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appalachiablue

(41,392 posts)
Tue Apr 30, 2024, 11:32 PM Apr 30

Hitler d. April 30, 1945. Battle of Berlin, Soviet Red Army April 20- May 2, 1945. End of Third Reich


50 mins, pub 2023.
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- Britannica, Battle of Berlin, World War II, 1945

April 20, 1945 - May 2, 1945, Berlin Germany, Participants: Germany Hitler Youth, Soviet Union, Hitler's final days in Berlin, April 1945
As Soviet troops entered Berlin and the Battle of Berlin raged on, Adolf Hitler committed suicide April 30, 1945. The Battle of Berlin, one of the final battles of World War II. It took place from April 20 to May 2, 1945, and it ended with the fall of Berlin to the Soviet Red Army, which took revenge for the suffering of the Soviet people since 1941.

In April 1945, the Soviet Union assembled outside Berlin one of the largest concentrations of military power ever seen. Within the city, already repeatedly pounded by Allied bombing, refugees and citizens were protected by a scratch force of stragglers and the remnants of shattered formations, supported by militia and units of the Hitler Youth—one battalion of which was sent into battle with an average age of 14.

In a race to win the glory of capturing the city of Berlin, Soviet marshals Ivan Konev and Georgiy Zhukov were willing to accept enormous casualties and inflict colossal damage. Within five days, the two forces had linked up and encircled Berlin. Soviet artillery fired nearly two million shells during the final assault. All Berliners could do was cower in their cellars and hope that rumors of relief, or even that the Americans had joined forces with Germany to expel the Red Army, might be true.

.. In his bunker, in the center of the city, Adolf Hitler remained convinced that Berlin could be saved. He gave hopeless orders for armies that scarcely existed to break the siege. Joseph Stalin, too, was not without his own delusions; he was obsessed with taking the Reichstag building, although it had not been used since 1933 and had no strategic value. This obsession cost heavily in the number of Soviet soldiers lost. Many Berliners, desperate for the nightmare to end, began hanging white or red flags from their windows, offering surrender or even welcome to the Red Army. However, this practice entailed risking execution by SS firing squads, and there is little evidence that Soviet troops paid any attention...
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Battle-of-Berlin
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