Race to Berlin

The 'Race to Berlin' was a competition between Soviet Marshals Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev to be the first to enter Berlin during the final months of World War II in Europe. In early 1945, with Germany's defeat inevitable, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin set his two marshals in a race to capture Berlin. Although the race was mostly between one another, both marshals were supported by other fronts. Marshal Zhukov was protected by Konstantin Rokossovsky's Second Belorussian Front, and Marshal Konev was supported by Andrei Yeremenko's Fourth Ukrainian Front. Their separately-commanded armies were pitted against each other, ensuring they would drive their men as fast and as far as possible to a quick victory, leading to the climactic Battle of Berlin. The Soviet advance and ultimate capture of the German capital was not opposed by the Western Allies. In an effort to avoid a diplomatic issue, US Army General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower had ordered his forces into the south of Germany to cut off and to wipe out the Wehrmacht there, and to avoid the possibility that the German government would attempt to hold out in a national redoubt in the Alps. The Yalta Conference had already determined that both Germany and Berlin would be divided into four zones of occupation. After the Allies agreed at the Yalta Conference to specific zones of influence within Germany, the two Soviet armies raced to win control of Berlin, perhaps motivated by a desire to gain control of the German nuclear research program in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute before the Americans. Since the Allies landed in Normandy, the British and American armies (among affiliated Western Allied forces) had moved swiftly and decisively to take western cities in France, and to liberate Paris. By September 1944, Allied forces had reached the German border, but the subsequent failure of Operation Market Garden prevented a decisive breakthrough into the heart of Germany by the end of the year. In December, Hitler launched an unsuccessful offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge.