The Fall of Berlin and the Rise of a Myth

Author(s): Donald E. Shepardson

Source: The Journal of Military History, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Jan., 1998), pp. 135-154
Published by: Society for Military History
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/120398 .
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The Fall of Berlin and

the Rise of a Myth

Donald E. Shepardson

ON30 April 1945 a Russian soldier raised his flag over the Reichstag
building in Berlin to signal Stalin's defeat of Hitler after four years
of war.' The fall of Berlin also coincided with the rise of a grand myth of
American naivete and British realism in dealing with their German
enemy and Soviet ally during the spring of 1945. The British and Americans, it was said, could have taken Berlin before the Red Army, but
declined to do so because General Dwight Eisenhower was overly cautious and failed to perceive the coming Cold War with the Soviet Union.2
The myth was born amid conflicting American and British differences on wartime priorities and postwar anxieties as well as a feeling
among the British that their effort against Hitler was not fully appreciated. They had a point. For the better part of two years Britain had
fought alone before Hitler's aggression forced the Soviet Union and the
United States into war. It was also a myth generated by the stress and
personality conflicts endemic to coalition warfare. The controversy has
been portrayed as part of a personal feud between General Dwight Eisenhower and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, or as the Americans
against the British. To some extent it was, but Eisenhower had his British
supporters, and no one favored driving for Berlin more than George Patton.3
1. The author sends a salute of appreciation to Colonel David Glantz for his help
in completing this manuscript.
2. David W. Hogan, Jr., "Berlin Revisited: Eisenhower's Decision To Halt At The
Elbe Viewed Fifty Years Later: A Selected Bibliography,"Headquarters Gazette 6
(Summer, 1995): 5.
3. Carlo D'Este,Patton: A Genius for War (New York:HarperCollins, 1995), 721.
The Journal of Military History 62 (January 1998), 135-54

0 Society for Military History

135

DONALDE. SHEPARDSON

Chester Wilmot criticized the decision to halt at the Elbe in his 1952
book, The Struggle For Europe.4 He has been joined by eminent historians such as Alan Bullock and Albert Seaton, with the latter wondering
"why Roosevelt and the United States Chiefs of Staff should have left this
final stage of the war to the discretion of a single individual who,
although a soldier of distinction, may at that time have been lacking in
political acumen and an understanding of the aims and methods of the
Soviet Union. Military objectives should of necessity have been related
to post-war political strategy."5
The myth has continued for fifty years despite the works of Stephen
Ambrose, Theodore Draper, David Eisenhower, Forrest Pogue, and others. In his recent book, Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger added his support.
"In April of 1945," he wrote, "Churchill pressed Eisenhower ... to seize
Berlin ahead of advancing Soviet Armies." The American refusal,
Kissinger believes, was a prime example of "military planning unaffected
by political considerations." Berlin, Kissinger believes, was a free gift at
a time when "there were no significant German armed forces left to
destroy."6

Critics of American policy have assumed that in the spring of 1945

everyone should have known that the Cold War was inevitable. American leaders, however, still hoped to prevent a break with the Soviets and
were more concerned with winning World War II than striking the first
blow of World War III. "World War II may be refought," wrote Theodore
Draper, "only as an exercise in speculation and hindsight. The way it
... was fought gives no reason to believe that it would have gone entirely
right if it had been fought differently. . . . What we can do now is to
understand what hard choices had to be made and to put ourselves back
into that time and place, as if we had to face those hard choices as they
arose."7 More recently, Gerhard Weinberg has reminded us that historians too often judge the past on the basis of what came later rather than
on what came before. Those who made their decisions during the harsh
years of World War II, he wrote, "had their hopes and their fears, made
their guesses and their projections, but in the rush of events had only the
barest glimmer of possible future developments."8 When facing those
hard choices amid the rush of events in the spring of 1945, it was Eisen-

4. Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe (New York:Harper, 1952), 690-706.
5. Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (New York:Knopf, 1992), 884;
Albert Seaton, The Russo-German War,1941-45 (New York:Praeger, 1971), 563.
6. Henry Kissinger,Diplomacy (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1994), 417.
7. Theodore Draper,"Eisenhower'sWar,"New YorkReview of Books 33 (25 September 1986): 30.
8. Gerhard L. Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern
German and WorldHIistory(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995), 287.
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Following the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944, the Wehrmacht ceased to mount well-coordinated resistance to the advancing
western Allies. Many German soldiers, however, were still willing to fight
ably and tenaciously for Fatherland and Fuhrer up to the end of the war.
In the East the Red Army had lain relatively dormant on the Vistula
since the summer of 1944. Stalin had told his Western Allies that he
would launch an offensive in January of 1945 to coincide with their drive
on the Rhine. Neither his allies nor the Germans expected it to come on
such a massive scale.
MILITARY HISTORY

