The Battle of Berlin
From The Third Reich’s apocalyptic last stand
Germany lost the war long before May 1945. But Hitler refused to surrender, instead dragging the country into the abyss. Although there was a huge imbalance in force between Germans and Soviets, the Nazis maintained surprising advantages in equipment, experience, and tactics.
“Hitler had learned nothing and had forgotten nothing.”
― Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945
The Battle of Berlin has few historic parallels. It was 1945, and the Germans had lost the war by the winter of 1942/1943 – if not already by the winter of 1941/1942.
Certainly, once Hitler’s summer/autumn offensive of 1942 had been defeated at Stalingrad, the history of the Second World War in Europe, on all fronts, was essentially one of dogged defence, step-by-step retreat, and slow contraction of the Nazi empire.
The reason was simple enough: the overwhelming industrial superiority of the Allied alliance that had been conjured into being by Hitler’s aggression.
It seems likely that the Soviet Union could eventually have defeated Nazi Germany on its own. Certainly, the US commitment was relatively modest until the campaign in northwest Europe during the last year of the war. The number of German divisions deployed in North Africa and then Italy pales in comparison with the number on the Eastern Front in 1943.
In the final months of the war, the Soviet reputation for savagery cost them dearly. In the West, many German troops were only too ready to surrender to British or American forces. All but the most fanatical Nazis knew that, if they picked the right moment to surrender, they would probably survive and be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
In contrast, Germans on the Eastern Front had no illusions about their far lower chances of having their surrender accepted, and, even if it was, surviving captivity. Lieutenant Pavel Nikiforov, a Soviet reconnaissance officer, noted that: ‘Many Germans seemed to feel that they were going to die anyway, so they might as well die fighting’.
‘Stalin saw the capture of Berlin as the Soviet Union’s rightful reward. The main objective was to strip Germany of all its laboratories, workshops and factories. But the yield was disappointing and the waste terrible.’
The Fall of Berlin. Beevor
Defeat 1945
After defeat on 8 May 1945, Germans struggled to adjust to the new situation and the end of Nazism. They meekly surrendered to Allied forces, apart from isolated attempts at partisan activity. On going resistance, once imagined by Himmler and Boorman, never materialised.
The Nazi Party, the SS, the Army and almost every Nazi organization had disintegrated. When Hitler died, Nazism died with him.
Were all Germans in support of the Nazis? The Nazis had never won more than 37.4% of the votes in a free national election. They were more popular after the fall of France, but the war in the east, the disaster of Stalingrad and the Allied bombing sucked the life out of support for the Nazis.
Despite the suicides and deaths, many committed Nazis were still at large in Germany and serious and concerted attempts were undertaken to hold those responsible for Nazi crimes accountable.
1. Things fall apart
Life in post war Germany
When Hitler was defeated by the Allies in World War II, he left behind almost no post-war plans. It had been considered to be treason under the Nazi regime to even mention the possibility of defeat, and by the end, practically every single resource available had been poured into the war effort. What remained after Germany's surrender was a grieving populace mourning the loss of millions of their people and a countryside that had been shelled, bombed, and trampled by tanks and troops for years.
In a speech on May 8th, 1945, British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery described the situation that Germany faced like this:
"'Displaced Persons’ were roaming about the country, often looting as they went. Transportation and communication services had ceased to function. Agriculture and industry were largely at a standstill. Food was scarce and there was a serious risk of famine and disease during the coming months. And to crown it all there was no central government and the the machinery whereby a central government could function no longer existed."
To do: questions
List the challenges faced by Germany in the immediate post war period
Discuss: How did the Nazi control of German society contribute to the lack of central government in post 1945 Germany?
Background briefing: Expulsion
At the end of WW2 between 12 and 14 million ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from Eastern Europe. If they had fled the Red Army previously, they were not allowed to return to their homes.
Many were bundled into the very same cattle cars used to transport Jews to the death and concentration camps. They were sent westward without food, water or adequate winter clothing. Others were detained in ex Nazi concentration camps, where they were systematically abused, starved and maltreated, before they were marched westward. Many succumbed to malnutrition, disease, murder and rape. As many as 500 000 perished during the expulsion.
