16. Eva Braun after the wedding of SS Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein to her sister Gretl, Berchtesgaden, June I944.
17. Red Army doctors care for Auschwitz survivors.
18–19. A German engineer after commiting suicide with his family before the arrival of the Red Army.
20. A German soldier hanged on the orders of General Schörner, whose motto was ‘Strength through fear’. The placard reads, ‘Whoever fights can die. Whoever betrays his fatherland must die! We had to die!’
21. Hitler Youth tank-hunting squad with panzerfausts clipped to their bicycles.
22. Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, who seldom touched a gun yet dreamed of being a military leader.
23. Marshal Stalin and Winston Churchill at Yalta.
24. A T-34 of Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front crosses the Oder.
25. Soviet sappers bridging the Oder to prepare the assault on Berlin.
26. Red Army soldiers retrieving an anti-tank gun on the waterlogged Oder flood plain.
27. Soviet women released from forced labour near Berlin by the Red Army.
28. An improvised graveyard in the ruins of Berlin.
29. Hitler caresses one of his youngest defenders, watched by Artur Axmann, head of the Hitler Youth.
30–33. The Red Army fighting street by street to capture the ‘lair of the fascist beast’.
34. Across the Moltke bridge to attack ‘Himmler’s House’ – the Ministry of the Interior – then the Reichstag.
35. Soviet assault gun firing down a Berlin street
36. A riddled Volkswagen by the Reich Chancellery.
37. Forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front sent to crush the Ninth Army in pine forests south of Berlin.
38. German soldiers surrendering to the Red Army in Berlin.
39. Soviet mechanized troops having a wash in a Berlin street.
40. Cooking in the ruins
41. Red Army meets US Army: Colonel Ivanov proposes a toast, while Major General Robert C. Macon of the 83rd Infantry Division listens.
42. German civilians escaping the Red Army cross the ruined rail bridge over the Elbe to American territory.
43. The end of the battle for Hans-Georg Henke, a teenage conscript.
44. A wounded Soviet soldier tended by a female medical assistant.
45. General Stumpff, Field Marshal Keitel and Admiral von Friedeburg arrive at Karlshorst to sign the final surrender, 9 May.
46. A Red Army soldier tries to seize a Berliner’s bicycle.
47. Marshal Zhukov takes the victory parade on the horse which had thrown Stalin.
48. Zhukov watched by General K. F. Telegin, head of the political department, and General Ivan Serov, the NKVD chief.
49. Visiting the battleground inside the Reichstag.
References
ABBREVIATIONS
AGMPG Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin
AWS Art of War Symposium, ‘From the Vistula to the Oder: Soviet Offensive Operations’, Center for Land Warfare, US Army War College, 1986
BA-B Bundesarchiv, Berlin
BA-MA Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau
BLHA Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam
BZG-S Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte (Sammlung Sterz), Stuttgart
GARF Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Rossiiskoy Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation), Moscow
HUA-CD Humboldt Universitätsarchiv (Charité Direktion), Berlin
IfZ Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich
IMT Trials of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg)
IVMV Istoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny, 1939–1945 Vol. x, Moscow, 1979
KA-FU Krigsarkivet (Försvarsstaben Utrikesavdelningen), Stockholm
LA-B Landesarchiv-Berlin
MGFA Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt library, Potsdam
NA National Archives II, College Park, Maryland
