Liberation of Vienna from fascism by Soviet troops. Freeing the vein. Tasks before the onset

The area around Vienna was a hollow cut through by numerous canals and roads. The capital of Austria lay among mountains and forests, which gave great advantages to the enemy for building a defense system that not only relied on engineering structures, but also took advantage of natural conditions.

The German military leadership made every effort to hold the city. By order of Hitler for the defense of the Austrian capital, the “Vienna Defense Zone” was formed under the command of General of Infantry R. von Bünau. The group defending Vienna included 9 divisions, 8 of which were tanks, including such elite units as the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Reich", the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf" and the 232nd Panzer Division "Tatra" " Also involved in the defense were training units, Volkssturm and police units. By order of Dietrich, commander of the 6th SS Panzer Army, the male population of Vienna from 16 to 60 years old was herded into Volkssturm units and armed with fauspatrons. The entire city was blocked with barricades and mined rubble; all bridges across the Danube and the Danube Canal were also mined. Carefully camouflaged ambushes of self-propelled artillery units and heavy tanks were prepared in dilapidated brick and stone buildings. When preparing Vienna for defense, the last thing the Nazis thought was that the most beautiful city would be destroyed, architectural monuments and beautiful Viennese parks would be destroyed.

On the eve of the assault on the Austrian capital, envoys from the 17th Austrian mobilization corps arrived at the location of the 9th Guards Army: senior sergeant major F. Kez and corporal I. Reif. They said that an uprising was being prepared in Vienna. The rebels had the following forces: two reserve infantry battalions, an artillery battery, more than a thousand Austrian soldiers in other formations who were ready to join the uprising, according to them, and about twenty thousand inhabitants. The leader of the uprising was corps officer Karl Sokol. He sent envoys. The command of the 9th Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front discussed with the envoys their tasks during the operation to capture Vienna. The rebels were supposed to seize bridges across the Danube and its tributaries, communications facilities, destroy the institutions of the Nazi Party and police, and public utilities. Radio contact was established with the rebel leadership. Soon a meeting took place with Karl Sokol, signals for an uprising were agreed upon with him. The uprising was scheduled for April 6.

The day before, according to the agreement, the rebels were given a signal by radio and from an airplane, the signal was received, but the uprising did not begin, although it would have greatly facilitated the task of Tolbukhin’s troops. As it turned out later, the traitors handed over to the Nazis the leaders who were preparing an armed uprising. On the morning of April 6, many of them were arrested and later executed.

Throughout the entire day of April 5, there were fierce battles on the eastern and southeastern outskirts of the city. German troops withstood the first onslaught of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. After analyzing the first day of the assault, the front commander decided to regroup the 6th Guards Tank Army northwest of Vienna in order to block possible escape routes for German forces, and also to begin the assault on the Austrian capital from the western direction.

On the morning of April 6, the commander of the 1st Guards mechanized corps I.N. Russiyanov received an order from the commander of the 4th Guards Army to break into Vienna and occupy Simmering with its industrial enterprises and the Arsenal during the day. Beyond the Arsenal, our soldiers had to cross the Danube Canal. A particularly fierce battle broke out near the bridge over the canal leading to Star Square. From there the road opened to the North Station and the main alley of the Vienna Woods. By the morning of April 11, the right bank was cleared of the enemy. It was absolutely necessary to gain a foothold on the other side, to win back at least a piece of land, but the bridge was under fire and was mined.

The command set the tank crews the task of breaking through to the other bank. The tank of Guard Lieutenant Alexander Kudryavtsev was the first to slip onto the bridge at high speed. Several enemy anti-tank guns immediately opened fire on the car. The tank managed to cross half of the bridge, but then the chassis was damaged by a shell. The car froze. The crew continued to fight the enemy, suppressing enemy firing points from cannon and machine guns. After the second hit, only Alexander Kudryavtsev survived; he was also wounded, but continued to fight, allowing other combat vehicles to move forward. The tank of the guard, junior lieutenant Dmitriev, went to help Kudryavtsev. On the bridge, his tank was set on fire, but continued moving. The lieutenant ordered the battle to continue and the tank, engulfed in flames, rushed across the bridge, leading the infantrymen with its example. Kudryavtsev did not have the chance to survive this battle. Title of Hero Soviet Union he was awarded posthumously.

Stubborn street battles for the city lasted more than a week. Until the very end, the German command did not lose hope of holding at least part of the city, transferring more and more units to Vienna, including the Fuhrer Grenadiers division.

By April 7, Army Group South was disbanded and Army Group Austria was created on its basis, the command of which was entrusted to the Austrian Lothar Rendulic. However, all the steps taken by the German leadership could not change the situation. Block after block, street after street came under the control of Soviet troops.

