The Battle of Berlin was truly a battle on an unprecedented scales. The Soviets massed 1.6 million troops for 'Operation Berlin', and Marshal Zhukov in the centra had half of them, but his initial attack floundered, lasting four days instead of one, and was so costly that he had to revise his plans for taking of the city, and to revise them yet again when Stalin allowed his rival, Marshal Koniev, to intervene. The battle for Berlin thus became a contest for the prize of the Reichstag, fought in the sea of rubble left by Allied aerial bombardments, now reduced further by the mass of Soviet siege artillery. Meanwhile, Hitler and his courtiers sought to continue the struggle in the totally unrealistic atmosphere that prevailed in his bunker, while soldiers and civilians alike suffered and perished unheeded all around them.