How the Red Army Taunted Its Fleeing Nazi Enemies in the Race for Berlin

By Christopher Woody,Business Insider

• The final weeks of April 1945 saw Soviet troops advance on Berlin, bringing World War II in Europe to an end.
• Amid the Soviet onslaught and the confused Nazi retreat, Russian troops found ways to torment their foes.
• Soviets troops found ways to taunt the Germans using their own phone lines.

The violence of the final weeks of World War II on Europe’s Eastern Front was matched only by its chaos, as exhausted and outmanned German forces withered under attacks from well-equipped and highly motivated Soviet troops.

The front line became more fluid, with Soviet forces quickly enveloping Nazi units that then made shambolic retreats and launched desperate breakout attempts.

At times, Soviet forces arrived at vacated German positions so quickly that the Russians found opportunities to taunt their reeling enemies.

The Soviet race to Berlin began on April 15 from positions east of the city, and by the morning of April 21, 1945, staff officers at the German army and armed forces joint headquarters at Zossen, south of Berlin, were girding themselves for capture after Hitler denied a request for them to relocate away from the Soviet advance.

But Soviet tanks ran out of gas south of the headquarters, and the delay allowed Hitler’s staff to reconsider, ordering the headquarters to move to Potsdam, southwest of Berlin. The officers at Zossen got the order just in time.

This section of Berlin, along Nettelbeck Strasse near Wittenberg Platz, was called the “City of Death” by Berliners, shown in April 1945.(AP Photo/Hans Martin Herloff)

“Late that afternoon, Soviet soldiers entered the concealed camp at Zossen with caution and amazement,” historian Antony Beevor writes in his 2002 book, “The Fall of Berlin 1945.”