Operation ‘Salute’ and the last raid on Berlin
Soviet April 1945 air raids
‘In the evening, Russian bombers attacked our district (Kreuzberg) for 2 hours. Our building suffered extensive damage from the percussion of the explosions.’
– Peter Hannemann’s mother diary, April 25, 1945 –
On 24/25 April, 1945, 80 years ago tonight, Berlin suffered its last ‘strategic’ air bombing during World War Two. In this case, that last raid was made by Soviet air forces, one of the few times that Stalin’s biggest falcons targeted the Reich capital during the conflict, which usually had little emphasis in the strategic role or deep air penetrations.
As the Red armies closed the ring around the city, Soviet Air Chief Marshal Alexander Novikov ordered a last ‘big blow’. The Soviet high staff christened the bombings as Operation ‘Salute’ (Saliut), being part of a series of large-scale raids to pave the way for the assault into Berlin.
The Soviet air armada had already attacked the German defensive positions on the east- and southeastern edges of the capital during the night of April 20/21 (with 732 dive- and light bombers from two VVS Air Armies). Three nights later, the Soviet sent their strategic bombing air force —the 18th Air Army (former Long-Range Aviation, until December of the previous year), commanded by Marshal Golovanov— to raid the city with more than one hundred bombers, totalling 111 sorties aimed at potential strong-points in Berlin.
This time the attacking force, which in March/April had flown similar raids against Königsberg, Breslau or Danzig, included some of the long-range four engined Soviet heavy bombers, the Petlyakov Pe-8. Most of the raiders however were twin engined medium and light bombers including the old trusted Pe-2s and the newer Tupolev Tu-2s. Stalin’s prized massive Pe-8 (or TB-7) bomber of the 45th DBAD, built just in small numbers and a great stranger to general public, made on that night its first appearance over the Reich capital since 1942, when several small Soviet night raids disturbed the city that summer. Some authors question this however, asserting that just a few of them were still in service by May 1945 and were not used as a primary combat aircraft by then by the long-range Aviation Regiments.
Anyway, Soviet bombardment was heavy and was followed up by the 1st Belorussian Front’s 16th Air Army, which sent its bombing force to attack the city too during the early hours of the 25th with two raids totalling 1,368 sorties, mostly by Pe-2 dive bombers protected by a “cover umbrella” of hundreds of Soviet fighters. 563 bombers from the 18th Air Army concluded the bombing operations on that night (25/26 April) with another massive raid, dropping 569 tons of bombs on Berlin, most of them delayed-fuzed bombs.
During April 16 to May 8, 1945, VVS —the Red Air Force— aircraft made 90,674 sorties to which nearly 80% of them were in direct support of the advancing ground forces or in a tactical mission. Post-war Soviet analysis revealed that just 5.4 percent of their raids during the entire war had a strategic role.
Unfortunately, German bombing reports ended on April 16th and given the scarcity of sources and accounts of the raids carried out by Soviet forces, it is hard to know anything else about these attacks and their consequences or an estimated death toll. Let’s hope that in the near future some Russian-spoken historian with access to the Moscow archives (now opened) gives us some light about these bombardments.
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Bibliography:
Antill, Peter. Berlin 1945: End of the Thousand Year Reich. Osprey Publishing, 2005
Berlioz1935’s Blog. Wednesday, 25. April 1945 [accessed April 2025]
Boog, Horst; Krebs, Gerhard; Vogel, Detlef. Germany and the Second World War, Vol. VII. The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943–1945. Clarendon Press, 2015
Hiestand, William E. Eastern Front 1945: Triumph of the Soviet Air Force. Osprey Publishing, Air Campaign, 2024
Higham, Robin; Kipp, Jacob. Soviet Aviation And Air Power: A Historical View. Routledge, 2019
Kozhevnikov M, N.The Command and Staff of the Soviet Army Air Force in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. A Soviet view. DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE. US Government Printing Office, 1977
Moore, Jason. Soviet Bombers Of The Second World War. Fonthill, 2019
Overy, Richard. The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945. Allen Lane, 2013
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