Helmuth Otto Ludwig Weidling (born 2 November 1891; died 17 November 1955) was an officer in the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) during World War II. Weidling was the last commander of the Berlin Defense Area during the Battle of Berlin. Weidling attempted to foil the final assault by Soviet forces on the city of Berlin just before the end of World War II in Europe.
During Weidling's military career he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords (see also Knight's Cross).

Early life
In November 1938, Weidling became a Colonel (Oberst) of the 56th Artillery Regiment. He fought with this regiment in the Polish Campaign of 1939. In April 1940, Weidling was appointed Artillery Commander of the XL Tank Corps (XL Panzer Korps). He fought with this corps during the Battle of France and during the early stages of Operation Barbarossa.
On 1 January 1942, still on the Eastern Front, Weidling was appointed to command the 86th Infantry Division. One month later he was promoted to the rank of Major-General (Generalmajor). On 1 January 1943, Weidling was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General (Generalleutnant).

Poland, France, and Russia
On 15 October 1943, Weidling became the Commanding General of the XLI Tank Corps (XLI Panzer Korps). He was to hold this command to 10 April 1945. There was a short break from 19 June 1944 to 1 July 1944 when Lieutenant-General (Generalleutnant) Edmund Hoffmeister commanded the tank corps. Weidling was given command of the XLI Tank Corps after the unit took part in the Battle of Kursk (4 July to 20 July). Two months after being given command of the XLI Tank Corps, Weidling was promoted to rank of Artillery General (General der Artillerie).
On 10 April 1945, Weidling was relieved of his command and transferred to the Officer Reserve (Führerreserve) of the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres or OKH). Two days later, he was appointed as commander of the LVI Tank Corps (LVI Panzer Korps). The LVI Tank Corps was part of Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula.

XLI tank corps
On 16 April, Weidling prepared to take part in the Battle of the Seelow Heights which was part of the broader Battle of the Oder-Neisse. Weidling's LVI Tank Corps was in the center with the CI Army Corps to his left and the XI SS Tank Corps to his right. All three corps were part of General Theodor Busse's 9th Army which was defending the heights. All three corps were conspicuously short of tanks. Earlier in the day, Heinrici had seen to his horror that Hitler had tranferred three tank divisions from Army Group Vistula to the command of recently promoted Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) Ferdinand Schörner.
Colonel (Oberst) Theodor von Dufving was Weidling's Chief-of-Staff and Colonel (Oberst) Hans-Oscar Wöhlermann was his Artillery Officer while Weidling commanded the LVI Tank Corps.
By 19 April, Schörner's Army Group Centre was collapsing and the position of Army Group Vistula was becoming untenable. Heinrici was forced to pull back what was left of his forces, including Weidlings LVI Tank Corps. The defensive line on the Seelow Heights was the last major defensive line outside of Berlin. With the loss of this position, the road to Berlin lay wide open. To escape envelopment and total anhialation, Weidling pulled his corps back with the rest of Army Group Vistula.

LVI tank corps
On 22 April, German dictator Adolf Hitler ordered that Weidling be executed by firing squad. Hitler believed that, as commander of the LVI Tank Corps, Weidling had ordered his tank corps to retreat in the face of advancing Soviet forces. Ordering a retreat would be in defiance of Hitler's standing orders to the contrary. As such, Weidling's actions required a death sentence. This situation turned out to be a misunderstanding and it was cleared up before Weidling's execution could take place.
On 23 April, Hitler appointed Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defense Area. He replaced Lieutenant General (Generalleutnant) Helmuth Reymann, Colonel (Oberst) Ernst Kaether, and Hitler himself. Reymann had only held the position since 6 March. Starting 22 April, Kaether had held the position for less than one day. For a short period of time, Hitler took personal control of Berlin's defenses with Major General Erich Bärenfänger as his deputy. Weidling was ordered by Hitler to defend the city of Berlin. Specifically, he was ordered not to surrender and to fight to the last man.

Commander of the Berlin Defense Area
The forces available to Weidling for the city's defence included roughly 45,000 soldiers in several severely depleted German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) and Armed SS (Waffen-SS) divisions. These depleted divisions were supplemented by the Berlin police force, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and about 40,000 elderly men of the Home Guard (Volkssturm). The commander of the central district was Protective Squadron (Schutzstaffel, SS) Brigade Leader (SS Brigadeführer) Wilhelm Mohnke. Mohnke had been appointed to his position by Hitler himself and he had over 2,000 men under his direct command. The Soviets were to later estimate the number of defenders in Berlin at 180,000. But this was based on the number of prisoners that they took. The prisoners included many unarmed men in uniform, such as railway officials and members of the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst).
Weidling organized the defences into eight sectors designated "A" through to "H". Each sector was commanded by a colonel or a general. But most of the colonels and generals had no combat experience. To the west of the city was the 20th Motorized Infantry Division. To the north of the city was the 9th Parachute Division. To the north-east of the city was the "Müncheberg" Tank Division (Panzer Division Müncheberg). To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the 11th SS Volunteer Armored Infantry Division "Nordland" (SS Nordland Panzergrenadier Division). Weidling's reserve, the 18th Armored Infantry Division (18th Panzergrenadier Division), was in Berlin's central district.
On 25 April, Weidling ordered Major General of the Reserve (Generalmajor der Reserve) Werner Mummert, commander of "Müncheberg" to take command of the German LVI Army Corps. Weidling ordered that the command of "Müncheberg" be handed over to Colonel (Oberst) Hans-Oscar Wöhlermann. Wöhlermann was the artillery commander for the city.
On 26 April, Weildling ordered "Müncheberg" and "Nordland" to attack towards Tempelhof Airport and Neukölln. At first, with its last ten tanks, "Müncheberg" made good progress against a surprised Soviet foe. However, the surprise wore off and was replaced with fierce defensive fire and several local counter-attacks. These soon halted the tank division's advance.

