Chapter Four

The Russians Are Here!

Streams of vehicles wound their way through Küstrin on the morning of 31 January, coming along the three main roads from the east, their speed being determined by over-laden farm wagons and horse-drawn sledges taking up the whole width of the roads and giving others no chance of overtaking. The snow that had first been packed by thousands of wheels and horses’ hooves had since been churned into dirty, ankle-deep mush, which dampened down the noise of their passage.

Even on the bridges there was no drumming, no stamping, only pushing and shoving. Whenever a driver blocked the road through exhaustion or clumsiness, it evoked loud abuse. The passengers required neither special attention nor accommodation. The refugee camp quickly emptied, its inhabitants scattering to the railway station or to the main street, looking out for a wagon or truck driver to persuade with money and the right words to take them along.

All had only one goal: to cross the Oder! The dream of finding some respite from the war at last resulted in many men running straight into the arms of the waiting officers of the Feldgendarmerie or SS. Himmler’s appeal was stuck on all the advertising pillars: ‘Show no pity to all those shirkers who attach themselves to evacuation treks! Chase these brazen cowards to the front with your dishcloths!’ Those caught at the Oder crossings by these groups found that their release papers, leave passes, doctors’ certificates and other documents were of no account. They would be examined later to see if they were really unfit or otherwise incapacitated–or so it was said. Any soldier taken from the columns in civilian clothes was not detained for the moment, but special notice was taken of such men and they would not be forgotten, they were strongly assured; meanwhile they were ‘warned’.

It had long been clear that all organised resistance had collapsed between Küstrin and the Soviets advancing from north of the Warthe. Even the ‘Woldenberg’ Division at Landsberg could no longer pose a serious obstacle. Then at noon came the not so surprising news of enemy tanks approaching Neudamm, only 20 kilometres away. Orders were given for the bridges to be prepared for demolition, and the police and fire brigade were put on alert. Their vehicles had been closely guarded ever since the town omnibus, which had been reserved by a senior member of the town administration for his own flight, vanished without trace with its driver and his family.

The crowds at the railway station were dangerously crushed together, the people not knowing whether there would be any more trains. The railway police withdrew to the goods station, where a so-called evacuation train for the railway personnel waited under steam. The train moved off, although it was hardly full by current standards, and passed the waiting crowds. Then soldiers appeared with Panzerfausts on the railway premises as the last train rolled in from the east, packed to the running boards.

Apart from traffic on the main road, the village of Drewitz was virtually undisturbed by the comings and goings in the nearby town. The village NSDAP chief’s telephone rang at about 1400 hours and an acquaintance in Neumühl some 10 kilometres away reported that Soviet tanks had just rolled through towards Drewitz and Küstrin without stopping. The NSDAP chief was struck speechless with disbelief. Eventually he calmed down the caller, saying he would ask the Küstrin authorities for an explanation. He had just put down the telephone receiver when the first Soviet tank came down the village street. He grabbed his emergency pack and ran through the garden into the woods.

Some 15 or 20 tanks of the 219th Tank Brigade, 2nd Guards Tank Army thrust almost unopposed into the town. Their first shot on approaching Küstrin wrecked a light 75mm infantry gun that had been deployed on the town boundary next to an unfinished anti-tank ditch. In fact the shot had been unnecessary, for there was no ammunition with the gun. The main body of 10 to 15 tanks clanked along the Drewitzer Unterweg, where some remained while others continued down Drewitzer Strasse. One of these diverted towards Strasse 42 but turned over while making a tight turn and was abandoned, two men escaping unhurt. The smaller group of tanks approached Schlageterstrasse, where they encountered two platoons of Panzergrenadiers, wiping out one platoon for the loss of a tank and the infantry riding it.¹

Sergeant Horst Wewetzer, who had arrived in Küstrin that morning, was probably one of the first of the garrison to see the Soviet tanks:

A sentry directed us to the Stülpnagel Barracks, from where we were sent on by the artillery chief of staff, Captain Langenhahn, to the Fortress Company, which was deployed in the north of the Neustadt in the Reserve Field Hospital area. As we arrived, the last nurses, medical orderlies, etc., were already leaving the hospital. The town’s streets were full of men and vehicles. Our troop leader was off looking for an observation post. Telephone cables were laid out and we deployed our guns in position. At this moment the first enemy tank rolled into Küstrin. I had the impression that the leading Russian tank was racing ahead.

Subsequently we made our observation post on the roof of the empty hospital. From here we had to direct the fire not only of our own mortars, but also that of the two light infantry guns belonging to another unit deployed close to our mortars.²

Panzergrenadier Johannes Diebe and his platoon were still trying to dig foxholes on Schlageterstrasse as the Soviet tanks went past:

At lunchtime a tank with infantry seated on top raced past us at an incredible speed on the street leading into town. No one could have stopped it. Even our sergeant was struck speechless. It was not long before other tanks, again with infantry aboard, raced past in the same direction. The same thing occurred twice more. That they were not concerned about us came as something of a shock.