PRO Public Record Office, Kew
RGALI Rossiisky Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva (Russian State Archive for Literature and the Arts), Moscow
RGASPI* 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† The ‘Special Archive’ of captured German documents in the RGVA
SHAT Service Historique de l’Armée 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 Löw-enstein de Witt (Rosenstrasse survivor); General Ulrich de Maizière (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 (Oberscharführer, SS Leibstandarte in Führer bunker); Gerda Petersohn (secretary, Lufthansa, Neukölln); Oberst a.D. Günther 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 Süssmilch (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, ΝA 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 übrig!’, 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 Ρ 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 Göring’s flight, SHAT 7 Ρ 128
p. 9 Goebbels dinner, Oven, p. 198
p. 9 foreign doctors, HUA-CD 2600 Charité 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 Ρ 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 Führer, 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 Ρ 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
p. 14 ‘You will harvest…’, RGALI 1710/3/47, p. 19
p. 15 ‘disconcertedness’, VOV, iii, p. 232, n. 8
p. 15 Konstanty Rokosowski, I am most grateful to Norman Davies for supplementary information
p. 15 ‘Why this disgrace?’, Rokossovsky, p. 297
p. 16 ‘I know very well…’, Zhukov, p. 174
p. 16 ‘wicked little eyes…’, Beria, p. 130
p. 16 Korsun, see Erickson, pp. 177–9
p. 17 16th Panzer Division, 21st Army, TsAMO 233/2374/337, p. 70
p. 17 ‘fire-storm’, Colonel Liebisch, AWS, p. 617
p. 17 ‘Forward into the fascist lair!’, VOV, iii, p. 236
p. 17 ‘Gold’, Konev, p. 5
p. 18 Sochaczew, TsAMO 307/246791/2, pp. 225–7
p. 18 ‘with their tracks’, TsAMO 307/15733/3, pp. 37–8
p. 18 ‘two or three hours’, Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/51, pp. 237–8
p. 18 ‘because of the big advance…’, Bormann diary, GARF 9401/2/97, pp. 32–48
p. 19 ‘very stupid’, ‘a prestige garrison’, NA RG334/Entry 309/Box 2
p. 19 ‘to start the advance’, ViZh 93, No. 6, pp. 30–31
p. 20 ‘Stalin emphasized…’, ΝA RG334/Entry 309/Box 2
p. 20 ‘Ah, what a life…’, RGALI 1710/3/47, p·14
p. 21 ‘Our tanks move faster…’, Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/51, pp. 237–8
p. 21 ‘ear battalion’, Duffy, p. 103
p. 21 ‘You must stop everything!’, Humboldt, conversation, 11 October 1999
p. 21 ‘That evening’, Humboldt, conversation, 11 October 1999
p. 22 ‘the situation in the east…’, GARF 9401/2/97, pp. 32–48
p. 22 ‘half an hour before…’, Guderian, p. 327
p. 22 ‘We saw the destruction of Warsaw…’, Klochkov, p. 28
p. 22 Warsaw population figures, VOV, iii, p. 240
p. 23 ‘a single undulating red sea…’, Grossman, Krasnaya Zvezda, 9 February
3 FIRE AND SWORD AND ‘NOBLE FURY’
p. 24 ‘Noble fury’, from the patriotic anthem ‘Sacred War’: ‘Arise vast country/arise for the mortal battle/with the dark fascist force,/with the accursed horde./Let the noble fury/boil up like a wave,/the people’s war is going on,/the sacred war.’
p. 24 ‘master of military…’, Ehrenburg, p. 100
p. 25 ‘Self-propelled guns…’, Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/47, p. 14
p. 25 ‘It’s impossible…’, Ehrenburg, p. 100
p. 25 ‘the Jew, Ilya…’, 16 January, BA-B R55/793, p. 9
p. 25 ‘There was a time’, Krasnaya Zvezda, 25 November 1944
p. 26 ‘in weather…’, General der Artillerie Felzmann, XXVII Corps, ΝA RG 338, D-281
p. 27 Walter Beier, Ramm, 1994, p. 164
p. 27 ‘the second Stalin’, Kershaw, 2000, p. 406
p. 28 sixty-two raped and murdered women and young girls, Dönhoff, p. 18
