VE Day: The Seelow Heights (Part 5)

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We are in a vast cauldron.

In front of us, around us, and behind us is an enveloping hell as a Russian drum on our trenches.

Its explosions go on and on.

Our ears have long since been deafened.

Hardly anyone speaks.

Only when a fountain of dirt and steel erupts close by does an angry word escape that one can read from their lips.

Burning barns and villages stand out in the distance like torches in the night, and refugees are coming back dragging their belongings in prams and handcuffs on their backs.

A woman in a dressing gown that flaps in the wind stumbles past with her hair loosened, her eyes a complete blank.

She has a coffee mill in her hand which she keeps turning endlessly.

Her mouth moves but makes no sound.

Ammunition and supply carts, surprised by the attack, are racing back along the road.

Survivors wildly whipping their nags, while shells howl into the banks and explode.

Refugees hurry by like creatures of the underworld.

Women, children, and old men surprised in their sleep, some only half-dressed.

In their faces is despair and deadly fear.

Crying children, holding their mothers' hands, look out at the world's destruction with shocked eyes.

The shelling stops abruptly.

Our ears are deafened and our abused eardrums have to accustom themselves to the silence.

Gradually, van discerns heavy, flaring infantry fire.

Shots whip by.

Machine gun salvers chase burst after burst in the night.

But we still have no weapons.

And that was Helmut Altner, witness to the end game on the Silau Heights.

Yes.

Welcome to We Have Ways to Make You Talk, Victory 45, The End of the War in Europe, in Northwest Europe, episode 5.

And today, James, James Holland, of course, with me, Al Murray, we are looking at,

well, we're doing the Red Army.

We are.

Battle of Berlin.

That might be a marmalade dropper for quite a few people.

I don't want anyone to run off the road if they're listening to this in their car.

The first thing is that they're not.

We're actually turning to the Russians.

We're doing the Soviets for a change.

But, you know, you can't talk about the end of the war without.

Because the Germans won't be able to surrender to the Soviets in Berlin, which is an absolute necessity for the war to end in Europe if the Soviets don't take Berlin.

So there you go.

There's our reason for looking at the Soviets for a change.

Yes.

And it's a heck of a thing, innit, Jim, this battle.

It's a heck of a thing.

It really, really is.

And there's so much to discuss and talk about.

And most of it is not good.

It has to be said.

And I think one could argue largely avoidable too.

But anyway,

let's start.

with a little kind of individual insight.

So we just heard from Helmut Altner there.

He was actually only 17 at the time of the battle for Berlin.

Yeah.

And

he gets called up on Thursday, the 29th of March, 1945.

So he gets called up papers, age 17.

I mean, there's a functioning bureaucracy at this stage of the war when the allies of both sets of allies, Eastern and Western allies, are taking enormous bites out of Germany.

There's a bureaucracy functioning that knows where to send him his papers.

It's quite remarkable, isn't it?

Yeah, knows where to send him his papers.

His mother, he doesn't explain in his really very interesting memoir where his mother is, but his mother has been away for two months.

And I think the impression I get is that she has been escaping the carnage in Berlin.

Right.

But as a 17-year-old...

He's got Hitler Youth Duties, then he's got our Beinsteinst, then he's got his call-up coming, and he can't,

is my understanding of it.

But anyway, he's been called up to to report to a barracks in spandau in western berlin so he reaches the suburb of henningsdorf via the s-bahn which is the overground railway it's still

just about functioning but instead of trains coming every few minutes it's kind of every half an hour or hour lots of waiting around they're in big trouble no one's got any belongings left so he is clutching an old purcel carton with his belongings in

cardboard curtain purcel carton and in that he's got a change of drawers, change of socks, and some something to eat.

So he exits the S-Bahn station, clutching his call-up papers with a load of other teenagers.

Then he gets onto the tram at the edge of Spandau, and

everywhere he looks, there's damage.

You know, there's been a raid the previous evening.

Bomber command have been over.

Houses are still on fire.

Oaks in the parks are ripped to shreds.

He looks on and sees several boys, Hitler youth boys in uniform collecting body parts and looks slightly askance at a young boy who can be no more than kind of 10 or 12 watching this going on while calmly eating an apple.

You know, because they're all dehumanized to this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally brutalized by what's been going on.

Totally brutalized by what's happening.

The tram then stops.

Cables have been broken up ahead and strewn across the road, so it can't go any further because, of course, you know, trams are electric.

So he and his fellows get out and a number of them manage to stop a truck and keep going.

And he sees a burnt out factory and he looks across and sees beams that are still kind of glowing slightly.

And then every time the wind goes, they kind of brighten and some of them catch fire again.

He sees women crying quietly.

He passes Spando town hall.

That's all smashed up.

Firemen are trying to put out a conflagration a little way away.

Streets are strewn with glass and rubble.

And eventually he and the others reach this gigantic barracks at the far end of Spandau.

And he heads to the company office and reports in, and he's ordered to present himself to the Grenadier Lehr and Ursatz Battalion 309 in Alexander Kaserna in Rulemen, which is a bit further on and another barracks.

And just as he's leaving, he's stopped by an officer who says, says, oh, your mother's waiting for you.

And he hasn't seen her for several months.

So he's absolutely stunned by this and almost forgets to salute.

as he, you know, he's so keen to kind of rush off and see her.

And they're briefly reunited.

and and together they walk to the alexander kazerna

and there they enter and it's huge and he's directed to the kind of attic and up in the attic it's sort of dank and the windows have blasted in and he's sort of allocated a bed and his mother sort of sits down with him and checks he's okay and everything and eventually it's kind of you know he's been called and it's time for her to go so she says you won't experience much happiness my boy but my best wishes go with you all the same and then he leaves

I mean, it's the end of the world, isn't it?

Basically, it's the end of the world.

It's the end of the world.

Yeah, extraordinary.

You know, the next day, training begins in a very kind of rudimentary way.

There are as many 60-year-olds as there are 16 and 70-year-olds.

