Duffy Christopher. Red Storm On The Reich (ENG)

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visions now barred the direct way to Berlin, and about thirty-

three began to pile up threateningly in Pomerania on Zhukov's

right flank.

The Luftwaffe attacks against the first Russian ice passages

had been more effective than Rudel had supposed, and the

Germans now regained air superiority with the help of aircraft

which were switched from air defence against the British and

Americans to close ground support on the Eastern Front. Hitler

had been responsible for providing most German fighters with

bomb racks, and this precaution now paid dividends. Oper-

ating from the many concrete airfields around Berlin, the Luft-

waffe was able to keep up a very high rate of sorties against

the nearby bridgeheads, the Oder passages, and the Russian

forces which were strung out along the flank with Pomerania.

Rudel's own flying career came to an end early on 9 February,

when he took off with a number of planes of his flight of Stukas

and went looking for tanks in a new Russian bridgehead north

of Frankfurt near Lebus. This had become particularly danger-

ous work, because the Russian anti-aircraft gunners were ex-

perienced and skilful, whereas Rudel had several new crews

who were at special risk. He told his other Ju-87s to hold off,

and he carried out repeated attacks in his usual style—diving

at a steep angle, straightening out for an instant to get in a few

rounds of wolfram-core shot from his twin 37-mm cannon,

weaving away at low altitude, then climbing as rapidly as pos-

sible to regain a height of 2,400 feet, out of reach of the small-

arms fire. He would not have accepted this risk even on his

own account if the Russians had not been so close to Berlin.

One of Rudel's cannon jammed, after he had accounted for

a succession of tanks, but he went on to attack a thirteenth

machine:

And already I zoom down from 2,400 feet. Keep your mind

on your flying, twist and turn; again a score of guns spit at

me. Now I straighten up . . . fire . . . the tank bursts into a

blaze! With jubilation in my heart, I streak away low above

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

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5. The Soviet offensive is contained, February 1945

the burning tank. I go into a climbing spiral ... a crack in

the engine and something sears through my leg like a strip

of red hot steel. Everything goes black before my eyes. I gasp

for breath. But I must keep flying . . . flying ... I must not

pass out. Grit your teeth, you have to master your weakness.

A spasm of pain shoots through my whole body. (Rudel,

1952, 223)

A bumpy landing brought him to the ground semi-conscious

but alive.

The counterattacks against the Oder bridgeheads were un-

relenting from both air and ground, and the ferocity of the

combat was shown by the records of the IX Rifle Corps of the

Fifth Shock Army, which had suffered only 961 casualties dur-

ing its advance from the Vistula to the Oder between 14 and

31 January, but sustained 3,154 between 1 and 10 February.

This army was the target of 5,008 Luftwaffe sorties on 2 and 3

February alone:

The roar of the tank and aircraft engines, the rumble of the

bursting shells and bombs, the dry rattle of the automatic

weapons—none of this ceased for an instant. It seemed

scarcely possible that the earth, let alone human beings, could

endure such an avalanche of fire and metal. (Bokov, 1979,

101)

Zhukov knew that he was asking a great deal when on 4

February he ordered the Fifth Shock Army to expand its bridge-

head north of Küstrin. He told the army to attack only at night,

and for clearly defined objectives. During the daytime the Rus-

sians were to concentrate on beating off the counterattacks by

the German ground forces and on surviving air attack by dig-

ging deep and putting up a massive barrage of anti-aircraft fire.

Such were the conditions under which the Russians pushed

the Germans slowly back in the course of the fighting in Feb-

ruary and March. By the end of March the Fifth Shock Army

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

120

had enlarged its bridgehead to twenty-seven kilometres in

length and between three and five in depth. In the Russian rear

the German defenders of Posen tied down four divisions of

Chuikov's Eighth Guards Army and two divisions of the Sixty-

Ninth Army. The citadel did not fall until 22 February (see p.

250), but the energetic Chuikov retrieved his forces, and by the

end of March he had expanded his bridgehead south of Küstrin

to a breadth of fourteen kilometres and an average depth of

four.

The Changing Psychological and Moral Balance

It is not easy to establish Zhukov's viewpoint at this time of

important decisions. The German historian Erich Murawski, in

his detailed account of events on the Pomeranian flank (Die

Eroberung Pommerns durch die Rote Armee, 1969), emphasises the

importance of General Vasilii Danilovich Sokolovskii, a brilliant

but political-minded Ukrainian whom Stalin had sent to the

front as an informer and a kind of super chief of staff. It was

Sokolovskii, according to this analysis, rather than Zhukov who

drew the attention of STAVKA to the vulnerability of the Pom-

eranian flank, and advised that the 1st Belorussian Front should

halt on the Oder and turn north to clear at least the neigh-

bourhood of Stettin before it could continue the advance on

Berlin. Zhukov is said to have shared the desire of Chuikov

and other generals to press on straight to Berlin, arguing that

delay would give the Germans time to build up an impregnable

redoubt in Bohemia to the south as well as to strengthen the

defence on the Oder and perhaps even allow the Western Allies

to reach Berlin before the Soviets. After violent arguments be-

tween the two of them, Stalin pronounced in favour of Soko-

lovskii on 4 February.

