By midappril 1945, the outcome of the war in Europe was no longer in doubt.

On the Italian front, the Western Allies were advancing north through Italy.

And in the West, American, British, and Canadian forces had crossed the Rine and were about to annihilate the Rar Pocket and advance beyond the Ela River.

Despite the inevitability of the end, Hitler clung to hope, directing his last reserves to the east in vain in an attempt to stop the Soviet advance that threatened to destroy his weakened Third Reich.

Today, we will see in color real images of this battle that defined the fate of the world.

You will also hear unprecedented testimonies from the combatants inside the ruined city.

Get ready.

This was the situation in Berlin in April 1945.

Morale was at an all-time low.

Most people suffered from malnutrition and lack of hygiene.

And except for the most fanatical Nazis, few still believed in the promise of a final victory.

Even so, every effort was made to convince the men that the long- awaited Vundervafen wonder weapons would still change the course of the war and that peace negotiations with the Western Allies would soon bear fruit.

But if these motivations were only marginally effective, the widespread fear of Soviet revenge and barbarity caused even the most cynical to continue fighting.

1944 was nothing short of a disaster for the Germans on the Eastern Front.

After the annihilation of Army Group Center, the seemingly unstoppable Red Army had pursued the Germans to the gates of Warsaw.

Reluctant to admit defeat, Hitler made the crucial decision to launch his last armored reserves to relieve the city’s defenders and secure the Hungarian oil fields.

What he didn’t know was that this was exactly what the Soviet high command, better known as the general staff, was hoping for.

It was then on April 16th that the Soviets launched Operation Berlin, their plan to cross the Odor and Nisa rivers, encircle and capture the capital of the Third Reich.

An astonishing number of 2.

5 million men and 6,000 tanks supported by powerful artillery and aviation would begin this attack westward.

organized into three fronts or army groups.

The two most important Soviet formations were the first Bellarussian front under the command of Marshall Georgie Zhukov and the first Ukrainian front led by Marshall Ivan Konv.

Both would compete in the coming weeks for the honor of capturing Germany’s largest city, the target Stalin had chosen as the symbol of Nazi Germany’s defeat.

The defenders, on the other hand, were in a desperate situation.

Vastly outnumbered in both troops and equipment, they were forced to rely on nature to reinforce their unstable defenses.

Entrenched along the Odor Nisa River line, they could still gather about 1 million men, though of varied quality, and with very limited weaponry and artillery.

The main focus for both sides would be the heart of these German defenses approximately 60 km east of Berlin, the CEO heights.

Situated directly in the path of Zhukov’s first Bellarussian front, these hills were the scene of intense combat for more than 4 days, costing the attackers dearly with around 66,000 Soviet soldiers killed in the capture of the area.

However, the hills were taken and on April 21st, the road to Berlin was open with Soviet tanks rapidly advancing to encircle the city.

In order to make the invaders bleed for every inch of German soil, the Vermacht built a series of well-entrenched defensive lines blocking the way to Berlin.

Maneuvering within these positions were the remnants of Army Group Vistula and the fourth Panzer Army, as well as the Berlin garrison.

Combined, this force consisted of 750,000 German soldiers supported by 1,519 tanks and assault guns, 9,33 guns and mortars and 2,200 aircraft.

However, these numbers looked more impressive on paper than they were in reality, as nearly all their formations were below necessary strength.

Although many units were commanded by hardened veterans from the Eastern Front, their ranks were often composed of a mix of wounded, unfit, and inexperienced soldiers and even boys from the Hitler youth.

Furthermore, about 60,000 of the defenders came from poorly trained and poorly armed Volkterm militia battalions.

The infantry also could not rely much on their armored and air assets as the Germans lacked the fuel reserves to keep their considerable fighting vehicle fleet operational for any extended period.

To the south, Konv’s first Ukrainian front faced less resistance.

Initially, the plan was to bypass Berlin to the south, but due to Zhukov’s difficulties at CEO, Stalin ordered KV to advance directly into the city from the southeast.

A few days later, on April 25th, Soviet forces met and the city was finally encircled by around 1.

