The Red Army Surrounds Berlin

Summary

Dan Snow's History Hit: "The Red Army Surrounds Berlin"

Episode Release Date: April 10, 2025
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Professor Evan Maudsley, Professor of International History at the University of Glasgow

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Introduction

In the episode titled "The Red Army Surrounds Berlin," historian Dan Snow delves into the Eastern Front of World War II, a narrative often overshadowed by Western perspectives like D-Day. With guest Professor Evan Maudsley, the discussion examines the monumental Soviet offensives that ultimately led to the fall of Berlin, exploring strategic decisions, military operations, and their profound implications.

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Operation Bagration and Its Impact ([04:05] - [05:22])

Professor Maudsley begins by highlighting Operation Bagration, launched in June 1944, as a pivotal Soviet offensive that decimated the German Army Group Center. This operation is described as one of the largest and most devastating defeats for the German army, effectively driving them out of Soviet territory.

“Bagration is the starting point ... the Germans are rolling back.”
— Evan Maudsley [04:22]

Maudsley emphasizes that Operation Bagration wasn't just a continuous push toward Berlin but marked the moment when the Germans faced irreparable losses, leading to a prolonged and complex retreat.

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German and Soviet Strategies ([05:22] - [10:31])

Dan Snow probes whether the German retreat was due to inherent weaknesses or the Soviet rise in military prowess. Maudsley explains that post-Bagration, the Soviets had a significant advantage in numbers, experience, and material strength. He notes the German forces’ ability to retreat to the Vistula River in Poland, suggesting a temporary stabilization.

“It's really a monumental defeat... it's not as simple as that.”
— Evan Maudsley [04:22]

Maudsley further discusses the strategic halt ordered by Stalin in August 1944, where Soviet forces paused to consolidate their positions, affecting the momentum toward Berlin.

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The Road to Berlin ([10:31] - [15:44])

As winter 1944 approached, Germany attempted to establish a defensible line along the Vistula River. Maudsley explains that while this seemed feasible, simultaneous Allied advances in Western Europe stretched German resources thin.

He outlines the Soviet plans to capture Berlin, detailing the creation of a formidable striking force under Stalin’s command, including Marshals Zhukov, Rokossovsky, and Konev. The initial plan was to launch an offensive in January 1945, aiming to seize Berlin before the onset of the Rasputitsa (rainy season).

“Stalin takes direct control of that operation...”
— Evan Maudsley [12:20]

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Hitler's Final Offensives ([15:44] - [22:35])

Contrary to the Western narrative of the Battle of the Bulge being Hitler’s final stand, Maudsley reveals a significant Eastern offensive in March 1945. The 6th SS Panzer Army launched an attack in Hungary, aiming to defend Vienna—Hitler's beloved city.

Maudsley discusses how this diversion weakened the German defenses around Berlin, contributing indirectly to the city's fall.

“...it really doesn't work. The Russians are much strong.”
— Evan Maudsley [18:06]

He draws parallels between Hitler’s strategic miscalculations in 1941 and 1945, highlighting the recurring theme of overextension and misallocation of forces.

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The Fall of Berlin ([22:35] - [31:51])

Professor Maudsley details the renewed Soviet offensive in March 1945, spurred by concerns that Allied forces might reach Berlin first. Stalin convened a conference in Moscow, leading to a concentrated attack plan involving multiple army groups aimed at encircling Berlin.

The offensive commenced on April 16, 1945. Initially encountering heavy resistance, Soviet forces adjusted their tactics, successfully surrounding Berlin by late April. The chaotic situation within the city rendered German resistance ineffective, leading to Berlin’s inevitable fall.

“Most of the fighting doesn't take place in Berlin... it takes place as Red army troops encircle Berlin.”
— Evan Maudsley [27:02]

Maudsley contrasts the high casualties in East Prussia with the relatively lighter losses in the west, underscoring the differing intensities of engagements across fronts.

