On January 12, 1945, the Red Army finally launched its gigantic operation, called the Vistula-Oder Offensive, which was nothing short of a juggernaut. Large areas fell quickly, including Warsaw on January 19 and Lodz on January 21. In many areas, German units were encircled and destroyed, as Hitler forbade any retreat and ordered that the Wehrmacht must fight to the death in these “fortresses”. Nevertheless, German forces at Krakow withdrew just in time to avoid being surrounded and destroyed. Within two weeks, the Soviets had advanced 200 miles to the Oder River at the German border, placing them to within only 43 miles from Berlin. The Soviet 1st Belorussian Front, comprising the northern thrust, also reached the Vistula Delta, cutting of East Prussia and the defending German Army Group Center there, from Germany proper.
(Taken from Soviet Counter-Offensive and Defeat of Germany – Wars of the 20th Century –Vol. 6)
German-occupied Poland Operation Bagration’s conquest of Belarus in the summer of 1944 brought the Red Army to the Vistula River and to within striking distance of Warsaw. On August 1, 1944, the main Polish resistance organization, called the Home Army, in response to Soviet encouragement to start armed action, launched an uprising against the German occupation forces in Warsaw. What ensued was a 63-day battle, which was the center of the much larger series of armed actions in other Polish cities under Operation Tempest, where the Germans crushed the uprising by October 1944 in fierce house-to-house fighting in the Polish capital. Material support for the Polish fighters was in the form of a few supply drops by British and American planes, while Stalin stood down the Red Army that was positioned in the nearby Vistula bridgeheads. The city of Warsaw, already heavily damaged from the previous years’ fighting, was systematically razed to the ground by the Germans in reprisal and in house-clearing operations. By the end of the war, the Polish capital was 85% destroyed and became one of the most heavily devastated cities of World War II.
In early January 1945, the Red Army in the Vistula was ready to launch the conquest of German-occupied Poland. Two Soviet Army Groups (the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts) were assembled, the combined strength comprising 2.2 million troops, 7,000 tanks, 13,800 artillery pieces, 14,000 mortars, 4,900 anti-tank guns, and 2,200 Katyusha multiple-rocket launchers, and 8,500 planes, to confront German Army Group A, which was greatly outnumbered with 450,000 troops, 4,100 artillery pieces, and 1,100 tanks. German intelligence had detected the Soviet buildup, but Hitler dismissed this as “the greatest imposture since Genghis Khan”. Hitler also rejected the requests by his generals to reinforce Poland by abandoning the Courland Pocket. In the lead-up to the fighting, some German military units withdrew from indefensible areas. This German withdrawal triggered mass flight among civilians, and millions of ethnic Germans fled west to reach safety in central and western Germany. German officials also closed down the concentration camps in Poland, and forced the prisoners there into death marches to Germany in the winter cold where thousands perished.
On January 12, 1945, the Red Army finally launched its gigantic operation, called the Vistula-Oder Offensive, which was nothing short of a juggernaut. Large areas fell quickly, including Warsaw on January 19 and Lodz on January 21. In many areas, German units were encircled and destroyed, as Hitler forbade any retreat and ordered that the Wehrmacht must fight to the death in these “fortresses”. Nevertheless, German forces at Krakow withdrew just in time to avoid being surrounded and destroyed. Within two weeks, the Soviets had advanced 200 miles to the Oder River at the German border, placing them to within only 43 miles from Berlin. The Soviet 1st Belorussian Front, comprising the northern thrust, also reached the Vistula Delta, cutting of East Prussia and the defending German Army Group Center there, from Germany proper.
The Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front, whose diversion during the East Prussian campaign delayed 1st Belorussian Front’s advance to Berlin, now continued to Pomerania, taking Danzig on March 28, 1945 and reaching Stettin on April 26.
Meanwhile to the south, Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front thrust across Silesia in two campaigns in February and March 1945, clearing the region of German forces, thereby securing the southern flank of 1st Belorussian Front. A broad front was formed stretching from Pomerania to Silesia along the Oder and Neisse rivers in preparation for the offensive on Berlin.
Berlin and defeat of Germany The Soviet offensive into Germany centered on Stalin’s two main objectives: that the Red Army was to rapidly push far to the west as possible to beat the Western Allies into capturing as much German territory as possible; and that Berlin was to fall into Soviet hands, first, to deal with Hitler and second, to gain possession of Germany’s nuclear research program. For the campaign, Stalin tasked three Soviet Army Groups, together with the Red Army’s best commanders: 1st Belorussian Front led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov; 2nd Belorussian Front led by Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, to the north of Zhukov’s forces; and 1st Ukrainian Front led by Marshal Ivan Konev, to the south of Zhukov’s forces. The combined forces were massive: 2.5 million troops, including 200,000 Polish soldiers, 6,200 tanks, 42,000 artillery pieces, and 7,500 planes.
For the defense of outer Berlin, the Wehrmacht mustered 800,000 troops, 1,500 armored vehicles, 9,300 artillery pieces, and 2,200 planes. The main defensive lines for the eastern approaches to the city were located 56 miles (90 km) at Seelow Heights and manned by German 9th Army. The German military had taken advantage of the delayed Soviet offensive on Berlin to construct these defenses. The Germans positioned these lines 10 miles (17 km) west of the Oder River, which would prove significant in the coming battle.
On April 16, 1945, the Red Army launched its offensive, opening a preliminary massive artillery bombardment that landed on the mostly undefended banks of the Oder River. Soviet ground forces then advanced, with much of the heaviest fighting centered on the strongly fortified Seelow Heights, where Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front, comprising 1 million troops and 20,000 tanks advanced head on to German 9th Army’s 100,000 troops and 1,200 tanks. By the fourth day, the Soviets had broken through, sustaining heavy losses of 30,000 killed and 800 tanks destroyed, against 12,000 German casualties.