137

DONALDE. SHEPARDSON

Stalin was now looking beyond the Oder to Berlin and perhaps to the
Elbe for a final defeat of the Germans. Throughout the autumn the Red
Army built up its forces to a five-to-one advantage, stockpiled supplies,
and converted needed portions of the Polish rail system to the wider
Russian gauge.9
On 12 January, the Red Army struck in force under the leadership
of Marshals Georgi Zhukov and Ivan Konev. Their advance accelerated in
the flatlands of western Poland, and by the end of the month they had
reached the Oder. The Red Army now faced its "February Dilemma."
Berlin lay less than fifty miles ahead. Zhukov and the Soviet command
in Moscow initially believed they could reach the Elbe by the end of February, and then attack Berlin from several directions.
But German fortifications and troop concentrations still had to be
eliminated. In their rapid advance the Russians had also exposed their
flanks to German attacks, especially along Zhukov's salient in the center.
These factors, in addition to growing supply problems, German reinforcements, and bad weather, caused concern in Moscow and at the front.
Stalin decided to postpone any assault on Berlin. In three weeks his
Red Army had won one of the most spectacular strings of victories of the
war. He could now meet his Allies at Yalta on 4 February with all of
Poland and most of Hungary in his pocket. His armies were little more
than a day's march from Berlin, while those of his allies were still fighting to regain the area lost during the Battle of the Bulge.'0 There was no
point in taking any risks. In Europe, as well as Asia, his allies needed him
more than he needed them. Given the military situation, Secretary of
State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., later wrote, "it was not a case of what the
United States and Great Britain would permit Russia to do, but what the
two countries could persuade the Soviet Union to accept."11
In the West, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of
the Allied Expeditionary Force, expected a tough fight before victory,
and he realized more than anyone how dependent his armies were on
the Red Army closing from the East. On 15 January he told General
9. Tony Le Tissier,Zhukov at the Oder: The Decisive Battlefor Berlin (Westport,
Conn.: Praeger, 1996), 13; Gerhard Weinberg,A Worldat Arms: A Global History of
World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 798-802; Earl P.
Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin (Washington: Office of the Chief of Military Ilistory,
1968), 419-21.
10. David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. lIouse, When 7itans Clashed: How the Red
Army Stopped Hitler (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 249-50; Seaton,
Russo-Gerrnan War, 536-37; Raymond Cartier, Der zweite Weltkrieg (Miunchen:
Piper, 1967), 2: 952-53; John Erickson, The Road To Berlin: Continuing the Story of
Stalin's War with Germany (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983), 472-76.
11. Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference
(Garden City, N.Y.:Doubleday, 1949), 301.
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George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, that if the Russian offensive
was weak, the Germans could maintain enough strength in the West to
stop his own advance.12 With a strong Russian offensive, however, Eisenhower planned to move on the Rhine along a wide front, while remaining flexible enough to cross it at the first opportunity.
After regaining the areas lost to the Germans in the Ardennes, Eisenhower gathered strength and then launched his assault west of the
Rhine. On 20 January his forces began their attempt to clear the area in
Upper Alsace known as the Colmar Pocket. With the aid of American
units, French forces captured Colmar on the twenty-seventh. From there
the Allies moved against other enemy units until by 9 February German
forces had been eliminated on the west bank of the Rhine south of Strasbourg.
Before the Colmar Pocket had been cleared, the Allies launched a
series of attacks designed to clear the west bank of the Rhine while
destroying as many German forces as possible. Beginning with Operation
Veritable in the north and ending with Operation Undertone in the
south, the Allies struck like a series of firecrackers along the front. At
first the fighting was fierce against special SS units determined to fight
until the end, but gradually air and armored superiority took their toll.
From the middle of February onward, Allied armies advanced along the
entire front. The German defenders were handicapped by shortages of
supplies as well as delays caused by roads clogged with refugees and the
accumulated junk of retreating forces. In the face of mounting casualties
and sagging morale, more and more soldiers looked for the chance to
surrender. By the end of the month nearly 250,000 had done so, adding
their number to the over 300,000 casualties suffered by the Wehrmacht
during the Rhineland campaign.13
As Eisenhower's armies advanced, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at Yalta from 4 to 11 February. Each of the leaders knew the European war would soon end. Most
of the conference dealt with the fate of Germany and Poland. Agreement
on temporary zones of military occupation and Soviet entry into the war
against Japan was relatively easy and harmonious. The zones had been
initially proposed and discussed at a time when the Western allies were
more concerned about meeting the Red Army at the Rhine than about
12. Stephen E. Ambrose, The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General
Dwight D. Eisenhower (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), 607; The Papers of
Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years, ed. Alfred D. Chandler (Baltimore: Johns
IIopkins University Press, 1970), 4: 2430-31.
13. Ambrose, Supreme Commander, 615; Raymond Cartier, Der zweite
Weltkrieg, 2 vols. (Munich: Piper, 1967), 968-71; Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme
Command, a volume in the series United States Army in WorldWar II (Washington:
GPO, 1954), 423, 427-29.
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DONALD E. SHEPARDSON

