La “graficación” como actividad escolar

* Hitler had promised that he had established a "Thousand Year Reich", but as 1944 drew to a close it was obvious that the end was near. Germany was in ruins, while the Western Allies closed in from the West and the Soviets closed in from the East.

With the Luftwaffe running out of gas and pilots, hopelessly outnumbered in the skies, British and American bombers pounded Germany's cities and industries into rubble. Fuel supplies dried up and fighter-bombers shot up anything that moved on the roads by daylight. Allied forces greatly outnumbered the Wehrmacht and were vastly better supplied, but Hitler refused to contemplate surrender. He threw whatever reinforcements he could scrape up to the East in hopes of blocking, or in his delusions even defeating, the Red Army. In early February, Goebbels noted that the Fuehrer seemed "utterly exhausted" but was convinced that he had "halfway succeeded in restabilizing the situation in the East." Goebbels then commented in cautious way that he was "a little skeptical. Just in the last few months the Fuehrer has sometimes made mistakes in his judgement of our military possibilities."

The lull in the fighting was entirely due to a reconsideration of offensive strategy on the Soviet side. Stalin had called Zhukov from the Yalta Conference on 6 February 1945 and ordered that the drive on Berlin be postponed. The Red Army was to concentrate on East Prussia for the moment, driving north to clear out the threat to its flank before beginning the final push on Berlin. Stalin may have also wanted to prolong the war a little in hopes of improving the Soviet Union's standing at the end of the conflict.

In any case, Zhukov's First Belorussian Front turned right and drove towards Kolberg on the Baltic, while Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front moved west to meet them, surrounding Danzig along

the way. To the south, Konev's First Ukrainian Front conducted a limited offensive to keep up the pressure along the line, with this thrust quickly reaching the Neisse. Konev's troops overran the industrial area of Silesia, capturing many factories and mines intact. It was a major economic disaster to the Reich.

The Germans in East Prussia had known their position was hopeless well before the February

offensive, and many had been trying to escape. On 10 January, the Red Navy submarine S-13 had put three torpedoes into the WILHELM GUSTLOFF, loaded down with 7,000 refugees. Over 6,000 people died in the frigid waters of the Baltic. On 10 February, the S-13 also torpedoed the STEUBEN and sent it to the bottom, with 3,500 refugees on board. The submarine's captain, A.I. Marinesco, was recommended Hero of the Soviet Union, but he had a sexual liaison with a foreigner and was denied the award. He was finally given the HSU posthumously in 1990, at the last hour of the Soviet state. The German 2nd Army was trapped with the civilians in Danzig. Hitler sacked its commander, Colonel General Walter Weiss, and on 12 March appointed General Dietrich von Saucken in his place. Saucken was something of an odd choice for Hitler, since the general was a thorough aristocrat -- he even wore a monocle -- and made no secret of his contempt for the low-bred Nazis. Hitler briefed Saucken and told him that he was to take orders from the Gauleiter in Danzig. Saucken replied stiffly: "I have no intention of placing myself under the orders of a Gauleiter."

Even Guderian, who had often argued with Hitler and was a witness to the scene, was shocked, all the more so because Saucken did not even bother to add "Mein Fuehrer" to the response. Even more astounding, Hitler meekly caved in: "All right, keep the command to yourself." Saucken flew to Danzig on 13 March and did everything he could to hold the line and get the civilians out. When the city finally fell on 28 March, the Red Army exceeded itself in the brutality inflicted on those who had not been able to flee. The fortified city of Koenigsberg held out until 10 April, the last of the "Baltic Balcony" to fall to the Red Army. As if to emphasize the crushing defeat, on 16 April a Soviet submarine sent the hospital ship GOYA to the bottom, along with most of the 7,000 refugees on board.

By this time, the Western Allies were across the Rhine and German resistance against them was fading out. German troops and civilians were fleeing West to surrender to the British and Americans. Himmler, discouraged by his lack of success, resigned his command of Army Group Vistula, though since he dared not make such a request of Hitler himself, Guderian suggested doing it for him. Himmler agreed and Guderian eagerly did him the favor.

Command of Army Group Vistula fell to Colonel General Gotthardt Heinrici, currently commander of the 1st Panzer Army, which was then trying to hold the line against Konev. When Heinrici arrived, Himmler gave him a pompous and long-winded briefing, until news of another disaster on the front arrived. Himmler broke off the briefing and departed without further delay.

