Sunday, April 15, 1945
SHAEF Headquarters, Rheims, France
1800 hours
Eisenhower knew this attack would be fraught with difficulties. He didn't really have his troops in the best of positions. He knew Churchill had never been anything by dubious of Stalin's promises, and while Roosevelt had insisted on sticking with the Yalta Plans, it was apparent Truman, like Churchill, didn't trust Stalin to hold democratic elections, and given the fate of Warsaw, even Ike had to agree it might look that way. He hated the possibility of his men dying for ground they would have to give back. But even before this, Hodges, Simpson, and Patton had all been insisting the German army was disintegrating and the road to Berlin was wide open. It was clear to Eisenhower this was an attempt to gain a stronger bargaining position with the Russians, and not an attempt to actually start a war with them. What worried him was if Stalin would see it that way.
Eisenhower had not anticipated the change in orders. Just a few days before, in anticipation of the Elbe being the occupation line, he'd issued orders for Montgomery's 21st Army Group to clear the North Sea ports, Dever's 6th Army Group was to clear the 'Southern Redoubt' with support from Patton's 3rd Army, while Bradley's 12 Army Group would be split between supporting those drives (eg: Patton's 3rd supporting Devers) and reducing the Ruhr pocket, with a smaller group subduing a smaller pocket in the Harz mountains. Now with the change in directive, he reconsidered.
(OTL Map in extreme detail found here:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g5701s.ict21315/ )
Closest to Berlin was Simpson's 9th Army's XIII Corps, just 70 miles away at Stetin and XIX Corps, 75 miles away at Magdeburg. In addition, 83rd Division had a bridgehead over the Elbe at the tiny village of Barby. South of that, the V and VII corps of Hodge's 1st Army was just north and south of Leipzig, and Patton's XX and VIII Corps were in Chemnetz and just south of the city of Jena. These forces would start the attack on Berlin by the next day. 9th army would push straight for Berlin, driving east along the railway and the bridgehead, heading for Brandenburg and Berlin by the most direct route. 1st Army's V and VII corps would bypass Leipzig, meet at Torgau, and drive Northeast toward Potsdam, while Patton would drive for the bombed out remains of Dresden to cover the 1st army's flanks, then swing north to Berlin.
Of the 19 divisions reducing the Ruhr pocket, about half (mostly from Gerow's 15th army) would be shifted to form a reserve and reinforcements for the 12th AG's drive on Berlin, and continue to cordon the Harz pocket as well. Devers would continue to drive into Bavaria and Monty would dispatch the British XII Corps to cover the northern flank of the attack, while the rest of the British would sweep east as they could,and the Canadians would be assigned to take the North Sea and Baltic ports.
(Edit: corrected the map to the correct day. April 15, not 19)