Viktor Litovkin: Today, on the eve of the celebration of the Great Victory, the debates around the Berlin operation conducted by the troops of the 1st Byelorussian Front at the final stages of WWII, have become the focus of increased attention again. Experts in the West continue to accuse the Soviet Union and Marshal Zhukov of sacrificing the lives of many Soviet soldiers for the sake of a questionable propaganda move - hoisting the Red Banner on top of the Reichstag. What do you think about that?
Valentin Falin: True, I have always tried to figure out whether the Berlin operation was worth sacrificing almost 120,000 Soviet troops? Were the losses suffered in order to capture Berlin justified? I could not find a clear answer pondering over this question. Although, after reading a series of authentic British documents declassified 5-6 years ago and comparing the information with the data I had come upon in the line of my work back in the 1950s, many pieces of the puzzle set in and the overall picture became clearer.
Behind the determination of the Soviet leadership to capture Berlin and reach the demarcation lines established during the 1945 Yalta conference attended by Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill was a task of great importance - to make all possible efforts to foil a political gamble envisioned by the British leader with the support of influential US circles, and to prevent the transformation of World War II into World War III, where our former allies would have turned into enemies.
Viktor Litovkin: How could it have been possible? After all, the anti-Nazi coalition was in the zenith of its glory and ability?
Valentin Falin: Unfortunately, life abounds with cataclysms. It is hard to find a last century's politician, who would match Winston Churchill's ability to bluff friends and foes alike. Secretary of War in the Franklin Roosevelt administration Henry Stimson characterized Churchill's methods as the most rampant variety of debauchery. The British Premier was especially keen on hypocrisy and crafty designs in relation to the Soviet Union, though.
In his messages to Stalin, he prayed that the Anglo-Soviet alliance would be a source of prosperity for both countries, for the United Nations and for the whole world, and wished "success to this honorable undertaking", meaning a full-scale Red Army offensive on the Eastern front in January 1945, which the Soviet Union was preparing hastily in response to desperate pleas of Washington and London to help the allied troops that had been trapped in Ardennes and Alsace. Those were empty words, though. In reality, Churchill considered himself free of any obligations before the Soviet Union and on the eve of the Yalta conference tried to convince President Roosevelt to confront Moscow. When his plan failed, the British Premier decided to act on his own.
It was at that time that Churchill ordered to store captured German weapons for possible future use against the Soviet Union and to intern German military personnel, placing surrendering Wehrmacht soldiers and officers on divisional basis in the territory of Schleswig-Holstein and Southern Denmark. The purpose of Churchill's treacherous scheme would become clear later.
Let us recall that since March 1945, the Second (Western) front formally and essentially had ceased to exist. German units either surrendered or retreated to the east without offering significant resistance to our allies. German tactics boiled down to the following: to hold the positions along the entire length of the Soviet-German front until the "virtual" Western and the "real" Eastern fronts merge, and the American and British troops take over from the Germans the task of repelling "the Soviet threat" hanging over Europe.
It is worth pointing out that the Western Allies could have advanced to the east faster than they did, if the headquarters of army groups commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower and Sir Harold Alexander (the Italian theater of operations) had planned their operations more carefully, had coordinated the deployment of their forces more skillfully, and had wasted less time on internal quarrels and the search for mutually acceptable solutions. While Roosevelt was still alive, Washington, for various reasons, was not in a hurry to end cooperation with Moscow. As for Churchill, he believed the Red Moor had done his bit and should leave the scene.
Let us ask ourselves a question: how was the Soviet leadership supposed to act after receiving information about Churchill's duplicity? Were they supposed to content themselves with the illusion that the "common victory" was near and each of the three powers would establish control over proper zones of responsibility established by prior agreements? Were they supposed to rely upon prior decisions on treatment of Germany and its satellites? Or was it still safer to consider more carefully the reliable information about treacherous designs devised by Churchill, who wanted to involve in them US President Harry Truman, his advisors William Leahy and George Marshall, head of US Office of Strategic Services William Donovan and the like?
Viktor Litovkin: It is a tough question.
