Prelude to Berlin: The Red Army's Offensive Operations in Poland and Eastern Germany, 1945

Part I

How the Last Campaign for Defeating Hitler’s Germany Was Planned

Colonel General S.M. Shtemenko¹

1Sergei Matveevich Shtemenko (1907-76) joined the Red Army in 1926. Editor’s note. During the Great Patriotic War he served in the General Staff apparatus as a deputy chief and later chief of the General Staff’s operational directorate, while also serving as a Stavka representative with various fronts . Following the war, Shtemenko served as chief of the General Staff and chief of staff of the Warsaw Pact forces.

1

How the Last Campaign for Defeating Hitler’s Germany Was Planned

Despite the fact that 20 years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War, the work of the General Staff has almost never been illuminated in our military-historical literature. Nevertheless, the General Staff, being the Stavka’s¹ working organ, carried out important and complex functions, connected with the planning and control of the armed struggle. On the basis of existing documents and personal reminiscences, I would like to relate in this article how the planning of operations was carried out in the General Staff at the concluding stage of the war, and how these problems were resolved in the Stavka.

The first thing we should examine is the General Staff’s evaluation of the situation that had arisen by the fall of 1944, and the planning of the initial operations of the 1945 campaign.

The work in planning the concluding stage of the armed struggle on the Soviet-German front began as early as the summer-fall campaign of 1944. The evaluation of the strategic situation and the conclusions drawn from it did not arise immediately in the General Staff and Stavka, nor as the result of some kind of single act; but rather gradually developed in the process of ongoing work, as part of the study of the totality of facts and foreseeing the development of combat activities along the various fronts.

The results of the Soviet army’s unprecedented offensive along all the directions, without exception, were more than promising. As is known, during the offensive in the summer and fall of 1944 the Soviet army destroyed or captured 96 divisions and 24 brigades and defeated 219 divisions and 22 brigades. Overall, the enemy lost 1,600,000 men, 6,700 tanks, 28,000 guns and mortars, and 12,000 aircraft. Fascist Germany was no longer capable of restoring these losses. Also great was the force of the morale loss the enemy suffered.

At the end of October 1944 Soviet troops stood along the border with Finland and were successfully attacking in northern Norway and had cleared out the Baltic States, except for the Sorve Peninsula and Courland, where they had isolated 34 enemy divisions, and had broken into East Prussia along the line Goldap—Augustow. To the south of East Prussia the Narew and Vistula rivers had been forced along a number of sectors and important bridgeheads had been seized in the areas of Rozan, Serock, Magnuszew, Pulawy, and Sandomierz. The troops were aimed along the Berlin strategic direction. Major achievements had been accomplished in eastern Hungary, where the Second Ukrainian Front was approaching Budapest. In the Third Ukrainian Front’s zone, the capital of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, was liberated on 2 October.

Map 1 Overall Situation by the Start of the 1945 Campaign in Europe.

These successes had been achieved by the Soviet armed forces under the leadership of the Communist Party. The commanders, raised by the party and relying on their staffs and political organs, were leading their troops from victory to victory.

Our victories, however, had not been won easily. Our divisions had been reduced in strength. The advance of the Soviet forces, which had been attacking for several months, without operational pauses, had declined noticeably. The Hitlerites, by moving forces from some sectors of the front in Western Europe, as well as by employing their reserves, had managed to carry out a maneuver with a portion of their forces to the east and here create a continuous and firm front, the breakthrough of which would require serious preparation.

In evaluating the situation, the General Staff understood the complexity of subsequently developing the success achieved. The conditions and prospects for an offensive were not the same everywhere. The enemy’s defense in Courland was distinguished by its particular firmness. To break through and completely rout the troops entrenched there might cost us very dearly.

The situation in East Prussia seemed more favorable. There the forces of the Third Belorussian Front enjoyed a certain superiority in forces² On this basis, in the latter third of October 1944 the General Staff considered it possible, given a certain reinforcement of the front with forces from the High Command Reserve, to launch a powerful blow throughout all of East Prussia to the mouth of the Vistula to a depth of 220-250 kilometers. However, a further analysis of the situation revealed the necessity of limiting ourselves, at least at first, to more modest tasks.

As regards the Warsaw, Poznan, Lodz, and Kalisz axes, as well as Silesia, where the fate of Berlin would essentially be decided, particularly powerful resistance was expected, which, as we then calculated, would not allow us to carry out offensive operations by the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts to a depth of more than 140-150 kilometers, even given a maximum exertion of force.

On the other hand, the General Staff, based chiefly on political considerations, was counting on significant success along the Fourth, Second and Third Ukrainian fronts’ sectors. We could foresee the possibility of a headlong leap to the Moravska Ostrava—Brno line, to the approaches to Vienna, the capture of Budapest, and the forcing of the Danube River. A significant part of the enemy’s infantry here consisted of Hungarian divisions, the reliability of which, according to our assumptions, could be radically undermined by the growing antiwar attitudes and the fascists’ atrocities in connection with their efforts to keep Hungary allied to Hitler’s Reich. The fall of the Salaszi³ regime would lead to Hungary’s leaving the war and put the German forces in a difficult situation. Unfortunately, these calculations proved to be mistaken. The fascist dictatorship, supported by the Germans, was able to tie Hungary to Germany’s military chariot for some time. Extremely heavy and bloody fighting broke out along the Budapest axis from the end of October. Facing the Second Ukrainian Front⁴ were 39 formations, according to our data at the time. The core of this powerful group of forces consisted of seven panzer (five German and two Hungarian) divisions. Our troops advanced slowly. Difficulties in troop command and control and supply arose as the result of bad weather. The enemy was relying on a broad-based system of well-prepared fortifications and was putting up fierce resistance. Although the Hungarian capital was blockaded, its capture dragged on until 13 February 1945. Such was the situation in which the General Staff drew up a plan in October 1944 for the final campaign in Europe.

