Race To Berlin

The Race to Berlin refers mainly to the competition between two Soviet Marshals to be the first to enter Berlin during the final months of World War II.

In early 1945, with the war in Europe coming to an obvious conclusion, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin purposely set his two Marshals Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev in a race to capture Berlin. Although it was mostly their race, both Marshals were supported by another Front. Marshal Zhukov was protected by Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front, while Marshal Konev was supported by Yeremenko's Fourth Ukrainian Front. The two men and their separately commanded armies were pitted against one another, ensuring that they would drive their men as fast and as far as possible to a quick victory. This led to a climax in the bloody Battle of Berlin.

The Soviet advance and ultimate capture of the German capital was virtually unopposed by their allies. In an effort to avoid a diplomatic issue, Allied General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower had ordered his forces into the south of Germany to cut off and wipe out other pieces of the Wehrmacht and to avoid the possibility that the Nazi government would attempt to hold out in a National Redoubt in the Alps. The failure of Operation Market Garden in late 1944 may have played a key role in this decision however.

The decision to leave eastern Germany and the city of Berlin to the Red Army eventually had serious repercussions as the Cold War emerged and expanded in the post-war era, but in doing so, the western Allies were also honoring agreements they made with the Soviet Union at Yalta.