From: matus (matus@snet.net)
Date: Fri Mar 28 2003 - 09:56:40 MST
"Christian Weisgerber" <naddy@mips.inka.de>
> No, Berlin eventually surrendered.
"I can’t imagine a more determined defense of their capital city than the
Germans put up in Berlin, it was one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
The Soviets had to fight quite literally for every foot they took toward the
center of the city and the fighting didn’t stop until they were about 100
yards from the German leader who decided, quite sensibly, that at that point
the wisest thing for him to do is put a bullet in his brain."
I would note also that the Soviet forces advance on Berlin was extremely
poorly handled strategically. Stalin presented an insane push to get the
troops to Berlin as fast as possible, and went so far to generate a rivalry
between the two generals advancing on Berlin, one from the South and one
from the North, each one knowing they would be recieved as national heroes
if they were the first to reach Berlin. The Germans were equally insistent
on fighting the Soviet's off because they knew the retribution they would
receive from the soviets would far exceed those received from the Americans,
specifically because of the attrocious battle of Stalingrad, were some 10
million soviets were killed. The general advancing from the west unleashed
a tremendous artillery barrage on what he thought was the German front line
defense, unfortunately one of his own soldiers had been captured by the
Germans and informed them of the Soviet offensive the next day, the Germans
promptly moved thier defense line back out of the way of the barrage. That
intense shelling then created a difficult to pass terrain for the Soviet
tanks. The soviet tanks advanced through Berlin without securing areas and
recieved a large amount of anti-tank fire from buildings all around them.
The losses were extremely heavy, and much more than was necessary.
Historical analysts believe that Stalin was pushing so hard on Berlin, at
the cost of millions of troops, because he wanted to get there before the
Americans did. That he wanted to do because he had information of a
facility that was researching fission weapons inside of Berlin, and Stalin
wanted that information before the Americans.
Needles to say, no such hasty push is likely with the US advancing on
Baghdad, so I dont think allied forces advancing on Berlin will result in
similiar causalties levels.
Michael Dickey
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