Talk:Battle of Berlin/Archive 1

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POV Comment

This bit seems POV - "Away from the map room in the Berlin Fuhrerbunker with its imaginary attacks of phantom divisions, the Soviets were getting on with winning the war". The paragraph before this mentions no such 'phantom' divisions, but rather Jodl's suggestion of moving the XII army into Berlin, as the Americans werent intending to move past the Elbe. user:ratzinger81

See Army Detachment Steiner --Philip Baird Shearer 13:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

RAF's Battle of Berlin

Isn't the Battle of Berlin the street fighting and eventual occupation of the city by the Soviets in 1945? What kind of raids is this article referring to, aerial bombing raids? Adam Bishop 13:57, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes. The RAF stands for Royal Air Force. In the (Air) Battle of Berlin sixteen major raids were organised, with up to a thousand bombers in each between November 1943 and March 1944. But the RAF losses were high and the damage caused was not as great, bomb for bomb, as that on Hamburg where bombing induced firestorms devistated the city.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWberlin.htm
When complete photographic cover of Berlin was obtained at the end of the war, it was found that 6340 acres of the main built-up areas had been destroyed.

---

Flak Towers (AAA Towers)

Not a comment, but a request: I was watching a TV program about the final days of the Third Reich (UK History Channel) and there was a very brief mention and shot of fortified bunkers in Berlin, referred to as flatowers (or flat towers, or flat-towers) - these looked like square, blockish, armoured, multilevel forts poss. up to 50 feet tall and similar diameter. I think they might have had AA guns. But I can't find any info ANYWHERE on the net. Anyone know anything? Tom Hiles, UK. Sorry I don't know how to edit this properly. 12:28, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

• http://www.geocities.com/lupinpooter/berlin.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/isanders_2000/ww2.htm
• http://www.berlin.de/stadttouren/en/frhain_1.html

There are lots more, Google on Anti aircraft towers Berlin'

FYI A link to the "The Sea Forts" Built by the British and
http://freespace.virgin.net/line.design/forts/sea_forts.htm
and then follow the links to see what one can do with old AAA towers! Philip Baird Shearer 11:40, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

-Thanks a lot! Yes, I did manage to figure out that they were flak towers, not "flat", hohoho, eventually. Kind of crucial for googling I suppose! Tom ---

Copyright violation?

http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/berlin.htm

A copyright violation?! Szopen

Certainly looks like it. Oberiko 16:52, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

causalities

The Soviets sustained 305,000 dead; the Germans sustained as many as 325,000, including civilians.

What is the source for the causalities?Philip Baird Shearer 18:45, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Casualty means the number of dead, wounded AND missing. Battle casualty is completely different from battle fatality. These two terms shouldn't be used interchangeably.

Interesting as that is, it is not a source on number of casualties or killed. Do you have one?

As for the battle itself, it is a know fact that more the Axis Army Personel were killed than Soviet Army Personel in Berlin.

You are suggesting that "only" 20,000 civilians died! Where is this fact published? Is far as I know, because of the total breakdown of German administration, there are no accurate figures for German dead. If there are, what is the source? AFAIK, until the end of the Cold War, there were no detailed figures for Soviet casualties, if there are now, what is the source? As for those taken POW in Berlin, did the soviets publish figures if so what is the source?

By late April 1945, Hitler's so-called "People's Army" was literally un-trained senior citizens and callow young boys. They had no chance against the battle-hardened Soviet Red Army. SecretAgentMan00 06:20, 26 Sep 2004 (UCT)

It is interesting that un-trained [however, I thought that most men in Germany who were "senior citizens" would have been conscripted as young men and would have received military training and many would have fought in WWI] "senior citizens and callow young boys" seemed to have killed so many "battle-hardened Soviet Red Army" personnel. Philip Baird Shearer 09:41, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

True but as you can clearly see from the battle deaths, more Axis Forces, whether they were Wehrmacht or civilian resistance, died compared to the battle deaths for the Red Army. Also in almost every single battle on the Eastern Front, the Soviets ALWAYS lost more men. Yet when it came to Berlin, the soldiers KIA were reversed.--Secret Agent Man 00:00, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Definition for the Battle of Berlin

At the moment this article seems to confuse two diffrent actions. The first is the attack on the area which would become East Germany from the River Oder. Which involved 2.5 million men and 3 Fronts. The 2nd BELORUSSIAN Front (2BF) commanded by Rokossovsky which was to the North, The 1st BELORUSSIAN Front (1BF) commanded by Zhukov in the middle and the 1st Ukranian Front (1UF) commanded by Konev. But for the encirclement and attack on Berlin only units from the 1BF and 1UF were involved in the Battle for Berlin with Stalin letting Zhukov and Konev compete for the honour.

Using Ziemke's "battle for Berlin" the Russian main ground units involved in the Battle for Berlin came from "only" two Soviet Fronts, (not the three mentioned in the article) and were 2nd Guards (GDS) tank Army, 3rd Shock Army, 5th Shock Army, 8th GDS army, 1st GDS tank army, 28th Army and 3rd GDS tank Army. With more armies between the Berlin and German Armies like the IX which had become encircled. Is this list correct? If it is, this is a force of much less than the 2.5 million on the Oder who invaded East Germany and with much less kit than is mentioned in the battle box.

Is this article about the 1945 Soviet campaign for East Germany (former GDR) or the Battle for Berlin? If it is the 1945 Soviet campaign for East Germany then there are several phases and battles which need mentioning. The Battle of the Seelow Heights by 1BF, the hard fought advance over the river Nisser by 1UF, The Battle of Berlin by 1BF and 1UF, and the Battle of Halbe in which the German IX Army and IV Panser Armies tried to fight their way through the Soviet 1UF to the German XII Army and then on to American Lines.

If it is just about the Battle of Berlin for Berlin once the encirclement has been completed then all the extra stuff needs moving into another article.

Either which way the article needs a lot of work because at the moment the total amount on the fighting in Berlin is this: Berlin's fate was sealed, but the resistance continued. Fighting was heavy, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat and As the Soviet forces fought their way into the centre of Berlin Philip Baird Shearer 16:10, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

German Units in Berlin

At the moment the article says:

The main German defenders were the 12th Army, withdrawn from the Western Front by Hitler specifically to defend the city.

and

On April 20, Hitler ordered the Twelfth Army facing the Americans and the Ninth Army to break into Berlin and relieve the siege. Neither unit was able to get through.

They both can't be true.

Using Ziemke's "battle for Berlin" the main regular German army and SS units in Berlin were XX Motorised Division, IX Airborne Division, Muncheberg Panzer Division, Nordland Panzer Grenadiers Division and XVIII Panzer Division. Is this list correct?

No, I'm almost certain that there was no 18th Panzer Division at that time. It had been destroyed way back in 1943, and the HQ reused to form the 18th Artillery Division, which in turn was disbanded in July 1944. I commented out the entire OB list until someone can find a reliable source for it. I do know that Nordland was there, but haven't got time to track everything else down right now. (Alas, the WWW is becoming so saturated with copies of Wikipedia that you can hardly find any independent sources of information on this kind of stuff anymore.) — B.Bryant 07:39, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Did any units from the German XII Army make it to Berlin? Or were they all stopped short of Potsdam by divisions from the 1UF? The IX Army did have physical links with Berlin for a time did it leave any units in Berlin when the link was severed? Philip Baird Shearer 16:10, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Battle Box

If the battle of Berlin is more than the street fighting in the centre of the town then the commanders are not correct because there were two soviet armies involved in the encirclement of Berlin and 3 in the attack over the Oder-Neisse

• General Konev 1st Ukrainian Front ->south and Berlin
• Georgy Zhukov, 1st Belorussian Front ->centre and Berlin
• General Rokossovsky, 2nd Belorussian Front -> North East Germany.

There were also 3 German Generals involved in the defence:

• General Heinrici, Army Group Vistula, north and centre
• General Schorner, Group Army South, south
• Berlin comandant for less than a weeek Helmuth Weidling( Not Karl Weidling)

As the size of the armies etc is given for the The East German offensive, either those numbers need fixing to be those of the troops used to fight in Berlin or the list of commanders needs fixing.