Uniforms are issued.

None of them fit.

Altner's jacket is way too big for him, and he thinks they all look like scarecrows.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

They're told to do some marching and some basic drill.

but then proper training finally begins on the Tuesday, the 3rd of April.

They're told to form up in the morning and they're kind of, they all march out and they've head off to firing ranges, but on getting there are told that they're going to have to witness an execution.

The three Waffen-SS soldiers who've done a runner and they've been caught.

I mean,

if you're one of the 16 or 17-year-olds, fair enough, you're caught up in a war that another generation decided to embark on, right?

And you've been, you know, cooked in or marinaded in Nazi politics from the cradle, basically, if you're a 16 or 17 year old.

But the 60-year-olds voted for this, right?

I can kind of understand the kids turning up.

But the 60-year-olds, what are they thinking?

They're all kicking themselves, going, oh, Jesus Christ, when I voted for the Führer, I was promised sunlit uplands and a rosy future.

Now here I am with a rifle and four rounds of ammunition.

I mean, what must you be thinking if you're one of these older Germans in this situation?

Well, you're thinking this is Armageddon.

But, you know, to be fair to Hitler, he's always been quite upfront about it.

Well, yes.

You know, it's Fauseneer Reich or it's Armageddon.

There's no middle ground at all.

If you're 60, did you fight in the First World War?

Maybe.

Yeah.

No, you don't.

You almost certainly did.

You're almost only too old for that.

That's why I'm asking.

Well, you'd be 35, wouldn't you, if you're 60 and 45.

So maybe you're thinking when the Second World War starts, few, I'm too old.

It's never going to come and get me.

There you are.

Terrible.

The whole execution is a bit of, takes for ages.

They're hanging around for ages.

They're waiting for the soldiers to come up.

Then the three are pulled out of a truck.

And Waffen SS men come over and sort of shake their hands.

You know, their comrades.

Sorry, Fritz.

You know,

sorry, Yohannas, all this kind of stuff.

Then there's a kind of last-minute appeal for clemency.

They have to wait for the answer.

The answer is...

No.

Nine.

There is no clemency.

So then the three men hang their heads, kind of, okay, that's it.

Then they've got to assemble a firing squad.

The firing squad is assembled from the new recruits.

God, Christ.

In training and Urzat's battalion 309.

No one wants to do it.

Everyone's sort of looking down at their feet and desperately trying not to volunteer.

People are getting pulled out.

Don't forget these guys are not trained yet.

No.

And now they've got to aim their rifle and kill three of their own comrades.

The youngest is 18.

Two others are not much older.

They're then fastened to posts with leather straps.

And Outner recalls this.

He goes, the firing squad takes aim.

Goodbye, comrade!

A high-pitched voice calls out.

And then the officer's shining dirk drops.

Fire!

Suddenly, all the posts are empty and blood runs from the woods, as if it has been killed.

The doctor checks the shot men.

The little one raises himself once more and blood flows from his mouth.

The doctor puts a pistol to his temple and presses the trigger.

And needless to say, none of them are impressed by this.

They're all absolutely horrified.

And later on, when they're finally given their rations, they're all sat there in silence.

Does that stiffen their resolve or does it just make them even more terrified and horrified about what's to come?

Well, it certainly suggests not deserting, doesn't it?

Stiffen your resolve or laying down the law.

Yes, well, that's clearly what it is anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

But just four days later, They're woken early and told they're now heading to the front.

They're trained.

Four days.

You know, it's Saturday, the 7th of April, and their destination is going to be the Zilo Heights.

You know, and they've been soldiers for barely a week.

That is being repeated all over.

Yeah, that's happening everywhere.

This entire process, though, this thing of killing deserters, making an example of people, trying to stiffen their resolve or lay down the law,

recruiting people, giving them ill-fitting uniforms, a rifle.

This whole process, you know, as I said, there's a bureaucracy that's still doing this.

There's a postman still delivering these letters who knows perfectly well what these letters are.

There's the sixty-year-olds who think, oh, no,

Crap.

I don't know.

I could kind of excuse the youngsters.

They don't know, do they?

I mean, they know it's a terrible situation, but they aren't responsible for it in any way, I don't think.

60-year-olds definitely are.

But the overwhelming feeling I have about this is just how completely disgusting it is.

Revolting.

And how just completely appalling.

Yeah.

And, you know, this year, we've had quite a hard time with the Germans or the Nazi state because we've been doing Auschwitz.

We've been doing the total nonsense of the Battle of the Bulge.

And now we're doing this.

And I suppose, you know, to a backdrop of rapidly changing world events that we live in right now, you constantly think, how can ordinary, rational, decent people allow this kind of nonsense to happen?

And yet it is.

It happens at this time in Germany where there are lots of amazing people and yet they've allowed this to happen.

You know, they voted him in in January 1933.

That's it.

Those 60-year-olds would have been in there.

You you know.

The other thing I was sort of thinking is that Helbert Altner, you know, he's 17 in 1945.

That means he's 30 years later in the 1970s.

He's only in his 40s, in the 80s.

When reunification comes, he's 60.

The German reunification, he's 60 the way that these older Volksstorm guys are.

If you want to place him in the context of our lives, the long shadow of this guy's experience, that West Germany is made out of these people who fought as Volkssturm as teenagers to an extent.

And East Germany is absolutely incredible.

Total brutalization of every aspect of the German state means that you're recruiting 15-year-olds or whatever and 60-year-olds, aren't you?

Well, actually, it gets worse.

And it gets worse, folks.

And it gets worse, as we'll discover.

So where are we with that?

Well, throughout March, the Red Army has paused on the Oder,

the River Roda, which is about 50 miles.

east of Berlin and runs in a roughly kind of north to south direction until

southeast of Berlin it kind of veers off to the southeast and then it's joined by a tributary called the Nieser, which is sort of follows in a kind of sort of continues in a southern woods flow.

There's a kind of sort of pretty obvious north-south kind of river-flowing boundary.

