The Battle of Berlin
After the failed Ardennes Offensive in the late 1944 and early 1945, the Nazi Germany was left without sufficient forces to defend its borders against both the Western Allies and the Soviet forces. Hitler put all his last reserves into the Western front, hoping that a decisive defeat would force the Western Allies into peace negotiations which in turn would enable him to deal with the Red Army. However, the Western Allies repulsed the German offensive at the Ardennes forest, while the Red Army launched the Vistula-Oder Offensive which brought them from the Vistula River to the Oder River, only 43 miles (70 kilometers) from Berlin by February 2. A few days later, the Army Group Vistula commanded by Henrich Himmler launched a counter-attack, known as the Operation Solstice in order to push back the Soviet forces but the operation failed. It postponed the Battle of Berlin but could no longer prevent the Soviets from reaching the German capital. The counter-attack merely shown the Russian general Georgi Zhukov that the northern flank of the advancing Red Army was vulnerable. Therefore he had decided to clear Pomerania before launching an attack on Berlin.
At the same time, the Red Army was rapidly advancing south from Germany. On February 13, Budapest fell to the Soviet forces and by the end of March, the Red Army entered Austria. The Western Allies, on the other hand, made no plans to capture Berlin. The US General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered his forces to invade southern Germany to avoid the Nazi government from retreating in the Alps as well as to avoid causing unnecessary tension between the Western Allies and Soviet Union. However, Stalin did not want to take any chances and ordered his generals Zhukov and Ivan Konev to race to Berlin. There are some speculations that Stalin was in a hurry to the German capital in order to capture the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute where the German scientists conducted a nuclear research program, however, considering that Stalin often made seemingly unreasonable decisions it is impossible to determine why he ordered the race to Berlin. It would not be unusual for him to force his generals to compete in order to test them or to make the last assignment in the war more challenging for them because he must have been aware that the war is as good as won. Zhukov and Konev, on the other hand, were aware that capturing Berlin will not be an easy task and that the Germans will offer stiff resistance.
On March 20, Hitler replaced Himmler as the commander of the Army Group Vistula with Gotthard Heinrici who was one of his best defensive tacticians. Heinrici immediately started to work on defensive plans. He correctly predicted that the Red Army will invade across the Oder River and along the east-west Autobahn. He fortified Seelow Heights or the so-called Gates of Berlin. The Red Army was fired at by about 100,000 men who, however, could not repulse the Zhukov's troops numbering about 1 million men. The Battle of the Seelow Heights was fought from April 16 to April 19 when the Red Army broke through. Having captured Forst one day earlier, the route to Berlin was open, while the German 9th Army was trapped in a pocket at Frankfurt.
On April 20, one day after the breakthrough at the Seelow Heights and on Hitler's birthday, Zhukov started to shell the Berlin's center, while Konev was pushing in the north. The German defense that was commanded by Helmuth Weiding mainly consisted of poorly equipped and disorganized Wehrmacht and SS divisions as well as children and pensioners. They were no match to the Red Army but Hitler refused to surrender. Instead, he decided to personally command the Battle of Berlin. He ordered the 12th Army south-west of Berlin to unite with the 9th Army and launch a counter attack because the American forces that crossed the River Elbe did not show any signs of interest in progressing further east. However, the 9th Army was surrounded by the Konev's forces. They made a desperate attempt to break out at Halbe but only about one third – about 30,000 managed to link up with the 12th Army. About 50,000 were killed or captured by the Soviet forces. Hitler's last hope to save Berlin has failed, while Zhukov and Konev were meanwhile progressing to the center of Berlin.
Out of fear from the Russians, the Berlin defenders continued to offer stiff resistance which resulted in fierce street fighting. This diminished the Red Army's tank superiority because the Soviet tanks were vulnerable to the German bazookas fired by the soldiers laying hidden in the ruined buildings. Zhukov and Konev were forced to fight for every building and occasionally accidentally shot against each other due to the race which further increased their losses. The last phase of the Battle of Berlin was very similar to the Battle of Stalingrad with the difference that the roles were changed. And unlike the Russians who had huge man reserves during the Battle of Stalingrad enabling them to take advantage of street fighting, withstand the enemy and eventually surround the attackers, Hitler had no reserves. The Berlin defenders did not have the slightest chance to withstand the Red Army and much less to defeat the Soviet forces. Soon after the Battle of Halbe on April 24, Hitler realized that he cannot win the Battle of Berlin and that his Reich has collapsed. On April 30, he committed suicide with his mistress Eva Brown whom he married a few hours earlier. He ordered his body to be burned to avoid the fate of Mussolini whose body was after his execution publicly displayed hanging upside down.
