Berlin stood in flames. A giant cloud of black smoke hung over the city. Thousands of guns were firing and bombers were dropping their loads on the city, but the Fascists were still not prepared to surrender.
Let us recalclass="underline" on the 12th October 1941 the German high command had informed the commander-in-chief of Army Group Mitte: ‘The Führer has newly decided not to accept the surrender of Moscow, even should the enemy offer it.’ What was now being played out were the results of this ‘logical’ conclusion. Should thousands, hundreds of thousands die, the main thing was that the Hitler clique would save themselves. ‘If we have to slam the door shut behind us,’ Goebbels had cried, ‘then the whole world will tremble.’
On the evening of the 27th April members of the 27th Motorised Brigade and the 40th Guards Tank Brigade captured several trains. In some of the wagons they found boxes of chocolate. It occurred to no one to keep the booty. The soldiers distributed the chocolate to the starving children. To show the little ones that there was no need to be frightened, the Soviet soldiers broke off a piece from every bar and ate it. It was strictly forbidden to eat captured foodstuffs, but who was thinking about that at the moment.
After several hours I was informed that traces of poisoning had appeared among some soldiers. In view of the previous experience in Gotenhafen, I quickly ordered the train to be set alight. Later it transpired that the men had simply eaten too much chocolate.
On the night leading to the 30th April a German major appeared with his interpreter in the bunker I was occupying with my operational team. The major said that he had been empowered by his commander to inform me that he would surrender with his 900 men if we guaranteed their lives. I assured him that the Red Army would guarantee the safety of everyone who laid down his arms.
‘I have already told him that,’ explained the interpreter in the clearest Russian. To the question of where he had learnt the language so well, the soldier explained that he was German but born and bred in Odessa. As a teacher he had not been evacuated in time and so had been taken into the Wehrmacht by the Germans.
‘I have explained to the commander that the Soviet men will not shoot any prisoners, and assured him that is in accordance with our customs. During my enforced service in the Wehrmacht I have had time to think over many things.’
We believed him, as what he said was truly meant. Life in the Soviet Union had left deep traces in the consciousness of this man.
The enclosing ring around Berlin drew ever tighter. Especially affected were the Müncheberg Battle Group, the 11th Motorised SS Division and other units defending the Tiergarten with the Reichstag, Gestapo Headquarters and the Reichs Chancellery.
On the night leading to the 24th April the 44th and 45th Guards Tank Brigades opened fire on the Reichs Chancellery. Not one of us had any idea what was happening in there at that time. As the sun went down our troops made a determined attack on the Tiergarten and the Reichs Chancellery. As we later learned, Hitler had committed suicide. As his successor he had named Grand Admiral Dönitz, who intended pursuing the war until the end.
Soldiers of the 3rd Shock Army had raised the victory banner over the Reichstag on the evening of the 30th April. The last attack began in the night leading to the 2nd May. In the morning the 1st Guards Tank Army thrust into the Tiergarten and connected with units of the 2nd Guards Tank Army and the Polish troops taking part in the storming of Berlin. The tank soldiers had been fighting for sixteen days in conditions unusual to them against a deeply echeloned defence equipped with anti-tank weapons, leaving heavy losses behind them in the bitter street-fighting. These losses hit us especially hard as we knew how much all had looked forward to the hour of victory.
Under our heavy blows the German troops began striking their weapons on the morning of the 2nd May. Some 7,700 men surrendered to our 1st Guards Tank Army. They came out of cellars and U-Bahn tunnels, from cellars and attics; dirty, ragged, hollow-eyed, with their heads lowered.
Berlin had capitulated.
Chapter 3
Special Duties
By Marshal of Engineers Victor Kondratievitch Chartshenko
Born in the Ukraine in 1911, Chartshenko left in 1929 for Leningrad (now St Petersburg once more), where he was eventually assigned to a large electronics factory in the Vyborg District, soon being elected secretary of the Komsomol group in his building and following a political career leading to his election to membership of the Communist Party. Following the Japanese invasion of Mongolia, it was suggested he attend the F.E. Dzierziynski Military Technical Academy, where he was accepted as a student in October 1932. Among those he met there was Michail Fadeievitch Joffe, under whom he was later to serve in the Red Army. Chartshenko graduated in December 1940 and was persuaded by Joffe to join him in his electrified fencing project at the academy.
At the end of 1941 Stalin ordered the formation of the first independent engineer brigades for the establishing and overcoming of obstacles of all kinds, particularly minefields. The 33rd Independent Engineer Brigade was established at Kaluga under Lieutenant-Colonel Axiutshiz, with Joffe as his deputy and Chartshenko as chief of staff.
In May 1944 several motorised engineer brigades were formed out of the original brigade, each consisting of three motorised engineer battalions, an electric fencing battalion and a company for special mining tasks. At the same time the independent engineer battalions serving with the Fronts and armies were amalgamated into brigades at army level. Special assault engineer brigades were formed for breaking through enemy defences, and the number of engineer pontoon bridging brigades increased.
At the beginning of 1945 the components of the 33rd Independent Engineer Brigade were assigned within the 1st Byelorussian Front as follows: 1st and 7th Battalions to the 5th Shock Army, 2nd and 3rd Battalions to the 61st Army, and 4th and 5th Battalions to the 47th Army, with the 6th and 8th Battalions in reserve.
Launching their attack on 14 January, leading elements of the 1st Byelorussian Front reached the Oder River near Küstrin on the 31st and established a bridgehead on the west bank, but much of the area east of the river had yet to be cleared. In fact the Soviet plans for the destruction of the German forces in Prussia were still tying down Marshal Rokossovski’s 2nd Byelorussian Front there. When the Germans assembled a large force to clear Pomerania, the area east of the Oder, from the north, Stalin had to order the 1st Byelorussian Front to drop Zhukov’s plans for the immediate taking of Berlin and wheel north to clear the area that Marshal Rokossovski would occupy for the combined Soviet assault on the city in due course. Zhukov launched his attack on 1 March and achieved his objective within three weeks. He then left holding detachments on the east bank of the Oder until Rokossovski could take over, while he started preparing for the main assault on Berlin, but the key location of Küstrin did not fall to the Russians until 29 March.
The Küstrin Bridgehead
Our 1st and 7th Battalions had been in the Küstrin area with elements of the 5th Shock Army since the beginning of February 1945. During the first days of February the enemy had blown up the ice on the Oder River above the bridgeheads, thereby artificially removing access across the ice. The situation in the bridgeheads became drastic, our troops being cut off from their supply depots. Only seldom did we receive radio messages from the bridgeheads. One clearly detected that the radio operators of the isolated battalions wanted to preserve their batteries. Most were: ‘All in order. Mines wanted urgently.’