12th Army Waits
30 APRIL 1945
At 0100 hours on 30 April Field Marshal Keitel replied to Hitler’s signal of the previous evening with:
1. Wenck’s attack has stopped south of the Schwielowsee. Strong Soviet attacks along the whole of his east flank.
2. Consequently 12th Army is unable to continue its attack towards Berlin.
3. & 4. 9th Army is surrounded. An armoured group has broken out to the west; location unknown.
5. Corps Holste has been forced on to the defensive from Brandenburg via Rathenow to Kremmen.1
Later General Wenck sent the following radio message to 9th Army: ‘12th Army now engaged in heavy defensive fighting. Speed up your breakthrough. We are waiting for you.’ This was a clear call for haste, for in fact Wenck’s divisions were only holding on to their positions with difficulty.2
Erika Menze continued her story of the break-out from Halbe:
At dawn on 30 April we could see how many soldiers there were in the crowds ahead of and behind us. Civilians were scattered between all the groups of soldiers, moving along with them. The rumour was that we would come out near Baruth.
In the middle of the woods was a farmstead, that was said to be the Baruth forest warden’s lodge. We went on for hours, forwards, ever forwards. But there was also some firing, even from the treetops. The soldiers had long lost their will to carry on fighting. They also knew that this war had become nonsensical in the government’s final desperation.
Then came some officers, one here, another further off: ‘Where is your weapon?’ ‘Lost in battle!’ Then the soldiers had to take the officers’ carbines and were ordered up front. One of them did not want to follow orders and was sworn at and threatened with a pistol.
It must have been past midday when we came to Luckenwalde. We had to keep moving, though we seemed to be going round in a circle. Shot-up trees, broken-down vehicles, lost or discarded equipment, pieces of clothing and other items were all lying around. Again we saw dead German soldiers. A young girl wearing a steel helmet sat leaning against a tree. One soldier said that she was asleep, but she was dead.
That afternoon we had to cross a railway line that was under heavy fire. We crossed it singly, always during the pauses in the firing. There was another wood on the other side. A shell made a big hole about 15 metres from me, and I looked back in shock.
Some soldiers came crawling out of the white sand uninjured. Then I reached the wood. On the right was an open expanse like a broad road. There were already many foxholes among the tall pinetrees, and two Volkssturm men called out to me. They dug away the sand industriously with their small spades to make enough room for the three of us. It became a little quieter once more.
We had to move on again at dusk. When night came we were already long on our way. I slept while walking, moving along totally exhausted. One of the pair put a piece of Schoka-cola in my mouth from his iron rations. ‘You mustn’t fall asleep, girl, we have to go on!’ the men said.
We reached Märtensmühle and Ruhlsdorf. Women came towards us from the first houses. ‘For goodness sake, you’re still in uniform! Come quickly into the yard and we’ll give you some civilian clothing!’ So the three soldiers became civilians again at the next farm.
On the morning of 3 May the new mayor came and told us to use our common sense and find our way home by the shortest route.3
Meanwhile in the main group, SS-Lieutenant Bärmann was still pushing on:
At dawn we came to the station for the Kummersdorf Training Area. Again anti-tank guns were everywhere. The station, workshops and fuel depot were on fire. We broke through to the station, the dead remaining where they fell. A couple of lads rolled up a barrel of fuel. We still had five tanks left and each needed its share. One tank commander who had lost his vehicle, appropriated a T-34, marked it with a swastika flag and SS pennant and took over the lead.
We went round the ranges in a big curve and hid ourselves in the woods. A bit of peace at last, but nothing to eat.4
Individual groups were involved in heavy fighting in this area. SS-Captain Lobmeyer reported:
We fought our way across the Kummersdorf ranges, having to deal with some Seydlitz units, who kept pressing us to surrender, but we fought on to the west. More and more tanks and other vehicles had to be blown up and abandoned due to fuel or ammunition running out.5
As day broke, the last Tigers of 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion moved across the eastern firing range and then crossed over to the western firing range and stopped in the Trebbin Forest north of Schöneweide. There was an industrial railway track on the second firing range, so the wounded were loaded on wagons and towed along to the end of the ranges by a Tiger.
The exhausted troops needed a rest and the various combat teams, all that remained of the original battlegroups, wanted a chance to reorganise. A security screen was established and reconnaissance patrols sent out, which reported back that there was a strong Russian cordon with tanks and anti-tank guns deployed along the line of the Trebbin–Luckenwalde road (Reichsstrasse 101). Once more the fuel tanks of other vehicles were emptied to keep the last Tigers mobile and in action, for which SS-Captain Klust was given a written authority by General Busse.
There was a surprise addition to the group with the arrival of XI SS Panzer Corps’ rearguard, commanded by SS-Major May, who had fought their way through from Halbe along a route to the north of the main body. SS-Colonel Kempin, commander of 32nd SS Panzergrenadier Division who was with the rearguard, later commented:
Before we reached the 12th Army’s rearguard near Beelitz we attacked a Russian artillery position, with the help of some armed women. The guns were aimed to the west and they were unable to bring them to bear on us. We were totally exhausted, as for two weeks we had had neither sleep nor rations, nor any kind of supplies.6
The lead was handed over to V Corps, as communications with XI SS Panzer Corps had now been lost. Command and control – according to various reports from the few sources – was now reduced to having groups stay within shouting distance of each other.
