Breaching Koniev’s Lines
29 APRIL 1945
The repeated attacks by the German armour finally succeeded. The Soviet cordon was breached and their positions overrun. The Red Army troops at Halbe were unable to close the gap fast enough, their artillery and tank fire failing to smash the desperate German assault.
Before it was full light on 29 April the German commanders had to get their people flooding through this breach. It was a hectic scramble, but XI SS Panzer Corps and V Corps managed to get through and away. For the rearguard, as will be recounted later, it was not so easy. It seems that the Soviets also managed to block the gap before V SS Mountain Corps could get through, and that this formation then had to bear the brunt of the Soviet artillery fire in its own struggle to break through an area already strewn with the casualties of the earlier fighting.1
SS-Major Hartrampf, commanding 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, maintained a good grip on his lead tanks and any resistance encountered was soon overcome. Whenever there was a hold-up, Hartrampf would appear in his APC and get his tanks moving again, though he later recalled that XI SS Panzer Corps, more often than he would have liked, sent the radioed question: ‘Where are the leading tanks?’2
SS Lieutenant Bärmann, driving along in an SPG, reported:
As it became light on 29 April, we drove on cautiously and soon came to a barrier with two T-34s behind it. They were immediately engaged by the Tigers driving behind us. I called down below: ‘Two o’clock right – aim!’ Together, we overcame the anti-tank guns and tanks.
Spirits improved. At the autobahn west of Halbe, we came up against another anti-tank barrier that we also overcame. With daylight, the Russian ground-attack aircraft began attacking, but our self-propelled Flak fired flat out so that they were unable to aim their bombs.3
The lead tanks of 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion reached the Cottbus–Berlin autobahn at dawn and came under fire. One or two well concealed Russian tanks engaged the German vehicles as soon as they approached the autobahn, but SS-Major Hartrampf was on the spot and gave orders for an attack by a Tiger and a hastily assembled infantry storm troop, which soon put them out of action. The lead tanks then crossed the autobahn and waited in the woods opposite for the others to catch up. However, although the first group of opposing tanks had been dealt with, others firing from further off along the autobahn opened up as soon as a German vehicle approached. Even so General Busse managed to get across in his command APC and drove on to the rendezvous at the Massow forest warden’s lodge.4
Rudi Lindner’s account of this period continued:
It slowly became light as we slipped along the track under cover of the wood. As this led to the west, it had to lead to the autobahn. Suddenly in front of us was the nose of an armoured vehicle. ‘Take cover! One man forward to reconnoitre!’
After ten minutes came the report that it was an assault gun. Its crew, who had their dead commander aboard, were about to cross the autobahn under cover of the morning haze, but did not know if the woods opposite were occupied by the enemy or not, and were also afraid that there might be flanking anti-tank gun fire along the autobahn, so they were happy to see us and for us to find out for them. A brief order: ‘Under simultaneous covering fire, over the autobahn in bounds.’ We were soon on the other side. All we found on the other side were empty foxholes and dead bodies. We welcomed the chance to drive our assault gun several kilometres in the westerly direction ordered for the break-out to the assembly point at the forest warden’s lodge at Massow. We found ourselves on a woodland track on which soldiers were moving along in groups of all sizes.
We soon arrived at 9th Army’s assembly point, reported in and received 16 men’s worth of rations and ammunition to divide among the remaining five of us, sufficient to eat ourselves full once more, for we did not know when we would get any more.
Here the extent of the tragedy at Halbe quickly became apparent. Many comrades were missing from our unit, the majority of our company of Panzergrenadiers having been killed or wounded; there was no accurate account.
We were again allocated as tank escorts for the coming march. We were to advance on foot with the task of screening ahead and on the flanks. The men of our little unit could now keep together and keep an eye on each other, as we were now independent and no longer bound to the tanks.
However, we soon noticed that there was no longer a strong overall command. A leaderless mass of soldiers and refugees was wandering through the woods. Military discipline and comradeship had fallen by the wayside. The majority of soldiers of all ranks moved like sheep around and behind the tanks, trying to get aboard whenever they stopped. Just as in Halbe, hits from anti-tank, artillery and mortar fire, as well as the many air attacks, had had a catastrophic effect on soldiers and civilians alike. Each impact cost ten to twenty times the number of dead and wounded as it would have done under normal combat conditions. At first the wounded were tended to and the dead laid aside in the woods, but later, especially at night, this ceased. People became more and more numbed. Hunger and fatigue added to this, and only the fear of becoming prisoners of the Russians drove the soldiers on, regardless of casualties.
This stream of humanity moved not only along the woodland tracks but also left and right through the woods, so that our task of securing the tanks against enemy close-quarter engagement was no longer necessary.
Not from overwhelming bravery, but out of old combat experience, our practice was to use every halt to get further ahead. We knew: ‘He who does not get through the enemy cordon within five to ten minutes once it is breached and uses the gap will get the concentrated fire of the Russian weapons on the breakthrough point.’
This was the motto we kept to, and whenever the call was given: ‘Infantry forward! Tanks forward!’ that was how we acted, whereas, in such a situation, the majority of soldiers of all ranks would often press back into the woods.
