G.K. Zhukov called the Berlin operation one of the most difficult operations of the Second World War. And no matter what the ill-wishers of Russia say, the facts indicate that the Headquarters, the General Staff and the commanders of the fronts with their subordinates brilliantly coped with the difficulties of capturing Berlin.

Ten days after the start of the assault on the city, the Berlin garrison capitulated. In itself, the assault on such a huge city as Berlin, fiercely defended by the enemy with the use of weapons from the mid-forties of the twentieth century, is a unique event of the 2nd World War. The capture of Berlin led to the mass surrender of the remnants of the Wehrmacht and SS troops on most fronts, which allowed the USSR, after the capture of Berlin and the signing of the act of unconditional surrender by Germany, to basically stop hostilities.

Our military leaders showed high skill in organizing the assault on the largest, fortified city. Success was achieved through the organization of close interaction between the combat arms at the level of small formations - assault groups.

Today they talk and write a lot about the great losses of soldiers and officers during the storming of Berlin. In and of themselves, these statements require consideration. But in any case, without this assault, the losses of the Soviet troops would have been much greater, and the war would have dragged on for an indefinite period. With the capture of Berlin, the Soviet Union ended the Great Patriotic war and basically, without a fight, disarmed all the remaining enemy troops on the Eastern Front. As a result of the Berlin operation, the very possibility of aggression by Germany or any other country of the West, as well as the countries of the West, united in a military alliance, to the east was eliminated.

The losses of the Soviet troops in this well-executed battle are deliberately exaggerated by Russia's ill-wishers many times over. There are data on losses in the Berlin operation for each army of each front during the offensive and storming of Berlin. The losses of the 1st Belorussian Front in the period from April 11 to May 1, 1945 amounted to 155,809 people, including 108,611 people wounded, 27,649 people killed, 1,388 missing, 7,560 people for other reasons. These losses cannot be called large for an operation of the scale of the Berlin operation.

By the beginning of the operation, the 1st Tank Army had 433 T-34 tanks and 64 IS-2 tanks, as well as 212 self-propelled guns. Between April 16 and May 2, 1945, 197 tanks and 35 self-propelled guns were irretrievably lost. “Looking at these figures, one cannot say that the tank army of M.E. Katukov was “burnt”. Losses can be characterized as moderate ... During the street battles in the German capital, the 1st Guards Tank Army irretrievably lost 104 armored units, which was 45% of total number lost tanks and self-propelled guns and only 15% of the number of tanks that were in service at the beginning of the operation. In a word, the expression “burnt on the streets of Berlin” is in no way applicable to Katukov’s army, ”writes A. S. Isaev. The losses of the Katukov army near Kursk in July 1943 significantly exceeded the losses in the Berlin operation.

Similar losses and 2nd tank army. The total irretrievable losses of which amounted to 31% of the number of tanks and self-propelled guns by the beginning of the operation. Losses on the streets of the city amounted to 16% of the number of tanks and self-propelled guns by the beginning of the operation. You can bring the loss of armored vehicles and other fronts. There will be only one conclusion: despite the participation in street battles, the losses of armored vehicles during the Berlin operation were moderate and, given the complexity of the operation, it can be said that the losses were quite low. They could not be insignificant due to the fierce fighting. Losses were moderate even in the armies of Chuikov and Katukov, who fought hard through the Seelow Heights. The losses of the Air Force of the 1st Belorussian Front can be characterized as low - 271 aircraft.

On the basis of the study, A. V. Isaev quite rightly wrote that the Berlin offensive operation is rightfully considered one of the most successful and exemplary in history.

Soviet troops broke through the defense lines along the Oder and Neisse, surrounded and dismembered the enemy troops, captured and destroyed the encircled groups, and stormed Berlin. In the period from April 16 to May 8, during the indicated stages of the Berlin operation, Soviet troops defeated 70 infantry, 23 tank and motorized divisions, captured about 480 thousand people, captured up to 11 thousand guns and mortars, over 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns, 4500 aircraft.
"The capture of Berlin is the one historical fact, which can be relied upon during periods of timelessness and weakening of the country," the above-mentioned researcher wrote.

