The Battle of Berlin was the last major battle in Europe during World War II. It began on April 16, 1945 after the start of a major offensive by the Soviet Union on the city, capital of the Third Reich, and ended on May 2, 1945, when the German defenders surrendered the city to the Red Army.
On January 12, 1945, the Red Army entered German territory during the Vistula-Oder offensive and advanced westward at a great speed of up to forty kilometers a day, entering East Prussia, Lower and Upper Silesia and Pomerania. Eastern, until stopping temporarily to sixty kilometers to the east of Berlin, in a German defensive line next to the Oder river. When the offensive was resumed, two Soviet fronts - armies of armies - attacked Berlin from positions to the east and south, while a third attacked the German positions north of the city.
The first preparations to defend the outskirts of Berlin began on March 20, when the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici, correctly anticipated that the bulk of Soviet troops would cross the Oder River. Before the beginning of the battle of Berlin, the Soviets managed to surround the city thanks to their victories in the battles of the hills of Seelow and Halbe. On April 16, 1945, the First Belorussian Front led by Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhúkov began to bombard the center of Berlin, while the First Ukrainian Front led by Marshal Ivan Kónev, pushed south to the remains of the Army Group Center. The German defenders were led mainly by Helmuth Weidling, and consisted of exhausted, ill-equipped and disorganized divisions of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, to which were added many foreign volunteers of the SS and poorly trained volunteers of the Hitler Youth and the Volkssturm. During the days that the battle lasted, the Soviets advanced quickly through the streets of Berlin until arriving at the center of the city, where the combats were fought hand-to-hand and house by house.