Valentin Falin: The 1945 Yalta conference ended on February 11. The participants left in the first half of February 12. During the conference, they agreed, by the way, that the Air Forces of the three powers would respect clearly defined zones of operation. On the night of February 12, Allied bombers obliterated Dresden and later made a run over major production facilities inSlovakia, in the future Soviet zone of occupation in Germany, in order to prevent the Russians from capturing them in good condition. In 1941, Stalin suggested to the British and the Americans to conduct bombing raids from airfields in the Crimea on the oil fields in Ploesti. The Allies ignored the suggestion at the time. However, the Allied aviation conducted a series of bombing raids on Ploesti in 1944, when the Soviet troops were approaching this major oil production center, which had supplied the Third Reich with fuel throughout the entire course of war.
Viktor Litovkin: What about Dresden? How did it fit into Allied plans?
Valentin Falin: One of the major targets of Allied bombing raids on Dresden was bridges over the Elbe. Churchill and the Americans shared the plans to delay the advance of the Red Army and keep the Russians as far to the east as possible.
Viktor Litovkin: You mean, the destruction of the city was a "side effect," so to speak?
Valentin Falin: Yes, "the outlays of the war." There was another motive, though. Before the raids, British crews were instructed to demonstrate clearly to the Soviets the capabilities of the Allied bomber force. And so they did, on several occasions. In April 1945, they obliterated Potsdam and Oranienburg, informing the Soviet side that it was the pilots' mistake. The pilots were actually targeting Zossen, where the German Luftwaffe headquarters were located, but somehow missed. It was a classic "devious statement," which the Allies used on numerous occasions. Oranienburg was bombed on Marshall's and Leahy's orders because German uranium labs were located there. They turned the city into dust to prevent the labs, the personnel, the equipment and materials from falling into the Soviet hands.
Today, when we look closely at the events that took place during that hard period and attempt to understand why the Soviet leadership resorted to great losses at the final stages of the war, we realize that it simply did not have many alternatives. Aside from pressing military tasks, it had to deal with complex political and strategic prospects, including the planning of effective measures to counter Churchill's scheme.
Viktor Litovkin: Wasn't it easier to inform the Western Allies that we were aware of their plans and considered them inadmissible? Or to reveal the treacherous plans to the world community?
Valentin Falin: I do not think it would have had any effect. The Soviet leadership attempted to discourage the Allies from plotting against the Soviet Union by showing goodwill. That's what I learned from Vladimir Semyonov, a Russian diplomat. Stalin invited Andrei Smirnov, the head of the Third (European) department of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, who also held the post of foreign minister of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, to discuss, together with Smirnov, the plan of actions in the territories of the Soviet zone of control.
Smirnov reported that in Austria, the Soviet armies, pursuing the retreating enemy, crossed the demarcation lines established at the Yalta conference, and suggested to hold de-facto the new positions in order to test the US reaction in similar situations. Stalin interrupted him and said, "It is wrong. Write a telegram to the Allies." Then he started to dictate, "The Soviet troops, pursuing the retreating Wehrmacht units, had to cross the line we had agreed upon earlier. Hereby, I would like to reassure you that after the conclusion of military actions, the Soviet troops will be pulled back to the established occupation zones."
Viktor Litovkin: Were the telegrams sent to London and Washington?
Valentin Falin: I do not know where and to whom. Maybe they were sent by military channels, or political channels. I am just relaying the story I was told by the witness of those events. And I can assure you that Churchill was not impressed by the Soviet gesture. After Roosevelt's death (April 12, 1945), he continued to pressure Truman, trying to convince him that it was not necessary to respect the agreements reached in Tehran or Yalta. In his opinion, it was time to create new situations, which would necessitate new decisions. Which ones?
According to Churchill, the circumstances allowed Western powers to advance farther than expected toward the east and the "democracies" must hold there. Churchill spoke against the Potsdam conference or any other conference that would have recognized a great contribution of the Soviet people to the victory. According to his logic, the West had been given the opportunity to challenge the Soviet Union at the time when its resources were depleted, the communications at the rear overextended, the troops exhausted and equipment worn out, and demand that Moscow either yield to the Allies or face the hardships of another war.
I would like to stress that it is not an insinuation or an assumption, but a true fact, which even has a proper name. In the beginning of April 1945 (according to a different source - at the end of March), Churchill issued an order to plan urgently Operation Unthinkable. The new war was scheduled to start on July 1, 1945. American, Canadian, and British contingents in Europe, the Polish Expeditionary Corps and 10-12 German divisions (the ones that had not been disbanded and kept in Schleswig-Holstein and Southern Denmark) were supposed to participate in the operation.
