Same thing with Berlin? Could at least one of the American or British armies have beaten the Soviets to Berlin? Most certainly. The Germans had stacked the Eastern front because they knew (from experience in East Prussia and the Warthegau) what was going to happen when the Red Army swept over the Oder and into Berlin. Commanders were running their troops west to surrender to the Americans and British as fast as they could. But...Stalin had made it plain that he wanted Berlin and the allies had already agreed to it. Also, he flat-out lied to FDR and Ike when the Reds started their last massive offensive on the Seelow Heights. He told FDR there would be nothing more than a “reconnaissance in force.” Well, yeah, if “force” meant two million men.
}:-)4
The die was cast for Berlin at Yalta when the occupation zones were finalized. Ike had a good read of the situation; why spend American lives for ground we are going to give up? Let the Soviets spend the blood. They were used to it. Another factor is that the American armies had reached their logistic limit in the dash from the Rhine to the Elbe. Even though the German forces were scratch units, the Soviets had been stopped by the same type of units on the Vistula in September 1944 and the Oder in February 1945.
By the time the logistics caught up with the lead units, the Soviets launched the Berlin Operation. Better to let the Soviets come to the Elbe than risk a “meeting engagement.” There is some evidence the Soviets wanted the Americans to feel the power of Soviet artillery.
Finally, while the German people and military preferred Americans to Russians, Hitler didn’t make such fine distinctions. He would have moved whatever troops he could from the Oder to defend Berlin from the Americans.
So maybe we could have grabbed Berlin, but that wasn’t in the cards either. In many ways, all this was decided in 1941.