![]() ![]() He decided to defend the banks of the Oder with only a thin screen of soldiers and to concentrate the main force at the Seelow Heights, 90 kilometers east of the capital. Heinrici correctly ruled that the main Soviet attack across the Oder River and along the main East-West Autobahn from Breslau to Berlin could be expected. Heinrici was one of the best defenders in the German army. He replaced Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. On March 20, General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed commander of the Weichsel defense group. Reymann replaced General Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild. On March 6, Hitler appointed Lieutenant General Helmuth Reymann as commander of the Berlin defensive area. Another consideration was that Berlin itself had 'useful post-war strategic assets', notably the 'grand prize' Adolf Hitler himself but also, for example, the German nuclear bomb program. ![]() These two objectives complemented each other because the capture of Berlin was necessary for control of the region. The main objective, however, was the capture of Berlin. Stalin did not believe that - as agreed at the Yalta Conference - his Western allies would hand over their occupied territory to the Soviet Union after the war, so he launched a broad and swift offensive to meet them as far west as possible. The Soviet offensive in central Germany - what became the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany after the conquest and after 1949 was called East Germany or the German Democratic Republic (GDR) - had two goals. A few days later, the Second World War in Europe came to an end. On May 2, 1945, the last defenders of Berlin surrendered. Several Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler himself, committed suicide. ![]() The total number of casualties (military and civilian) is difficult to determine precisely, but is probably well above 200.000. The Battle of Berlin was the fierce battle for the German capital at the end of the Second World War from the end of April to the beginning of May 1945. ![]()
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