And for the most part, the Red Army is behind that, although they have made little incursions across the Oda, as we shall see.

There's lots of sort of, you know, why aren't they doing very much?

And one of the big things about this, and actually it came up in Tim Bouvery's book, Allies of War, you know, he makes a point that by March, the Allies are still 250 miles away, but the Red Army is only 50 miles from Berlin.

So it's completely obvious that the Red Army would take Berlin.

But actually, by the 11th of April, when 9th Army, US 9th Army reaches the Elba, they're both about the same distance.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is it could have been the Western Allies going for Berlin.

It really could have been.

Well, and also, I think the interesting thing about that, and obviously Ike's made his mind up, but what kind of struggle the Germans might have put up for Berlin to the Western Allies, I think it might have been very different to the way they'd fight the Soviets.

Because after all, they're surrendering en masse to the Western Allies.

And maybe if I could have gone for Berlin, he'd have faced another one of those sort of the Wehrmacht fading away from battle.

You know what I mean?

And it wouldn't have cost him his 100,000 casualty projection figure and all that sort of thing.

I think almost certainly not.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm with you on this.

I mean, you know, we can't second guess because we don't know because it didn't happen.

But if I was a betting man and I was able to go back in time, I would suggest that they wouldn't lose that many.

No.

I think it would have been all over very quickly.

Yeah.

Because what is it that's making the Germans fight?

It's the fear of reaping what they've sown.

Yeah, yeah, completely.

It's the fear of retribution and their right to be scared of it.

It's the nature of the Soviet deep battle that, as we've discussed, you know, that after each offensive, they need a lot of time to replenish.

You know, 660,000 casualties in the Oda Vistula offensive of January into February 1945.

That's chewing up a lot of your forces.

And And it's not just manpower that's going, it's also a huge amount of equipment as well.

So that has to be replenished.

And it's not something you can just sort of click your fingers and keep doing.

You know, the Russian way, the Red Army way now is this deep battle concept where you just go in a mighty surge with everything with you, with all your echelons following behind.

It's a massive batting ram going into the wall and it's incredibly destructive, incredibly costly.

So they need time.

And they're not in any hurry because they know the Allies are still kind of sort of pulling up to the Elba and they're in even less of a hurry once Eisenhower tells Stalin at the very end of March that he's not planning to take Berlin, he's intending to stop at the Elba.

What's really interesting, I think, is that Stalin then tells Eisenhower that he's not much interested in Berlin either and he probably won't start his offensive till the end of May.

There's also, it has to be said, there is ongoing fighting around the Baltic.

So Rokosovsky's troops, second Belarusian front, take Danzig on the 30th of March.

And that's the big moment because Königsberg has finally fallen, and East Prussia is now in Red Army hands.

And, you know, he's pushed along the Baltic coast and got Danzig, which was, after all, on paper, the reason why Germany went to war in the first place.

Second World War began.

Yeah, so that's interesting.

Well, so then you said it was going to get worse.

On the 5th of March, Hitler calls up the class of 1929, which is 15-year-olds.

15 and 16-year-olds, yeah.

It's just extraordinary, isn't it?

Yeah.

Then on the 14th of April, men from the 9th Army, actually, the 2nd Armoured Division, actually do get across the Elba.

But Ike immediately orders a general halt at that point.

So General Simpson, who is because 2nd Armoured Division falls within US 9th Army, has to tell his men to pull back.

And he tells Brigadier General Sidney R.

Hines, he goes, we're not going to Berlin, Sid.

as we've just discussed, you know, they could have done.

Yeah.

They could have done at that point.

Yeah.

I completely get why they don't.

And I totally get why Eisenhower calls a halt.

But they could have done.

But did he need to?

Who knows?

Who knows?

It's impossible to say.

So anyway, on the 1st of April, rather than planning for the end of May, he's actually planning for the middle of April.

Are you saying Stalin told a big lie?

He's only Porkies.

He's a big fat lie.

Stalin holds his main planning conference.

This is seven members of the GKO, which is the main kind of, you know, it's like the war cabinet.

You know, what do you call it?

Chiefs of staff, I suppose.

So, two main front leaders are there: Marshal Yorgi Zukov and Marshal Ivan Konyev, plus also General Alexey Antonov from the general staff and Colonel General Sergei Shetempko.

Sorry, I can't say that.

Shitamenko.

Okay, that's how you say it.

Colonel General Sergei Shitamenko, and who is the head of main operations directorate.

Rokosovsky's not there.

And Rokosovsky, despite being, I would argue, the most single, most successful of all the Red Army commanders, is always very much kind of, you know, in terms of fame and hierarchy, third on the list.

He's slightly in the shadows, and that's because he's got, he's half Polish and he's been purged with his steel teeth and all the rest of it and no fingernails.

But he's doing great stuff up in the north, although it is

unbelievable cost.

Again,

so Stalin now has three main army groups, the first and the second Belarusian, which is Zhukov is the first Belarusian, Rokossovsky is the second Belarusian, and the first Ukrainian, which is Konyov.

And he's also got the 18th long-range air army of medium bombers.

It's interesting that it's those two, you know, Soviet republics within the USSR,

those two army groups.

It's the Belarusian, Ukrainian.

We say the Russians way too often in this.

Yes.

It's Soviets.

Yeah, there is a default to say the Russians, but it's Ukrainians and Belarusians who are going to do the lifting in taking Berlin.

And that we really got to hang on to that.

And after all, the history of the Second World War is from a Soviet perspective or a Russian perspective is still contested, isn't it?

By

Russia.

I mean, the name of the fronts refers to where they've been formed rather than totaled.

But even.

But you know what I mean?

Yes, there are, I don't know, in the Lowland Division, there are people from London.

Yes.

Yes, and you're absolutely right to say that, you know, these armies, these groups of armies are by no means full of people from Moscow.

They are from all over.

And the Soviet Union is vast.

And they're pulling on manpower and woman power from across the Soviet Union.

So yes, it's much more accurate to call them Red Army or Soviets rather than Russia.