Fortunately, President Truman did not support this, delicately speaking, Jesuitical idea. He had at least two reasons to reject Churchill's proposal. First, the American public was simply not ready to accept such a cynical betrayal of the common cause established by the very concept of the United Nations.
Viktor Litovkin: To be more precise, an unscrupulous perfidy.
Valentin Falin: Precisely. Although, it was not the major reason. The American generals managed to convince Churchill to continue collaboration with the Soviet Union untilJapan's surrender. Besides, the US military brass and their British colleagues realized it was easier to start the war against the Soviet Union than to finish it triumphantly. The risk was too great for them to bear.
I am going to ask you again how the Soviet Supreme Command Headquarters was supposed to act after receiving such worrisome information? If you want, the Berlin operation was the Soviet response to the Operation Unthinkable, and the sacrifices made by Russian soldiers and officers were a warning to Churchill and his colleagues.
Stalin was behind the political scenario of the Berlin operation. Georgy Zhukov worked out operational details and also took the bulk of criticism for excessive losses during a bloody battle at the approaches to Berlin and inside the German capital. The criticism was partially caused by emotional reasons. Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky's armies were closer to the capital of the Third Reich at the start of the operation, and he probably expected to become the recipient of its keys. The Supreme Command, though, assigned him a different task. Apparently, Stalin preferred a military leader with a tougher character. Marshal Ivan Konev was disappointed and felt he was cheated upon when he had been assigned a secondary role during the operation. I know it from my personal conversations with Konev.
Viktor Litovkin: Konev was closer to Berlin in April 1945 than Zhukov, as well...
Valentin Falin: In any case, the choice fell upon Zhukov, who was known as the right hand of the Supreme Commander. Accordingly, the future fall of Berlin was supposed to add luster to the "military glory" of Stalin, who "conducted" with his "right hand". Apparently, in those days Stalin still neglected the gossip of informers who attempted to put criticism of Stalin's grave mistakes during the war into Zhukov's mouth...
Viktor Litovkin: So, what did Berlin symbolize for the Russians?
Valentin Falin: The capture of Berlin and the hoisting of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag did not only symbolize the end of the war. Least of all they were a propaganda move. It was a matter of principle for the Soviet troops to enter the enemy lair and thus mark the end of the most difficult war in Russian history. The soldiers believed that the Nazi beast, which had brought enormous suffering upon the Soviet people, Europe and the whole world, originally crawled out of Berlin. The Red Army came to the Nazi capital to open a new chapter in the Russian history, in the history of Germany and mankind...
Let us have a closer look at the documents prepared on Stalin's orders in spring 1945 - in March, April and May. An objective researcher would immediately realize that it was not the thirst for revenge that determined the outlines of the future Soviet course. The Soviet leadership intended to treat Germany as a country that had suffered a defeat in the war, and the Germans as people who were responsible for starting this war. However...nobody thought of turning the German defeat into eternal punishment without a possibility of bright future for the German people. Stalin acted according to the thesis announced back in 1941: Hitlers come and go, but the German people and the German state go on.
Obviously, it was necessary to force the Germans to participate in the reconstruction of territories devastated by Nazi's "scorched land" policy. The entire wealth of Germany would not be enough to compensate Russia for material and human losses suffered in the war. To take all that was possible to take without burdening themselves with provision for Germans, "to plunder as much as possible," such was rather undiplomatic language Stalin used to instruct his subordinates on the issue of post-war reparations. Every single nail counted for raising Ukraine, Byelorussia and central Russia from the ruins. More than four-fifths of production facilities had been destroyed there. More than one-third of the population hadlost housing. The Germans demolished 80,000 kilometers of railroad tracks. They even destroyed railroad ties and blown up all bridges. 80,000 kilometers is more than the combined length of all German railroads before World War II.
At the same time, the Soviet commanders received strict orders to suppress any ill-treatment of local population, especially of women and children, that traditionally accompanied any wars. Abusers were subject to a trial by military tribunal. Still, there were plenty of maltreatment cases.
Simultaneously, Moscow demanded to take harsh measures against any riots or subversive actions on the part of "remaining incorrigible elements" that might have occurred in conquered Berlin and on the territory of the Soviet occupation zone. Meantime, there were quite a few of those who wanted to shoot at the back of triumphant victors. Berlin fell on May 2, but "sporadic skirmishes" continued in the capital for another 10 days. Ivan Zaitsev, who worked in the Russian Embassy in Bonn, mentioned in our conversation that he always had "bad luck" in that respect. The war officially ended on May 9, but he fought in Berlin until May 11. In Berlin, SS units from 15 countries were offering stiff resistance to Soviet troops. In addition to German fascists, Nazis from Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and God knows where else fought against Red Army soldiers there...
