The Battle Of Berlin: April 20th 1945 – Soviet Artillery Reaches Berlin

Early in the morning of April 20th, Hermann Göring would leave his Carinhall residence north of Berlin for the final time.

The Schorfheide forest surrounding the estate had served as a hunting area for nobility for centuries; although now the tranquillity of this pine and oak woodland populated by red deer and wild boar was being disrupted by the distant rumble of artillery – as Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front drew nearer.

Known to most as the Supreme Commander of the once formidable Nazi Air Force, Göring also possessed many other titles – as the Reichsminister of Forestry, Minister-President of the Free State of Prussia, and Reich Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan.

As such he also held a certain predilection for lavishness and had constructed his country residence of Carinhall, named after his first wife, on the grounds of this large hunting estate – as a veritable vanity project. Werner March, the architect responsible for the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, had been enlisted to ensure the scale of this monumental residence would reflect a man of Göring’s calibre and aspirations.

On the morning of April 20th, though, Göring hit a detonator switch and triggered a series of explosions that would force Carinhall to collapse in on itself. Rather than let his compound fall into the hands of the advancing Soviets, he had enlisted a Luftwaffe demolitions team to prepare the property to be ruined.

Insisting on blowing the place up himself.

Speeding out through the large entrance gates – one of the few sections of the property that remain standing to this day – Göring’s limousine would head towards Berlin and the New Reich Chancellery – to congratulate Adolf Hitler on his 56th birthday.

A convoy of trucks would also leave Carinhall but head further south – their cargo, much of the looted treasure that Göring had acquired over his lucrative career.