Chapter 270
After the soldiers completed the clearing mission, Yuri entered the seemingly shaky building and went straight to the roof.
Standing on the roof, Yuri looked southeast through the telescope. From this position, with the help of the telescope, he could see the battle in the direction of the Reichstag from afar, where the Soviet army was attacking the Kroll Theater, which was heavily defended by the German army.
It can be seen from the Berlin city defense map that the Kroll Theater was right on the Soviet army's offensive route to the Reichstag. Before that, the Soviet army's offensive launched from the north was attacked from the side and rear, resulting in heavy losses. The location where the German army launched the attack was exactly the Kroll Theater.
In response to Yuri's request, the Germans reinforced the entire theater from all angles. All windows and entrances were sealed tightly with sandbags. The firepower network supported by machine gun firing points blocked almost every route for launching an attack.
In order to destroy the Kroll Theater, a nearly fortress-like firepower point, the 34th Heavy Artillery Battalion, equipped with 6 280mm heavy artillery, was ordered to enter the city. Their BR-5 howitzers can fire concrete armor-piercing shells with a warhead weight of 246 kg, which are loaded with 58 kg of explosives. If they bombard the concrete road surface, they can blow a bomb crater with a radius of 10 meters and a depth of 6 meters. Because the production of ammunition was too difficult, only 47 guns of this type were produced in the entire Soviet Union during the entire war. In order to capture Berlin this time, the headquarters reserve mobilized the 34th Heavy Artillery Battalion.
The 34th Heavy Artillery Battalion was stationed at Schlesinger Street and was ordered to fire a base number of rounds at the Kroll Theater.
From the rooftop of this specially selected building, Yuri could use a telescope to see the bombing situation there clearly. The dust caused by the explosion of heavy shells sprayed twenty or thirty meters in the air. However, after one round of shelling, half of the theater collapsed and the entire roof was blown away.
This type of shell is incredibly powerful. Although it did not directly reduce the theater to ruins, the German troops hiding inside would lose their ability to move after a round of shelling. The violent shock would even kill people in the building. Even those who survived would become deaf or stupid.
"salute!"
Yuri was watching the battle in the direction of the theater when he heard the voice of a soldier behind him. He turned his head and saw Zhukov and two other people coming out of the rooftop exit.
Handing the binoculars to Arseni, Yuri turned and took two steps forward. When Zhukov was about five or six steps away from him, he raised his hand and saluted, saying, "Hello, Comrade Georgy Konstantinovich."
This greeting is very polite and formulaic, with a sense of obvious distance in its politeness.
"Hello, Comrade Yuri Arkhipovich," Zhukov returned the salute and greeted in the same tone.
"An hour ago, the Germans contacted Comrade Vasily Ivanovich," Yuri said without further ado, stating the purpose of the invitation. "They hope to send a negotiation delegation to discuss a ceasefire."
Vasily Ivanovich was referring to Chuikov, who was in charge of the offensive command in the eastern part of Berlin. Just an hour ago, his signalman received a call from the German army, who asked for a senior officer to answer the call, but the person who answered the call was actually a major.
During this call, the other party proposed to negotiate a ceasefire. The major reported the news to Chuikov, who then reported it to Yuri.
Although Yuri was in charge of commanding the main battles in Berlin, he could not make decisions on such matters. In addition, in order not to make the relationship with Zhukov too strained, he took the initiative to contact Zhukov. Whether reporting the matter to Moscow or negotiating, Zhukov could not be left aside, which would be too embarrassing.
In addition, Yuri had never experienced such a thing before and he himself had no experience. Asking Zhukov to participate in this matter would help him avoid appearing timid.
After listening to Yuri's narration, Zhukov's expression did not change at all. He was silent for a while and said, "We can agree on a specific time and the two sides will temporarily cease fire. At the same time, we must ask Moscow for instructions on the specific matters of the negotiations."
It is obvious that Zhukov agreed to the negotiations, but he also did not dare to make the decision. After all, as a commander, no matter how high his rank, he did not have the power to conduct armistice negotiations with the enemy country. This was a power belonging to Comrade Stalin and the Supreme Soviet, and this was clearly stipulated in the Constitution.
After saying this, Zhukov took two steps forward, walked to the guardrail on the roof, took the binoculars from Arseni, looked in the direction of the Capitol, and when he turned around, he said, "My opinion is that we should try our best to capture the Capitol before the ceasefire negotiations. This is an important symbol, and I think Comrade Stalin would like to see this result."