The battle began in the Transdanubian quarters of the city. The battle for Vienna was entering its final stage. Our troops already controlled most of the capital: Simmering, old Vienna, North, East, South stations. The Nazis retreated to the left bank of the Danube, blowing up all the bridges except one - the Imperial Bridge. It was necessary to protect it from the explosion, otherwise it would have been necessary to cross the full-flowing wide Danube. And these are hundreds of soldiers' lives. The Nazis, realizing the importance of this only crossing, literally filled the bridge with mines and explosives: hundreds of kilograms of it hung on the stilts and bulls of the bridge. The approaches to the bridge were also mined. The Germans fired at the coastal line from cannons and machine guns. Repeated attempts to capture the bridge were crowned with success on April 12 thanks to the feat of the scouts of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Brigade. In the morning, along the saved bridge, our tanks rushed to the shore still occupied by the Germans, followed by artillery and infantry.

April 15 is the date marking the end of the Vienna operation in the fight against the German army during the 2nd World War. This operation put an end to fascist tyranny in the lands of Austria, including in its heart - Vienna.

Reference. The Vienna operation (03/16/1945 – 04/15/1945) is a strategically important offensive action by the USSR army against the enemy army during the 2nd World War. The participants in this operation were the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts with the support of the 1st Bulgarian Army. The main objective of the operation was to destroy the invaders in western Hungary and eastern Austria. The main center of Austria was liberated on April 13, 1945.

Dear friends, this event inspired us to create a selection of photographs.

1. USSR Army officers lay flowers. Burial of the Austrian composer Strauss J. Central Cemetery, Vienna, 1945.

2. 6th Tank Army 9th Mechanization Corps 46th Tank Brigade 1st Battalion, Sherman armored vehicles. Vienna street, April 1945

3. 6th Army of Tank 9th Mechanized Corps 46th Tank Brigade 1st Battalion, Sherman armored vehicles. Vienna street, April 1945

4. Vienna, April 1945. 3rd Ukrainian Front. Red Army soldiers in the fight for the Imperial Bridge.

5. Presentation of awards to Red Army soldiers who distinguished themselves in the battles for Vienna. 1945

6. The first to cross the Austrian border were the artillerymen of the Guards self-propelled guns. Shonicheva V.S. on the boulevards of one of settlements. 1945

7. Red Army soldiers crossing the line. 1945

8. Allied armored vehicles in the vicinity of Vienna. 1945

9. Vienna, 1945. The team of the Sherman M4A-2 vehicle with the commander, who was the first to burst into the city. On the left side is Nuru Idrisov (driver).

10. Vienna, center, 1945. Machine gun squad, battle on one of the boulevards.

11. Vienna, 1945. Red Army soldiers on one of the liberated streets.

12. Vienna, 1945. Red Army soldiers on one of the liberated streets.

13. The Red Army on the streets of liberated Vienna. 1945

14. Boulevard of Vienna after the fighting, 1945

15. Main square. Vienna, 1945. Residents against the backdrop of the ruins of St. Stephen's Church.

16. Vienna, 1945. Victory celebration on one of the boulevards.

17. Vienna vicinity, USSR armored vehicles. April 1945

18. One of the alleys of Vienna, signalmen of the USSR. April 1945

20. Return of residents after the liberation of city streets. Vienna, April 1945

21. Cossack patrol. Vienna street, 1945

22. Celebrating the liberation of the city in one of the squares. Vienna, 1945

23. Soviet armored vehicles on the slopes of the mountains. Austria, 1945

24. USSR combat armored vehicles on the slopes of the Austrian mountains. April 1945

25. Austria, 1945. Guards squad of machine gunners under the leadership of Art. Lt. Gukalov in the battle for the city.

26. Meeting of residents with liberators. Austria, 1945

27. Firing mortars at enemy positions. Detachment of Hero of the USSR Nekrasov. Austria, 1945

28. Conversation between Ser-P. Zaretsky and residents of Lekenhaus. 1945

29. Soviet officer lays flowers at the grave of the Austrian composer Johann Strauss. Central Cemetery. Vienna, 1945

30. A detachment of Red Army mortarmen are moving the battalion’s 82-mm gun. Vienna, 1945

31. Vienna. May 1945 Red Army soldiers passing the Danube Canal.

32. Soviet officers lay flowers at the grave of the Austrian composer Johann Strauss. Central Cemetery. Vienna, 1945

33. Neighborhoods of Vienna. April 1945 USSR traffic controller Klimenko N.

34. Soviet officer at the grave of composer L. Beethovin. Central Cemetery, Vienna

35. USSR traffic controller at a fork in the Viennese roads. May-August 1945

36. Combat vehicles USSR SU-76M on the streets of Vienna. Austria, 1945

37. Red Army mortarmen with regimental weapons. Hofburg Winter Palace. Vienna, 1945

38. USSR M3A1 armored vehicles in combat. Vienna, April 1945

39. Soviet armored vehicle T-34. Vienna, 1945

40. The suicide of a fascist in Vienna right on the street, who had previously shot his family in fear of retribution for what he had done in April 1945.