There was a wave of popular violence against Germans. In Brno (Czech Republic) 300 Germans were massacred, others were publicly tortured and murdered. 28 000 ethnic Germans were rounded up and ‘death marched’ to the Austrian border. The Czech government called for the complete expulsion of all Germans. Local authorities, sometimes helped by the Red Army and the Czech Army, made Germans wear a white square on their clothing. Whole towns and villages with a mainly or wholly German population were emptied and forced out of the country. Surprisingly, Germans faired better in Poland and the Army even took to protecting Germans from the rampaging Red Army.
To do: Expulsion questions
Annotate a map with the numbers of expelled Germans from each country.
How id the expelled Germans assimilate into German society?
2. Denazification
What to do with all of these Nazi's?
Denazification was difficult and complex, and never fully completed. The emerging Cold War meant that Britain and America saw West Germany as a useful ally against communism and the Soviet Union. Nazis who remained in their positions in society were viewed as less of a threat than communism. In addition, even the process of establishing who was a Nazi was challenging and often relied on citizens providing information about themselves. In October 1946, the Allied Control Council announced five categories of Nazis, each of which were dealt with separately:
Major offenders (to be sentenced to life imprisonment/death)
Activists, militarists and profiteers (up to ten years imprisonment)
Lesser offenders (probation for up to three years)
Nazi followers and supporters (surveillance and fine)
Exonerated individuals (no punishment)
Denazification took place within all layers of German society, government and administration, including in the economic sphere, culture, judiciary and government, a reverse Gleichschaltung. For example, libraries were purged of Nazi publications and some former Nazis were removed from public positions.
To do: Essay plan
Write an essay plan for the following proposition.
‘The denazification process in post-World War II Germany was unsuccessful in its primary goals and objectives as a result of Cold war tensions.? Discuss:
Excerpt from From: Aftermath: Richard J Evans, The Third Reich at War, Penguin, 2009
The Allies instituted an ambitious programme of de-Nazification in Germany, later quietly abandoned as it became clear that German society would be unworkable if all former Nazis were forbidden to work. The victors set up special tribunals to try those responsible for crimes against peace, war crimes, and the catalogue of horrors that came increasingly to be known as "crimes against humanity".
In the year after the war, in the Western Zones, millions of Germans were required to fill out forms on their beliefs and activities during the Third Reich. They were brought before tribunals. Characterised as: Nazi, implicated in Nazism, a fellow traveller or uninvolved. More than 3 600 000 Germans were screened. Under 5% were judged as hard-core Nazis. 996 000 were deemed nominal Nazis (27%), 1 214 000 were exonerated (33%). The process was wound up in 1948. 783 000 remained uncharged, 358 000 granted amnesty and 125 000 remained unclassified.
In the Soviet Zone: 300 000 were dismissed from their jobs, 83 000 were banned from employment altogether.
De-Nazification could not ban all 6.5 million members of the Party from positions of responsibility. The need for the expertise of doctors, judges, lawyers, scientists, engineers, and bankers was too great. Many who had taken part in euthanasia programs, preached Nazi doctrine in schools and universities, condemned political prisoners to death or participated in ‘desk-top’ murders in the civil service, resumed their posts. The professions closed ranks and veil of silence descended over their complicity, not to be lifted until the leading participants retired, years later.
Above all most Germans simply wanted to forget. In March 1946 57% of Germans were in favour of the de-Nazification process. It fell to 17% by May 1949.
3. The Nuremberg Trials
Excerpt: The Third Reich at War, Richard J Evans. 2009
Goring, Ribbentrop and others were accused of waging an aggressive war of conquest, committing mass murder of civilians, atrocities and crimes against humanity in violation of international law. The legitimacy of the proceedings were undermined to a degree by the presence of Soviet judges and the Allied bombing campaign. Many Germans felt they were the victims (bombing, expulsion) in a war where justice was being meted out by the victors. There were other trials in addition to Nuremburg. Many were held in Poland. including Rudolf Höss, former commandant at Auschwitz, who never abandoned his Nazi convictions. He was tried, convicted and hanged at Auschwitz in 1947. SS officers and guards were put on trial at Cracow and all received lengthy jail terms. The engineer who designed the gas chambers, was convicted and sent to a Soviet labour camp where he died in 1952. Ernst Wolfgang Topf, escaped conviction and set up a new business making ovens for crematoriums! Of the manufacturers of Zykon-B, two, the owner and CEO of the firm Tesch and Stabenov were executed by a British military court.
