Allies took Berlin first

I heard that it was because so many people were getting injured in the barbed wire that out of concern for their safety it was decided to make a real wall.

 

Hmm, guys, when I made the comment above I may not have made it clear enough that I did hear this strange explanation from official literature from "The East", it was not a joke.

 

I didn't think yours was a joke Za. Looks like regulation one-each propaganda to me, clear and simple. It is still a joke when you look back on the fact that they thought they could tell people that and they would believe it.

Mine was not official in any way. No really.

 

I didn't think it was a joke either. It had just the right amount of desperation in it to be a "credible lie" (is that a word?) of the "Spin Doctors".
I'd guess that I think too much of "Checkov" (when I hear that stuff) from Star Trek, and how everything is a Russian inwention.
I've heard that spies/w_ores (of Russian origin) were easily distinguished by their "Silver" teeth.
That is if they were dumb enough to try something stupid with their "head-lights" on like that.
I swear I never heard about dental preferances.

 

Even if the Allies and The Soviets had agreed first,by the end of march Stalin delibaretly lied to Eisenhower about is target.

He told that him that he was heading to Dresden, but in fact he was rushing his troups to Berlin. The real reason for that rush was the WKI Wilhem-Kaiser Institu.

I heard that Stalin was rushing to take this first to get the component and the german scientist who were working on the atomic program. It is after that that he paied attention to czechoslosvakia for the mining....

 

For the Western Allies taking Berlin would have required a massive negation of approved grand strategy and objectives agreed to by both them and the Soviet Union. Would this on its own be a major problem? Initially, probably not. But, as the war wound down and the post war era set in it would have likely been a big problem with Soviet agitation for the West to honor previous agreements.
Had this happened, this would have caused more problems than originally happened with the Allies withdrawing from a substancial chunk of central Germany. It might have even set off a revolt of the sort that occured elsewhere in Eastern Europe post war as the realization that the Soviets intended to stay and oppress the locals.
Even as it was there were sufficent close calls post war that on several occasions a shooting war might have started. The Allied capture of Berlin likely would have only increased the odds of this.
On top of all this, there were literally tens of thousands of people moving about Europe in the last days of the war and in the weeks after it ended. These included foreign workers (free and slave) trying to return home, German and other Axis military units and individuals trying to escape both the Russians and the POW cage, and displaced civilians returning to their homes within their own country.
Add the general looting and what-not going on, particularly with the Russians and one gets the impression that the immediate post war era was one marked more by mass confusion than some orderly return to peace.
On top of everything else, I get the impression that the Soviets realized that they were really running on empty by wars end. That is, they had run out of manpower reserves and lacked the manufacturing capacity to take the West on. If anything, the Russians wanted to put on the best bluff of strength they could while consolidating their gains without getting the West too angry at them.

 

I totally agree with you...

but don't you think that it is possible that Stalin push all of his army to take Berlin and then the advantage of the atomic research installation.

Cause at that time, the russians had the intel saying that americans were about to have the H bomb ready, but their atomic program was a way behind the americans one.

Do you think that these installation could be enough to motivate Stalin to push his troups in the center of Berlin?

 

”I've heard of other "Mexican" stand-offs between the afore mentioned parties.”

One episode which seldom comes up, not least because of popular interest in Berlin I suppose, is Trieste, April-June 1945. On his site, Military History Net, member of this forum, Pat Skelly, has included a synopsis from the Official British War History – Mediterranean and Middle East, which deals with command tensions in the area.

It summaries in brief, western political mood and stance, and to a lesser extent Italian opinion with a negligible reference to the role of Italian Partisans – as usual. However, it sets out the basic sequence of events and at least brings in the land-grab intentions of Tito but offers scant conclusion, (perhaps for the same ongoing political reasons of 1945, being of not wishing to agitate the Soviets), as to the full involvement of Stalin. There is a hint of Tito’s brutality but nothing like the reality of events.

