Russia at war 1941-1945

offensive from the bridgeheads on the Oder with the support of artillery and

aircraft, and broke through the defences of Berlin. They took Frankfurt-on-the-

Oder, Wannlitz, Oranienburg, Birkenwerder, Henningsdorff, Pankow, Köpenick

and Karlshorst, and broke into the capital of Germany, Berlin.

At the same time, Konev's troops broke into Berlin from the south, after taking first Cottbus, and then Marienfelde, Teltow and other Berlin suburbs.

On the 25th it was announced that Zhukov and Konev had made their junction north-west of Potsdam, thus completely encircling Berlin. On the same day, Pillau, the last German stronghold in East Prussia was taken.

On May 2, after a week of the most dramatic battles—a week in the course of which

Hitler and Goebbels killed themselves in Berlin —the city surrendered.

Then, on the 7th, the whole German Army capitulated. Jodl signed the capitulation at Reims, and Keitel, the next day, in Berlin. Here the Russian signatory was Marshal

Zhukov. To the Russians, the Reims capitulation had been a "preliminary" formality; only a relatively junior Russian officer was present. While Churchill was broadcasting the end of the war on May 8 at 4 p.m., the Russian radio was broadcasting its "Children's Hour"—a pleasant little story about two rabbits and a bird. In Russia, the end of the war was not announced until the early hours of May 9. In Russia VE-Day was a day later than in the West. For one thing, Prague had not yet been liberated. The Western Allies thought this a detail; the Russians did not.

May 9 was an unforgettable day in Moscow. The spontaneous joy of the two or three

million people who thronged the Red Square that evening—and the Moscow River

embankments, and Gorki Street, all the way up to the Belorussian Station—was of a

quality and a depth I had never yet seen in Moscow before. They danced and sang in the streets; every soldier and officer was hugged and kissed; outside the US Embassy the crowds shouted "Hurray for Roosevelt!" (even though he had died a month before); they were so happy they did not even have to get drunk, and under the tolerant gaze of the militia, young men even urinated against the walls of the Moskva Hotel, flooding the wide pavement.

[The British Embassy, being on the other side of the Moskva river, some distance from the main scene of mass rejoicing, was given only a few minor friendly demonstrations.]

Nothing like this had ever happened in Moscow before. For once, Moscow had thrown all reserve and restraint to the winds. The fireworks display that evening was the most

spectacular I have ever seen.

Yet the one-day difference between VE-Day in the West and VE-Day in the East made

an unpleasant impression; and at first minor, and then more serious squabbles began

between the Allies almost before the ink of Keitel's signature had dried.

There was the row over the "Flensburg Government"; there were rows over the repatriation of Soviet prisoners and other Soviet citizens, whose return was being

delayed. An angry statement on the alleged breaches of the Yalta repatriation agreement was published by General Golikov, head of the Repatriation Commission. Above all,

there was more trouble about Poland. Many seeds of unpleasantness were beginning to

sprout...

Chapter II YALTA AND AFTER

The Yalta Conference of the Big Three, which was held three months before the collapse of Germany, has been described so often —notably by some of its participants, such as Mr Churchill, Mr James F. Byrnes and Mr Edward Stettinius—that no detailed account of that historic meeting is required here.

[The conference took place between February 4 and 11. The delegations were lodged in three of the palaces outside Yalta—the Tsar's palace of Livadia, the Vorontsov Palace and Koreis—which had more or less survived the German occupation. They had to be

fitted with new plumbing, and furniture had to be brought from Moscow.]

Yalta has been described as the "high tide of Big-Three unity" and, at the time, its results were hailed with great praise in most of the American press. It was not until later, when the Cold War was in full swing, that Yalta was described as a "Munich" at which Britain and the United States had "surrendered to Stalin", largely, it was said, because, at the time of Yalta, Roosevelt was a "weary and sick man", who had allowed himself to be bamboozled and outwitted by the wily Russian dictator.

Roosevelt was certainly a sick man. I still remember those truly pathetic newsreels of Yalta showing a terribly emaciated Roosevelt in his wheel-chair. I also remember Fenya, the kindly elderly Russian maid at the Metropole Hotel in Moscow, who was appointed