The Battle Of Berlin...The Most Interesting Battle of All?

Do you think that those seven bombs would be used?

I hope not, it may have turned into a disaster for the Americans as well as the Japanese.

Frank said it was advised that American troops not enter an area hit by a bomb for "at least 48 hours", the risk of fallout was not well understood, and such a short amount of time after detonation would have resulted in substantial radiation exposure for thousands of American troops.

And whats your call on a successful Soviet invasion of Hokkaido?

Stalin instructed Vasilevski to plan an assault, but called it off.

Delay caused by Japanese resistance on the Sakhalin and Kurile islands islands is one of the reasons cited by Glantz for Soviet failure to conduct the offensive against Hokkaido. [although Truman said something like thanks, but no thanks.]

Soviet amphibious capabilities were limited, & the largest amphibious landing in a first wave attack by the Soviets in the East I've been able to find, was a reinforced infantry division which was landed over two days.

[Bit short of the astounding number of two armies landed [equal to Overlord] soon to be followed by 5 Chinese armies led by Soviet commanders I've seen posted. Chuckle!]

Hokkaido was defended by five Japanese divisions, about 114,000 men plus about two million largely unarmed militia.

Glantz is a little ambiguous, saying the Soviets would have a reasonable chance of succeeding, it's about 50/50 depending on who you read.

But I guess this is a bit of topic..

 

The Germans weren't even with the russians in power. They were at a 1:3 scale manpower, and at a 1:1 tank power, and 4:5 air power.

Even at that situation, the wehrmacht switched troops in the battle at a 1:7 scale. Once again, the wehrmacht proved genius.

 

is there any thread or post which shows the hierrarchy of the german army. Like i mean, army group, army, corps, division, battalion and any thing else, if there was. Also, i would like to know what was the strength of each fighting unit ( like infantry, motorized , tank units, luftlotte units etc , at the beginning of the war , at full strength and towards the end of the war). I wasnt able to find a post with this info. Surely, there must be a post on this, i request the mods to kindly guide me . thanks - sugeeth.

 

No precise information but the command structure in the last days of Berlin is a cluster frak. The Nazis and the military and the SS have parallel organizations with the same function and delineation of authority unclear. Now more knowledgable heads shall make themselves known....

 

Although I am super late to this party. (and this is my first post) I find that The battle of Berlin is one favorite battles of ww2.
The reason why is because how is it that Germany being beaten and broken managed to kill 500,000 Russian invaders during the Battle FOR Berlin. How is it that This demoralized, destroyed army took down 500,000 men with a bunch of Children, Elderly, and sick men?

 

because
1) they did not kill 500000 Russians
2)they were not a bunch of Children,Elderly and sick men

 

1) You right it was about 400,000 casualties
2) Much of the soldiers were. Most of the civilians fighting were of hitlers youth.
Soviet Union Casualties. 400,000
"By 1945, the Volkssturm was commonly drafting 12-year-old Hitler Youth members into its ranks. During the Battle of Berlin, Axmann's Hitler Youth formed a major part of the last line of German defense"

 

Berlin is a washout....

Curtain call for lunatic fanatics, desperate resistence a figment of the Goebbels imagination, Red Army simply wheeling up the largest artillery pieces they could find and blasting building blocks until all resistance ceases, sordid last days in a smoke filled bunker full of ridiculous appendages to Nazism....

What's there to admire? (other than the end of Nazism, that is!). I'm pretty sure only Soviet soldiers have something to look back on, and some of them were undisciplined rapists....again I ask, what's to admire?

And 400,000 Soviet casualties? What apologist for Nazism came up with that one?

Look, there was no glory for Germans in Berlin, just a lot of suffering for NIX.....

 

I would hardly classify the Charlemagne and the Nordland divisions of the SS as a bunch of "Children, Elderly, and sick men"

Besides the others were forced to fight for a dying lunatic regime at the point of a gun.

 

Hello Timber,

The Red Army total casualties in the Battle for Berlin were less than 400k. KIA numbered about 80,000 men.

 

I suppose that this question too comes to some extent under this thread.

I read somewhere that , Hitler in his last days in his bunker branded Goering, Himmler and Ribbentrop as traitors. Goering and Himmler is well known, one because of that famous message to replace hitler and second himmler tried to contact eisenhower, which hitler came to know. But, let me know, what did Ribbentrop do to be branded as a traitor, that to by Hitler and at that stage in the war?

 

Teenagers did not make poor soldiers. The Germans had extremely strong defensive positions and they were neither willing or able to surrender.

 

"Casualties" generally refers to both KIA and wounded in action, as far as I know- which would put the number of Russian casualties in the ~350k range, according to Max Hastings in his book Armageddon. Antony Beevor also notes a number in the ~350k range. Both authors do put the number of Russians killed during the battle in the 70k range, but list the overall casualty numbers to included wounded in action.

Personally, I do find the Battle for Berlin to be very fascinating. For one thing, it was the culmination of the war against Nazi Germany. The outcome was indeed a forgone conclusion, but that doesn't lessen the significance of the battle.

And from a tactical and operational point of view, I also find it a very interesting battle. Despite the overwhelming Russian numbers, the Germans were able to make it a rather difficult battle. Especially if one includes the action at the Seelow Heights, the Germans fought rather ferociously.

I also find it interesting, as someone has already noted, that two of the primarily non-german SS divisions, Charlemagne and Nordland, were some of the last and most ferocious combatants to defend the dying Nazi empire. Given what would happen if they were captured by Russians, I imagine they really had no choice- but it is nonetheless and interesting aspect of the battle.

