The Four Day Battle For Berlin: Background

Ignore the traditional history, the one where the Allies (Britain and America chief amongst them) pulled up short of driving for the capital of Germany for fear of unnecessary casualties, for fear of insulting the fragile Russian pride, and ignoring Winston’s advice to meet the Communists as far East as possible.  This is irrelevant.  Instead step into a reality where Ike caved in to his more aggressive generals; Monty and Patton amongst them, who demanded an assault upon Berlin.  They got their wish, Ike gave the green light, and with paratroopers dropping at key points ahead of them the armoured divisions sped onwards.

The Allies intelligence, and Stalin’s fears, proved correct as the Wehrmacht forces parted before them like the waters of the Red Sea, and even as the first Russians were in sight of the centre of Berlin the first Shermans were rolling out of the woods and into the suburbs.  This slight enraged the Russians.  Berlin was theirs, they had fought from the banks of the Volga for this moment and the Allies who had suffered so little in comparison were threatening to take this away.  Discipline, always a difficult subject in the Red Army, began to fall apart completely, with the officers as frantic as their men at having come so far to see their prize apparently being pulled away at the last.  Fire first, ask questions later, became the order of the day, and the high command, from the very top down, did little to discourage this practice. 

The Allied spearheads, spreading out around Berlin, had driven part the way across Germany to reach the greatest prize.  Pushed onwards by commanders with images of medals and newspaper heroism blinding them they were equally as keyed up.  Even the British matched the trigger happy Americans in their aggression, while some already feared the Russians were planning to sweep through the city and onwards towards France and the English Channel.  Many, many miles behind the advance Eisenhower could not see until too late the clash that would come, much less control it.

As the German forces became squeezed between East and West the first ‘friendly fire’ incidents began occurring as Russkie met Yank and Tommy, and within the space of hours the war in this small part of the world became a three way scrap.  The Russians and the Allies fought each other for the honour of claiming the Reichstag and the 3^rd Reich’s funeral pyre.  The Germans fought for their lives, for the lives of civilians, to try and escape, to try and hold out just a few days longer in the hope that the anarchy in Berlin would spread and they could switch to the Allied side and defeat the Red Bear.

Afterwards it would become known as ‘The Four Day Battle For Berlin’; four days of utter chaos as ally fought ally and the Germans fought for survival before the respective Russian and Allied high commands restored order.

And so begins a new Flames Of War map-based campaign.