When there was a break our sergeant shouted: ‘There are more coming. I am going to take a Panzerfaust and see if I can knock one out.’ With my comrades I had gone behind an almost collapsed wall to find firing positions for our rifles. This was necessary as our whole bodies were shaking with excitement.

It was not long before another tank with infantry sitting on it followed and stopped near us. The Russians jumped off and went to the foxholes of our neighbouring section on the far side of the street. Their sergeant opened fire and shot one of the attackers. We were petrified when we saw the sergeant fall to a burst of machine-gun fire and our ten comrades fall to shots in the neck.

When the tank was about to move off, there was an explosion and a track came off. Our sergeant had made good what he had said. However, he was unlucky, as he had been standing in a doorway between two doorposts and the blast from the Panzerfaust had rebounded off the doorposts behind him and burnt his back. The Russians jumped off and fled towards the town, but a brave machine-gunner cut them down.

An ambulance came and took away our wounded sergeant. We laid him down on a stretcher on his stomach. The medical orderly thought that it was a wound that would get him discharged from the service. Our section was then taken over by the staff corporal.

When we wanted to cross the road to the dead on the other side, we could not believe our eyes when the tank turret turned and a shot came from the gun. The shell went through the wall behind which I was standing with my comrade from Guben. Our staff corporal jumped on the tank, pulled out a hand grenade and threw it in the turret. After the explosion it was quiet.

We buried our fallen comrades. It was our first mass grave. A simple cross with a steel helmet indicated that here a sergeant and his Panzergrenadiers had found eternal peace. So that was a hero’s grave!

On the company commander’s orders we all received a cup of schnapps. This was to calm us and let us think about other things. We all became tipsy from it.³

Meanwhile Flak Auxiliary Fritz Oldenhage was manning his field telephone exchange in the Cellulose Factory:

A group of enemy tanks drove along the Drewitzer Unterweg towards the town. I cannot remember the exact number, but believe it was between 10 and 15. We could see them quite clearly across the open terrain. Some of the tanks drove into the town while the others stood still. Several tanks turned their turrets with their guns in our direction, but only fired with their machine guns.

The firing was not directed at us in the Cellulose Factory, where we remained hidden and quiet, but at the area in front of the premises where some of the fleeing civilians with their horses and carts fell victim to the enemy fire.

Our section leader, an experienced Austrian sergeant, radiated confidence, conveying it to us and showing us how to behave cleverly.

As one of the enemy tanks left the rest of the group on the Drewitzer Unterweg and steered across the meadows towards the factory gate we withdrew to another industrial property and the Warthe goods station. In this hurried, short retreat we left our packs and personal belongings behind in the Cellulose Factory. Even I was almost forgotten as I was sitting at my switchboard again.

It was grotesque as the tank climbed the rising exit from the meadows to the road in a curve and tipped over sideways. Two Russians climbed out and ran safely back across the meadows, leaving the tank lying there. We did not fire so as not to betray our position and because the stationary tanks on the Drewitzer Unterweg had a good field of fire in our direction.

At the Warthe goods station we took cover among the installations and goods wagons standing there. More important, however, was the presence of a small but experienced infantry unit who accepted us with kindness. Under their protection we felt able to sleep deeply and securely that night while they, unnoticed by us, repelled a Russian attack from the Cellulose Factory.⁴

Fifteen-year-old Hitler Youth Hans Dalbkermeyer also saw the Soviet tanks going past from his location in the Oder Potato Meal Factory:

Next morning, the 31st January, two close friends from my class, Fred Chmilewski and Helmut Blauberg, appeared, as well as two other students from the 5th and 6th Forms, Erdmann and Specht. It was a great pleasure, but sadly none of them returned from the war.

After lunch we six were sitting together at the table when suddenly firing was heard. Startled, we ran out on to the factory yard and saw Russian tanks going past the factory gate. We quickly left our quarters and headed towards the Warthe. Which road we took I no longer know, but our way took us over one of the Warthe bridges, through the Altstadt and over the Oder. On the streets a column of pedestrians, some with handcarts, refugee treks with horse-drawn wagons, as well as soldiers with and without vehicles, rolled forward.