Yeah, I think Red Army actually gets you out of jail.

It does get you out of jail.

On that.

And Stalin has promised Berlin to Zhukovosny.

Earlier, yes.

But, you know, whatever.

He does what he likes, doesn't he?

So he's now scrubbed out the boundary line that was east of Berlin.

And he says, so

who is going to take Berlin?

We are the allies.

And Koniev says, we will.

Stalin says, whoever breaks in first, let him take Berlin.

At which point, Zukov is sort of shuffling in his seat and going puce with anger.

Yeah, of course.

And, you know, he's absolutely spitting about this.

And I think the point to bear in mind of all this is these guys are all utterly, utterly ruthless.

Yep.

completely ambitious and stalin knows exactly what he's doing he's constantly playing off one against the other and making it into a competition you know it's still part of the kind of divided rule policy that hitler adopts in many ways well i was just going to say this is hit the star man management isn't it yeah that is a thing people like to go on about about oh hitler's terrible man management style where he he sets people up to compete with each other so they won't compete with him well hang on a minute Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Anyway, so the first Ukrainian front is still to the south.

So Stalin asks how Konyev is planning to do this, how he's going to get to Berlin.

And he says, well, I'm going to cross the Nisa and then I'm going to turn, kind of veer northeast.

And Zhukov says, well, my front is directly east of the city, pointing straight at it, and I've got more forces than you.

You know, it's that kind of thing.

But although he's got more forces than Koniev, I mean, to the tune of kind of double, actually, he's got a much harder task because there's way fewer roads there.

And the main opposition that the Germans are putting up in part of the army group Vistula are in his sector rather than further to the south.

So we're talking enormous forces, though, in this plan.

So, second Belarusians are going to swing north of Berlin.

Rokosovsky has already lost 126,500 men dead.

Dead.

Not casualties, dead.

Full stop.

But these are enormous forces, aren't they?

First Belarusian front is 908,000 men and women.

So it's just short of a million people with 3,155 tanks and self-propelled guns.

And for fans of artillery, the tubes, 16,934 artillery pieces.

Yep.

I mean, it's hard to kind of get your head around that, isn't it?

So first Ukrainian front, this is Konyev's mob.

He's got 550,900 men and women.

Second, Belarusian,

you know, obviously massively depleted, having just lost 660,000 men in the Baltic campaign, has got 441,600.

But all told, It tots up to this.

Three army fronts.

So an army front is a group of armies.

It's what we would call an army group.

2 million men, 6,520 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 guns, 3,255 rocket launchers, and 95,383 vehicles that aren't tanks.

And a vast chunk of that supplied by Lend-Lease, of course, which is the other thing to remember.

Remember.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

But also, there's a perfectly good reason for Germans to give up.

Just those numbers.

You know what?

Fine.

Totally good reason.

Well, and it's interesting, isn't it?

Because very often people talk about in modern warfare, people, you read people saying, oh, it's not a fair fight, is it?

Some encounter.

Well, why would you want it to be a fair fight?

If you're the Soviets, you don't want a fair fight here, do you?

If you're the Red Army, the idea is to create an unfair one.

Also, how do you not take Berlin with all that?

You are going to take Berlin with all that.

I mean, you just say you 100% are.

The outcome is not in doubt at all.

The method of the outcome is very much in doubt, but the overall result, definitely not.

I mean, I think it's just absolutely fascinating.

I'm just, you know, while we've been chatting, I've just been thinking about this kind of, you know, what happened if Eisenhower said go across the Elp.

Honestly, I think what could have been a better off policy is to have pushed forward to kind of, you know, the edge, to Potsdam or something, and then just said, right, surrender to us now.

Yeah.

And they freaking all would.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, the way they do in the Ruhr when they're encircled.

Yeah.

Uray Model throws in the towel.

So they just would because they, you know, they're all, you know, why, well, we're jumping the gun here, but the whole point about the final closing stages of the war is trying to get as many German troops to the west as they possibly can.

I mean, it's nonsense, of course.

But the Germans, how are the Germans doing, Jim, up against these 2 million men, 6,520 tanks, 7,500 aircraft?

Well, defending them are Army Group Vistula, which I always think is kind of an odd name since that got overrun in January.

But they've got basically the 9th Army opposite Zhukov and 4th Panzer Army just to the south opposite Koniev.

9th Army is part of Army Group Vistula.

4th Army is part of Army Group South, which is under the charming Field Marshal Schoener.

He's a filthy individual.

Horrible person.

And collectively, they've got 754 tanks versus 6,520.

And the 9th Army has got about 750 guns compared to

41,000.

17,000.

Yeah, 17,000 opposite them.

Yeah, yeah.

And that includes 300, 400 flak.

But as we know, the Germans are quite adept at turning flak into artillery.

So, I mean, there is still a million troops around Berlin and a further kind of 200,000 Volkssturm, you know, and on top of that, a whole number of sort of fanatical Hitler youth as well.

While the outcome is not in doubt, it is just almost certainly going to cause untold destruction and death and carnage because that's the way the Red Army fights.

Yeah, you know, it is extremely careless of men's lives.

And boy, is it ever.

Anyway, shall we have a look at Zukov's plan?

Yes.

So he's gonna go there's the hilltop village of zilau yes and basically zukov thinks right well what i'm gonna do i'm going to smash that out of existence yeah you'd never thought that would be the plan would you no it's the dominating position overlooking the floodplain or the river oda so you know it makes sense it's the high ground and the it's a ridge that curls eastward to the south of silo yes i mean i've been there several times and it's so atmospheric up there i mean if there's ever a place to do walking the ground that's it it's absolutely amazing in fact we should definitely do that and go and do Berlin and stuff.

It'd be great.

But the Zilo heights are absolutely incredible.

I'll tell you what, they're like, it's like standing on the top of the ridgeway.

Yeah.

And kind of looking down.

You know, we've got that really pronounced chalk ridge line.

It's not chalk, it's clay, but it's got these little sort of combs running down it and little kind of little gullies and stuff.

