Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

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Stephan H.
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Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Stephan H. »

I’m starting this thread as a means to have members provide and discuss archival source material relevant to Heeresgruppe Weichsel, the Battle of Berlin, and all relevant German formations that fought. I believe that this information may be of use to others and perhaps thre will be some new sources revealed by others here.

Many people have asked me about specific information regarding German units that fought in Berlin. You will find very little operational information in official Archives. The reason is that the fighting in the city was so chaotic no one kept any documents, and any that were kept were burned upon the breakout or prior to surrender to the Soviets. Having said that, many good first person accounts exist, and I’m sure other members that may want to contribute here can offer better references than I.

Let me start with US National Archives records that I have used.

T-311 Rolls 169, 170, 171 contain the majority of Heeresgruppe Weichsel’s war diary information. I’ll try to post some screen shots of the content cards from each roll so others have a sense of what they contain. I’ve personally reviewed the thousands of pages several times (as I own copies of these three reels) and continually find excellent information. Reel 171 also contains excellent operational maps from H.Gr. Weichsel’s earlier period. You will not find much information on the battle of Berlin here. . . .and by that I mean the fight for the city. There are operational reports regarding the battle of the Oderfront, however.

There are excellent reports regarding the fighting for Posen, Küstrin, and even Kolberg. In the case of Posen, there are good maps with unit dispositions.

If you are looking for operational maps you can access those in Record Group 242 “German Situation War Maps” Heeresgruppe Weichsel Boxes 45-48.

Now, once you exhaust those sources, there are excellent holdings in still quite a few other locations.

There is:
1) Ryan Collection in Athens, Ohio
2) Landesarchiv-Berlin
3) Seelow Heights Museum in Seelow, http://www.gedenkstaette-seelower-hoehen.de/
4) John Erickson's archives at the University of Manchester in England
5) Bundesarchiv in Freiburg
6) There is also a branch of the Budesarchiv just south of Berlin that contains volumes of Volksstrum Records.

I’ll continue to post information as time permits about those locations over the next few weeks/months.

Cheers,
Stephan
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by MadDog »

Not that this is my area of study, but I found a reference to a FMS document that you might be interested in:

D-408 "Personal Notes of Operations Officer, Army Group Weichoel,
By Oberst Hans Georg Eismann; 28O pp; 1955. The author nar
rates his experience as Operations Officer under Himnler,
CG, Array Group Weichsel, in 1945- (Not translated)"

I found this in the supplemental guide to the FMS documents.

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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Richard Hargreaves »

Hi Stephan,

Excellent thread! I really must invest in those NARA microfilm (once I have some cash...)

Do you have a link or a contact at Manchester University for the Erickson papers? I did a search of their site and could find nothing. I'm guessing they're in the John Rylands University Library (a place I've visited on many, many, many occasions - one of the best libraries in the UK).
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Stephan H. »

Mad Dog - I believe D-408 has in fact been recently translated. See: UNDER HIMMLER'S COMMAND The Personal Recollections of Oberst Hans-Georg Eismann, Operations Officer, Army Group Vistula, Eastern Front 1945 (Helion WWII German Military Studies vol 2).

I also found this in NA references but have not seen it yet: Chptr 15-19 Situation from June 1944 to the End of the War 1945, by
Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici, G168 pgs.
I can't imagine Heinrici writing this if he didn't cover H.Gr. Weichsel at some point.

Richard - The reason why I mentioned University of Manchester is based on a lengthly letter I have written by J. Erickson to C. Ryan in 1962 (written on U. of Manchester letterhead btw), Erickson provides a list of material he has to offer. Among the materials are 1) German intelligence documents on "Hetz-und Greuelpropaganda" put out by the Russians before the Berlin operation; 2) German Operational "material" dealing with Soviet intentions and capabilities dated post February 1945; and 3) bulk translations of Shturm Berlina. There in even 7 pages breaking down the contents of Shturm Berlina with highlights like pg 163-167 Sr.lt.P. Sinel'nikov: "First night in Berlin" or pg 354-368 Capt.A.Fomenko: "On the Breslauerstrasse". So my initial thought is that this material must be housed at the university. However, I just learned (litteray right now) that his entire collection was donated to the National Library of Scotland upon his death.