The extremely limited successes achieved by us in October indicated that it was necessary to reinforce the troops attacking in the south, to rest those divisions that had not been relieved for some time, to regroup, bring up our rear services, and to create the materiel supplies necessary for a breakthrough and the subsequent development of operations. Finally, it was necessary, based on an evaluation of the situation, to choose the most favorable directions and draw up a plan for the most rapid and final defeat of German fascism in the coming year. Time and resources were required for all of this.

At the very beginning of November 1944 the situation along the Second and First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts’ sectors was reviewed in the Stavka. These fronts were opposed by a large part of the forces of army groups Center and A—the enemy’s main strategic group of forces—and did not have the necessary superiority of force for an offensive. From this it followed that it was not expedient to continue attacking along the Berlin strategic direction and that we must temporarily go over to the defensive.

In his latest report to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General A.I. Antonov,⁵ the deputy chief of the General Staff, recommended going over to the defensive along the western direction and requested permission to prepare the necessary directives on this matter. We received Stalin’s⁶ permission and on the night of 4-5 November 1944 a directive was issued to the Third and Second Belorussian fronts to assume the defensive. An analogous order to the forces along the First Belorussian Front’s right wing followed a few days later.

Along with this, work continued in the General Staff on a plan for forthcoming operations. It was planned from the very beginning to carry out the task of defeating Hitler’s Germany by means of two consecutive efforts, which comprised the campaign’s stages. During the first stage active operations were to continue primarily along the old, if one may use the term, direction—along the southern flank of the Soviet-German front in the Budapest area. It was planned to bring about a turning point in the situation by means of withdrawing the Third Ukrainian Front’s main forces between the Tisza and Danube rivers to the area south of Kecskemet, from where they could assist the forces of the Second Ukrainian Front by attacking to the northwest and west. It was believed that the two fronts’ forces would have the opportunity to advance at a high rate of speed and by 30 November reach the line Banska Bystrica—Komarno—Nagykanisza, and by 30 December reach the approaches to Vienna.

The threat of having its southern flank routed would undoubtedly force the German command to shift additional forces to this area at the expense of the western direction, which in turn would create favorable conditions for our forces’ advance along the Berlin direction—those fronts located to the north of the Carpathian Mountains. The General Staff planned that in the beginning of 1945 the Soviet army’s forces would reach the lower course of the Vistula as far as Bromberg,⁷ capture Poznan, and reach the line Breslau—Pardubice—Jihlava—Vienna; that is, advance 120-350 kilometers along all axes from the line they occupied on 28 October. The defeat of the enemy’s main forces and the arrival at the aforementioned line would create conditions for the conduct of the campaign’s second stage, as a result of which Germany would have to capitulate.

Thus in the plan’s first rough draft, which dated to the end of October 1944, only the general content of the war’s concluding campaign was planned, as was its division into two stages. The axis of the main attack had not yet been determined and the idea of splintering the enemy’s strategic front and breaking up his groups of forces in the east had not yet been expressed.

In the beginning of November the General Staff, in the interests of a more exact rendering of the operational plan for 1945, toted up the chief results of the recently completed stage of the war by our army and tightly formulated its evaluation of the sides’ strategic situation. The Soviet army had won victories that had decided the outcome of the war. The conclusion of the struggle along the Soviet-German front had now been decided in our favor and the hour of the enemy’s final defeat had been advanced. At the present time we were superior to the enemy not only in numbers of men, but in combat skill and military equipment. The struggle along the front was fully supported by the smooth working of the rear, which rendered growing assistance to the front.

The strategic situation of the Soviet army and the forces of the anti-Hitler coalition were evaluated by us as being close to surrounding Germany. The attacks by our forces were well coordinated with the actions of the Allies in Western Europe. Essentially, the Soviet army and the Anglo-American forces occupied jumping-off positions for a decisive offensive against the vital centers of Germany. It now remained to accomplish a final rapid effort and quickly crush the enemy. On the whole, we stood on the eve of complete victory. The given evaluation of the sides’ strategic situation which, as subsequent events confirmed, was correct and served as the basis for a detailed drawing up of an operational plan for the 1945 campaign in Europe.

Aside from General A.I. Antonov, the chief of the operational directorate, his deputies A.A. Gryzlov⁸ and N.A. Lomov,⁹ and the chiefs of the corresponding directions, as a rule, took part in the preliminary discussions of the plan in General Antonov’s office. Guided by Antonov’s map, the operational directorate refined the notations made, calculated the forces and equipment and other elements of the operation. Finally, the graphic plan of the operations, with all the calculations and justifications was laid out on a special map, after which it once again was attentively, one might say nit-picked, discussed by General Antonov together with the operations officers. As in preceding years, the opening operations were planned out in greatest detail. The fronts’ subsequent operations were noted only in general terms.

In the course of these creative searches the main general idea, which touched upon the conditions for the success of our operations along the main direction, first arose and was then fully worked out. The idea consisted of drawing off enemy forces from the central sector by means of active operations along the flanks of the strategic front. It was proposed to do this not only in Hungary and Austria, further from the main direction of our future offensive, but in East Prussia as well. For this it was necessary to energetically develop the offensive around Budapest and conduct offensive operations in the Königsberg area.

We were aware that the enemy was especially sensitive about East Prussia and Hungary. This meant that if we were to press him hard here he would certainly shift his reserves and forces from the non-active sectors here. The upshot of this was that the western direction, which was important for the achievement of a decisive success by the Soviet army, would be seriously weakened.

Our expectations were justified. As a result of our forces’ offensive operations in East Prussia and around Budapest in November and December, the enemy concentrated, according to our calculations, 26 divisions (including seven panzer) in East Prussia and 55 divisions (including nine panzer) in the area of the Hungarian capital. As we later learned, Hitler nonetheless believed that the Soviet army would not launch its main attack in 1945 along the Berlin direction, but through Hungary and western Czechoslovakia, to where the main attention of the German command and its forces was therefore directed.¹⁰ This time the Germans, just as in 1944, committed a very crude strategic miscalculation and left only 49 divisions along the sector of the front that was most important for us. This figure included only five panzer divisions. Thus the General Staff’s calculations proved to be correct.