Not sure why the 21st is given as the start of the battle (as shelling of the centre had started on the 20th), I think it should either be April 16th, when the attack over the Oder-Neisse started or April 23/24th when the Encirclement was completed. Philip Baird Shearer 09:40, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On 27 Dec 2004 user:66.42.0.186 changed the battle box figures

• From 2.5 million men, 6,250 armored vehicles, 7,500 aircraft,
  • To 4.5 million men, 8,250 armored vehicles, 9,500 aircraft

• From 80,000 killed, 275,000 wounded/MIA, 1,997 armored vehicles, 2,108 artillery pieces, and 917 aircraft
  • To 94,000 killed, 375,000 wounded/MIA, 3,997 armored vehicles, 3,108 artillery pieces, and 1,017 aircraft
• From 150,000 killed, 134,000 POWs
  • To 185,000 killed, 134,000 POWs

From the source I have the figures for men etc are not correct. Not sure about the casualty figures, but as the first are wrong the second can not be trusted without sources. So I am going to revert them.

I am also changing the date of the start of the battle to 16 April to match up the date with the figures. The trouble is that althought there is a date for the fall of Berlin the casualty figures are until the end of the war. Philip Baird Shearer 12:11, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Poland in the Battle Box

Should the Polish Army be placed into the battle box?

Was the 1st Polish Army under a independent or joint command or were they part of a soviet command? For which government did they fight? Unless the forces were under a joint or independent command it is not usual to group armies by nationality in the command box. Philip Baird Shearer

The Polish Army in western Europe was also under Allied command like the Polish Army under Soviets. I dont know precise details of the command structure of the Soviets, but Berling Army was considered by the Soviets as the only official Army of Poland.--Emax 15:57, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The USSR and Poland were part of the Alliance. Call it a unified command if that is less ambiguous. The short lived ABDACOM was the first WWII example of an unified command. Were there any Polish officers in the higher echelons of the decision making loop? eg was one of them of the a deputy to a Soviet Front commander? If not what makes the 1st Polish Army, (apart from unit size), any different in the command structure from those enemy units designated for foreigners fighting in the SS (eg the Charlemagne Division? Philip Baird Shearer

The difference is that Charlemagne was a division of the German Wehrmacht with foreign soldiers, while the Polish Army was part of the Polish Army under Soviet overall command, much like British units or ANZACs under American generals during WWII. Finally, 80 000 soldiers "ain't no nothing", it was not some auxiliary brigade, it was composed of 5 divisions and 4 brigades, and as such it was used as a separate part of the entire front. The front commanders were indeed Russian, but the command over the divisions and the army was in Polish hands (at least theoretically). Halibutt 16:49, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

You have not shown that apart from size (a division of 300 men) and an Army that there is any real difference in their status.

1. Which front? There were three. I presume that as the text for the 1PA says where they fought, that they were part of the 1st Belorussian Front is that correct?
2. To whom did the 1st Polish Army owe allegiance? Which civilian government?
3. The whole point of that joint command example is that Western Allies fought under a Allied commander who contributed the most forces, eg AFHQ and SHAEF, but in the command there were a lot of officers from the contributing countries. On the Western Front the French Army serving in the US US 6th Army Group and the Canadian Army serving with the British 21st Army Group did not report directly to an allied joint commander they reported to their respective army group commanders. Consequently the Western front is said to have had 3 Army groups one British, two American. It is only when one starts to look at the breakdown of the forces into armies and divisions or smaller than one starts to pick out forces like the Polish units. As a Soviet Front seems to correspond to an Army Group and all three fronts were Soviet, I think it is misleading to put Poland into the battle box as they contributed less than 4% of the manpower and do not seem to have been part of a joint command or to have had an independent command. Philip Baird Shearer 19:30, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I must admit I didn't really understand your division of 300 men remark. As of January 1st, 1945, the 1st Polish Army had 90 787 soldiers, including 69 850 in front line units. The divisions were as follows:

• 1 Infantry Division Tadeusz Kościuszko - under Wojciech Bewziuk, 9 444 men
• 2 Infantry Division Jan Henryk Dąbrowski - under Jan Rotkiewicz, 9 832 men
• 3 Infantry Division Romuald Traugutt - under col. Stanisław Zajkowski, 9 477 men
• 4 Infantry Division Jan Kiliński - under Bolesław Kieniewicz, 9 609 men;
• 6 Infantry Division - under Genadiusz Szejpak, 10 283 men
• 1 Cavalry Brigade - under Włodzimierz Radziwanowicz, 3 047 men
• 1 Artillery Bde Józef Bem - under Józef Błoński, 1 079 men
• 2 Howitzer Bde - under Kazimierz Wikientiew, 1 973 men
• 3 Howitzer Bde - under Stanisław Skokowski, 2 055 men
• 5 Heavy Artillery Bde - under Włodzimierz Kierp, 1 127 men
• 1 AA Artillery Bde - under Kazimierz Prokopowicz, 2 334 men
• 4 AT Artillery Bde - under Piotr Dejnechowski, 1 617 men
• 1 Armoured Bde Heroes of Westerplatte - under Aleksander Malutin, 1 441 men

So, none of the divisions had 300 men. As to your questions:

1. 1st Belarusian and 1st Ukrainian (if we count both the 1st Polish and 2nd Polish armies)
2. To the Highest Command of the Polish Army (Naczelne Dowództwo WP), subject to the Society of Polish Patriots and, since July 22, to the Committee of National Liberation - the Soviet-backed provisional government of Poland.
3. Well, other WWII articles apparently use different system. The Battle of Normandy lists all Allied forces, eventhough the command was held by a Brit. Battle of Monte Cassino also lists all the forces that took part in the battle, including the Indian forces.

Anyway, the commander of the 1st Polish Army was subordinate directly to the front commander, especially that for great part of the war the unit had its' own part of the front and acted as a unit and not as separate divisions. Just like American units were subject to British army commanders and the other way around. Halibutt 05:26, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

The Charlemagne 'division' was down to about 300 men for the final battle. The other articles you mention, Normandy and Monte Cassino, Normandy does not and Cassino does list national participants. But possible a better example would be the Battle of the Bulge, where the British committed troops, but only a small percentage compared to the USA. Britain is not mentioned in the Battle Box and despite a British Army group commanding a significant number of the Allied troops involved in the counter attack, this is in my opinion correct because the overwhelming majority of the Allied forces committed to the battle were American. This is not to say that the Polish contribution should not be mentioned in the text, just not in the Battle Box because their contribution was relatively small at 4%. Philip Baird Shearer 07:29, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In most modern national armies officers takes an oath to a constitution or a head of state. It is not clear to me if you this is what you are describing. Philip Baird Shearer 07:29, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As to the oath - below is the original text and my (rough) translation.

Składam uroczystą przysięgę ziemi polskiej, broczącej we krwi, narodowi polskiemu, umęczonemu w niemieckim jarzmie, że nie skalam imienia Polaka, że wiernie będę służył Ojczyźnie.

Przysięgam ziemi polskiej i narodowi polskiemu rzetelnie pełnić obowiązki żołnierza w obozie, w pochodzie, w boju, w każdej chwili i na każdym miejscu, strzec wojskowej tajemnicy, wypełniać wiernie rozkazy oficerów i dowódców.

Przysięgam dochować wierności sojuszniczej Związkowi Radzieckiemu, który dał mi do ręki broń do walki z wspólnym wrogiem, przysięgam dochować braterstwa broni sojuszniczej Czerwonej Armii.

Przysięgam ziemi polskiej i narodowi polskiemu, że do ostatniej kropli krwi, do ostatniego tchu nienawidzieć będę wroga - Niemca, który zniszczył Polskę, do ostatniej kropli krwi, do ostatniego tchu walczyć będę o wyzwolenie Ojczyzny, abym mógł żyć i umierać jako prawy i uczciwy żołnierz Polski.

Tak mi dopomóż Bóg!

I hereby swear to the blood-rinsed Polish land, to the Polish nation tormented by German yoke, that I will not desacrate the name of a Pole and that I will courageously serve my Fatherland.

I swear to the Polish land and to the Polish people that I will honestly serve the duties of a soldier, in march and in battle, in the camp and at any other moment I will guard the secrets and fulfil the orders of my officers and commanders.

I swear to be a loyal ally of the allied Soviet Union, which gave me the arms to fight our common enemy, and I swear I will preserve the brotherhood of arms with the allied Red Army.