A long piece but worth a read I think:
”The Trieste crisis blew up with an intensity which at the time suggested that it might lead to the last battle of the Second World War or the first of the Third World War. It turned out to be the first Western success in the East/West struggle which had yet to be christened the 'Cold War'. It was a crisis which rose in a succession of awkward steps to its crescendo and then died away as if it had all been a great misunderstanding.”
Trieste and Austrian Crises

No.9

 

Interesting link. It took a while to read, but it was well worth it.
Thanks for posting it!
Even I didn't think it went that far. I guess the press back then was too busy licking their own ___ to pay serious attention.
and look what happened next.
Monday morning quarterbacking, and the old hind sight is 20/20.

 

very interesting No. 9

 

Great post, too bad people are so greedy like that. It really would have been a shame to have armed conflict among the parties so recently allied.

 

A significantly larger number of German civilians would be alive today.

 

Re Trieste, most accounts tend to start with the German surrender to the New Zealanders, but there was a forerunner to this. In the closing days of the war, the Italian Partisans in that area arranged a truce meeting with the German commander in Trieste. The Partisans called for a cessation of hostilities and surrender of German forces. The Germans advised they had the port and all utility and transport points wired with explosives, and if the Partisans attacked they would not be able to prevent the destruction of Trieste. The Partisans conceded it would not be possible to stop all the detonations, and added if the Germans destroyed Trieste they would not leave alive.

The German commander came up with following proposal, namely, the Germans would remain in Trieste and would surrender to the first Allied forces that arrived. Meanwhile, the Partisans would have control of the town but the Germans would retain their weapons to defend themselves against the Yugoslavs if they turned up. Other than this eventuality, all hostilities would cease. The Partisans agreed to this, adding that if they controlled Trieste they would defend it against the Yugoslavs.

When leading elements of Tito’s force reached Trieste, true to their word they were engaged and held at bay by the Italian Partisans until the arrival of the New Zealanders, when popular history takes over.

I would be very interested to hear of another instance of a Partisan v Partisan engagement, but till then this is the only such occurrence in WWII I have ever come across?

A couple more incidents of this time/area. According to the political agreement with Stalin, the West was to return any Soviets to the SU. When Allied officers met the Italian Partisans, they noticed they had a number of ‘obvious’ Soviets serving among them – escaped POWs, deserters, etc. When the order came to enforce repatriation, the British advised the Partisans they would be coming to their camp with trucks for the Soviets. When they arrived the Partisan leader said all the Soviets had disappeared during the night. The British officer looked around and saw obvious non-Italians. He pointed to one man and said; “That man looks like a Russian? When I was here the other day I heard him talking Russian, or something?”.
”No, no,” said the Partisan leader, ”that’s my cousin. All the Soviets have left, only Italians here now.”.
The officer replied; “Ah well, if there are no Soviets here we can’t take any Soviets back with us can we,” and left.

On a sadder note involving Yugoslavs, a friend of mine was a Royal Navy Commando operating small craft in the Med and Adriatic. They received an order to assist Tito’s men in conveying Chetniks and collaborators to the north. Many Chetniks had fled from Tito’s men as they advanced – quite a number were caught and others who didn’t flee and weren’t either political or military were rounded-up anyway. The British protested at having to do this, but were advised it was a ‘Direct Order’ from the highest level. They knew perfectly well the people they moved weren’t going to detention or trial, they were going to be killed. Mass grave pits were seen and on some occasions the people were marched behind buildings only yards from the boat followed, by automatic fire. A particularly sad case for my friend was when he recognised a woman among his passengers. She was the landlady of a bar they used to frequent out there, arrested for collaboration. She told him she was no collaborator, the only thing that ever happened was sometimes Germans would go into her bar for a drink. With Tito’s armed guards and ‘officials’ lining the jetty and strict orders not to provoke any diplomatic incidents, there was nothing that could be done for her.

No.9