The advantage for us was that the way forward was free for the unfortunately few remaining soldiers and ever fewer tank crews. Each tank crew in 9th Army’s breakthrough to the west was putting its life on the line with the danger of being shot up time and time again, and each time had to face up to this and not pull back into the woods.5
The survivors of the main break-out group began gathering at dawn around the Massow forest warden’s lodge and continued to arrive in an endless stream of soldiers and civilians. Some soldiers were able to rejoin the units they had become separated from during the break-out. Major-General Hölz, chief of staff of 9th Army, and SS-General Kleinheisterkamp, commander of XI SS Panzer Corps, failed to appear.6 General Willy Langkeit’s liaison officer from the Panzergrenadier Division Kurmark also turned up and reported that the general’s command APC had been hit, but that the general had got out and gone off in another direction. He had reportedly been captured. Some 4,000–5,000 people had lost their lives during the night and countless numbers were wounded.7
The assembly area was made secure while General Busse consulted with the unit commanders over their next move. SS-Major Hartrampf proposed the Wunder forest warden’s lodge, west of the Wünsdorf– Baruth road as their next rendezvous, and that was accepted. Fresh orders were issued and the group set off again.
SS-Lieutenant Bärmann continued his account:
While we were securing the assembly area at Massow, General Busse drove up in his APC. In reply to my question how far we had to go to get to Wenck’s Army, he replied sixty kilometres. Our fuel would not last sixty kilometres, as was the case with just about all the armoured vehicles. He said that when necessary we would have to obtain fuel by force, as the armour had to stay in the lead if 9th Army was to get through.8
The usual order of march was armoured vehicles with combat-ready and willing soldiers in the lead, followed by various vehicles carrying wounded, but many reports also say that staff officers with their luggage were near the front. Last of all came the once vast but now rapidly declining number of stragglers and civilians.9
Several Soviet attacks of divisional size then caused the German groups to split into two pockets; the first contained those still trapped east of Halbe, and a second, large one was in the Staakow Forest between Zesch, Dornswalde and Radeland. Contact had been lost with V SS Mountain Corps’ rearguard, which was fighting desperately to break out of the reinforced Soviet cordon and in so doing not only inflicted heavy casualties on the Soviets but also served to distract attention from the remainder of the escaping 9th Army. Although the rearguard units managed to break out of the Halbe position, they were unable to break through the Soviet cordon and remained under a hail of shell and mortar fire.10
Late in the afternoon the main group reached the Wünsdorf–Baruth road (Reichsstrasse 96) and railway, coming up against another Russian anti-tank barrier on the same line on which Battlegroups Pipkorn and von Luck had foundered three days previously. SS-Major Hartrampf, who knew the area well from his time at the Wünsdorf Tank School, gave SS-Lieutenant Ulan and his platoon of Tigers precise instructions to block the road from the north at a certain point until 1800 hours.
The troops moved off again across the railway and parallel road, but were fired on from their right flank, where they should have been protected by Ulan’s tanks. What they discovered next day, when Ulan rejoined them, was that he had taken up position at the designated point but had then been ordered further north by a colonel, who had appeared out of nowhere and then threatened him with a court martial when he objected, another Seydlitz ploy.
The main break-out group had closed up to the road and railway, where Russian tanks and anti-tank guns now dominated the crossing point from both north and south. SS-Major Hartrampf, who had meanwhile lost his APC, again took over and organized an assault. Some Tigers were deployed to tackle the opposition coming from the flanks, while others plunged across and took cover in the woods beyond before going on to form a bridgehead around the Wunder forest warden’s lodge. Hartrampf got his unit across intact but other units were broken up in their attempts, the survivors crossing individually or in small groups.11
Rudi Lindner continued his account:
On the afternoon of 29 April we drew near to a Russian cordon with strong defensive positions on the line of the railway and road between Zossen and Baruth.