I swear to the Polish land and to the Polish nation that to the last drop of blood, to the last breath shall I hate the enemy - the German who destroyed Poland; to the last drop of blood, to the last breath shall I fight for the liberation of my Fatherland, so that I could live and die as a rightful and honest soldier of Poland.

So help me God!

So, there was nothing about the loyalty to any command but the enigmatic commanders and officers. But this is a Polish tradition, we barely ever swear to the government or any person, it's usually the Fatherland, the Country, Liberty or Freedom (or other similar abstracts). For comparison I post the oath of the Polish Army in France created by Haller in 1918.

Przysięgam przed Panem Bogiem Wszechmogącym, w Trójcy Świętej Jedynym, na wierność Ojczyźnie mojej, Polsce, jednej i niepodzielnej. Przysięgam, iż gotów jestem życie oddać za świętą sprawę jej zjednoczenia i wyzwolenia, bronić sztandaru mego do ostatniej kropli krwi, dochować karności i posłuszeństwa mojej zwierzchności wojskowej, a w całym postępowaniu moim strzec honoru żołnierza polskiego. Tak mi, Panie Boże, dopomóż.

I swear in front of God Almighty, One in the Holy Trinity, that I will remain faithful to my Fatherland, Poland, sole and indivisible. I swear that I'm ready to give away my life for the sacred matter of its' unification and liberation, I swear to defend my banner to the last drop of my blood and to remain loyal and obedient to my military supperiors, and that by all my deeds I will guard the honour of a Polish soldier. So help me God.

As to the other battles - Battle of Normandy lists the Allied Powers - so it links to an article that lists the countries that took part in it. This way it doesn't omit any names, even if the forces were small. Among other battles that list all countries that took part in them include Siege of Tobruk, Operation Battleaxe, Battle of the River Plate (mentions the wikis, eventhough there was no Royal New Zealand Navy back then), Battle of the Coral Sea (mentions Australia that contributed 7% of the forces), Battle of Gallipoli (mentions India eventhough there was no such country back then) and even Nirnaeth Arnoediad, not to mention the battleboxes I placed myself. So, this seems like a standard to me, not an exception. Halibutt 22:38, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

To include in the oath loyal ally of the allied Soviet Union is not the sort of thing that any Commonwealth officer would have sworn in their oath, even if the majority of their arms had come from the USA. I can not image a British or Australian oath including the line I swear to be a loyal ally of the United States of America, which gave me the arms to fight our common enemy, and I swear I will preserve the brotherhood of arms with the allied American Army. I like the phrase "I hate the enemy - the German" just in case they might think the enemy was also someone else who had in an unprovoked move invaded their country in 1939 ;-) You have not convinced me that the Polish 1st Army was an independent allied army under its own command and I think that the oath confirms this.

On a slightly different tack Halibu, I suggest that you copy the battle order and the oath into the article on the 1st Polish Army because they make interesting reading. Philip Baird Shearer 17:07, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

We have a saying here which can be roughly and harshly translated as It's hard to prove that you're not a camel. To word it differently, you're reverting the whole thing upside down, IMO. Try to prove that it was not an independent unit and that it was but a Russian unit with some Poles here and there and fighting as an integral part of the Red Army.

Also, these oaths I presented here (now at the Polish Army oaths, not sure if that's the best title I could chose, but what the heck) prove only one thing: that the wording of the oaths used by various armies has nothing to do with the allegiance of the forces. Regular armies usually have a set of rules that regulate that and they are usually far more complicated than a simple oath that is usually limited to a few phrases about honour, victory and last drops of blood.

I'm still convinced that there should be no double standards here on wikipedia. If the Polish forces fought in the battle, they should be mentioned, just like the Indians are mentioned in Gallipoli and others who are mentioned in the articles I listed. After all these soldiers paid for their recognition with the hardest currency ever - their blood. Halibutt 19:18, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

I strongly disagread whit an opinion in the article tha Polish soldairs were comunists —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.182.12.34 (talk) 11:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

Hitler's disposition in the Battle Box

I take strong issue with the description of Hitler being "killed in action" as indicated in the Battle Box. He committed suicide, of course, without ever coming in direct armed combat at any point in the battle -- therefore the description is seemingly innacurate. Not to mention that on an emotional level it seems to give his role in the battle (and war) a dignity that he does not to my mind warrant or deserve. Pat Payne 20:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Belorussian or Byelorussian

Moved to Talk:3rd Byelorussian Front. Mikkalai 20:08, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Concerning the length of the battle

We all know the basic defense strategy on the Eastern Front was street fighting. Soldiers fight from city to city, taking street by street and through house by house. Stalingrad was a great example of this. My question is how come the Soviets, using street fighting, defended Stalingrad for 4-5 months yet the Germans barely defended their key cities like Berlin, Prague, and Budapest for a couple of weeks? Is the Soviet style of street fighting somehow "better" than the German style of street fighting? It would've made sense if Berlin was tiny but it was and is HUGE, at least 2x that of Stalingrad. 02:36, 30 Jan 2005 SecretAgentMan00

It is customary to sign you postings to talk pages and to place new topics at the bottom). A three year old demands attention, (I shall return) Philip Baird Shearer 13:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• By 1945 the Soviets had lots of experience of fighting their way into cities and had developed special tactics based around combat teams of 80-100 men with very close integrated artillery support. The tactics on both sides were very sophisticated compared those earlier in the war. Indeed if the tactics used by the foreign contingents of the SS to defend Berlin had been used in Iraq, the American death totals would have been very much heavier in the last two years. But as the Germans retreated, few sieges were lifted, German with experience of sieges tended to be dead or captured at the end of the siege, so individual Soviet units tended to have taken part in more sieges than their German enemies and so had more experiance of street fighting. To see how good the Soviets had become at all types of fighting one only has to look how they chewed up the Japanese in the final week of the war during Operation August Storm.
• At Stalingrad both sides had continuously moved fresh troops up into the meat grinder. The buildings which were most heavily fought over were factory buildings with lots of machinery and/or built of ferrous concrete. Most buildings at the core of German cities at the time were brick. Some buildings, like the Reichstag and the Flak Towers were fought over floor by floor, but unlike Stalingrad there were no new supplies coming in to the defenders.
• The depots of arms and ammunition had not been move into the centre of Berlin, so they were captured early in the assult, and other preparations had not started until very late.
• The manpower the German had in Berlin was relatively weak. Units designated by Hitler to move into the City were either too weak to break through and/or their commanders were more interested in saving their men form the Soviets by moving west than taking part in the Gotterdammerung. In contrast the Soviet (and Polish ;-) ) troops were highly motivated and experienced, However the casualties were huge.
• Having 41,600 tubes of artillery is useful! The Soviets dropped a heavier weight of ordinance on Berlin in 2 weeks than the strategic bombers of the western Allies had in the whole war.
• Berlin is not an easy city to defend because although large it was spread out (the RAF was never able to start a fire storm in it). It is a relatively modern city most of if was built after 1880. As a new imperial capital it was built with very wide streets compared to cities with an older street plan like London. There is one particular street which is as big as a four lane motorway (free way) right thought the city from East to West which in the city centre is called Unter Den Linden. UDL was used as an improvised runway until the last few days of the battle which give you an idea of how wide Berlin streets are. It has lots of very big green parks and is very flat compared to many cities. There are a also lot of waterways however which did allow defensive lines to be built. The old moat which follows the line of the long since gone city walls built in the trace italienne style (star type shape) was not wide enought to prove to be a serious hinderence. Besides most of the importand sites like the Reichstag were outside the line of the old city walls.
• This is speculation but I suspect that more rational Germans in the high command knew the war was lost, and had hoped to hold the Soviets on the Oder-Neisse line for long enough for the Western allies to advance further east and so capture Berlin by default. In that scenario building defences in Berlin was counter-productive as the knew Hitler and his smaller and smaller band of supporters would order that German troops to fight the Western Allies for Berlin and pre-prepared defences would have made this easier.
• Finally the sections "The battle of the Oder-Neisse" and "The encirclement of Berlin" are much more developed than section "The battle of Berlin" , so this article makes it look that it was all over bar the shouting once the city was enveloped. It was not. The encirclement of Berlin" took 5 days (April 20-25) so the section "The battle of Berlin" which took longer fomr (April 25 - May 2) should be at lest as long as that and probably longer. Philip Baird Shearer 21:40, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• in my opinion it was a combination of poor german morale, poorly trained and equipped troops, lack of artillery support, and lack of numbers (which the russians certainly had at stalingrad) which led to Berlin holding out for a relatively short period of time. Besides at this point of the war the german army was sorrounded everywhere where it still existed and was poorly organized where fighting did take place. At stalingrad the russians were concentrating all of their force on repelling the germans from the city in order to immediately turn the tide of the war in the east (which they did). This combined some other things, the experience of the russian army and commanders in street fighting, the pressure from stalin to capture the city for may day (which was extreme) and a lack of good german leadership to make the fight relatively short. (im not signed in but my user name is CptBuck and its currently 7:53 eastern time.)