Many other Germans in uniform, fully aware of the treatment they would receive at the hands of Soviet troops on surrendering, were much more resolute than Himmler, willing to fight on to the last. They had no practical alternative. They were to be given little reward for their diligence. Despite the loyalty of the German people to their Fuehrer, he felt they had let him down. Following the Soviet capture of the resources of Silesia, on 19 March 1945 he issued the "Nero Befehl (Nero Order)", which dictated the widespread destruction of Germany's material resources. It was done to deny the enemy rewards for their conquests, as well as to punish the German people, who Hitler stated with lunatic arrogance had "proved themselves unworthy of me."

The fact was plain that it was his own catastrophic failures of judgement and leadership that had led to disaster. Hitler could have worked for peace and prosperity, but instead he had recklessly chosen war and conquest -- and having unleashed a dragon, the dragon had now turned on him. There was no way the Fuehrer could have conceded his own responsibility in the matter: the despised Slavs had proven themselves stronger than the weakling Germans and so the Germans did not deserve to survive. To add to the arrogance, Martin Bormann had been sent off a few days earlier to the south to find places to stash Nazi loot. The people might starve, but the Nazis would ensure they kept the treasures they had stolen from others.

Fortunately, the Nero Order was not implemented with any great enthusiasm, and in fact in some cases German Army officers posted guards around important installations to prevent hardcore Nazis

from destroying them. Germany was being thoroughly ruined by the simple violence of warfare. Attempting to deliberately enhance the ruin was madness. The Fuehrer had no future; his people did, and they had to give serious consideration of how to survive in that future beyond the Fuehrer. The clock was rapidly approaching midnight. On 7 March 1945, the Americans had captured a bridge over the Rhine at Remagen and were energetically using it to establish an ever-expanding foothold on the east bank, undeterred by frantic German counterattacks. Hitler got the news the next day and took it with a certain punch-drunk passivity, but the next day he was in a rage and ordered the execution of five German officers, much to the shock of the German Army.

The Fuehrer had ventured out of his bunker on 13 March to visit the Oder front, mostly for the benefit of Goebbels' cameramen. He did not review the troops, instead meeting with a group of officers, who were shocked at how white and unhealthy he looked. One officer commented on the Fuehrer's "glittering eyes, which reminded me of those of a snake." Hitler returned to his bunker and would not leave it again alive. There were heavy air raids on Berlin that day that killed thousands of civilians and left tens of thousands homeless.

* In the meantime, on 13 February 1945, the Red Army had taken Budapest after a 50-day siege. The Hungarians, tired of the war, had felt some relief when the Soviets approached, but Stalin's troops demonstrated much of the same inclination towards rape, looting, and brutality that they had put in practice elsewhere. The Hungarians quickly took a dislike to their "liberators". Churchill clearly saw his belief that the Soviets planned to take control of Eastern Europe coming true.

In fact, by this time, Stalin's attitude towards the Western Allies was drifting towards outright hostility, with Soviet officials being as uncooperative and rude as possible. Even Roosevelt, whose attitude toward the Soviets had been traditionally been inclined towards giving them the benefit of the doubt, was becoming disgusted by this time, admitted in late March that "we can't do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of the promises he made at Yalta."

At the same, Churchill was pushing for a drive on Berlin; British Field Marshal Montgomery was enthusiastic about the idea. Churchill understood that the capture of Berlin would be a major propaganda victory, and would give the Western Allies a better bargaining position with the Soviets after the war. The British made no secret of their interest in Berlin to the Soviets, and it was a matter of concern to Stalin.

US General Dwight Eisenhower, the military supreme commander in Europe, had other ideas. He felt that his primary responsibility was to minimize the losses among his troops -- an attitude that the Soviet high command would have found almost baffling -- and didn't believe that Berlin would be worth the casualties required to capture it. In particular, Eisenhower considered Montgomery's interest in the capture of Berlin to be motivated solely by Monty's well-established love for glory. Besides, according to the occupation plan agreed on at Yalta, much of the territory the Western Allies would capture in northern Germany would simply be handed over to the Soviets after the war anyway. Eisenhower focused his armies on central Germany, with Leipzig and Dresden as their objectives. He wanted to capture what was left of Germany's heavy industries, and he also feared that the Nazi regime was preparing to make a fanatical last stand in the mountains of southeastern Germany and western Austria, an action that could prolong the war by a year or more. As far as the "AlpenFestung (Alpine Fortress)" or "National Redoubt" in the Alps was concerned, Eisenhower needn't have worried: it never really existed except as a fantasy of overblown Nazi propaganda. Some Allied intelligence officers suspected as much, but Hitler's mad transfers of forces southward gave the idea some credibility.