Our little combat team worked its way forward with other soldiers under cover of the woods to the edge, where happily the equivalent of the strength of a battalion of infantry gradually accumulated. Our spearhead had been brought to a halt by tank and anti-tank gun fire from the flanks. As our tanks spread out right and left along the edge of the woods and engaged the enemy tanks and anti-tank guns with their guns, we attacked on a broad front. We crossed the railway line and road in bounds and forced our way to the other side under cover of the concentrated fire from our rifles, Panzerfausts and hand grenades into the woods opposite. Once we had broken through and overcome the cordon, we thrust through with our tanks to the forest warden’s lodge at Wunder.12
Helmut Jurisch, a radio operator in the Kurmark Panzergrenadier Division’s Brandenburg Panzer Regiment, also reported his experience here:
Of the 14 Panthers surrounded in the Halbe pocket, only nine survived 28 April, including the one in which I served as radio operator. With three other Panthers we crossed the autobahn unscathed in the night, guided by our guardian angel, and that morning reached the railway running alongside Reichsstrasse 96 between Wünsdorf and Baruth. While we were crossing the railway embankment there was an explosion inside the tank and stabbing flames and spraying sparks forced us to bail out. As the Panther rolled back down again it burst into flames; we picked ourselves up, slightly singed. The other Panthers were engaging the anti-tank barrier that had knocked us out. A trick of fate had spared our lives, for, as the tank climbed the embankment, the shell aimed centrally at the front of the tank had passed underneath and exploded against the gearbox located between the driver’s and radio operator’s seats.13
SS-Lieutenant Bärmann also fought here:
We were still stuck on the Zossen–Baruth road. The situation was obscure. Some infantry overtook us and we drove on to the south after the infantry. After a few hundred metres we realised that we had fallen into a trap set up by the Seydlitz people. We were met by a belt of anti-tank guns, several T-34s and trees full of snipers, so we drove back to the start point.14
SS-Grenadier Muhs had a similar experience:
An army officer took over command and tried to establish some sort of order in our mob. We followed him, thinking that it would soon be over, home, no more bloodshed. Then I saw some badly camouflaged Russian trucks and tanks in the background, and I realised what the game was. We were in a trap set by Seydlitz-Troops. During a general palaver, I and a few others disappeared into the undergrowth. One has to be prepared for anything!15
The lead tanks reached the Wunder forest warden’s lodge and SS-Lieutenant Klust reported:
We drove up to the Wunder forest warden’s lodge. A few shells from my Tiger at some T-34s ensured that the Russians left. German soldiers approached from all directions and a heated discussion started.16
SS-Lieutenant Bärmann continued:
About eighty men and seven SPGs of my battalion reached the Wunder forest warden’s lodge. SS-Lieutenant Hörl took over the command. SS-Second Lieutenant Stachon appeared with his APC, which was filled with our wounded, who were being tended to by SS-Sergeant-Majors Everding and Wahl. I went with Hörl as his gunner. Our radios were all unserviceable, so we had no long-range communication. We set off again at about 1930 hours. Shortly before dark there was an attack by Russian bombers, which fortunately failed to hit us.17
SS-Grenadier Tag also reached the rendezvous:
Another big group assembled at the Wunder forest warden’s lodge, including Waffen-SS Tigers, members of the Luftwaffe, elements of the Panzergrenadier Division Kurmark with the remains of Second Lieutenant Dahlinger’s 11th Company. During the conference an unidentified colonel appeared and broke into the conversation, imploring those standing around to follow him as he knew a safe way out. And the talking continued. Then came the word Seydlitzmann and some catch questions were asked. There were some shots and the colonel collapsed. Similar incidents occurred elsewhere, where an NCO and a sergeant were identified as Seydlitz people and shot. We now paid more attention to the uniform; good, clean uniforms were a clue to Seydlitz people.18
SS-Lieutenant Klust was still with the leaders in his Tiger:
As the gathering was quite large and Russian aircraft were crossing over us, bombs could be expected to fall at any moment. Without waiting for orders, I had my Tiger drive off, knowing the rest would follow.
The column moved off towards Kummersdorf.19 We were ashamed to see more civilians carrying weapons than soldiers. A large meadow-plain was enclosed by the edge of the woods opposite. Three Tigers and a few SPGs shot up some identified T-34s and anti-tank guns. Some soldiers and civilians charged across on a wide front, and the Russians fled.20
SS-Lieutenant Bärmann resumed:
We passed the village of Horstwalde. After a broad meadow valley, the land began to rise. Suddenly everything stopped. Of all things, the leading Jagdpanzer had run out of fuel at a tree barrier. Then, in this situation, the cry went up: ‘Ivan is attacking!’ Meanwhile it had become dark, so who on earth could tell where and who Ivan was? Firing everywhere. We towed the Jagdpanzer back out of the barrier with our SPG and syphoned off the last drops of fuel before blowing it up.21
Several wheeled vehicles had their fuel tanks emptied at Wunder before being destroyed, enabling the armoured vehicles to continue to lead the break-out. The march resumed through the woods in various-sized groups to Kummersdorf Gut, where the artillery ranges were reached during the night and the railway station, farm and military installations taken by storm. However, an advance by 71st Mechanized Brigade on Kummersdorf Gut with attacks on the flanks of the leading elements by the 50th and 54th Guards Rifle Divisions resulted in the formation of a third pocket near Klausdorf–Kummersdorf Gut–Horstwalde. This remained connected to the second pocket by a narrow corridor, but a certain number of soldiers became separated from the main party, were forced to the south, surrounded and taken prisoner.22
Willi Klär described events at Kummersdorf Gut:
On 26 and 27 April the Red Army deployed artillery pieces facing today’s demolition area from the forest warden’s lodge as far as the blown bridge where the road forks off to Fernneuendorf, as well as along the edge of the woods as far as Mönninghausen. Then, on the evening of Sunday, 29 April, Russian soldiers entered our homes and ordered the inhabitants to go to the cellar of the old folks’ home: the ‘Germanskis’ were coming.
The din started at about 2200 hours with bangs and flashes. There were screams and suddenly there were wounded German soldiers in the cellar. They belonged to General Busse’s 9th Army, which had been surrounded in the Spreewald, and were now trying to reach the west via Halbe, Zesch, Mückendorf, the forest warden’s lodge at Wunder and the Kummersdorf Ranges towards Trebbin. Those troops who survived the encirclement intact would join up with General Wenck’s 12th Army.
