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

With the 12. Armee being counted with the soldiers in Berlin, the number would reach 760.000

 

Well, yes I can.

If you're talking about space enough in Berlin for the 500.000 soldiers, there were plenty.

Berlin had 4.3 million citizens at that point.

If i'd also count the 12. Armee, the number would be higher.

Just to turn this around a bit, where do you have your information from?

 

Stockpiles my good man, stockpiles.

Besides, there weren't many tanks in the Battle for Berlin, mostly soldiers.

And of course, in the long term the Nazis would loose the war, but if you only think a few months ahead, they had quite a chance to push the russians back behind the Oder River.

 

My statement of 40,000 comes from Seigfried Knappe's autobiography where he makes note of the fact that Berlin should have had 4 divisions inside while in reality they did have four but they were at barely half strength totaling to the number above, according to him. He said that they were expected to plug up the holes in their lines with Hitler youth and Volksturm units.

I also find it hard to believe half a million men were inside when he was in his Kubelwagon and driving into the city almost all of the defenses were completely unmanned!

You also must consider that Berlin proper only had around one million people within which was where the bulk of the battle took place.

Its easy to understand how Berlin was so unmanned when you consider the speed of the Soviet assault versus units that "only existed on paper" getting swallowed by the red tide.

 

Well of course the defenses were manned! Berlin had been prepared for the soviet attack weeks before the initial combat.

The bulk of the battle took place around Pankow, a few hundred meters from the center of Berlin, The Reichskanzlei.

 

What I was getting at was even an officer was appalled by the lack of soldiers in city.

 

Well, when did he drive trough the city?

 

He arrived in Berlin on the 23rd, the Russian attack was later on during the night.

 

Well, where then?

Besides the battle started at the 20th of April.

 

The stockpiles weren't needed before the invasion of the silesian coal mines. Speer and Doenitz tryed to tell Hitler that in the long term (a couple of months forward) they wouldn't have enough industry, coal, fuel and so on to keep fighting. But for the moment they could use some of the leftovers of what they gained since the start of the war. The stockpiles.

As said before, the stockpiles were first needed at the start of April, and they were also first used there.

 

Good God! Was Hitler ever THAT optimistic? 300,000 tankless Volksturm troops against 2.5 million men armed to the teeth... "quite a chance"? Btw, there wasn't a Luftwaffe by May 1945. The only thing the German had left was Berlin!

 

The battles on the approaches to Berlin like Zhukov's offensive on the Seelow Heights was extremely bloody, Zhukov lost a lot of good men with his meat grinder tactics, mostly caused by Stalin's game of pitting Zhukov against Konev in a race to see who would take the city & Zhukov was determined it was going to be him.

 

It was 500.000 soldiers. Not all of them were Volkssturm, only about 2/5 parts.

Berlin could have received reinforcements from the western part of Germany. Maybe Hitler stopped the Ardennes offensive in 1944/1945 because he wanted to withdraw troops to Berlin? Just a thought.

And now, the Germans didn't only have Berlin. When they surrendered in March 1945, they had 1.000.000 million men in North Italy, 300.000 in Denmark, 300.000 in Norway, and a further of 1.5 milion men in West Germany, + the men in East Germany.

About the Luftwaffe, they could have helped too, if the battles had been longer.

 

I have to admit that this guy is a complete lunatic. There were no German units that could in any way stop the might of the Red Army. In this statement I refer to the following books:

Berlin 1945,
Last 100 days,
The Last Battle.

I will not be surprised if in the following years this forum will catch the attention of some other lunatics trying to rewrite the history. To be honest I am just waiting for someone to start glorifying the might of the German technology. Let say the creation of super ultra secret base in Arctic from which (they) sent rocket on the moon.

Iron Sky :: Official Movie Site
“2010” you are a joker and quiet possible Nazi Germany secret sympathizer. Link above is for you

All the best to those who captured Berlin and defeated Germany,
Jackal

 

You don't seem to understand, even if there had been these troops available to Germany in the battle for Berlin, they would have ran of of supplies even faster then they did. The Germans by now are almost completely out of fuel, there air power is almost non existent, and there troops are second rate troops fit only to guard a washed out village in the middle of nowhere not against front line well trained and armed Russian troops.

even if the 2/5 ratio is accurate that still is a large percentage of your forces that are simply ill prepared and trained for a battle that is sure to devastating, as you would assume all capital battles would be.

 

Jackal

What??i .it..its..t's just a MOVIE ?? damn it

Oh and ah 2010 - don't forget the wonderweapons - the wonderweapons. You really need to do some serious research unless you just came here for the purpose of trolling around. - sorry but that is the impression you are giving me.

Regards
Kruska

 

Reference - The Downfall Movie:

Hitler speaks to Ritter Von Greim and Hanna Reitsch, Joseph Goebels is also present in the room.

Hitler: I name you commander of the Luftwaffe. Go to Bavaria and see that Himmler is punished for treason. Donitz is raising an army in the north and Kesselring in the south. I will give you a thousand latest jets. You have to rebuild the luftwaffe from scratch.

Truly, the fuhrer's thoughts were pies in the skies.

Any comments?