Battle of Berlin

* The Summer Offensive begins, resulting in a reversal of White gains and an eventual Spartacist victory
Ludwig Renn
Ernst Thälmann
Kurt von Schleicher
Werner von Blomberg
* 3rd People's Army (part)

The **Battle of Berlin** (German: *Schlacht um Berlin*) was a decisive battle of the German Civil War and the climax of the Schleicher Offensive. It ended with the defeat of the forces of the White Movement, who were subsequently driven into a persistent retreat until the end of the war.

## Battle

The battle began on 4 April 1920, when advancing White forces reached the outskirts of Potsdam and Berlin and began the first major engagements with Spartacist forces in Berlin's vicinity. White forces reached Berlin itself on 17 April, where the major part of the battle ensued. Kurt von Schleicher, the de facto ruler of the Weimar Republic following the December Putsch, took personal command over the attack on Berlin. His forces were from the 4th Army, with a strength of about 150,000 soldiers, including attached Freikorps formations. Opposing him on the Spartacist side was the 1st People's Army, which numbered about 100,000 soldiers at the start of the battle, having been depleted by heavy fighting. Initially the situation was favorable to the Whites, who advanced into the outskirts of the city with relative ease. In Spandau the only significant fighting occurred at the historic citadel, where Spartacist forces were besieged for a week before surrendering.

However, the Spartacists had prepared for a defense of Berlin in the prior months and lured the Whites into a trap, drawing them into assaulting prepared defensive positions and forcing them to fight costly street battles. The heaviest fighting took place in Wilmersdorf, Charlottenburg, Schöneberg, and Moabit, which had to be captured to enable an advance into the center of the city. When fighting reached the Tiergarten it turned to trench warfare, with fierce Spartacist resistance preventing the Whites from reaching the Reichstag and the Königsplatz. Many of the shell craters and trenches were left intact after the war as a memorial, and some areas of the Tiergarten were cordoned off to be cleared of undetonated munitions, with the cleanup not being completed until 1924. Attempts at an advance from the north into Wedding were delayed by Spartacist resistance in the outskirts. The Whites, who had anticipated a rapid victory, controlled roughly a 1/3rd of the city's modern boundaries when it was decided to go on the defensive in early May due to heavy losses and the arrival of Spartacist reinforcements.

Despite the setbacks, the Whites did not withdraw from the city and chose to wait until they could replace their losses. Although Berlin had not been the decisive victory they had envisioned, there were still prospects of renewing the offensive after victory elsewhere. However, soon further setbacks occurred in the north, where they were driven back after an offensive in Mecklenburg, and in the south, where the strategic city of Leipzig in Saxony was recaptured by the Spartacists in early June after having been largely captured by the Whites in May. Now the Whites in Berlin were within an overextended salient that the Spartacists were eager to exploit. On 9 June the Spartacists launched an attack against the White defenses in Berlin, feigning this as the main attack. However, the main effort was directed to the west of Berlin, through an offensive simultaneously from north and south directed towards Magdeburg. On 11 June Spartacist forces in the north broke through the White defenses on the Elbe river and advanced southwards towards Stendal, followed by another offensive from the south by elements of the 3rd People's Army, composed of the 14th and 23rd Infantry Divisions, directed northwards towards Halle and Magdeburg. The White forces were stretched thin by the resistance in the Ruhr and recent defeats, and failed to seriously blunt the Spartacist offensive until it reached just south of Magdeburg. Recognizing the threat, Schleicher considered ordering a withdrawal from Berlin but reconsidered after the successes at Magdeburg. This reluctance was also driven by worries over the political implications of failing to capture the city.

However, the Spartacists switched to their secondary plan and focused their effort on the town of Brandenburg an der Havel. The Whites were unable to quickly establish a defense on the Elbe and the Spartacists now converged from both north and south, a situation compounded by the failure to secure the flank to the north of Berlin between Oranienburg and Neuruppin. A retreat was now approved on 16 June, but it came too late to ensure a safe withdrawal. By this point only one railroad could be used: the line running from Potsdam to Magdeburg. To keep it in operation the Whites had to quickly establish a defense along the line, particularly at the junctions in Brandenburg an der Havel, Genthin and Magdeburg. The Spartacists maintained their focus on Brandenburg an der Havel and reached the outskirts in the south in the early morning of 17 June. Some White forces retreating by train had to be diverted to defend the town. A Spartacist attack that evening almost reached the train station, but it was driven back with the support of an armored car. By the end of the day thousands of White forces had evacuated Berlin, but thousands more still remained. The situation was further complicated by the Spartacist offensive in Berlin, which forced the Whites to keep forces on the front to prevent an uncontrollable breakthrough towards Potsdam. The increasingly depleted lines in Berlin began to buckle on 18 June after the Spartacists broke through the southern defenses around Tempelhof and Marienfelde, seizing ground rapidly and forcing a disorganized White retreat to Lichterfelde, which threatened the flank of White positions in Schöneberg. Meanwhile Spartacist forces reached the northern approach to Brandenburg an der Havel and began battling with the White defenders in the forests.

By the early morning of 19 June it was clear that the line could not hold for much longer. Werner von Blomberg, commander of the IV Army Corps, informed Schleicher that they would be lucky to hold the railroad for another day. Spartacist artillery managed to disrupt the rail traffic in Potsdam for a few hours that same evening, and a small amount of White forces disobeyed commands and began moving westwards on foot. The last train to successfully reach Magdeburg left in the early hours of 20 June, and a few hours later the Spartacists finally broke through from both directions and seized Brandenburg an der Havel. Approximately 30,000 White soldiers were left trapped, primarily in Potsdam, which was quickly surrounded from all directions after the last defensive positions in Berlin crumbled on 21 June. The Spartacists did not assault the city and instead besieged the encircled troops, who fought tenaciously until the last remnants surrendered on 26 June. 20,000 of the 30,000 trapped White soldiers were taken prisoner, while another 10,000 were killed or were otherwise unaccounted for. Some White soldiers were summarily executed, though the exact amount is unknown. A few hundred are believed to have escaped on foot, with some making their way back to friendly lines, while others were captured in the countryside during Spartacist sweeping operations.

## Aftermath

The defeat at Berlin is considered by historians to be the decisive action of the civil war. The 4th Army was left in disarray, having lost much of its strength and equipment. The defeat also spurred a crisis in the White government as commanders scrambled to blame one another, eventually leading to the fall of Kurt von Schleicher. The Spartacist victory reinvigorated the movement, which successfully used the battle to recruit more forces and increase support for their cause. The arrival of Bolshevik forces later that year in the wake of the Polish-Soviet War relieved the pressure in the east, enabling the transfer of significant forces to the west. The Summer Offensive would occur soon after as the Spartacist follow-up to their success and would end in their triumph over the White Movement and the signing of the Treaty of Aachen in November.