Race for the Reichstag

Among the soldiers of the Red Army, Berlin - and the Reichstag in particular - was seen as the victor's prize. Stalin had promised Berlin to Marshal Zhukov, but the latter's blundering in the preliminary battle forced a dramatic change of plan. Stalin chastened his subordinates, then allowed Marshal Koniev, Zhukov's rival, to launch one of his powerful tank armies at the city. The advancing Soviet forces were confronted by a desperate, inadequate German defense. General Weidling's panzer corps was dragged into the city in a futile attempt to prolong the existence of the Third Reich, whose leaders squabbled and schemed in their underground shelters, a world apart from the reality outside where their subjects suffered and died. Ten days later, after the suicides of Hitler and Goebbels, the survivors had to choose between breakout and surrender.