Battle of the Seelow Heights
Eye witness accounts
by soldiers and civilians
from the spring of 1945
Change of cast:
Jutta Hoffmann unfortunately will not be able to attend the reading on 5 April as originally planned due to personal reasons. We would like to thank Udo Samel, who has agreed to take over the reading at short notice.
'What was impressive was this booming in the ears, this ringing, the darkness, the detonations, the falling grenades.' – Alexander Uljanovich
On 16 April 1945, the fierce fighting around the Seelow Heights that was to last four days and nights began with a barrage from 40,000 pieces of artillery. It marked the start of the battle for Berlin.
The German soldier Friedrich Schöneck reported: 'An ear-splitting noise filled the air. Compared to everything that has gone on before, this is no longer a barrage; it is a hurricane that rages and destroys everything above and in front of us, as well as behind us. The sky was a fiery red, as if it were about to burst at any moment. The ground trembled, quaked and swayed like a ship in force ten winds.'
The Red Army attacked the German Wehrmacht on the Seelow Heights with almost a million men. The defenders made a last stand in the hope of stopping the advance on Berlin. Ultimately, this would turn out to be the biggest battle of the Second World War fought on German soil – and it would prove much tougher for the Soviet troops than envisaged. German pioneer units had flooded the Oderbruch and turned it into an impenetrable swamp. More than 33,000 Soviet and more than 2,000 Polish soldiers lost their lives in this battle. All in all, at least 50,000 people died here; over 100,000 were wounded.
