Could The Western Allies Have Captured Berlin?

“The Messalina of the North is dead. Morta la Bestia [The beast is dead].”
Frederick the Great, on hearing of the news of the death of the Russian Emperess, Elizabeth on January 22nd 1762

On April 12th 1945, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt – the four-term President – passed away from a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

The news would reach British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the morning of Friday 13th, when as a result he would request that out of respect the House of Commons adjourned as a sign of respect to the man he would call a ‘shining personality’. It was the first time a foreign head of state was given such an honour.

The reaction in Berlin was not quite as solemn.

Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, had earlier commissioned an astrological study that had predicted troubling times coming in the early part of April, with relief later in the month. The death of Roosevelt was seen as the turning point that Goebbels and Hitler had been waiting for – and the sycophantic Goebbels was only eager to impress on his Führer the potential ramifications.

At the lowest point in the Seven Years War, Prussian King, Frederick the Great, had faced defeat at the hands of overwhelming odds and only been saved by the death of one of his foes – Russian Czarina Elizabeth.

What would become known as the ‘Miracle of the House of Brandenburg’.

History, Goebbel would boast, was repeating itself.

The Russian horde would be repelled from the gates of Berlin, and the American forces could now change sides to fight alongside German forces to defeat the real enemy – international Bolshevism.

In the midst of this possible change of fortunes – the death of one man – the war, however, continued unabated. The ‘Miracle of the House of Hitler’ would amount to nothing.