challenging it for control of Berlin. The Soviet zone comprised slightly

over one third of Germany and extended one hundred miles west of
Berlin. Berlin itself was divided into American, British, French, and
Soviet zones.14 The zones were agreed upon in part to forestall a lastminute land grab by any of the powers, and the confrontation that might
come with it. The political decision had been made.
Eisenhower's armies approached the Rhine while agreement on the
zones was completed. The rapid Allied advance placed the Germans in a
dilemma. The bridges over the river must be destroyed before the enemy
could use them. But blowing them too soon would leave many German
troops and their equipment trapped on the other side. The delay and
indecision involved in waiting long enough, but not too long, led to one
of those "breaks" of military fortune that alters plans, timetables, and
sometimes even the course of war itself.
On the afternoon of 7 March, units of the American Ninth Armored
Division approached the town of Remagen on the Rhine, some 250 miles
from Berlin. To their astonishment they saw the Ludendorff railroad
bridge still spanning the river intact. While planning to destroy the
bridge the Germans had lacked adequate explosives and had to improvise. They were surprised by the American infantry, and the Pershing
tanks supporting it. The tanks were able to silence German fire and in
the process may have cut wires leading to the explosive charges. The
first attempt to blow the bridge failed; the second appeared to be successful. The bridge shook but then settled back onto its moorings. American commanders decided to risk a crossing before another attempt was
made to destroy it. With the support of their tanks American infantry
became the first hostile troops since Napoleon's army of 1806 to cross
the Rhine. By the end of the day one tank company along with three
infantry companies had established a bridgehead on the other side.15
Crossing the Rhine accelerated the Allied drive into Germany. It also
brought new problems. Americans in the south were able to cross more
rapidly than British forces in the north. The American crossing seemed
even more important when Eisenhower received an intelligence report
on 11 March warning of German plans for a last defense in the mountains of southern Bavaria.
The existence of "the fortress that never was," as Rodney Minott
referred to it, could not be ignored.'6 The Germans had large concentra14. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945 (Washington:GPO, 1955), 118-27.
15. Cartier,Der zweite Weltkrieg , 971-72; Charles MacDonald, The Last Offensive, a volume in the series United States Army in WorldWar II (Washington:GPO,
1973), 213-17.
16. Rodney G. Minott, The Fortress that Never Was: The Myth of Hitler's Bavarian Stronghold (New York:Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 35-37.
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tions of forces in the south, and it was the logical place for soldiers from
the Eastern, Italian, and Western fronts to converge.17 The Italian campaign had shown how well the Germans used mountainous terrain, and
it made much more sense for the Nazi government to make its last stand
there than in Berlin. Some Nazi leaders had already fled Berlin for
Berchtesgaden, and Hitler himself still planned to leave on 20 April.18
The swing to the east would be primarily an American operation to
destroy German units while avoiding a collision with the Russians further north. The prospect of a collision was worrisome to Marshall as well
as to Eisenhower. On the twenty-seventh Eisenhower considered Marshall's advice to push eastward along a broad front. Marshall also raised
concern about "unfortunate incidents" involving the "advancing forces."
One possible way to minimize the danger, Marshall suggested, was "an
agreed line of demarcation."19
There had been no agreement at Yalta on where each army would
stop, posing the risk of accidental conflict by soldiers who might shoot
first and identify later. In Yugoslavia the previous November, American
fighter planes had mistakenly killed several Russian soldiers and angered
their government.20 The risk became greater as the two armies came
closer.
By April of 1945 Allied and Russian aircraft had fired on each other
over Germany with no damage. Eisenhower tried to prevent similar incidents on the ground by arranging identification signals with the Russians
as well as by halting at the Elbe. "It didn't seem to be good sense," he
recounted after the war, "to try, both of us, to throw our forces toward
Berlin and get mixed up-two armies that couldn't talk the same language, couldn't even communicate with each other. It would have been
a terrible mess."'21
The Soviet military expert David Glantz recently described what a
mess it could have been as part of the forthcoming book A Different War
dealing with the "what ifs" of World War II. In "Allied Drive to Berlin,
April 1945," he described what might well have happened had Truman
ordered Eisenhower to take Berlin. By shifting forces from the Harz
Mountains and the Ruhr he could begin the drive with about twenty divisions while adding another ten within a week. Glantz concluded that
17. MacDonald,Last Offensive, 409.
18. Ambrose, Supreme Commander, 622-23; Tony Le Tissier, The Battle Qf
Berlin (London: St. Martin'sPress, 1988), 80.
19. Chandler, ed., Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, 4: 2364-65; Ambrose,
Supreme Commander, 628.
20. MacDonald,Last Offensive, 444.
21. James Nelson, ed., General Eisenhower on the Military Churchill:A Conversation with Alistair Cook (New York:Norton, 1970), 55-56; Theodore Draper,"Eisenhower's War:The Final Crisis,"New YorkReview of Books 33 (23 October 1986): 61.
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DONALDE. SHEPARDSON

both the Allies and the Russians would have fought their way inside
Berlin. In doing so there would have been skirmishes with each other. It
would also have led to an immediate Cold War with the Russians before
the end of the Pacific war.22Colonel Glantz also elaborated on the theme
he and Jonathan House stressed in their When Titans Clashed. The Russians believed, with considerable justification, that they had a "blood
right" to take Berlin. The Soviet Union had sacrificed millions in first
holding, and then driving back the Germans. Taking Berlin was the culmination of its effort as well as the symbol of victory. It would not be
denied the prize by perfidious allies. This emotional preoccupation,
wrote Glantz and House, "drove the Red Army forward toward Berlin."23
The change in military fortune following the Rhine crossing placed
added strain on the Grand Alliance. In Moscow, the Remagen crossing
appeared to be a German attempt to facilitate an Anglo-American
advance to Berlin. The Soviets hardly had time to digest the news of
Remagen before being given indications of another "deal" between Hitler
and the West. On 12 March the American Ambassador to Moscow,
W. Averell Harriman, told the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs,
Vyacheslav Molotov, of secret contacts going on in Berne between the
Allies and representatives of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the German Commander in Italy.24
It appeared as though the hopes of Yalta were foundering. Soviet suspicions of the West were reciprocated by Western anger over heavyhanded Soviet actions in Poland. Deteriorating relations spilled over into
the coming conference in San Francisco on the United Nations. On 23
March, Moscow announced that Andrei Gromyko would head the Soviet
delegation to San Francisco. The absence of Molotov indicated a decreasing Soviet interest in the new organization as well as a general chilling of
relations within the Grand Alliance.
After hearing from Marshall, Eisenhower decided he could best
destroy the German army by moving north to Kassel in Westphalia, and
then drive east toward Dresden to meet the Russians. On 28 March he
informed Stalin of his plan to strike toward Leipzig and Dresden. "Could
you," he asked, "therefore, tell me your intentions....
I regard it as
essential that we coordinate our action and make every effort to perfect
the liaison between our advancing forces."25
22. David M. Glantz, "Allied Drive to Berlin, April 1945," A Different War
(Chicago, 1996), 118-82.
23. Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed, 256.
24. Rudy Abramson, Spanning The Century: The Life of W Averell Harriman,
1896-1986 (New York:Morrow,1992), 392.
25. Chandler, ed., Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, 4: 2531; David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War,1943-1945 (New York:Random House, 1986), 740-46.
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Eisenhower's decision along with his message infuriated the British
who still believed the final thrust would continue north to Berlin.26 He
had communicated directly with Stalin without first consulting with the
Combined Chiefs. Without their consent he had changed the primary
attack to Dresden while leaving Berlin to the Russians. If that were not
enough, he had transferred units from Montgomery's command to General Omar Bradley for the drive on Dresden. The British passed their
objections to Marshall and argued for a strong drive north which would
secure German ports and submarine bases and open the way to Denmark.27