But when you're up there, you can just look straight down over the floodplain of the Oda.

There you can see the Oda.

And in the distance, you can see Kustrin.

And it's just incredible.

And then this ridge, then just south of Zilo curls round to the right, if you're looking at it from a kind of north-south point of view, or to the east, I suppose, right to that very edge of the river Oda.

And it's a really pronounced spur and it's quite wooded now, but it wasn't in 1945.

And you can still go and see Zhukov's bunker there because this is one of the incursions they've had across the Oda.

So they've got across the Oda there with using the ridge line as their kind of cover.

And they've got across there and they've got that end of the fish hook of this curving ridge line that sort of spurs out.

And, you know, Zukov's dug out this bunker in the side of the hill, and you can still see gun scrapes and stuff.

It's absolutely amazing.

And although it's underground, it's rather horrible.

And what the Russian engineers work out is if they put flamethrowers in, they turn the clay into kind of terracotta and it actually becomes sort of, you know, livable.

Sort of.

Are these, you know, having been to Bastogne, where the Easy Company positions, particularly around Foy, they're now fenced off and are a tourist attraction.

Is this what Sila's is like, or is you just happen to know where the positions are?

There's not like a trail of sightseers, is there?

No, absolutely not at all.

It's really, really not like that.

It's completely empty.

There's no one there.

I mean, I've been there with the army a couple of times.

I've been filming there.

And both times we've had the whole place to ourselves.

And you can still see all these German trenches and stuff all over the place.

They're like super obvious.

There's sort of battle debris about and stuff, bits of metal.

You know, it's really not hard to find.

And it is so atmospheric.

I cannot stress enough how kind of incredibly moving it is to be there.

And there's a sort of desolation to it.

Well, I mean, given what happened there, that's not surprising, is it?

Because the Zhukov is going to do an open...

This is just ridiculous.

His opening barrage is going to be 7 million shells.

Wait, 7 million shells stockpiled.

So he's ready to go.

And he's going to do an artillery barrage of just 30 minutes with searchlights on operated by female crews to blind the German defenders.

I mean, oh no, not only am I being shelled by innumerable guns, I'm also blind now as well.

Can I just point out there are plenty of examples in the Second World War where searchlights have been used to create artificial moonlight, yeah, where it hasn't worked, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And one of the really, really big factors on why it doesn't work is if there's too much smoke, yeah, it just rebounds straight off it.

It's it's like headlights in fog, yeah, yeah, that's why you have your headlights dimmed because it just bounces about and you can't see anything.

And if you've amassed that amount of guns, what do you think is going to happen?

Yeah, I mean, it's literally, how could you be that stupid?

I just find it absolutely astonishing.

And I also find it astonishing that as part of the preliminary operations, they haven't cleared the Zelo Heights first.

Why wouldn't you?

You're already on the edge of the fish hook.

It's such a dominating position.

Why aren't you just creeping round the fish hook and just clearing that ridge line?

Yeah, bypass it.

You don't need to get stuck into it.

But no, no, no.

But isn't there a sense, though, that in the Red Army, if it isn't hurting, it isn't working?

No pain, no gain.

No pain, no gain.

You have to go to Stalin and go, oh, you know, we took it, but it costs a quarter of our people.

Great, brilliant.

You're trying hard enough then.

You know what I mean?

After all, these aren't voters in the Red Army, are they?

No.

It's not like you're chewing through the electorate like a British or American army.

Yeah, no, no.

I just find it absolutely just astonishing.

Anyway, well, it's interesting.

So even though it's wooded now at the end of the Reitvine Spur, which is this end of the fish hook coming off Azilo Heights, you can look back across at the Zelo Heights and it's just it's so obvious so his op there is just perfectly positioned to be able to kind of get this overview of the whole kind of battle that he's got prepared but there is no subtlety about this whatsoever this is just

you know we've often talked about the battling ram being pulled back and swung into it that is exactly what this is there's no finesse there's no kind of Hmm, let's work out our approach routes.

Let's kind of think about what it's going to be like getting across the floodplains with all their irrigation ditches in a still soggy ground of the floodplain with lots of heavy tanks let's just consider that you know there's no subtlety whatsoever yeah it's had all the time in the world to plan for this and i think it's an absolutely terrible plan yeah that is guaranteed to go hand in glove with mr and mrs cockup yeah yeah and that's not been wise after the event yeah yeah spoiler look this is how they've been doing things and it's been working hasn't it yeah yeah but there's a better way to do it which doesn't cost so many lives

and would be every bit as effective.

And not least the way that Konyev opts for it, to be frank, with half the force.

You know, so he goes for Nactan Nibel approach, fog and rain and everything, or whatever it is, fog and cloud.

Yeah.

And he decides to attack under a cover of darkness with a massive smoke screen and also with a huge barrage.

So the idea is that the infantry are supposed to get across by swimming

and in boats.

And then they stretch wire across and stuff.

And that's a guide for getting early bridge, small bridging, foot bridges across and pontoons.

And you then get the infantry across.

And then you get medium bridges so you can get trucks bringing ammunition across.

And then you get the heavy bridges, which are sort of 60-ton bridges.

So the standard allied one is a class 40 Bailey bridge, which takes 40 tons.

The biggest bridge that the Russians have, I mean the Red Army, sorry, corrected, have is a 60-ton one.

And they're intending to get that across by the time pretty much after the barrage is ended barrage is going to last 145 minutes

you know some two and a half hours isn't it basically oh my god well i suppose the rhine crossing plunder they're shelling they're shelling the other side for five days in the run-up aren't they so on and off yeah and it's interesting because the floodplain over the nisa because that's what they've got to do they've got to get across the nisa they're they're south of where the oda and the nisa split so the oda's disappeared off to the southeast but they've still got the nisa to get across and they haven't got any bridgeheads over this at all It's about a 20-yard, 20-meter-wide river, I suppose.

So it's sort of decent, but not enormous.

And the floodplain, in some parts, it's kind of only a few hundred meters before it sort of rises up gently.

