The afternoon of the second day of battle saw the 1st Ukrainian Front’s two tank armies successfully fording the Spree. That evening Koniev reported to GHQ by high frequency telephone from his advance command post, later to become his main headquarters, in Schloss Branitz on the southern outskirts of Cottbus, as he later related:
I was finishing my report when Stalin suddenly interrupted me and said:
‘With Zhukov things are not going so well yet. He is still breaking through the defences.’
After saying this, Stalin fell silent. I also kept silent and waited for him to continue. Then Stalin asked unexpectedly:
‘Couldn’t we, by redeploying Zhukov’s mobile troops, send them against Berlin through the gap formed in the sector of your Front?’
I heard out Stalin’s question and told him my opinion: ‘Comrade Stalin, this will take too much time and will add considerable confusion. There is no need to send the armoured troops of the 1st Byelorussian Front into the gap we have made. The situation at our Front is developing favourably, we have enough forces and we can turn both tank armies towards Berlin.’
After saying that, I specified the direction in which the tank armies would be turned and, as a reference point, named Zossen, a little town 25 kilometres south of Berlin and, according to our information, the Nazi GHQ.
‘What map are you using for your report?’ Stalin asked.
‘The 1:200,000.’
After a brief pause, during which he must have been looking for Zossen on the map, Stalin said:
‘Very good. Do you know that the Nazi General Staff HQ is in Zossen?’
‘Yes, I do,’ I answered.
‘Very good,’ he repeated. ‘I agree. Turn the tank armies towards Berlin.’[3]
That same night, 17/18 April, Koniev issued the the following orders:
In accordance with the directive from the Supreme High Command, I order:
1. The Commander of the 3rd Guards Tank Army: on the night of 17 April 1945 the Army will force the Spree and advance rapidly in the general direction of Vetschau, Golssen, Baruth, Teltow and the southern outskirts of Berlin. The task of the Army is to break into Berlin from the south on the night of 20 April 1945.
2. The Commander of the 4th Guards Tank Army: on the night of 17 April 1945 the Army will force the Spree north of Spremberg and advance rapidly in the general direction of Drebkau, Calau, Dahme and Luckenwalde. By the end of 20 April 1945, the Army will capture the area of Beelitz, Treuenbrietzen and Luckenwalde, and on the night of 20 April 1945, Potsdam and the south-western part of Berlin. When turning towards Potsdam the Army will secure the Treuenbrietzen area with the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps. Reconnaissance will be made in the direction of Senftenberg, Finsterwalde and Herzberg.
3. The tanks will advance daringly and resolutely in the main direction. They will bypass towns and large communities and not engage in protracted frontal fighting. I demand a firm understanding that the success of the tank armies depends on the boldness of the manoeuvre and swiftness of the operation.
Point 3 is to be impressed upon the minds of the corps and brigade commanders.
Execution of the above orders will be reported.[4]
General Theodor Busse, commanding the German 9th Army, was aware of Koniev’s success to his south. He later wrote of this:
On the evening of 17 April there was already a threat to our own far southern flank, which in a short time became such as to cause a withdrawal. Again HQ 9th Army, fully supported by Army Group, tried to reach the OKH with the plea that, because of the 9th Army’s situation and in order to be able to hold on firmly to the boundary with the 3rd Panzer Army, it would be necessary to pull back before the front collapsed. All that the 9th Army got back was Hitler’s sharp order to hold on to its front and to re-establish the position at the critical points with counterattacks.[5]
The third day of battle saw an improvement in the progress of Zhukov’s troops, but at heavy cost once more. A German counterattack on the main line of advance, in which considerable casualties had been inflicted on the armour and infantry congesting the one road, pointed to a lack of pre-planning with regard to traffic control and infantry–tank cooperation, which was corrected by the issue of new orders that night. Then, on the fourth day, 9th Army’s last lines of defence opposite Berlin were breached in two places and Zhukov’s troops poured through, three days behind schedule. The Soviets had won, but the cost had been horrific, with an admitted 33,000 dead, but possibly more than twice as many, and 743 tanks and SPGs destroyed, that is one in four of those deployed, or the equivalent of an entire tank army. Moreover, the troops were exhausted.
Zhukov was obliged to revise his plans for the next phase, the taking of Berlin. The 1st Guards Tank Army and the 8th Guards Army would continue as a combined force on the direct line along Reichstrasse 1 to the city under Colonel-General Vassilii I. Chuikov, and there swing south over the Spree and Dahme rivers to encompass the southern suburbs along an arc extending from the Spree to the Havel. The primary objective was set as the Reichstag building, a distinctive, independently standing structure, still easily identifiable amid the chaos at the centre of the ruined city. Fate would determine which formation would actually take the building, for all the formations surrounding the city, except the 47th Army guarding the western flank, would be competing under front supervision. Zhukov was aware that Stalin had given his rival Koniev permission to send his tank armies towards Berlin on the night of 17 April, but still expected to have the city to himself, and part of Chuikov’s task was to ensure this.[6]
On the German side, 9th Army had just been shattered for the second time in three months, all the reserves had been burnt up, some 12,000 men had been killed in the four days of fighting, and there was now no chance of re-establishing any force capable of standing up to the Soviet onslaught. LVI Panzer Corps was being driven back on Berlin in the centre, and was trying to make for the bridges across the Spree in the south-eastern corner of the city and so rejoin the bulk of the parent 9th Army, while in the north CI Corps was withdrawing northwards behind the temporary safety of the Finow Canal.
Hitler’s insistence that 9th Army’s right wing hold on to the Oder line had prevented any flexibility in the handling of the formations facing the Soviet attack. The bulk of 9th Army was now isolated south of the main thrust on Berlin and physically incapable of preventing the Soviet advance. General Busse summarized this last day in his postwar study:
The fighting on 19 April created a further yawning gap in the army’s front. It was impossible to close the gaps. The wrestling by the army group and the [9th] Army for approval to break off had no success. The [9th] Army had decided that the LVI Panzer Corps should withdraw towards the Spree west of Fürstenwalde and east of Erkner so as to cover the XI SS Panzer Corps’ left flank, and for the LVI Panzer Corps to cut away from the Spree sector east of Fürstenwalde/Erkner so that with them as a flank guard the Oder front could swing away south of Berlin.[7]
Clearly none of the German formation commanders involved had any intention of taking the battle into Berlin and defending the city by street fighting. They had fought the decisive battle and lost; now they were primarily concerned with preserving their remaining forces by maintaining a fighting front against the Soviets. However, a proper appreciation of the situation leading to an independent decision on a course of action was hampered by the current command structure and the limitations imposed on them by the system. But the critical point had been reached where the individual commanders had to accept that the regime was finished and that there was no longer any point in trying to continue the struggle, whatever orders might still come from above. The basic problem here was one of conscience in view of the seriousness with which the soldier’s oath of allegiance was generally regarded, in this case the oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler as head of state. Consequently, subsequent actions by many German commanders were to be dogged by individual struggles of conscience, bringing delays at considerable expense to their commands.