Detailed Soviet 1:100,000 map of Berlin, used during the Red Army encirclement of the city in the Battle of Berlin.

The map covers several hundred square kilometers around Berlin, at the center is the city, labeled in Russian ("Берлин"). To the south of the city, the Soviet front, as of April 1945, marked in several places in the Berlin suburbs.

The Red Army was forced to quickly update its maps of Germany-proper as the speed of the German collapse accelerated in early 1945. The present map was issued in 1942.

The Battle of Berlin

​​​​​​​By early 1945, the Germans had all but lost the war on Eastern Front. The Red Army proved an unstoppable tidal wave, destroying the Wehrmacht division by division. Evacuation measures for Berlin had been prepared for the Reich government, ministries, and security apparatus starting in February of 1945. However, their implementation was delayed so that the commanders would not be seen to be admitting defeat. With two million Soviet soldiers quickly surrounding Berlin, Adolf Hitler finally gave the order to execute the defensive plan for the city on April 20th, 1945, his 56th birthday. The defenses barely slowed down the Red Army, and by early May they had totally subdued the city.