Marshall and the American Joint Chiefs viewed the British note as
just another instance of British carping at Eisenhower, who by now had
demonstrated his ability and his judgment. Churchill himself had gone
to Eisenhower directly on many occasions without consulting the Combined Chiefs. Perhaps Eisenhower might have written to his Soviet counterpart, Marshall Aleksei Antonov, rather than to Stalin, but since Stalin
was the one who mattered, it saved time to go directly to him.
Marshall agreed that the swing to Dresden was the best way to divide
Germany and destroy what remained of the Wehrmacht. With Marshall's
support Eisenhower held to his plan on military grounds, but on 30
March Churchill interjected a political argument for taking Berlin. "If the
enemy resistance should weaken ... why should we not cross the Elbe
and advance as far eastward as possible? This has an important political
bearing, as the Russian army in the south seems certain to enter Vienna
and overrun Austria. If we deliberately leave Berlin to them ... the double event may strengthen their conviction, already apparent, that they
have done everything."28
Eisenhower still believed Dresden should be the primary goal. After
that, he agreed to give some American units back to Montgomery for a
drive to Lubeck in the north that would isolate German troops in Denmark and Norway. His decision was not that of a general who was politically naive. He knew his Clausewitz well enough to understand the
political and psychological importance of capturing Berlin, just as he
understood the importance of liberating Denmark before the Red Army.
Eisenhower also understood the American Constitution and his place
within the Allied command. His actions were subject to the approval of

26. John Ehrman, Grand Strategy, a volume in the series History of the Second
WorldWar(London: HMSO, 1956), 6: 131.
27. Ambrose, Supreme Commander, 633.
28. Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1953), 463.
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DONALDE. SHEPARDSON

the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Marshall, and ultimately the President of

the United States.
On 7 April Eisenhower told Marshall that "I am the first to admit that
a war is waged in pursuance of political aims, and if the Combined Chiefs
of Staff should decide that the Allied effort to take Berlin outweighs
purely military considerations in the theater, I would cheerfully readjust
my plans and my thinking so as to carry out such an operation. I
urgently believe, however, that the capture of Berlin should be left as
something that we would do if feasible and practicable as we proceed on
a general plan of (a) dividing the German forces by a major thrust in the
middle, (b) anchoring our left firmly in the Lubeck [sic] area and (c)
attempting to disrupt any German effort to establish a fortress in the
southern mountains."29
Eisenhower's primary goal, as well as that of Marshall and Roosevelt,
remained that of defeating Germany quickly with minimum casualties
before deploying forces to the Pacific. By the spring of 1945 these goals
became even more important because of a growing manpower shortage
that was aggravated by congressional objections to using eighteen-yearolds in combat.30
The situation in the Pacific was grim. The future looked even worse.
The atomic bomb was a theory to be tested; fighting the Japanese was a
reality to be dreaded. When the fighting ended on Iwo Jima on 16 March
the U.S. Marine Corps had suffered 25,000 casualties with over 6,000
dead.31 The Philippines campaign had been costlier still, and was not yet
completed.
Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa, began on 1 April and
encountered fanatical resistance in the south. At sea, Japanese defenders employed Kamikaze attacks in force against American ships, adding
to the carnage. When it finally ended in June, 75,000 American soldiers
and sailors had been killed or wounded. Losses in material were staggering, with 38 ships sunk, another 368 damaged, and over 700 aircraft
lost.32