There were several wounded from explosive bullets among the civilian population, including a ten-year-old, Fritz Feldner, who received a splinter in his thigh that hit the artery. He died from loss of blood within a short time, as there were no doctors available.23
Erwin Bartmann, a sergeant from the SS Grenadier Regiment Falke, recounted his experiences on this day:
Once more we were without an officer and we set off again to the west. We then met a long column of soldiers and refugees trying to save their skins, and followed them. We came to the weapon-proving ranges at Kummersdorf, where we had to fight the Russians yet again. Beyond Kummersdorf, I and a few Waffen-SS comrades found ourselves in an unending column of soldiers of all arms of the Wehrmacht, generals and senior officers with their staffs. Again we came up against Seydlitz-Troops as we went through the woods. As was later discovered, the Seydlitz-Troops were under the command of Russian commissars. We were attacked in the woods by Russian infantry and Seydlitz-Troops. As we went along a firebreak they moved parallel to us and then attacked us from the flank. The Seydlitz-Troops wore German uniforms but were armed with Russian sub-machine guns. They kept on attacking us, mixing in with the column. When one appeared with an armband in his pocket with the words Komitee Freies Deutschland, one of the officers came up shouting: ‘Where are the SS? This man must be executed.’ I personally would have nothing to do with this big shot. We told them to do it themselves if they wanted someone killed. (I disliked these gentlemen of the senior staff intensely. At that time all they were doing was thinking of saving their own skins.) We moved from place to place, from south to north, and back to the south. The long procession of human beings went from one road junction to another, meeting up with other units.24
The Seydlitz-Troops were particularly active during this phase, as in this account by an unidentified soldier:
Near Sperenberg a second lieutenant suddenly appeared near me and wanted me to go and speak to his general. We were just about to make an attack, and some T-34s had been reported, when the second lieutenant said to me that we should stop the attack and fire three red flares. He had a flare pistol with him. The general was wearing camouflage uniform without badges of rank. When I went up to him and enquired his name and where he came from, he said that he was General Eckert and that he came from Führer Headquarters. I told him that we were continuing our attack and would fire no red signal rockets. He ordered the attack broken off, but then a Russian shell exploded nearby and he was killed. I checked him over: grey trousers, camouflage jacket, no medals or badges, no papers. I took the flare pistol from the second lieutenant and told him to bury his ‘general’. He was a Seydlitz man.25
Despite the additional commitment by the Soviets of 71st Mechanized Brigade from the Wünsdorf area, 68th Independent Guards Tank Brigade from the Horstwalde area, and 117th Guards Rifle Division from Luckenwalde, the main German group was only checked briefly between Sperenberg and Kummersdorf Gut. By this time any formal command structure in the break-out groups had ceased to exist, but these desperate German troops maintained their successful efforts until nightfall that day, having overcome three Soviet cordons and covered about 25 kilometres, nearly half the way to Beelitz.26
Some, like Major Brand’s 21st Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion of 21st Panzer Division, were less fortunate, as he reported:
About 2,000 leaderless officers and soldiers had tagged on to the battalion, together with the same number of civilians of all ages and both sexes. Renewed break-out attempt early on 29 April. Success near Halbe at first, with the Russians withdrawing with heavy losses, but at the bridge where the road crosses the autobahn west of Halbe, the whole unit fell into a Russian trap. Hundreds of dead, semi-demented civilians, frightful state of affairs. Three fatal casualties in my own command vehicle. Control was lost. Women raped to death by Russians from a nearby camp lying in the woods and on the roads.27
But the horror was not yet over at Halbe. Erika Menze from Märkisch Buchholz, then seventeen, was one of the refugees who tried to get through Halbe that day:
On 29 April there was nothing to remind us that, according to the calendar, this was a Sunday. We hardly thought at all. Climb up on the truck, down from the truck, take cover. One was just moving and acting automatically. Sometimes I thought to myself: ‘Don’t get wounded.’ There were already many wounded soldiers sitting and lying on the trucks. We reached just short of Halbe on this terrible Sunday morning of 29 April.
Again and again we had to take cover in the shallow ditches on the edge of the woods. The mud splashed so! Then things quietened down a bit. We looked up and saw clearly where we were. Off to the right the tall buildings of the post office and railway station. On the left the wood, where the Poliklinik stands today. In front of us the road that leads to Märkisch Buchholz on the left and goes straight ahead across the railway lines into the village.
I don’t know by what miracle we had remained unscathed until then. I don’t know now how I got across the railway lines at Halbe station. What I saw was horrible. The tanks rolled down Lindenstrasse covered all over with wounded soldiers. One fell off and the next tank rolled right over him, squashing him flat, so that the next tank rolled through a pool of blood. There was nothing of this soldier left. It happened in seconds.
I had to take care where I lay. The pavement near the Drassdo Bakery was covered in corpses, all German soldiers. Many more dead were lying alongside the houses, stacked up at an angle, leaving no cobblestone or piece of pavement uncovered. I had to pass over these dead soldiers, their heads yellow, grey, crushed flat, their hands yellow, grey or greyish-black, only the wedding rings glimmering gold or silver. A horrific scene.
At last I reached the home of the cobbler Luban. This far and no further. It must have been about noon, for some women had cooked some cabbage soup and we each got a large cupful. But that was the end of our longed-for respite.
