The general looked at me in astonishment. ‘I don’t recognise you. You are talking like a technical equipment assistant. Even if only half of your tanks reach Prague, that’s no tragedy. The war is coming to an end and you start to complain. There is no cause to panic. You will get your infantry. I have already given the instructions. You will get a rifle battalion from Schapovalov’s brigade.’
I thanked the corps commander and invited him to supper. However, he declined as he had to get to Sliussarenko, whose brigade was to be in the first echelon. We escorted the general to the edge of the woods. Before he got into his vehicle he pulled out a folded newspaper from a side pocket of his uniform jacket.
‘Do you still remember how depressed the tank soldiers were that there was no mention of the brigade in the order of the commander-in-chief on the defeat of the Berlin group? Shortly afterwards I was convinced that the comrades had made a mistake, so I sent a telegram to Comrade Stalin. Here is his reply.’
I took the sheet and skimmed over the text. Then I went over it again to commit every word to memory.
‘Andrei Vladimirovitch’ said the corps commander in it to the head of the political section, ‘you are still in the brigade. Tell the men what has happened and of Comrade Stalin’s order.’
Then General Novikov said good-bye and jumped into his vehicle. ‘See you in Prague!’
We went back to the staff bus and had our supper. There ‘Political’ Novikov related how hard the whole business had hit our corps commander. ‘General Novikov is an old soldier and knows exactly what such an order from the highest commander does for a mechanised force. When our corps commander turned to Comrade Stalin he was not thinking of himself.’ The best thing would be for me to simply read the text of the telegram. ‘Justice demands that the handling of the 7th Guards Tank Corps be praised that I led in Berlin. Thus was the memory honoured of those that have fallen in this city, and the living receive the thanks due to them. I write to you as a general and the father of a son lost in the storming of Berlin!’ The head of the political section paused and then continued: ‘I am happy to inform you that our 7th Kiev Guards Corps has been awarded the honourable name “Berlin”. Please inform all the soldiers.’
‘Who was responsible for the mistake?’ I wanted to know.
‘With us the Novikovs’, answered Andrei Vladimirovitch, smiling. ‘Too many with the same name gathered at the one Front, all belonging to the tank troops. That was what was responsible for such a muddle.’
In the morning we could discover nothing of our neighbours far and wide. The brigades of Sliussarenko and Tschugunkov had crossed the Elbe to the west bank during the night and occupied their dispersal areas. As soon as Gordov’s army had smashed a breach in the enemy defences, both brigades would be in the first echelon.
Our brigade remained as the corps commander’s reserve in the allocated area. Once Dresden had been taken, we would thrust towards Sudty, cross the mountains and reach Teplice as the vanguard, going round Terezin to the west to Kralupy and penetrating Prague off the move.
With this decision, the Front commander-in-chief and the corps commander went for continuous, targeted handling and massive blows by the tank troops into the flanks of Army Group Mitte.
In the morning I was informed that we would not get across the crossing point in Riesa. On the approaches to the town there was confusion with the Rear Services of two armies and our tanks wedged together. Each one of them wanted to move forward as quickly as possible. Command under these circumstances was extremely difficult. The time dragged, however. The corps staff had already by evening broken through and the main forces followed through. We had contact with neither them nor army headquarters. A powerful voice came over the radio, often giving instructions and orders.
Suddenly an excited voice broke through this confusion. Someone reported in the Czech language the beginning of an uprising in Prague. The rebels had occupied the radio station and were asking the Soviet troops for help. Every five minutes came over the air the calclass="underline" ‘Listen! Listen! Help!’ Every word went straight to the heart. Burning, driving us forwards. We still recalled the tragedy in Warsaw. The Prague people’s alarming call for help did not leave our soldiers indifferent. The tank-men impatiently waited for the signal to march on.
On the roads leading to Czechoslovakia stood strong forces, tank and infantry divisions as well as independent elements that firmly blocked off southern Germany. Our attempts to split up this mass off the march remained futile. At 1400 hours our artillery opened up. Dresden, Radebeul and Wilsdruff came under heavy fire. There was no sparing of ammunition: the stronger the fire, the less blood would be shed.
In the second half of the day the Front commander sent the armies of Generals Gordov and Puchov, as well as the tank armies of Rybalko and Leliushenko into the battle. The whole night and the whole of the 7th May the fighting raged in Dresden and the Erzgebirge Mountains. The thrust of the 1st Ukrainian Front merged with the attack of the 5th Ukrainian Front coming over the Carpathian Mountains and accelerated the attack of the remaining troops to the west.
On the 7th May the tank brigades of the 6th Guards Tank Army under General Kravtshenko and the 7th Guards Army under General Schumilov belonging to the 2nd Ukrainian Front arrived from Austria. The combined assault by the three Fronts shattered Field Marshal Schörner’s Army Group Mitte. To ensure its final defeat, we had to push into the centre of Czechoslovakia and securely lock the way to the west.
Another day had gone by and we were still sitting fast in the wood. We had received no orders from the corps commander. The radio connection with his headquarters had been broken during the course of the day. A cold, unpleasant rain fell.
What would happen if they needed us up ahead? We had been ordered to remain where we were until specific orders arrived. Laying the blame on the corps staff was not in my character. I carefully examined pros and cons and decided to move on in an hour, and sent out scouts and sappers to the crossing points.
The columns crept forward all night long. It was raining heavily. The rain forced its way into the tanks and the drivers’ cabs of the trucks. Neither capes nor tarpaulins saved us from the soaking. Vehicles slipped into ditches, the field kitchen turned over. We had to use tanks to drag them out. But the men overcame the elements. After 50 kilometres we reached the main forces of our corps towards morning.
The rain had stopped, the sun was shining. When the field kitchen appeared the night’s qualms were forgotten. Hot tea, barley soup with meat and the obligatory 100 grams of bread had the men smiling again. The general praised our initiative.
The brigade went into action that same morning. Together with other corps’ units we supported the 5th Guards Army west of Dresden and our Polish brothers in arms.
Afterwards our way led over the Erzgebirge Mountains. We approached the Czech border. It took an hour to get the brigade together again. The infantry also joined us. General Novikov kept his word and sent us the rifle battalion of the Hero of the Soviet Union Davydenko. Now we had to scale the heights of the Erzgebirge, destroy security detachments and individual nests of resistance, and hurry to Prague, from where calls for help were still coming.