In this confusion we lost our school comrade Erdmann. Finally the shooting died down. The Russian armoured thrust ended between the Warthe bridges and the Stern in the Neustadt. Four tanks were destroyed. One of them on Plantagenstrasse directly under the railway bridge was smoking all day long, emitting a frightful stench.⁵

It was only in the middle of the Neustadt that the tanks came up against any resistance. Even they could not get through the Stern, the intersection of the most important streets, where wild panic had created an impenetrable barricade of cars, horse-drawn wagons and sledges blocking the exits and obstructing the only street leading to the Warthe bridges about 400 metres away. The tanks had to turn back out of the unexpected cul-de-sac they found themselves in. Without local knowledge and prior reconnaissance, the tank crews were unaware that they could turn into Plantagenstrasse just before the level crossing gates and from there thrust through to the river crossings across undeveloped land. It was at this juncture that the tanks lost contact with their infantry escort. One of them stopped and fired at the traffic jam in front of the bridges. Then, annoyed and frustrated, the tank crews withdrew the way they had come. Meanwhile, behind them the Germans’ surprise and initial confusion were overcome when it was realised that this group was operating well ahead of the rest, and the tanks came under hefty Panzerfaust fire in the streets. The first one to fall was a Sherman. Eventually only two of the tanks got away. It was said that the remains of their infantry escort had withdrawn to Loeber’s restaurant in the woods.⁶

The town hospital had been cleared during that morning, bedridden patients being driven to the goods station for loading on a train, while the others had to walk there escorted by some nursing sisters. But it was too late. The Oder bridges were already under enemy shellfire, so the sick had to be taken off the train again. They were supposed to return to the hospital but on the Pferdemarkt (Horse Market) their allocated bus, marked with a Red Cross, was suddenly confronted by Soviet tanks. The emergency stop caused its engine to fail and the bus had to be towed back to the bus depot, where the patients were hastily accommodated, unmolested by the Russians. It was late evening before the patients could be taken back to the railway station and early the next morning before they finally left the town on a hospital train that was already laden with many wounded. The train was repeatedly diverted and eventually the Küstrin patients ended up in Straubing, where they were unloaded and provisionally accommodated in an auxiliary hospital set up in a monastery.⁷

Sapper Ernst Müller saw the Soviet tanks arrive at the Stern. He had only been in Küstrin since the day before, having just endured a six-day rail journey in open wagons with 150 other members of Armoured Engineer Replacement Battalion 19. Müller had been seriously wounded in Russia and was not yet fully recovered, but had been ordered back to active duty. He reported:

We were attached to Engineer Replacement and Training Battalion 68 in Lieutenant Schröder’s company, in which I remained in Second-Lieutenant Schröter’s platoon. The company command post was at the Küstrin Rowing Club.

On the morning of the 31st January we were supposed to take up positions in the Neustadt. In the late morning Second-Lieutenant Schröter called out to us: ‘Gentlemen, it’s getting serious. Take up positions in the cellar window pits immediately!’

At this juncture I was standing with a comrade on Adolf-Hitler-Strasse between the Warthe bridge and the Stern crossroads. In front of a bicycle shop, about 70 metres from the Stern, we went into a cellar window pit as ordered. A woman saw us out of a window and called out to us: ‘You can’t get in there! We have valuable things in there!’

Meanwhile the artillery fire had increased. The street was still full of refugees when I saw the first tank. Mad confusion reigned. The refugees were whipping up their horses to get forward faster. Only when a senior paymaster was hit by a burst of machine-gun fire did I realise that enemy tanks were involved.

My comrade had vanished. I sought cover behind the nearest building. I then realised that I had an Italian rifle but German ammunition. This example shows how bad our hasty equipping had been.⁸

Just arrived from the western front, the leading train carrying elements of the 25th Panzergrenadier Division immediately came under attack at the congested railway station in the Neustadt. As the wagons carrying the guns were shunted into the adjacent goods station for unloading, one of the division’s anti-tank sections used its Panzerfausts to good effect, as Colonel Professor Erwin Boehm’s history of the division relates:

Thus upon the arrival of the train carrying the 1st Battalion of the 25th Artillery Regiment, the first in action was an anti-tank section, which under Sergeant Sommer shot up three Soviet tanks with Panzerfausts before unloading could begin. There was general chaos in the station area. The guns had to be off-loaded from the wagons by hand. They then went straight into action. Once the German resistance had stiffened, the Russians withdrew to the north-eastern edge of the town. That evening the elements of the division that had detrained in Küstrin withdrew in accordance with orders to the west bank of the Oder.⁹

Artillery Second-Lieutenant Erich Bölke was a regular soldier and holder of the Iron Cross First Class who became caught up in the retreat from the Vistula. He too was involved in repelling the Soviet tank attack:

I reached Küstrin ahead of the Russian spearheads and remained there for the whole of the siege from the first to the last day, apart from a courier trip to the OKH.

At first I was on the fortress commandant’s staff as an ADC. Once I had to take orders to retreat to Küstrin to a major commanding an infantry battalion on the approaches to the town between the Oder and Warthe rivers. I believe it was a motorised unit. I do not recall the date, but there was snow on the ground when I reached them by car.