Viktor Litovkin: It took Soviet troops longer to capture Budapest, though.
Valentin Falin: Budapest is a different story. We are talking about Berlin now. The situation in Berlin brought constant headaches to Soviet commanders. The establishment of control over the entire city was a colossal task. As if it was not enough to break through seven heavily fortified German defensive positions on the Seelow Heights with great losses. In the outskirts of Berlin and on major city thoroughfares, Germans dug in tanks, turning them in armored pillboxes. For instance, when Red Army units approached the Frankfurter Allee, which led directly to the center of the city, they were met with massive barrage of gunfire and again suffered heavy casualties...
Viktor Litovkin: Is it true that the Frankfurter Allee used to be called the Hitler Strasse before the war?
Valentin Falin: That was its official name before May 1945. Enemy tanks were dug in at all key points of the street. Their crews fought with desperation of the doomed. They fired point-blank at the Soviet infantry, trucks and tanks. The Wehrmacht command planned to recreate the second Stalingrad on the streets of Berlin and the shores of the Spree.
I still keep wondering if it was better to close the encirclement around Berlin and wait for the city to surrender? Was it really necessary to hoist the Victory Banner over the Reichstag? Hundreds of Soviet soldiers died capturing the damned building.
It is hard, though, to judge either the victors or the defeated in retrospect. Strategic considerations apparently prevailed at the time. Obliterating Dresden, Western powers threatened Moscow with the potential of their bomber aviation. Stalin, in return, wanted to impress the plotters of Operation Unthinkable with the might of the Red Army, hinting at the fact that the outcome of the war is decided on the ground rather than in the skies or at sea.
Viktor Litovkin: Nevertheless, can we assert that the capture of Berlin stifled the temptation of London and Washington to start World War III?
Valentin Falin: One thing is certain. The battle for Berlin sobered up quite a few warmongers and, therefore, fulfilled its political, psychological and military purpose. Believe me, there were many political and military figures in the West who were stupefied by easy victories in Europe by the spring of 1945. One of them was US General George Patton. He demanded hysterically to continue the advance of American troops from the Elbe, through Poland and Ukraine, to Stalingrad inorder to finish the war at the place where Hitler had been defeated. Patton called the Russians "the descendants of Genghis Khan." Churchill, in his turn, was not overly scrupulous about the choice of words in his description of Soviet people. He called the Bolsheviks "barbarians" and "ferocious baboons." In short, the "theory of subhuman races" was obviously not a German monopoly.
Immediately after Roosevelt's death, the priorities of US foreign policy drastically changed. In his last address to the US Congress (March 1945), he warned, "We shall have to take the responsibility for world collaboration, or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict." Truman was apparently not troubled by the political will of his predecessor. During a meeting in the White House on April 23, he openly announced his course for the near future - Germany's surrender was a matter of days and from then on, the paths of the Soviet Union and the United States split in opposite directions; the balance of interests was the choice of the "softies." The Pax Americana had to become the keystone of US policy.
Truman was close to announce the immediate break of US alliance with Moscow. It could have happened if not for the opposition on the part of the US military. The break-up with the Soviet Union would have meant that the Americans had to fight against Japan on their own and, according to Pentagon estimates, would have had to sacrifice the lives of about 1-2 million "American GIs." In such a manner, the American generals, pursuing their own interests, actually prevented a political catastrophe in April 1945. Not for long, though.
"The offense on Yalta" was conducted indirectly. What followed was a staged performance of Germany's capitulation in Reims. It was, essentially, a separate deal that fitted into the Unthinkable plan. Another sign of the growing split within the Allied ranks after the fall of Berlin was the refusal of Eisenhower and Montgomery to participate in the joint Victory parade in the former capital of the Third Reich. Originally, they were supposed to review the parade together with Zhukov.
Viktor Litovkin: That is why the Victory Parade took place in Moscow?
Valentin Falin: No. The planned Victory parade in Berlin had still taken place, although Marshal Zhukov alone reviewed the parade. It was in July 1945. And the Victory Parade in Moscow, as you know, was held on June 24, 1945.