Apart from the trial of major war criminals, 12 other trials were held at Nuremburg by the US occupying authorities. They centred on a variety of lesser offences.
Senior Medical men
For carrying out cruel experiments on human beings
Killing mentally ill and handicapped
Staff at euthanasia centres: some were hanged, some imprisoned, some suicided
Josef Mengele: guilty of numerous crimes at Auschwitz escaped detection, even released by the US under a false name in July 1945. He wangled his way to Argentina, then Paraguay, then Brazil. His flight and concealment made possible through the clandestine network of ex-Nazis living in South America. He died in 1979 never having been brought to justice for his crimes. However, his mentor, Ottmar von Verschuer, resumed his career after the war. He was elected President of the Society for Anthropology in 1952 and in 1954 became the Dean of Medicine at Munster University. He died in a car crash in 1969.
The Commandant of Trebinka, Franz Stangl was able to avoid detection and eventually ended up, with his family immigrating to Brazil in 1951 – aided and abetted by a high ranking Vatican Austrian Catholic priest. He was eventually tracked down by Simon Wiensenthal. He was arrested in February 1967 and deported to Germany. He was tried and convicted for 900 000 murders. Sentenced to life, he died in June 1970.
Adolf Eichmann: formed a small partisan group in Austrian alps but fled after the war. He too was helped by the Vatican and fled to Argentina. Numerous former Nazis and SS men lived happily under the quasi-Fascist dictatorship of Juan Peron. He was recognized and subsequently kidnapped by Israeli secret service. He stood trial for mass murder, convicted and hanged in May 1962.
The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The trials, though inconclusive, aimed to bring Nazi war criminals to justice and were part of a larger attempt to root out the militaristic and chauvinistic attitudes that had helped to produce the war. The allies hoped to build a new world order that would prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again.
The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was never brought to trial. Although the legal justifications for the trials and their procedural innovations were controversial at the time, the Nuremberg trials are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court, and an important precedent for dealing with later instances of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Key Point: The political Cold War climate mitigated against major war time trials in West Germany. NATO, the US and the West German Government felt mass trials would fuel East German charges that West Germany was full of ex-Nazis and war criminals and undermine the fledging Republic of West Germany. So by 1948, many ex-Nazis had not been brought to account and had simply returned to life as normal.
This changed after 1958. The Eichmann trial drove a new wave of arrests, convictions, prison terms and executions. For example: Dr Horst Fischer, who was a doctor at Auschwitz, had been practicing medicine openly in East Germany for 20 years, without hindrance, under his own name. Arrested and executed in 1966.
To do: questions
What were the reasons for the limited prosecution of Nazi war criminals after 1948?
Research the details of the Eichmann trial.
Why did this lead to a renewed program of arrests and prosecutions?
Background briefing: The establishment of international law
The Nuremberg trials were controversial even among those who wanted the major criminals punished. Harlan Stone (1872-1946), chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court at the time, described the proceedings as a “sanctimonious fraud” and a “high-grade lynching party.” William O. Douglas (1898-1980), then an associate U.S. Supreme Court justice, said the Allies “substituted power for principle” at Nuremberg.
However most observers considered the trials a step forward for the establishment of international law. The findings at Nuremberg led directly to the United Nations Genocide Convention (1948) and Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), as well as the Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War (1949). In addition, the International Military Tribunal supplied a useful precedent for the trials of Japanese war criminals in Tokyo (1946-48); the 1961 trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann (1906-62); and the establishment of tribunals for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (1993) and in Rwanda (1994).
Discuss: Were the Nuremberg trials a sanctimonious fraud?
Sources: Germany after 1945
Sources Analysis Answer Guide
Don’t forget: Quote often and begin your response with name of the author, not the Source number. Put the source number in brackets at the end of the quote/paraphrasing.
For example:
This is supported by Jones who states that 'History students would be more popular at parties if they used this method.' (Source 3)
SACE Sources advice
More successful responses:
were well-structured
contained relevant evidence from sources when required.