Regarding the mysterious fifth division in the Berlin defense

As B. Bryant correctly has pointed out above was the 18 Panzer division almost wiped out in 1943, and part of it became the 18 artillery division. But what about the fifth german division that fought in the Battle of Berlin?

I just found out from the Axis history factbook (http://www.axishistory.com) that it was the 18 Panzer greadier division that was the reserve positioned in central Berlin, between the Olympia stadium and the Zoo.

The remanants of the division had been fighting in East Prussia and the lower Oder and was wihtdrawn/retreated to Berlin. Some parts of it successfully tried to breakout to the west on 2 May.

/Tony Gustavsson

Edited work not shown

I recently edited the article on the Battle of Berlin, or more specifically, I edited the battle box on the top right of the article. I did two things: add on to the "Commanders" section, and I also added on a new section called "Formations" where I put the different armies and major units that took part in the battle. When I clicked on "save page", the "Formations" sectio did not appear. Could someone tell me why this is so and could someone fix it so that the "Formations" section would appear?

Link to reliable numbers of casualties

Could someone add link web page listing /reliable/ number of casualties of the battle? Today the number has moved by hundredths of thousands. Pavel Vozenilek 22:28, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

-The best source for that, at least for the Soviet side, is that of Krivosheev's book on Soviet combat casualties in the 20th century. It is listed in the bibliography. -Eline

Rape

During and after the Battle the Soviets raped many women and murdered some civilians.

I have several times had to restor these references:

• A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City Translated by Anthes Bell ISBN 0805075402
• "They raped every German female from eight to 80" by Antony Beevor]

I am not sure why they are being deleted because they are an historical fact and are relevent to this article. Philip Baird Shearer 02:04, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

• Beevor's book was more a journalistic work intent at causing a sensation than it was a historical work. If you take a look at the bibliography you'll see that it's very shoddily done - he'd take the story of one old woman and generalize until he had every Soviet soldier raping dozens of women. Of course, rape did happen, but not on as wide a scale and not by as many soldiers as alleged by Beevor. It may seem as though something is "missing" from the article to Beevor fans, and that is because it doesn't harp on rape as Beevor does. Kazak 22:58, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• Beevor's book is not a journalistic work. The bibliography is six pages long (466 to 475) and the source notes are pages 435-465, 30 pages of double column text. He sources much more than one rape. His is not the only source for examlple have you read "A Woman in Berlin: Six Weeks in the Conquered City"? --Philip Baird Shearer 23:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• The article is about the battle of Berlin. No one denies that rape was present in every war, since a man with a rifle was far from a romantic Hollywood cowboy. In fact every battle of every town may be ended with: "...and they entered the town and f**d everyone within the reach". You are welcome to write yet another article, Raping Red Army, to collect all these facts, with sources and all (an I will gladly help you there), and refer to it from here. Just the same, among the population of Normandy there are plenty of descendants of friendly Allies, and so on. Singling out Berlin right here smacks cold-war propaganda; yes, I live in California, and I know very well that it is United States who in fact had won this bloody war. (irony intended here) mikka (t) 00:02, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

• The current state of the article in this regard looks good. It makes note of the rapes without dwelling on them. --Kizor 22:14, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

• If in fact very large numbers of women of all ages in Berlin were subjected to rape over an extended period of time (as Beevor and other sources clearly indicate), making only brief mention "without dwelling" on it is appallingly unfactual, to the extent that the events were quantitatively worse than other events. Conversely, not including more information than the absolute minimum which currently appears is POV, to the extent that these events were more well-documented. The point is the sheer extent of the rapes. How ridiculous to militantly insist on removing any substantive discussion of this on the trite basis that rape is something which always occurs during war and armed conflict. Obey 03:32, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• The article is called battle of berlin. Why is it so difficult to understand that in encyclopedia an article must stick to its topic? Or you are saying that each time Soviets took over a building diring the battle the first thing they did was to rape everyone there? Once again, feel free to write a special article on the subject of Red Army rapes in the longest possible way, and no one will say ou a word. mikka (t) 04:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not sure whether these comments add anything to earlier comments, or respond substantively to my comments. Obey 07:25, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• Around 2 million German women were reported to be raped by Soviet soldiers. This happens to be the world's single largest mass rape ever.Killer files.This comment was there in the main page but was deleted by Pavel as he felt the comment inappropriate in the text.I dont see how.--Jayanthv86 07:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• As someone of German descent I say with no compunction whatsoever that it is a well known fact that the Soviet Army committed one of the worst acts of mass rape in human history. To hide this fact while talking about the last weeks of WW2 in the Battle of Berlin is more than shameful. If we as a people of the human race are to more forward we must confront all our demons rather than ignoring the inconvenient facts. --Delos 23:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Not many as you say here its yankee propaganda

but it was answer to german rapes --Mr.X--

Polish In Berlin

http://www.ww2.pl/Polish,Army,on,the,Eastern,Front,24.html

Just go there good information, and teh casualty numbers conflict with the numbers of wikipedia.

Axis and "Eastern Allies"

Such term as Eastern Allies was never used, and Germany was the only Axis power that took part in the battle.

You have no mandate to unilaterally impose your preference, like in all other articles you go around and deleting things. You have vandalized this page many times by altering numbers changeing and removeing key paragraphs. This is just one of your many acts of vandalism to this page and to the whole of wiki(Deng 19:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC))

Thank you

I must thank you for those kind words. How creative...

"This is just one of your many acts of vandalism to this page and to the whole of wiki"

I expect that you have a reliable source that can name the other Axis countries that took part in the battle. And where does the term "Eastern Allies" come from.

It is simple the eastern allies are not the western allies And you have vandlised this page many times when you tried to change the numbers have you forgoten that you changed the numbers and then said those numbers were the original (Deng 17:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC))

All mighty

Don't try go change the subject.

"eastern allies"

Where does this term come from? Can you give me a source which states that such term was used. And where do you get more than one Axis country in Berlin?

Kurt.

I am not changeing shit let us look at your altering of numbers one can see it here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Berlin&diff=41225715&oldid=41015442

Then you say that those altered numbers "have been here for a long time" this proves that you are a vandal

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Berlin&diff=47625819&oldid=47451264

It is clear you are a vandal and you have vandlized this page before (Deng 17:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC))

Well, well..

As a matter of fact it does not, and you still haven't answered my question.

Really you didnt change numbers and you didnt say "These figures were here for long time" Who are you trying to fool you vandalized this page as I have just shown with 2 links then you say that the vandalized numbers "These figures were here for long time" (Deng 17:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC))

Lord...

I do not have to continue this "discussion" since you refuse to answer me.

Kurt.

Yes when I show you your acts of vandalism then you refuse to answer because you can not say anything about it because it is pure vandalism (Deng 17:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC))

Whatever you say...

I refuse to continue this. You haven't still answered my question and for my part this is over.

Kurt.

Ofcurse it is over You can not reply to the fact that you tried to change numbers so now you say it is over (Deng 17:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC))

Last day of the battle

The article says, "General Weidling, defence commandant of Berlin, surrendered the city to the Soviets on 2 May", so why does the infobox say the battle didn't end until 8 May? Angr (talk • contribs) 22:27, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Because heavy fighting continued untill May 8th, when the last Germans in the city (including Wilhelm Mohnke) surrendered. Kurt.

Nevertheless the surrender was on May 2 as cited in many sources. Many major battles with formal surrenders are also characterized by some fighting after the formal surrender. There was fighting between German and Soviet units for at least several days after the surrender at Stalingrad and again at the end of the war. Nevertheless we do not have articles giving the end of WW2 in Europe as May 20 (the latest date I have ever seen for combat). The dates are given per the surrender date. DMorpheus 12:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Rather than engaging in an edit war, which already appears to be in violation of 3RR, this issue should be discussed here, citing sources. My source for the May 2 surrender is Max Hastings' Armageddon. DMorpheus 20:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Foreign SS Units

There is a brief mention of foreign SS units fighting in the battle. Can anyone contribute which units took part? I know the remnants of División Azul did.