Now it's a race to see whose letter requesting access to the material reaches them first :D

Cheers,
Stephan
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by MadDog »

I see there is a copy available on Amazon.com for $33. not bad.

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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Stephan H. »

I contacted the Library of Scotland regarding Erickosn's collection and this was the reply, in case it is helpful for other researchers:
Thank you for your enquiry. The Erickson Collection is only partly catalogued and unfortunately we have no idea when cataloguing will be complete. There are no lists or indexes to the collection and we cannot tell you if it contains material relating to 'Shturm Berlina'. You can however, get an idea of what has been catalogued to date by carrying out a shelfmark search on our online catalogue http://main-cat.nls.uk/and using the search prefix Erick? That will yield 4,545 titles. As far as I could see there are no references to 'Shturm Berlina'. I'm sorry this is somewhat unsatisfactory, but this is the situation at present.
I am fairly confident that Erickson translated a good chunk, if not all of 'Shturm Berlina' and this would be a very important contribution to the battle of the Oder and Berlin once it becomes cataloged.

Stephan
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Richard Hargreaves »

Hi Stephan,

Have you - or any other Feldgrauer for that matter - visited the Seelow Heights museum/memorial and had I look as to what they have? I ask because I'm interested to know what documentary material (chiefly first-hand accounts) it possesses. The museum's own website is a bit vague:

http://www.gedenkstaette-seelower-hoehen.de/

And there's no online catalogue. :(

They've always been really helpful when dealing with me in the shop; it sounds a nice, friendly little museum.

Finances permitting I hope to visit some time this year. Or one year. :D
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Stephan H. »

Richard - They have a research library on hand that you can use with prior arrangement. I did visit the museum and signed their Guest Book (they have a map that pinpoints the locations of all prior visitors and it is pretty interesting to look at how far and wide people have travelled to visit the sleepy little town of Seelow), but unfortunately my time did not permit me conduct research. At the time, my focus was on tracing the fighting by visiting the battlefield vs sitting in their research room.

Among what I know they have are published works, manuscripts, and maps. They very well could have more extensive holdings, but I'd suggest e-mailing them directly and asking. Their research library was pretty big, and they may have added new material to their shelves.

The museum is a must see and has a fantastic lighted map that traces the battle over a terrain model, very reminiscent to the one at Gettysburg (another war, another continent).

Stephan
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Richard Hargreaves »

Cheers Stephan. It certainly looks very promising. Much as I love Freiburg, it would be nice to go somewhere other than BA-MA for my annual holiday. :D I didn't realise Seelow was such a small place though. Tiny, but at least there are a couple of cheapish hotels. If I do, I'll let you know what I find. Now just have to wait for those royalties to roll in... or is it trickle... :roll:
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Stephan H. »

I haven’t posted on this thread in a while and I just wanted to share with other my experience in researching German military maps in the US NA regarding the Soviet assault on Berlin and eastern Germany. Below is a list of what maps I located (and will be re-produced in my new book titled Oder Front 1945). I scanned each map in at 1200dpi and found that resolution useful in zooming in on areas of interest.

The following series of maps are available in the US NA for Heeresgruppe Weichsel:

RG 242 German Military Situation Maps “Lange Ost,” 1939-1945

Lange Ost
Box 44: 15 February-7 April 1945
Box 45: 8 April-22 May 1945

H.Gr. Weichsel
Box 46: H.Gr. Weichsel 23 January-13 March 1945
Box 47: H.Gr. Weichsel 14 March-30 April 1945

One should be aware that the “LO” maps in Boxes 44-45 are at the Korps and Division level while those of H.Gr. Weichsel in Boxes 46-47 are highly detailed showing units down to the brigade level. Now, these are not the original maps, these are photo images of the originals before they were sent back to Germany several decades ago. Their quality is good, but you have to scan them in with a high dpi and work the images a bit. Even so, some will be a bit blurry and the smaller geographic locations (village level) will be unreadable.