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Aftermath and Liberation ([31:51] - [35:04])

The episode concludes with reflections on the Soviet occupation of Berlin and Eastern Europe. Maudsley discusses the complex legacy of Soviet liberation, acknowledging both the role of the Red Army in defeating Nazi Germany and the subsequent Soviet dominance over Eastern Europe.

He notes that while some populations saw the Soviet forces as liberators from fascism, others resented the new form of oppression that followed, laying the groundwork for future Cold War tensions.

“Stalin knew that ... had to place confidence on being treated better by the Americans or the British.”
— Evan Maudsley [29:43]

Maudsley also touches on the lasting impact of Soviet actions during and after the war, including atrocities committed by Soviet troops, which complicate the narrative of liberation.

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Conclusion

Dan Snow wraps up the episode by thanking Professor Maudsley for his insightful analysis of the Eastern Front's decisive battles leading to Berlin's fall. He teases the next episode, which promises an in-depth look at the fierce urban combat within Berlin itself.

“Thank you very much to Professor Evan Morsley for that brilliant overview.”
— Dan Snow [35:04]

The episode offers a comprehensive examination of the Soviet strategies and German challenges on the Eastern Front, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of the complexities that culminated in the fall of Berlin during World War II.

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Key Takeaways

• Operation Bagration was a turning point in the Eastern Front, causing irreparable damage to the German Army Group Center.
• Soviet military superiority in numbers, experience, and material played a crucial role in the German retreats.
• Strategic decisions by both Stalin and Hitler, including offensives in Hungary, significantly impacted the war's outcome.
• The fall of Berlin was not just a result of direct attacks but also influenced by diversionary tactics and broader strategic maneuvers.
• Post-war Soviet occupation had a lasting and complex legacy in Eastern Europe, intertwining liberation with new forms of control.

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Notable Quotes

"Bagration is the starting point ... the Germans are rolling back."
— Evan Maudsley [04:22]

"Stalin takes direct control of that operation..."
— Evan Maudsley [12:20]

"Most of the fighting doesn't take place in Berlin... it takes place as Red army troops encircle Berlin."
— Evan Maudsley [27:02]

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This episode of Dan Snow's History Hit provides an in-depth exploration of the Soviet advances toward Berlin, offering listeners a detailed perspective on one of history's most significant military campaigns.

Transcript

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[Holly Fry]

Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dan Snow]

Hi everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's History in the West. We often talk and share stories about the British, the Canadian, the American liberation of Western Europe. But in the east of the continent, and to the Russians in particular, that story of liberation is told very differently indeed in the east. June 1944 is not primarily linked in people's minds with D Day. It's remembered as being the start of one of the most enormous military offensives in history. The Soviet Operation Bagration would rip German army groups to pieces. It would inflict the greatest defeat on the German army in its history. Bagration swept German arms off Soviet soil and as you know, Stalin wasn't prepared to stop there. The sequel was hardly less intense, and on this podcast I'm going to look at the winter and the spring of 1945. Eighty years on from those events, this is the story of how the Soviets ground their way towards Berlin and how Hitler launched one last offensive, forgotten in the west but telling because it was an offensive not to protect Berlin, but Vienna. Showing in the last days of his life his true loyalties to the city where he'd once lived, where he'd come of age as a young man. To help me with this job, I've got Evan Maudsley. He was the professor of International History at the University of Glasgow. He's written many books, including Thunder in the the Nazi Soviet War, 1941-45. And most recent book is Supremacy at Sea, all about victory in the Central Pacific. It's coming out in paperback in May. Please check it out. This is another episode in our D Day to Berlin series when we chart the course of the final months of the Second World War. We've got more episodes coming up, but we're getting very, very close indeed to the Fuhrer's capital of Berlin. Here's Evan Morsley. Tell us how it happened. Enjoy.

[Evan Maudsley]

T minus 10 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. God save the King. No black white unity till there is first some black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Evan, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Can you give me a sense of just how monumental the catastrophe that overcame the German army on the Eastern Front was in the sort of second half of 1944 from the launch of Operation Bagration?