In the night between May 1 and May 2, the remnants of the Berlin defenders in the center of the city realized that they cannot prevent the fall of the city and decided to break out the city. However, they were surrounded by the Soviet forces and most of them were killed or captured by the Red Army. Early in the morning of May 2, Berlin was in the Soviet hands but at a high cost. About 90,000 Soviet soldiers were killed and twice as many were wounded. The number of the Soviet casualties could have been much lower if Zhukov and Konev would work together instead of competing with each other. Victory in the race to Berlin was assigned to Zhukov for capturing the Reichstag.
The Battle of Berlin officially ended on May 2 but the war continued for a few more days. On May 3, General Hasso von Manteuffel and General Kurt von Tippelskirch surrendered to the American Army, while Dietrich von Saucken north east of Berlin surrendered to the Soviets only on May 9.
Hitler's Death Controversy
There is a consensus among the historians that Hitler committed suicide together with Eva Braun in his bunker in Berlin on April 30 in order to avoid being captured by the Soviets. He allegedly also ordered his body to be burned. However, Hitler's death was a major controversy after the fall of Berlin. The Soviets who captured the bunker on May 2 found Hitler's remains but refused to confirm that they have indeed discovered the remains of Hitler's body. Instead, Stalin insisted that Hitler is not dead and even accused the Western Allies of hiding him. Accounts of a plane leaving Berlin just before the fall of the city center, a German submarine landing in South America long after the end of the war in Europe, etc. led to emergence of theories that the man who was responsible for about 60 million deaths has escaped.The staff that was in the Hitler's bunker during his last days confirmed that he and Eva Braun committed suicide but the physical evidence – a fragment of skull and jawbone that prove that he really died in his bunker two days before the end of the Battle of Berlin were revealed to the public only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, how he died remains unclear. According to most accounts, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself but this is difficult to prove on the basis of the fragment of the skull and jawbone which were taken to Moscow. Other remains which are said to be buried secretly in an unmarked grave in Magdeburg were secretly exhumed and burned in the 1970s, after which the ashes were thrown into the Biederitz River.
In 2009, the History Channel broadcast a documentary in which it revealed that the results of a DNA study which was performed on the sample of the skull by the US scientists has shown that the fragment of the skull that it cannot be Hitler's because the tests revealed that it belonged to a woman. Deputy director of the Russian state archive, Vladimir Kozov, however, denied allowing the American scientists taking a sample from the skull. Kozov also stated that even if the skull would indeed be of a woman, the jawbone leaves no doubt that it belonged to Hitler as it matches perfectly the Hitler's dental records.
World War II in the Pacific Continues
While Europe was celebrating the end of war, the fighting in the Pacific continued. At the same time, the relationship between the former Allies – the Western Allies and the Soviet Union were turning from mutual distrust into open hostility. Like Germany at the end of 1944, Japan was in a lost position, however, the country refused to surrender. The American military staff, on the other hand, was aware that an invasion of Japan would claim many casualties.On July 11, the Allied leaders met in Potsdam and demanded unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces, however, the Japanese ignored the Potsdam terms when it was issued the Potsdam Declaration on July 26. The US President Harry S. Truman signed the order for the use of the newly developed atomic bombs and on August 6, the first atomic bomb known as the Little Boy was dropped on the city of Hiroshima killing 90,000 to 166,000 people. Three days later, the second atomic bomb known as the Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki killing 60,000 to 80,000 people. Six days after the second atomic bombing, Japan finally announced unconditional surrender. World War II, however, officially ended on September 2 when the Japanese foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender in the name of the Japanese Emperor aboard the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
