ON APRIL 18, an order from Himmler arrived on Greifswald battle commander Rudolf Petershagen’s desk. It concerned the “duty to defend all German cities and localities.” The enemy, Himmler wrote, “is trying to intimidate mayors of cities and villages with the threat that, should they not surrender, they will be destroyed by tank or artillery fire. This ruse will not succeed. No German city will be declared an open city. Every village and every city will by all means be defended and held. Every German man who violates this clear national duty will lose his honour and his life.”1

Goebbels urged Petershagen and all other battle commanders to take inspiration from the more immediate example of Breslau’s “heroic struggle” under siege. Goebbels cited another example of unyielding resistance: Franz Schwede-Coburg, the unrelenting Gauleiter of a besieged Stettin.

Around that moment, the “defender of Stettin” knocked on Petershagen’s door.2 Schwede-Coburg, appearing haggard and depressed, told Petershagen of his relief that “in these dark [ernsten] hours there is at the helm in Greifswald a front-hardened bearer of the Knight’s Cross [Ritterkreuzträger].” Petershagen paused and wisely replied, “Gauleiter, whatever happens, I will share this city’s fate!” He did not specify which fate. Schwede-Coburg took his leave and fled to the west.

Documentation surrounding Greifswald’s last days is relatively thin compared to that of Augsburg, Düsseldorf, Freiburg, or Hamburg. Nonetheless, it is clear that in Greifswald, as in so many other German cities, opposition to Hitler and Goebbels’s calls for fanatical defence emerged from two main sources. One was military and centred on Petershagen himself. The main documentation of military disobedience in Greifswald is Petershagen’s memoirs, which need to be treated with appropriate caution in two ways: as, by definition, an effort in self-justification (as all memoirs are) and as a manuscript drawn up with East German censors peering over Petershagen’s shoulder. Occasional acidic comments about the Federal Republic of Germany,3 whether made by Petershagen or added later by some governmental functionary, seem to have struck the right balance that made the memoir acceptable for publication in East Germany. In addition, there is some debate about whether the report was ghostwritten. His wife named a university professor as the real author, whereas others made the doubtful claim that Petershagen threatened to pull the manuscript unless more Communists were written into the story.4

The second source of resistance in Greifswald was civilian and was centred on the town’s university. The key figure was the university’s rector, Carl Engel, a specialist in early and pre-history in Europe. Engel joined the NSDAP in 1933 and in the coming years became ever more committed to National Socialist ideology.5 The party rewarded his support: when the University of Greifswald expressed reservations about his candidature for a chair, the Reich education minister overruled the university and moved Engel from fourth place on the candidate list to first.6 Engel oversaw the sacking of fourteen Jewish faculty members and the expulsion of the university’s few Jewish students, including one who held American citizenship.7

Engel broke with National Socialism not over principle but, rather, over outcome: the disaster of Stalingrad marked the beginning of his break with the regime. As news of fallen sons arrived in Greifswald, opposition groups began to form in the city. They were made up of the usual Communist, Social Democratic, clerical, and bourgeois elements. Leading figures were Hugo Pfeiffer, a Communist who had come from Berlin to found a local chapter of the Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland, and a Social Democratic lawyer named Hans Lachmund.8 Somewhat unusually, although perhaps explicable given the city’s small size, both Communists and conservatives—such as lawyer Walter Graul—worked together. Engel established ties to this hybrid group from 1943.9 His own report on the last weeks in Greifswald, written in May and June 1945, corroborates in large measure Petershagen’s memoirs. The story of both civilian and military action as the end of the war neared shares many similarities with the stories of Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Augsburg, Gotha, and many other German cities. This fact provides some measure of confidence in the history as reported by Petershagen and Engel.

Petershagen was appointed battle commander of Greifswald on January 1, 1945. In his account, he began by gently sounding out members of his staff and the other two services in and around Greifswald in order to determine who might serve as helpful partners in the surrender of the city. Inevitably, there was nothing direct in these conversations. Instead, Petershagen dropped a few negative comments about the course of the war, the chances of victory, or the prospect of defending Greifswald. He often heard in response recitations of Goebbels’s propaganda, waffling about miracle weapons and final victory, and of course reaffirmations of the absolute need to follow orders. But in other cases, he found a sympathetic ear. Gradually, the core of what became a small military resistance in Greifswald emerged: Oberst Max Otto Wurmbach from the Luftwaffe, who was a doctorate holder and Russian speaker, and a retired Major von Winterfeld, who was responsible for the air defences of the city. Petershagen brought Wurmbach into his circle by telling an anti-Hitler joke; Winterfeld attracted Petershagen’s attention by remarking that the air defence of the city would have been unnecessary “had July 20 worked.”10 When Petershagen told Wurmbach of his plans for surrendering the city, Wurmbach replied enthusiastically: “Dead or alive, I will be at your side at the surrender of Greifswald!”11 Petershagen made him his second in command.