Now for the period of the Soviet assault on Berlin the following maps are available:

April
14 -Box 46
15-Box 46
16-Box 45 / 46
17-Box 45
18-Box 45
19-Box 46
20 Missing
21 Missing except for an image showing red lines around Breslau noting it was encircled
22 Missing
23 Missing
24 Only H.Gr. Mitte units are shown
25 -Box 46 in two separate images
26 -Box 45
27 Missing
28 Missing
29 -Box 45
30-Box 45 in two separate images

May
1 Missing
2 Missing
3 Missing
4 -Box 45

I hope this is of value to those looking to research the Endkampf.
Cheers,
Stephan

Also - if anyone has experience with the original maps in the BA and knows how to access them, please share that info here as I am interested in their accessibility and quality.
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by jccalvin »

Hello:

It has also been quite a while since I posted here but I saw this thread and could not resist. I am working on 169 Russian Maps of the Battle of Berlin. They cover the entire length of the battle from April through May. These are digitized copies of the original maps. The maps contain written notations, signatures, unit designations and directions of attack in various colors (they appear to have been made by something like crayons). These maps are very high resolution. There are maps of Berlin which show streets and the location of Russian units by date, location, and time of day. The images range in size from 20MBs to 300MBs. If any one is interested you can contact me at [email protected]. These maps are not for sale as I do not charge for any of the material on my web site.

Regards,

John
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Stephan H. »

John - First let me say that you have an excellent website. Next, I want to tell you how historically valuable the Berlin maps are that you acquired/posted. IMHO those maps illustrate how important Koniev's drive into the city was to Zhukov's and Chuikov's "victory" over the defenders. Based on less empirical evidence I argued in Bloody Streets that Chuikov's claim of reaching and crossing the Landwehr Kanal near the Zoo first would have put him into direct conflict with Koniev's drive from the south; again, assuming Koniev reached the Landwehr Kanal at all. . .an act I believe he did.

If your maps are the real deal, and I believe they are, they clearly show that Koniev (9th Mech Corps) did reach the Landwehr Kanal ahead of Chuikov at 2200 on 28.4 and probably crossed it at several locations near the Potsdamer Bahnhoff before he was ordered to turn the 9th Mech Corps west to begin a slow slog through the streets to meet up with the 55th Guards Tank Brigade advancing from the east. The maps also suggest that Chuikov's forces slowly replaced Koniev's forces in the area by 1 May. I believe these maps shed new and significant light onto Soviet operations in Berlin.

Re Berlin, these maps offer fantastic detail on Soviet unit movement, German road blocks, German defensive positions, and destroyed bridges.

Beyond that, they also detail the fighting at Cottbus, breakout of the 9.Armee, and the little known counterattack north by H.Gr. Mitte toward the end of April.

This is just my cursory read of the images and there is much more to say about your new additions, but I'll let others explore them on their own.

All I can say is absolutely fantastic! :up:

Stephan
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Linkar »

For those who can read in Russian, the online Russian state archive of WWII documents http://www.podvignaroda.ru/ is a treasure trove for scans of the original Soviet maps and reports on the Battle of Berlin. The maps were used to report the situation of the moment during the Battle of Berlin. The printed maps have marks and corrections in pencil, as the battle situation was being updated. The scanned reports of Soviet generals cover various aspects of the Battle, like "aerial situation before the start of the battle" or "engineering support of the battle operations"

I've been studying the maps over the past couple of week while working on a part of my fiction set during the Battle of Berlin. The fileswere huge, and I couldn't download them, but I made a few screenshots for my reference, like this one showing German defense positions in Charlottenburg (marked in black pencil). It also has most of the existing buildings and houses marked (in black and purple pencil). The screenshot is about 20% of the original picture size.
DefensesinCharlottenburgSmall.jpg
DefensesinCharlottenburgSmall.jpg (234.16 KiB) Viewed 13071 times
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Stephan H. »

Linkar - thanks for posting the link, however that site is hard to navigate. I'm still trying to locate the map you posted. I have found some other interesting late war documents by chance, however.

Cheers,
Stephan
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Re: Heeresgruppe Weichsel and Battle of Berlin Sources

Post by Linkar »

Stephan,

You're right, the site is very cumbersome to use, but the information is great. The map title is Инженерная оборона Юго-Западной части г. Берлина (author - Оперативное Управление штаба 1 Украинского фронта). When you click on the Берлинская Операция option, and then click on Искать, the map comes up as #7 in the list of search results.

Hope this helps,

Linkar
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