:cheers:

 

Although these statistics are a little exaggerated, they did inflict a lot of casualties on the Red Army.

I believe this was for a few reasons:

1. The Russians were sweeping over Germany. Just like the Germans in Russia, Russians were committing war crimes all though German territory. Russia virtually blasted its way inside Germany and destroyed everything it could find. One could say they were justified in what they were doing, but to the Germans they were something to fight against. Indeed, many of the Germans wanted to make peace with the Western Allies in order to combat the Soviet Union more effectively.

2. The Russians were the invading army. No matter how good an army is, it will take heavy casualties as an invader, because they are fighting in enemy territory, surrounded by enemies. Now while the Germans were not the glorious army they were back in '41 when they invaded Russia, they could still inflict casualties on the Red Army.

Even though the Russians were strong, fighting in an urban environment like Berlin in 1945 was a dangerous place. It was easy for anyone with a gun to take a pot shot at the Russian soldiers - which is why they lost so many men in house clearing gun fights.

3. The Germans were desperate. With the enemy in their country, they were desperate. They fought as hard as they could, with whatever they had. Yeah, they were going to lose either way, so why not take some Russians with them?

 

The fight for Berlin was ruthless, it was the last stand for the Reich. The amount of hardware the Soviet Union brought forth was astounding and still took heavy losses. Casualties were unavoidable by any nation.

 

Rather 360,000 including ca. 80,000 killed and ca. 280,000 wounded OR SICK (so this includes also non-battle casualties). And these numbers include not only casualties of the Red Army but also casualties of the Polish People's Army (ca. 2800 killed and ca. 6100 wounded or sick compared to 78,300 and 274,200 Soviet).

And these were casualties in the entire Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation - not just in the battle of Berlin alone.

The battle of Berlin (meaning urban combats inside the "Berlin Defence Zone") was just a fragment of the much larger Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation.

I have read that for example out of the total of 1,906,000 Soviet soldiers who were involved in the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation as a whole, only 452,000 actually took part in combats for the city of Berlin itself. To this we have to add 156,000 Polish soldiers in the operation, of whom only 12,000 fought inside the city of Berlin itself.

By "in the city of Berlin itself" I mean "within the Berlin Defence Zone" - which included the circle of radius 25 - 40 km from the city center - so also suburbs of Berlin.

When it comes to the strength ratio of opposing forces:

The garrison of Berlin consisted of ca. 180,000 - 210,000 men. The Berlin defence zone had 3 rings of fortications, the first one was between 25 and 40 km from the city center. This area was encircled - as already mentioned - by 464,000 Soviet and Polish soldiers. They had ca. 12,700 guns and mortars, ca. 1,500 tanks and assault guns and ca. 2,100 Katyusha rocket launchers. I was not able to find figures on equipment of the garrison, but it is quite obvious that disproportion in firepower was bigger than in manpower.

But Germans had at least 150 tanks and assault inside Berlin, so here the ratio would be 10:1 in favour of the Soviets.

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Out of Soviet casualties of ca. 350,000 in the Berlin Operation, for example several dozen thousands were suffered in the battle of Seelow Heights:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=6728&hilit=assault+Berlin&start=45#p1497646

Further casualties out of these 350,000 were suffered in the battle of the Halbe and in dozens other battles during this operation.

And Soviet casualties in combats during the battle for the "Berlin Defence Zone" itself were most probably not higher than 100,000.

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Polish casualties in the entire Berlin Strategic Operation were - as already mentioned - 2,8 k killed and 6,1 k wounded or sick.

But these are figures given by Krivosheev. Strangely Polish sources provide higher losses of their own forces in the Berlin Operation:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=6728&hilit=assault+Berlin&start=30#p1320826

But anyway - Polish casualties in the assault of Berlin itself were 529, including 88 killed and 441 wounded. Those were suffered by Polish 1st Infantry Division which participated in the assault (ca. 12,000 soldiers). The division reported capturing 2550 German POWs during the assault and claimed destroying 30 tanks & assault guns and counting 1000 enemy bodies on the battlefield. It was fighting mainly in the governmental district of Berlin, which was defended, among other units, by Kampfgruppe Mohnke.

By the time of Berlin soldiers of Polish 1st Inf.Div. had already been veterans of fierce urban combats in Warsaw, Kolberg and Danzig.

Polish division participated in the assault of Berlin since the morning of 30 August 1945 until the end of the battle.

Some other, smaller Polish units (mainly artillery), participated in the assault yet since 27 August 1945.

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Here some statistical data on causes of wounds in several Polish units during the Berlin Strategic Operation:

Causes of wounds during the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation:

Wounded from: 2 Inf.Div. / 3 Inf.Div. / 4 Inf.Div. / Hospital No 616 / Hospital No 2914 / Surgical Hospital No 5174:

Causes of wounds:

Small arms: 41,9% / 33,5% / 39,8% / 51,9% / 40,0% / 31,4%
Artillery fire: 58,1% / 53,2% / 57,3% / 48,1% / 60,0% / 49,2%
Air Attacks: - / 6,0% / 2,5% / - / - / 19,4%
Melee Weapons: - / - / 0,4% / - / - / -
Other causes (indefinite): - / 7,3% / - / - / - / -

This shows that German artillery was - surprisingly - still quite powerful even at that stage of the war if it was still able to inflict majority of all casualties.

Air attacks include probably also some friendly fire casualties.


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That was the more interesting Battle than the Battle of Berlin!

 

There is an excellent research article here: The German Defense of Berlin, 1945, by Oberst Wilhelm Willemer
with a terrific collection of maps. Example:

 

Thanks for sharing....Good find...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4HEvck4rd8