41. A Soviet girl regulates traffic on the streets of Vienna after liberation in May 1945.

42. A Soviet girl regulates traffic on the streets of Vienna after liberation in May 1945.

43. Reich soldier who died in the battle for Vienna in the spring of 1945.

44. First guards mech. frame. American "Sherman" in Vienna in the spring of 1945.

45. The horrors of war on the streets of Vienna after liberation in the spring of 1945.

46. ​​The horrors of war on the streets of Vienna after liberation in the spring of 1945.

47. Liberators on the streets of Vienna in May 1945. The foreground is a seventy-six-millimeter ZiS-3 cannon.

48. Sherman tanks of the 1st battalion of the 46th Guards Tank Brigade of the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps of the 6th tank army on the streets of Vienna. 04/09/1945

49. Combat boats of the Danube flotilla in the spring of '45 in Austria.

50. Band of Soviet troops in the village of Donnerskirchen, Austria, May 9, 1945. In the photo on the right is signalman and orchestrator Pershin N.I.

51. Soviet unit of T-34-85 tanks in the city of St. Pölten, Austria, in the victorious spring of 1945.

52. Aircraft repair brigade of the Guards 213th Fighter Aviation Regiment in Stockerau in Austria in 1945

53. A pair of medium armored vehicles Turan II40M of the Hungarian army, left by the retreating on the railway. stations in the vicinity of Vienna in March 1945.

54. In the photo, Hero of the Soviet Union, guardsman, Major General Kozak S.A. - commander of the 21st Guards Motorized Rifle Corps (years of life from 1902 to 1953). Next to him is Yeletskov S.F., guard colonel.

55. The long-awaited connection of two groups of US and USSR troops in the area of ​​the bridge over the Enns River in the spring of 1945 near the city of Liezen in Austria.

56. The long-awaited connection of two groups of US and USSR troops in the area of ​​​​the bridge over the Enns River in the spring of 1945 near the city of Liezen in Austria.

57. The advance of our infantry, accompanied by British Valentine tanks, in the vicinity of Vienna in April of the victorious forty-fifth year of the last century.

58. Soviet soldiers, against the backdrop of a T-34-85 tank, greet an American division of armored vehicles at a parade near the city of Linz on May 2, 1945.

59. Attack of an Austrian city by troops of the Soviet Union and an armored car M3 Scout Car of the United States in the victorious forty-fifth.

60. Soviet soldiers at a post on the Austrian road from May to August 1945.

61. Sergeant Guards Zudin and his 120 mm mortar fighters.

62. After the fall of the defense of Vienna, guardsmen of the 80th Division in the spring of 1945.

63. Monument Soviet soldiers-to the liberators of Vienna. Nowadays.

64. Monument to Soviet soldiers-liberators of Vienna. Nowadays.

At the beginning of April, Vienna was defended by the remnants of eight tank divisions, one infantry division, personnel of the Viennese military school and up to 15 separate battalions. The basis of the enemy garrison was the undead units of the 6th SS Panzer Army. It is no coincidence that the commander of this army, SS Colonel General Sepp Dietrich, was appointed head of the defense of Vienna, who arrogantly declared: “Vienna will be saved for Germany.” He failed to save not only Vienna, but also his life. On April 6 he was killed.

The fascist German command on the approaches to the city and in Vienna itself prepared numerous defensive positions in advance. In tank-dangerous directions along the outer perimeter, anti-tank ditches were opened and various obstacles and barriers were erected. The enemy blocked the streets of the city with numerous barricades and rubble. Almost all stone and brick buildings were equipped with firing points. The enemy sought to turn Vienna into an impregnable fortress.

On April 1, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command set the 3rd Ukrainian Front the task of capturing the capital of Austria and, no later than April 12-15, reaching the line of Tulln, St. Pölten, Neu-Lengbach...

The fighting in the city continued continuously: the main forces fought during the day, and units and subunits specially assigned for this purpose fought at night. In a complex maze of streets and alleys capital city The actions of small rifle units, individual tank crews and gun crews, often fighting in isolation from each other, became especially important.

