The Battle Of Berlin: April 19th 1945 – The Fight For Berlin’s Eastern Approaches

The 9th Parachute Division of Herman Göring’s elite paratroopers had not absorbed the Soviet artillery’s percussive bombardment of the Seelow Heights particularly well.

Nor the initial onslaught of Red Army troops directed against them. Not that they could be blamed for being more than alarmed – vastly outnumbered as they were.

In-fact, these were only paratroopers by name; simply air force personnel transferred to combat duties for which they had no experience.

Contrary to any promises made by Göring that these men would hold their ground – or possibly even repel the Soviet advance – many had simply fled. Back through the line of the 9th Army and towards Berlin, when the massive columns as Zhukov’s Russian tanks surged out from the plateau in front of them.

Some of the remaining men were briefly gathered together by an SS volunteer panzergrenadier division, the SS Nordland, and conducted a successful counterattack against the Soviet advance. But by late on April 19th, the remnants of this strange assembly of Göring’s counterfeit elite would already have arrived within the Berlin defensive ring – and were now waiting for the main thrust of the Soviet forces on the capital.

As many of the other units fighting on the Seelow Heights had been subjected to the same repeated artillery bombardment, air attacks, and an onslaught of tanks and infantry – the situation on April 19th was now looking beyond dire for the assorted mix of German Army troops and SS fighters attempting to coordinate themselves in the chaos.

Yet the defenders of the ‘Gates of Berlin’ were still tasked with holding their line from the towns of Wriezen to Batzlow and Reichenberg. With the fortified towns of Prötzel and Strausberg behind them.

On the evening of April 18th, Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, had confirmed an order from the Reichs Chancellery, and thus directly from Hitler, that ‘all forces available, including Volkssturm, have been requested by the Ninth Army to hold second-line positions’. These men would be hurried to the frontline from Berlin in buses requisitioned for the purpose, only to find the positions they were expected to defend already overrun and the whole front set to crumble. On the 19th April, these men would join the general disarray but play little role in hindering the advance of the Soviet front.