[Evan Maudsley]

Yeah, thank you very much for inviting me to take part. Bagration is the starting point, I think, and it's good to sort of think about that going through to Berlin. What actually happens there is this huge hole is blown in the German army with the destruction of Army Group Center. Suddenly, really, things do completely collapse, and it's the length of the retreat that enables the army to hold together until they fall back to the Vistula. So it's really a monumental defeat. I think I would stress is that we often see it as a. Well, there's a kind of arc which goes from Bagration to Berlin. It's kind of continuous steamroller process. And the point I'd like to make really now is to say, well, it's not as simple as that, but it's 11 months between June 1944 and Operation Bagration and May 1945, the fall of Berlin. Quite a complicated process before it actually gets to that stage. So Bagration is certainly the key point because the Germans are rolling back.

[Dan Snow]

Well, let's talk about that complicated process, I guess. First of all, though, is this just a sign that the Germans are fundamentally broken, or have the Soviets just come on so much in their fighting ability and their material advantages? Why is this last year of the war a story of pretty uniform German Retreats rather than the see soaring on the Eastern Front that perhaps you see earlier in the war.

[Evan Maudsley]

I think in a way there's no turning back after Bagration. The thing about Bagration, by the way, which one might stress, is that it's the point at which the Germans are kicked out of Russia. Until that stage, until June 1944, the Germans are still fighting inside Russia. So that suddenly changes. It's true that the Red army by that time is really formidable in terms of numbers and in terms of experience. There's a kind of Darwinian event going on where the incompetent officers and commanders have been weeded out and they've been replaced by much more capable people who are experienced with the war. But also in material terms the Red army is so much stronger. But there is a stage in which this is a to and fro. And what's going to happen after Belgrachion is that the Germans can fall back basically to the Vistula river in the middle of Warsaw. And there they can hold. They give up a lot of ground, they have to leave Russia, they lose the battle in Belorussia, but they fall back across eastern Poland and they're able to hold on in Warsaw and on the Vistula. So to that extent they are able to recover. And that's quite important. I suppose there is a to and a fro because as you go forward you run out of supplies and so on, you run out of lines of communication. And that's happening to the Russians as well. They've advanced several hundred miles from Belarusia to the Westula and then they're kind of stuck. And that's a problem for them. The other thing that happens to them is that a lot of opportunities suddenly open up once they reach Poland from.

[Dan Snow]

The German point of view. So at the onset of winter 1944, dare they dream that perhaps they finally found a line perhaps on the Vistula river that they can hold? They think perhaps having Germany at their troops backs might put some fight into them. Is there any sense that the Germans think this is a seriously defensible position?

[Evan Maudsley]

I think that is the case. It wasn't as dark as it might have seemed. Of course, what's happening at the same time is the Allies are advancing through France and then into Belgium and the Netherlands. So it's a two front war in a way that it hasn't been before. So I suppose it might have seemed possible to have held East Prussia, to have held southern Poland, to have held Warsaw on the Vistula for some period of time. That Wasn't something that they were getting desperate about. And in fact, the point to bear in mind, Dan, is that what happens after they get to the Vistula is that they stop, the Russians stop. And in August, Stalin actually calls a halt. He says that everyone is going to be on a strict defensive for a period of time while we consolidate our position and do other things. Other things involves going south into Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. But the drive directly west to Berlin comes to an end at that stage and it doesn't pick up again until January of 1945 when the Russians launched the Vistula Oda operation. So yes, I think the Germans could have been reasonably, it isn't as dark to them as it actually became.

[Dan Snow]

With our Western bias. We talk about D Day, the battle for Normandy a lot. How do the losses, how do the blows inflicted upon the Wehrmacht, upon Nazi Germany compare in the east and the West? In this summer and Autumn fall of 1944, is it possible to ask who was taking more of a toll on the German forces?