Following the Yalta conference, the War Department formulated

plans for the final assault on Japan. Operation Olympic, the invasion of

29. Ambrose, Supreme Commander, 642; Chandler, ed., Papers of Dwight David
Eisenhower, 4: 2592.
30. Forrest Pogue, George C. Marshall, 4 vols. (New York: Viking, 1973), 3:
495-99.
31. George W. Garand and Truman R. Strobridge, History of the U.S. Marine
Corps Operations in World WarII (Washington:GPO, 1971), 4: 711.
32. Weinberg,A Worldat Arms, 882; Roy E. Appleman et al., Okinawa: The Last
Battle, a volume in the series United States Army in WorldWarII (Washington:GPO,
1948), 473.
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Kyushu, was scheduled for December 1945. Operation Coronet, the
invasion of Honshu, would follow in April 1946. Both operations, and
especially Coronet, depended on transferring men and material from
Europe. Approximately 400,000 Army Air Forces, Army Ground Forces,
and Army Security Forces were scheduled for direct transfer from
Europe to the Pacific from September 1945 to April 1946, with another
400,000 allowed a delay en route in the United States, with all projections subject to available shipping.33
Conquest of the Home Islands might take until the end of the year,
still leaving the Japanese in control of Burma, Formosa (Taiwan),
Manchuria, and large parts of China. The Kwantung army in China and
Manchuria had lost much of its strength, but still had a million men. For
those Americans who survived Okinawa, as well as those who joined
them later, "The Golden Gate in '48" might be the best they could hope
for.34

Allied leaders also had to contend with public opinion and the
fatigue of war. On 3 April, Montgomery complained that public opinion
might affect conduct of the war.35Here he shared a common frustration
with the Americans. A month earlier Marshall had informed Eisenhower
of his own troubles with Congress and public opinion. "Making war in a
democracy," he wrote, "is not a bed of roses."36Both men were right, but
Marshall, more than Montgomery, had learned that generals, presidents,
and prime ministers have to live with it.
In the spring of 1945, Britain was weary after six years of fighting.
Having sacrificed so much for so long, the British people wished to heal
and rebuild, but remained resolved to finish the war against Japan. New
armies were now being formed from throughout the Empire for Operation Zipper, the reconquest of Singapore in December, after which they
were scheduled to join the United States for Operation Coronet.37
It is doubtful whether Churchill could have challenged the Yalta settlement for Germany without destroying his own government. Churchill
had formed a coalition government with the Labour Party of Clement
33. Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy,
1943-1945, a volume in the series United States Army in WorldWar II (Washington:
GPO, 1968), 585-86; Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar, Code Name Downfall:
The Secret Plan To Invade Japan-and Why Truman Dropped the Bomb (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1995), 145.
34. MartinGilbert, The Second WorldWar:A Complete History (New York:Henry
Holt, 1989), 658.
35. Arthur Bryant, 7TrumphIn The West (New York:Garden City, N.Y.:Doubleday, 1959), 341; Alistair Home and David Montgomery,Monty: The Lonely Leader,
1944-1945 (New York:HarperCollins,1994), 321.
36. Pogue, Marshall, 3: 552.
37. Ehrman, Grand Strategy, 6: 264-67.
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DONALDE. SHEPARDSON

Attlee in May of 1940. The tensions of war and Churchill's autocratic

style had strained the coalition, and most expected it to end following
the defeat of Hitler. Nevertheless, Attlee had remained a loyal Deputy
Prime Minister and had supported Churchill's decisions at Yalta during a
heated debate in the House of Commons on 1 March.38 Many within
Labour, including the future Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, urged
Attlee to move toward a more independent and "socialist" foreign policy.39 Attlee and Labour would never have supported a confrontation
with the Soviets over Berlin, and any attempt to force one would have
ended the coalition.
Labour had gained in popularity partly because it had developed a
program for domestic reform following the war. It had also benefitted
from an enhanced image of the Soviet Union. Prior to the war Labour
had suffered because of its perceived kinship and sympathy with the
communism of the Soviet Union. The wartime alliance, however, had
done much to transform Stalin from the Red Tyrant of the 1930s into the
national leader of a gallant ally. There was simply too much good will
toward the Soviets to permit a sudden confrontation in the spring of
1945, and the residue of this good will helped Attlee to defeat Churchill
in the July 1945 elections.
The United States was in its fourth year of war. It had not suffered as
its allies had, but the cost was mounting. It was valid to wonder whether
either the American or British public would support bloody "cleaning
up" operations for years to come on the Asian mainland. The Americans
and the British had good reason for avoiding conflict with the Soviet
Union at a time when they were counting on a common effort against
Japan.40

The American people also had come to admire their Russian ally.
The 4 January 1943 lTme featured Stalin as its "Man of the Year"with a
picture of the determined leader beneath which the caption read "All
that Hitler could give, he took-for a second time." The award reflected
American admiration for the sacrifice the Russians had endured, an
admiration that continued until the end of the European war. To suddenly transform a gallant ally into an enemy might have been possible in
Big Brother's Oceania in 1984. It could not have happened in King
George's Britain or President Truman's America in the spring of 1945,
short of an obvious attack on American or British forces.
President Roosevelt's death on 12 April overshadowed conduct of the
war and the strains on the Grand Alliance. In Moscow, Molotov came
immediately to the American embassy to pay his respects. According to
38. The Times, 2 March 1945, 4, 8.
39. Kenneth Harris,Attlee (New York:Norton, 1982), 246.
40. Weinberg,A WorldAt Arms, 843.
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Harriman, he seemed genuinely moved by the news. The following day
Stalin displayed similar compassion and sympathy. Stalin obviously was
concerned about the impact of new President Harry Truman on American policy, but he also seemed saddened personally as well.41Whether as
a gesture to Allied solidarity or to the memory of Roosevelt personally,
Stalin agreed when Harriman asked him to send Molotov to San Francisco.42