On the 31st January Soviet tanks penetrated Küstrin-Neustadt as far as the Stern. Among the damage inflicted there by tank shells, I recollect a hit on a shop and a refugees’ horse-drawn wagon that was shot up towards the Warthe bridge; there were two dead horses. Under the railway overpass in Plantagenstrasse was an enemy tank that had fallen victim to a German Panzerfaust. During the course of this day I was deployed with some men to counter this Soviet penetration and the crew of a shot-up tank surrendered to me in a garden area. I cannot recall the exact place.¹⁰

Luftwaffe Officer Cadet Sergeant Helmut Schmidt was a section leader in a motorised flak unit that had lost its guns in the retreat from the Vistula and was now operating as infantry. Having arrived in Küstrin the previous night, he recalls how his unit became involved in the aftermath of the tank attack:

I cannot remember where we slept in Küstrin, only that we slept the whole night through without being disturbed. In the early morning we drove along Reichsstrasse 1 a bit towards Tamsel, a village on the northern edge of the Warthebruch. We posted sentries inside the place where the road took a bend to the north. It was an unfriendly morning, foggy and cold, with poor visibility. We had orders to wait for a Königstiger unit reported to be coming from the direction of Landsberg and provide the tanks with infantry support.

We waited for hours, straining our ears listening out for the tanks and frozen to the core. The traffic from Landsberg gradually dried up and there were no Königstigers. Those of us not on sentry duty disappeared into a house north of the road where an old man lived. He was friendly and took us in and put a jar of honey on the table. Real bee honey! I don’t think the man was oversupplied with it, either.

If I recall rightly, it was about noon when we heard sounds of combat from the north or north-west, rifle fire. Somewhat later a man on a bicycle arrived in a hurry and told us excitedly that a swarm of Russian tanks had driven through his village. We asked him if he was not mistaken? Perhaps they were the expected Königstigers? But no, he assured us that he had seen the Russian tanks with infantry sitting on them from his window. There had been half a dozen tanks passing quickly through his home village, and the place was only a little north of Tamsel.

Somewhat later we heard renewed sounds of fighting from behind us to the south-west. This time it was not only rifle fire. Now flak, anti-tank or tank guns were firing.

We reported to Lieutenant Kühnel, our chief. But he did not take the continuing noise of combat as important. He believed we should remain quiet and tried to tell us that Hitler Youth or Volkssturm were undergoing training on the Panzerfaust. We were of a different opinion. We could easily distinguish between the explosions of Panzerfausts and the hard crack of tank guns. We were angry that our chief failed to react and would have preferred to return to Küstrin, but Kühnel kept us waiting for the Königstigers.

Meanwhile the sounds of fighting from the direction of Küstrin had become weaker and finally died out. We were convinced that the Soviet tanks had been able to penetrate the town and had raised hell. We puzzled only over whether they had been driven off or wiped out.

At dusk we abandoned our position on Reichsstrasse 1 and drove back to Küstrin. The expected Königstigers had not turned up. Our jeep was the leading vehicle in our little convoy. A few minutes later we reached the town, following the Landsberger Strasse to the centre of town. The street was wide and it was pitch dark. I stood next to the driver looking over the windscreen to see better. This was necessary as along the right-hand side of the street stood a long row of refugee wagons packed together, fully loaded with cushions, baskets, boxes and cartons, with feather beds and bundles of straw. The refugees seemed to have found accommodation.

We had no maps. None of us knew the town. The road took a turn to the right and became considerably narrower. It occurred to me that the line of wagons here appeared more disorderly. Wagons stood in the roadway or across it with baggage lying on the ground, bundles of clothing and bedding covering the pavements. We followed a street of shops and approached a crossing point of several streets, the Stern. The shop doorways and windows were shattered. Dark figures flitted quickly out of the insecure businesses taking things away. Glass splinters crackled under their feet. We saw that the windows of the buildings, even on the upper storeys, were broken. Roof slates lay in the roadway and the wheels of our vehicles rolled with a crunching sound over shards of glass.

It was obvious to us that Russian tanks had caused this damage. Although the event had taken place hours ago, apart from obvious plunderers there were no people about, either soldiers or civilians. Küstrin was in a state of shock. The people had either been wiped out or were in hiding. It was now early evening, perhaps 1800 or 1900 hours. One would have expected the refugees to be seeing to their wagons or putting them somewhere safe, but no one was attending to them.

We crossed the Stern, which looked especially bad, although the place had been made passable. We went along Plantagenstrasse, where the destruction continued. A little later we drove up to a railway bridge across the street. A few paces from it our vehicle drove over a large obstacle that we had not seen in the dark. It looked like a bundle of clothing. A torch was switched on. A dead Russian soldier was lying on the ground. On the shoulder straps of his brown field blouse was a narrow red stripe. A second lieutenant of the Red Army?

We left our vehicles behind and walked on. Under the bridge we came across more dead Ivans on the left-hand side, about ten men. All seemed to be unwounded, as if asleep. Some lay noticeably one over another. A few paces further on we came across a shot-up tank. It stood on the right-hand side of the street, right against the embankment with its rear to us. When it was hit it was already through the underpass and had stopped a few metres beyond. I could not quite identify the tank. We had had nothing to do with this type before. Then it slowly came to me. It was an American Sherman from the Lend-Lease pact of the western Allies with the Soviet Union. The strongly rounded turret bore a five-pointed star, and a long-barrelled 76.2mm gun projected from the turret.

