Battle of Halbe 1945
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 24 April 1945 – 1 May 1945 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1945 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Germany | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | World War II | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 52.1067, 13.7008 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Halbe (German: Kesselschlacht von Halbe, Battle of the Halbe Pocket; Russian: Хальбский котёл, Halbe pocket) was a battle lasting from April 24 to May 1, 1945, in which the German Ninth Army under the command of General Theodor Busse was destroyed as a fighting force by the advancing Red Army during the Battle of Berlin.
The Ninth Army, encircled in a large pocket in the Spree Forest region south-east of Berlin, attempted to break out westwards through the village of Halbe and the pine forests south of Berlin to link up with the German Twelfth Army commanded by General Walther Wenck with the intention of heading west and surrendering to the Western Allies. To do this, the Ninth Army had to fight its way through three lines of Soviet troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev, while at the same time units of the 1st Belorussian Front, under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, attacked the German rearguard from the northeast.
After heavy fighting, about 30,000 German soldiers—just over one third of those originally in the pocket—reached the comparative safety of the Twelfth Army's front lines. The rest were either killed or captured by Soviet forces.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Halbe (revision 1380798099), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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