‘How did the gentlemen diplomats take this?’ asked Dmitriev ironically.
‘Somewhat worse than a diplomatic reception,’ said Saveliev in the same tone of voice. ‘It seems that the gentlemen are slightly disturbed.’
‘To hell with these diplomats,’ I interrupted the scouts’ scoffing conversation. ‘Please tell us where we are. Have you found that out?’
‘Yes,’ replied Serashimov. ‘We are near the Heerstrasse, not far from the Olympic Stadium.’
We found this orientation point on our city maps straight away. The asphalted street shown with a thick red line led to the Charlottenburg and then on to the Tiergarten Districts, and that was exactly where we had to strike.
I drove off with my operational staff to my brigade’s leading battalion, my rifle companies, scouts and sappers, who had the difficult task of getting deeper into Berlin. The column worked its way along the Havel lake, went round the Dachsberg hill, left the individual family houses behind and turned right into the city. The brigade moved forwards slowly and carefully, ready at any time to pounce like a coiled spring.
The city gradually appeared out of the early morning mist, fires glowing in the eastern and central parts, and dark smoke rising up into the sky.
I stood up on my tank with my staff officers and looked forwards. On this morning of the 26th April 1945 our fatigue seemed to have flown. We were in Berlin’s streets. I was happy about our previous success, but also filled with sadness over the fallen and wounded. How much had everyone wanted to experience this great moment.
It began to become fully light. The burning city came closer like a burning wall. On a corner a street sign read: ‘Heerstrasse’. We had reached the required spot on schedule. From here we would thrust forward to Charlottenburg and the Tiergarten.
‘Pass our coordinates to the corps commander straight away,’ I ordered. Schalunov hurried off to the radio.
Dmitriev came up to me smiling and drew my attention to two captured Ferdinands. Staruchin, Ossadtchi, Gulevaty, Bystrov and Saveliev escorted us. Somebody asked courteously ‘Don’t move!’ and photographed us with a looted Leica camera.
Sometime we shall show these pictures to our children and grandchildren, we thought, and they will quietly learn what their fathers had to go through and be proud of them.
At that hour of the morning the Heerstrasse was quiet. Fighting was going on in eastern Berlin, and troops were thrusting forward to the city centre and also pressing from the north. However, in this area we had appeared as a surprise to the enemy. We used the circumstances to attack along the Heerstrasse.
However, the unusual quiet made us mistrustful and put us on our guard. There was nothing to be seen or heard of the enemy, but we knew that this could not last much longer, so we continued slowly up the street taking every precaution. Some units wheeled right to surround the Eichkamp area from the north, while the others worked on from building to building.
Experience and practice played a big role. The fighting in the Berlin suburbs had taught us to work together, to maintain reliable contact as well as to conduct aimed blows at selected targets. We basically cleared every building of the enemy before moving on street by street. In front of us the scouts moved cautiously, followed closely by the submachine-gunners. The tanks drove in a column at intervals of 100 metres from each other. They were escorted by storm troops and guns. Everyone was ready to support his neighbour.
As the situation was unknown to us, the commanders had to go forward with their own units. This was the only way that they could react to every change in the situation and manoeuvre their forces and equipment. Because of this I found myself with my small command team between two battalions, proceeding on foot and protected by submachine-gunners, scouts and sappers.
Schalunov ordered part of our forces to the western edge of Berlin. This consisted of tanks, the whole of the artillery and an infantry reserve that would support us in an emergency.
As we thrust into Berlin, the wood remained uncovered behind. This circumstance, as well as the districts of Spandau and Ruhleben, disquieted us, as we did not know what enemy forces lay before us. Our concern was fully justified for we had hardly left some built-up areas behind us when artillery salvoes broke the silence. A real hail of shells went over us. The whole surrounding area seemed suddenly to come alive.
From everywhere one could hear the command ‘Fire!’ Again the storming of sections of streets, buildings and upper storeys. Incendiary and explosive shells, tank and shrapnel shells, machine-guns, everything we had was in action. Burning houses collapsed. The light April wind carried the tongues of fire to other buildings. Soon the 1st Ukrainian Front’s long-range artillery was firing on Berlin’s western suburbs, and bombers and fighter aircraft appeared in the sky.
Our attack melded in with those of the regiments and divisions attacking from the east, south and north and led to the complete encirclement of the enemy. There still remained one possibility for the enemy, which was to abandon his resistance and lay down his arms, but this the Fascists feared more than anything else in the world, for their bloody crimes against humanity were too great. They defended every square metre of their capital with meaningless determination. Members of the Volkssturm battalions, boys and old men, had to be dragged into this fateful moment of defeat, even if only for a few moments.
But we pushed on determinedly further along the Heerstrasse and finally got the whole street under control that evening. From there our tanks and riflemen forced their way through the neighbouring streets. Towards morning on the 27th April our second battalion reached the Reichsstrasse.
I looked at the street sign as if bewitched. I had no idea that several other streets in Berlin had the same name. However, somehow it seemed to me to be the street that we had so often heard about and that it was the one in which the army commander wanted to meet me.
This was already the second day that our brigade had been fighting in Berlin. Part of the Heerstrasse and several of the neighbouring streets were in our hands and the fighting had extended to the Olympic Stadium. On the previous evening bombers, ground-attack aircraft and heavy artillery had attacked this area. We carefully made our way through the rubble, more burnt-out vehicles, destroyed trams and double-decker buses.
Although fires blazed everywhere, enemy soldiers crouched in the ruins. With every step we took we had to reckon with their resistance and that kept us on our guard. This way we lost both men and equipment. The deeper we pushed into Charlottenburg, the tougher was the resistance. Even our scouts found out no more in the chaos than their location. But, unperturbed by this, we fought fiercely to achieve our long-foreseen goal. Completely unexpectedly, the corps commander ordered our 55th Guards Tank Brigade to wheel sharply to the north. Our attack was redirected at Ruhleben and Spandau, and ended on the railway line running parallel with the Spree River. According to General Novikov’s orders, we should reach the Spree that same day, connect with the troops of the 1st Byelorussian Front and thus close the encirclement of Berlin’s inner ring.
The corps commander allocated us his reserve in our support. I thus obtained a battalion of the 23rd Guards Rifle Brigade, a detachment of Katyushas, some heavy tanks and a company of self-propelled guns. An officer from the corps staff, who had accompanied these units into our area, briefed us on the situation in and around Berlin.
All three corps of the 3rd Guards Tank Army had established firm footings in Berlin and were fighting in the southern and western parts of the city, as was General A. A. Lutschinski’s 28th Army. Chuikov’s and Katukov’s armies’ wings bordered the 1st Ukrainian Front as the armies of the 1st Byelorussian Front approached the western edge of the city.