In other places, it's sort of, you know, several kilometers.

So you really do need that rolling barrage to protect you.

But obviously where the floodplain is a bit deeper, you've got more space to manipulate that barrage to your advantage.

So with that amount of guns and that length of barrage, you can see why that would work.

Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, the Soviet way of war is very much built around artillery and firepower anyway, isn't it?

So and then killing lots of infantry, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zhukov has his artillery plan very, very well worked out to the point of having a scale model of Berlin.

He's had air reconnaissance done, precise photographs and all this sort of stuff, and fire plans worked out well in advance.

Yeah, so he has, but you know, all the good it does him because at the end of the day, he's still just shoving lots of millions of men, you know, hundreds of thousands of men at of you know a brick wall and what are the germans going to do about all this well it's interesting because they have got the best man for the job there you know gotthard hein ricci who we haven't really come across because we don't do that much on the eastern front no but you know he is i'll be interested to see when we do our um well we're doing best in the west aren't we yeah general so maybe he doesn't really count but um

you know i i think he's one of the best German generals of the Second World War and he's very good as a defensive general.

You know, he's a defensive master, which obviously since early part of 1943 has been quite useful to have.

That's all they've been really had to do, though.

That's all they have to do.

And, you know, they haven't got enough.

They're not going to win.

All they can do is delay things.

The whole thing is completely hopeless.

But he knows that Zukov is going to be blasting and hammering the front lines.

So he plans to pull his troops back swiftly just before they launch the attack.

And this is kind of really obvious to predict because they can all see them in plain sight what they're doing because they're on a ridge and there's a floodplain and it's just all completely startlingly obvious.

you know.

And on the scale that Zukov's operating, of course, it's impossible to keep such movements a secret.

So, Red Army shelling begins on the 14th of April, and that's sort of very much a preliminary soffing up.

And Heinrich is not remotely fooled by this, he knows that's what it is because he knows perfectly well that when the Red Army does go for it, you know, you know about it.

Then a Red Army soldier is captured on the 15th of April and tells them quite openly that the main offensive is going to be launched the following day.

Again, not that it

makes any difference, the outcome.

But anyway, overnight, General Theodore Busser, who is the commander of the 9th Army, on Heinrich's instructions, pulls his men back to the second line of defense.

So they're still on the Zillow Heights, but they're not in the forward positions.

And amongst those now on the second lines is Helmut Altner and the boys of an old men of the 309th Grenadier Training and Reserve Battalion.

Well, and we will find out after the break what it's like being on the receiving end of this sledgehammer that's about to crack some nuts.

Yes, it's the best way of putting it.

We'll see you in a tick.

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Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, where the Battle of the Sela Heights is about to begin.

And we now go over to Marshal Zhukov for his

on-the-spot commentary, Jim.

The hands of the clock seem to be moving slower than ever before.

To kill the remaining 15 minutes, we all decided to have some hot, strong tea, which was made right there in the dugout by a young girl.

I remember that, strangely, she sported the very unrussian name of Margot.

We sipped our tea in silence, each of us deeply engrossed in his thoughts.

Yes, that was indeed Marshal Yogi Zhukov.

He's got 11 armies, you know, just a small, small number.

But 8th Guards Army, which is under General Vasily Chukhov.

Remember him turning up at Stalingrad in his Jeep?

Yes, in his Jeep.

To take over the command?

Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

JR has just said, sure, he sounds like Jason Isaacs.

Yeah, the right two.

All right, I'll do it again.

The hands of the clock seem to be moving slower than ever before.

To kill the remaining 15 minutes, he orders out to have some odd strong tea, which was made right there in the dugout by a young girl.

I remember that, rather strangely, she sported the very unrussian name of Margot.

We sipped our tea in silence, each of us deeply engrossed in his thoughts.

It's the alternative version.

The Jason Isaac.

On Monday, you need Chief U.

I'm about to represent the Red Army at the buffet.

Yes.

My troops are on the order.

And we're going to

kick some ass.

Anyway.

So, yes, so it's Vasily Chukhov, our old deep-browed friend from Stalingrad, who's kind of, you know, in the main kind of vanguard of the attack.

And 5 a.m.

Moscow time.

Finally, flares fizz and crackle and burst over the battleground.

And the 30-minute barrage erupts tens of thousands of shells fired it's like a sort of continuous roar the whole ground absolutely pounding and shaking and Zukov feels that no he's absolutely certain that not a living soul could possibly survive and of course he's absolutely right but there aren't any living souls where they're all landing they're all kind of they're further back high richies moved them yeah

and busy moved them he's read the battle so 30 minutes it stops abruptly just as helmet altner testified in that opening quote that we gave that you read so beautifully Al and a single searchlight beam then shines vertically right up into the stars and that is the signal for the other 140 with a billion candle power to shine theirs horizontally and of course it's a massive cock up Does it work?

Because of all the smoke and debris and everything.

And it doesn't blind the Germans.

It blinds the attackers.

The Allies have that tank called a Lee light.

Well, they put a Lee light in a a tank.

And the idea is you're going to dazzle the enemy with a big searchlight.

But the point is, is what it actually tends to do is silhouette the people attacking and also say, hey, there's a tank over here.

Blow it up.

Yeah, it doesn't blind anyone.

Total eyes.

Total eyes.

It can't penetrate the smoke and the dust.

And as I was saying a moment ago, there's plenty of examples in the Second World War where people have used searchlights as artificial moonlight and it doesn't work or it does work.

And, you know, the conditions under which it does work are really, really obvious.

And lots and lots of smoke when you're firing tens of thousands of shells

is really obvious that it's not going to work.

So, I'm, you know, I'm completely baffled by how Zukov could possibly think this is a good idea.

But anyway, be that as it may, he does it.

And the consequence of this is the attackers are trying to get across the Oda.

Those who are already across the Oda are trying to move across a floodplain.

The floodplain is full of irrigation ditches.

The ground is soft.