[Evan Maudsley]

Well, it was certainly the case that the Russians were taking a bigger toll on the German forces than the Western Allies were. In terms of casualties on the Allied side, they are much higher on the Eastern Front. I think it's important to bear in mind that there are parallels between the Eastern Front and the Western Front because the invasion of Normandy in June coincides with the catastrophe of Operation Bagration. Much more costly for the Germans than Normandy is. Normandy doesn't last. I'm not in any way trying trivialize what happened in Normandy. It's one of the most important campaigns of the war and it is a kind of war winning campaign. But in terms of losses, Russian losses in the east are in the hundreds of thousands. Allied losses in Normandy are in the tens of thousands. And that's, I think, probably similar to what the German losses are. One difference is that a very large number of German divisions are destroyed in Belarusia. Either they're trapped in a huge encirclement or they break up as they're retreating. Whereas the Germans are able to pull back out of France eventually and to move back towards the Netherlands and Belgium just to slow things down and to hope to get a line on the German border. So if you try to compare the two, it's substantially worse in Russia for the Germans than it is in the West.

[Dan Snow]

When does Berlin become a sort of realistic target? I mean, when does Stalin think, right, we're going to push west and this time we're going to hit the capital of the Third Reich? Is it not Till after Christmas in the beginning of 1945, they are still.

[Evan Maudsley]

Stuck on the Vistula. So it's not an immediate thing that they can do. But in October and November of 1944, the Russian High command, the so called Stavka, begins laying out a plan for a Berlin operation. And they are thinking of an operation which is going to take place early in 1945. This would involve the kind of central armies of the Russian forces. Stalin takes direct control of that operation. This being planned, this drive to Berlin, which has always been a central feature of Russian planning and also Russian propaganda, is something that Stalin wants to take direct responsibility for. And so Stalin and the Stavka create this striking force of the three most strongest formations within the Red Army. Three army groups. The army groups are called in Russia Fronts. Fronte creates three army groups under Stalin's overall command. Stalin's in Moscow. He does everything by telegraph or teleprinter. He doesn't go out to the front lines, but he's certainly overseeing things. And the core figure in this is Marshal Zhukov, who's the commander of the 1st Belarusian Army Group with two other marshals, Marshal Rokossovsky and Marshal Konev. So on his northern and southern flanks, this is a striking force which is being aimed at Berlin. The operation as planned is supposed to begin in January and it's supposed to last about seven or eight weeks. With a two stage operation, it will end in February with the capture of Berlin before the beginning of the kind of rainy season, what's called Russian's called Rasputitsa. You have kind of spring thaw when movement is much more difficult than it was in the winter or in the summer. And that's how the plans laid out.

[Dan Snow]

So what goes wrong, if you like, with Stalin's plan? Why is there not a hammer and sickle flying over Berlin by February?

[Evan Maudsley]

That's kind of the $64,000 question. There are a range of things that happen which interfere with things. One of them is that inevitably the German resistance is quite heavy, which slows things down. In fact, Zhukov is actually really more successful than I think he'd originally expected, because within a matter of weeks he's actually on the Oder river, which is maybe about 40 miles to the east of Berlin. But unfortunately that's where he stops. He can't get beyond that. So you get this position at the beginning of February where the Russians are really very close to Berlin, but they're unable to push forward to do that. And the explanation for that, I mean, there are several Explanations, but I think the one that probably is most important is that they get sidetracked, the Russians get sidetracked into operations in East Prussia without getting into the complications of geography. But basically, if you imagine there's a kind of central thrust which Zhukov is leading, which is going towards Berlin, and he's got an army under Rokossovsky to the north and another one on the Konev to the south. The problem is that Stalin also wants to take East Prussia as well as Berlin. East Prussia is quite important to Stalin for other reasons. It's the most dangerous place in Germany as far as a threat to Russia is concerned. That was true both in 1941 and in 1914. And since the beginning of the war, Stalin has been insisting the beginning of 1941. From that point on, Stalin has always said that East Prussia has to be detached from Germany, Germany, and it's got to be under some form of Russian control. Now that's still the case under the ussr, under the Russian Federation. Konigsberg, the center of East Prussia. Kaliningrad is a Russian city. It's under Russian control. So that's also a priority for Stalin. And also if you look at the kind of the layout, East Prussia is perched on the flank of the Russian army trying to move to Berlin. So there's always a danger that the forces in East Prussia will push down and cut the kind of spearheads of the Red army off as they try to get to Berlin. So from Stalin's point of view, it's important to take East Prussia and to defeat that threat and also to achieve the kind of diplomatic situation that he wants where he can control East Prussia after the war. So the need to divert troops to do that, basically Rokossovsky, rather than going along the right flank of Zhukov, turns 90 degrees off the path to the west and drives north to the Baltic to cut off East Prussia. And it's the loss of that force which takes a real push up of the drive to Berlin in February. That's why on the order, Zhukov is forced to stop.