News of Roosevelt's death was fodder for the faithful in Berlin. In

November the advance of the Red Army had forced Hitler to abandon the
Wolfsschanze in East Prussia and return to a specially constructed
bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery in the center of Berlin. Here he
and his entourage lived in a twilight world where hope and fantasy combined to obscure the reality above.
In September 1936, the former British Prime Minister, David Lloyd
George had agreed with Hitler that Germany had surrendered at "five
minutes to twelve" in 1918. If Germany had held on, the British and
French would have buckled from exhaustion. In this war Hitler was
determined to fight until "five minutes after twelve" and emerge victorious.43

Hitler had convinced himself that 1945 was merely year five in
another Seven Years' War. Defeat could be delayed until the Allied coalition fell into ruin and new weapons were developed to win an ultimate
victory, if German willpower were strong enough. Since the outbreak of
the war, Hitler had increasingly identified himself with Frederick the
Great. "The miracle of the house of Brandenburg," the death of Tsarina
Elizabeth in 1762, had ended the coalition with Austria and France, saving Frederick and leading to the greatness of Prussia. For a brief moment,
Hitler believed that Providence again had intervened and that he and
Germany would be saved.44
By the end of March, however, Allied armies had crossed the Rhine
all along the front. On the left, Montgomery's army swept past the Ruhr
toward the Baltic, while to his right American forces passed the Ruhr and
then turned left to meet their British Allies. Now the heart of German
industry was isolated along with nearly twenty divisions under Field Marshal Model. The Germans held out against the Allied siege until 18 April
when over 300,000 surrendered.45
41. Vojtech Mastny,Russia's Road to the Cold War:Diplomacy, Warfare,and the
Politics of Communism, 1941-1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979),
271.
42. Abramson, Harriman, 394.
43. Donald McCormich,The Mask of Merlin:A Critical Biography of David Lloyd
George (New York:Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 274-75.
44. Bullock, Parallel Lives, 885.
45. MacDonald,Last Offensive, 344-72.
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DONALDE. SHEPARDSON

Eisenhower's final decision to halt at the Elbe came on 14 April, at a

time when American units had entered the Soviet zone and were fifty
miles from Berlin. Lieutenant General William Simpson's Ninth Army
had reached the Elbe on the eleventh after covering 120 miles in ten
days. Simpson believed he could reach Berlin before the Red Army and
wanted to try. According to John Toland, Simpson's forces would attack
"straight down the autobahn to Berlin." There would be little opposition
until the Americans reached the outskirts of the city. "Simpson's claim,"
Toland wrote, "that he could get there in twenty-four hours was not just
boasting. Except for isolated German units-and most of them would
offer little or no resistance-there was nothing between him and Hitler
except Eisenhower."46 Simpson's view also is recounted in Cornelius
Ryan's The Last Battle.47
S.L.A. Marshall disagreed with Ryan and Toland when he reviewed
both their books for the New York 7imes Book Review. "I must," he
wrote, "still say with Virgil: 'These things I saw and part of them I was.'
On the day the halt came ... I was across the Elbe at Barby. German pressure against that bridgehead was still intense." American forces, Marshall
continued, were "spread out .. ., beset on both flanks with a real fire-fight
going up front. Its logistical problems were heavy. Time was needed for
collection and regrouping.... Those were not 50 soft miles from the Elbe
to Berlin; they were long, hard miles, and troops do run out of wind."48
Theodore Draper also was there. "On the front of my own 84th infantry
division, which would have been assigned the mission to Berlin, an estimated 200 Germans with their backs to the river fought bitterly on 21
April five days after our leading elements had reached the Elbe, and three
companies had to be used to deal with them."49Those who were on the
line believed there was plenty between Simpson and Hitler.
Toland's view seems to assume that an Anglo-American drive to
Hitler's bunker would have gone nearly uncontested. The 50,000 German soldiers blocking the Ninth Army were far from the old Wehrmacht,
but they were about equal in number to the force Simpson could have
thrown against them. Any force driving for Berlin from the west would
have to be strengthened by units from the south, would expose its flanks
to attack, and have to traverse the marshy ground west of the city.50Most
likely, German soldiers would fight neither as hard or long as their com46. John Toland, The Last 100 Days (New York:Random House, 1966), 385-86.
47. Cornelius Ryan, The Last Battle (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966),
330-31.
48. S. L. A. Marshall,"Berlin,April, 1945," New YorkTimes Book Review 71 (27
March 1966): 32.
49. Theodore Draper,"Eisenhower'sWar:The Final Crisis,"New YorkReview of
Books 33 (23 October 1986): 61.
50. Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 727.
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rades in the East, but many were still willing to defend Hitler and his capital and to shoot or hang comrades who were not.51 Fighting in the streets
of Berlin and its suburbs would be costly as well as long, and any AngloAmerican force in Berlin would have been easily surrounded and isolated
by the oncoming Red Army.52
When asked to estimate the cost in men of a final drive for Berlin
from the Elbe, Bradley had put the figure at one hundred thousand casualties. Eisenhower's concern for casualties was shared by Marshall in
Washington. It was primarily humane, but beyond that there lay the
hard reality that men and material needed in Asia were not to be squandered in Europe. Taking Berlin, Bradley added, was "a pretty stiff price
to pay for a prestige objective, especially when we've got to fall back and
let the other fellow take over."53
And the other fellow meant to have it. Stalin and the Soviet High
Command had been planning for the assault since February, and were
ready to move. "So who will take Berlin, us or the Allies?" Stalin asked
his generals on 1 April. "We will take Berlin," Konev answered, "and take
it before the Allies."54
In February the Red Army had stood at the Oder in a far better position to reach Berlin before the Anglo-Americans. Stalin and the field
commanders had decided to pause in order to eliminate pockets of German forces in the rear and on the flanks before launching any new attack
westward. Supply lines also had been stretched to the limit because
many of the bridges over the Vistula had been destroyed during the
advance.55
Following the defeat in the Ardennes, Hitler had transferred troops
to the east to meet the Russians, slowing progress along the front and
forcing the diversion of men and equipment away from the Berlin thrust
to other areas. In the southeast, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky's Second
and Marshal Feodor Tolbukhin's Third Ukrainian Fronts encountered
stronger German resistance than they had expected on their drive to
Vienna. By the middle of March, German resistance began to weaken in
Hungary and Czechoslovakia as the Red Army drew closer to Vienna.
While the Red Army slowly broke the German resistance along an arc
51. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower and Berlin: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe
(New York:Norton, 1986), 93; Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Fall of Berlin
(New York:Norton, 1992), 298.
52. Pogue, Marshall, 3: 575.
53. Omar N. Bradley,A Soldier's Story (New York:Henry Holt and Co., 1951),
535.
54. 0. A. Rzheshevsky, "The Race for Berlin," trans. David M. Glantz, Journal of
Slavic Military Studies 8 (September 1995): 569.
55. Georgi Zhukov, The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov (New York: Delacorte,
1971), 580.
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from Vienna northward, Eisenhower's forces were rapidly driving into

