Following the stunning defeat during Operation Bagration in June 1944, the Germans were pressed back relentlessly by the Red Army all along the Eastern Front. In January 1945, the Vistula-Oder operation brought the Soviets to within 50 miles of Berlin itself. Here they halted, mainly due to exhaustion and a lack of supplies, and prepared for the final attack on the German capital. The main components of this were Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front and Marshal Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front. Together they were to break through the last German defences and take Berlin before the Western Allies under Eisenhower could beat them to it.
The Soviet plan was brutally simple; whilst Koniev engaged and destroyed German units to the south opposite Dresden and Leipzig, Zhukov would blast through the enemy defences in front of Berlin and take the city by storm. This would involve piercing the main enemy line of resistance on the formidable Seelow Heights.
The most direct route was down Reichstrasse 1. Along this road Zhukov’s most powerful thrust was to be made by the 8th