Eisenhower sent a message to Stalin describing his strategy without consulting with the British ahead of time, and the result was a furious quarrel between British and American leadership. Eisenhower refused to change his decision, and the message was given to Stalin on 31 March by the head of the US military mission to the USSR, Major General John R. Deane. Stalin told Deane that he approved of Eisenhower's plans, and that the Red Army would drive southwest to link up with American and British forces.

* In reality Stalin, who lied without a second thought himself, assumed that Eisenhower was lying as well, and that the Western Allies were planning to double-cross him and take the city anyway. The

American capture of the bridge at Remagen was almost as big a shock to Koba as it was to Hitler; Stalin hadn't expected the Western Allies to penetrate the Rhine barrier so quickly. He understood the propaganda value of Berlin as well as Churchill did, and decided that it was now time to move. Ironically and characteristically, Stalin had mercilessly badgered the Western Allies for years about a second front, and now that he had one, he was worried that his comrades-in-arms might use it to gain an advantage on him.

He called his generals to Moscow at the beginning of April. The offensive was to be conducted primarily by Zhukov's First Belorussian Front and Konev's First Ukrainian Front. Zhukov was nominally to be in overall command, but in reality Stalin blatantly played the two generals off against each other, first giving them bogus intelligence about Eisenhower's "plan" to capture Berlin to get them in a competitive mood, and then modifying the overall Red Army plan for the offensive so that, if circumstances justified it, Konev might take Berlin instead of Zhukov.

Despite the fact that Zhukov had interceded in Konev's behalf during the Battle of Moscow, the two generals disliked each other strongly. They were both burly men and aggressive, even ruthless, commanders, but that was about as far as the resemblance went. Zhukov was short, Konev tall; Zhukov was harsh with his own people, Konev paternalistic; Zhukov was coarse, Konev had an intellectual bent. Zhukov looked down on Konev because he came out of the ranks of the political commissars, not the regular military, and Konev predictably resented it. Konev also resented the fact that Zhukov was the object of such glorification by the state propaganda apparatus. The two set to work on organizing their parts in the offensive, pushing their staffs to the limit to get things in order as fast as possible.

Of course Stalin always had a devious agenda, and underlying the competition he had created between the two generals was his distrust of anyone who was a potential rival. Konev wasn't the only one who was irritated by Zhukov's prominence. Although Stalin called Zhukov to his face "my Suvorov", after the great Russian general who had defeated Napoleon, and Zhukov was one of the few people who would bluntly argue with Koba, there were stories that the normally controlled and calculating Stalin flew into rages at Zhukov's insufficiently subordinate attitude.

The NKVD had been quietly collecting evidence against Zhukov even as far back as the victory in Khalkin-Gol for the day that a case might be made against him. That would have to wait until Hitler was dragged through the streets of Moscow in chains or otherwise dealt with to Stalin's satisfaction. For the moment, Stalin needed Zhukov and continued to be friendly to his face.

The preparations for the offensive were massive and exhausting. The Germans had wrecked the rail lines as they withdrew, and Polish trains had used a different track gauge anyway, so streams of American Studebaker 6x6 trucks brought up a flood of supplies of weapons, ammunition, food, and everything else needed for the battle. Zhukov accumulated seven million artillery shells for the opening phases alone. 40 engineering battalions worked night and day to put 25 bridges across the Oder to support Zhukov's drive. A detailed model of the city of Berlin was built at general

headquarters, and all senior officers to be involved in the assault were put through a course with it. By mid-April, all was ready.

[15.0] On To Berlin

v1.2.0 / chapter 15 of 17 / 01 feb 10 / greg goebel / public domain

* After almost four years of war, the Red Army was ready to begin the final push, driving on Berlin with massive armies in the face of desperate but faltering resistance. Although the outcome of the battle could not be in doubt, it would still prove to be as hard and painful as any other major battle in the East.

[15.1] STALIN'S FINAL OFFENSIVE [15.2] HITLER ON THE ROPES

[15.3] ENCIRCLING BERLIN / MEETING ON THE ELBE [15.4] THE STRUGGLE FOR BERLIN