Germany.
The speed of the Western advance and the secret peace talks in
Berne were sufficient to revive Stalin's distrust of his allies and to make
him wonder whether they would deprive him of Berlin. Eisenhower had
tried to allay Soviet concern in his message to Stalin on 28 March, and
to a point he did. Stalin knew, however, that Eisenhower was subject to
pressure from above, and he feared that the British would force Eisenhower to take Berlin.56 There was always the possibility that Eisenhower's announced intention to move east was merely a feint to cover
the major drive for Berlin. Whatever Stalin's fears and motives, he apparently believed the Germans were negotiating with the British to turn
over Berlin before it could be captured by the Red Army.57
Before replying to Eisenhower, Stalin summoned Zhukov and Konev
to Moscow to develop a plan for launching an offensive on 16 April that
would capture Berlin by the end of the month and take the Red Army to
the Elbe to secure the occupation zone assigned to the Soviet Union at
Yalta.58 In his message to Eisenhower, Stalin agreed that Berlin was no
longer important. He promised that the main blow of the Soviet offensive
would begin around the middle of May, and that it would head for a Dresden-Leipzig rendezvous with Eisenhower's forces.59
The Red Army made its swiftest redeployment of the war for the
attack. It was an awesome force of 2.5 million men, 20 armies, 150 divisions, 6,000 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,000 artillery pieces and mortars,
3,000 rocket launchers, and nearly 100,000 motor vehicles.60 In contrast
to Anglo-American troops on the Elbe, it was well supplied and "gassed
up."7

It had an awesome task. Berlin, Zhukov later recounted, had a "total

area of almost 350 square miles. Its subway and other widespread underground engineering networks provided ample possibilities for troop
movements. The city itself and its suburbs had been carefully prepared
for defense. Every street, every square, every alley, building, canal and
bridge represented an element in the city's defense system."'6'
56. Le Tissier, Zhukov at the Oder, 107.
57. Erickson, Road to Berlin, 528; Zhukov,Memoirs, 580-81.
58. Zhukov, Memoirs, 531-33; Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, 470-71; Read and
Fisher, Fall of Berlin, 280-83.
59. Ziemke, Stalingrad ToBerlin, 467.
60. Cartier,Der zweite Weltkrieg, 994; Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed,
261; Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin, 470.
61. Georgi K. Zhukov, Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles, trans. Theodore
Shabad (New York:Harper and Row, 1969), 284. Zhukov'sestimate of Berlin's size is
accurate. The metropolitan area was approximately 340 square miles. Its population
had fallen from approximately 4,500,000 in 1942 to just under 3,000,000 by the end
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Zhukov assigned command of the First Byelorussian Front to General Vasili Sokolovsky in order to supervise the entire offensive.
Sokolovsky was assigned to lead the primary drive with support from
Konstantin Rokossovski's Second Byelorussian Front in the north and
Konev's First Ukrainian Front in the south.
Hitler issued his last directive on 15 April. With determination, he
said, German soldiers could defeat the invader and gain "a turning point
in the war."62But it was too late for turning points. The forty miles
between Berlin and the Red Army was defended by thirty-five divisions
of varied strength and equipment. The Russians now commanded such
overwhelming superiority that blunders could not prevent their victory.
On 16 April, the First Byelorussian and First Ukrainian Fronts
attacked before dawn in an attempt to surprise the Germans while blinding them with searchlights. The initial assault failed, but the Red Army
pressed on in spite of terrible casualties, as it had throughout the war.63
By the nineteenth Russian superiority began to dominate. Sokolovsky's
Byelorussian Front advanced, but more slowly than Zhukov had
intended. He ordered Rokossovsky to swing southwest instead of northwest to ensure encirclement, in case the main drive on the city failed.
Progress in the center and the north was also slower than Stalin wanted.
Zhukov ordered Konev to accelerate his drive from the southeast across
the Spree River. By the twentieth the battle for Berlin was decided. Russian soldiers entered the city and were fighting their way to the center
street by street, while other forces advanced to encircle the city.64
Officials in the bunker advised Hitler to leave immediately to join
German forces in the south, but he delayed. That night most of his
entourage fled southward. On the twenty-first, Hitler ordered SS General
Felix Steiner to attack from the southern suburbs of Berlin with all available troops. "Any commander," Hitler yelled at Luftwaffe General Karl
Koller, "who holds back his forces will forfeit his life in five hours."65 In
the confusion, Steiner never attacked while the withdrawal of other
forces only enabled the Russians to advance further.

