The battle for Berlin

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

Hear the eyewitness account of a female Russian soldier and a German schoolboy who fought on opposing sides in the final, brutal battle for the capital of Nazi Germany. The fall of the city to Soviet forces led to the end of the Second World War in Europe in May 1945.

Photo: A Soviet soldier running during a street battle in Berlin, late April 1945 (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:37.0	Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last.
0:46.0	And today is part of a week of programs to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, we hear archive accounts of the men
0:55.8	and women who fought in the Battle for Berlin, which finally led to Germany's surrender. In April 1945 in the last great offensive to end the war a huge Soviet army
1:17.4	some 2 million strong fought its way to Berlin the capital of Nazi Germany, where its leader Adolf Hitler was holed
1:25.8	up in an underground bunker.
1:27.8	Marshall Stalin has announced that Russian armies now surround Berlin, and the Germans say Hitler is still inside the city.
1:35.2	The Soviets American and British allies had halted their armies to the west of
1:39.8	the city despite British concerns the Soviet dictator Stalin was to get his wish, Berlin
1:46.0	would be a Soviet prize. Four years earlier German forces had invaded the Soviet Union
1:52.1	and had committed atrocities on a vast scale.
1:55.8	Some 20 million Soviet citizens had been killed in the war.
2:00.3	Both sides believed there would be a reckoning.
2:03.0	Ananicaleena was a major in the Soviet infantry.
2:07.0	The Germans' aim when they were in our country was to exterminate all Russians, no matter whether
2:17.3	they were old men or women, boys or girls, you must realize that. Imagine, I am a mother. They kill my parents, they
2:26.8	kill my husband, they kill my children, and why? Because they are Russian. So I hate these people. I want to take revenge. But Berlin
	...

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