All four years, our soldiers and officers have been walking towards this day, dreaming about it, fighting for it. For every soldier, for every commander, for every Soviet person, the capture of Berlin meant the end of the war, the victorious end of the struggle against the German invaders, the fulfillment of a cherished desire carried through the flames of a 4-year war with the aggressor. It was the capture of Berlin that made it possible, without any reservations, to call the year 1945 the year of our great Victory, and May 9, 1945, the date of the greatest triumph in Russian history.

At Soviet people and the Soviet government, words did not differ from deeds even in the most stressful periods of the country's history. Let us recall how I. V. Stalin said to British Foreign Minister Eden on December 15, 1941: "Nothing, the Russians have already been twice in Berlin, and will be the third time."

Berlin was taken surprisingly quickly. The assault on Berlin itself lasted from April 25 to May 2. The Berlin offensive began on 16 April. For comparison: Budapest was on the defensive from December 25, 1944 to February 13, 1945. The besieged city of Breslau (now Wroclaw) capitulated after Berlin, without being taken by assault, being under siege since mid-February. The Germans were never able to take the besieged Leningrad. Fierce battles in Stalingrad went down in history. Why did Berlin fall so quickly?

According to German data, the city was defended in the final phase by 44 thousand people, of whom 22,000 died. Military historians involved in the reconstruction of the storming of Berlin agreed on a figure of 60 thousand soldiers and officers and 50-60 tanks. The Soviet army directly involved 464,000 people and 1,500 tanks and self-propelled guns in the assault on Berlin.

It fell to the city firefighters and police to defend Berlin, but Volkssturmists prevailed - poorly trained and poorly armed old men and underage members of the Hitler Youth (Nazi "Komsomol"). There were about 15,000 regular soldiers in Berlin, including about 4,000 SS men. Even in April 1945, Hitler had a very large army, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers were not found for the capital. How did it happen that 250 thousand professional experienced soldiers waited for the end of the war in Courland (Latvia), and were not transferred across the Baltic Sea to Germany? Why did 350,000 soldiers meet their surrender in Norway, from where it was even easier to get to Germany? A million soldiers surrendered in Italy on 29 April. Army Group Center, located in the Czech Republic, totaled 1 million 200 thousand people. And Berlin, declared a fortress (Festung Berlin) in February 1945, had neither a sufficient garrison nor any serious fortification preparation for defense. And thank God.

Hitler's death led to swift surrender German army. While he was alive, the German troops surrendered whole formations in extreme cases, when all possibilities of resistance were exhausted. Here you can remember Stalingrad or Tunisia. Hitler was going to fight to the last of his soldiers. Strange as it may sound today, but on April 21 he believed that he had every opportunity to push the Red Army back from Berlin. Although at that time the German defense line on the Oder had already been broken through and it became clear from the advance of the Soviet troops that a few more days and Berlin would be in the blockade ring. American troops reached the Elbe (at the summit in Yalta, the Elba was designated as the dividing line between the American and Soviet troops) and waited for the Soviet army.

At one time, Hitler demonstrated outstanding abilities in the struggle for power. Having a very low starting position, he managed to outplay, or even just fool, many professional politicians and gain complete control over a large European country. Hitler's power in Germany was much greater than the power of the Kaiser. And if during the First World War the military actually deprived the Kaiser of power, then during the Second World War Hitler increased his power over Germany. How can one not imagine oneself a genius, a favorite of Providence? And Hitler believed in his own genius.

