Editing Helmuth Weidling (section)

====Bendlerblock headquarters====
Sometime around 26 April, Weidling chose as his base of operations the old army headquarters on the Bendlerstrasse, the [[Bendlerblock]]. The location had well-equipped air-raid shelters and was close to the [[Reich Chancellery]]. In the depths of the Bendlerblock, Weidling's staff did not know whether it was day or night.{{sfn|Beevor|2002|p=320}}

Around noon on 26 April, Weidling relieved Colonel [[Hans-Oscar Wöhlermann]] of command, and Major General [[Werner Mummert]] was reinstated as commander of the ''Müncheberg'' Panzer Division. Later that evening, Weidling presented Hitler with a detailed proposal for a breakout from Berlin. When Weidling finished, Hitler shook his head and said: "Your proposal is perfectly all right. But what is the point of it all? I have no intentions of wandering around in the woods. I am staying here and I will fall at the head of my troops. You, for your part, will carry on with your defence."{{sfn|Beevor|2002|p=320}}

By the end of the day on 27 April, the encirclement of Berlin had been completed. The [[Soviet Information Bureau]] announced that Soviet troops of the [[1st Belorussian Front]] had broken through strong German defences around Berlin and, approaching from the east and from the south, had linked up in Berlin and northwest of Potsdam and that the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front took Gartenstadt, Siemenstadt and the Goerlitzer Railway Station in eastern Berlin.{{sfn|Dollinger|1997|p=233}} 

When Weidling discovered that a major part of the last line of the German defences in Berlin were manned by [[Hitler Youth]], he ordered Artur Axmann to disband the Hitler Youth combat formations in the city. However, in the confusion, his order was never carried out.{{sfn|Dollinger|1997|p=}}