The fact that the enemy front had taken on a peculiar and dangerous form for him, when along the flanks there sat powerful defending groups of forces, with a weak center, unsupported by major reserves, forced us to think about the most expedient forms for operations along the main direction. In this case, did it not then follow that we should abandon the idea of a general advance along the entire front, which would lead to pushing the enemy back, or break through the weak center with a direct attack, split the German strategic front and, without losing time, develop the attack directly on Berlin? In such a case, it would be significantly easier to completely eliminate the disjointed enemy forces and in this way significantly ease our task of achieving the final goal of the war. The General Staff decided on this method of operations, which later justified itself.

Thus from the beginning of the planning for the final campaign, the General Staff believed that an attack on Berlin should be begun and conducted as quickly as possible, without stopping. Thus the opinion of those comrades, who maintain that the General Staff put off the question of taking Berlin to an indefinite time, is mistaken. To be sure, the situation introduced some changes into this plan.

In evaluating the operational situation, the likely missions and operational means, each front had its peculiar difficulties. This was particularly the case with the Third Belorussian Front. The group of German forces in East Prussia was quite powerful and deeply echeloned. This group of forces relied on powerful permanent fortifications, natural obstacles and inhabited locales, which had been configured for defense and reinforced with engineering structures and obstacles, and which could strike at the flank of our front attacking directly along the Berlin direction. Such flank attacks were also dangerous because the German forces in this area had increased considerably.

It followed that the East Prussian group of forces must not only be tied down, but isolated from the other sectors of the strategic front and, insofar as this was possible, to be broken up, so as to prevent the German command from employing its forces in a concentrated form along a single direction.

Such a multifaceted operational task—to tie down, isolate and break up—meant that we should plan to employ at least two fronts for the offensive into East Prussia: one to strike toward Königsberg from the east, and the second to isolate the East Prussian group of forces from Army Group A and the rear by outflanking it from the south and southwest. This front would simultaneously secure our forces attacking along the Warsaw—Poznan—Berlin direction. According to the location of the fronts, which had arisen as a result of the 1944 operations, the Third Belorussian Front could attack East Prussia from the east, while the Second Belorussian Front could outflank the German forces.

In order to resolve the main task—the creation of breaches in the enemy’s strategic front and the conduct of a vigorous offensive to the west, the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts, which were already along this direction and had bridgeheads along the Vistula, could be employed. Insofar as they had to break through the defense and develop the success at a high rate of speed, these fronts would have to be heavily reinforced with tanks, particularly tank armies and corps.

During the last three days of October and the beginning of November 1944, General Antonov and the General Staff’s operational officers worked on the operational portion of the forthcoming activities. At this time the general idea took on a concrete form in the sense of exactly defining the axes of the fronts’ and armies’ attacks, the attack sectors, the depth of the immediate and subsequent missions, and the timetables for carrying them out. The sides’ capabilities were analyzed several times and the numerous operational variations were weighed.

The minimal deadline necessary for defeating Germany was approximately calculated at this stage of our work. It was planned to achieve this in the course of 45 days of offensive activities to a depth of 600-700 kilometers, in the course of two consecutives efforts (stages), without operational pauses between them. It was planned that the first stage, which had the goal of defeating the opposing forces and arriving at the line Bromberg—Poznan—Breslau—Vienna to a depth of 250-300 kilometers, would last 15 days. The second stage—the completion of the defeat of Germany and the capture of Berlin—was planned to last 30 days. The pace was not high, insofar as fierce resistance was expected in the final battles to eliminate fascist Germany’s main forces. In reality, the heroic Soviet forces exceeded all the plans in this regard.

The depth of the fronts’ missions was significantly refined in connection with the concrete conditions of the situation, particularly the terrain features. For example, the depth of the Third Belorussian Front’s immediate mission was only 50-60 kilometers, insofar as the area of combat activities was very difficult and the enemy strong. In the Second Belorussian Front’s sector the opportunities for the troops’ advance were better, which enabled us to plan the front’s immediate mission as far as the line Mlawa—Drobin, that is, to a depth of 60-80 kilometers. The depth of the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts’ immediate mission, and partly that of the Fourth Ukrainian Front, could reach 120-160 kilometers.

In the conditions of the level terrain of western Poland, the depth of the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts’ subsequent missions along the main directions was calculated at 130-180 kilometers.

At first it was not planned to launch the first attack in some areas of the enemy’s territory. This was the case, for example, with Silesia. The relatively weak Fourth Ukrainian Front, which it was planned to include in the overall offensive, would not have been able to overcome the firm defense here. The front’s 38th and 1st Guards armies, which were designated for attacking along the boundary with its northern neighbor, were to operate at first in difficult and mountainous terrain, and then were to attack in the industrial area.

As concerns the directions of the fronts’ attacks, we confidently mapped out the Second Belorussian Front’s offensive axes toward Marienburg, thus cutting off the East Prussian group of forces from Germany and the other armies, and toward Allenstein, in order to split up this group of forces. Also determined were the axes of part of the First Belorussian Front’s forces around Warsaw and the attacks to meet the First Ukrainian Front’s forces while defeating the Germans’ Kielce—Radom group of forces. Finally, we determined the operational sectors of the First and Fourth Ukrainian fronts’ neighboring groups of forces in the Krakow area. As before, the final goal for the two southern Second and Third Ukrainian fronts remained Vienna.

In our daily reports to the Stavka, we to one degree or another raised questions of the Soviet armed forces’ activities in the concluding campaign. Thus many of these questions had already been coordinated with the supreme commander-in-chief before being broadly discussed with the front commanders. A number of corrections were made to the plan during November. This was connected with the already well-established procedure for operational planning, during which the General Staff’s initial ideas served only as the point of departure for the drawing up of the future plan for the fronts’ operations.

In preparing the idea of the 1945 campaign, the Stavka did not gather the front commanders for a special meeting, which had been the case in the past; for example, according to the plan for Bagration¹¹ and the conduct of the summer offensive in Belorussia. This time, we limited ourselves to summoning the front commanders separately to the General Staff and a discussion of everything that related to their fronts’ operation; then we reported these already-coordinated ideas to the Stavka.