Whereas many German cities were denuded of inhabitants by this point in the war—especially in the east—Greifswald’s population had doubled to a record 68,423 people as columns of refugees fled the Soviet onslaught.12 Joined by local inhabitants, and above all by members of the NSDAP and the SS, they moved west. Petershagen allowed them to pass unmolested.13

As refugees passed through the town, civilian resistance groups organized. On April 23, Rector Carl Engel met one of the university’s trustees, Richard Schmidt, who would later serve as acting mayor after the city’s Nazi mayor skipped town.14 They discussed how they might secure the peaceful surrender of Greifswald.15 They first contacted a Dr. Hatten, a military doctor, and urged him to lobby for surrender in the name of some ten thousand wounded soldiers in the city.16 They won him over, and he planned to approach Army Group Vistula, one of Himmler’s “armies” to which Hatten answered, on the next day together with a university trustee, Dr. Kuhnert. But nothing came of it: the army group’s staff had withdrawn from Prenzlau and could not be found.17 That left Petershagen. They went to see him, although not before Engel made a point of burning all papers that might have incriminated him after the war.18

In his account, Petershagen had taken decisive steps to prevent a defence of the city before the delegation arrived. On April 25, he spoke to his staff and told them the city would not be defended. As if to concentrate minds, an air raid on the city the next day left some two dozen dead.19 Petershagen then took a series of steps designed to give flesh to his decision. Whereas Himmler had ordered that churches become defence points, Petershagen made them into hospitals. He ordered his men to collect sacred books and had them shipped by truck to Lübeck.20 And he ordered Volkssturm troops that had concentrated at two defence points to spread out across the city, hoping to neutralize their fighting effectiveness. It was, in fact, a poor decision given his purposes: properly informed, an invading army can move successfully around concentrated defence points. Scattered defences, by contrast, encourage loose fire, and even scattered attacks on Allied forces could have provoked a massive military response.

His next problem was the presence of military divisions outside Greifswald. Petershagen’s commanding general had ordered the division at Anklam to make a fighting retreat moving toward Greifswald and to establish a new position there. “Greifswald can and must be held,” the general concluded the order. “It will serve as the launching point for a planned eastward operation.”21 The defence of the city by a division would be the end of Greifswald. Urged on by his adjutant, Petershagen gambled and simply ordered the divisions to avoid Greifswald.22 It worked: the Soviets had savaged them at Anklam, and they had no desire to relive the experience. When the troops retreated from a destroyed Anklam, only a few stragglers arrived in Greifswald.

On April 27, the civilian resisters secured their meeting with Petershagen. Accounts differ as to who was present. According to Petershagen, Engel, university trustee Dr. Kuhnert, and a third, unknown man came together.23 Men with long, sad faces reprieved only by hopeful eyes, they begged Petershagen not to defend the city. With rhetorical flourish—at one point showing them Himmler’s order to defend the city to the end—Petershagen eloquently promised to surrender Greifswald: “Gentlemen, you need not be afraid. These documents, like the words we have exchanged here, are safe with me. And be sure, your excellencies, that I will take your advice to heart!”24 With that, Petershagen placed the papers in his safe and slammed it shut. In Engel’s account, the university professor initiated the meeting; the Kreisleiter—Engel’s “archenemy”—was there; and he, Engel (rather than Petershagen), did most of the talking and placed particular emphasis on the fate of the wounded and the cultural treasures in the city’s still-intact university.25 But they both agree on the essential point: Petershagen concurred that a defence of the city would be nasty, brutish, and short.26

To avoid it, Petershagen needed to neutralize forces within Greifswald and to make contact with the Soviets. There were two substantial pockets of opposition within the city, centred on Mayor Dr. Rickels and Kreisleiter Otto Schmidt. Rickels was responsible for the Volkssturm, which would be called to battle through a ringing of the churches’ bells. According to Petershagen, the matter came to a standoff between the two men. Staring Rickels down, Petershagen coolly stated, “The bells of Greifswald will remain silent.”27 Although he was very keen for others to go to battle, Rickels himself had no interest in a fight with either Petershagen or the Allies. He had prepared a convoy of vehicles—including fire engines—that were loaded with, among other things, twelve cases of champagne. After a tearful protest that the military man Petershagen viewed with contempt, Rickels made one last appeal for the Volkssturm to fight on the edges of Greifswald. Then he boarded his convoy and travelled west.

With Rickels out of the way, that left the Kreisleiter. Late into the night of April 27, Otto Schmidt pleaded with Engel to abandon his efforts to surrender the city, to accept false papers, and to flee to the west.28 Engel demurred and spent the next two days avoiding him. Schmidt turned instead to the one who could arrest Engel, have him shot, and launch the city’s defence measures: Petershagen.

