Berlin: The Downfall 1945

Wilhelm-strasse, a block north of Gestapo headquarters. Krukenberg, when he went back to make contact, found the cellars full of unsupervised Luftwaffe personnel doing nothing. He went up to the state opera house on the Unter den Linden, a few hundred metres down from the abandoned Soviet embassy. It was where Dekanozov had returned just after dawn on 22 June 1941 after hearing from Ribbentrop of the Wehrmacht’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Now, the Unter den Linden was empty as far as the eye could see. Krukenberg set up his own headquarters in the cellars of the opera house. A huge, throne-like armchair from the former royal box provided him with the opportunity to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep in comfort. They were left in comparative peace by the enemy. No U-2 biplanes dropping small bombs appeared over their sector that night.

With the fall of Berlin imminent, SHAEF headquarters at Rheims forwarded a request to the Stavka in Moscow that day. ‘General Eisenhower desires to send a minimum of twenty- three Allied accredited war correspondents to Berlin following the capture of the city by the Red Army. He wishes to send more than that number if at all possible since, as he states, “the fall of Berlin will be one of the world’s greatest news events”.’ There was no reply from the Kremlin. Stalin clearly did not want any journalists in Berlin, particularly the uncontrollable western variety. He was, however, to be troubled by them from a totally unexpected direction.

During that day the main Nazi broadcasting station, Deutsch-landsender, fell silent, but the date of 25 April became known for an event which was soon flashed around the world. At Torgau on the Elbe, leading elements of Major General Vladimir Rusakov’s 58th Guards Rifle Division met up with US soldiers from the 69th Division. Nazi Germany was cut in half. Signals flashed up both chains of command — to Bradley, then Eisenhower at SHAEF, and to Konev, then General Antonov at the Stavka. Heads of state were immediately informed and then Stalin and Truman exchanged telegrams agreeing on the announcement of the event. Eisenhower’s first reaction was to send in the journalists, a decision he soon had cause to regret.

General Gleb Vladimirovich Baklanov, the commander of the 34th Corps, ordered the preparation of a typical Soviet banquet. The political department provided huge lengths of red material to decorate tables and podiums. Large portraits of Stalin were erected and rather smaller ones of Truman improvised, along with some interesting variations on the stars and stripes. Plenty of alcohol was laid on, and all the most attractive women soldiers in the 5th Guards Army were sent forward to Torgau in fresh uniforms.

General Baklanov was prepared for the usual round of Soviet toasts to victory, to peace and friendship between nations and the eternal destruction of the fascist beast. He was unprepared, however, for a group of boisterous American journalists keen to put a real swing into the celebrations. Red Army soldiers also obtained a good ration of vodka, so security was not quite as effective as usual.

Halfway through the proceedings, when Russian officers were dancing ‘with the pretty Russian women soldiers’, Andrew Tully of the Boston Traveller ‘remarked jokingly’ to Virginia Irwin of the St Louis Post Dispatch, ‘Let’s keep going to Berlin.’ ‘OK,’ she said. They slipped away from the party and drove their jeep to the Elbe, where they showed the Russian soldiers operating the ferry their SHAEF identification cards. They shouted ‘Jeep!’ and made swimming motions. Rather bewildered sentries, who had received no instructions on the subject, let them drive on to the ferry and sent it across the river.

The two journalists had a map which reached as far as Luckenwalde. Fearing that they might be ‘summarily treated as spies’ on such a fluid front, they stole one of the improvised American flags which the Russians had erected at Torgau and tied it to the side of the jeep. Whenever they were flagged down by a suspicious sentry or a traffic controller, they yelled ‘Amerikansky!’ with an amiable grin. ‘Keep smiling,’ Tully told Virginia Irwin.

They reached Berlin before nightfall and there they met Major Kovalesky, a young man with snow-white hair. They communicated through halting French. Kovalesky was at first suspicious, but was then convinced when they said, ‘Nous sommes correspondents de guerre. Nous voulons aller [a] Berlin.’ The unfortunate Kovalesky, having no idea that their trip was unauthorized and that he might be held accountable later, took them to his command post in a half-ruined house. With typical Russian hospitality, he told his orderly, ‘a fierce Mongolian with a great scar on his left cheek’, to provide hot water for their guests. A quarter-full bottle of eau-de- Cologne, a cracked mirror and some face powder were also brought for Virginia Irwin. He then gave orders for a banquet. The table was lit by candles on upturned milk bottles, spring flowers were placed in a jar and the celebration began, with smoked salmon, black Russian bread, mutton cooked over charcoal, ‘huge masses of mashed potato with meat fat poured over them’, cheese and platterfuls of Russian pastries. ‘At each toast, the Russian officers stood up, clicked their heels, bowed deeply and drained tumblers of vodka. Besides vodka, there was cognac and a drink of dynamite strength the major described simply as “spirits”.’ After each course there were toasts ‘to the late and great President Roosevelt, to Stalin, to President Truman, to Churchill, to the Red Army and to the American jeep’.