Marshals of the Soviet Union F.I. Tolbukhin,¹² K.K. Rokossovskii¹³ and I.S. Konev,¹⁴ General I.D. Chernyakhovskii,¹⁵ and the Stavka representatives¹⁶ with the fronts worked until 7 November during the celebratory days of the October Revolution. The variant of the overall idea for combat operations against Germany in 1945 was studiously analyzed in the General Staff. After this, the front commanders, A.I. Antonov and I set out for the Stavka, where, following a short report by Antonov, an all-round discussion of the plan took place. No significant amendments were made to the plan. It was planned to begin the offensive along the main direction on 20 January 1945, although the operational plans had not yet been confirmed and no directives to the fronts had been issued.

Within a few days of the discussion of the plan for the initial operations of 1945, in the Stavka the supreme commander-in-chief determined that the forces that would take the German capital of Berlin would be commanded by his first deputy, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov,¹⁷ who on 16 November 1944 was appointed to the post of commander of the First Belorussian Front. Marshal of the Soviet Union K.K. Rokossovskii replaced the commander of the Second Belorussian Front, General G.F. Zakharov.¹⁸ Stalin personally informed the above-named commanders of his decision by telephone.

Stalin took upon himself the coordination of the activities of four fronts along the Berlin direction in the concluding campaign of the war with Germany. As a result, there was no longer any need for the work of the chief of the General Staff, A.M. Vasilevskii,¹⁹ on the Third Belorussian Front. He remained, as a Stavka representative, in charge of the First and Second Baltic fronts’ operations, and on 20 February 1945, following the death of General I.D. Chernyakhovskii, he became commander of the Third Belorussian Front.

Thus the 1945 campaign, , which had been drawn up together with the front commanders in accordance with the General Staff’s plan, was to begin with simultaneous powerful attacks by the fronts deployed along the Berlin strategic direction. These attacks had as their goal the breaking through and splitting up of the front into parts, disrupting communications and disorganizing the coordination of the enemy groups of forces and, as early as the first stage, of destroying the main forces of the opposing German-Fascist troops. In this way, the campaign’s first-stage operations were to create favorable conditions for concluding the war.

A great deal of attention during this time was devoted to how best to secure the rapid breakthrough of the enemy’s defense and to develop the First Belorussian Front’s success. The front’s forces had to attack from the Magnuszew and Pulawy bridgeheads, which predetermined the axes of the attacks and thus made the enemy’s job easier. Connected with this, in a way, was the neighboring First Ukrainian Front on the left, which was to develop its offensive not along the shortest route to the German border, but on Kalisz, which lay considerably to the north. The General Staff believed that the First Ukrainian Front’s shortest route was not justified in this case, due to a series of purely military and economic considerations. Its route along Polish territory would pass through the Upper Silesian industrial area and come up against German Silesia, where the Hitlerites, by organizing a stubborn defense, could halt the offensive. We could foresee extended fighting, the loss of speed in the operation’s development and numerous unjustified losses. Therefore, following numerous discussions and talks with Marshal of the Soviet Union Konev, we fixed upon an offensive variation that would bypass Silesia from the northeast and north. The Stavka agreed with this plan, insofar as the attack would create an immediate threat to the rear of the enemy arrayed against the First Belorussian Front and would significantly ease the advance of our forces on Poznan. Aside from these considerations, in this case all the structures in the industrial region would remain untouched by the main attack and could be preserved, in the main, unharmed, which would enable us subsequently to make use of their output without major expenditures for reconstruction.

On 27 November, during the visit by the commander of the First Belorussian Front, who had been summoned to Moscow by the Stavka, the operational aspect of the First Belorussian Front’s initial operation was changed somewhat. According to data received by front intelligence, an attack due west had been made more difficult, due to the presence of the enemy’s numerous defensive lines, which had been occupied by troops. In the front commander’s opinion, a success was more likely to be gained through operations of the front’s main forces towards Lodz, with their subsequent arrival at Poznan. The supreme commander-in-chief agreed with this refinement.

This circumstance altered matters as to the direction of the attack by the front’s neighbor to the left: the First Belorussian Front’s arrival at Kalisz would lose its significance. Thus Marshal Konev was assigned Breslau as his main axis of attack.

Taking into account all of these amendments, the front commanders and their staffs worked out operational plans for each front, which were examined by the General Staff and confirmed by the Stavka.

About two and a half months were spent on all these planning measures at the Stavka-front level. It stands to reason, of course, that during this entire time the preparation for the operations proceeded at full speed and activities for concentrating reserves and equipment necessary for the fronts took place. After the fundamentals of the future operations had been worked out with the front commanders, the accumulation of the necessary supplies began at the front.

Thus in November 1944 the picture of the Soviet army’s forthcoming winter offensive was fully defined, although the operational plans were confirmed by the Stavka only at the end of December. Only small changes were subsequently introduced into the plan for the campaign and the initial operations.

Let us now examine how there gradually arose and how, finally, the plan for the concluding Berlin operation took form.

The Soviet forces’ offensive in East Prussia, along the Vistula and in Silesia was so decisive and rapid that within two weeks the armies of the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts had carried out their assigned tasks, having reached the line Poznan—Breslau.

In connection with the achievement of the campaign’s first-stage goal, it was necessary, without losing time, to determine what to do next, insofar as an attack on Berlin was on the agenda and was now, so to say, the immediate objective.

On 26 January 1945 the General Staff received the decision by the commander of the First Belorussian Front to conduct what was essentially a non-stop offensive by the front up to and including the capture the German capital. It was planned to bring up forces, particularly artillery, the rear organs, replenish supplies, put the combat vehicles in order, and to put the 3rd Shock Army and the Polish 1st Army into the first echelon in four days, and beginning on 1-2 February to continue the offensive with all the front’s forces. The immediate objective was to force the Oder River from the march and to subsequently develop a rapid attack toward Berlin, directing the main forces toward bypassing the German capital from the northeast, north and northwest. During this time the 2nd Guards Tank Army would outflank Berlin from the northwest, while the 1st Guards Tank Army did the same from the northeast.