of the war (Burkhard Hofmeister, Berlin [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975], 50); Le Tissier, Battle of Berlin, 15-24.
62. Hitler's Weisungen fuir die Kriegfiihrung, 1939-1945: Dokumente des
Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, Herausgegeben von Walther Hubatsch (Frankfurt
am Main:Bernard und Graefe Verlag fuirWehrwessen, 1962), 310-11.
63. Glantz and House, When litans Clash, 263; Le Tissier, Zhukov at the Oder,
159.
64. Cartier,Der zweite Weltkrieg,993-95; Seaton, Russo-German War, 572-76.
65. Karl Koller,Der letzte Monat: Die Tagebuchaufzeichnungen das ehemaligen
Chefs des Generalstabes der deutschen Luftwaffe vom 14. April bis zum 27. Mai
1945 (Mannheim: N. Wohlgemuth, 1949), 23.
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Hitler flew into a rage of self-pity when he learned there had been no
attack. He had been betrayed and deserted by those he had trusted. To
punish them he would now abandon them to their fate. He would lead no
last defense from Berchtesgaden. He would die in Berlin.66 Hitler's decision further confused what remained of German defenses. Hermann
Goring's attempt to contact Hitler regarding the succession was seen as
treason. Reports of Heinrich Himmler's meeting with Swedish diplomats
seemed worse, since Himmler had been one of Hitler's most loyal followers. By the twenty-ninth, as Russian troops were closing in on the
Chancellery, Hitler made final preparations for his death and the disposal of his body. The following afternoon he and his new bride, Eva
Braun, killed themselves.
For a time Martin Bormann and Goebbels tried to conceal Hitler's
death, although they notified the stunned Admiral Karl Donitz that he
had been named Hitler's successor. Bormann wanted to join Donitz in
the north and take his position in his new government, but he could not
as long as the Russians had the city encircled. Early in the morning of 1
May they sent General Hans Krebs to negotiate a cease fire with Marshal
Vasili Chuikov, the defender of Stalingrad, who was directing the final
assault. Chuikov and Zhukov were in no mood to grant an armistice or
to sign a separate surrender and sent Krebs back to the bunker with no
terms except unconditional surrender.67 Upon hearing the news, Bormann tried unsuccessfully to escape from the city and join Donitz, while
Goebbels and his wife chose suicide after killing their children. Krebs
decided to shoot himself. At 0600 hours on 2 May Lieutenant General
Helmuth Weidling surrendered along with roughly 100,000 men.68
Hitler's death was more instrumental in ending the war than the fall
of Berlin. All oaths to continue were invalid and all faith in victory gone.
At Flensburg near the Danish border Donitz hoped to gain time for German civilians and soldiers to flee westward. Eisenhower finally issued an
ultimatum: either surrender unconditionally or he would close the border with the Soviet zone. Donitz labeled Eisenhower's ultimatum "extortion," but realized that there was no alternative. At 0241, 7 May, General
Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender.69
Victory in Europe brought somber reflection as well as joy. "Across
that large, blood-drenched swath of Europe," remembered Omar
66. Bullock, Parallel Lives, 887.
67. Vasili I. Chuikov, The Fall of Berlin, trans. Ruth Kisch (New York:Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), 213ff; Le Tissier, Berlin, 207-8.
68. The Soviets claimed to have taken 130,000 prisoners, a figure which may
have included civilians for labor camps in the Soviet Union; Le Tissier, Battle of
Berlin, 224.
69. Pogue, Supreme Command, 485-90; Walter Ludde-Neurath, Regierung
Donitz (Gottingen: Musterschmidt, 1964), 68-70.
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to rise no more. The
Bradley, "586,628 soldiers had fallen-135,576
grim figures haunted me. I could hear the cries of the wounded, smell the
stench of death. I could not sleep; I closed my eyes and thanked God for
victory."70

On V-E Day Stalin held Berlin. It had cost him nearly 80,000 dead or
missing, with another 280,000 wounded, 2,000 artillery pieces
destroyed, and over 900 aircraft lost.71 He still had the firepower to keep
it. But Stalin also had a war in Asia to fight. The Red Army now had to
make a massive shift of men and material for the attack into Manchuria
in August. It was no time to challenge his allies in Berlin. In July, American, British, and French forces took possession of their zones.
The Red Army had paid a frightful price for Berlin and now they
were giving half of it to allies who had paid nothing. Here was a gift. For
the next forty-five years, those Western zones embarrassed, irritated,
and threatened Stalin and his heirs. During the years that followed
Zhukov was criticized for his timidity in February of 1945. In March
1964, Chuikov publicly stated that "Berlin would have been taken in
about ten days," had Zhukov shown more courage in dealing with
Stalin.72 Zhukov responded by defending his decision, and his supporters continue to do so. Others, however, support Chuikov and wonder
how much better things might have been, had Zhukov and Stalin been
more realistic in the spring of 1945.73

70. Omar Bradley and Clay Blair,A General's Life: An Autobiography (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1983), 436.
71. Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed, 269, 375.
72. Chuikov, The Fall of Berlin, 119.
73. Zhukov, Greatest Battles, 275; Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed,
370 n.32.
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