A Race Like No Other: The Soviet Sprint to Berlin

Warfare History Network

History, Europe

Which General would get there first?

On orders from Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, the offensive that resulted in the capture of the Nazi capital of Berlin in April 1945, developed into a race between the army groups of two Soviet commanders, Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev. The race was heated, and often the lives of soldiers were sacrificed in the interest of time.

Stalin remembered the ruthless German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, that broke the nonagression pact between the two countries that had been signed in 1939. He also sought harsh retribution for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens and tremendous destruction of property that had occurred.

Zhukov Prepares to Take Berlin…

The task of taking Berlin was given to Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front and Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front with support from at least three other fronts, or army groups. The 48-year-old Zhukov had already been recognized as a Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation’s highest military award. Born into a peasant family, Zhukov rose to high levels of command after serving in World War I and the Russian Civil War. Forces under his command had soundly defeated the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol in 1938-39, ending that nation’s threat of expansion into the Soviet sphere in the East. During the Great Patriotic War, as World War II was called in the Soviet Union, he was instrumental in many of the major victories won by the Red Army on the Eastern Front.

Konev was also of peasant stock. He served as a conscript in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I and in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. During World War II, his troops helped to blunt the German drive to capture Moscow in the winter of 1941. A Hero of the Soviet Union, he led forces at the pivotal Battle of Kursk and through offensive operations in the autumn of 1944.

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