Waffen-SS Division "Nordland" was there, and I have heard mention of the French SS also. DMorpheus 17:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The last defenders of the Führer bunker and Reichtag building included both French, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish SS men. The most fanatic remnants of the Nazi war machine, men who knew they had nothing to gain by surrendering to the Russians. Amongst the last groups trying to break out of Berlin, on May 2, was a relatively large group of Norwegian SS from 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. They tried to force their way out from Friedrichstrasse in the centre of Berlin, but were ambushed by the Red Army by the Widendammer Brücke. Their mission was to bring Martin Bormann out of the besieged city, but they failed and were buried in umarked graves in Kreuzberg, Berlin. There is currently a debate in Norway on wheter or not the Norwegian government should give financial support to bring the fallen Norwegian SS-men home from their burial grounds all over eastern and central Europe. See the book "Norwegian Waffen SS Volunteers on the Eastern Front" [1] for more details on the Norwegian SS.

Manxruler 01:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Similar Battles

What were some other battles in which defeat was inevitable and the war ended with that defeat? example the Fall of Saigon LCpl 18:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Panzerfausts

I'd just like to note that it says that Panzerfausts were effective shoulder fired weapons, but in actuality Panzerfausts weren't shoulder fired like bazookas, they were held like rifles.70.48.210.224 02:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)JodoYodo, July 28th 2006

Two things: First, it depends on which version of the faust you are writing about. There were different sights on various versions, some designed for firing with the tube held on top of the shoulder (bazooka style) and, more commonly, with the tube held under the armpit. No Panzerfaust was held *at* the shoulder like a rifle; doing so would have led to a burned shoulder. The tube was hollow to allow escape of hot gases at the back end. Second, the term "shoulder-fired" doesn't literally mean the weapon must be fired exactly at the shoulder. Your own example demonstrates that; rifles and assault rifles are virtually always considered to be shoulder-fired weapons; pistols aren't. Machineguns generally aren't, except light ones that *can* be shoulder-fired. Perhaps a better term would be "man-portable" since that is the more critical characteristic anyway. DMorpheus 14:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Poland in the battle box....Again.

I don't think Poland should be listed in the battle box. There was a bit of a discussion a year ago, but I'd like to re-open the floor on it. If you look at the wikipedia page on the 1st polish army it makes it clear that it was a russian controlled and dominated military formation. Why not also list "Russia" with the white flag and blue diagonal cross as a combatant in the Battle of Normandy, as some members of the Russian Liberation Army did fight in and around Normandy. I just feel that listing poland as a combatant is misleading to the casual viewer looking for information about the battle, though of course the "Polish" 1st army should remain mentioned in the article as it is. Any comments on this are appreciated, as I'd like to see Poland removed from the battle box but don't want to do so without any discussion. --Detruncate 02:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course you are wrong :-) It was, as you mentioned earlier, discussed, with Halibutt providing even the text of the oath taken by Polish soldiers. Nominally it was independent army of the independent country, even if in reality it was different. Szopen 08:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

There Was no "Russia" there was only the Soviet Union. And those traitors who fought with the Germans were not "Russian" but mostley from the Ukraine and the Baltic countries. Weedro 22:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Polish People's Army was under soviet control, no doubt about it. But still, nominally it was an army of independent Polish state, fighting in polish uniforms and uder polish flag. That's why I think Poland should be mentioned in battle box, just as german puppet states are mentioned in Battle of Stalingrad article battle box.84.10.253.80 18:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

3,300 German aircraft?

Is that a joke? Luftwaffe didn't exist since the end of 1944. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.139.13.231 (talk) 18:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Actually large amount of german aircraft still existed after the war, and many aircraft were surrendered mainly in Norway and Denmark. Enlil Ninlil 07:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

How many of those 3,300 were used in the Berlin area? How many of those aircraft could not be operated due to lack of fuel and pilots? Andries 07:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually 3,300 for either side is fancyfull. Enlil Ninlil 09:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Rough statistics on the lineup for battle. Though not reputable maybe from a reliable sorce.

I think this article needs much more inine references from reputable sources. The way it stands now is partially a piece of misinformation. Andries 10:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The German article mentions >100 airplanes which sounds far more realistic. Andries 11:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

100 aircraft, I dont think so. Ok we should get a good sorce for this information. Enlil Ninlil 05:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

3300 is for the entire OPERATIONAL AREA, which includes Berlin and a substantial portion around it, which encompasses the 1 million men still fielded by the Wehrmacht, which faced the frontages of three entire Soviet fronts. 3300 is entirely plausible, though how many of those could get in the air due to fuel constraints is up to question. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.160.59.148 (talk) 10:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

Beevor writes in Berlin: The Downfall 1945, page 238, that 35 pilots and planes of the Leonidas Squadron were lost in suicied attacks on bridges over the Oder, so it is unlikely that there were only 100 aircraft in the Berlin region. How many still had aviation fule is another matter. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

Why all the Soviet pictures, and from the German side? Enlil Ninlil 07:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I just thought the same thing. Some other point of views could be brought to the battle if pictures from actually both sides would be added. Now it only has Soviet and Polish. But look at some other Eastern front articles, they mostly have bolshevist propaganda also. --Pudeo (Talk) 10:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The numbers don't add

There's 1 million German combatants in strenght, but only 0.5 million dead, wounded AND captured in losses (curiously enough, more wounded than captured). And there was no breakout. So, what happened to the OTHER 500,000 AND 70,000 wounded Germans? "3,300 aircraft" (there would be hardly any Luftwaffe left at this momemnt) and supposedly no German artillery (especially given large numbers of AA guns in what I think was a special AA division) is strange too. --HanzoHattori 14:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the number of aircraft is extremely unlikely. Andries 21:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Decisive

From History of the page:

• 17:32, 11 February 2007 Kurt Leyman m (Germany did NOT surrender following the end of the battle by date, nor was the battle decisive.)
• 17:57, 11 February 2007 Philip Baird Shearer (The Battle of Belin includes the meeting of the Western Allies and Soviet armies, the battle was decisive, because it led directly to the surrender on the 7-9th of May)
• 18:32, 11 February 2007 HanzoHattori
• 12:33, 12 February 2007 Kurt Leyman (Nonsense. Germany still had millions of soldiers in total across Europe. Even Prague offensive hit Germany more than Berlin.)
• 13:38, 12 February 2007 DMorpheus m (Revert. of course it was decisive. Take it to the talk page, Kurt, and please explain why it wcould have been otherwise.)

Kert please explain how the "Prague Offensive hit Germany more than Berlin", given most decisive fighting in that battle happened after the general capitulation? Surly Germany did not consider total surrender before the Battle of Berlin and after the battle (which included the capture of most of what was to become East Germany) they did because they had no other practical choice. To say it was not decisive and that the "Prague offensive hit Germany more than Berlin" is like saying that the Battle of Waterloo was not decisive but Wavre was. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

the battle of berlin was decisive and led to the end of the third reich one week later! the battle of prague was against German military resistance which did not comply the german surrender, because the most german soldiers wanted surrender to the west allies forces and not to the soviet forces... thats why dönitz keep on fighting for one week after the death of hitler! it was like the japanese forces in china which did not comply the japanese surrender... the two atom bombs led to the end of the pacific war shortly after, but there were also still battles in china after the surrender, because they should not surrender to the communist forces, only to the republican forces in china... kurt is only a german troll, the prague offensive is almost "unknown" in germany, because it is not important, thats why there are not even yet a german wikipedian article about that event... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.64.191.2 (talk • contribs) 01:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Aerial Bombardment.

From the article:

Berlin was heavily bombed by the Allies in 1945. On 1 February, there was a heavy air raid on Berlin. On 3 February, there was a concentrated daylight raid by USAAF bombers on Berlin. On 5 February, there was another daylight raid on Berlin. From 18 February, Berlin was raided from the air daily (day and night). Often the raids were twice daily. On 22 February, some 6,000 Allied aircraft raid 158 railyards inside the Berlin-Leipzig, Kassel, Hamburg, and Ludwigslust pentagon. On 26 February, Berlin is subjected to a severe daylight raid. On 18 March, the Allies launch the most concentrated raid of the war on Berlin. On 21 March Berlin was bombed for the 30th night in succession.