Within a day the General Staff received the decision by the commander of the First Ukrainian Front, according to which his front was also to operate without a noticeable pause, beginning its offensive on 5-6 February, so as to reach the Elbe River by 25-28 February, while its right flank, in conjunction with the First Belorussian Front, would take Berlin.

Thus the forces of both fronts were to be directed at capturing Berlin without any kind of pause. But how could Marshal Konev’s decision be squared with Stalin’s instructions that only the First Belorussian Front would take Berlin? Following heated debates in General Antonov’s office, the General Staff suggested confirming both decisions, to which the Stavka agreed. However, they established the same boundary line between the fronts as that recommended by Marshal Zhukov: as far as Smigiel, as before, then Unruhstadt—the Faule Obra River—Oder River—Ratzdorf— Friedland—Gross Keris—Michendorf. Such a boundary line would effectively push the First Ukrainian Front to the south of Berlin, without leaving it any sort of window for a direct attack from the south or southwest, forcing it to attack toward Guben and Brandenburg.

The General Staff understood the absurdity of the situation: on the one hand, they had confirmed Marshal Konev’s decision to attack with his right flank toward Berlin, while at the same time they had established a boundary line that prevented him from doing that.

It was necessary to search for some sort of way out of the existing situation. We calculated that either the situation would make the necessary changes, or that we would be able to rectify this nonsense during the course of the operation, all the more so that it was still a long way to Berlin. However, as subsequent events showed, we were unable to carry out the planned offensive on Berlin in a short period of time.

By the end of January it became clear that the enemy in Pomerania was creating a powerful group of forces. The General Staff interpreted this as a threat to the right flank and rear of our forces attacking toward Berlin. Besides, a gap of more than 100 kilometers had developed between the First and Second Belorussian fronts, which was being covered only by cavalry, while the troops were suffering from a serious shortage of ammunition and fuel, because their supplies remained along the Vistula. Such a situation forced the Stavka and General Staff to review their initial decision: it would be wrong, while ignoring the enemy’s powerful forces along the flank and not worrying about the rear organs and supply, to rush onto Berlin. And now, 20 years later, when all the maps are available and one is no longer responsible for making a decision, certain comrades in their memoirs make deeply thought-out conclusions as to the possibility of taking Berlin in February 1945.²⁰

In the middle of February the enemy’s Pomeranian group of forces attacked. Stubborn fighting broke out. The Soviet command did not doubt that the Germans would fail to push back our attacking forces. At the same time, without defeating the enemy group of forces we could not consider the idea of a non-stop offensive on Berlin by all the First Belorussian Front’s forces. We had to throw a large part of these against this Pomeranian splinter. Only later, when the Second Belorussian Front’s main forces turned toward Pomerania, could one consider the First Belorussian Front’s rear secured.

Matters stood more favorably in the First Ukrainian Front’s zone, where its right flank was approaching the Neisse River and reached it on 24 February, after which it successfully defeated the enemy in Upper Silesia (the Oppeln area). However, the front would still require a significant amount of time to completely defeat the enemy.

A promising situation had developed along the Fourth, Second and Third Ukrainian fronts’ sectors. On 13 February the Hitlerites’ resistance in Budapest was finally broken. This, in the General Staff’s opinion, would open up a favorable opportunity for developing the offensive in the directions of Olomouc and Prague; Vienna and Plzen—the soft underbelly of Fascist Germany— and enable us to attract as many enemy forces as possible here, including from the extremely important central direction. We didn’t know at the time that the enemy viewed these directions as constituting the greatest threat and he was already dispatching pick forces here, hoping to change the situation in his favor.

The General Staff continued to draw up a plan for operations in Austria and Czechoslovakia, intending on the offensive’s fifteenth-twentieth day to reach the line Pardubice—Brno—Vienna, and on the fortieth-forty fifth day force the Vltava River and liberate Prague. The Soviet forces’ advance along these directions would simultaneously deprive Germany of important coal mining areas (Moravska Ostrava), oil extraction (western Hungary) and iron (Linz), which, taken with the loss of the Silesian industrial area and the agricultural regions of East Prussia, would mean the significant undermining of the economic foundations of the enemy’s military potential.

As concerns the further course of the war, our calculations were carried out by taking into account the most unfavorable circumstances, namely that the Allies would not be able to overcome the German forces’ defense. In such a case, it was considered possible that the enemy would seek to remove a significant portion of his troops from the western front and throw them to the east to defend the capital of the fascist state. The significance of the outcome of the battle for Berlin was too important for the fate of the Hitlerite clique and, on the whole, for the German-Fascist state.

The General Staff’s work in planning the final attacks was complicated in the extreme by Stalin’s subjective and categorical decision as to the First Belorussian Front’s special role. This was particularly felt by General Antonov, who on 19 February entered into the difficult and responsible duties of chief of the General Staff.

To capture such a major city as Berlin, which had been vigorously prepared for defense, would be extremely difficult for a single front, even such a powerful one as the First Belorussian Front. The situation insistently demanded that we direct at least the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts on Berlin, just as it was of course also necessary to somehow avoid an ineffective frontal attack by our main forces. Thus General Antonov’s map reflected the General Staff’s and front commanders’ January idea of taking Berlin by the First Belorussian Front’s flanking attack from the north and northwest and the double flanking attack by the First Ukrainian Front from the southwest and west. It was planned to link up the fronts’ forces in the Brandenburg—Potsdam area. In this way not only would an internal encirclement front be created around the enemy in the capital, but also an external one, which would enable us to repel possible counterattacks by German forces from the west and southwest. If the Hitlerites were to somehow manage to restore the front to the west of Berlin, we would, of course have to continue the offensive to their complete defeat.

Subsequent events eliminated the question as regards our allies’ actions. They moved slowly and carefully forward. During February-March 1945 the Allied armies threw the Germans back to the Rhine River, and in certain areas they seized bridgeheads and began preparing for operations to the east of the river.

The ferocity of the fighting on the Soviet-German front did not slacken; quite the contrary, it increased. In February-March a number of important events took place. In eastern Pomerania the forces of the Second Belorussian and part of the First Belorussian fronts routed the enemy and removed the threat of a flank attack from the north into the rear of the armies aimed at Berlin. At the same time bloody fighting went on to expand the bridgehead over the Oder west of Küstrin, which ended successfully for us. Soviet forces stood 60 kilometers from the German capital.