Two Russians came to the cellar entrance and explained to the inhabitants that the Germans were attacking again and that we all had to leave the cellar. I grabbed my food bag and we left the cellar one after the other. I saw the Russian soldiers for the first time at the house door.
We all ran across the yard and behind through the garden into the open field, where there was a stack of logs several metres long. I lay down there on my back, not moving an inch. Then all hell broke loose.
There was firing over us, behind us and beside us, all kinds of small arms fire, the bigger stuff not so close. One got used to the sound of firing and explosions from the bigger weapons.
But what came next was not possible to make out. Heavy weapons were roaring and Stalin-Organs were mentioned. Heavy and light machine guns were rattling and tracer bullets whistled over us. ‘Don’t move! They’re firing at anything that moves’, a woman near me cried out. This lasted from early afternoon until dusk. The barrage must have lasted six hours. The woman next to me was wounded twice, her brother-in-law too. They comforted each other as best as they could.
After hours of bombardment, it became quieter. During the bombardment we had seen many shot-up ruins collapse.
Night began to fall. A Russian took a large glass of what looked like sugar or semolina from a handcart standing not far from us. I thought, so he comes and helps himself and we have to stay still. But he only looked very shyly towards us. He needed it as much as we did. As we looked back there was no horizon to be seen. Everything was covered in smoke. We all tried to stand up, then noticed how cold we had become.
German soldiers came and hurried us up. The Russians had been driven off and we should get away quickly towards the autobahn. But going on again with them was nonsense, carrying on in the hell of the pocket. We had long been encircled, as we discovered months later.
We reached the woodland track on which soldiers were emerging from Halbe. I went along under cover of the tanks hand in hand with a soldier, who gave me a lump of sugar, saying that it would calm me.
Meanwhile it had become pitch dark. There was the glow of a fire here and there, so that we could make out the tanks. Before long we came under fire again. The soldier showed me a place, somewhere between uneven ground and a heap of brushwood. The fire-fight intensified. I despaired and began crying for the first time in days. Suddenly the soldiers started running with a loud ‘Hurrah!’ The Russians had to think they were outnumbered. Later came the many wounded, suffering, groaning, calling for the medical orderlies. We were completely incapable of helping them.
The wood came to an end in front of us. Over there in the darkness the soldiers thought was the autobahn. We could hear tanks moving, but no one knew whether they were German or Russian.
So the column wheeled left. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We could hear some soldiers placing two wounded on a motorcycle combination, but it was no longer serviceable. The stream of humanity would stop from time to time, then move on again.28
Another officer cadet from the same regiment as Rudi Lindner reported on events in Halbe that day:
On 29 April 1945 at about midday (the day of the abortive break-out attempt of several units west of us) three four-wheeled scout cars and about the same number of Volkswagen jeeps suddenly appeared before our positions [the sparse screen formed by the 1st Battalion, 86th SS Volunteer Grenadier Regiment Schill] from a westerly direction. Their commander was a young second lieutenant, a Hitler Youth leader type. At first we took them for Seydlitz-Troops and wanted them to disarm immediately, but they identified themselves as a reconnaissance unit of the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Division of 12th Army coming from the area west of Teupitz. Their unit had become badly disorientated in the last few days and had contact neither to the west nor to the east. By the sounds of battle coming from the east, there must still be strong elements of our own troops around. Their commander wanted to know for sure and so had sent out this reconnaissance unit. Any stragglers were to be brought back with them. The officer had radio contact, so we sent him on to the XI SS Panzer Corps battlegroup, but what happened then remains unknown. During a short cigarette break we learned something about the other divisions [of 12th Army] for the first time. This encounter took place in the woods three kilometres north-east of Halbe, north of the track to the Klein Hammer forest warden’s lodge on the Dahme Flood Canal.
We only hoped that our armoured vehicles would keep on driving west and that at last we would not have to march any more. We came to another road, crossed a railway line and were able to read the name ‘Halbe’ on a road sign. We were making a gentle turn with our tank into the village, when we were suddenly fired on from all sides. Within a few minutes our first three tanks had been blown up. The crews squeezed themselves out of the narrow hatches completely wrapped in flames, like human torches. Everything happened quickly. Flares shot into the air and rifle fire whipped through the dark. Our remaining tanks turned round and as rapidly as it had started everything became quiet. Then suddenly someone shouted: ‘Don’t shoot, they’re our comrades.’
Everyone wanted to move on and pressed into the village street, but heavy rifle whipped into our ranks from the buildings as we formed a perfect target in front of the bright background of burning tanks. Only the trees on the street provided minimum cover from one side. Then shots from Russian anti-tank guns and tanks started coming from the western end of the village street.
There were no officers to give orders in these chaotic circumstances. We had no maps and no plan how to get out of this Halbe mousetrap. At last a sergeant-major shouted: ‘Machine guns and Panzerfausts up front.’
We fired at the windows of the buildings from which we were being fired at and, under cover of our fire, a few grenadiers stormed the buildings. Some dull hand-grenade explosions came from the buildings and we had found our cover. We immediately started moving the wounded off the street into the cellars.
