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After capturing Leipzig, the U.S. First Army drew to a halt along the Mulde River, a tributary of the Elbe, Lieut. Albert Kotzebue of the 273rd Infantry Regiment was told to take 35 men and explore the narrow strip of land between the two rivers to see if he could establish contact with the Soviets. But he was ordered not to go more than two miles to the east.
Kotzebue went much farther, all the way to the Elbe. On the far side of the river, just after noon on April 25, he spotted soldiers. Through his field glasses, they looked like Russians. "Amerikansky!" he shouted, but they did not answer. He fired two green flares, the agreed upon sign of recognition between the two sides. The strangers made no response.
Kotzebue saw some boats chained together on his side of the river. He detonated a grenade to break apart the chains. Then he and five of his men set forth, paddling with boards and rifle butts. Three Russians slid down the bank to meet them. They all shook hands and slapped one another's backs. This was a historic moment, they said. But when Kotzebue reported to headquarters, his commander was furious at his disobedience and ordered that the whole encounter be kept secret.
A few hours later, another patrol, headed by Lieut. William Robertson, reached the town of Torgau, on the Elbe, and came under heavy fire from across the river. Robertson broke into a pharmacy, liberated a bed sheet, some ink and Mercurochrome, and painted a crude U.S. flag. He climbed the tower of the town castle and hung his flag from the parapet. "Tovarish!" he shouted. "Amerikansky!"
The gunfire stopped briefly, but the Soviets apparently suspected a trick and soon resumed shooting.
Robertson had recently passed a German prison camp, so he sent back to find someone who could speak Russian. When a Soviet prisoner of war was produced, Robertson and the man headed toward the wrecked bridge across the Elbe and shouted that they were friends. On the eastern bank, several uniformed men approached the bomb-shattered bridge. Robertson and the Russian began scrambling across the river, clawing their way from girder to bent girder. As they neared the far shore, one of the Russians finally crawled out on the bridge to meet them.
Germany had been cut in half. Robertson became a hero. He presented his homemade flag to Eisenhower four days later and was promoted on the spot. Kotzebue got nothing.
It took the Red Army just ten days to surround Berlin, Marshal Georgi Zhukov encircling it from the north and Marshal Ivan Konev from the south. When the ring was complete on April 25, the Soviets arrayed a fearful multitude of weapons--6,000 tanks, 42,000 guns--and began bombarding the city. In the central area around the Chancellery and the bunker, around the Reichstag and the opera and the university, the shells landed at the rate of one every five seconds. The barrage went on all day and then all the next day.
The imperial palace last inhabited by Wilhelm II crumpled into rubble. The great dome of the cathedral on the other side of Unter den Linden burst into flames and then collapsed. One shell hit a riding stable in the Tiergarten park, and the horses went galloping wildly down the Kurfürstendamm, their manes and tails on fire.