Meeting the Stadtkommandant in person, Schmidt began with a bombastic appeal: “We are on the cusp of a great turning point of destiny [Schicksalswende] in the war. We will hold fast, and then …”29

Petershagen cut him off: “Greifswald will not be held.” Petershagen began to draw his pistol, tacitly giving Schmidt the choice of flight or death. Schmidt chose the former and handed over his orders.

Petershagen made a similar offer to an SS officer who arrived at the headquarters under the pretext of being wounded but, as it turned out, had been dispatched by Kreisleiter Schmidt to shoot Petershagen. After being found out, the officer switched horses and began disarming Hitler Youth in the city.30 As these events unfolded, Greifswald’s citizens joined the fight. Women appealed for a surrender of the city, and industrialists reported any efforts to sabotage industry.31

With the city largely under his control, it remained necessary to contact the Soviets. And this is where the civilians who had visited Petershagen on April 27 came in. “This visit was a gift from God,” Petershagen said to Wurmbach afterwards.32 The next day, Engel received a message from Gerhardt Katsch, a colleague professor of medicine at the university: “The third man from yesterday recalls your offer. He thinks the hour has arrived and wants to know if you stand by your word.”33 Engel replied: “Of course.”

The next evening, Katsch phoned Engel to report that Soviet forces were at the Peene River, about forty kilometres south of Greifswald, and were likely to cross it in the coming night.34 The Soviets did not make their move then, but the next morning, the situation in the city began to unravel. The telephone rang constantly: officials seeking orders, the Kreisleiter making last pleas before fleeing the city. By 18:00, Petershagen had summoned Engel to inform him that the Soviets had indeed crossed the Peene and were headed into the city. Petershagen and Wurmbach put together a hastily prepared delegation. Wurmbach, Engel, Katsch, and two interpreters made their way to Soviet lines.35 With Engel providing directions, Wurmbach led the group out of the city shortly before midnight.36

Some ten kilometres south of Greifswald, the group heard the rumbling sound of tanks or trucks.37 Engel called for the convoy to stop, and a few moments later, several trucks came around the corner. The question on everyone’s mind was whether they were Russians or Germans. Chancing it, Engel jumped out of the car with a white flag. Wurmbach screamed, “For God’s sake, man, put that flag away, they’re Germans!” As Engel was hiding the flag, Wurmbach changed his mind: “Wait, take it back out! They’re Russians!” Whether this display of German competence left any impression on the Russian interpreters is unclear. One shouted: “We are a delegation from Greifswald. Don’t shoot!”38

Through the interpreter, Wurmbach explained the mission. The Soviets agreed to take them to the nearest troop commander, and they rushed past a longer column of tanks and motorized artillery toward the ravaged city of Anklam, itself a visible warning of Greifswald’s fate if it were to be defended.39 Wurmbach offered the unconditional surrender of the city to the young divisional commander, Major General Borstschew.40 It was 2:17 on the morning of April 30, and the Soviet general claimed to have an order to launch a massive artillery barrage on Greifswald at 3:00.41 In all accounts, though all were written while Greifswald was under Soviet occupation, General Borstschew treated the delegation with great respect.42 The general agreed to call off his attack on the city and insisted only that Greifswald’s commander formally surrender the city later that morning, at 11:00. “Tell your commander,” he continued, “that not another shot is to be fired and everything is to be handed over undestroyed.”43 The clock struck three, and all remained quiet.

Within Greifswald itself, Petershagen’s men prepared for what they hoped would be the bloodless Soviet arrival. The city was divided and restless. Civilians across Greifswald put out white flags of surrender; others, Volkssturm troops and/or Hitler Youth, attempted to prepare bridges, reservoirs, and industrial facilities with explosives. Petershagen credits one of his staff in particular, a Major Schönfeld, for blocking these efforts, while civilians stopped foolhardy youth from arming themselves with Panzerfausts.

But it was not quite over yet.44 Borstschew had the delegation driven back to Greifswald in two cars, one, driven by a Soviet officer, containing Engel and Katsch. As they approached their destination, they met another car coming out of the city at great speed. The Soviet officer signalled it to stop, and it did. As the Soviet took a step toward the car, a burst of blood and skin exploded from his right hand. Someone had opened fire. Hand bleeding, the officer returned fire, spraying the Mercedes with bullets. When they approached the car, they found the bodies of Kreisleiter Schmidt, his adjutant, and two other soldiers.45 Engel and the others could claim their first victory in the salvation of their city.

At 5:00, Wurmbach appeared before Petershagen. “It’s done.”

Six hours later, General Borstschew arrived at the city hall for the formal surrender. After accepting it, Borstschew stretched out his hand. “I thank you,” he told Petershagen. “You are a worthy opponent.”