5 million troops, marking the beginning of the siege of Berlin.

Inside the siege, the situation was chaotic, swollen with refugees and bombed incessantly by Allied aviation for years.

Berlin was a shadow of its former splendor.

The days of triumphant parades along Uten Lyndon and through the Brandenburg gate were long gone.

About 2.

5 million civilians living mainly in underground conditions found themselves trapped in a city desperately lacking supplies and under constant artillery bombardment.

With the remnants of the Nazi leadership fully engaged in preparing improvised defenses, the city’s population was left to fend for itself.

Berlin was quickly divided into different defensive zones with zone Z or the central zone forming the last bastion around the heart of the city center.

These defenses, though impressive on paper, were largely lastminute improvised attempts to delay the enemy and rarely succeeded.

Trams filled with rubble and anti-tank ditches were at best minor obstacles for the overwhelming forces descending upon the city.

The soldiers manning these defenses in many cases did not represent a real threat.

Left to defend the city was a mix of elderly men and boys.

Along with a few capable veteran units that were often under strength and exhausted after months of fighting.

However, Berlin was not an easy target to take, not even for a numerically superior force.

The city was crisscrossed by canals and waterways connected by bridges as well as wide streets surrounded by tall buildings with many windows.

True death traps for tanks advancing without infantry support.

The Soviets, however, were already accustomed to urban combat at this stage of the war.

Their main tactic for eliminating resilient defenses was based on firepower.

Heavy artillery such as the 203 mm howitzer was used in the open to destroy buildings before infantry and tanks would saturate the area with high explosive grenades and machine gun fire.

Street by street, house by house, the Soviets advanced toward zone Z.

In the early morning of April 30th, the situation looked something like this.

Soviet troops had crossed the Malta Bridge and now occupied most of the interior ministry and the diplomatic district.

Beyond the formidable water barrier restricting the Soviet advance, trench lines along with three powerful 88 mm guns protected the front of the building along with countless machine guns and firing positions in the fortified and sandbagged windows of the Reichto.

Any Soviet assault would have to face a storm of fire before reaching the main building.

One of the men preparing to take part in the inevitable attack was Vladimir Perverse, who wrote a letter to his wife on the eve of the assault from the ground floor of the interior ministry.

Up until now, I am alive and healthy, just a little drunk all the time, but that is necessary to keep up the courage.

I am only 500 m from the Reichto.

You wrote that part of the kitchen ceiling collapsed, but that is nothing.

A six-story building collapsed on top of us, and we had to dig our boys out.

That’s how we live and defeat the Germans.

Vladimir Perzv, short pause.

Strangely, Zhukov’s men, decimated, had made little progress by the end of the first day, and it would take another 3 days and many dead before his forces finally broke through the last line of defense.

Naturally, he was furious.

But he could rest easy in the fact that Konv’s front to the south had been more successful.

By the end of April 18th, his armored divisions had crossed the Spree River and were racing toward Berlin.

Without reinforcements and sufficient ammunition, the surviving defenders in both sectors were forced into a hasty retreat.

With the German defensive lines in the south and center broken, and with vital troops still fighting in the north, the path to Berlin was open.

The lack of supplies to continue fighting caused German morale to visibly begin to collapse.

Thousands of encircled men surrendered while masses of fleeing soldiers, deserters, and refugees headed toward the doomed city.

Meanwhile, a more and more delusional Hitler continued to demand fanatical resistance to the end.

On April 20th, the Furer’s birthday was abruptly interrupted by Soviet artillery shelling in the northeastern suburbs of Berlin as its citizens fled into basement.

The armored divisions of Jukov and Kaf began a frantic race to the outskirts of the city.

In the meantime, many high-ranking members of the Nazi party participated in a similar competition to be the first to obtain permission to flee the city.

Inside the Reichto, a garrison of about 300 men made up most of the defenses.

Knowing that only death awaited them, most were prepared to sell their lives dearly.

However, this was not true for all the German defenders nearby.

The young recruit Gunter Debsky who had been assigned to a penal battalion after attempting to desert a few weeks earlier was near the Reichto on April 30th.