I don't think "Berlin was raided from the air daily (day and night)" is the best description. the USAAF did not bomb Berlin by night, and the RAF did send Mosquitos every night but, 30-70 Wooden Wonders (dropping just over 1 ton each) were not 700-1000 Lancasters dropping 5+ tons each. (See RAF Campaign Diary February 1945 March April and May)

By RAF Bomber Command standards they did not do much on the 22 Feb. (see below it was a tactical strike) on 17/18 March 1945 38 Mosquitos to Berlin, 18/19 March 1945 30 Mosquitos to Berlin. So the RAF Bomber command did not bomb Berlin to any great extent on that day

Also from the Diary:

14/15 April 1945 500 Lancasters and 12 Mosquitos of Nos 1, 3 and 8 Groups attacked Potsdam. This was the first time that Bomber Command 4-engined aircraft had entered the Berlin defence zone since March 1944 but the approach, across parts of Germany recently captured by Allied troops, and the Cuxhaven diversion led to only 1 Lancaster being lost; it was shot down by a night fighter.

and

20/21 April 1945 76 Mosquitos made 6 separate attacks on Berlin. This was the last RAF raid of the war on Berlin; the Russians were about to enter the city. Mosquito XVI ML929, of No 109 Squadron, claimed the last bombs - 4 500-pounders - at 02.14 British Time. The crew were Flying Officer AC Austin, pilot, and Flying Officer P Moorhead, navigator. All aircraft returned safely.

From another online souce[2]:

• The next day, 3 February, the Eighth struck Berlin with more than 1,000 B-17s. Of these, 932,... (page 498)
• 22 February: Allied strategic and tactical air forces—execute Operation Clarion—the bombing of dozens of small marshaling yards and rail junctions in small, untouched German towns to demonstrate the reach and destructiveness of Allied airpower to all Germans (page 487). The plan purposely selected targets near small towns heretofore untouched by the war and there- fore not likely to have strong antiaircraft defenses.... (page 508).
• 26 February ... the Eighth sent all three of its air divisions over the capital of the Reich (Berlin), where 1,089 effective sorties employed H2X to drop 2,778 tons of bombs, 44 percent of them incendiaries, through 10/10 clouds.... Each division attempted to hit a separate rail station. The Schle-sischer, Alexanderplatz, and Berlin-North stations were all lo-cated within two miles of the center of Berlin. The bombing started large fires and killed many civilians. RAF Mosquito night-intruder bombers attacking 12 hours later reported fires still burning. After the 26 February mission, with its 500,000 fire bomblets, the typical Berliner, with reason, would have been hard put to distinguish between RAF area bombing and [US]AAF pre-cision bombing (551-552).
• 15 March: Eighth Air Force—raids German atomic energy research facility at Oranienburg, a suburb of Berlin, to keep it from falling into Soviet hands (page 518). On 15 March, a day when the Eighth’s meteorologists predicted clear weather over what remained of Nazi Germany, the Eighth’s planning officers began to lay out an assault on their highest priority target system—oil. Instead, Spaatz’s headquarters intervened directly, an unusual action. USSTAF selected the force (a maximum effort of 1,300 bombers), targets, bomb using, and axis of attacks for two targets in the Berlin area: the marshaling yards at Oranienburg, to the northwest of the capital city, and the general headquarters of the German army at Zossen to the southeast of the city (page 524).
• 18 March: there is no specific entry but it does say on page 304 that the Eight attacked Munich,Freidrichshafen, and Oberpfaffenhofen (18 March). on page 522: During the month the Eighth conducted four major area bombings, dropping 1,014 tons visually on the city of Plauen (19 March) and employing H2X to release 1,039 tons on the Berlin suburb of Spandau (28 March); 1,166 tons on Hannover (28 March); and 730 tons on Brandenburg (31 March). Other large raids on rail targets in city areas carried large percentages of incendiaries: Ulm (1 March), 30 percent; Frankfurt (9 March), 30 percent; Berlin (18 March), 50 percent; and Brunswick (31 March), 22 percent. It is possible that the raid that is being refered to in both souces is the raid on the 15th which does seem to bave been large.
• 24 March 15th best-known raid of the month, when a force of 148 bombers escorted by its own P-51s made the long trip north to Berlin to hit a Diamler-Benz tank factory on the city’s outskirts. The raid demonstrated the Fifteenth’s capability to strike almost anywhere. The loss of 12 bombers (8 percent) discouraged any further such demonstrations (pp 525,526).

So should we leave the new bombing paragraph in the article as is, or modify it, or remove it? --Philip Baird Shearer 00:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I read that the U.S and British kept bombing after the russians entered the city. Is this correct? Enlil Ninlil 06:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The RAF did not. 20/21 April was the last RAF raid of the war on Berlin; (see higher in this paragraph).--Philip Baird Shearer 08:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Figures in the infobox... once again

I found this:

The Russian defeat of Berlin was inevitable for they outnumbered the Germans in men 5:1, guns 15:1, tanks 5:1 and planes 3:1.[3] < that's a lot more (2x more men, and no German artillery in infobox at all).

Until recently the Russians had claimed that they lost 10,000 men during the battle for the Seelow Heights and 100,000 in Berlin. The actual figures are unknown. Yet no less than 30,000 Red Army soldiers were killed at Seelow, and the staggering figure of 600,000 killed in Berlin seems more plausible. Konev complained at one point that he was losing 1,000 men a day because Zhukov's artillery failed to shift fire when asked. Zhukov denied that allegation, stating that Konev was not using his troops intelligently.[4] < now a WHOLE DAMN LOT more (Wikipedia now claims only 81,000 Communist soldiers were killed in the whole operation, while even the OLD Soviet figures were appearently more like 100,000 in the city alone).

No, in Russian/Soviet military studies they only speak of campaigns in operational terms. Accounting is always done operationally, not by location. That's why when in the past you heard them speaking of 100,000, they meant in the Berlin Operation. Since the West at the time was somewhat lagging in operational thinking, we merely misinterpreted it as "battle." That was an early guesstimate, and it really wasn't too far off the internal figure. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.160.49.45 (talk • contribs) 02:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to note Battle of the Seelow Heights says 35,000 Communist soldiers were killed in this battle, which is even more than claimed by these sources (30,000, with official Soviet of just 10,000).

Other source (modern Russian): The Battle of Berlin was a costly and bloody one with over 300,000 Soviet casualties. The number of German losses is unknown but roughly 480,000 were taken prisoner.[5] (infobox says "134,000 captured", and also counts the other German losses)

Still another: However, it should be noted that the Soviet Union placed their own casualties as over 300,000 in the two weeks of fighting from the Oder to the collapse of Berlin.8This number included killed, wounded and missing. Interestingly, recent western sources place the total casualties suffered by the Soviets as even higher. (...) Although the exact estimate of Russian casualties during the battle for Berlin is unclear[6] (infobox says "81,000 killed", etc - while everyone knows the Soviet numbers were completely unreliable.)

How about just not putting any figures, as are really just unknown?

Also, Britannica about overall Soviet (unknown!) losses:

Available estimates of Soviet casualties vary widely. A Soviet officer who served with the high command in Berlin and left the Soviet service in 1949 placed total military losses at 13,600,000-- 8,500,000 dead or missing in battle; 2,600,000 dead in prison camps; 2,500,000 died of wounds--and estimated civilian casualties at 7,000,000. These figures have been widely accepted in Germany, but most U.S. compilations, based on Soviet announcements, list 6,000,000 to 7,500,000 battle deaths. Calculations made on the basis of population distribution by age and sex in the 1959 U.S.S.R. census give some credence to the higher figures, for they seem to indicate losses of from 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 males of military age in World War II. The figures used here are a compromise estimate, not intended to obscure the fact that Soviet casualties are, in reality, unknown in the West.[7]

The German figures much more reliable (and by this I mean internal sources, captured later, not the official propaganda), except by the time of the Nazi collapse everything was of course in chaos. I don't think they even kept updating the casaulty counts, I think they were rather burning their archivas. Not to mention all the militias. So, also, unknown. --HanzoHattori 23:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The figures used in this article are from the book on Soviet combat casualties by Krivosheev in the 1990s after the opening of former Soviet government archives. These figures are usually cited as reliable in Western Soviet combat studies (ie. Glantz), and for the purposes of the article, they are the most accurate ones we have. Besides, they actually MAKE sense. If 600,000 Soviet personnel were KILLED in the operation as you so love to claim, then there would be another 1.8 million WOUNDED at a 1:3 ratio, which would mean that the 2.5 million Soviets involved would have suffered a NEAR-100% casualty rate. This assertion is thoroughly laughable and needs to be dismissed outright by anyone with a rudimentary grasp of casualty metrics. If you took the times to study the maps on the liquidation of the city itself, you have the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Guards Tank Armies and the 3rd & 5th Shock Armies and 8th Guards Army and 28th Army. All together, there were SEVEN ARMIES arrayed against the city. At the VERY MAXIMUM there were perhaps 500,000 troops involved in the storming of the city, and that figure is probably closer to 400,000 given an average size of ~60,000 per army. If the USSR had lost 100,000 men in direct city fighting as you love to claim, that would have been 100% casualties.