A characteristic episode is cited in his memoirs ("Hitler. The last ten days.") Captain Gerhard Boldt, assistant chief General Staff Guderian, and then Krebs: "Gelen (head of the military intelligence and analytical department), during the next report to Hitler, again presented absolutely reliable information prepared by top-level specialists regarding the plans of the Soviet command and the places of concentration of Russian strike units. After listening, Hitler in In the strongest irritation and in a tone that did not allow for objections, he declared: “I categorically reject these worthless proposals. Only a true genius is able to predict the intentions of the enemy and draw the necessary conclusions. And no genius will pay attention to various trifles.

Hitler, rejecting all the proposals and requests of the General Staff for the evacuation of two armies from Courland, justified his refusal with a "brilliant" insight that if this supposedly happens, then Sweden, which is just waiting for this, will immediately declare war on Germany. All the arguments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in favor of Sweden's steadfast observance of neutrality were not taken into account by the "brilliant" strategist.

The Courland Cauldron was formed on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Hitler did not trust his generals. And this distrust intensified after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. Sharp deterioration health after a shell shock and many minor injuries also affected the quality of decisions made. All this led to such stupid decisions as the appointment on January 24, 1945 of the Reichsführer SS Himmler as commander of the Wisla Army Group (equivalent to our concept of front commander), and the Minister of Information and Propaganda Goebbels as Reich Defense Commissioner and, concurrently, Berlin Defense Commissioner . Both tried very hard and did everything in their power to safely fill up the assignments.

Our commissars, in truth, were no better. The famous Mekhlis, sent by Stalin in 1942 to the Crimea to look after the "stupid" generals, broke so much firewood. that no Goebbels could compete with him. Thanks to Mekhlis, who constantly interferes in military affairs, the Red Army, having a great advantage in numbers and equipment, suffered a crushing defeat. The Red Army lost 170,000 prisoners alone and tens of thousands killed. The Germans lost 3,400 men, of which about 600 were killed.

But back to the storming of Berlin. The troops of the First Belorussian Front were in front of a decisive offensive at a distance of 60 km from Berlin. The direct route to the capital of the Reich was covered by the 9th german army. After breaking through the defense line to Berlin, the 56th Panzer Corps under the command of Lieutenant General Helmut Weidling retreated from the Seelow Heights. On April 16, on the eve of the Berlin operation, the corps numbered 50,000 people along with the rear. After bloody battles, the corps retreated to the capital, greatly weakened. By the beginning of the fighting in Berlin itself, the corps had the following forces:

1. 18th Panzer Division - 4000 people.

2. 9th Airborne Division - 4000 people (500 paratroopers entered Berlin and here the division was replenished with Volkssturmists up to 4000).

3. 20th Panzer Division - about 1000 people. Of these, 800 Volkssturmists.

4th SS Panzer Division "Nordland" - 3500 - 4000 people. National composition divisions: Danes, Norwegians, Swedes and Germans.

In total, the corps that retreated to Berlin totaled 13,000 - 15,000 fighters.

After the surrender of Berlin, General Weidling gave the following testimony during interrogation: “Already on April 24, I was convinced that it was impossible to defend Berlin and from a military point of view it was pointless, since the German command did not have sufficient forces for this, moreover, at the disposal of the German command by April 24 there was not a single regular formation in Berlin, with the exception of the security regiment "Grossdeutschland" and the SS brigade guarding the Imperial Chancellery.All defense was entrusted to units of the Volkssturm, police, fire brigade personnel, personnel of various rear units and services.

The commandant of Berlin, Helmut Weidling, died in the Vladimir prison on November 17, 1955. (64 years old).

Before Weidling, the defense of Berlin was led by Lieutenant General Helmut Reiman, who completed the people's militia (Volkssturm). In total, 92 Volkssturm battalions (about 60,000 people) were formed. For his army, Reiman received 42,095 rifles, 773 machine guns, 1953 light machine guns, 263 heavy machine guns and some mortars and field guns.

Volkssturm - a people's militia in which males from 16 to 60 years old were called up.

