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

I'm not a national socialist.

The statements are made out of pure facts, facts, that none can rewrite. Now Berlin would NO MATTER WHAT have been taken at some point, but the German soldiers could hold the city for longer time than they did.

I'm sorry, i haven't been clear in one of my first posts. One could get the impression that i meant they could win Berlin entirely. Fact is, by "win" i meant pushing them back to the Oder, and stall them there for some time.

Of course they would take Berlin later, no question.

By the way, what's with the Iron Sky thing? I only caught something about them being "Moon Nazis" or something. Who are these guys?

 

Yep. All of his thoughts, right from the idea that the Army Group South in Caucasus, should fight it's way trough the Middle East, and attack the Brits in Egypt from behind.

Now THERE'S a lunatic.

 

Why are you suddenly talking about the wonderweapons?

 

The volkstrum would not have had much of a role to play in the battle of berlin, quantitatively. The volkstrum consisted mainly of retired men and soldiers from the first world war and along with the hitler youth, the SS Corps and the remnants of the Wehrmacht were supposed to defend Berlin.

The Volkstrum were never seriously trained because of the lack of the fuel and ammunition and as a rule, it was the Wehrmacht and the SS who got the priority of ammunition. However, we must not deny the fact that together , they put the fight to the finish. Though i don't have the stats, my guess is that , as in all theatres of war, the soviet casualties in Berlin would have been more than the German ones. [ I always like to use this anology . I guess it was probably a case of an old weak lion against a horde of young fast paced cheetas. The lion with his reputation may have knocked out one or two cheetas , but he realistically never stood a chance, against all of them. ( Whether it stands good in this case or not, i am sure most of you would agree if this analogy stood for the King Tiger tanks vs the T34).

 

Give me a break, stalling them for some time doesn't mean to stop the Red Army entirely.

Why do you think I am trying to rewrite history?

Besides, the German technology was pretty amazing. They had the first jets, their wonder weapons were superior until the Americans discovered the fission bomb. And that were AFTER the German surrender.

Besides, you're pretty lame as you are spending your time on this forum, waiting for someone to make a mistake, and then just attack the poor fellow.

Just to make a simple statement of what you think were possible doesn't mean you're a nazi does it? And to be compared with such lunatics as those in Iron Sky is intimidating.​

 

With all due respect, you're quite out of your mind, 2010. 300,000, 500,000, 800,000--it didn't matter. The Soviets brought 2.5 million men, half of all their armor, one third of their artillery and 7500 military aircrafts. The Russians would win by default. They have exceeded the 3:1 attacker to defender ratio and augmented their numbers with tremendous firepower. Hitler could expect no reinforcement.

The 3 million German troops not in Berlin could be of no help. During April-May of 1945, those German units were either being trapped, annihilated, surrendering or trying to surrender by breaking out to the West. None of them were really combat-effective or mobile. The German military had not the will, the means or the inclination to defend Hitler's capital.

Honestly, this ridiculous assertion isn't worth anyone's time and I expect the armored arctic fowl to make an appearance very soon if this silliness continues.

 

That figure exceeds some of the lower estimates of the strength of the total German force in the greater Berlin region at the beginning of the Berlin operation. The Russians claimed they captured 480,000 German troops at the conclusion of the entire Berlin Campaign. Are you suggesting only 200,000 were killed or wounded while 480,000 surrendered in one of the most infamous bloodbaths in the Second World War? Are you suggesting the Germans suffered no losses in Seelow Heights?

Mind-boggling. Absolutely mind-boggling.

