Why did Joseph Stalin want to reach Berlin before the Americans?

Answer 1

I don't think there was a want to reach Berlin before America, I just think the Soveits pushed harder and faster and therefore did reach it first.

To say Stalin wanted to would need some sort of conclusive evidence of this.

Answer 2

Hitler planed to conquer the Soviet Union to secure his eastern front so that he didn't have to worry about an attack from the USSR. Then he could then focus all of his troops on the western front against the main allies. ( USA, Great Britain, and French Resistance fighters) This would have been a great victory for the Germans!

Answer 3

Zhukov, in particular, suffered high casualties because of Stalin's insistence on him racing to Berlin rather than using a planned campaign. Stalin would win the kudos of getting to Berlin before the Allies simply because the Allies were too far from Berlin to be a rival in a 'race'. One theory is that Stalin was desperate for his secret police to get to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin which was the centre of Germany's nuclear research programme. It was believed that the Institute contained important research material which would bolster Russia's nuclear programme. The Institute also had a cascading generator which Stalin considered to be vital for any developments in Russia.

"I attacked along the whole front, and at night. As prisoners later told us, the great artillery barrage at night was what they had least expected. They had expected night attacks but not a general attack at night. After the artillery barrage, our tanks went into action. We had used 22,000 guns and mortars along the Oder, and 4,000 tanks were now thrown in. We also used 4,000 to 5,000 planes. During the first day alone there were 15,000 sorties."

Zhukov