By the time the militia was formed, the German armed forces were experiencing an acute shortage of weapons, including small arms. Volkssturm battalions were armed mainly with captured weapons, manufactured in France, Holland, Belgium, England, Soviet Union, Italy, Norway. In total, there were 15 types of rifles and 10 types of light machine guns. Each Volkssturmist had an average of 5 rifle cartridges. But there were quite a lot of faust cartridges, although they could not compensate for the lack of other weapons.

The Volkssturm was divided into two categories: those who had any weapons - Volkssturm 1 (there were about 20,000 of them), and Volkssturm 2 - who had no weapons at all (40,000). Battalions of the people's militia were formed not according to the military scheme, but according to party districts. Party chiefs who were not trained in military affairs were usually appointed commanders. These battalions did not have headquarters, moreover, they did not have field kitchens and did not stand on allowances. The Volkssturmists were fed by the local population, usually their families. And when they fought far from their homes, they ate what God would send, or even starved. Volkssturm also did not have its own transport and communications. Among other things, these battalions were subordinate to the party leadership, and not to the military command, and passed to the commandant of the city only after receiving a prearranged signal, which meant that the assault on the city had begun.

This is also a Volkssturm. Dictators need subjects only as cannon fodder.

The fortifications of Berlin erected under the leadership of Goebbels were, according to General M. Pemzel, simply ridiculous. The report of General Serov addressed to Stalin also gives an extremely low assessment of the Berlin fortifications. Soviet experts stated that there were no serious fortifications within a radius of 10-15 km around Berlin.

On April 18, on the orders of Goebbels, Reimann, then commandant of Berlin, was forced to transfer 30 Volkssturm battalions and an air defense unit with their excellent guns from the city to the second line of defense. On April 19, 24,000 militias remained in the city. The departed battalions never returned to Berlin. Also in the city there were units made up of military personnel of the rear services, firefighters, policemen, members of the Hitler Youth. Among the young Volkssturmists was 15-year-old Adolf Martin Bormann, the son of Hitler's deputy in the party. He survived and became a Catholic priest after the war.

The last replenishment arrived in Berlin by land (April 24) were about 300 French from the remnants of the SS Volunteer Division "Charlemagne". The division suffered heavy losses in the fighting in Pomerania. Of the 7,500 people, 1,100 survived. These 300 French SS men provided invaluable assistance to Hitler. They knocked out 92 Soviet tanks out of 108 destroyed in the defense zone of the Nordlung division. On May 2, 30 French survivors were taken prisoner at the Potsdam railway station. Oddly enough, two-thirds of the SS men who fought furiously against the Soviet army in Berlin were foreigners: Norwegians, Danes, Swedes and French.

Armored personnel carrier of the commander of a company of Swedish volunteers. To the right of the car lies the driver: Unterscharführer Ragnar Johansson.

The last meager replenishment of the defenders of Berlin arrived on the night of 26 April. A battalion of cadets of the naval school from Rostock was transported by transport aircraft. Some sources (even Wikipedia) report. that it was a parachute landing. But these comrades probably saw paratroopers jumping only on TV, otherwise they would not have written that young people trained for service on submarines so skillfully mastered parachuting and were able to perform a technically difficult jump at night from a low height. Yes, and on the city, which in itself is difficult even during the day and in peacetime.

Not only Hitler and Goebbels helped us to take Berlin, but also German generals. The commander of the Vistula Army Group, which covered Berlin from the east, Colonel General Heinrici, belonged to those German generals who believed that the war was lost and it must be urgently ended, to prevent the complete destruction of the country and the destruction of the people. He was extremely sensitive to Hitler's intentions to fight to the last German. Heinrici, a talented military leader, was considered very suspicious from the point of view of the Nazis: he was married to a half-Jewish woman, was a zealous Christian, went to church and did not want to join the NSDAP, refused to burn Smolensk during his retreat. Heinrici, after breaking through the line of defense on the Oder, withdrew his troops in such a way that they would not fall into Berlin. On April 22, the 56th Panzer Corps received an order from the headquarters of the 9th Army, which is part of the Vistula group, to withdraw south of Berlin to connect with the main parts of the army. The generals, playing giveaway, hoped that the Red Army would reach the Reich Chancellery somewhere by April 22. Weidling received an order from Hitler to lead a corps to defend the city, but he did not obey the order immediately, but only after the Fuhrer duplicated it. Hitler even ordered Weidling to be shot for insubordination on April 23, but he managed to justify himself. True, the general won a little from this. Weidling died in a Vladimir prison after spending 10 years there.

