World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseVia a call from General Wilhelm Burgdorf, Adolf Hitler's adjutant, Lieutenant General Helmuth Reymann was ordered to lead the defense of Dresden. The 53-year-old Dresden resident cursed at his phone, "Tell [Hitler] there's nothing [in Dresden] to defend except rubble!" An hour later, Burgdorf called again, "The Führer has appointed you military commander of Berlin instead." Thus Reymann became the third person to be appointed command of the Berlin Defense Area. When he entered Berlin, he found that he had inherited nothing from his predecessor Lieutenant General Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild. After further investigation he realized that Hitler and Joseph Goebbels had ruled that any defeatist talk would lead to immediate execution. No plans were drawn to evacuate the children and the elderly, and no food had been stored in case of an enemy siege. The blunt Reymann set to work regardless, doing all he could to prepare the city for the imminent attack that the top Nazi leaders refused to acknowledge. Reymann was also notably an opponent of the destruction of the bridges leading into Berlin before the Russian invasion; he believed that if the bridges were destroyed, which would deprive the city of its electricity, water, and fuel, Berlin would starve and cease to exist as an influential city in Europe.

ww2dbaseSources: the Fall of Berlin, Wikipedia.

Last Major Revision: Feb 2006

Photographs

Helmuth Reymann Timeline

6 Mar 1945

Major-General Hellmuth Reymann, on Adolf Hitler's direct orders, became the military commander of Berlin, Germany.

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