The Seelow Heights was where some of the most bitter fighting in the overall battle took place, but it was only one of several crossing points along the Oder and Neisse rivers where the Soviets attacked.

To the south, the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Ivan Konev shifted its main force from Upper Silesia north-west to the Neisse River.

The three Soviet fronts together had 2,500,000 men, 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars, 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rocket launchers and 95,383 motor vehicles.

The 5th Shock and 8th Guards were posted directly opposite the strongest part of the defences, where the Reichsstraße 1 to Berlin passed through the heights.

[7] The German 9th Army held the front from about the Finow Canal to Guben, an area which included the Seelow Heights.

It had 14 divisions, the "Fortress" (Festung) Frankfurt, 587 tanks (512 operable, 55 in repair, 20 in transit) and 2,625 artillery pieces (including 695 anti-aircraft guns).

General Gotthard Heinrici replaced Heinrich Himmler as commander of Army Group Vistula on 20 March.

He correctly predicted that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the River Oder and along the Reichsstraße 1 at Seelow Heights.

He decided to defend the riverbank with only a light skirmishing screen, but to strongly fortify the Seelow Heights, which rise about 48 m (157 ft) above the Oder and overlook the river where the Reichsstraße crossed it.

[9][10] The Oder's floodplain was already saturated by the spring thaw, but German engineers also released water from a reservoir upstream, which turned the plain into a swamp.

Soviet POWs captured the day prior had disclosed the date of the offensive, and German troops had been pulled back to their second defensive line.

The dust and debris kicked up by the bombardment also rendered the mass use of searchlights to illuminate terrain in the early morning hours ineffective.

According to Beevor and Ziemke, Heinrici and Busse had anticipated the attack and withdrew their defenders from the first line of trenches just before the Soviet artillery would have obliterated them.

Frustrated by the slow advance, Zhukov threw in his reserves, which according to his earlier plan were to be held back until the expected breakthrough.

On 19 April, the 1st Belorussian Front eventually broke through the final defensive line of the Seelow Heights and now nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin.

The city was then defended only by broken formations, the Volkssturm, small detachments of Hitler Youth, police, and air defence units, which resulted in the Red Army taking it in 10 days.

This would have bypassed the strong German defences at Seelow Heights, and avoided many casualties and the delay in the Berlin advance.