Heinrici continued to withdraw his troops, located north of Berlin, to the west for surrender to the Anglo-American troops. In doing so, he tried to deceive Keitel and Jodl, who remained loyal to Hitler to the very end. Heinrici did everything possible not to comply with the demand of the command and Hitler personally to organize a counterattack by the Steiner group from the north to unblock Berlin. When Keitel was finally convinced of Heinrici's intentions, he removed him from his post and offered to shoot himself as an honest officer. However, Heinrici surrendered command. left for a small town and later surrendered to British troops.

Colonel General Gotthard Heinrici. Died in December 1971 (aged 84).

On April 22, SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner received Hitler's order to strike from the north and unblock Berlin. Steiner attempted to carry out the order, but failed. Realizing that further attempts would doom his hastily formed group to death, Steiner arbitrarily began to withdraw his subordinate units to the West. He also disobeyed the orders of Field Marshal Keitel, the Chief of the General Staff, General Krebs, to send his troops back towards Berlin. On April 27, 1945, Hitler removed him from command of the group for disobedience, but Steiner again did not obey and continued to retreat. According to Heinz Hehne, author of The Black Order of the SS, Himmler was critical of Steiner, calling him "the most disobedient of my generals." Close to Himmler, Obergruppenführer G. Berger stated: “Obergruppenführer Steiner cannot be educated. He does whatever he wants and does not tolerate objections.

SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner. He died in May 1966 (aged 69).

Great help has been given Soviet army and Minister of Armaments Speer, who did so much to ensure that until the beginning of 1945 the production of armaments in Germany steadily increased. Speer, after the winter offensive of the Soviet army, wrote a report for Hitler, which began with the words "the war is lost." Speer was categorically against the "scorched earth" tactics in Germany, believing that the surviving Germans would have to live somehow. Speer prevented most of the bridges in Berlin from being blown up, which could have led to delays in the offensive and heavy losses for the Red Army. Of the 248 bridges in Berlin, only 120 were blown up.

The central defense sector of Berlin, the Citadel, was defended by a group under the command of Brigadeführer W. Monke.

Brigadeführer W. Monke, released from Soviet captivity in October 1955, died in 2001.

On the night of April 21, 1945, Adolf Hitler appointed him commander of the Monke Battle Group, which was entrusted with the defense of the Reich Chancellery and the Fuhrer's bunker. In total, the group included 9 battalions with a total number of about 2100 people. After Hitler's suicide, on May 1, Mohnke led a group that made a breakthrough from the bunker and unsuccessfully tried to break out of Berlin to the north. Was taken prisoner.

The inhabitants of the Nazi bunker tried to escape from Berlin in three groups. In one of the groups were Bormann, Axman, the head of the Hitler Youth and Hitler's personal doctor, Ludwig Stumpfegger. They, along with other inhabitants of the bunker, tried to get through the fighting center of Berlin, but soon Stumpfegger and Bormann separated from the group. In the end, exhausted and demoralized, they committed suicide at Lehrter station. On December 7-8, 1972, two skeletons were found during the laying of an underground mail cable. After their careful examination by forensic doctors, dentists and anthropologists, the skeletons were recognized as belonging to Stumpfegger and Bormann. Fragments of glass ampoules with potassium cyanide were found between the teeth of the skeletons.