And as dawn breaks, the Germans on the Zilo heights above them can see everything.

And of course, because there's so many, because the Red Army are so densely packed, or the Afe Guard's army is so densely packed, all the targets are completely obvious.

I mean, this is like the Allied armies continuing along the Via Casalina under the nose of Casino

in plain sight and getting completely annihilated.

Which is what they would have done had they done it.

The difference is that the Red Army does do it.

Yes.

And just uses sheer weight of numbers to just ball those on.

By pumping people into it, yeah.

And so it is absolute carnage down there.

I mean, it is horrific.

Anyway, meanwhile, Koniev strikes with his first Ukrainian front.

Got to get across the Nisa, but, or Nysa, I should say.

And again, down in that area, it's quite interesting, actually, because there's still lots of MG positions and mortar pits and zigzag trenches and stuff that one can see on the little...

It's not as pronounced as it is is on the z-day heights but it's still a kind of noticeable ridge coming out of the floodplain which is flat as a board and you can see all that there and yet those fields of fire are not obvious on the day because they can't see anything because of this huge rolling barrage which is just pummeling them and Konyev's forces are crossing the river very successfully behind this and it's clearly a much better approach than the kind of bull in a china kind of tactics that Zuka is using.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, either way, they're making everything difficult for themselves, aren't they, though yeah really koniev is it is a subtler plan but he's still like sledgehammer to crack a nut isn't it really well it is really because they've got engineers ready and no less than 150 points when creating bridging 150 along there so again you know this sort of slight broad front approach i suppose you know sort of overwhelm the enemy from that point of view it's quite a good idea i'm just sort of surprised they haven't kind of nibbled away at this beforehand.

I'm surprised there's not a preliminary operation to sort of gain a little bridgehead for the launch off.

But anyway.

That's not how we do things in the Red Army, jim that's not how we do it in red army no in a red army we do it blunt and unsubtle anyway

9 a.m 16th of april the first of the bigger bridges is across that's capable of taking 30 tons wow and that's swiftly followed by a 60 ton bridge so suddenly they're across you know that's it wow yeah well i mean we've done lots of bridging efforts and that's um a 60 tonne bridge by nine o'clock in the morning well just after yeah yes they're holding the the record there although it's a narrower river it's not the rhine or anything no 400 yards, 20 yards, you know.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So by the 17th of April, Koniev's front are halfway to Kotbus.

So they've made about six to seven miles progress.

And the German front line has been completely shattered.

Zhukov's forces are still trying to get across the field.

They're not even on the high ground yet.

They're just at them all close.

Yeah, and they're bogged down in mud and there's drainage ditches.

Because he's pumping so many people in, there's too many people for the...

battle space.

It's congesting the entire thing.

Then he throws his tank armies into the fray.

Yep.

And of course, it's interesting, this, isn't it?

They're designed for the breakout, not the breakthrough or the break-in.

And it's not unlike in the bulge where the Germans end up diverting their panzer breakout forces to the actual attack because they've failed to break through, haven't they?

Their infantry have failed to make the ground.

And of course, this means great big traffic jams, dense concentrations of targets for the German artillery, such as it exists.

So, I mean, they're having a bad time of it because of their proponder.

You know, yes, they're using mass and preponderance to deliver their result, but it's also making things more difficult for them as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Crazy.

And Stalin is angry with Shukov for committing his armor so soon because Stalin's angry with Zhukov.

Zhukov's angry with his subordinates.

Yeah.

Because it goes downhill, the

responsibility in the Soviet Union, doesn't it?

Yeah.

And then Stalin's sort of baiting Zhukov by warning him that he could give Konyev Berlin.

Instead,

it's just a terrible way to fight a battle, isn't it?

Yeah, it's not brilliant.

This is not the way to do it.

Yeah, and if you're Ivan from, I don't know, Mariupol and you're caught up in this, no one cares about your life, do they?

Clearly not.

No.

No one cares.

And nothing's changed since.

Anyway, exactly.

So anyway, that day, 17th of April, so day two, Konyev's forces managed to get over the river Spree, which is the one that runs through Berlin and then sort of disappears off to the southeast.

Yes.

And so this is southeast of Berlin, obviously.

Bridging equipment hasn't caught up, so they're sort of thinking, oh my god, you know, how are we going to get across?

But they then discover there's a sort of forwardable stretch where the water's only a metre deep, and T-34s and other tanks can get through that no problem.

So then one tank brigade after another makes it across against sort of ever-crumbling opposition.

It's just funny because Zukov's still in his sort of clay bunker on Reitwine Ridge while Koniev's now in a luxury schloss near Kotbus

and sort of crowing all the way.

Late on the 17th, Koniev does the right thing and calls Stalin and says, you know, comrade, can I turn my tank armies towards Berlin?

This is the third and fourth, third tank army, fourth guards.

And Stalin says, do you know that Zossen is the headquarters of the OKH and this is a little town just southeast of Berlin?

And Konyev says, yes, he did.

And what does Stalin say?

Very well, I agree.

Turn your tank armies on Berlin.

Yes, yes, because he doesn't have a...

He doesn't have a York Jackson.

No, he's he's a londoner isn't he he's a cotney he's a cotton in the end very well i agree turn your tank armies on berlin

if we're in death of stalin mode but i mean so while konyev's making this progress zukov is stuck for three days on the silo heights yes it's sort of completely crazy isn't it yeah and he what he could do is put first belarusian front on the defensive to keep the enemy in place to lock them in place yeah and let first Ukrainian front move on to storm Berlin, but he can't do that.

That's just not going to happen.

That just ain't going to happen.

If it isn't hurting, it isn't working.

So Stalin is basically doing the Hitler management, getting two ambitious juniors, rivals, to...

It's not like they're fighting the Germans, they're fighting each other in a way.

Yeah, and Stalin has also told them that the Allies might still take it if they're not quick.

Even though he knows perfectly not going to.

Oh, God.

I know.

So the only course left for Zukov is just keep bulldozing a bit harder, you know, swing the battering ram back again and, you know, have another go.

