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WWII On This Day: April 20

What happened on April 20 during World War II? This date brings together 4 events from 1941, 1943 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
A reconnaissance detachment of the German 5th Panzer Division entering Athens on 27 April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1979-123-32 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
German Invasion of Greece, April 1941

Tsolakoglou signs the first surrender protocol with Germany

At Votonosi near Metsovo on 20 April, Lieutenant General Georgios Tsolakoglou signed a surrender protocol with Josef Dietrich at 18:00 for the Greek armies trapped in Epirus and western Macedonia. He had acted without authorisation from Papagos or the government. The commanders around Tsolakoglou believed their formations could no longer escape encirclement through the Pindus and wished to end the campaign before the Italian armies they had resisted for months could claim the surrender. German terms initially reflected that bilateral arrangement and excluded Italy. The protocol stopped the immediate Greek-German…

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1943
A Tiger tank of the SS panzer corps during the battle of Kursk, July 1943.
Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Zschaeckel-206-35 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Battle of Kursk 1943

The Soviets build defence in depth

Central and Voronezh Fronts built a deeply echeloned defensive system across the likely German axes. Rifle corps occupied successive trench belts supported by anti-tank strongpoints, artillery groups, minefields and mobile obstacle detachments, while rear army positions and Steppe Front added further depth. Civilian labour supported the engineering programme on a very large scale. The tactical purpose was to channel armour, force engineers and infantry to clear routes under fire, and buy time for reserves to reinforce the threatened sector or prepare a counterattack.

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1945
Yevgeny Khaldei's photograph of Soviet soldiers raising a Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin on 2 May 1945.
Yevgeny Khaldei / TASS · 2 May 1945 · CC BY 4.0 via the Russian Ministry of Defence · Source
The Battle of Berlin

Berlin comes under Soviet artillery fire

From 20 April Soviet artillery began striking Berlin as 1st Belorussian Front approached from the east and north-east. The shelling marked the moment when the capital moved from the rear of the Oder battle into the ground campaign itself. Konev's tank armies were already passing Jüterbog and threatening the southern approaches, while the German headquarters continued trying to construct a front from formations that were losing contact with one another. For civilians the change was immediate. Cellars and shelters that had served during Allied air raids now sat inside an…

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The Battle of Berlin

2nd Belorussian Front opens the northern battle

Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front attacked across the lower Oder after completing a rapid redeployment from the Baltic. Its start came later than the attacks by Zhukov and Konev because the front had farther to move and assemble. The northern operation did not aim at a direct race to the Reichstag. Its task was to break Third Panzer Army, protect the northern flank of the Berlin advance and prevent German forces north of the capital from being concentrated into a useful relief front. That function became more important as Berlin was…

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