By April 10, the enemy garrison was squeezed on three sides. In this situation, the fascist German command took all measures to hold the only bridge across the Danube remaining in its hands and bring the remnants of its broken units to the northern bank of the river...

Having summarized the experience of combat operations in the previous days, the Front Military Council came to the conclusion that in order to speed up the defeat of the enemy group, it is necessary to conduct a decisive assault, organizing clear interaction of all forces and means participating in it.

In accordance with this conclusion, an operational directive was developed and issued on April 12 to the troops of the 4th, 9th Guards and 6th Guards Tank Armies, in which Special attention addressed the simultaneity of the assault. To quickly complete it, the troops were ordered to quickly rush into the attack after the signal - a salvo of Katyusha rockets. Tank units, despite the fire from individual pockets of resistance, had to break through to the Danube as soon as possible. The military council of the front demanded from the army commanders: “Mobilize the troops for a decisive strike with all the means at your disposal and explain that only swift actions will ensure the rapid completion of the task.” A well-organized and prepared assault on the fortified city was carried out in a short time. By the middle of the day on April 13, the enemy garrison was almost completely destroyed... On the evening of April 13, for the liberation of Vienna, the capital of our Motherland, Moscow, saluted the troops of the 3rd and 2nd Ukrainian fronts with twenty-four salvoes from three hundred and twenty-four guns.

Before the fireworks, a Moscow radio announcer read out a message from the Soviet Information Bureau, which said: “The Nazis intended to turn Vienna into a heap of ruins. They wanted to subject the city's inhabitants to a long siege and protracted street battles. With skillful and decisive actions, our troops thwarted the criminal plans of the German command. Within a few days, the capital of Austria, Vienna, was liberated from the Nazi invaders.”

YOU WILL BE FEED AND YOU WILL GO HOME

It was, it seems, on the second day of the assault on Vienna. I was at the command post of the 20th Guards Rifle Corps, Major General N.I. Biryukov, when the scouts brought in a frail, blond boy in a clay-stained uniform.

He should have been kicking a ball in the yard, but they handed him a machine gun,” the corps commander sighed. Suddenly he became embittered: - Surely he shot?

“No way, Comrade General,” the scout reported. - I didn’t have time or really didn’t want to, but I didn’t use the weapon, we checked his machine gun.

When the translator arrived and the interrogation began, the prisoner said that the Nazis first sent all the children from the senior classes of the gymnasium to build defensive facilities, and then gave them machine guns, Faustpatrons and threw them against the Russians... The young man said that he was an Austrian and hated the Germans. They are rapists and robbers. And he kept asking what would happen to him now. He said that their commander warned that the Russians were shooting everyone.

Translate to the prisoner, I told the translator, that the Red Army does not fight children. We are convinced that he will never again take up arms to fight against the Red Army. But if he takes it, let him blame himself...

The boy was incredibly happy. He fell to his knees and began to swear that he would never forget how kind they were to him. Soviet general and officers. Telling him to get up, I said:

Your mother is probably worried about you? Now you will be fed and you will go home. Just take with you the appeal of the Red Army command to the Austrians. Read it yourself, give it to your friends and acquaintances. Let them know the truth about the Red Army.

The young man promised to do everything as the Soviet general orders...

Here is the appeal:

“Residents of the city of Vienna!

The Red Army, crushing the Nazi troops, approached Vienna.

The Red Army entered Austria not with the goal of seizing Austrian territory, but solely with the goal of defeating enemy Nazi troops and liberating Austria from German dependence.

The hour for the liberation of the capital of Austria, Vienna, from German rule has come, but the retreating Nazi troops want to turn Vienna into a battlefield, as they did in Budapest. This threatens Vienna and its inhabitants with the same destruction and horrors of war that were inflicted by the Germans on Budapest and its population.

For the sake of preserving the capital of Austria, its historical monuments culture and art I offer:

1. The entire population who cares about Vienna should not evacuate the city, because with the cleansing of Vienna from the Germans, you will be spared the horrors of war, and those who are evacuated will be driven to their deaths by the Germans.

2. Do not let the Germans mine Vienna, blow up its bridges and turn houses into fortifications.

3. Organize the fight against the Germans and protect it from destruction by the Nazis.

4. Everyone should actively prevent the Germans from exporting industrial equipment, goods, food from Vienna and not allow the population of Vienna to be robbed.

Citizens of Vienna!

Help the Red Army in the liberation of the capital of Austria - Vienna, invest your share in the liberation of Austria from the Nazi yoke!