Neither Petershagen’s worthiness nor that of any other Greifswalder spared them the revenge that the Soviets meted out on Germany. Within the year, the Soviets arrested everyone involved in the surrender of Greifswald except Katsch.46 Engel, Wurmbach, and former mayor Richard Schmidt all died in captivity. The university’s first rector under the Soviets and a longtime critic of National Socialism who had urged the surrender of the city, Ernst Lohmeyer, was shot.47 Soviet troops plundered the city, and there were reports of mass rapes. The director of a women’s clinic, Günther Karl Friedrich Schultze, had a pistol held to his head while soldiers raped first the clinic’s students and then female patients and staff.48 Afterwards, he and his wife killed themselves.

Notes

1. Original in German reproduced in Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, appendix.

2. Details in this paragraph from ibid., 41.

3. See the comments on Adenauer as well as the crudely contrived symbolism contrasting a young, sturdy female socialist peasant and the old, wizened reactionary militarist. Ibid., 42 and 51–3, respectively.

4. See Helge Matthiesen, “Das Kriegsende 1945 und der Mythos von der kampflosen Übergabe,” in Greifswald: Geschichte der Stadt, ed. Horst Wernicke (Schwerin: Thomas Helms Verlag, 2000), 135–40.

5. Günter Mangelsdorf, ed., Zwischen Greifswald und Riga: Auszüge aus den Tagebüchern des Greifswalder Rektors und Professors der Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Dr. Carl Engel, vom 1. November 1938 bis 26 Juli. 1945 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007), 3–4.

6. Ibid., 5.

7. Wolfgang Wilhelmus, Geschichte der Juden in Greifswald und Umgebung (Kückenshagen: Scheunen-Verlag, 1999), 66, 68.

8. Historian Ernst-Joachim Krüger quoted in Jantje Hannover, “Zerstörung und Rettung in letzter Minute: das Kriegsende in den Nachbarstädten Anklam und Greifswald,” Deutschlandradio Kultur, April 29, 2005, available at: http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/
sendungen/laenderreport/368478/ (accessed August 7, 2013).

9. Ibid.

10. Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 37 and 35, respectively.

11. Ibid., 37.

12. Mangelsdorf, Greifswald und Riga, 35.

13. See Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 43 (on the SS) and 44 (on the refugees).

14. Carl Engel, “Erinnerungen an die letzten Kriegstage und die kampflose Übergabe Greifswalds,” May 19–June 3, 1945 [exact date unclear], in Mangelsdorf, Greifswald und Riga, 318. Richard Schmidt, who only briefly served as acting mayor, should not be confused with the local Kreisleiter, Otto Schmidt. Other civilians who sought the surrender of the city included Stadtrat Siegfried Remertz and Ernst Lohmeyer, who would become the university’s first rector after the war, albeit only briefly. Both men were arrested and died in Soviet camps.

15. Mangelsdorf, Greifswald und Riga, 36.

16. Engel, “Erinnerungen,” 318.

17. Ibid. On Himmler’s undistinguished command, see Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, 715–9.

18. Mangelsdorf, Greifswald und Riga, 36.

19. Ibid.

20. Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 45.

21. Ibid., 49–50.

22. Ibid., 50. Major Schönfeld was the adjutant.

23. Ibid., 54.

24. Ibid., 55–6.

25. Engel, “Erinnerungen,” 319–21.

26. It is possible that Petershagen confused two different meetings: one with Engel and another with Acting Mayor Schmidt and a group of men from the Communist National Committee for a Free Germany, although if so the error was genuine as he would have had every interest in remembering. For the details, see ibid., 324.

27. Details in this paragraph from Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 59–61.

28. Engel, “Erinnerungen,” 320–1.

29. Details from Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 62–3.

30. Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 67.

31. Ibid., 63–6.

32. Ibid., 56.

33. Engel, “Erinnerungen,” 322.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., 325.

36. Ibid. Engel states the time as being shortly before 23:40.

37. Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 70.

38. Ibid.; Engel, “Erinnerung,” 326.

39. Engel, “Erinnerung,” 326–7.

40. This is the German transliteration of the general’s name as it appears in the original sources.

41. Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 71.

42. Ibid.; Engel, “Erinnerungen,” 329.

43. Petershagen, Gewissen im Aufruhr, 71.

44. The rest of the narrative draws on Petershagen, Gewissen in Aufruhr, 72–6.

45. Schmidt’s motivations were unclear. See Hans Georg Thümmel, Greifswald—Geschichte und Geschichten: die Stadt, ihre Kirchen, und ihre Universität (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2011), 210.

46. Ibid., 211.

47. Ibid. According to a memorial plaque at the university, he was hanged.

48. Ibid., 212.