Ninth Army had crossed the Elbe River and stood poised to lunge at Berlin. The Red Army forces on the west bank of the Oder succeeded in connecting the two bridgeheads on March 22.īy the end of March, though, the Western Allies were even closer to Berlin than the Red Army. In the weeks that followed, the Soviets pushed forward to secure the Reitwein Spur, a strategically important ridge that would play a key role in the preparation for the Red Army’s assault on Berlin. Meanwhile, elements of the Soviet 44th Guards Tank Brigade succeeded in crossing just south of Kustrin.įeeble German counterattacks against the two bridgeheads, which were 60 miles from the eastern outskirts of Berlin, over the course of the next two weeks failed to dislodge the Russian soldiers, who had entrenched as soon as they were across the last natural barrier between the Red Army and Berlin. That very night, just north of the German town of Kustrin, the lead elements of the Soviet 89th Guards Rifle Division crossed the Oder River under cover of darkness. The beleaguered German leader’s radio address came on the 12th anniversary of the founding of the Third Reich. The fall of Berlin was but a few months away when German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler addressed his people for the last time on January 30, 1945. Every Red Army soldier who reached the Oder River knew it was his duty to the Mother Russia to rain down retribution on the Germans, and that there was no better place to avenge their people than Berlin.
Stalin and his people deemed anything less than German unconditional surrender unacceptable. Four years of total war had ravaged the western regions of the Soviet Union, leaving them a wasteland of destroyed cities, ruined industry, and decimated population. For Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and the people of the Soviet Union, the capture of Berlin was of great political and symbolic importance.