The First Ukrainian Front’s right-wing armies had encircled and destroyed more than five German divisions in Upper Silesia and, having thrown back the remainder into the Sudeten Mountains, had occupied a favorable position for attacks on Dresden and Prague. The forces of the Fourth Ukrainian Front had achieved notable successes in the Carpathian Mountains.

Combat operations in western Hungary along the Vienna axis had extremely important consequences. Despite the overall unfavorable situation for him, the enemy here attempted to bring about a change in the situation along the front in his favor, for which he concentrated here all possible reserves and undertook a counteroffensive against the Third Ukrainian Front in the area of Lake Balaton. The extremely heavy Balaton battle lasted ten days. The enemy’s attempt to seize the initiative was repulsed. Literally on the day following the end of the fighting in the Lake Balaton area, our offensive on Vienna unfolded. The Stavka warned the commander of the Third Ukrainian Front beforehand about the necessity of keeping the 9th Guards Army, which had been designated for the offensive on the Austrian capital, free from defensive operations. This enabled not only the troops of the Second Ukrainian Front, but of the Third Ukrainian Front, to immediately lunge forward. On 13 April Vienna was liberated and our forces moved further to the west.

The end of March was employed by our allies to force the Rhine and to simultaneously develop the offensive into the depth of central Germany and Bavaria. It was subsequently planned to split the German forces by linking up with the Soviet army. The Soviet supreme high command was informed of this plan, which flowed from the decisions of the Yalta conference of the leaders of the three major allied powers, in a 28 March letter from the supreme commander-in-chief of the combined Anglo-American forces, General Eisenhower.

Now the Allies were advancing at a higher rate of speed than before. In the Ruhr they had encircled a significant enemy group of forces, which was then split up and before long ceased its resistance. The Anglo-American troops’ main forces, while encountering weak resistance, advanced to the east toward the Elbe River and the shore of the Baltic Sea in the Lubeck area.

There was no doubt remaining that the Allies were determined to seize Berlin before us, although according to the Yalta agreements the city was to be inside the Soviet occupation zone. As it later became known from the memoirs of the late Winston Churchill, he goaded in every way possible Roosevelt and Eisenhower to seize the German capital. In a message to the American president, he wrote:

Nothing will exert a psychological effect of despair upon all German forces of resistance equal to that of the fall of Berlin. It will be the supreme signal of defeat to the German people. On the other hand, if left to itself to maintain a siege by the Russians among its ruins, and as long as the German flag flies there, it will animate the resistance of all Germans under arms.

There is moreover another aspect which it is proper for you and me to consider. The Russian armies will no doubt overrun all Austria and enter Vienna. If they also take Berlin will not their impression that they have been the overwhelming contributor to our common victory be unduly imprinted in their minds, and may this not lead them into a mood which will raise grave and formidable difficulties in the future? I therefore consider that from a political standpoint we should march as far east into Germany as possible, and that should Berlin be in our grasp we should certainly take it. This also appears sound on military grounds.²¹

At the end of March all the main ideas for the Berlin operation had been worked out in the General Staff. During this work the General Staff was constantly consulting with the commanders of the Second and First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts, as well their chiefs of staff, General A.N. Bogolyubov,²² General M.S. Malinin²³ and General V.D. Sokolovskii,²⁴ and later with General I.Ye. Petrov,²⁵ as to the content of our forces’ activities in the forthcoming offensive. Thus as soon as it became clear that the allies were striving to take Berlin first, the commanders of the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts were immediately summoned to Moscow.

On 31 March the General Staff reviewed together with the front commanders the plan for the fronts’ actions and coordinated all its details. Marshal Konev was very agitated about the boundary line with his neighbor on the right, which gave him no opportunity for an attack on Berlin. However, no one in the General Staff could remove this impediment.

The following day, 1 April 1945, the plan for the Berlin operation was discussed in the General Staff. The situation at the front and the actions of our allies and their plans were reported in detail. Stalin concluded that Berlin should be taken as quickly as possible, and thus the timetable for preparing the operation was extremely limited. It was necessary to begin no later than 16 April and to finish within no more than 12-15 days.

The front commanders agreed with these conclusions and assured the Stavka that their forces would be ready in time. After this the plan, which had been coordinated with them, was reviewed. The chief of the General Staff reported on the plan and noted that the boundary line between the fronts excluded the immediate participation by the forces of the First Ukrainian Front in the fighting for the city, which could negatively affect the timetable for carrying out the missions. Marshal Konev expressed himself against such a boundary line and emphasized the expediency of directing part of the First Ukrainian Front’s forces, particularly the tank armies, against the southwestern outskirts of Berlin.

Stalin, evidently understanding the lack of foundation for the existing boundary line between the fronts, and desiring to take Berlin as quickly as possible, resolved the problem in his own way: he did not completely abandon his idea, but agreed neither with the General Staff or the commander of the First Ukrainian Front. On the planning map he silently crossed out that part of the boundary line that cut off the First Ukrainian Front from Berlin and traced it as far as Lubben, 60 kilometers to the southeast of the city, where he broke it off. He later told us, Whoever breaks in first, let him take Berlin.

Such was the origin of the specific boundary line in the Berlin operation between the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts, which was not continued throughout the entire depth of the offensive, but ended along the southeastern approaches to the city.

The General Staff was satisfied with such a turn of events, because this accursed boundary line had given us no peace for more than two months. Nor did Marshal Konev object. The new line suited him as well. Events actually unfolded later so that both fronts took Berlin.

The beginning of the offensive was set for 16 April. Only by that date could the fronts, especially the First Ukrainian, accumulate the necessary materiel stores.