Murawski cites no sources, and against this interpretation

we have the evidence of an urgent message which Zhukov sent

to STAVKA on 31 January, 'stressing that the frontage of the

RED STORM ON THE REICH

121

1st Belorussian Front had now reached 500 kilometres, that

Rokossovskii's left flank [i.e. of the 2nd Belorussian Front] was

lagging appreciably behind the right flank of the 1st Belorussian

Front—Rokossovskii must push his Seventieth Army forward

—and Marshal Konev should gain the Oder line as speedily as

possible' (Erickson, 1975-83, II, 453-54). He was aware that he

was running short of supplies, and that the Luftwaffe had

gained the temporary command of the air. No clear guidance

came from STAVKA; which was not entirely in contact with

the situation on the ground, and was still trying to make sense

of a directive from Stalin that both Zhukov and Konev were to

participate directly in the ultimate drive on Berlin. In the event,

Stalin was now guided by his cautious instincts and decided

that Zhukov and Konev must stop on the Oder and clear their

respective flanks in Pomerania and Silesia.

Whatever Zhukov's views may have been at the turn of Jan-

uary and February 1945, he felt under an obligation after the

war to defend the decision to halt the push on Berlin. Colonel-

General Chuikov was the most persistent of his critics, and

Zhukov replied in the Military Historical Journal for June 1965

('Na berlinskom Napravlenii,' VIZh, 1965, VI). He explained

himself further to a live audience at a study day held by the

Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, agreeing with his ques-

tioner, Major-General S. M. Yenyukov, that it would have been

physically possible for the First and Second Guards Tank armies

to have reached Berlin, and perhaps to have taken the city. In

fact, both he and Chuikov desired it at the time:

But, Comrade Yenyukov, it would have been impossible

to turn back, as the enemy could easily have closed off the

escape routes. The enemy, by attacking from the north, could

have easily broken through our infantry, reached the Oder

crossings, and put the troops at the front in an embarrassing

situation. Let me emphasise that one must be able to control

oneself, resist temptation, and avoid throwing oneself into

rash adventures. When a commander is making decisions,

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

122

he must never relax his grip on common sense. (Golovnin,

1988, 25)

The danger of pushing good fortune too far is raised again in

Zhukov's memoirs, which refer to an old war against the Poles:

'Very instructive in this respect is the lesson learned by the Red

Army during the Warsaw offensive back in 1920, when its head-

long, unprotected advance led to bitter defeat, instead of suc-

cess, of our Western Front' (Zhukov, 1971, 574). Another

precedent which weighed with him heavily was that of the

reckless pursuit after the battle of Stalingrad in 1943, which left

the Soviets vulnerable to Manstein's counteroffensive at Khar-

kov.

All the time, the advantages which had been gained by the

Soviet armies were being vitiated by the encouragement which

had been given to the soldiers to revenge themselves on the

German population. Zhukov and Konev could do little to stay

the plunder, rape and incendiarism (see p. 275) which ensued.

An officer who defected to the West explained after the war:

In general terms, the explosion of these low and cruel in-

stincts tore apart the fibres of the otherwise notoriously strict

discipline which bound the Red Army. This process inter-

fered with the functioning of the signals and supply systems

and with the issue and execution of orders. To put it in a

nutshell, the effectiveness of the Red Army was crippled in

front of the gates of Berlin and in Silesia (quoted in Ahlfen,

1977, 153).

While the Soviets were bogging down in the physical and

moral sense, it became easier for Hitler to present himself as

the only possible savior of the German people. The Russian

atrocities played into his hands, as did the outcome of the

enemy summit meeting at Yalta. The Allies had failed to settle

the political complexion of the new government of liberated

Poland, but they had agreed that the Poles were to receive a

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123

'considerable accession of territory in the north and west' at

the expense of Germany, and that the rest of Germany was to

be carved up into Allied zones of occupation. Hitler was de-

lighted when page after teleprinter page of the final Yalta com-

muniqué was brought to him on 13 February:

So much for the drivel talked by our coffeehouse diplomats

and foreign ministry politicos! Here they have it in black and

white—if we lose the war, Germany will cease to exist. What

matters now is to keep our nerve and not give in. (Irving,

1977, 769)

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

124

PART III

The Southern Flank:

Konev and

the Continuing

Contest for Silesia

CHAPTER 10

The Actions on

the Oder

Soviet Plans

THE NOMINAL close of the so-called Vistula-Oder Operation

meant little in real terms. Zhukov had certainly come to a halt

against the lower-middle Oder, but further south in Silesia Ko-

nev and his 1st Belorussian Front were merely drawing breath

before they launched themselves into the intended two-Front

offensive on Berlin. The plans as they affected the 1st Ukrainian

Front had been sent by Konev to STAVKA on 28 January. Konev

was going to approach the German capital from the south, while

Zhukov attacked head-on from the east. However, Konev's im-

mediate objective was to encircle the city of Breslau in Silesia

by a pincer movement. He could then push west and align

himself with Zhukov's army group, thereby setting himself up

for the grand offensive on Berlin.

The Silesian provincial capital of Breslau extended over both

banks of the Oder, and it posed the one major obstacle to

Konev's progress across the open country of Lower Silesia.

STAVKA therefore approved Konev's plan for a double envel-

opment from his two main bridgeheads on the 'German' bank

of the Oder on either side of Breslau:

• The left-hand force consisted of two all-arms armies and two

tank corps in the Ohlau bridgehead.

• The main attack was to come from the right-hand Steinau

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