[Dan Snow]

There's a pause, a strange echo of Hitler's decision to attack north and south during the original Operation Barbarossa into the Soviet Union. Interesting stuff.

[Evan Maudsley]

It's also like what happened to the Russians in 1920 when they attacked Poland. The battle on the Vistula then was also being caught on the flanks by surprise. That was probably also in Stalin's mind. He was being cautious. Although they were going to win the war, they wanted to do it reasonably quickly and without embarrassment. So there was the danger. But yes, I think there is a parallel with a war on this kind of huge scale, both in 1945 and also, as you suggest, in 1941.

[Dan Snow]

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[Holly Fry]

Our skin tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Dan Snow]

Again, in the west we can be a little bit naughty talking about the Battle of the Bulge as Hitler's last offensive, but I learned that there was an offensive on the Eastern front as well, and it strikes me in a slightly odd direction. Tell me about Hitler's decision making in the spring of 1945 with our kind.

[Evan Maudsley]

Of Western view of what's happening in the war. And this is certainly true of the Americans. The view, I think, is that the Battle of the Bulge is The last gasp of the German army in December of 1944. But in fact, the last gasp of the German army was in March 1945, when some of the same forces that took part in the Battle of the Bulge also took part in an attack in Hungary. The 6th SS Panzer army is kind of one of the elite forces of the German army. And having pulled back from the Battle of the Bulge, it was then thrown into Hungary and took part in the battle there. Basically, the Russians kind of hoped that Hungary would change sides. Hungary was on the German side during the war, hoped that the Hungarians, like the Italians, would give in and that they could make progress on the southern part of the Eastern Front. But that didn't happen because the Hungarian government held together under Hitler, although it was overthrown by a more pro fascist government. But in any event, there's a long campaign in Hungary which nobody knows about, which is nevertheless very important, which goes on from October until maybe February 1945. And latterly, that campaign is about Budapest. One of the odd things about the war on the Eastern Front is there aren't many battles in cities. Stalingrad is an exception to that, and Berlin will be an exception later. But Budapest is one of the few places where there's a long battle inside the city between the Russians and the Germans and Hungarians. And that battle is one which eventually is resolved in February 1945 when Budapest is captured by the Russians. But it's kind of like Warsaw on the Vistula, Budapest on the Danube is also a key to the whole transport system of Hungary, just as Warsaw in Poland was the center of the whole transport system of Poland and Central Europe. So for Hitler, it's quite important that he can counterattack and once again get control of Budapest. Hitler is a southerner. I think one should not lose track of that. We often blame the Third Reich on Prussian militarism. But Hitler was an Austrian and he was very much a South German. So his heart wasn't really in fighting a battle in the north. I mean, he didn't really care a great deal about aspects of Prussia, but he did care a lot about Austria and he did care a lot about Vienna. So the point about the loss of Budapest was that the next step for the Red army would be advancing on and getting to Vienna, which is a place that Hitler really valued. What he did was he launched this final attack to counterattack to get back, to reconquer Vienna and get into a stronger position there. There are other reasons for that as well. One is that Hungary is one of the last remaining German Sources of oil. There are oil wells in Hungary, and so that was important, and so he was keen to do that. So what he does is he launches an attack from the west back towards Hungary. There's a big lake in, in western Hungary called Lake Balaton. Lake Balaton is about 50 miles long. It's about 20 miles to the west of the Danube, to the west of Budapest. And so Hitler launches an attack from there at the beginning of March in the hope of overrunning the Russians. It's kind of like Kursk in 1943. It's the same kind of attempt to overwhelm the Russians. This time it really doesn't work. The Russians are much strong. It's now the rainy season, so the tanks get kind of mired down as they attack the general they're facing. Marshal Tolbukken is very able and is able to stall the Germans. And within two weeks, this offensive, mainly by the 6th SS Panzer army is stopped and the Russians are able to resume the initiative. So within weeks, by the middle of April, they've got right across the western side of Hungary, reached Austria and moved into Vienna about two weeks before Berlin falls. So it's an interesting episode. It could be argued that, that by sending elite troops to fight in Hungary, Hitler weakened the defenses of Berlin at a critical point. I don't think it was a crucial reason for the fall of Berlin, but certainly it made the Russians tasks easier than it would have been otherwise.