Your opinion on the casualties for this operation doesn't even stand up to basic logical scrutiny, and it's obvious that you have an ideological bone to pick, but this is not the place for your cold warrior propaganda or your "original" research. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.160.49.45 (talk • contribs) 02:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Berlin Offensive

Hi, I restored Berlin Offensive and created http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Berlin_Offensive. Please improve this article as regarding the actual fighting for the city only. --HanzoHattori 03:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, no. I don't care how you arrange the articles; but do not merely copy over the content without properly crediting the source article again. Kirill Lokshin 07:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

HanzoHattori you did not "restore" the article Berlin Offensive because I created it as a redirect.[8] You just cut an pasted the text from this article onto of the redirect.[9] Creating cut and past pages is a bad idea because it destroys the history which might be needed for copyright purposes. I reversed your changes to this page because AFAICT you deleted text which had references without an explantion as to why.

The "Berlin Offensive Operation" is usually called the "Battle of Berlin" in the military histories see Google

• 39 on intitle:Battle intitle:Berlin."
• 1 on intitle:Offensive intitle:berlin. -- and that book is "Bombers Over Berlin: The RAF Offensive, November 1943-March 1944"

--Philip Baird Shearer 13:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Why I deleted? Because it's DOUBLING the articles! Speaking about cut and paste... just compare!

For example, Battle of Berlin says:

In the early hours on April 16, the offensive began with a massive bombardment by thousands of artillery pieces and Katyusha rockets in a barrage which was sustained for several days. Shortly afterwards and well before dawn the 1BF attacked across the Oder. The 1UF attacked across the Neisse before the dawn the same morning. The 1BF was the stronger force but it had the more difficult assignment and was facing the majority of the German forces.[9][10]

The initial attack by the 1BF was a disaster. Heinrici anticipated the attack and withdrew his defenders from the first line of trenches just before the Soviet artillery obliterated them. The light from 143 searchlights which were intended to blind the defenders was diffused by the early morning mist and made useful silhouettes of the attacking Soviet formations. The swampy ground proved to be a great hindrance and under a German counter barrage, Soviet casualties were enormous. Frustrated by the slow advance, or on the direct orders of Stalin, Zhukov threw in his reserves, which in his plan were to have been held back to exploit the expected breakthrough. By early evening an advance of almost six kilometres had been achieved in some areas, but the German lines remained intact. In the south the attack by the 1UF was keeping to plan. Zhukov was forced to report that the Battle of the Seelow Heights was not going as planned. Stalin, to spur Zhukov, told him that he would give Konev permission to wheel his tank armies towards Berlin from the south.[11][12]

On the second day the 1BF staff were reduced to combing the rear areas for any troops which could be thrown into the battle. The Soviet tactic of using massed attacks was proving more costly than usual. By night fall of April 17 the German front before Zhukov remained unbroken, but only just. To the south Army Group Centre under the command of General Ferdinand Schörner was not proving such a hindrance. IV Panzer Army on the north flank of his formation was falling back under the weight of the 1UF Attack. He kept his two reserve Panzer divisions in the south covering his centre, instead of using them to shore up the IV Panzer Army. This was the turning point in the battle because by nightfall the positions of both the Army Group Vistula and southern sectors of Army Group Centre were becoming untenable. Unless they fell back in line with the IV Panzer Army they faced envelopment. In effect Konev's successful attacks on Schörner's poor defences, to the south of the battle of the Seelow Heights, were unhinging Heinrici's brilliant defence.[11][13][6]

On April 18, both Soviet Fronts made steady progress but Soviet losses were again substantial. By the nightfall the 1BF had reached the third and final German line of defence and the 1UF having captured Forst was preparing to break out into open country.[14][6]

On April 19, the fourth day the 1BF broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The remnants of General Theodor Busse's IX Army which had been holding the heights and the remaining northern flank of the IV Panzer Army were in danger of being enveloped by elements of the 1UF, these were the 3rd Guards Army and the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies, which having broken through the IV Panzer Army turned north towards Berlin and the 1BF. Other armies of the 1UF raced west towards the Americans. By the end of the 19th the German eastern front line had ceased to exist. All that remained were pockets of resistance. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between April 1 and April 19, with over 2,807 tanks lost. During the same period the Allies in the west lost 1,079 tanks.[11][15][16]

(and this is illustrated by... "Soviet soldiers storming the Berlin metro." - I didn't know Berlin metro had a station at Heelow Heights. And not only this - The encirclement of Berlin is illustrated by "Officer of the 1st Polish Army fighting in the vicinity of the Brandenburger Tor", which I guess Brandenburger Tor being a town near Berlin, judging from your so-perfect article.)

And the "main" Battle of the Seelow Heights says:

In the early hours on April 16, the offensive began with a massive bombardment by thousands of artillery pieces and Katyusha rockets in a barrage which was sustained for several days. Shortly afterwards and well before dawn the 1BF attacked across the Oder. The 1UF attacked across the Neisse before the dawn the same morning. The 1BF was the stronger force but it had the more difficult assignment and was facing the majority of the German forces.[7][8]

The initial attack by the 1BF was a disaster. Heinrici and General Theodor Busse, the commander of IX Army which was the army holding the heights, anticipated the attack and withdrew their defenders from the first line of trenches just before the Soviet artillery obliterated them. The light from 143 searchlights which were intended to blind the defenders was diffused by the early morning mist and made useful silhouettes of the attacking Soviet formations. The swampy ground proved to be a great hindrance and under a German counter barrage, Soviet casualties were enormous. Frustrated by the slow advance, or on the direct orders of Stalin, Zhukov threw in his reserves, which in his plan were to have been held back to exploit the expected breakthrough. By early evening an advance of almost six kilometres had been achieved in some areas, but the German lines remained intact. In the south the attack by the 1UF was keeping to plan. Zhukov was forced to report that the battle was not going as planned. Stalin, to spur Zhukov, told him that he would give Konev permission to wheel his tank armies towards Berlin from the south.[9][10]

On the second day the 1BF staff were reduced to combing the rear areas for any troops which could be thrown into the battle. The Soviet tactic of using massed attacks was proving more costly than usual. By night fall of April 17 the German front before Zhukov remained unbroken, but only just. To the south Army Group Centre under the command of General Ferdinand Schörner was not proving such a hindrance. IV Panzer Army on the north flank of his formation was falling back under the weight of the 1UF Attack. He kept his two reserve panzer divisions in the south covering his centre, instead of using them to shore up the IV Panzer Army. This was the turning point in the battle because by nightfall the positions of both the Army Group Vistula and southern sectors of Army Group Centre were becoming untenable. Unless they fell back in line with the IV Panzer Army they faced envelopment. In effect Konev's successful attacks on Schörner's poor defences, to the south of the battle of the Seelow Heights, were unhinging Heinrici's brilliant defence.[9][11][5]

On April 18, both Soviet Fronts made steady progress but Soviet losses were again substantial. By the nightfall the 1BF had reached the third and final German line of defence and the 1UF having captured Forst was preparing to break out into open country.[12][5]

On April 19, the fourth day the 1BF broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The remnants of the IX Army which had been holding the heights and the remaining northern flank of the IV Panzer Army were in danger of being enveloped by elements of the 1UF, these were the 3rd Guards Army and the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies, which having broken through the IV Panzer Army turned north towards Berlin and the 1BF. Other armies of the 1UF raced west towards the Americans. By the end of the 19th the German eastern front line had ceased to exist. All that remained were pockets of resistance. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between April 1 and April 19, with over 2,807 tanks lost. During the same period the Allies in the west lost 1,079 tanks.[9][13][14]

THE SAME THING. That's why I cut it out from my "Berlin Offensive" article! Leaving only the brief summary.