NEW STORM TEAM MOVEMENTS

In the labyrinth of streets, courtyards and alleys of an unfamiliar city, our assault groups mastered new tactics as the battle progressed. In particular, since every now and then it was necessary to break through walls and fences, each warrior, in addition to standard weapons, carried with him a crowbar, a pickaxe or an ax.

An assault group led by the company Komsomol organizer, Red Army soldier Vovk, approached a large five-story building. While the Red Army soldier Ananyev was firing at the windows with a machine gun, Vovk and other soldiers burst into the entrances. Close combat began in the rooms and corridors. Three hours later the building was cleared of the enemy. In the captured ammunition depot, Vovk found Faust cartridges. A few hours later he managed to burn two tiger tanks with them. Right there, on the streets of Vienna, Vovk was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

An enemy machine gunner was holed up in one of the houses, on the second floor. The crew of the anti-tank rifle could not reach him. Then the fighters Tarasyuk and Abdulov, passing through the courtyards, climbed onto the roof of this house. Abdulov attached a long rope to the chimney, Tarasov went down it to the window from which the machine gun was firing, threw an anti-tank grenade inside, and it was all over.

Officer Kotlikov’s unit advanced along the street, from house to house. The enemy entrenched itself on both sides; three-layer machine gun and mortar fire did not allow our guardsmen to drag a heavy machine gun across the street. Then Kotlikov tied a wire to the machine gun and divided his soldiers into two groups. Now they advanced simultaneously on both sides of the street, dragging a machine gun over the wire as needed from one group to another.

Initiative and independence in the actions of small units are one of the decisive conditions for success in battles for a large city. That is why we moved so quickly into the depths of Vienna.

On March 16, 1945, the Vienna offensive operation of the Red Army began, depriving the Nazis last hopes to prolong the war...

In the spring of 1945, the outcome of the war was already obvious to all its participants. The main goal of senior managers Nazi Germany was the maximum delay of the inevitable outcome in anticipation of the possible conclusion of a separate peace with the USA and Great Britain. The priority task of the Soviet Union is the final defeat of the Third Reich, forcing it to unconditional surrender.
On February 17, 1945, a directive from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command assigned the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts the task of preparing an attack on one of the European capitals still in the hands of the Nazis - Vienna.


Austria, which had lost its independence in 1938 as a result of the Anschluss, was in an ambivalent position at the final stage of the war. On the one hand, the Austrians became one of the victims of Nazi aggression. On the other hand, Nazi sentiments were strong in Austria, and units of the Wehrmacht and SS throughout the war were steadily replenished with ideological supporters from the homeland of the Fuhrer of the Third Reich.
The leaders of Nazi Germany, pushing the Austrians to resist the advancing units of the Red Army, promised them “the bloody horrors of the Stalinist occupation.” The work of Hitler's propagandists made it possible to form Volkssturm units in Vienna, which were supposed to delay the final collapse of the Reich at the cost of their lives.

"Spring Awakening" failed

The start of the Soviet offensive was scheduled for March 15. Almost simultaneously with the decision to prepare for the Vienna offensive operation The Soviet command received information about the impending powerful attack of the Nazis in the area of ​​Lake Balaton.
It was decided to repel the German offensive in the Lake Balaton area, without stopping preparations for the attack on Vienna.
Wehrmacht operation " Spring Awakening"became the last German offensive in World War II and the last defensive operation the Red Army is in it.
During the nine-day offensive, the Nazis managed to advance 30 km in the direction of the main attack, but failed to achieve decisive success.
By March 15, the German offensive had stopped, their reserves were depleted. An excellent situation arose for the Soviet troops to launch their own offensive.


The plan of the operation included delivering the main attack with the forces of the 4th and 9th Guards armies from the area north of Székesfehérvár to the southwest with the aim of encircling the 6th SS Panzer Army. In the future, the main forces were supposed to develop an offensive in the direction of Papa, Sopron and further to the Hungarian-Austrian border, with part of the forces attacking Szombathely and Zalaegerszeg with the aim of enveloping the enemy’s Nagykanizsa group from the north.
The 26th and 27th armies were supposed to launch the offensive later and contribute to the destruction of the enemy, who was surrounded by that time. The 57th and 1st Bulgarian armies, operating on the left wing of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, were supposed to go on the offensive south of the lake Balaton with the task of defeating the opposing enemy and capturing the oil-bearing region centered in the city of Nagykanizsa.