Less successful responses
provided responses without reference to any evidence from the source
stated that sources are limited without reasoning
did not address the nature of sources clearly
did not explain how the nature and origin of the sources were a strength or limitation
did not include of the source in the response.
Source 1. The battle of Berlin. Oakman. D. awm.gov.au. 2017
The battle of Berlin began in 1940 when the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force began repeatedly pounding the city.
British official historians claim that “in an operational sense the Battle of Berlin was more than a failure, it was a defeat”. This was unequivocally true of Harris’s dream of bombing the German leadership into submission, but it would be wrong to say that it was, in a strategic sense, a wasted effort. Bombing brought the war to Germany at a time when it was difficult to apply pressure anywhere else. The threat of a sustained air campaign that might destroy production and transport infrastructure forced Nazi leaders to adopt a defensive posture and divert huge resources and manpower to the relocation of industry.
Questions
What are two conclusions that can be drawn from the source about the success of the allies in their strategic bombing of the German capital? (2)
Source 2. Rapid structural change in Germany after WWII. Weineke. B. 2024
Facing imminent economic disintegration, the population, despite being educated and motivated, was compelled to adopt subsistence living, seeking refuge in shelters, and engaging primarily in agrarian activities. The black market was flourishing and the Reichsmark, having become worthless, was supplanted by cigarettes as the de facto medium of exchange
In the wake of targeted bombings, a scarcity of physical capital marked the economy. Factories were either destroyed or cut off from their supply chains. The transportation network, essential for trade and movement, was decimated, with roads and railways incapacitated. Also, one in five homes was either completely wrecked or badly damaged. On the other hand, human capital was abundant. Around 11 million individuals were forced to leave their homes in the regions of Eastern Europe previously settled by Germans or to flee from the eastern German Democratic Republic which was now under Soviet control.
Questions
What are two conclusions that can be drawn from the source about conditions in Germany after the war? (2)
Source 3. No Man’s Time of Post WWII Germany. Jahner. H. https://lithub.com. 2022
While memory usually bathes the past in a softer light with the passing years, the reverse is true for the post-war period in Germany. In hindsight it became increasingly dark. One reason for that lies in the widespread need among Germans who had not been persecuted by the Nazi regime to see themselves, nevertheless, as victims. Many people clearly felt that the grimmer the accounts of the genuinely terrible starving winters of 1946 and 1947, the more their guilt was diminished.
Questions
How does the author charecterise the German approach to the post war scarcity and chaos? (2)
Source 4. Berlin. Vandivert W. Life magazine. 1945.
William Vandivert visited berlin on assignment for Life Magazine in July, 1945.
Questions
To what extent does the information in Source 4 support the information in Source 3? Justify your answer with evidence from each source. (4)
Source 5. Occupation and the Emergence of Two States (1945-1961). Berghahn. V and Poiger U. 2008
‘Allied cooperation lasted at most until 1947; but even during those early years it was largely confined to implementing the “negative” peace aims agreed upon at Yalta and Potsdam. The Allies found it challenging to achieve consensus on how to rid Germany of Nazis. From November 1945 to October 1946, they cooperated in the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, where leading figures in the Nazi party, the German military, and the country’s business community and other professional groups were tried and sentenced. This, however, remained the sole instance of Allied cooperation in bringing war criminals to justice.’
Source 6. After Hitler. The path to democracy. DW History and Culture. 2025
Watch the documentary from 4.50 to 5.50 minutes.
Questions
Examine Sources 5 and 6. With reference to the origin and nature of these sources, assess the strengths and limitations of each source for historians investigating the division of Germany. (4)
Source 4. Berlin 1945
Source 6. After Hitler. The path to democracy
A letter from Berlin
To do: Empathetic writing task
Imagine that that you were an eyewitness to the defeat of the Nazi's and were present at the Battle of Berlin on 8th of May 1945, when the German army surrendered.
You are to write three short letters (of around 300 words each) to friends outside of Germany.
A student who had resisted the Nazi government during the war.
A member of the German army ordered to defend the Reichstag
A member of the foreign press corps
Write in the voice of the different people and make it clear what has just happened, but more importantly, your hopes/fears for the future of Germany.
Adopt the language, the opinions and the emotions of the different groups.