[Dan Snow]

And again, just to ask the question, why is this the vaunted Wehrmacht that we're so used to hearing people eulogize, they just can't seem to achieve the same effect on the battlefield they can a couple of years before. Is this because the British, Americans, the Soviets, they've got better kit, they know what's coming, they know how to deal with. They've got air supremacy. What's the key Soviet ingredient here? How do they blunt the advance of the mighty 6th Panzer Army?

[Evan Maudsley]

They're now fighting very strong Russian modernized forces. One of the things about the Russians, by the way, which I think one can lose sight of, is that they've always believed in what's called deep battle, which is armored thrusts deep into the enemy's rear lines to kind of paralyze the enemy forces. That involves using very heavy tank forces, using aircraft, using artillery. But they also have the advantage that the Russian army is now much more mobile than it was in 1942, 43. And that's partly explained by lend lease American trucks. Certainly Zhukov himself thought that Studebaker was One of the key names to know about when you were trying to understand what happened on the Eastern front, and this kind of mobility was able to give the Red Army a kind of range that it had never had before. But I think beyond that, it's just the mass of Soviet forces is just so much stronger than what the Germans can put up in 40. The Germans really are in a much weaker position, and they're fighting on two fronts as well. So what's happening in Hungary is kind of like what's happening in the Rhineland. At the same time, you know, the German army there is also collapsing, and the Germans are falling back towards the Rhine.

[Dan Snow]

So Stalin redoubles his efforts to take Berlin in March, does he? He puts the Soviet offensive back on track after his foray to the north.

[Evan Maudsley]

Yeah, I think that's the next stage. And it's not connected to Balaton particularly. It happens more or less the same time. But at the end, March, Stalin says, okay, that we've now reached a stage where we can launch an attack. That's partly because the rainy season is now over and things are better for the Red army than before. But I think in the background, when the Allies are talking about what to do next, the general consensus in terms of discussions between the Allies is that the war is going to end in the middle of the summer, that it's not going to end immediately. There's going to be a lot of fighting involved before Germany is actually defeated. The German army still has some strength, and it's possible the German armies will withdraw into the south. They'll draw into the kind of mountain areas of southern Bavaria and Austria, and they'll hold out there for a long period of time and they'll prolong the war. That was seen as a really serious danger. And whereas I think probably both the west and the Russians thought that Berlin was indefensible because it lies on flat territory, it's easier to encircle and so on. It's not the same as the kind of mountainous range to the south. Even so, they thought that Berlin might hold on for some time. Things change that are both political and military. In a way. The political one is the more interesting, but it's also military. What happens is Operation Varsity, which is when the British army crosses the Rhine into Germany itself. It's also roughly the time when the Remagen bridge over the Rhine is captured by the American army. So all of a sudden, the key defense of the Third Reich has collapsed with the loss of the Rhine line. In fact, a very large army Group under General Model is trapped in the Ruhr. It's the biggest pocket of the entire war. Stalin is worried that it's possible the Allies will get to Berlin first, and he thinks it's conceivable that the Allies, the Western Allies, British and the Americans, will do a deal with the Germans. There are negotiations going on in Northern Italy which involve the garrison there and the Western Allies. So Stalin worries that this is a possible danger where the Allies might be able to get to Berlin before the Red army does. And I think that is very important as an incentive at the end of March when he decides, well, we have to actually accelerate things and move forward. So on the 2nd, 3rd April, Stalin hosts a conference in Moscow, which involves Stalin, it involves Zhukov, it involves the other two marshals in the East, Konev and Rokossovsky, and they lay out a plan for a near immediate attack on Berlin. Now, that's harder than you might think, because both Rokossovsky and Konev are fighting some way away from Berlin. Rokossovsky is on the Baltic, Konev is in Silesia. It takes about two weeks to get things together, but by the middle of April, they are finally able to launch the attack on Berlin. And within two weeks, they will succeed.