We went back to our vehicles and I reported the situation at the underpass to my chief. He immediately gave our company the order: ‘Anti-tank section get ready!’ I was to take my section along the high railway embankment to the left of the underpass, i.e. to the south-west, reconnoitre and possibly clear and occupy it. We took our hand weapons, our machine gun and quite a few Panzerfausts, and set off, leaving our jeep behind at the underpass.

We climbed up the railway embankment and tiptoed along the southern track south-westwards. If only we had had a map! We did not know that we were approaching the Warthe. Every few steps one of us stumbled swearing over some wire or other. We also did not know that our legs catching in the shot-up tensioned signal or points wires caused them to ring. These were real foot traps.

We were unable to go along quietly. We were shot at, at first individually then en masse, the shots zipping past uncomfortably close to our heads. They came from a northerly direction and the firers could not have been far off.

I directed my men down from the embankment and we trudged along the foot of it, safe from the firing. We had not taken the noise seriously at first and cursed the Volkssturm whom we thought must have mistaken us for Russians. After we had gone about 500 metres the steel structure of a railway bridge over the Warthe appeared. I stumbled on a sapper sergeant-major preparing the demolition of the bridge with a few men. He was pleased to see us and even more so when I assured him that we would provide him with cover for his work. As we talked in the lee of a steel girder, sparks flew around us from the structure every few seconds. The sergeant-major took the firers to be Russians who had crept forwards to try to secure the bridge.

I went across to the north side of the bridge to take up position with my men immediately behind the northernmost track of the many-tracked station area. We had to lie flat and keep our heads down as the firing intensified with sub-machine guns. It was raining lightly. We lay on the railway gravel, which was covered with the remains of snow.

Perhaps five or ten minutes had passed since our arrival at the bridge when immediately in front of us a green Very light whistled up, spreading a pale light for two or three seconds. The weak light was enough to show some 25 Russians or more forming up to attack the bridge. They were no more than 20 or 30 paces away from us, right in front of the embankment. They gave a shout and ran to the embankment firing their sub-machine guns. We immediately fired back and fired some Panzerfausts at them. Unfortunately, we had no grenades.

While we were quelling the Russians’ surprise attack, train after train rolled past behind us southwards over the Warthe bridge, taking numerous wagons, mainly goods wagons, to safety. The engine cylinders hissed barely a metre from our boots. The trains left Küstrin close together, without lights and almost without sound. We could not concern ourselves with them and did not know what they were taking: wounded, refugees, military or civilian goods?

We fired wildly from the embankment for about a quarter of an hour without being able to recognise a precise target. Finally I shouted my order above the noise: ‘Hold fire!’ Once I was heard, peace was restored, but it was several minutes before we could hear properly again. From the other side of the embankment individual shots could still be heard but at a great distance. The attackers had disappeared. We had urgently needed Very lights!

I checked my group; none had been wounded. We had been very lucky. We had lacked hand grenades to reach the dead corner of the embankment. Had the Russians had some, they would have had the advantage, and none of us would have survived the attack. We did not know how many trains had got away safely during the fight. The sappers emerged from their shelter with relief, and the company sent us reinforcements.

We checked out the ground in front of us. To our right, about 50 paces from the bridge, there was a building at the foot of the embankment. We carefully examined the ground on this side. The Russians had in fact withdrawn under cover of darkness. We found neither dead nor wounded. Had the Russians taken their comrades with them? Only a Maxim machine gun recalled the event. It stood on a flat bit of land in front of the embankment and the Russians had not been able to bring it into action. With its outdated two-wheeled carriage it looked like a toy. We found no ammunition near it. Presumably the Russians had taken shelter in the dead corner of the embankment and had then pulled out along the Warthe.

The Russians had certainly pulled out but we suspected they were still close. At the moment they would be busy reassembling, seeing to the wounded and reloading their sub-machine guns. We had to prepare for a second attack in case they came again.

Our chief wanted to do something about the Russians. He ordered Sergeant Max Langheinrich to form a storm troop to track down and destroy them. I was included with my section. We numbered about 20 men. Langheinrich took the lead and I was to cover the rear with René and Hans Hof to prevent the Russians finishing us off. As a base, as well as the start and return point for the enterprise, we had picked a primitive, empty, corrugated-iron hut at the foot of the north side of the embankment. It was 4 x 4 metres in size, with a man-high shrapnel-proof wall around it, and it lay within 100 metres of the bridge. Before setting off, we held a short council of war. We would first go a little way towards the street underpass and then turn and comb through the land north of the embankment in a half circle, finishing at the bridge and the corrugated-iron hut.

