Fall of Berlin

[Deleted]

The SS would search through the Rubble of Berlin looking for deserters when they caught one they would hang him after awhile they ran out of deserters so they turned on each other and started hanging one another sort of like an injured shark who would try to eat itself , mean while the Russians were causing havoc and hanging everybody , one has to wonder what the was mentality of the SS , not speaking about the Waffen SS who did an excellent job against overwhelming odds .

[Swampy]

The same thing happened during the Normandy invasion - when the Allies landed, the Germans took their frustrations on the local population.

[Sir John]

I would be interested in Matthias's comments on the fall of Berlin. We have all read the stories of the conduct of the Red Army.

Why was the Waffen SS so much better than the SS itself? Both ended up on Wrangel Island if they survived the War.


SJ

[Swampy]

Waffen SS was the fighting arm of the SS, if I understand correctly.

[Sir John]

Mr Wikipedia says LOTS of war crimes, including Malmedy.

[mcnoch]

The SS started as the security organization of the NSDAP-party and grew to a political police (normal SS) and later into an elite military organization (Waffen-SS) too. Some of the Waffen-SS units had normal military tasks, like air-defense, but often the infantry-units were used for political/ideological-motivated activities in the occupied regions, like killing Jews or hunting the local resistance groups down. As the SS was up to the autumn 1944 a volunteers only organization, the identification with the ideology of the NSDAP was very strong. Only in the final phase of the war, they got very young and very old men that were drafted as the recruiting had to be more efficient as fewer resources were available.

The "flying summary court martials" were introduced in 1943 when increasing numbers of soldiers didn't returned home from their front-vacations, not all were deserters, many were just caring for their bombed out families at home. With the fighting reaching German soil the problem of "not fighting the enemy" was no longer restricted to the soldiers, but also the civilians. So in Feb 1945 the "jurisdiction" of these flying summary court martials were extended to the civilians in the front area. These courts normal consisted of three SS-soldiers serving as state-attorney, judge and executioner at once. They were the last effective tool of the regime to lead by terror.

There is no way to generalize the quality of units during the Fall of Berlin. It was a mix of units, from new over battle-hardened to broken, from fanatic to resigned. Those who were still fighting normally fought well as they wanted to defend the women and children, the other units simply gave up and were waiting for the death, either by Russians or SS. As Berlin was the political capital there was also a much higher density of people thinking very strongly along the NSDAP-ideology. In such regimes which have merged political ideology with religion, the collapse is always the end of the world, everything that might follow can only be hell. The stronger you believe the bigger the problem. So many of them not only committed suicide but also took many other people with them into death or no longer respected life at all and so ordered to explode buildings, even when refugees were hiding inside or where still on the bridge, etc.. So the normal people are in extreme danger from all sides. The Fall of Berlin was perfect in line with this. Most books look only for the military or the political side of this event, but the totality of such an event is nowhere covered, it might be simply too complex to be covered in a readable book.

[Deleted]

Why were the citizens of Berlin not evacuated .

[mcnoch]

1.) They would have killed you for even thinking this aloud because the "Endsieg was near".
2.) You can't relocate about 4 mio citizens plus about 800 000 refugees in a Germany were the logistic and transportation infra-structure is damaged and 100 % utiliesed for military needs only.
3.) There was no fuel for private cars left.
4.) Where should they go? The allies were approaching from all sides.
and many more

[Swampy]

The Berliners would go to the Anglo-Americans, which was what many were doing. I think, from my armchair, that, when Doenitz took over, he should not have surrendered so quickly; he should have thrown everything against the Russians, just to buy another week for the civilians to escape.

But I say this from my armchair, of course.

[Deleted]

The Germans managed to relocate about 6 million Jews and about 18 million East Europeans without much of a problem moving 4 million Berliners should have been easy .

[mcnoch]

May 10, 2013 8:49:48 GMT -5 Swampy said:

The Berliners would go to the Anglo-Americans, which was what many were doing. I think, from my armchair, that, when Doenitz took over, he should not have surrendered so quickly; he should have thrown everything against the Russians, just to buy another week for the civilians to escape.

But I say this from my armchair, of course.

Dönitz took over after Berlin had already fallen, so this wasn't his decision. Berlin was surrounded by Russian forces, so no way that larger groups of persons could flee.

The Americans and Brits were sending the civilians back to their home-cities, including destroyed Berlin and Dresden as it was easier to supply them there and their workforce was needed to rebuild them. In all zones you weren't allowed to relocate for years. Only the refugees from those areas in the East that were lost for Germany were relocated, on order, no choice.

[Sir John]

Matthias,

We have all seen the aerial pics of Berlin in the days after the surrender.

Hardly a building appears to be habitable, and I remember reading that the population of the city was over 3 million people, most living in the rubble. It must have been a nightmare trying to survive.

I doubt that situation would have improved for some years after.

SJ

[mcnoch]

SJ, yes, some areas were massively destroyed, other areas outside the inner city area were not so much damaged. The official records on the number of persons inside Berlin at this time are not as perfect as they were in the pre-war period, but even the American City-Commander spoke about 4,5 mio in total, When it came to the Berlin Airlift it was about 3,x mio as the Russians had send a lot of refugees to other cities. Hamburg, my hoometown, was the most devastated city, Nuremberg - where I live now - was also massivly bombed (92% of the inner city destroyed). Bomber Harris wanted to kill as much people as possible as humans can't be repaired like factories.

The Germans were living in most cities for nearly 4-6 years in this rubble until the large scale reconstruction programs managed to get enough construction material to rebuild old living quarters or build new living quarters outside of the destroyed cities.

The horrors of the war are still very present in the collective mind of the Germans. That is why we don’t accept war as a political tool anymore and always see the hardship of the civilians trapped on the battle-field too.

[Sir John]

Matthias,


I very much doubt that Harris gave so much as a thought to German workers, German mothers, or German babies. He even sent Lancasters to Berlin ("the Big City") to "burn their black hearts out"

When he was given the job he had the BoB and the Blitz still fresh in his mind, and his job was to reduce Germany to a defeated nation. Britain had ONE weapon at that time that could actually hit Germany and do some damage. That was the Lancaster!

Harris said that his main job was to stop the war production and how he did that mattered not at all. He could kill the worker, deprive him of sleep, food, water and shelter.

Just so long as the machine stopped working.

I would have done exactly the same.


SJ

[Deleted]

I believe Bomber Harris was a lose cannon and needed to be kept on a tighter leash , Harris bombed and bombed and bombed some more yet German war production was at an all time high in 1943 . IF there's always the if that nut case Hitler had got out of the way and let full production of the 262 go ahead the air war would have been much different .