This article as it is, is nonsense. I was right here. The operation article, and the battles articles. This is obvious: battle for Berlin with the article about the battle for Berlin, not the doubling article about Seelow Heights illustrated with the unrelated photos from Berlin (this while you think what is named "The battle inside Berlin" don't deserve it's own "main" article at all, despite the fact this battle was larger than both Seelow Heights and Halbe). And just think, before writing anything about me "cutting and paste", when I am saying to eliminate the cut and paste here. --HanzoHattori 14:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Look at my answer above. Maybe the better itle would be "Berlin Operation". Or just "Battle of Berlin" as the operation, with article about "The battle inside Berlin" as its named in the current version (or whatever else, I don't care that much for these details). --HanzoHattori 14:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The intention with the Seelow Heights is to make it much more detailed than it is at the moment, the text from this article that was placed into that article is just meant to be a skeleton for others to hang their hat on. That is very different from what you are suggesting, which is to turn this article just into the battle inside Berlin and have the rest in the article in what was until you changed yesterday it a redirect.[10]. So why did you make the claim with the first of your recent edit s to this page "I restored the Berlin Offensive operation article - please make it the article about the ACTUAL battle of Berlin)" as that is not what you did.

"This while you think what is named "The battle inside Berlin" don't deserve it's own "main" article at all, despite" Do you mean by this that the article "Berlin Operation" is meant to be about the fighting in the city? if so it is a very bad choice of names because the Soviet name for the Battle of Berlin (meaning the whole attack from the Oder) was Berlin Offensive Operation named like all the other Offensive Operations. (See Talk:Prague_Offensive" for list)

The text I am refering to you deleting was the battle numbers from this article.[11]

You say "This article as it is, is nonsense. ..." In this case as can be seen from the Google book search the "Battle of Berlin" is the name used for the operation. Further many military historians including Beevor and Ziemke, argue that the Battle of Berlin was decided outside Berlin and I have also read others that name the 25th was the crucial day in the battle: "The next day, 25 April, the 2BF broke through III Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin and crossed the Rando Swamp. They were now free to move west towards the British 21st Army Group and north towards the Baltic port of Stralsund. The Soviet 58th Guards Division of the 5th Guards Army made contact with the US 69th Infantry Division of the First Army near Torgau, Germany on the Elbe River."

As to your comment about "please make it the article about the ACTUAL battle of Berlin" well some of us are working on the details inside the city,[12] I look forward to your positive contribution in this area. When the section is detailed enough to become an article we can look to moving some of it out. I would suggest the name "Battle for Berlin" as a tenative name for that new article --Philip Baird Shearer 16:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Geez, no

I'd like to get it it simple, so you understand:

• 1) an article about the whole operation (whatever you name it, I don't care that much, < this is now, and you want it still named "Batle of Berlin", and which I first named "Berlin Offensive" because I noticed there was a redirect, but I heard "Berlin Operation" a lot, in the Communist histography).
• 2) an articles about each of the battles (including the article about the fighting in Berlin, maybe "Battle for Berlin" or really whatever title)

All of them with the different text (not a mindless doubling copy/paste, a "skeleton" or whatever you call it - copypasta is a copypasta), different boxes (operational for the operation), and of course a different photos (truly illustrating the article, not posted at random like now).

As of mentioned Prague Offensive, the actual battle for the city sure have its own article. Look.

I mentioned the Talk:Prague Offensive because it goes into detail about what the Soviets called their offensive operations and how we would translate those into English titles if no other common name was available. --Philip Baird Shearer 21:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

....btw, Battle of France is sure a weird title IMO (the invasion of Poland is called war, or at least campaign - there were a lot or ACTUAL battles in 1940 France, and this "battle" supposedly include even the invasions of Netherlands and Belgium... what next, "Battle of USSR" for the Operation Barbarossa? --HanzoHattori 19:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

We should avoid original research. The french campaign of 1940 is almost universally called the "Battle of France" in english. Sure it is misleading - but it is the most common name for the campaign. Likewise, the most common name for the set of Soviet offensives around Berlin in April and May of 1945 is the "Battle of Berlin", even though much of it was fought outside the city. The "battle of Stalingrad" was decided, in part, outside the city too. But the names are what they are. DMorpheus 20:35, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

See also Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945), the Battle of Berlin (air), Battle of the Ruhr 1939-1945 --Philip Baird Shearer 21:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

None of it is a land campaign. You know, I've even see a documentary titled "Battle of Korea" (or for Korea), about Korean War. Maybe World Battle II? Who needs any other words than battle. --HanzoHattori 09:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It was because they were not land campaigns that I picked them. You might like to have everything in "Theatre" "Campaign" and "Battle", but that is not what happens in common usage. The British Army did not give a campaign medal for the Battle of France they gave one for the "North-West Europe Campaign" which is how they described the Western Front. But because On June 18 1940 Churchill addressed Parliament an said "What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin" this is the name that the actions are known as. Because Stalin repeatedly asked for a "Western Front" that is the name that tends to be used for what was in reality a theatre. There are other examples like this where the common name is not the official name. Also "battle" and "siege" are more neutral than "operation", because an operation tends to create articles from the side who launches the operation. Because this is an English language encyclopaedia and it is generally agreed that national versions of English will be used for articles where there is a specific national interest, sometimes articles have names from that Point of View. For example the British called the Eastern part of the North African Campaign the Western Desert Campaign because it was west of Egypt. The American military called it Egypt-Libya Campaign a more logical name but not the one used in Wikipedia because it is not the common name. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Nah, Western Front was before Stalin was anything more than a rogue-ish Okhrana agent. All Quiet on the Western Front. Stalin was asking for a "Second Front", despite Afrika and then Italy. --HanzoHattori 18:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

German road side executions

Beevor mentions on page 247 that no records were kept of the roadside executions carried out by the Feldfendarnerie and SS groups but "Soviet sources claimed that 25,000 German soldiers and officers were summarily executed for cowardice in 1945. This figure is almost certainly too heigh, but it was unlikely to have been lower than 10,000". I would have put these numbers into the Infobox but until the other numbers are sourced it might be taken that this source was for all the information in the German casualties window. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

To use Beevor is the same as to use Goebbels, it is nothing but propaganda. Beevor is the number 1 pro Nazi propaganda machine livening today. Do not use him or his books since everything he writes is from a very Nazi perspective how the glorious Nazis bravely fought the half drunk Bolshevik Asiatic inhuman hordes using medieval equipment. And do not add more info to the already cramped window add it at the bottom of the page. Toad bricks 19:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Casualties

Are these about ACTUAL Berlin battle only? If so, why there are more German wounded than prisoners? --HanzoHattori 09:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by the "ACTUAL Berlin battle" --Philip Baird Shearer 10:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The 1945 battle in Berlin, capital city of Germany. --HanzoHattori 10:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

What do you think were the start and end dates? --Philip Baird Shearer 12:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Barbarossa

I removed the recently introduced sentence "The total force for the Berlin Operation was more the Hitler had used at the start of Operation Barbarossa in 1941." for two reasons the first was it did not have a page source in the Beevor citation given, and I am not sure how relevent it is. The Soviets had more troops involved than the Allies did in Italy, so what? Only if you know a lot about Operation Barbarossa is the comparison pertinent, we can not assume that level of knowledge for the reader. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Trivia Section?

Would a veteran Wikipedia user create a trivia section? There are alot of interesting facts about the battle of Berlin. One that I found to be rather amusing is as follows:

"When the city was captured, a Polish Infantryman got up on the Reichstag, and hoisted the Polish flag above it. The Russians were infuriated; they burned the flag, and were thinking about shooting the Polish soldier. Subsequently, they hoisted their own Soviet flag over the Reichtag, and took the famous picture at the top of the page. " {{subst:ubsigned2|02:39, 18 April 2007 76.64.128.205}}

Please place new sections at the bottom of a talk page. Please sign you missives with ~~~~ which will be expanded automagicaly into name and time stamp

Source? (don't feed the a troll) --Philip Baird Shearer 07:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

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