Escaped from the Cauldron

The 3rd Ukrainian Front was commanded by Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin, the 2nd Ukrainian Front by Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, and the allied 1st Bulgarian Army by General Vladimir Stoychev.
The offensive of the Soviet troops began on March 16, 1945 at 15:35. The artillery preparation turned out to be so powerful that both the 4th and 9th Guards Armies of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, which were the first to go on the offensive, initially encountered no resistance at all. Then, however, the enemy began hastily transferring fresh units towards the guardsmen.
At the first stage, fierce battles broke out for the Hungarian Székesfehérvár, a major center of German defense, the occupation of which Soviet troops threatened them with access to the rear of the Nazis and complete encirclement of the German group.


Photo by Aron Zamsky. Author's signature: “On the roads of war. The attack on Vienna using German technology.
By the end of March 18, Soviet troops managed to advance to a depth of about 18 km and expand the breakthrough to 36 km along the front. The 6th Guards Tank Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front was introduced into the breakthrough, however, the Germans also brought up units from other sectors to repel the offensive: three tank and one infantry division. Despite this, Soviet troops managed to advance another 8 kilometers. On March 20, the time came for the 26th and 27th armies to attack.
The threat of complete encirclement and defeat hung over the Balaton group of Nazis. The main force of the Germans in this area - the 6th SS Army - was withdrawn through a corridor about two and a half kilometers wide that remained in their hands.

The Bulgarians and cavalrymen deprived the Wehrmacht of fuel

The Germans managed to avoid encirclement, but failed to stop the Soviet troops. Having immediately crossed the line of the Raba River, the Red Army rushed to the Hungarian-Austrian border.
On March 25, the 2nd Ukrainian Front launched an attack on Bratislava, which deprived the German command of the opportunity to transfer reserves to the Vienna direction.


On March 29, 1945, on the left wing of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, the 57th and 1st Bulgarian armies went on the offensive in the direction of Nagykanizh. A day later, the 5th Guards Cavalry Corps began a raid behind the German group in the Nagykanizh area.
Soon, Soviet and Bulgarian troops captured Nagykanizh, the center of one of the last oil-bearing regions remaining in German hands. Thus, the Wehrmacht found itself in conditions of an acute fuel crisis.
On April 1, 1945, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command clarified the task - the main forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were ordered to capture the capital of Austria and, no later than April 12–15, reach the line of Tulln, St. Pölten, Neu-Lengbach.

"Alpine Fortress"

After heavy battles in March, the Red Army's offensive developed rapidly in early April. By April 4, the strike force of the 3rd Ukrainian Front reached the approaches to Vienna.
The German command intended to defend Vienna to the end. The most important objects of the city, its main attractions, were mined, houses were turned into fortified firing points.
The city was defended by units of the 6th SS Panzer Army, which had withdrawn from Balaton, 15 separate infantry battalions and Volkssturm battalions, cadets of the Vienna military school, 4 combined regiments of the Viennese police of 1,500 people each.


The defense of Vienna was also facilitated by its geographical position- from the west, Vienna was covered by a ridge of mountains, and from the northern and eastern sides - a powerful water barrier, the wide and high-water Danube. On the southern side, on the approaches to the city, the Germans created a powerful fortified area, which consisted of anti-tank ditches, a developed system of fortifications - trenches, pillboxes and bunkers. The Nazis dubbed Vienna the “Alpine Fortress.”
The Soviet command was faced with a difficult task - it was not easy to take the city in the shortest possible time, but also to prevent large-scale destruction of the ancient pearl of Europe.

Message from Marshal Tolbukhin

The attack on Vienna began on April 5. Marshal Tolbukhin's original plan was to launch simultaneous attacks from three directions: from the southeast - by the forces of the 4th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, from the south and southwest - by the forces of the 6th Guards Tank Army with 18 1st Tank Corps and part of the forces of the 9th Guards Army. The remaining forces of the 9th Guards Army were to bypass the city from the west and cut off the enemy's escape route.
On April 5 and 6, fierce battles broke out on the southern and southeastern approaches to the city. The enemy tried to launch counterattacks and put up desperate resistance.
On April 6, Fyodor Tolbukhin addressed the population of Vienna on the radio with an appeal to remain in place, in every possible way to prevent the Nazis from attempting to destroy the city, its historical monuments, and to provide assistance to Soviet troops. Many Austrians responded to this call.


