WHEN EAST MET WEST

The former US lieutenant colonel discusses the last days of Nazi Germany, the convergence of Allied lines, and the dawning of a new world order

- INTERVIEW WITH John Curatola

John is the Samuel Zemurray-Stone Senior Historian at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. A Marine Corps officer of 22 years, he is a veteran of Operation Provide Hope in Somalia, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami relief effort.

If the Russians take Berlin, may this not lead to grave and formidable difficulties in the future?” Churchill's ominous question to US President Franklin D Roosevelt reveals the prime minister's focus on the future and what a post-war map of Europe could, or perhaps more importantly should, look like.

Churchill urged the Americans to take the city. However, Supreme Commander of SHAEF, Dwight D Eisenhower, wasn't keen. The mauling his troops had taken during the Battle of the Bulge that winter, when Hitler had launched his final counter-offensive in the west, had left him wary. When he asked what casualties he could expect if he attacked Berlin, one of his generals told him 100,000. It was an unthinkable figure. Had it transpired, it would have constituted one-fifth of all US casualties for the entire war.

Yet despite his petition, Churchill was not being transparent. It had already been agreed at February's Yalta Conference that when the Nazi regime toppled, the Allies would divvy up Berlin between them. So why did it matter to Churchill who took the city first? Similarly, if Berlin was strategically unimportant, as Stalin had argued, why was he so keen for the USSR to single-handedly suffer such high casualties capturing it? Militarily, a Western advance on Berlin would have made more sense, too - a ready-made pincer movement that would save one side from having to surround the city on its own. The answer to these questions lies in what would appear to be a giant game of chess being played out between the great powers, only with real-life pawns and potentially catastrophic consequences.