[Dan Snow]

In overrunning the city before you enter the city itself. How fierce was that fighting to sort of break into those German defensive positions, The Germans, I mean, Germans defending their capital, did they fight particularly hard for those positions?

[Evan Maudsley]

Most of the fighting doesn't take take place in Berlin. It takes place in front of Berlin. It takes place as Red army troops encircle Berlin. So the actual kind of chronology of events is that the offensive sort of starts on the 16th of April. It's being launched primarily by Zhukov and his 1st Belarusian Army Group. That's the main kind of thrust of what's planned. In a couple of days, that offensive gets bogged down at a place called Zelov, which is just to the east of Berlin. It's not a kind of mountain range, but it is relatively hilly ground where the Germans do make something of a stand. Things become kind of confused. Zhukov blames Stalin for this, that they had too many troops to squeeze through too narrow a gap. In any event, that does sort of sort itself out after a couple of days. While that's going on, Stalin decides to also let Konev loose on Berlin at the same time. So he gives Konev a directive not to go into interview Bohemia, which would be a possibility, but instead to encircle Berlin. From the sort of southeast and move around to southwest and then get behind Berlin, and he gives Zhukov a similar directive. So in a sense, what he's set up is a race between Konev and Zhukov to encircle Berlin. But what they do is that rather than blasting through the middle of Berlin, there are four tank armies, two with Zhukov, two with Konev, and they loop around Berlin and they meet to the west of Berlin and they cut the city off. And when that that happens, the war is over. Fundamentally, Berlin is lost. There is no chance of the city holding out, but it's that operation to smash through the German front line and then to encircle Berlin is what causes the casualties. By the time they get into Berlin, things they're so chaotic that there's no way the Germans can put up any kind of resistance inside the city. By the way, it's interesting that the fighting in East Prussia was in fact almost twice as costly in terms of lives for the Red army as was the battle for Berlin in. So it wasn't actually the biggest part of the struggle for Germany. Another thing that's interesting to bear in mind is that Allied losses in Germany and the west were quite light by the time all this is going on. By the time the Americans get over the Rhine at Remagen, there's only broken back resistance in Germany and the Americans only lose about 10,000 men actually in Germany itself in the fighting there.

[Dan Snow]

Speaking of those Americans though, if they had been prepared to take much higher casualties, pursue the same sort of callous attitude towards casualties as Stalin, could they have reached Berlin first? I mean, was there an option, do you think, or is there simple geography at play here?

[Evan Maudsley]

Yes, I think that's one of the big questions which came up at the time and I think came up later on was was this a great missed opportunity? It would have to be the American army, because the British army is farther north. The army would have got to Berlin, would have had to be an American army. If the American army had got there first, it would have psychologically and politically have had quite a big. And I think Stalin knew that. But I think, as you suggest, Dan, it's really an issue of geography that when all this is taking place sort of from the middle of February, Russians have only been 40 miles away from Berlin. When the Western armies are still to the west of the Rhine, the Russians have always been very close. So it's hard to think that under any circumstances it would have been possible for the Americans to get there first. Another factor that might be involved, at least in Stalin's mind, is that you might have a situation where the Germans wouldn't resist, that in fact Germany would collapse and let the Americans through into Berlin in order to get a more favorable peace than they were from the Russians. They probably had a strong sense that they would be treated better in the immediate short term by being defeated by the Americans or the British than they would by being defeated by the Russians. So the Russians would have faced stiffer resistance. Aside from being callous and brutal, the Germans also were callous and brutal. But they had a sense maybe that the Western Allies would be the easier ones to come to terms with. Other thing you might just bear in mind is again this question of the Alpine redoubt. It's one of the reasons why Eisenhower was reluctant to go into Berlin because he thought, well, we can't get to Berlin anyway and the real danger is prolonged resistance by the Germans fighting in the south. So that should be our priority. And finally the thing that I think also we can't lose sight of is that under the zonal agreement about the war which is made in 1944, Germany is divided into three zones of occupation and Berlin is within the Russian zone. So whatever happened, Berlin was always going to be in an area that was not Berlin itself. But the surrounding area around Berlin would.