Knowing the weakness of the defense of Berlin, the Soviet command planned to capture the German capital on Lenin's birthday, April 21. On this day, the "Victory Banner" was supposed to fly over Berlin. Why, then, did the Red Army, which has a colossal advantage in men and equipment, have to take Berlin with such heavy losses, the highest average daily losses in the entire war? Military historians are still looking for an answer to this day.

I shared with you the information that I "dug up" and systematized. At the same time, he has not become impoverished at all and is ready to share further, at least twice a week. If you find errors or inaccuracies in the article, please let us know. My email address: [email protected]. I will be very grateful.

Commanders G. K. Zhukov
I. S. Konev G. Weidling

Storming Berlin- final part Berlin offensive operation 1945, during which Red Army captured the capital of the Nazi Germany and victoriously completed Great Patriotic War And World War II in Europe. The operation continued from 25th of April By May 2.

Storming Berlin

"Zoobunker" - a huge reinforced concrete fortress with anti-aircraft batteries on the towers and an extensive underground shelter - served at the same time as the largest bomb shelter in the city.

In the early morning of May 2, it was flooded Berlin metro- a group of sappers from the SS division "Nordland" blew up a tunnel under the Landwehr Canal in the Trebbiner Strasse area. The explosion led to the destruction of the tunnel and filling it with water at a 25-km section. Water gushed into the tunnels where a large number of civilians and the wounded. The number of victims is still unknown.

Information about the number of victims ... is different - from fifty to fifteen thousand people ... The data that about a hundred people died under water look more reliable. Of course, there were many thousands of people in the tunnels, among whom were the wounded, children, women and the elderly, but the water did not spread through the underground communications too quickly. Moreover, it spread underground in various directions. Of course, the picture of the advancing water caused genuine horror in people. And some of the wounded, as well as drunken soldiers, as well as civilians, became its inevitable victims. But talking about thousands of dead would be a strong exaggeration. In most places, the water barely reached a depth of one and a half meters, and the inhabitants of the tunnels had enough time to evacuate themselves and save the many wounded who were in the "hospital cars" near the Stadtmitte station. It is likely that many of the dead, whose bodies were subsequently brought to the surface, actually died not from water, but from wounds and diseases even before the destruction of the tunnel.

In the first hour of the night on May 2, the radio stations of the 1st Belorussian Front received a message in Russian: “Please cease fire. We are sending parliamentarians to the Potsdam Bridge.” A German officer who arrived at the appointed place on behalf of the commander of the defense of Berlin, General Weidling announced the readiness of the Berlin garrison to end resistance. At 6 am on May 2, Artillery General Weidling, accompanied by three German generals, crossed the front line and surrendered. An hour later, while at the headquarters of the 8th Guards Army, he wrote an order to surrender, which was reproduced and, using loud-speaking installations and radio, brought to the enemy units defending in the center of Berlin. As this order was brought to the attention of the defenders, resistance in the city ceased. By the end of the day, the troops of the 8th Guards Army cleared the central part of the city from the enemy. Separate units that did not want to surrender tried to break through to the west, but were destroyed or scattered.

On May 2, at 10 o'clock in the morning, everything suddenly calmed down, the fire ceased. And everyone understood that something had happened. We saw white sheets that were “thrown away” in the Reichstag, the Chancellery building and the Royal Opera and cellars that had not yet been taken. Entire columns were toppled from there. Ahead of us was a column, where there were generals, colonels, then soldiers behind them. It must have been three hours.

Alexander Bessarab, participant in the Battle of Berlin and the capture of the Reichstag

Operation results

Soviet troops defeated the Berlin grouping of enemy troops and stormed the capital of Germany - Berlin. Developing a further offensive, they went to river Elbe where they joined the American and British troops. With the fall Berlin and the loss of vital areas, Germany lost the opportunity for organized resistance and soon capitulated. With the completion of the Berlin operation, favorable conditions were created for the encirclement and destruction of the last large enemy groupings in the territory Austria And Czechoslovakia.