Meanwhile, Koniev is now speeding towards Zossen.

Yeah.

So he's got far greater distance to go than Zukov as the crow flies, but he's got one massive, massive advantage.

Because for years, historians have been saying, you know, why was it that Koniev was able to make such sharp progress?

The main reason is really, really simple one.

Because between Cottbus, then Luben, then Berlin was one of Hitler's first autobahns.

Right.

So he's got a motorway.

He's got a motorway.

It's now called the Autobahn 15 Autobahn 13.

But it's a big, wide concrete roadway that allows a massive flow of armor and vehicles i mean if you want to get quickly to berlin there is nothing to beat a kind of you know a four-lane highway made of concrete yeah with embankments just going straight through the countryside that no matter how many tanks you send up you're not going to smash to pieces no because it's not a dirt road you know it's not like going through the arden in the middle of winter in a in a king tiger so that's how so on the 18th of april zukov's troops finally managed to sort of batter their way blast their way off the zelo heights helmet altmer who we've met earlier on and others are now in kind of full retreat, and the German 9th Army is clearly in danger of being cut off and surrounded.

The following day, the 19th of April, Zukov's mob are in Muncheberg, which is 18 miles or so, about 30 kilometers west of the Oder, and that's taken by Zukov's forces.

And then on the 20th of April, Rokozovsky's second Belarusian front, that jumps off to the north, crossing the Oder against pretty weak opposition, it has to be said, between Svet and Schetzen.

Interestingly, you can see on YouTube, you can see film footage of this.

And guess what they're using they're using ducks aren't they yeah lend lease yep ladies and gentlemen yep yep 15 000 trucks that koniev's got from from the us yeah and then on the 20th zhukov finally gets what he wants and his artillery is in range of berlin so he can flatten that now yep yeah yeah yeah

he's got his plans he knows where to fire them he knows exactly what he's aiming going to aim at he's got his model yeah there is now a proper race on with zhukov closing from the east well he's done the hard yards he's done the hard bit now but by the kind of sort of you know grotesque loss of life he's now in a position where he can actually kind of forge on ahead.

Yeah.

Koniev's ready to take Zossen to the southeast of Berlin.

Yeah.

I mean, German 9th Army are in disarray, as you might be after this onslaught.

And they're actually in danger of being cut in behind by Koniev's forces, aren't they?

Southeast Asia.

They're still southeast, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So on the 22nd of April, Hein Ricci contacts Krebs, General Hans Krebs, who's the chief of staff at OKH, which is in the Führerbunker, to get permission to pull back.

Of course, you know, that's a difficult thing to ask, isn't it, in this current climate?

Because

you're not one step back and all that.

And he says, unless we can withdraw by nightfall, Ninth Army will be encircled and destroyed.

Obviously, he's not.

No, of course not.

Hitler says no, to coincide with Stalin ordering Shukov and Koniev to complete the encirclement Ninth Army southeast of Berlin.

So they're cooked, aren't they?

Basically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, a number of troops do break out because it's sort of General Mayhem.

And amongst those is Helmut Altner and a few of his fellows who do manage to to get Chris.

It's really interesting when you go back from Zilo towards Muncherberg and beyond, that area's kind of sort of undulating, rolling farmland, you know, now with lots of sort of swirling wind turbines, of course, all over it.

But you can find these little cemeteries and they're full of graves.

And they've been tidied up quite a lot in recent years.

But when I first went there about kind of, you know, 15 years ago, something like that,

they were just all over the place, higgledy, piggledy, really rough graves.

And they're all kind of 16, 17, 18.

god yeah sort of 60 58 57

you know and they're all exactly who you'd expect them to be and you know for decades afterwards of course you know it's in east germany no one cares you know it's just

obscenity anyway but altner does manage to get across but you know it is absolutely carnage i mean night farmy is being massacred at this point

you know the vast majority of it are not even being taken prisoner they're they are being killed and there's the famous Russian war correspondent Konstantin Simonov witnesses results.

I will read this but I'm not going to get through this if I try and do a hilarious Russian.

Just to illustrate.

The German troops that had been fighting on the Oder when the fighting in Berlin had already started had used this route to try and thrust their way across the Outerbahn.

Amid this chaos of iron wood, weapons, baggage, papers lay burnt and blackened objects that I couldn't identify, a mass of mutilated bodies.

And this carnage extended across the cutting as far as I could see.

All around in the woods there, dead, dead and yet more dead.

The corpses of those fell while running under fire.

Dead, and as I then saw, some alive among them.

The whole of this vast column had come under fire from several regiments of heavy artillery and a few regiments of cartushes that had previously been concentrated in the vicinity and had fired on the cutting on the assumption that the Germans would try to break through here.

Well, they predicted that one right.

Total carnage.

Absolute carnage, yeah.

Now, obviously, I mean, we said this at the start, that the outcome's not remotely in doubt, but there's still plenty of fighting to come now that the Red Army's mired in the city of Berlin itself.

And, of course.

What of the Führer?

Yes.

Well, no one knows, of course.

That's the interesting thing.

We'll get to this.

We all know about the Führerbunker.

It's a huge part of the story and a part of the story people are wildly familiar with.

But this is all unknown at the time, isn't it?

He's in the Fuhrer Bunker, under the Reichschancellery, in the heart of the city, in a bunker people don't know exists.

And that is where we will be heading in the next episode of victory in europe here on we have ways to make you talk now if you want to listen to this ad-free go to our apple channel and subscribe to officer class but if you want a bit more if you want a little bit more gravy then go to our patreon join our we have ways to make you talk patreon where as newsletters there's other like-minded afflicted people who are interested in the history of the second world war and access to all sorts of extra little bits and pieces as well as we have ways festival which is in september the 12th to the 14th of september we are talking the end of the the war.

We're talking all sorts of other stuff.

And we would love to see you there for a weekend of epic war waffle.

Thanks very much for listening.

We'll see you in the Furabunka soon.

Cheerio.

Cheerio.