[citation needed] While Weidling was in command, XLI Panzer Corps was responsible for an atrocity committed by the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union during the war.

That was noted by the commander of the 65th Soviet Army, General Pavel Batov, months later when it found itself facing the same corps in the Battle of Berlin.

[3] By 19 April, with Schörner's Army Group Centre collapsing, Weidling's corps was forced to retreat west into Berlin.

Weidling replaced Lieutenant General (Generalleutnant) Helmuth Reymann, Colonel (Oberst) Ernst Kaether, and Hitler himself.

[6] The forces available to Weidling for the city's defence included roughly 45,000 soldiers in several severely-depleted German Army and Waffen-SS divisions.

[7] These divisions were supplemented by the police force, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and 40,000 men of the Volkssturm (militia).

The prisoners included many unarmed men in uniform, such as railway officials and members of the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst).

[9] To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the SS-Nordland Panzergrenadier Division composed mainly of foreign volunteers.

Weidling discussed with his divisional commanders the possibility of breaking out to the southwest to link up with General Walther Wenck's 12th Army.

Troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front occupied the southern part of Wilmersdorf, Hohenzollerndamm and Halensee Railway Station.

[15] Late in the morning of 30 April, with the Soviets less than 500 m from the bunker, Hitler had a meeting with Weidling, who informed him that the Berlin garrison would probably run out of ammunition that night.

[17] After Hitler and Braun's suicides, Weidling reached the Führerbunker and was met by Joseph Goebbels, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann and General Hans Krebs.

[19] Weidling soon rang Colonel Hans Refior, his civil chief-of-staff, in the Bendlerblock headquarters soon afterward.

Weidling said that he could not tell him what had happened, but he needed various members of his staff to join him immediately, including Colonel Theodor von Dufving, his military chief-of-staff.

[20] According to Hitler's personal secretary Traudl Junge, Krebs returned to the bunker complex looking "worn out, exhausted".

[22] Pursuant to Chuikov and Vasily Sokolovsky's direction, Weidling put his surrender order in writing.

The document, written by Weidling, read as follows: On 30 April 1945, the Führer committed suicide, and thus abandoned those who had sworn loyalty to him.

According to the Führer's order, you German soldiers would have had to go on fighting for Berlin despite the fact that our ammunition has run out and despite the general situation which makes our further resistance meaningless.

On 16 April 1996, the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation declared Weidling non-rehabilitative.