German losses armed forces dead and wounded are unknown. Of the approximately 2 million Berliners, about 125,000 perished. The city was badly damaged as a result of the bombing even before the arrival of Soviet troops. The bombing continued during the battles near Berlin - the last bombing of the Americans 20 April(birthday Adolf Hitler) led to food problems. The destruction intensified as a result of the actions of Soviet artillery.

Indeed, it is unthinkable that such a huge fortified city should be taken so quickly. We do not know of other such examples in the history of the Second World War.

Alexander Orlov, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

Two guards heavy tank brigades took part in the battles in Berlin IS-2 and at least nine guards heavy self-propelled artillery regiments ACS, including:

• 1st Belorussian Front
  • 7th Guards ttbr- 69th Army
  • 11th Guards ttbr - frontline submission
  • 334 Guards. tsap - 47th army
  • 351 Guards. tsap - 3rd shock army, frontline submission
  • 396 guards tsap - 5th shock army
  • 394 guards tsap - 8th Guards Army
  • 362, 399 guards. tsap - 1st Guards Tank Army
  • 347 Guards. tsap - 2nd Guards Tank Army
• 1st Ukrainian Front
  • 383, 384 guards. tsap - 3rd Guards Tank Army

The situation of the civilian population

Fear and despair

A significant part of Berlin, even before the assault, was destroyed as a result of Anglo-American air raids, from which the population hid in basements and bomb shelters. There were not enough bomb shelters and therefore they were constantly overcrowded. In Berlin by that time, in addition to the three million local population (which consisted mainly of women, the elderly and children), there were up to three hundred thousand foreign workers, including "ostarbeiters", most of which were forcibly taken to Germany. They were forbidden from entering bomb shelters and cellars.

Although the war for Germany had long been lost, Hitler ordered to resist to the last. Thousands of teenagers and old people were called to Volkssturm. From the beginning of March, by order of the Reichskommissar Goebbels, responsible for the defense of Berlin, tens of thousands of civilians, mostly women, were sent to dig anti-tank ditches around the German capital.

Civilians who violated the orders of the authorities, even in last days war was threatened with execution.

There is no exact information on the number of civilian casualties. Different sources indicate a different number of people who died directly during the Battle of Berlin. Even decades after the war construction work find previously unknown mass graves.

Violence against civilians

Western sources, especially Lately, a significant number of materials appeared concerning mass violence by the Soviet troops against the civilian population of Berlin and Germany in general - a topic that practically did not come up for many decades after the end of the war.

There are two opposite approaches to this extremely painful problem. On the one hand - artistic and documentary works of two English-speaking researchers - "The Last Battle" Cornelius Ryan And " Fall of Berlin. 1945 » Anthony Beevor, which are, to a greater or lesser extent, a reconstruction of the events of half a century ago on the basis of the testimonies of the participants in the events (in the overwhelming majority - representatives of the German side) and the memoirs of Soviet commanders. The claims Ryan and Beevor make are regularly reproduced by the Western press, which presents them as scientifically proven truth.

On the other hand, the opinions of Russian representatives (officials and historians), who acknowledge numerous facts of violence, but question the validity of the allegations of its extreme mass character, as well as the possibility, after so many years, of verifying the shocking digital data that are given in the West . Russian authors also draw attention to the fact that such publications, in which the emphasis is on the over-emotional description of scenes of violence allegedly perpetrated by Soviet troops in Germany, follow the standards Goebbels propaganda of the beginning of 1945 and are aimed at belittling the role of the Red Army as the liberator of the Eastern and Central Europe from fascism and denigrate the image of the Soviet soldier. In addition, the materials distributed in the West practically do not provide information about the measures taken by the Soviet command to combat violence and looting - crimes against the civilian population, which, as has been repeatedly pointed out, not only lead to tougher resistance of the defending enemy, but also undermine the combat effectiveness and discipline of the advancing army.

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