The story of this place
On 16 April 1945 Marshal Zhukov unleashed the largest offensive of the war's final act against the Seelow Heights, the fortified ridge above the Oder that guarded the road to Berlin. He tried to blind the German defenders with 143 anti-aircraft searchlights, but the beams silhouetted his own advancing troops. For three days a million Soviet soldiers ground against dug-in Germans; the Red Army lost some 30,000 men and hundreds of tanks before breaking through on 19 April. The fall of Seelow opened the gates to the capital, and within a week Soviet forces reached the Reichstag. A hilltop memorial and museum overlook the fields where the last great battle on German soil was decided.