The defenders
Sometime around 26 April 1945, Weidling chose as his headquarters the old army headquarters on the Bendlestrasse, the "Bendlerblock." It possessed well-equipped air-raid shelters and it was close to the Reich Chancellery. In the depths of the Bendlerblock, his staff did not know whether it were day or night.

Flooding of the Berlin underground
The diary of the officer with the "Müncheberg" Tank Division also described the "flying courts-martial" prevalent at this time.
"Flying courts-martial unusually prominent today. Most of them very young SS officers. Hardly a decoration among them. Blind and fanatical. The hope of relief and the fear of these courts bring men back to the fighting. General Mummert refuses to allow any further courts-martial in the sector under his command . . . He is determined to shoot down personally any courts-martial that appears . . . We cannot hold the Potsdamer Platz and move through the subway tunnel to Nollendorferplatz. In the tunnel next to ours, the Russians are advancing in the opposite direction."

Flying courts-martial
On 29 April, the Soviet Information Bureau announced that troops of the 1st Belorussian Front continued to clear the streets of Berlin, occupied the northwest sector of Charlottenburg as far as Bismark Street, the west half of Moabit, and the east part of Schoeneberg. Troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front occupied Friedenau and Grunewald in northwest Berlin.

Relentless advance
On 30 April, as the Soviet forces continued to fight their way into the center of Berlin, German dictator Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in the Führerbunker. Hitler and Braun then committed suicide, Braun by taking cyanide and Hitler by simultaneously taking cyanide and shooting himself. Per instructions, their bodies were burned.
Afterwards, when Weidling reached the Führerbunker, he was met by Goebbels, Bormann, and Krebs. They took him to Hitler's room, where the couple had committed suicide. They told him that their bodies had been burned and buried in a shell crater in the garden above. Weidling was forced to swear that he would not repeat this news to anybody. The only person in the outside world who was to be informed was Joseph Stalin. An attempt would be made that night to arrange an armistice, and General Krebs would inform the Soviet commander so that he could inform the Kremlin.
It was now up to Weidling to negotiate with the Soviets.

The Führerbunker
On 2 May, General Weidling had his Chief-of-Staff, von Dufving, arrange a meeting with General Chuikov. Weidling and Chuikov met and had the following conversation:
Chuikov: "You are the commander of the Berlin garrison?"
Weidling: "Yes, I am the commander of the LVI Tank Corps."
Chuikov: "Where is Krebs?"
Weidling: "I saw him yesterday in the Reich Chancellery. I thought he would commit suicide. At first he (Krebs) criticized me because unofficial capitulation started yesterday. The order regarding capitulation has been issued today."
The meeting between Weidling and Chuikov ended at at 8:23 am on 2 May 1945. Later that same day, loudspeakers announced Weidling's surrender and copies of his order were distributed to the remaining defenders. With the exception of scattered areas of resistance and of desperate efforts to break out, the Battle for Berlin was over.
The Soviet forces took Weidling into custody as a prisoner of war and flew him to the Soviet Union. He never returned to Germany alive.

Surrender to Chuikov
On 27 February 1952, a Soviet military tribunal in Moscow sentenced Weidling to 25 years of imprisonment. Weidling died on 17 November 1955, apparently in the custody of the KGB in Vladimir. KGB records listed the cause of death as "arterial and cardiac sclerosis along with circulatory collapse."

Aftermath

Beevor, Antony. Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047 Popular culture

Invasion of Poland (1939) - 1939
Battle of France - 1940
Operation Barbarossa - 1941
Eastern Front (WWII) - 1941/45
Battle for Berlin - 1945
Hans Krebs, German General and Chief of Staff
Theodor Busse, Commander of the German 9th Army
Walther Wenck, Commander of the German 12th Army
Gotthard Heinrici, Commander of Army Group Vistula - 20 March to 28 Aprl 1945
Hans Refior, Weidling's "Civil" Chief of Staff
Theodor von Dufving, Weidling's "Military" Chief of Staff
Siegfried Knappe, Weidling's adjundant during the Battle for Berlin