Yuri nodded and turned to look in the direction of the Capitol.
As a time traveler, he knew that the so-called Reichstag was just a decoration. The high-ranking German military officials that Moscow hoped to capture, including Hitler, were not there, but were hiding in the underground bunker of the Chancellery.
Today's Reichstag is actually just a half-finished building under renovation. Even the walls of the rooms inside have not been painted yet. But there was obviously something wrong with the Soviet intelligence system, so much so that the Reichstag was identified as the main target for capture, and it was unilaterally believed that Hitler and his staff could be captured there.
Although he knew this problem, Yuri never thought of changing this history, let alone exposing it, not for anything else, but because he did not want to offend Comrade Beria. At present, it was this big devil who had the Soviet intelligence. Yuri knew very well that correcting his mistakes might not necessarily earn his gratitude, on the contrary, he might be hated by the other party, so it was better to have less trouble than more.
But then again, it is still necessary to capture the Capitol before the armistice negotiations. This is politics. How can an unpolitical person hold a high position?
After accepting Zhukov's proposal, Yuri issued an order to immediately attack the Reichstag, and at the same time contacted Moscow to inform it of the German army's proposal for armistice negotiations.
Moscow quickly gave a reply, which was an order from Comrade Stalin relayed by Antonov: Taking into account that when the Battle of Moscow was going on, Hitler had issued an order requiring the front-line troops not to accept the surrender of the Soviets, "the world does not need Russians", therefore, the front-line troops participating in the Battle of Berlin, commanders at all levels, are strictly prohibited from negotiating with the Germans under any conditions, and the German army must surrender unconditionally.
Interpreting this order, its meaning is not that armistice negotiations are not allowed, but that any conditional surrender of the German army is not allowed. All German troops who are stubbornly resisting in Berlin must stop resisting and surrender their weapons. Their fate will be decided by the Soviet Union.
Just three hours after receiving Moscow's response, at 4 p.m. Berlin time, the Soviet army stormed the Reichstag and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the German troops guarding the building.
The battle lasted less than an hour. Around 5 o'clock, the attacking Soviet troops cleared out the stubborn German soldiers in the building and hoisted the national flag on the dome of the Reichstag. At this point, the main defense forces of the German army were compressed into a small area centered on the Chancellery on Wilhelm Street.
At seven o'clock in the evening, the fighting between the Soviet and German sides in the city of Berlin temporarily stopped. In the war zone near Wilhelm Street, soldiers from both sides waved white flags and began to collect the bodies exposed on the streets.
At the same time, a German delegation led by Hans Krebs entered the Soviet-controlled area and started armistice negotiations with a Soviet delegation headed by Subotin, the military commissar of the 2nd Belorussian Front.
The negotiations lasted less than an hour before they broke down. Krebs said that Hitler had committed suicide an hour ago and that General Dönitz was currently the president of the Third Reich and the supreme commander of the Wehrmacht. If the Soviet Union could guarantee the independence of the Third Reich and the personal safety of high-ranking officials of the Third Reich, including Goebbels, Jodl, Keitel, and Burgdorf, the German army was willing to lay down its arms and formally surrender.
But Subbotin rejected the conditions proposed by Krebs. He conveyed Moscow's opinion: the German army must surrender unconditionally, war criminals must be tried and punished, the German Third Reich would no longer exist from today, and as the victor, the Soviet Union had the right to de-fascistize post-war Germany.
The negotiations failed to reach a ceasefire agreement. At nine o'clock in the evening, as the Soviet army launched heavy artillery bombardment on the Chancellery on Wilhelm Street, the brief ceasefire between the Soviet and German sides ended and the fighting between the two sides continued.
This night seemed quite long. Although the Soviet army occupied most of Berlin and besieged the German army on Wilhelm Street, the scattered German soldiers who had escaped the Soviet control area were still fighting unyieldingly. The second echelon of the Soviet army began to clear out these small groups of rebels. At the same time, dozens of convoys consisting of thousands of trucks began to transport supplies from Seelo to Berlin.
Again, military action also needs to be political. Although Soviet soldiers are full of hatred for the Germans, they must now show a humanitarian attitude. Tomorrow morning, representatives from the British and American Allied Forces will enter Berlin. The Soviet army must distribute food and daily necessities to the citizens of Berlin while these Western representatives enter Berlin.
In addition, Moscow’s plenipotentiary representative is also on the way. Several years of war are about to end, and Moscow must carry out the final surrender ceremony.
