April 19 was the decisive day on the Oder front: on that day the German 9th Army disintegrated. LI Corps, which was thrown back against Eberswalde, lost all contact with LVI Panzer Corps, which was itself cut off from XI S. S. Corps; through this last breach Zhukov managed to reach Strausberg, which was about 22 miles from the New Chancellery bunker.
On the same day Konev, on the 1st Ukrainian Front, was already exploiting the situation; he crossed the Spree at Spremberg and penetrated Saxon territory at Bautzen and Hoyerswerda. The Stavka, which was not satisfied with Zhukov’s manner of conducting his battle, urged Konev to carry out the alternative plan previously discussed.
For the last time, Hitler’s dispositions favoured the enemy. Certainly neither Heinrici nor Busse opposed LI Corps’ attachment to the 3rd Panzerarmee, but the order given to LVI Panzer Corps to reinforce the Berlin garrison without allowing the 9th Army to pull back from the Oder appeared madness to them: outflanked on its right by Konev’s impetuous thrust, it was also exposed on its left. But, as always, the Fiihrer remained deaf to these sensible objections, and Busse received the imperious order to counter-attack the 1st Ukrainian Front’s columns from the north whilst Graser attacked them from the south.
The result was that on April 22, the 1st Guards Tank Army (1st Belorussian Front), leaving the Berlin region to its north-west, identified at Kdnigs Wuster-hausen the advance guard of the 3rd Guards Tank Army (1st Ukrainian Front) which, executing Stalin’s latest instruction, had veered from the west to the north from Finsterwalde. The circle had therefore closed around the German 9th Army. That evening, Lelyushenko’s armoured forces pushed forward to Jiiterborg, cutting the Berlin-Dresden road, whilst Zhukov, advancing through Bernau, Wandlitz, Oranienburg, and Birken-werder (which had fallen to Lieutenant-General F. I. Perkhorovich’s 47th Army and Colonel-General N. E. Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army) cut the Berlin-Stettin and Berlin-Stralsund roads. The encirclement of the capital, therefore, was completed two days later when the 8th Guards and 4th Guards Tank Armies linked up in Ketzin.
World History