Gunter Debsky reports we were ordered to defend the south side of the Reichto.

The Russians were not supposed to take it.

There was an SS unit inside the Reichto and we were on the south side.

Then the commanding officer told us, “I have received an order to send a negotiation party to the Russians on the other side of the Reichto.

” “My god,” I thought he was an idiot.

He told me to take off my undershirt, tie it to a broomstick, and go with Podgorski.

Luckily for Debsky, the officer was mortally wounded moments later, and he along with Podgorski considered the order invalid and retreated out of sight.

With the Soviets breaking into the city, General Widling was appointed commander of the Berlin defense area.

However, when Vidling took command, only about 45,000 Vermacht and SS soldiers, just over 40,000 folks men and 60 fuel starved tanks remained to defend the city against about 1.

5 million Soviet troops.

Not surprisingly, Zhukov’s forces managed to push the defenders out of the eastern and southeastern suburbs by the end of the 23rd, while other fronts tightened their grip on the city’s flanks.

With inevitable defeat approaching, many of the defenders began to drop their weapons.

Others, however, continued to resist fanatically.

At Templehof airport, a mixed group of German defenders led by the SS, including about 100 boys from the Hitler Youth, wre havoc on Soviet tanks and infantry, who had to resort to massive air and artillery bombardments to finally capture the airport a day later.

With Soviet troops converging on his bunker complex, the embittered furer knew the end of the line had come.

After giving Vidling permission to attempt a lastminute breakout, the Furer said goodbye to his remaining staff, poisoned his dog, Blondie, and retired to his office to commit suicide along with his newlywed wife, Ava Brown.

But Hitler’s death did not immediately end the fighting.

The new chancellor, Yseph Gerbles, rejected Stalin’s demand for an unconditional surrender of the garrison, which led the Red Army to bombard the remaining German positions until the defense was reduced to mere isolated pockets, with Gerbles’s subsequent suicide being announced that night.

The door to peace in Berlin could finally be opened.

At 6:00 a.

m.

on May 2nd, General Vidling officially ordered his remaining men to surrender.

When the guns finally fell silent that afternoon, a strange silence descended over the city of which Trov later wrote, “The flame of the Second World War was extinguished there, where it once arose.

” Although the fighting in Europe continued until Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 8th, the war reached its climax in the Battle of Berlin.

The capture of the German capital cost the Red Army around 78,000 men killed in action and over 274,000 wounded.

In return, the Germans lost between 90,000 to 100,000 men killed in action in addition to at least another 200,000 wounded during the march into Germany.

During its offensive in Germany, the Vengeful Red Army left a trail of looting and destruction.

It is estimated that between 95,000 to 130,000 women in Berlin were raped, of which 10,000 would later commit suicide.

When the last shots were fired at the Reichto, all defenders of Berlin were emerging from basement and buildings in a destroyed and dustfilled city, surrendering to the waiting victors.

Let’s go up to the roof of the Reichto to explore one last iconic photograph.

Taken by Russian photographer Yevgani Kalde, perhaps the most well-known photograph of the entire Second World War.

This image, despite its fame, is obviously staged.

And although it shows a red flag waving over the ruins of Berlin, it was taken probably on May 2nd, sometime after the first flags had already been raised on the building.

As an interesting detail, it was later edited to remove one of the two watches worn by the man in the photo.

A small but important detail that alludes to looting and much darker episodes that would take place in the city in the days that followed.

A story perhaps for another day.

For both sides, the cost of the fighting for Berlin was incredibly heavy.

Numbers vary, but it is believed that 80,000 to 100,000 Soviet soldiers and 100,000 Germans died in the fighting along with perhaps as many as 20,000 civilians.

In the days that followed the first scenes of battle, the destruction that had been caused would be shown to the world.

The Reichtag, still the center of attention, became a sort of mecca for Soviet soldiers in Berlin, many of whom marked their visit by scratching and carving their names into the walls of the building.

This was still present when the first Western journalists arrived in the city to document the battle that ultimately brought an end to Nazi Germany.

Thank you very much for your audience.

May God bless you all a big hug and see you soon.