It could not have been very late, perhaps 2000 or 2100 hours. After a half-hour pause in the hut, we set off towards the underpass. In spread-out file we tramped along the north side of the embankment. It had long since given up raining, but the night was quite dark and one had to take care not to lose sight of the man in front.

After a few minutes Langheinrich gathered the storm troop together. We left the embankment and began circling round to the north. We came to some railway sidings. Were these factory sidings or a goods station? We stumbled over heaps of coal, then knee-high points control wires again. Every few minutes someone fell flat on his face, every time with much noise and swearing.

On the left-hand side, still near the embankment, a large black cube appeared out of the darkness. It was a corrugated-iron hall, a store about 20 metres long. I told René that I would check the hall and that he should wait for me. Inside it was completely dark. I found a large store of empty petrol barrels. I carefully climbed over the barrels and found no Russians, but at the far end of the hall in a small room between the barrels and the corrugated iron I found some stacks of books. I took some with me with the intention of returning to the hall in daylight if I could.

René and I then hastened to rejoin the group. We could not see our comrades, only hear them. They were not creeping across but trampling through the terrain. Before we could join up with them there was a sudden burst of sub-machine-gun fire from up ahead. Russians! I saw sparks of fire apparently ricocheting off a roadway.

I pulled my head in and waited about ten minutes until the Russians quietened down. When I got up again, my comrades had vanished. I carefully crept on towards the Warthe. It was lighter near the river with weak light reflected from the west. I caught sight of a small railway hut in front of which several men were standing. I took them for Russians at first as they were wearing Russian steel helmets, but as I got closer I could hear German being spoken loud and clear.

I quickly made myself known. I had stumbled across a group of Volkssturm men, old men unaware of their careless behaviour. They could not answer my question about my comrades. They had not seen them. Then they recounted the events of the day to me, the shock of which they had yet to overcome.

While we were talking, about 1 or 2 kilometres off to our right a Russian tank fired across the Warthe and the Oder and scored a direct hit on an electricity transformer or high voltage cable. There was a fantastic blue-yellow arc of light and then the few lights on in that part of the town west of the Oder went out as one. A little later a Stalin-Organ to the north of us fired a salvo to the west. I saw the fire trails, heard the well-known howling, and clearly heard the aftermath.

There were four or five Volkssturm men that I had met in front of the little corrugated-iron hut. They were wearing dark overcoats and had rifles dangling from their shoulders. Why they of all people should have been stationed at this position remained unclear to me. They had not taken cover, despite the firing nearby.

They told me that during the day the Russians had overrun a 37mm flak position and killed the crew of Luftwaffe auxiliaries. I asked about the penetration by Russian tanks into the town centre. Everyone had been surprised and it had happened without warning. Several tanks carrying infantry had taken part and three of these tanks had been destroyed by Panzerfausts.

In the opinion of the Volkssturm men, the Russians had withdrawn to the Cellulose Factory, which lay a bit to the north of here. I could see the buildings as dark shadows. With this new information I carefully made my way back to the Warthe bridge without encountering either Russians or Germans. About an hour after the exchange of fire I returned to our base. I was greeted with ‘Hello’ by my comrades. After me appeared ‘Max’ [Walter Schulz]. He too was unwounded.

But our storm troop undertaking had cost some wounded, including René. He had already been taken to a dressing station. No one could tell me what kind of wound he had, nor could I discover where he had been taken. I was angry and sad. My best friend! I would miss him a lot. I did not know then that I would never see him again.¹¹

This Soviet attack encouraged the work on the defences, as the following account shows:

When Russian tanks reached Küstrin on the 31st January 1945, my father, Johannes Dawidowski, and his brother Otto had to follow orders and do their duty with the Küstrin Volkssturm. Until then both men had been free of military obligations. They were rated as ‘exempt’, as both of them worked in an important war industry, the Küstrin Oder-Hütte iron foundry.

Until the first penetration of the Neustadt by enemy tanks only a few measures had been taken to prepare for an effective defence, so the Volkssturm were first put to the construction of defences of every kind. While the Wehrmacht dug in and fought along the curve around the Neustadt and near Alt Bleyen, the work of the Volkssturm was in the Altstadt, digging foxholes on the old Oder fortifications from Bastion Philipp to Bastion König. Other Volkssturm dug positions on the Gorin and on the edge of the glacis. A deep anti-tank ditch with bulwarks was constructed at the crossroads in front of the Kietz Gate. At the southern exit of Kietz anti-tank barriers were erected out of all kinds of agricultural machinery driven together and felled trees.¹²

In order to block the Soviet view from the Sonnenburger Chaussee of the high dyke between the Altstadt and the Neustadt, screens made of tarpaulins and sacking sewn together from air raid shelter bedding were strung from tree to tree on the south side of the road. The red thorn trees on Friedrichstrasse were felled to make a landing strip for a Fieseler Storch, but none ever came. Anti-tank barricades were erected at the southern exit of Kietz, and an anti-tank ditch was dug in the middle of February from Warnicker Strasse to the Jungfern Canal right across the yard of the engineers’ water training area.

