An attack under such conditions entailed an advance of only a few dozen metres in an hour. Nevertheless there was a forward movement to the goal, which we had to reach that day at all costs.
We met wounded, a sure indication of the fighting. Next to a burning tank a lieutenant was being tended to by medical orderlies. The further we went the more often we came across evidence of the fighting.
Someone recognised me and shouted: ‘Comrade Colonel, our men are there in front.’
I breathed out with relief. So Gulevaty had not been wrong. A column of prisoners of war came towards us. The dirty, tattered soldiers were moving only slowly forwards. For them the war was over. Their once so orderly Berlin now lay in dust and ashes. Stunned, the prisoners looked around them. Ruins, burning streets and blackened trees lined their route. It was already afternoon, the sun high in the sky and warming, despite the thick overhang of smoke. We removed our padded jackets.
Behind Ruhleben U-Bahn station [which is actually on a raised level] we turned off to the right, crossed a railway line and reached the Reichsstrasse–Spandauer Damm junction, where we came across an armoured car.
‘Welcome your prisoners!’ Boris Saveliev called out to us.
I looked at Schalunov questioningly. He too looked puzzled. ‘What prisoners? What should we do with them now?’ I was thinking that the scouts must have captured some important personalities, perhaps even Hitler or Goebbels. Anything was possible these days. Excitedly I walked up to the vehicle, but could see no Germans.
Two Soviet officers unknown to me jumped out of the vehicle. A large, correctly dressed major presented himself: ‘Battalion commander in the 1st Krasnograd Mechanised Corps of the 1st Byelorussian Front, Major Protassov. I salute the representative of the 1st Ukrainian Front.’
The major then stepped aside to make room for his comrade. ‘Captain Turoviez of the same brigade.’ The slim officer sputtered out the words and ended his report with the words: ‘We met up at 1200 hours on the 27th April between Siemenstadt S-Bahn station and Ruhleben.’
‘Well, I’m damned!’ I said. ‘So you are the prisoners my scouts captured!’
Never before had soldiers so heartily clasped each other and become friends as at this moment. The order had been fulfilled, the ring closed. On the western edge of Berlin the tank-men of Colonel-General Bogdanov of the 1st Byelorussian Front had met up with the tank-men under Colonel-General Rybalko of the 1st Ukrainian Front.
Someone called out: ‘This event must be celebrated!’
‘Absolutely!’ agreed Alexander Pavlovitch. ‘This will never happen again.’
We decided to take a small drink in a half-destroyed building. While this was being arranged, Protassov, Turoviez and Saveliev reported exactly where the meeting had taken place.
‘My battalion was supposed to attack towards Ruhleben,’ began Protassov. ‘We knew that Rybalko’s troops were coming towards us from the south. We had to fight until the morning, as the Fascists had established themselves in Haselhorst. A tank platoon ran into a large enemy group in Siemensstadt. It took us two hours to smoke them out. Then we reached the Spree. The fire had died down and our scouts crossed the river, closed up to the railway line and suddenly Soviet tanks and submachine-guns began firing. We had done it.’
‘That was it! We were here between 1000 and 1100 hours,’ continued Saveliev Protassov’s report. ‘Gulevaty was held back a bit at first. His tanks were involved in a fight and went a bit to the left. They drove a strong enemy group off Ruhleben race course and pushed them back to the Spree and Lower Spree. The Fascists lost several hundred men killed, the rest being disarmed and taken prisoner. Serashimov, myself and Chadsarakov’s company pushed on further to the railway line. We met no Germans here but suddenly came under fire from the other bank. We fired back. Then we heard the familiar ‘Hurrah!’ Immediately afterwards we saw Soviet submachine-gunners coming towards us waving their weapons. What happened then one can hardly describe.’
‘That was a pleasure, comrades,’ said Turoviez. ‘The sky over Berlin was almost ripped apart by our ‘Hurrahs’. That was an encounter!’
The comrades from the supply platoon came and invited us to the table. Our talks now took on another direction.
As I reported the task fulfilled to the corps commander, General Novikov ordered me to send an officer from the 35th Mechanised Brigade to his staff. Captain Turoviez set off. We delegated our representative to the staff of the 1st Mechanised Corps.
The joining of the two Fronts and our involvement in it filled me with pride. But I also had a personal reason for my pleasure. The 1st Krasnograd Mechanised Corps was commanded by General Krivoshein, who was well known to me. I had served under him in 1943 and was greatly indebted to him. I regarded General Krivoshein as my teacher and was proud that his corps and my 55th Guards Tank Brigade had just closed the ring on Berlin on the 27th April 1945. Two years ago we would never have dreamt of doing this.
We cleared the enemy from the Spandauer Damm until the early hours of the morning. The brigade was to attack in the direction of Charlottenburg–Savignyplatz and on to the Zoological Gardens. The fighting died down a bit during the night but blazed up again with renewed strength in the morning. The worst was the fighting in the area west of the Tiergarten, the enemy putting up a desperate resistance. Here and there our troops had got mixed up with the enemy somehow, so that our pilots found it difficult to find targets without hitting our own troops. The artillery of the 1st Byelorussian Front had moved more densely into the city centre and their explosions were already dangerously close.
There were ten rifle and tank armies in the destroyed city, a great number of rifle, mechanised, tank and artillery corps, hundreds of regiments of all types, over 6,000 tanks and about 40,000 guns and mortars. This vast concentration of men and equipment made command extremely difficult. The boundary lines could hardly be adhered to as we lacked almost all freedom of movement. This confusion made it easier for the enemy. Despite everything, we could not withdraw any troops as the final battle had to be conducted decisively.
In the early hours of the morning of 24 April some of Chuikov’s troops traversing Schönefeld airfield came across several tanks from the 3rd Guards Tank Army of Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front. Zhukov apparently did not hear of this encounter until the evening and then acted disbelievingly, insisting that Chuikov send officers to discover what units were involved and what their objectives were.
If, as it appears, this was Zhukov’s first intimation of Koniev’s participation in the battle for the city itself, we can imagine the consternation this report would have caused. Apart from the blow to Zhukov’s pride, this incident clearly demonstrated the lack of communication between the two marshals and their continuing mutual distrust. Having had his hand revealed, Stalin then laid down the inter-Front boundary, which was to run through Lübben via Teupitz, Mittenwalde and Mariendorf to the Anhalter railway station. When extended beyond the Anhalter railway station, it passed well to the east of the Reichstag, giving Koniev the possibility of reaching it first from the south, the Reichstag, burnt out and unused since 1933, being their symbolic goal.
Koniev was obviously aware of the GHQ order laying down these new inter-Front boundaries on the night of 22 April when he issued his orders for the attack across the Teltow Canal and for the 71st Mechanised Brigade to cover the right flank and establish contact with the 1st Byelorussian Front. Somehow this GHQ order had been withheld from Zhukov, although it was effective from 0600 hours (Moscow Time) on 23 April, and his balance of forces and reported reactions to the news of this encounter on Schönefeld airfield clearly demonstrate how unprepared he was for this eventuality.