p. 28 ‘Red Army soldiers…’, Agranenko papers, RGALI 2217/2/17, p. 22
p. 28 ‘engaged in the propaganda…’, Kopelev, p. 10
p. 29 ‘many Germans declare…’, Tkatchenko to Beria, GARF 9401/2/94, p. 87
p. 29 ‘There you are, Vera’, TsAMO 372/6570/76, quoted Senyavskaya, 1995, p. 99
p. 30 ‘personally shot…’, Kopelev, p. 56
p. 30 ‘When we breed…’, TsAMO 372/6570/78, pp. 199–203
p. 30 ‘Our soldiers’ behaviour…’, Agranenko papers, RGALI 2217/2/17, p. 42
p. 30 ‘frenzied scream’, Kopelev, p. 50
p. 31 ‘They all lifted their skirts…’, Maltsev, conversation, 29 October 2001
p. 31 ‘Our fellows were so sex-starved’, Werth, p. 964
p. 31 ‘mass poisoning…’, RGVA 32925/1/100, p. 58
p. 31 ‘Russian soldiers…’, Bark and Gress, p. 33
p. 32 ‘The extreme violence…’, Life and Fate, p. 241
p. 32 ‘deindividualize’, Kon, p. 23
p. 32 ‘barracks eroticism’, Yuri Polyakov, quoted Kon, p. 26
p. 33 ‘Even the trees were enemy’, Kovalenko, conversation, 21 September 1999
p. 33 ‘Comrade Marshal’, Agranenko papers, RGALI 2217/2/17, p. 22
p. 34 ‘How should one treat…’, Agranenko papers, RGALI 2217/2/17, p. 26
p. 34 ‘disgusted by the plenty’, Shcheglov, p. 299
p. 34 wirelesses, see Solzhenitsyn, 2000, p. 125
p. 34 ‘politically incorrect conclusions’, TsAMO 372/6570/76, pp. 92–4
p. 34 ‘anti-Soviet quotations…’, TsAMO 372/6570/68, p. 12
p. 35 ‘You cannot imagine…’, N. Reshetnikova, 9 February, quoted Senyavskaya, 2000, pp. 180–81
p. 35 ‘We thought they…’, Agranenko papers, RGALI 2217/2/17
p. 35 ‘tumultuous market’, Solzhenitsyn, 1983, p. 67
p. 35 ‘direct and unmistakable…’, Kopelev, p. 52
p. 36 ‘Russians are absolutely…’, Krivenko to Beria, Leonid Reshin, ‘Tovarisch Ehrenburg uproshchaet: The Real Story of the Famous Pravda Article’, Novoe Vremya, No. 8, 1994
p. 36 ‘They ran away…’, quoted Senyavskaya, 2000, p. 273
p. 36 ‘very few Germans left…’, Shikin to Aleksandrov, 28 January, RGASPI 17/125/320, p. 18
p. 37 ‘Dear Papa!’ Shcheglov, p. 289
p. 37 Frische Nehrung, BA-B R55/616, p. 184
p. 37 ‘the passengers on the carts…’, KA-FU, EI: 18, Vol.6
p. 38 ‘The majority are women…’, GARF 9401/2/93, p. 343
p. 38 1.5 million Soviet Jews, Merridale, p. 293
4 THE GREAT WINTER OFFENSIVE
p. 39 ‘The soldier is the child of the people’, General Blumentritt, NA RG 338B-338
p. 39 ‘Let our husbands…’, Serov to Beria, GARF 9401/2/93, p. 334
p. 39 ‘Vampire!’, Freytag von Loringhoven, conversation, 4 October 1999
p. 39 ‘The fighting will not stop…’, KA-FU, EI: 18, Vol. 6
p. 39 ‘c
atastrophe beds’, HUA-CD 2600 Charité Dir. 421–24/1 Bd x, pp. 114, 115
p. 40 ‘The Führer’s call…’, ΝA RG338, B-627
p. 40 ‘All the peoples…’, SHAT 7 Ρ 128, Direction Générale et Inspection des P.G. de l’Axe, Paris, 2 February
p. 40 ‘The people were predominantly…’, NA RG338, B-627
p. 41 ‘security measures…’, BA-B R55/995, p. 166
p. 41 ‘Their white starved faces’, Kee, pp. 228–9
p. 42 ‘chief physical characteristics…’, Duffy, p. 45
p. 43 ‘less vulnerable…’, Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/51, p. 65
p. 43 seven-hour Lagebesprechung, Freytag von Loringhoven, conversation, 4 October 1999
p. 44 ‘He’s not going…’, Klochkov, p. 31
p. 44 ‘disciplined German prisoners’, Grossman papers, RGALI 1710/3/47, p. 3
p. 44 ‘their merciless…’, Chuikov, p. 91
p. 45 NKVD rifle divisions, Meshik to Beria, 27 January, GARF 9401/2/92, p. 263
p. 45 Auschwitz report by Shikin, 9 February, RGASPI 17/125/323, pp. 1–4
p. 46 ‘all prisoners on arrival’, RGASPI 17/125/323, p. 73 p. 47 ‘a serious offence’, Krockow, p. 45
p. 47 ‘Huddled shapes…’, Libussa von Oldershausen, quoted ibid., pp. 48–9
p. 48 ‘in normal times’, 30 January, BA-B R55/616, p. 158
p. 48 Ilse Braun, Gun, pp. 237–8
p. 48 ‘around 4 million…’, 29 January, BA-B R55/616, p. 153
p. 48 7 million, 11 February, BA-B R55/616, p. 183