On that day the commander of the First Belorussian Front was issued a directive on the preparation and conduct of the operation for the purpose of taking Berlin and, no later than the twelfthfifteenth day of the operation, of reaching the Elbe. It was ordered to launch the main attack from the Küstrin bridgehead with the forces of four combined-arms and two tank armies, with the latter two to be committed into the breach in the enemy’s defenses for developing the success to outflank Berlin from the north and northeast. The front’s second echelon would be employed along the main direction. This was the 3rd Army, under the command of Colonel General A.V. Gorbatov.²⁶

On 2 April a directive was issued to the commander of the First Ukrainian Front. He was ordered to defeat the enemy group of forces in the Cottbus area and south of Berlin and no later than the tenth-twelfth day of the operation to reach the line Beelitz—Wittenberg, and then along the Elbe as far as Dresden. The front’s main attack was planned along the Spremberg—Beelitz axis, that is, 50 kilometers south of Berlin. It was planned to commit the tank armies (3rd and 4th guards) after the breakthrough of the enemy’s defense, in order to develop the success along the main direction.

Besides this, the Stavka foresaw as a possible variation the turning of the First Ukrainian Front’s armies directly on Berlin, after which they would bypass Lubben. It was undoubtedly in this variant that the above-listed debates at the Stavka meeting were reflected.

On 6 April a directive was issued to the Second Belorussian Front, which was not to take a direct part in the capture of Berlin, but which had a very responsible mission—to attack to the west north of the German capital and, upon defeating the enemy’s powerful Stettin group of forces, to secure the entire operation from this direction.

Thus the idea and plan of the Berlin operation, which was to bring fascist Germany’s armed forces to the point of capitulation, called for the splitting and encirclement of the enemy east of the German capital, along with the simultaneous destruction of the surrounded enemy forces in detail. The Soviet army’s vigorous advance to the west also had as its goal the prevention of any possibility of the Hitlerites creating a new organized front.

The commanders’ decisions, which were adopted in accordance with the Stavka directives, ensured the fulfillment of these responsible tasks. Powerful groups of forces, with an enormous amount, for the time, of artillery, tanks and aviation, were concentrated along the axes of our attacks. The offensive began on time, and with the forces of three cooperating fronts the final defeat of the enemy along the critically important Berlin direction was accomplished. On 2 May Berlin ceased its resistance. Within six days fascist Germany capitulated unconditionally.

This, in brief, is the story of the General Staff’s work on the idea of the concluding operations of the war’s final campaign. This represented the intense and creative activity of a large group of officers, generals and marshals of the General Staff and the army. During the course of this work it was determined how to better, more quickly and more completely employ the energy and might of the Soviet armed forces and the entire people in the interests of victory over fascism. Now no one doubts that our armed forces were superior to Hitlerite Germany’s army as to the level of its military art. In this there is a portion of the services of those staff officers who spent day and night over maps in the difficult and heroic time of the Great Patriotic War.

The concluding stage of the war in Europe was typified by the realism of the strategic goals assigned at that time to the Soviet armed forces. The direction of our main attack in 1945, which was conditioned by well-calculated political and political considerations and estimates, led directly to Berlin. Here were concentrated the Soviet army’s main forces. The employment of our forces was scrupulously and thoroughly prepared. Moreover, the offensive operational plans called for our forces’ significant superiority over the enemy in men and materiel throughout the entire offensive, increasing especially at the concluding stage of military operations.

A sufficiently exact knowledge of the opportunities and foreseeing the character of enemy resistance enabled the Soviet command to eliminate all the enemy’s attempts to reclaim the initiative and change the course of the war.

In its work, the Soviet strategic leadership skillfully and widely relied on the experience achieved in the course of preceding campaigns, was highly skilled in the art of controlling the armed forces’ operations, and fully employed the brilliant military gifts of major and minor commanders—the front and army commanders and the commanders of formations, units and subunits. Its worthy assistants were the troop staffs at all levels, which by this time had achieved a high level of troop control.

1Editor’s note. The Stavka of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief ( Stavka Verkhovnogo Glavnokomanduyushchego ) was the highest Soviet military body during the Second World War. It was formed on 23 June 1941.

2The Germans had facing the front 11 infantry divisions, two panzer divisions, two panzer brigades, and two cavalry brigades. Altogether, this amounted to 17 formations. The Third Belorussian Front numbered 40 rifle divisions, two tank corps and five tank brigades. In all, this amounted to 47 formations. However, the strength of the enemy’s infantry divisions significantly exceeded the number of men in our rifle divisions. The combat capabilities of the Soviet tank corps and the Germans’ panzer divisions were approximately the same.

3Editor’s note. Ferenc Salaszi (1897-1946) was the leader of the Iron Cross Party in Hungary, whom the Germans placed in power in late 1944, following the overthrow of Admiral Miklos Horthy’s government, which was trying to arrange a separate peace with the Allied powers. Salaszi’s reign was brief, however, and following the war he was turned over to the new Hungarian authorities and executed.

4This front contained 43 rifle divisions, three tank corps, three mechanized corps, and three cavalry corps.

5Editor’s note. Aleksei Innokent’evich Antonov (1896-1962) served as a junior officer in the Russian imperial army during the First World War. He joined the Red Army in 1918 and took part in the civil war. During the Great Patriotic War he served in various front-line staff assignments, before being appointed chief of the General Staff’s operational directorate in 1942 and deputy chief of staff the following year. Antonov was appointed chief of the General Staff in 1945, although he held that post for less than a year. Following the war, Antonov commanded a military district and served as chief of staff of the Warsaw Pact forces.

6Editor’s note. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (Dzhugashvili) (1879-1953) was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for a quarter century, during which time he established a totalitarian regime equal in its ferocity to Hitler’s, if not worse. During the Great Patriotic War he served as general secretary of the Communist Party, chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, defense commissar, supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and chairman of the State Defense Committee (GKO).

7Editor’s note. Here, Shtemenko refers to the Polish city of Bydgoszcz by its pre-First World War name of Bromberg.

8Editor’s note. Anatolii Alekseevich Gryzlov (1904-74) joined the Red Army in 1923 and completed the General Staff Academy in 1940. During the Great Patriotic War he served in various staff assignments and was later first deputy chief of its operational directorate. Following the war, Gryzlov occupied various staff positions with the troops and within the General Staff apparatus.

