Berlin: The Downfall 1945

RGALI Rossiisky Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva (Russian State Archive for Literature and the Arts), Moscow

RGASPI[6] Rossiisky Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Sotsialno-Politikeskoi Istorii (Russian State Archive for Social-Political History), Moscow

RGVA Rossiisky Gosudarstvenny Voenny Arkhiv (Russian State Military Archive), Moscow

RGVA-SAf[7] The ‘Special Archive’ of captured German documents in the RGVA

SHAT Service Historique de l’Armee de Terre, Vincennes

TsAMO Tsentralny Arkhiv Ministerstva Oborony (Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence), Podolsk

TsKhlDK Tsentr Khraneniya i Izucheniya Dokumentalnykh Kollektsy (Centre for the Conservation and Study of Historic Document Collections), Moscow

ViZh Voenno-istoricheskii Zhurnal

VOV Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voina (The Great Patriotic War), Moscow, 1999, Vols. III and IV

INTERVIEWS, DIARIES AND UNPUBLISHED ACCOUNTS

Shalva Yakovlevich Abuladze (captain, 8th Guards Army); Gert Becker (Berlin civilian, Steglitz); Richard Beier (newsreader, Grossdeutscher Rundfunk); Nikolai Mikhailovich Belyaev (Komsomol organizer, 150th Rifle Division, 5th Shock Army); Klaus Boeseler (Deutsche Jungvolk, Berlin); Ursula Bube, geb. Eggeling (student, Berlin); Hardi Buhl (civilian, Halbe); Henri Fenet (battalion commander, SS Charlemagne Division); Anatoly Pavlovich Fedoseyev (magnetron and electronics expert sent to Berlin); Edeltraud Flieller (secretary, Siemens); Generalleutnant a.D. Bernd Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven (military assistant to General Krebs in Fuhrer bunker); Vladimir Samoilovich Gall (captain, 7th Department, 47th Army Headquarters); Hans-Dietrich Genscher (soldier, Twelfth Army); Elsa Holtzer (Berlin civilian); Oberst a.D. Hubertus Freiherr von Humboldt- Dachroeden (Ia, headquarters, Twelfth Army); Svetlana Pavlovna Kazakova, (headquarters, 1st Belo-russian Front); Oberst a.D. Wolfram Kertz (captain, Grossdeutschland Wachtregiment, 309th Berlin Infantry Division); Major General I. F. Klochkov (senior lieutenant, 150th Rifle Division, 5th Shock Army); Ivan Varlamovich Koberidze (captain, 1st Ukrainian Front artillery); Ivan Leontievich Kovalenko (signaller, headquarters 3rd Belorussian Front); Anatoly Kubasov, (3rd Guards Tank Army); R. W. Leon (Intelligence Corps attached to US Ninth Army CIC); Erica Lewin (Rosenstrasse survivor); Generalmajor a.D. Rudolf Lindner (Fahnenjunker Regt 1241, Division Kurmark); Lothar Loewe (Hitler Youth); Hans Oskar baron Low-enstein de Witt (Rosenstrasse survivor); General Ulrich de Maiziere (general staff colonel, OKH); Georgy Malashkia (captain, 9th Tank Corps); Nikolai Andreevich Maltsev (lieutenant, 3rd Guards Tank Army); General Anatoly Grigorievich Merezhko (captain, headquarters 8th Guards Army); Rochus Misch (Oberscharfuhrer, SS Leibstandarte in Fuhrer bunker); Gerda Petersohn (secretary, Lufthansa, Neukolln); Oberst a.D. Gunther Reichhelm (chief of staff, Twelfth Army); Frau Helga Retzke (student, Berlin-Buch); Sergei Pavlovich Revin (junior sergeant, 4th Guards Tank Army); Yelena Rzhevskaya (Kogan) (interpreter SMERSH department, 3rd Shock Army); Alexander Saunderson (captain, war crimes investigator and Jowett’s aide at Nuremberg); Erich Schmidtke (Berlin Volkssturm evader); Ehrhardt Severin (civilian); Shota Shurgaya (junior lieutenant, 16th Aviation Army); Wolfgang Steinke (lieutenant, 391st Security Division, Ninth Army); Shota Sulkhanishvili (captain, 3rd Shock Army); Frau Waltraud Sussmilch (schoolgirl); Frau Marlene von Werner (civilian, Wannsee); Magda Wieland (actress); General a.D. Markus Wolf (Ulbricht Group); General a.D. Wust (lieutenant, Luftwaffe training battalion, 309th Berlin Infantry Division, Ninth Army).

There are also three other interviewees whose contributions must remain anonymous.

Source Notes

PREFACE

p. xxxiii ‘History always emphasizes…’, Speer interrogation, 22 May, ?A 740.0011 EW/5–145

p. xxxiii German teenagers, see Die Woche, 8 February 2001

p. xxxiii ‘with the breakthrough…’, 9 November 1944, reprinted in Volkssturm, BLHA Pr. Br. Rep. 61A/363

p. xxxiv ‘culmination of all the operations’, RGALI 1403/1/84, p. 1

1 BERLIN IN THE NEW YEAR

p. 2 ‘Learn Russian quickly’, Klemperer, ii, 4 September 1944, p. 431

p. 2 ‘Bleib ubrig!’, Loewe, conversation, 9 October 2001

p. 2 ‘like a stage-set…’, Kardorff, p. 153

p. 4 Schmidtke, conversation, 15 July 2000

p. 4 ‘Volksgenossenschaft’, NA RG 338 B-338

p. 4 ‘I have such faith…’, SHAT 7 ? 128

p. 6 ratios of enemy superiority, AWS, p. 86

p. 7 ‘It’s the greatest imposture…’, Guderian, pp. 310–11

p. 8 ‘I know the war is lost’, Below, p. 398

p. 8 ‘wishes for a successful…’, ibid., p. 399

p. 9 rumour of Hitler’s madness and Goring’s flight, SHAT 7 ? 128

p. 9 Goebbels dinner, Oven, p. 198

p. 9 foreign doctors, HUA-CD 2600 Charite Dir. 421–24/1 Bd x, p. 125

p. 9 ‘catastrophic losses’, IfZ MA 218, pp. 3,725–49

2 THE ‘HOUSE OF CARDS’ ON THE VISTULA

p. 11 6.7 million men, IVMV, p. 38

p. 11 ‘We are lost…’, SHAT 7 ? 128

p. 11 ‘We no longer fought…’, Sajer, p. 382

p. 12 ‘You do not need…’, TsAMO 233/2374/337, p. 64

p. 12 attack before Christmas, TsAMO 233/2374/337, p. 64

p. 12 ‘Mein Fuhrer, don’t believe that…’, Freytag von Loringhoven, conversation, 4 October 1999

p. 12 ‘completely idiotic’, Guderian, p. 315

p. 13 ‘weather for Russians’, General Schaal debriefing, 20 February 1946, 2e Bureau, SHAT 7 ? 163

p. 13 ‘strange winter’, Stalin to Harriman, 14 December 1944, NA RG334/Entry 309/Box 2

p. 13 ‘heavy rain and…’, RGVA 38680/1/3, p. 40

p. 14 ‘At that time’, quoted Senyavskaya, 2000, p. 174

p. 14 ‘The Russian infantryman’ and ‘First state…’, Senyavskaya, 1995, p. 111

p. 14 ‘cavalrymen, artillerymen…’, Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/51, p. 221