[Dan Snow]

Have been under Russian control as the Soviets advanced. Would it felt like liberation as we understand it again? Or am I just conditioned by Allied propaganda? But there's a sense in places like France and Holland that troops are welcome. There was almost a festival atmosphere as the Red army rolled across both areas of Europe occupied by the Nazis and then onto German soil itself. How did they act towards the local population?

[Evan Maudsley]

Did the local population find themselves liberated? I think at one level not. I mean we could talk about Poland for an hour, you know, and discuss whether in fact the Poles felt themselves being liberated by the Russians. Some Poles probably did. I think certainly Polish nationalists did not. And so for a whole lot of reasons they weren't happy with the Russians occupying Poland. Hungary is different. Hungary is actually had had an authoritarian dictatorship under Admiral Horthy and then during the war it had an awful fascist government latter. You know, the 400,000 Jews are killed in 1944, 45 coming from Hungary and going to Auschwitz. I don't think the Hungarian nationalists would have felt liberated by the Red Army. I think Jews probably did. I think that for people who were oppressed, mightily oppressed by the Germans, I think they certainly felt that the Russian armies played a liberating role, probably. Also in France and in Italy, there were quite strong Communist parties. And from their point of view, the Russian advance is a kind of a struggle of liberation that's important. I mean, this is politically quite contentious. The Russian word for liberation is oslobajdenia. Certainly a major part of the Russian self image is that we liberated Eastern Europe. That was an enormous contribution to the outside world and it was a major source of support in Eastern Europe, certainly was used to justify control over eastern Europe until 1989, 1990. So it's part of history. Clearly the Russian armies did not behave in an impeccable way. We all know about mass race rapes and looting and so on. Not the frontline troops, but the troops behind them were responsible for all kinds of activities. So I think that's a factor. But I think also, again, it's very current because one of the rationales behind the current Russian government is nationalism and the history of the Second World War. And the key event in that history of the Second World War is the role the Red army plays in Eastern Europe In Germany in 1940, 44, 45, which is seen as a liberating struggle and was in fact liberating. It did in fact drive something much worse out of Central Europe. But I think again, these things are always more complicated than one might think. And certainly did the people who were Eastern Europe feel themselves liberated by the Red Army. And the answer probably is yes and no, not so much. I mean, remember also that there's a Stalingrad undergrad station in Paris which is a kind of memory of that time, time when the Red army is seen as being the great force which destroys the German army. I think to some extent that's true. I can understand how one can value the role of the Red army in the defeat of Nazi Germany, but still have questions about the role of the Red army in the liberation, how much that was a liberation of Eastern Europe and of Germany.

[Dan Snow]

Well, Evan Maudsley, thank you so much for coming on this 80th anniversary and talking us through through it all.

[Evan Maudsley]

Thanks a lot. Thank you very much.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you very much to Professor Evan Morsley for that brilliant overview. Be sure to tune in next Friday when the continuation of our D Day to Berlin series we reach a climactic battle in the Second World War in Europe. The brutal, bitter, street by street fight for the capital of the Third Reich, Berlin. To make sure you don't miss that or any other episodes, Dan Snows, History. There's plenty of other good ones around as well. Just hit follow in your podcast play and it'll drop into your library automatically. Goodbye for now.

[Holly Fry]

Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.