9Editor’s note. Nikolai Andreevich Lomov (1899-1990) joined the Red Army in 1919 and fought in the civil war. During the Great Patriotic War he served in various staff positions and was deputy chief of the General Staff’s operational directorate. Following the war, Lomov served in various staff positions and in the General Staff Academy.

10 Tippelskirch, K. Istoriia Vtoroi Mirovoi Voiny . Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel’stvo, 1956, p. 542.

11 Editor’s note. Operation Bagration was the code name for the Red Army’s multi -front offensive operation in Belorussia in the summer of 1944.

12 Editor’s note. Fedor IvanovichTolbukhin (1894-1949) served in the Russian imperial army and joined the Red Army in 1918. During the Great Patriotic War he served as chief of staff with various fronts and commanded a number of armies and fronts , including the Third Ukrainian Front (1944) to the end of the war. Following the war, Tolbukhin commanded the southern group of forces and a military district.

13 Editor’s note. Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovskii (1896-1968) served in the Russian imperial army and joined the Red Army in 1918. Rokossovskii was arrested in 1937, but managed to survive and return to the army in 1940. During the Great Patriotic War he commanded a mechanized corps and an army, as well as several fronts , including the Second Belorussian Front from late 1944. Following the war, Rokossovskii commanded the northern group of Soviet forces and served several years a Polish defense minister. Upon his return to the USSR, he commanded a military district and held posts in the central military apparatus.

14 Editor’s note. Ivan Stepanovich Konev (1897-1973) served in the Russian imperial army and joined the Red Army in 1918, where he originally served as a political commissar, before switching to command responsibilities. During the Great Patriotic War he commanded an army and several fronts , the last being the First Ukrainian Front, from 1944. Following the war, he commanded Soviet occupation forces in Czechoslovakia and Austria and served as commander-in-chief of the Soviet Ground Forces. He later commanded the Warsaw Pact forces and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

15 Editor’s note. Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovskii (1906-45) joined the Red Army in 1924 and served in various command capacities before the war. During the Great Patriotic War he advanced from the command of a division to that of a corps and army, and in 1944 was appointed to command the Third Belorussian Front. He was killed during the East Prussian operation in February 1945.

16 Editor’s note. The Stavka representatives were high-ranking officers who were dispatched to the various fronts , to insure more efficient control from the center. As the war progressed, a number of representatives, such as G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevskii and others coordinated the operations of two or more fronts .

17 Editor’s note. Georgii Konstantinovich Zhukov (1896-1974) served in the Russian imperial army and joined the Red Army in 1918. The forces under his command defeated the Japanese along the Khalkhin-Gol River in Mongolia in 1939. During the Great Patriotic War he served as chief of the General Staff and commanded a number of fronts . In 1942 he was appointed deputy supreme commander-in-chief and also served as a Stavka representative to various fronts . From late 1944 he commanded the First Belorussian Front. Following the war, Zhukov fell afoul of Stalin and was relegated to the command of a number of secondary military districts. Following Stalin’s death, he served as defense minister until his removal in 1957 by party leader Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev.

18 Editor’s note. Georgii Fedorovich Zakharov (1897-1957) served in the Russian imperial army and joined the Red Army in 1919. During the Great Patriotic War he served as a commander, deputy commander and chief of staff of a number of fronts , and also commanded several armies. In 1945 he was appointed deputy commander of the Fourth Ukrainian Front. Following the Great Patriotic War, Zakharov commanded a number of military districts, among other positions.

19 Editor’s note. Aleksandr Mikhailovich Vasilevskii (1895-1977) served in the Russian imperial army and joined the Red Army in 1919. During the Great Patriotic War Vasilevskii served in the General Staff apparatus and was appointed chief of staff in 1942, and in 1945 was made a member of the Stavka of the Supreme High Command. Vasilevskii also served as the Stavka representative to a number of fronts , charged with coordinating their activities. In 1945 he commanded the Third Belorussian Front and was commander-in-chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East, where he supervised the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and Korea. Following the war, Vasilevskii again served as chief of staff and minister of the armed forces.

20 Editor’s note. This remark may be a reference to a recent article by Marshal Vasilii Ivanovich Chuikov (1900-1982). During this time Chuikov served as commander of the 8th Guards Army on the First Belorussian Front. See his Kapitulyatsiya Gitlerovskoi Germanii, Novaya i Noveishaya Istoriya , No. 2 (1965):3-25.

21 Editor’s note. The full text of this message may be found in W.S. Churchill, The Second World War (Boston, 1948-1953), vol. 6:464-466.

22 Editor’s note. Aleksandr Nikolaevich Bogolyubov (1900-56) joined the Red Army in 1918. During the Great Patriotic War he occupied several staff positions at the army and front level and served as chief of staff of the Second Belorussian Front until the end of the war. Following the war, Bogolyubov served in various capacities within the central military apparatus.

23 Editor’s note. Mikhail Sergeevich Malinin (1899-1960) joined the Red Army in 1919. During the Great Patriotic War he served in a variety of staff assignments, including chief of staff of an army and several fronts , including g the First Belorussian Front to the end of the war. Following the war, Malinin continued to serve in staff assignments in the field and the central military apparatus.

24 Editor’s note. Vasilii Danilovich Sokolovskii (1897-1968) joined the Red Army in 1918. During the Great Patriotic War he served in a variety of front staff positions and also commanded a front . During this period he served as chief of staff of the First Ukrainian Front. Following the war, Sokolovskii served as deputy commander and commander of the group of Soviet forces in Germany and the Soviet military administration in that country. He later served as chief of the General Staff.

25 Editor’s note. Ivan Yefimovich Petrov (1896-1958) joined the Red Army in 1918. During the Great Patriotic War he commanded a division and a corps, as well as a number of armies and fronts . He was appointed commander of the Fourth Ukrainian Front in 1944, but was relegated to the position of chief of staff the following year. Following the war, Petrov held a number of field and central administrative assignments.

26 Editor’s note. Aleksandr Vasil’evich Gorbatov (1891-1973) joined the Red Army in 1919. He was arrested in 1937 during Stalin’s military purge, but survived