Fyodor Tolbukhin - Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously), People's hero Yugoslavia, Hero of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (posthumously), holder of the Order of Victory.
On April 7, the main forces of the 9th Guards Army and formations of the 6th Guards Tank Army, having overcome the mountainous forest of the Vienna Woods, reached the Danube. Thus, the German group was covered by Soviet troops from the east, south and west. With great difficulty, the Nazis held back the advance of the 46th Army of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, which could have slammed the cauldron.
Heavy street fighting broke out in Vienna, which continued both day and night. On April 9, 1945, a tank battalion of the 6th Guards Tank Army under the command of Guard Captain Dmitry Loza broke into the center of Vienna. For 24 hours, the battalion held its position until the main forces of the tank brigade arrived. For this feat, Dmitry Fedorovich Loza was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Landing on the Imperial Bridge

By the end of April 10, the German garrison in Vienna continued fierce resistance in the city center, keeping under its control the Imperial Bridge - the only surviving bridge across the Danube. The Imperial Bridge allowed the western and eastern defense nodes of Vienna to interact.
The bridge was mined, and the German command, in a hopeless situation for itself, intended to blow it up, which would force Soviet troops to fight to cross the full-flowing Danube and fight heavy battles to capture and hold bridgeheads.
To capture the Imperial Bridge, it was decided to carry out landing operation using armored boats of the Danube military flotilla.


The landing party was given the task of landing from boats on both banks of the Danube at the bridge, capturing it and holding it until the main forces arrived.
The landing force included about 100 soldiers of the rifle company of the 80th Guards rifle division. They were reinforced with one 45-mm cannon and four heavy machine guns. The artillery of the Danube flotilla and army artillerymen were supposed to cover the paratroopers.
The task was incredibly difficult - the armored boats to the landing site had to pass along the coast controlled by the Nazis, past fortified firing points, avoiding destroyed bridges and sunken ships, and all this during daylight hours.

Three days of fire and blood

The operation began on the morning of April 11. A group of five armored boats made a breakthrough to the Imperial Bridge, while the remaining ships were supposed to suppress enemy firing points on the banks.
The daring plan of the Soviet command came as a complete surprise to the Nazis, which allowed the landing boats to reach the landing point without losses. With a swift attack, the Imperial Bridge was captured.
The command of the Vienna garrison realized the seriousness of what had happened. Tanks, self-propelled guns and infantry were urgently transferred to the bridge with orders to recapture the bridge at any cost. Enemy artillery fire fell on the Soviet armored boats. With great difficulty they returned to base.
The Soviet landing force holding the Imperial Bridge found itself under continuous enemy fire. The attacks came one after another, but the company fought to the death.


Soviet sappers are crossing the Danube Canal in the center of Vienna. 2nd Ukrainian.
The bloody battle for the bridge, which became key in the battle for Vienna, lasted three days. On the night of April 13, a battalion of the 7th Guards Airborne Division managed to break through to the bridge. In response, the Germans threw everything that was still in reserve towards the bridge. Both sides suffered heavy losses.
On the morning of April 13, a combined assault detachment broke through to the bridge Marine Corps under the command of Senior Lieutenant Kochkin. The breakthrough was introduced rifle regiment 80th Guards Rifle Division. After some time, the main forces of the division, supported by self-propelled guns of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Brigade, having cut through the eastern group of Germans, reached the bridge.
16 self-propelled artillery units crossed the bridge at high speed and took up a perimeter defense on the western bank. The sappers of the approaching units removed all the explosives left by the Nazis from the bridge. The bridge completely came under the control of Soviet troops, and the threat of its destruction was eliminated. For the Viennese group of Germans it was all over. Its eastern part, deprived of communication with the western, cut into several isolated groups, was finally defeated by the end of April 13. The western part of the group began a hasty retreat from the city.
On the night of April 14, Vienna completely came under the control of Soviet troops.
Among those who fought with the Nazis on the Imperial Bridge was 19-year-old Red Navy man Georgy Yumatov, a future Soviet cinema star who played a brilliant role in the film “Officers”.


The landing participants were presented with orders and medals, and six soldiers who prevented the bombing of the Imperial Bridge were awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union.
At the expense of the residents of Vienna, an obelisk was erected in front of the Imperial Bridge in honor of Soviet soldiers who saved this priceless historical relic of the city from destruction.
50 Soviet units and formations that distinguished themselves in the battles for Vienna received the honorary title “Viennese”. Presidium Supreme Council The USSR established the medal “For the Capture of Vienna.” In August 1945, a monument to Soviet soldiers who died in the battles for the liberation of the country was erected in Vienna on Schwarzenbergplatz.

Berlin was ahead

During the Vienna offensive operation, Soviet troops lost 167,940 people killed and wounded. The irretrievable losses of the Red Army amounted to 38,661 people. The losses of the allied Bulgarian army amounted to 9,805 people killed and wounded, of which 2,698 people were irretrievable losses.
There are no exact data on German losses. The fact is that from the beginning of 1945, complete chaos reigned in the Wehrmacht documents, similar to what happened in the Red Army in the tragic summer of 1941.