The main front line ran from the Oder through Alt Drewitz (half of which had been lost in the previous fighting), through the Stadtwald woods, across the Stülpnagel Barracks exercise ground and ended in Warnick. The huge tanks of the Spiritusmonopol company lay outside this perimeter, and the 3,000,000 litres of drinking spirits and 4,000,000 litres of invaluable aviation fuel they contained had to be sacrificed.¹³

According to SS-Grenadier Oscar Jessen:

In January 1945 came the order to pack up and we moved to the Alt Drewitz sector of Küstrin. The front line lay only 40 metres in front of us. The place formed a half circle around a large meadow. Opposite us were the Russians. They must have had an observation post in the church, as they kept going in and out. We could watch them and occasionally raise a hand in greeting to each other.

The whole time in this Drewitz position we could hear German music and were called upon by fellow Germans to desert to them. It seemed very strange to us that the Russians or their German assistants knew the names of our superior officers.

There were several cows still wandering in the meadow and bellowing loudly to be milked. Our anti-tank guns stood between two houses. If I remember correctly, the row of houses opposite was of newer construction. We kept close to one house in which we ate and slept and in which the owners still lived. They did not want to leave their old and very sick mother behind and had made an encampment in the cellar out of a lot of bedding. The other houses were already abandoned and many of them had a notice attached to the door bearing the request not to plunder the house.

Once I was a witness when three ragged figures, whom we took to be Russians, came to plunder. However, they were expected by our headquarters and went into the house next door. I then discovered that they were in fact our own people who spoke Russian and had been spying behind the enemy lines in Russian uniform.

Enemy soldiers also took cover behind dead animals. Sometimes we received shots from the houses behind us, an indication that Russians or their German allies must have got through.

The occupier of our house asked us to bury her husband’s corpse. He still had all his documents and papers with him. The Russians had shot him on the street from part of the village opposite.¹⁴

Dramatically embellished reports about events on the other side of the Warthe sped from mouth to mouth in the Altstadt after the sounds of fighting had died down. Those who had heard the tank cannon fire and the explosions of Panzerfausts believed the noise was ice on the river being blown up or some other harmless event, for there was no official warning–even the sirens were silent–nor were there any instructions or recommendations to leave the town. Now hundreds broke out, joining the treks that were coming in along the still open roads from Landsberg and Sonnenburg. Many wanted to await the next developments in Kietz on the west bank of the Oder, or to try their luck at the railway station. The town administration had collapsed and the town hall was virtually empty. Consequently no one knew that Soviet troops had already crossed the Oder near Kienitz 20 kilometres from Küstrin in the early morning.

The fortress staff had received the news about the Soviet tanks too late to take action and now expected to see them rolling over the Warthe bridges, and were contemplating whether to blow the bridges and abandon the Neustadt. Now they also had to attend to the problem of securing the west bank of the Oder.¹⁵

Those elements of the 25th Panzergrenadier Division that had unloaded in Küstrin during the day returned to the west bank of the Oder later that evening as ordered. In view of the changed situation, the 9th Army had given the division the new task of driving back the Soviet bridgehead at Kienitz and preventing any further bridgeheads from forming. The divisional headquarters then withdrew to Gusow, committing the divisional units into action piecemeal on the west bank as they arrived.

Two batteries of the divisional artillery regiment and the 2nd Battalion of the 119th Panzergrenadier Regiment off-loaded with considerable difficulty in Golzow, for panicking supply troops had set light to the tall army store depot standing immediately next to the track, attracting Soviet artillery fire. The railway personnel fled and the train driver had to be caught and forced to take the wagons through the flames one at a time to be unloaded by the troops at the only ramp available. The battalion commander had to order the immediate occupation and defence of the village, leaving only a few men to finish the unloading at the station. Soon afterwards orders arrived for them to move to Letschin without delay.

Meanwhile the 1st (APC) Battalion of the latter regiment off-loaded in Werbig, where it was stuck for lack of fuel until the following evening.¹⁶ When the Soviets first crossed the river at Kienitz earlier that day, no German troops in units of any size were prepared to meet them on the west bank. It was not until 1300 hours that Major Weikl, commanding a North Caucasian infantry battalion in Küstrin, was ordered to take his 345th Provisional Battalion and connect with the 203rd Provisional Battalion from Berlin. He was to form the two battalions into a combat group, and then report to Colonel Schimpff, who was establishing a command post in Letschin. The roads west of Küstrin were choked with refugees, so it was 1600 hours before Major Weikl came across Captain Bohl’s 203rd Battalion in Zechin. Only assembled that day in Spandau, this unit had been brought out in Berlin city buses. Both battalions then deployed under cover of darkness, with the 203rd taking up a defensive position along the line Sophienthal–Sydowswiese and the 345th covering the west bank of the Oder between there and Küstrin.