 

I think 50000(fifty-thousand ) should be a more common fact

 

Just a few figures for the battles on the approaches to Berlin & in Berlin its self.
[And of course figures vary a lot]

Soviet Total strength
2,500,000 soldiers,
6,250 tanks,
7,500 aircraft,
41,600 artillery pieces.[Ziemke, Murray & Millett]

For the investment and assault on the Berlin Defence Area about 1,500,000 soldiers. [Beevor]

German Total strength
766,750 soldiers,
1,519 AFVs,[Wagner]
2,224 aircraft, [Bergstrom]
9,303 artillery pieces,[Glantz]

In Berlin about 45,000 soldiers, supplemented by the police force, Hitler Youth, and 40,000 Volkssturm. [Beevor]


Soviet Casualties
Archival research
(operational total)
81,116 dead or missing [including Seelow]
280,251 sick or wounded
Total casualties: 361,367 men
1,997 tanks,
2,108 artillery pieces,
917 aircraft, [Khrivosheev]



German casualties
Initial Soviet estimates:
458,080 killed,
479,298 captured
Total casualties: 937,378 men [Glantz]

German estimate
100,000 killed [Müller & Ziemke]

Inside Berlin Defence Area
22,000 civilian dead,
about 22,000 military dead [Antill]

At the Seelow heights Beevor claims 30,000 Soviet casualties plus over 700 tanks vs 12,000 German casualties.

Big difference between Initial Soviet estimates & German estimates.
Soviets probably include the approach battles, German estimates just Berlin.


Eisenhower reportedly asked Bradley how many casualties it would take if he pushed to capture Berlin & Bradley estimated 100,000, so Eisenhower decided to let the Soviets take it & informed Stalin that the Allies would attack towards Dresden not Berlin.

Stalin was very pleased [& relieved] & replied that he thought that was the best plan & that Berlin was of only minor strategic importance anyway, while all along he was well into planning a huge all out assault on the city.

And to speed things up he asked Konev & Zhukov 'who's going to take Berlin, you or the Allies' & set each Commander against one another to take the prize target.

 

The fate of Berlin was decided 2 years prior not months and Eisenhower certainly didn't LET the Soviets take Berlin. It should also be mentioned that Zhukov's men suffered less casualties than Konev's men in the battle all while taking a tougher path.

Red army soldiers under Zhukov's command in general suffered less casualties than their comrades who were led by other Soviet generals.

 

Konev could have never been allowed to take Berlin, he is not Russian. Stalin just used him to push Zhukov.

 

I found this On PDF. The Soviet-German War 1941-1945
Myths and Realities See link I provided:

http://www.strom.clemson.edu/publications/sg-war41-45.pdf

 

Now my question is why was Zhukov's assault on Seelow heights hindered by his own artillery due to the cratering of terrain, but Konev, who concentration roughly the same number of tubes per kilo, was not. This question has been bugging me for quite some time now.

 

Don't you know the wonder weapons? The "Vergeltung Waffen"? The V1 and V2 rockets?

The wonder weapons were built and designed by the German scientist Wernher von Braun, the man who later worked for NASA on the apollo missions.

The Germans had developed jet fighters by 1944. They weren't just working on jet propulsion. Even if the fighters didn't have a great influence upon the war at that time, that's another subject. We were talking about German technology.

A link to the Messerschmidt ME 262, the worlds first jet-powered fighter aircraft.

Messerschmitt Me 262 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

About the fission bomb, I was wrong.

By the way, did you know that the wonderweapons were just as expensive as the manhattan project?

Anyways, for your Berlin theory, don't you think that it was highly unlikely the anglo-americans would drop a bomb there, when they would win the war in Europe a few months later anyways? That's just my theory.

The only reason they dropped the bombs in Japan, was to end the war quickly, as no end seemed to the war in the pacific. A few days back, i read an article that claimed that had the Americans refused to drop the bomb, the war in the pacific would claim 15 million casualties on all sides, and propably last until 1952!

 

Ha! I have scratched my head on this one too.

Good god, where do you get this info from? Pacific campaign lasting till 52'?

 

Guys, don't feed the troll.

 

So an extra 7 years for one little Island?

 

Well I think, if the Anglo-Americans would drop the bomb on Berlin in 1945 it wouldn't be to devastate the third reich. I think it would be more to destroy most of the city before the Soviets could take the industry in use there.

Yes, Robert Goddard experimentet with rocketry, but not at the same level as the third reich scientists. If the US had prioritated rocketry research higer, they might have been on Germanys level.

Besides, the US didn't produce any of the rockets, nor did they use them in wartime.