May 2nd, 1945 - The Battle for Berlin

Conflict: World War II (1939-1945)

Combatants: Germans vs. Soviets

Location: Germany

Outcome: Soviet victory

On May 1st of 1945, some ten days after entering the suburbs of Berlin, Marshal Georgi Zhukov's Soviet Armies captured the Reichstag. On May 2nd, General Kurt Weidling, the highest ranking officer still in Berlin, surrendered the 135,000 German forces remaining in the city. The Battle for Berlin was over.

Raising a flag over the Reichstag (Mil.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Raising_a_flag_over_the_Reichstag_2.jpg)

Soviet Troops Storm Berlin by unknown photographer

Points of Interest:

• Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30th; two days before the surrender of Berlin.

• The Soviets estimated that the Germans had suffered one million casualties in the final three months of fighting.

Marshal Zhukov with Dwight Eisenhower by an unknown photographer

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Sources:

Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, & Bongard, David L. (1992). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: Castle Books (HarperCollins).

Dupuy, R. Ernest & Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: HarperCollins.

Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Ryan, Cornelius (1966). The Last Battle. New York: Touchstone.