The blazing night was filled with the horrible cries of the wounded, the bangs of exploding ammunition from the burning tanks, bursts of machine-gun fire, rifle shots and Russian gunfire.
We saw a wounded comrade who had had a leg shot off and were trying to pull him to safety by his arms as enemy rifle bullets whistled past. Then one of our tanks caught him with its tracks when it was turning and squashed him flat.
A medical orderly appeared to take over the care of the wounded whom we had carried in and said to us: ‘Make sure that you get through. I’ll stay with the wounded and hand them over to the Russians.’ We silently shook his hand and made our way out of the back of the building, feeling safer when we reached the edge of the woods.
We soon reached the Lübben–Königs Wusterhausen autobahn, which we crossed at about midnight on 29 April. At last we reached the edge of the woods, where we found foxholes that had only been abandoned a few hours before. A small building stood on the far side of the woods – I don’t know whether it was a forest warden’s lodge – from which a white flag was waving. It was the first white flag that we had seen. This apparently idyllic scene was abruptly disturbed when about 30 Russians rushed out of the building to seek cover in the adjacent woods. We engaged them with machine-gun fire at a range of about 150 metres, but what stunned and left us shattered, was a naked and raped girl with a head wound lying about 100 metres left of the building and a soldier in German uniform hanging from a pine tree next to her. We were struck dumb, staring silently at the two dead persons, at the raped girl and the hanging soldier, who looked at us with glazed eyes. We cut down the dead man and went on slowly, each with the firm resolve that it was better to die than to be taken prisoner. We carried on under the cover of the woods as Russian planes crossed over above searching for us.29
Horst Wilke confirmed this last incident:
This building in the woods must have been the Massow forest warden’s lodge, which had been burnt out during the fighting. I myself went past there at about 0530 hours on 1 May, and several timbers were still glowing. The track going past it was being used by the Russians as a supply route to the autobahn. The positions were full of dead soldiers and civilians. A bit aside from the track lay a naked girl of about 12–15 years old, and next to her a dead German soldier who still had some rope around his neck. We had a good view of the terrain with the rising sun.30
Other units had yet to pass through Halbe. The SS-second lieutenant of Battlegroup Becker continued his account:
We only took up temporary positions on 29 April, but the Russians kept approaching hesitantly. We had captured two machine guns with a quantity of ammunition the previous day, and were amazed that the Russians had mainly German weapons. We went on in the afternoon and reached the outskirts of Halbe. It really was frightful. I have never seen so many dead, though unfortunately most were German. The Russians had dug in their T-34s to try and prevent the cauldron being breached, but we still had some Königstigers on our side, so it was possible to break through their positions. Later, in Russian captivity, we were told that 55,000 Germans and 5,000 Russians fell at Halbe on 29 April.
We were under constant attack from low-flying aircraft, but by 1700 hours Halbe was behind us as we followed an avenue to the west. I was wounded in the left thigh by a low-flying attack, which was no pleasant birthday present, but I carried on with an emergency dressing. We marched on all night towards Beelitz. We came to an artillery range, where there were Russian snipers in the trees. By this time we had been sharply reduced to about seventy men.
We were suddenly fired on again that afternoon from behind and everyone started running. I could only get at most thirty men into position. Heavy mortar fire drove both friend and foe under cover. I was wounded again by a mortar splinter in my lower left leg; a splinter went in above the ankle between the shin and fibula. We also came under fire from Stalin-Organs during the night of 30 April–1 May.31
And an armourer with V SS Mountain Corps reported:
We reached the village of Halbe at about 1300 hours on 29 April. On the through road towards Baruth we came up against a Russian anti-tank barrier, where hundreds of German dead lay, sometimes two or three on top of each other, including some police in their green uniforms. It was horrible. The anti-tank barrier was blown up. We had a few tanks with us, including Tigers, which formed our spearhead, drawing many civilians, including some French prisoners of war, along with the big crowd.32
The chaos in the original pocket had now become even worse, with continuous attacks from Soviet aircraft, mortars and rockets. That evening several composite groups tried to break out once more, together with countless refugees and uniformed marauders. This time the route was to be via the forest warden’s lodge at Massow, where only weak Soviet forces were thought to be, but this was a fallacy, and all these groups were wiped out.33
Those elements of the Panzergrenadier Division Kurmark which had formed the northern wedge, and covered the main breach from the north, fought hard to get through north of Halbe, then followed the Halbe–Teupitz road to the autobahn. With them were some elements of the 10th SS Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion Frundsberg which had been holding the perimeter in the Köris area, but this battalion’s 3rd Company had been cut off during the break-out by the Russian forces filling the woods and only very few of them were to survive.
Further north, near Töpchin, SS-Second Lieutenant Porsch’s Tank-Hunting Company Dora II met its fate, as he later recorded:
Our little gang was getting smaller and smaller, again and again a few good comrades were being left lying. The dead had to be buried quickly, as we had to keep on fighting and pushing forward without rest.
Then we were trapped in a clearing between Märkisch Buchholz and Töpchin, an enemy battalion having caught us in its clutches and surrounded us. We held out against all attacks for two days with our 42 men and then mounted a final counterattack. Without a round in the chamber, the last eleven climbed out of their holes and followed me with my Wolchow club raised high against the attacking Soviets. We were then overcome in close-quarter fighting, my Wolchow club breaking on a Russian helmet, and the fight was over.
