Nikanorov, who had just cleared the building of Fascists and then informed the riflemen, came across a tank from whose hatches smoke and flames were emerging. As the crew of the T-34 appeared to be dead, Nikanorov wanted at least to save the tank. But the vehicle lay under fire from submachine-gunners hidden nearby. Nikanorov ordered Apansiukov and Dobrovolski to engage the enemy with fire and provide him with a diversion. The plan succeeded. Engaged in the lively exchange of fire, the Fascists took their eyes off the tank. Ivanov climbed aboard, extinguished the fire and checked the condition of the machine. The tank was only slightly damaged, the engine and controls being intact. The clever sergeant got into the driving seat and drove the tank out of the zone of fire.
I ordered my radioman to connect me with Babadshanian. Colonel Vedenitshev reported back and informed me that Babadshanian had decided to advance not only along the streets but also through the U-Bahn tunnels. The storm troops were involved in heavy fighting with every individual building. However, Babadshanian had to give up his idea as Hitler had ordered the floodgates of the Landwehr Canal to be opened to flood the U-Bahn.
Because of the high losses, I sent Babadshanian the last of my reserves, the headquarters guard company, to his aid. I found it difficult giving up these battle-experienced men, but the war was still claiming its victims.
Behind the Zoological Gardens, around which was a 2-metre-high wall, lay the Tiergarten, in which were concrete bunkers and specially built massive buildings. All the streets around the Zoological Gardens were blocked by barricades lying within range of the artillery and machine-guns. The garrison comprised about 5,000 men. We were to destroy these last defensive installations with the Guards of the 39th Rifle Division.
Our sappers worked on the wall and blew it in several places, while covered by strong artillery fire and a curtain of smoke. The infantry, tanks and artillery assembled behind the ruins and barricades. Several guns opened fire simultaneously. Smoke and dust rose above the Zoological Gardens. In the vast din the sound of the engines of the bombers flying over the Zoo to drop their bombs could not be heard.
Upon the signal to attack, the riflemen and sappers stormed the gaps and occupied the aquarium. As they were unable to take the concrete bunker that the enemy were defending fanatically, we brought in 152mm howitzers that took on the bunker with direct fire at a range of 200 to 300 metres, but still without success. Even these large calibre shells were unable to penetrate the thick walls.
Only when the divisional commander, Colonel Martshenko, ordered the demolition of the entrance doors was it possible to penetrate the bunker. On the 1st May the whole of the Zoological Gardens were in our hands. Later it became known that the command post and communications centre of the commander of the Berlin Defensive Area, General Weidling, were located in one of the bunkers. The general had had to move to another command post.
In this fighting the rifle and tank-men commanded by Majors Shestakov and Gavriliuk particularly distinguished themselves.
On the night leading to the 1st May I visited the command post of our fighting colleague, General Chuikov. Once we had sorted out our business, the chief of the German Army’s General Staff, General Krebs, sought to pass ‘an especially important message’ to the Soviet high command. As we later discovered, Krebs brought the news of Hitler’s suicide to our high command with a list of names of the new German government, as well as an appeal by Goebbels and Bormann to the Soviet high command for a temporary ceasefire in Berlin in order to enable the arrangement of peace talks between Germany and the USSR.
When our high command was informed of the Fascist leadership’s intentions, we immediately increased the storm on Berlin. At 1800 hours on the 1st May the guns thundered once more. Together with Chuikov’s infantry, the 1st Guards Tank Brigade went into a last attack on the Tiergarten. Opposite them fought the 3rd Shock Army under General Kusnetzov and the 2nd Guards Tank Army under General Bogdanov. On the evening of that same day the forward elements of these four armies destroyed the last resisting units. The Tiergarten was littered with burnt trees and destroyed vehicles and ploughed up with trenches, bomb and shell craters.
Soldiers and officers fell into one another’s arms. Only a few kilometres had separated both armies, but with what high losses they had had to win.
The fate of the Berlin garrison was sealed. At 0200 hours on the 2nd May General Weidling appeared at Chuikov’s command post, where Goebbel’s deputy, Fritsche, had been brought that same morning. Both declared themselves prepared to issue the following order for the capitulation of the troops in Berlin:
On the 30th April the Führer, to whom we had all sworn an oath of allegiance, forsook us by committing suicide. Faithful to the Führer, you German soldiers were prepared to continue the battle for Berlin, even though your ammunition was running out and the general situation made further resistance senseless.
I now order all resistance to cease immediately. Every hour you go on fighting adds to the terrible suffering of the Berlin population and our wounded. In agreement with the high command of the Soviet Forces, I call on you to stop fighting forthwith.
Over all the loudspeakers the German army was ordered to cease fire immediately.
The city was on fire. Clouds of smoke rose up into the spring sky. Here and there machine-guns still rattled. Again and again the loudspeakers broadcast the orders in Russian and German to cease fire. Officers of Chuikov’s and Weidling’s staffs drove slowly through the streets and passed the order of the former commander of the Berlin Defence Area.
German soldiers crawled out of cellars, underground passageways and U-Bahn tunnels. Tattered, unshaven, in filthy uniforms, they went through the weapon collecting points in single file. What a sad end to an army that four years previously had marched victoriously through so many European countries.
The final point of the gigantic Berlin operation had been reached. The enemy had capitulated at 1500 hours on the 2nd May 1945. That same day I had a surprise encounter with General Weidling that recalled many thoughts to me. Near the Reichstag a column of prisoners was drawing past the smoking rubble. At their head walked several generals. A colonel-general took a long look at our tank. Perhaps the tank reminded him of something? After a short hesitation he continued on his way with lowered eyes.
‘Who is that general?’ I asked Sobolev, who was standing near me.
‘Weidling. Colonel-General Weidling.’
This name I had already recalled. Weidling had begun his military career on the Soviet–German front as a first lieutenant. He was one of the commanders of the Fascist hordes that had tried to break through on the Volokolamsker Chaussee to Moscow. There he had learned of the strength and courage of the soldiers of our 1st Guards Tank Brigade. Perhaps he already knew then that the famous German fighting slogan ‘surround, close in, destroy’ was useless. Weidling encountered the 1st Guards Tank Army for the second time at the Kursk Bend. Apparently his Tigers and Ferdinands tried to ram our defences on the Oboianer Chaussee. Now they lay near Kursk as rusty heaps of scrap metal.