1945 Leningrad Mapping Unit Map of Berlin; Battle of Berlin

An artifact of one of the most intense battles of the 20th century, this Russian language 'Victory Map' map of Berlin was produced by the Soviet Union's Leningrad Mapping Unit in 1945 to prepare for the final assault of the war in Europe.

A Closer Look

Coverage includes the central part of Berlin, shaded orange and ringed by rail lines, along with suburban parts of the city, including large parks and forests. Many buildings are tagged with numbers for identification, such as the Reichstag (105) and the Berliner Dom (118). The Reich Chancellery (153), was the grandiose residence built for Hitler by Albert Speer, which included an underground bunker where Hitler committed suicide as the Red Army captured the city center. (Speer had also laid out plans for a radical redesign of Berlin, to be renamed Welthauptstadt Germania, that was postponed due to the war.)

Roads, metro stations, waterways, and other prominent features are labeled. The names of neighborhoods, such as Charlottenburg, and train stations are written in relatively large and bold black text. The Tempelhof Airfield, the city's main airport, is prominent towards bottom. Surrounding towns, such as Henningsdorf and Potsdam, are listed along the border, indicating that they are just beyond the map in that direction. The straight and zigzagged lines on bridges might indicate the amount of weight it could bear, an important consideration for Soviet tanks and other armored vehicles.

Production of the Map

The origins of this map date back to 1943, when the Leningrad Mapping Unit, an offshoot of the Soviet Military Topographic Service, was ordered to prepare an up-to-date Russian-language map of Berlin. Working under difficult circumstances - Leningrad was still under siege and partially surrounded - the topographers used whatever information they could find, including tourist brochures and photographs, to painstakingly locate and transliterate the names of buildings, streets, neighborhoods, landmarks, and more. After several months of work, a final Russian-language map of Berlin at the scale of 1:15000 was delivered to the Kremlin. This was then reduced to allow for a map with a scale of 1:25000. In the weeks before the Red Army's assault on Berlin, mobile map printing units near the front lines produced copies of the map for Red Army officers. One example of the map that appeared on the market in recent years includes purple overprint with updates on the battle and damage to various parts of the city, suggesting that these mobile mapping units remained near the frontline to produce new 'editions' of the map as the situation changed.

The Battle of Berlin

The Battle of Berlin was one of the largest and most intense fights in the history of modern warfare. Although compressed into little more than two weeks (April 16 - May 2, 1945), the battle involved hundreds of thousands of troops and affected an even larger numbers of civilians. Morale on the Soviet side was soaring after having driven the Nazis back from deep within the Soviet Union over the preceding years. The German force was composed of remnants of elite units fanatically devoted to the regime, along with conscripts and gang-pressed civilians who were inexperienced but motivated by fear of the Soviets and defense of their homeland. Although short on heavy weaponry, the Germans had mass produced anti-tank panzerfausts and other weapons that were highly effective against Soviet vehicles. With time to prepare defenses and the benefit of defending an urban landscape, the Germans were able to inflict high numbers of casualties on the Soviets in street-to-street fighting before being overrun, dislodged, or buried under rubble.

Berlin had faced increasingly regular Allied bombing attacks in the months before the battle, and as the operation progressed the city was subjected to unceasing Soviet artillery and rocket barrages. Given the atrocities carried out by the Nazis in their partial occupation of the Soviet Union, Soviet troops were hardly concerned with avoiding collateral damage and the toll on civilians in terms of deaths, injuries, rape, and destruction was immense. By the end of the battle, hardly any buildings in the city center stood without significant damage, including the Reichstag, where Soviet troops triumphantly raised their country's flag on May 2, captured in a famous photograph. Three days earlier, Adolf Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. With Berlin effectively captured on May 2, and both Soviet and Western Allied troops driving deep into Germany elsewhere, the war in Europe came to a speedy close in the first week of May and officially ended with Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8.

Publication History and Census

This map was originally produced by the Leningrad Cartographic Unit (Ленинградская картографическая часть) in late 1943 and early 1944. This 1945 edition (labeled at top-left 'первое издание 1945 г.') was likely printed near the front lines in the weeks just before the Battle of Berlin. The only known institutional holding of this map is with the Russian State Library in Moscow.