Pertempuran Seelow Heights
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Pertempuran Seelow Heights adalah salah satu dari pertempuran terakhir dalam Perang Dunia II. Pertempuran ini berakhir selama empat hari, dari 16 April sampai 19 April 1945. Hampir satu juta prajurit Uni Soviet beraksi untuk mendobrak "Gerbang ke Berlin" yang dipertahankan oleh sekitar 100.000 tentara Jerman.
Daftar isi |
[sunting] Buildup
On April 9, 1945 Königsberg in East Prussia finally fell to the Red Army. This freed up General Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front (2BF) to move west to the east bank of the Oder river. During the first two weeks of April the Russians performed their fastest Front redeployment of the war. General Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front (1BF) which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow Heights. The 2BF moved into the positions being vacated by the 1BF north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress gaps were left in the lines and the remnants of the German II Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape across the Oder. To the south, General Konev shifted the main weight of the 1st Ukrainian Front (1UF) out of Upper Silesia north-west to the Neisse River.
The three Soviet Fronts had altogether 2.5 million men (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army); 6,250 tanks; 7,500 aircraft; 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars; 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rockets (nicknamed 'Stalin Organs'); and 95,383 motor vehicles, many manufactured in the USA.
General Gotthard Heinrici replaced Himmler as commander of Army Group Vistula on March 20. He was one of the best defensive tacticians in the German army and immediately started to lay defensive plans. He (correctly) assessed that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the Oder river and along the main east-west autobahn. He decided not to try to defend the banks of the Oder with anything more than a light skirmishing screen. Instead he arranged that his engineers fortify the Seelow Heights which lay about 48 meters above the Oder and overlooked the river at the point where the Autobahn crossed it. He started to thin out the line in other areas to increase the manpower available to defend the heights. German army engineers turned the Oder's flood plain, already saturated by the spring thaw, into a swamp by releasing the waters in a reservoir upstream. Behind this they built three belts of defensive emplacements which reached back towards the outskirts of Berlin. These lines consisted of anti-tank ditches, anti-tank gun emplacements, and an extensive network of trenches and bunkers.
[sunting] The battle
In the early hours on April 16 the offensive began with a massive bombardment by thousands of artillery pieces, and Katyusha rockets which sustained the barrage for days. Shortly afterwards and well before dawn the 1BF attacked across the Oder. The 1UF attacked across the Neisse before the dawn the same morning. The 1BF was the stronger force but it had the more difficult assignment and was facing the majority of the German forces.
The initial attack by the 1BF was a disaster. Heinrici and General Theodor Busse, the commander of IX Army which was the army holding the heights, anticipated the attack and withdrew their defenders from the first line of trenches just before the Soviet artillery obliterated them. The light from 143 searchlights which it was planned would blind the defenders was diffused by the early morning mist and made useful silhouettes of the attacking Soviet formations. The swampy ground proved to be a great hindrance and under a German counter barrage, Soviet casualties were enormous. Frustrated by the slow advance, or on the direct orders of Stalin, Zhukov threw in his reserves, which in his plan were to have been held back to exploit the expected breakthrough. By early evening an advance of almost six kilometres had been achieved in some areas, but the German lines remained intact. In the south the attack by the 1UF was keeping to plan. Zhukov was forced to report that the Battle of the Seelow Heights was not going to plan. Stalin, to spur Zhukov, told him that he would give Konev permission to wheel his tank armies towards Berlin from the south.
On the second day the 1BF staff were reduced to combing the rear areas for any troops which could be thrown into the battle. The Soviet tactic of using massed attacks was proving more costly than usual. By night fall of April 17 the German front before Zhukov remained unbroken, but only just. To the south Army Group Centre under the command of General Ferdinand Schorner were not proving such a hindrance. IV Panzer Army on the north flank of his formation was falling back under the weight of the 1UF Attack. He kept his two reserve panzer division in the south covering his centre, instead of using them to shore up the IV Panzer Army. This was the turning point in the battle because by nightfall the positions of both the Army Group Vistula and southern sectors of Army Group Centre were becoming untenable. Unless they fell back in line with the IV Panzer Army they faced envelopment. In effect Konev's successful attacks on Schorner's poor defences, to the south of the battle of the Seelow Heights, were unhinging Heinrici's brilliant defence.
On April 18 both Soviet Fronts made steady progress but Soviet losses were again substantial. By the nightfall the 1BF had reached the third and final German line of defence and the 1UF having captured Forst was preparing to break out into open country.
On April 19 the fourth day the 1BF broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The remnants of the IX Army which had been holding the heights and the remaining northern flank of the IV Panzer Army were in danger of being enveloped by elements of the 1UF, these were the 3rd Guards Army and the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies, which having broken through the IV Panzer Army turned north towards Berlin and the 1BF. Other armies of the 1UF raced west towards the Americans. By the end of the 19th the German eastern front line had ceased to exist. All that remained were pockets of resistance.
The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high between April 1 and April 19, with over 2,807 tanks lost. During the same period the Allies in the west lost 1,079 tanks. The about 30,000 Soviet and 10,000 Germans lost their lives during the for days of the battle.
[sunting] Conclusion
By April 23 Berlin was fully encircled and the Battle for Berlin entered its last stage. Within two weeks Hitler was dead and the The war in Europe was over.
[sunting] See also
[sunting] References
- Beevor, Antony. Berlin: the Downfall, 1945, ISBN 0670886955
- Ziemke, Earl F. Battle For Berlin: End Of The Third Reich, NY:Ballantine Books, London:Macdomald & Co, 1969.
