Armageddon - Max Hastings [190]
When millions of very young men were entrusted with weapons, fatal accidents became endemic. For fun, a soldier in Valentin Krulik’s unit of Sixth Guards Tank Army dressed himself one day in a German smock and helmet, then dashed into his section’s bunker waving a Schmeisser and crying “Hände hoch!” This was agreed to be extremely funny. But one of his comrades shot the cross-dresser before he was recognized.
ZHUKOV DETACHED several divisions northward, to secure his flank against the German forces in Pomerania. But, with the collapse of organized resistance in the path of his 1st Belorussian Front, the exultant marshal began to think that he might be able to advance to Berlin “on the run.” This was certainly the fear of German Intelligence, which reported to OKH on 20 January: “From the enemy’s behaviour and reports received, he is aiming to complete operations rapidly and not to permit any pause. We must therefore reckon that, against his usual behaviour pattern, he will continue to press forward without worrying about short-term threats to his flanks.”
Everything seemed to hinge upon whether Zhukov could seize a bridgehead across the Oder in the Berlin region before the Germans regrouped. Through the last days of January, the Russian advance towards the river slowed, as it met new German lines of resistance. None amounted to much, but each imposed delay and some casualties. On 30 January, on the northern flank men of Fifth Shock Army reached the Oder. Next morning an officer and a few men walked across the frozen river and took possession without opposition of the small town of Kienitz. The local stationmaster nervously approached the Russian officer and demanded: “Are you going to allow the Berlin train to leave?” The Russian expressed ironic regret: “The passenger service to Berlin will undergo a brief interruption—let us say until the end of the war.” Although the Germans rushed forces to Kienitz, Zhukov’s men were able to reinforce their foothold west of the river. On the night of 2 February, the Soviet 301st Rifle Division crossed the Oder ice under heavy German fire, to strengthen the bridgehead. The Germans still held ground eastwards at Frankfurt and Küstrin. But elsewhere the Russians had secured vital ground on the western bank. Here was the final prize in an operation which had overrun a large part of Hitler’s remaining territory in three weeks. On 2 February, the Stavka formally declared 1st Belorussian Front’s Vistula–Oder operation concluded.
Zhukov’s dash to the Oder inspired the Germans to a last Herculean effort. The Wehrmacht’s difficulties now far exceeded those of September 1944, when new defences were forged in the west after the Anglo-American rush across France. Men, weapons, aircraft, fuel were drastically diminished. Yet German reaction was effective enough to crush Zhukov’s hopes, briefly shared by Stalin’s Stavka, of a dash for Berlin. On 19 February, the artillery commander of 1st Belorussian Front was told to prepare for an immediate attack on Hitler’s capital. But these orders were almost immediately countermanded in the face of intelligence reports of large-scale German movements on the northern flank: “The Front commander took the decision to liquidate enemy forces in Pomerania before starting the Berlin attack.” In reality, of course, the decision was Stalin’s. The Russians felt obliged to delay their final assault by almost two months, vastly increasing the price they paid for Hitler’s capital. In February, with the Russians within