At 0100 hours orders came from Colonel Schimpff for the 203rd to attack at 0400 hours up both sides of the Letschin–Amt Kienitz road and to push on to Kienitz itself. For this they would have the support of some driver-training tanks from the NSKK (National Socialist Motorised Corps) school at Wriezen. The German attack happened to coincide with a Soviet thrust from Kienitz, resulting in the German battalion, none of whose members knew each other, and armed only with rifles, being driven back to their start point in Sophienthal. Within the next six days the battalion lost half its manpower, either killed or wounded, but the survivors continued to hold out until relieved on 17 February, when they were reallocated to other units.¹⁷

Officer Cadet Corporal Hans Dahlmanns:

Upon promotion to captain at the beginning of 1944, my father was posted to Küstrin, where he commanded a company of Territorial Rifle Battalion 513, which was responsible for the security of the bridges in Frankfurt/Oder and Küstrin, as well as the canal ship lift at Niederfinow. In July 1944 I took my annual leave as a flak auxiliary [and went] with my mother to stay with my father in the Engineer Barracks in Küstrin and got to know a little about the town as a visitor. Due to the increasing air raids, my mother moved residence from Dinslaken to Küstrin, while I did my Reichsarbeitsdienst in the Pfalz Mountains. My father suggested in a letter that when I finished my labour service I should check out with the police in Dinslaken and reregister in Küstrin. This was possible as I could defer my military service for the first month and we were able to be together as a family for a short while.

So at the end of October 1944 I travelled to Küstrin as my labour service came to an end, registered with the police and was conscripted and posted to Engineer Replacement & Training Battalion 68, which was in the same Engineer Barracks as my father’s company. I could thus visit my parents almost daily during my training without having to leave the barracks. However, on the 30th January 1945 my mother left Küstrin at my father’s insistence and went to stay with her sister-in-law in central Germany.

The soldiers in my company were split up and sent to various places, but this did not apply to the 21 officer cadets of the reserve, of which I was one. We remained in the barracks for the time being and came directly under the Army High Command, as I heard.

On the 31st January tank shells suddenly burst on the parade ground; the Russians were there. That night we 21 young soldiers received orders to go to the village of Tamsel, where a nervous second lieutenant had lost his gun. We tried in vain to drive back the suddenly attacking enemy and recover the gun. After the attack, we gathered alongside a building. I went into the building, saw someone standing there and asked: ‘What unit are you?’ He said something that I did not understand. It sounded like: ‘Ruki werch!’ I saw in the darkness that he had no steel helmet, but a fur hat, and thought for a minute that he might be one of the Vlassov soldiers that were fighting alongside us in Küstrin. Then I suddenly realised that he was a Soviet soldier, that he had a sub-machine gun pointed at me and was calling on me in his language to put my hands up.

We were at the most 5 metres apart. I had my rifle slung over my shoulder and knew that I had no chance of getting out of this situation scot-free. So I was to become a Soviet prisoner, something that we all feared. I therefore had to do something unexpected. I slowly turned around and without a word slowly strode to the corner of the building. The Russian’s killer instinct matched mine. He shot first as I rounded the corner. Under cover of darkness, all of us got away from this first brush with the enemy. Only one had a shot right through the heel of his boot that did not hurt him and raised the astonishment of the others in the barracks next morning.¹⁸

Despite the thick cloud, Colonel Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s famous tank-busting squadron of Stukas, flying out of Neuendorf-im-Sande, immediately north of Fürstenwalde, attacked the Soviet positions in Kienitz that first day with bombs, cannon and machine-gun fire to such effect that the Soviets hastened to bring forwards anti-aircraft guns and get them across to the west bank.¹⁹

Meanwhile in Küstrin the flak was arriving piecemeal, some of the gun crews, including Hitler Youth auxiliaries, being ferried in by Berlin’s double-decker buses. Some crews with 20mm and 37mm guns on carriages were allocated to the Altstadt’s Warthe bank and others were sent to support the main battle line that was being formed. By nightfall there was no sound of combat anywhere, and the first continuous front line could be formed undisturbed on either side of the Warthe, running in a half circle around the Neustadt from the Oder via Drewitz and the Stadtwald (town woods), and across the training grounds in front of the infantry barracks to Warnick on the Warthe.

Late in the evening the Volkssturm men who were believed to be missing returned from the direction of Sonnenburg, some of them on the last train from there, which gave up at the trek-jammed junction with the chaussee at the Kietzerbusch Halt. The troops had already been on their way back when the car was sent off to find them after the battalion commander had sought vainly for four days for weapons for his men. In a last call on the morning of 30 January he was informed by a telephone operator that the staff had already left and would not be coming back, whereupon he had given the order to withdraw. Even the fortress was at first unprepared to arm these unexpected reinforcements, but gave them leave until the next morning. So for just one night they would enjoy the illusion of having survived.²⁰