ABSTRACT
On 16 April 1945 Generals Zhukov and Konev launched the final assault on Berlin. The Soviet forces had the benefit of an enormous superiority of men and equipment, but it was not until 2 May, after days of bitter street fighting, that the remnants of the German garrison capitulated. Two days before, on 30 April, Hitler had killed himself in his Bunker in the grounds of the Chancellery in the Wilhelmstrasse. As early as 28 April, well before the fighting was at an end, Colonel-General Bersarin issued an order announcing that he had been appointed commander-in-chief of the occupation troops and chief commandant of the city of Berlin, and that all administrative and political power lay in his hands (GDR Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1964, Documents). The post-war political process that was to end in a divided Berlin had begun. The drama that was to unfold on the stage offered by Berlin, however, was only partially related to imperatives emerging within the city itself. It was to a much larger extent dictated by the development of relations between two parts of a divided Germany, and even more to decisions and events at international level. There are varied opinions as to responsibility for the course taken by events and, in particular, markedly divergent ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ official versions.
