71 Years Ago Today: Last German Line on Seelow Heights Collapses

Today marks the 71st anniversary of the final Soviet breakthrough along the Seelow Heights just east of Berlin. As bloody and violent as the Eastern Front had been up to that point, the three day Battle of Seelow Heights was a crescendo that saw some of the most bitter, desperate, and bloody fighting of the entire war.

The Soviets approached the last obstacle between them and the German capital with a force of over a million men, over 3,000 tanks, and almost 17,000 artillery pieces. To try and hold them back the Germans had about 100,000 men, just over 500 tanks and a little over 2,600 artillery pieces, although they scarcely had little ammunition for their guns and even less fuel for their vehicles.

Starting on the 16th, the Soviet forces battered the German defenses for three days, taking heavy losses in the process despite outnumbering the Germans 10 to 1 in manpower. But on the third day, the last pockets of German defenders were finally overwhelmed. With the collapse of the final line of resistance along the Seelow Heights, there was nothing left standing between the Soviets and Berlin. The last vestiges of the German Eastern Front had for all intents and purposes ceased to exist as a cohesive front.

One interesting aspect of this battle is that despite the fact the Germans were already defeated and the verge of total collapse, they were still able to inflict an almost 3 to 1 casualty rate on the Soviets.



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