It is known that a group of more than 400 thousand German troops in western Hungary and eastern Austria virtually ceased to exist. About 130 thousand German soldiers and the officers were captured.
With the defeat of the Nazi group in Austria and the capture of Vienna, the plans of the leaders of the Third Reich to prolong the war finally collapsed.
There were three days left before the start of the attack on Berlin...

Which ended on April 13, 1945 with the liberation of the capital of Austria from the Nazis, was one of the final stages of the Great Patriotic War. Therefore, it is both quite simple and incredibly difficult. This is the eternal dialectic of the last decisive battles.

The relative ease - compared to other operations - is due to the fact that the scheme for destroying enemy groups has already been worked out. In addition, by April 1945 there was no doubt about the inevitability and proximity of victory.

But this is where the severity is, mainly psychological. Is it easy to go to death when “just a little more, just a little more,” realizing that you can die on the eve of the onset of peacetime. And this is against a background of fatigue. This is how Colonel-General Alexey Zheltov, a participant in the fighting, describes the feelings of those days: “The guns are still thundering, the fighting is going on, but the imminent end of the war is already felt in everything: both in the stern expression of the tired faces of the soldiers yearning for rest, and in the blossoming of nature, yearning for silence, and in the victorious movement of formidable military equipment heading west."

It's like that. The Vienna operation was by no means a dashing spring stroll. Our total losses amounted to 168 thousand people. We had to cross the rivers and take three defensive lines, reinforced by an extensive system of trenches and passages. Army Group South resisted fiercely, although it was resistance in a paroxysm of despair.

But in terms of the degree of desperation and intensity, the battles for Vienna could not be compared with the previous hostilities in Hungary. Judge for yourself: the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts covered the distance from Yugoslavia to Austria in seven months. In October 1944, having completed the Belgrade operation, they entered Hungarian territory. And only at the end of March they reached the border with Austria. And the direct assault on Vienna took only 10 days.

The Nazi leadership defended the bridgeheads in Hungary even to the detriment of the defense of the German lands themselves and the Oder border. The Battle of Budapest and the subsequent Balaton operation were among the bloodiest. There were several reasons for this persistence, which may seem pointless.

The Wehrmacht was tasked not only with stopping the victorious Red Army, but also with holding at all costs the oil-bearing areas in western Hungary, which acquired special value after the loss of the Romanian oil fields.

But there was another circumstance that made the fighting in the two neighboring countries so different. Here I have to turn to family memories. Mom went as a signalman all the way from Belgrade to Vienna together with her air regiment as part of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. Like most front-line soldiers, she did not really like to remember the everyday life of the war. However, she spoke a lot and willingly about the attitude of the civilian population of countries liberated from Nazism towards our military. The contrast between the cordiality of the Yugoslavs and the completely different attitude on the part of the Magyars was very striking.

This is the picture that emerges from her memories. In Hungary, as they say, “every house was shot.” Every step of advancement was given with great difficulty. I constantly had to wait for a stab in the back. And not only from enemy fighters, ideological Nazi-Salashists, but even just from ordinary people. So, in one of the towns, my mother’s friend, a fellow soldier, who carelessly got out into the street in the evening, was hacked to death with an ax. This is also why the battles for Budapest and other Hungarian cities took so long and hard.

There was nothing like this in Austria. The local population, of course, did not greet the Red Army with bread and salt, but they did not interfere with its advance across the territory of their country. The inhabitants took a purely neutral position as contemplatives. As history shows, the inhabitants of Austria almost always reacted this way to foreign armies, calmly allowing them into the capital and leaving the military to sort things out with the enemy.

This happened this time too. In the suburbs and in Vienna itself, only professional troops continued to resist. Sometimes - furiously and desperately. But the Wehrmacht devoted too much effort in those terrible Hungarian battles. And the numerical superiority of the advancing liberators could not but have an effect. Superiority in everything - both in manpower and technology. And in a fighting spirit, if we take the intangible side.
On April 3, our troops reached Vienna, completely surrounded it in a few days, and on the 13th it was all over. This operation even looked elegant, in the style of the homeland of the “Waltz King”. It could have been done faster, but the command decided to save people and not turn one of the most beautiful cities in Europe into ruins, as they had to do, for example, with Budapest.

Having preserved Viennese palaces, bridges and other architectural landmarks intact, Soviet troops in record time - by August 1945 - decorated the city with a monument to the Soldier-Liberator. About 268 thousand soldiers and officers were awarded the medal “For the Capture of Vienna”.

But that comes later. In the meantime, there was less than a month left until the end of the Great Patriotic War. The road to Prague and from the south to Berlin was finally cleared of enemies.