LAST DAYS
25 By April, Berlin was completely surrounded by Soviet troops, which met with the American army coming from the west. The suburbs of Dahlem fell prey to the Russians within two days, Spandau. Neukolln i Gatow. and the telephone network in the city stopped working. 27 On April, the Third Panzer Army was completely crushed; there, who survived, they fled west, leaving Berlin's north side undefended. Despite the obvious hopelessness of the situation, the Nazi command fanatically refused to surrender. Does not matter, that much of Berlin's defense system only existed on paper, that the troops were decimated and poorly armed, that there was a shortage of fuel and ammunition. As the Red Army's ring tightened. Gobbels hysterically called for a "rucksichtsloser Bekamplung - a fight without shelter - and the SS firing squads worked tirelessly killing soldiers.", members of the Volkssturm and the Hitler Youth, who refused to fight.
In the city, the situation was getting more and more desperate. The civilian population lived underground in cellars and air raid shelters, searching for food in the rare moments of fading fading. Engineers blew up the canals, flooding the subway, to prevent the Russians from advancing deep into the city through its tunnels. Hundreds of civilians taking refuge in the tunnels of the cable car were killed as a result. 27 April, the Ninth Army attempting to break out of the siege to the south was killed, and the territory of free Berlin was reduced to an east-west band of fifteen kilometers, and five kilometers from north to south. Then the Russians occupied Tiergarten and there was only one center of resistance left. government District. where the fight was focused on the Reichstag and Hitler's Chancellery and Potsdamer Platz, just a few hundred meters from the Fuhrerbunker now under constant fire.
Hitler still harbored hope, that one of his ghostly armies would come to Berlin's aid, but 28 April, his optimism evaporated at the news, that Himmler asked for unconditional surrender to the Western Allies. The next day, early in the morning, he married Ewa Braun, hosted a modest champagne wedding reception and dictated his will. As the day passed, the fighting around the Nazi enclave intensified. At a recent conference, Berlin commandant General Weidling stated, that the Russians were at the nearby Hotel Adlon, and that there was no more chance for reinforcements to arrive.
An escape plan has been put forward, but Hitler declared, that she is staying. In the afternoon 30 April, after checking the effect of cyanide on the dog Fuhrer. Hitler and Ewa Braun committed suicide. Their bodies were taken to the courtyard of the Chancellery and poured on 200 liters of gasoline; Hitler's bodyguards gave the honors, when the bodies were burned to ashes. Meanwhile, the Soviet army fought to capture the Reichstag and Fr. 23.00 two Russian sergeants hung a red flag from the building.
In accordance with Hitler's will, Admiral Donitz was appointed Chancellor in absentia. Early morning 1 On May, Chief of Staff Krebs was sent to negotiate with the Russians. After a hasty consultation with Stalin, General Chuikov replied, that only unconditional surrender is acceptable. Once Krebs returned to the bunker, Gobbels rejected this offer and ordered the fighting to continue. That night he and his wife took their own lives, having first poisoned their children. The rest of the bunker inhabitants, except for Krebs and General Burgdorf - Hitler's Aide-de-Camp, who committed suicide - she decided to try to escape. Weilding agreed to postpone the surrender until morning. to give them a chance to escape from the bunker towards North Berlin through the train tunnels. Of the eight hundred fugitives, only a hundred managed to get out, the rest were killed or captured. There is no certainty about the fate of Hitler's deputy Martin Bormann.
CAPITULATION
0 5.00 Weidling reported Berlin's surrender to General Chuikov, who announced the fact through vans loudspeakers all over town. O 15.00 the fire ceased in the city center, though occasional fighting continued in the suburbs, where German troops tried to break west, to surrender to the British or the Americans, and not Rosjan. Their fears turned out to be well-founded, because the Soviets launched a three-day orgy of rape and looting in the capital. It was Stalin's award to the army for such a hard and persistent fight.
The official surrender of the German armed forces took place at the Wehrmacht engineering school in the suburbs of Karlshorst 8 house 1945 year. Wehrmacht troops in the west laid down their arms the day before, but British envoys, the French and the Americans flew to Berlin with the Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, General Keitel, to repeat this ceremony in the presence of the Russians. The Berliners have already left their shelters and have started removing bodies and debris from the streets. The Red Army established field kitchens.
After signing the act of unconditional surrender, the only thing left to do was to count the costs of the Battle of Berlin. It was killed 125.000 Berliners (including 6400 committed suicide a 22.000 died of heart attacks) and countless soldiers in 93 divisions killed by the Red Army. The Soviets themselves lost some in the battle 305.000 soldiers, and the city was ruined and practically ceased to function.