The two journalists, exhilarated by their exploit, returned to Torgau the next day. Tully described it as ‘the craziest thing I have ever done’. Clearly, he had never imagined the wider consequences. The US military authorities were furious, but not as angry as the Soviet authorities. This was demonstrated by the signals which flashed between Rheims, Washington, DC, and Moscow. An exasperated Eisenhower decided that because they had entered Berlin illegally, their stories could not be published unless submitted to Moscow for censorship. When events were moving so fast, this, of course, meant that they would be well out of date by the time they could appear. Eisenhower was especially irritated because he believed that their jaunt to Berlin had wrecked the proposal to get other journalists there for the surrender. But the people who probably suffered the most were the trusting Russians who had helped and entertained Tully and Irwin. Apparently, even officers involved in the celebrations at Torgau became objects of suspicion to the NKVD in the post-war purges, because they had been in contact with capitalist foreigners.

Stalin wanted Berlin surrounded as rapidly as possible with a cordon sanitaire. This meant the urgent occupation of all the territory up to the Elbe which had been allocated as part of the future Soviet zone. Konev’s armies not involved in the attack on Berlin or the fight against the Ninth and Twelfth Armies were pushed westwards. The Elbe was reached during the course of 24 and 25 April at numerous points other than Torgau. Units of the 5th Guards Army, the 32nd Guards Rifle Corps commanded by General Rodimtsev of Stalingrad fame and the 4th Guards Tank Corps also reached the river. General Baranov’s Ist Guards Cavalry Corps went one further. At the special request of Stalin’s cavalry chum Marshal Semyon Budenny, Konev had given him a specific task. Soviet intelligence had heard that the stallions of the Soviet Union’s most important stud farm in the northern Caucasus, shipped back to Germany in 1942, were held west of the Elbe near Riesa. The guards cavalry crossed the river, located them and drove them back. It could have been a border raid across the Rio Grande.

To satisfy Stalin’s impatience for details on Berlin, General Serov, the NKVD representative with the 1st Belorussian Front, provided an immensely detailed report of conditions in the city. Beria had it on Stalin’s desk on 25 April. Serov observed that the destruction was far worse towards the centre of the city, where many buildings were still blazing from Soviet artillery fire. ‘On the walls of many buildings one frequently sees the word “Pst” [i.e. silence] written in big letters.’ Berliners apparently explained that it was an attempt by the Nazi government to suppress criticism of its military efforts at a time of crisis. Berliners were already asking questions about the new form of government to be established in the city. Yet ‘out of ten Germans asked if they could act as local burgermeister, not a single one agreed, producing different insignificant excuses,’ he wrote. ‘They seem to be afraid of the consequences and fear to take on the job. It is therefore necessary to select burgermeisters from among the prisoners of war who come from Berlin held in our camps.’ These, no doubt, were selected anti-fascists who had received the relevant political training.

‘Interrogation of captured Volkssturm members revealed an interesting fact. When they were asked why there are no regular soldiers and officers among them, they said that they were afraid of their responsibility for what they had done in Russia. They will therefore surrender to the Americans, while the Volkssturm can surrender to the Bolsheviks because they are guilty of nothing.’ Serov wasted no time putting in place cordons in and around Berlin, using the 105th, 157th and 333rd NKVD Frontier Guards Regiments.

Serov was perhaps most surprised by the state of Berlin’s defences. ‘No serious permanent defences have been found inside the ten- to fifteen-kilometre zone around Berlin. There are fire-trenches and gun-pits and the motorways are mined in certain sections. There are some trenches just as one comes to the city, but less in fact than any other city taken by the Red Army.’ Interrogations of Volkssturm men revealed how few regular troops there were in the city, how little ammunition there was and how reluctant the Volkssturm was to fight. Serov