At my request, the Russian regimental commander, who had personally led the last attack against our little gang, granted me three hours in which to bury our dead. We dug a long pit and laid them down, one after another, with their faces to the east towards the rising sun, as all the dead of my company were put to rest. When we went to lay their weapons beside them, as was the custom in our unit, some officers protested, but with a wave of his hand their commander, an elderly colonel, silenced them and let us continue. Once we had smoothed over the grave, we formed a half-circle in front of it and sang our farewell tribute with hoarse voices.
The Soviets stood there silently, side by side, and listened. Then we had to make our way into captivity. I was soon separated from my men and never saw any of them again.34
However, XI SS Panzer Corps’ greatly reduced rearguard, under SS-Major May, managed to get through the same area and pushed through westwards north of the main group, meeting up with it in the Trebbin Forest the following night.35
The condition of the troops in his break-out group was now such that General Busse signalled General Wenck:
The physical state and morale of the officers and men, as well as the states of ammunition and supplies, permit neither a new attack nor long resistance. The misery of the civilians who have fled out of the pocket is particularly bad. Only the measures taken by all the generals have enabled the troops to stick together. The fighting capacity of 9th Army is obviously at an end.36
This bitter struggle continued for two days. The Soviets then claimed to have killed 60,000 and captured 120,000 prisoners, 300 tanks and self-propelled guns and 1,500 pieces of artillery. In the obscurity of the woods the Soviets may well have been misled, at least temporarily, into thinking that they had caught the bulk of 9th Army and later, having realized their error, were happy to prolong the myth.
Marshal Koniev then reinforced his defence sectors and ordered attacks on the various German groups, in all deploying 15 infantry regiments or armoured brigades with about 150 tanks and SPGs, and 1,000 artillery pieces, mortars and anti-tank guns. He had 13th Army’s 395th Rifle Division redeploy from the Golssen–Baruth sector to the Mückendorf area, while 117th Guards Rifle Division of the same army was ordered to attack towards Kummersdorf Gut to prevent a breakthrough to Luckenwalde, which 68th Independent Guards Tank Brigade was ordered to block off. Then, to block the route to Beelitz, he had 63rd Guards Tank Brigade and 7th Motorcycle Regiment of 10th Guards Tank Corps of 4th Guards Tank Army deploy from the Michendorf area to Trebbin, where these forces were to control the traffic junctions. The 71st Mechanized Brigade, which was deployed along the Zossen–Kummersdorf Gut railway line in the Sperenberg area, was reinforced by two regiments of 61st Rifle Division of 28th Army. 3rd Guards Rifle Corps, also of 28th Army, was given the task of destroying the German troops in the Mückendorf woods with a double thrust from the Lindenbrück–Zesch sector to the south and from the Radeland–Baruth sector to the north.37
Meanwhile Zhukov’s armies narrowed down the remaining pockets of resistance east of Halbe during the day, their advance reaching the line Halbe–Löpten–Hammer–east bank of the Dahme, while 1st Ukrainian Front’s 3rd Guards Army maintained pressure along the line Teurow–Märkisch Buchholz.
From the Prieros area we have the following account:
On 29 April 1945 at about 0400 hours I was wounded while manning a forward position near Prieros, apparently by Seydlitz-Troops. My sleeping comrade was not hit by their fire, and I had to wake him from his exhausted sleep to bandage me. Neither had our company, 200 metres back, noticed, although I had thrown two hand grenades. The mill that I was told was our main dressing station turned out to have been vacated and I had to fight for a place on the trucks heading back, eventually finding a place on a mudguard. Ever more wounded had to be taken aboard and any combat-capable soldiers were obliged to get off, most of them being unarmed.
Even when the trucks were more than overloaded with wounded, there were still more waiting on the roadside. A young army doctor had to decide who among the wounded being transported had to get off. I watched him closely and noted that the decision over life and death was not an easy one for him.
As I was travelling on the mudguard, I was told, since I was fit enough, to look out for enemy aircraft as we drove along. Many times we had to take cover on the side of the road, for which the many foxholes dug there provided a good service. As yet again more ground-attack aircraft approached, I could only see one such foxhole some distance away. I ran to it and dived in at the same time as another soldier, who had the same intention as myself. It turned out to be a happy surprise, for the other soldier was a chap I had known from Stralsund who had been in the same company, and from then on we stayed together.38
General Wenck’s attack had made good progress that day and by the evening the leading elements of Lieutenant-General Engel’s Ulrich von Hutten Infantry Division had reached the village of Ferch at the southern tip of the Schwielowsee, some ten kilometres south of Potsdam, but in so doing reached their operational limit. The 12th Army could only improve its newly won positions a little, while holding on against increasing Soviet pressure, as it awaited the arrival of the others to break through to them. There was some particularly severe armoured fighting around the autobahn fork.
Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Müller led his Schill Division through the Lehniner Forest on the left flank, and a Major Nebel pushed forward with some SPGs along the firebreaks to the very end of the forest, where the Russian armour was waiting and engaged them. However, Nebel’s guns outflanked the danger points to hit the Soviets in their flanks and rear. The sounds of battle carried right through the Lehniner Forest to the lakes and the Potsdam garrison beyond.
Wenck contacted General Reymann of the Potsdam garrison and ordered an immediate break-out to his lines, which was begun that evening and completed the following night, the garrison making its way by boat across the Schwielowsee, or along the shore by foot. Reymann broke through with the leading groups and met up with Lieutenant-Colonel Müller. They silently shook hands before Reymann moved on to report to Wenck’s headquarters. When they arrived, the troops of the Potsdam garrison were then shared out among the Schill and Hutten Divisions as reinforcements.39
Wenck then signalled an invitation to General Weidling in Berlin: ‘Counterattacks by 12th Army stalled south of Potsdam. Troops engaged in very heavy defensive fighting. Suggest you break out to us.’ This signal was not acknowledged and it is doubtful if Weidling even received it.40
Wenck passed Busse’s message on the state of his troops on to the OKW, which in the meantime had put an end to any chances of relief from this direction by disclosing 12th Army’s dispositions and intentions in the afternoon radio communiqué. This made it even more difficult for 12th Army to hold on to its positions. The army’s situation was already precarious enough in any case with 5th Guards Mechanized Corps and 13th Army trying to cut off its line of retreat to the Elbe. That same evening Wenck’s position was further imperilled by a sudden attack northward towards Wittenberg by American troops bursting out of their bridgeheads in his rear. Fortunately this attack was not pursued, presumably because of the policy imposed from above of not intervening in the Soviet area of operations.41
Wenck signalled the OKW again that evening:
The 12th Army, and in particular XX Corps which has temporarily succeed in establishing contact with the Potsdam Garrison, is obliged to turn to the defensive along the whole front. This means that an attack on Berlin is now impossible, since we have also ascertained that we can no longer rely on the fighting capacity of the 9th Army.42
During the night Wenck received the following reluctant acknowledgement of the situation by signal from Field Marshal Keitel:
If the Commanding General 12th Army, in full knowledge of the current situation at XX Corps, and despite the high historical and moral responsibility that he carries, considers continuing the attack towards Berlin impossible …
Wenck now had a free hand to pursue his own plans.43
Hitler himself must have realised that the end was near. Having rejected General Weidling’s desperate break-out plan for the Berlin garrison, he sent the following signal to Colonel-General Jodl that evening:
1. Where are Wenck’s spearheads?
2. When will they resume the attack?
3. Where is the 9th Army?
4. Where is it breaking through?
5. Where are Holste’s XXXXI Panzer Corps’ spearheads?44
NOTES
1. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, p. 121.
2. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 320.
3. Ibid., p. 323.
4. Ibid., p. 322.
5. Lindner in the author’s Death Was Our Companion.
6. Hölz had been promoted from colonel to major-general on 23 April.
7. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, pp. 121–2; Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 323. According to his family, Langkeit surrendered to the British on 22 May, so it seems he may have either avoided capture by the Soviets, or managed to escape. (Letter to the author).
8. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 323.
9. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, p. 122.
10. Ibid., pp. 123–4.
11. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 324.
12. Lindner in the author’s Death Was Our Companion.
13. Helmut Jurisch in correspondence with the author.
14. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 325.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., p. 326.
18. Ibid., p. 325.
19. A distinction has to be drawn between the village of Kummersdorf and the artillery proving ranges at Kummersdorf Gut with their own railway station six kilometres to the south. In all the soldiers’ accounts ‘Kummersdorf’ means the artillery ranges complex, not the village proper.
20. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, pp. 325–6.
21. Ibid., p. 326.
22. Ibid., pp. 325–6.
23. Ortschronik von Kummersdorf Gut. [Rolf Kaim to author].
24. Bartmann in the author’s Death Was Our Companion.
25. Wilke, Am Rande der Strassen, p. 86.
26. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, pp. 122–4.
27. Brand in the author’s Death Was Our Companion.
28. Helmut Jurisch in correspondence with the author..
29. Wilke, Am Rande der Strassen, pp. 65–9.
30. Ibid., p. 70.
31. Ibid., pp. 83–5.
32. Ibid., p. 70.
33. Ibid., p. 57.
34. Wilke archives. The ‘Wolchow club’ was made of hard wood and was a souvenir of Porsch’s involvement in close-quarter fighting in the area of that name (usually spelt as Volkhov in English) east of Leningrad.
35. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 328.
36. Busse, ‘Die letzte Schlacht der 9. Armee’, p. 168.
37. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, pp. 125–8.
38. Wilke, Am Rande der Strassen, p. 99.
39. Gellermann, Die Armee Wenck, pp. 86–7.
40. Wenck, ‘Berlin war nicht mehr zu retten’, pp. 66–7; Strawson, The Battle for Berlin, p. 146. Neither von Dufving nor Refior mention it in their accounts.
41. Wenck, ‘Berlin war nicht mehr zu retten’, p. 68.
42. Ibid., p. 66; Gellermann, Die Armee Wenck, pp. 93–4.
43. Gellermann, Die Armee Wenck, p. 176.
44. Ibid., p. 177.