SS-Lieutenant Bärmann went on:
It wasn’t long before the Ivans found us again and attacked us with bombs and machine-gun fire from their ground-attack aircraft, so we had to move on. Those not wounded had to march, only the wounded being allowed on the tanks. I was lying on the rear of a Jagdpanzer and fell asleep from exhaustion next to SS-Sergeant-Major Everding, who had been hit in the hip.7
They set off again towards evening. One group, which included elements of Panzergrenadier Division Kurmark, was detailed as the northern flank guard and moved off to the north before turning west just south of Wiesenhagen. This group was overtaken by Soviet tanks and was fired on by anti-tank guns and mortars, but each time the self-propelled flak gun travelling with them proved its worth, and by nightfall they had reached the area of Märtensmühle.
Meanwhile the main group, which included the Königstigers of 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion and the SPGs of 920th SPG Training Brigade, as well as armoured vehicles of Battlegroup Lobmeyer and 32nd SS Tank-Hunting Battalion, crossed the Trebbin–Luckenwalde road and the railway beyond it to reach the vicinity of Liebätz.8
SS-Lieutenant Klust, commanding one of the Tigers, reported:
We came up to the Trebbin–Luckenwalde road. I went forward to reconnoitre the situation. The road was dead straight, and left and right of it at some distance were a few well-camouflaged anti-tank guns or tanks.
I gave a short briefing to my crew. We could only advance slowly, as the trees of the patch of woods in which we found ourselves would not allow otherwise. We moved forward as if on hot coals. The Russians had only to wait until we presented them with our broadside. Which way should I turn the turret, right or left?
Infantry charged across the road. Rummbumm. The Russians fired. Now, quickly before they could reload. Thanks to the skill of my driver, Fink, we were quickly across and moving into the protective woods.
Again on a woodland track. Our spirits rose and the tanks made better speed. We approached the Luckenwalde–Teltow railway, where there was a bit of a break in the woods. Over there a stream and a sunken area of marshy meadows. Another short reconnaissance. There was nothing to be seen, but we could sense the Russians waiting for us.
We rolled forward. Suddenly shells howled around us and hit our Tiger, but it only shook with the impact, as the range was too great and the shells had lost their ability to penetrate.
I carefully tried to pick out the Russians with my binoculars, then Lasser, my gunner, tapped me on the leg. I bent down towards him in the turret and just at that moment our Tiger received another hit on the turret, causing the glass to fly out of the apertures. Then our gun fired. Without waiting for my orders, Lasser had already identified the enemy tank and fired four shots at it in short time. When this was over, I clapped my gunner on the shoulder in gratitude.9
Behind the armoured spearheads came the flood of the main break-out group, among them the wounded SS-Lieutenant Bärmann, who described how the ordeal continued:
We reached the Luckenwalde–Trebbin road at dusk. During a short halt, I climbed off and went into the bushes. I had eaten a piece of turnip and now had diarrhoea. When I returned, they had all gone. I tagged on to the stream of soldiers and civilians making their way to the west, and reached the road, where two well-camouflaged Russian anti-tank guns had the road under fire at short range. In the short pauses as the Russian crews reloaded, crowds rushed across the road, but the effects of the turnip were such that I could hardly move.
As I looked around, I saw an APC hidden behind a bush. The five men of its crew were discussing what to do, and then went with hand grenades and a machine gun to deal with the two Russian anti-tank guns. After a while I heard a short burst of fire and the explosions of hand grenades – but then the anti-tank guns started firing again.
It was hopeless for me to try and get across the road. I still had my pistol and wanted to make an end of it. Then, like a guardian angel, the cook from our Supply Company, SS-Corporal Fahrenkamp, appeared and helped me up and on.
Just short of the road we made a pause under cover to get the feel of things, and lying there were several lads from my battalion, who gave me the comforting feeling that I would not be left behind. Then a senior Flak officer appeared and asked why we were not moving on – the roar of the anti-tank guns gave him his reply.
Immediately the shells had exploded, two of our men picked me up and took me forwards; a whole mass of men crossed the road and vanished into the woods beyond. After several hundred metres we came to the multi-track railway line. We picked up a wounded man and went past a shot-up Königstiger.
We went further along a woodland track, then from behind came a whole crowd with cars. The vehicles were driven by senior officers and fully loaded behind with their belongings. They only shook their heads at the requests from the wounded; not once did one of them take one of those with them that were lying on the roadside unable to move on.
Then we met up with our group again. They had had to make a detour round a wooden bridge (near Liebätz) and were only making slow progress across the marshy meadows. There were still two Jagdpanzers and a 105-mm self-propelled howitzer.
We reached Märtensmühle as night fell. The village was under fire from heavy artillery and anti-tank guns were firing into the village from the north-east. Once it was dark, we moved on.
In the woods we came across our battalion commander, SS-Captain Krauss, who directed us to the Märtensmühle forest warden’s lodge, where the divisional command post was supposed to be. We had long since given up believing that there would still be one.
Then our divisional commander, SS-Colonel Kempin, appeared at the forest warden’s lodge, and with him was Wache, his Intelligence Officer. We heard that one break-out group had already made it. Kempin pressed for an immediate break-out so as to complete the breakthrough during the night. Hörl and I said our good-byes to Kempin and gave him our home addresses.
There were several bangs outside. A sentry reported excitedly that Seydlitz people were blowing up the last of our vehicles, but whether they were really Seydlitz people, no one could tell. Most vehicles had completely
run out of petrol.
One of our youngsters appeared with 40 litres of fuel, which we poured into the tank of our last SPG. Following a short discussion, we decided to drive on as long as the fuel lasted. We set off after midnight.10
By midnight the group containing General Busse had reached the Märtensmühle–Berkenbrück sector. They were now within ten kilometres of the positions held by 12th Army’s Hutten and Scharnhorst Divisions.11
Ever since passing through Halbe the remaining troops of the 23rd SS Panzergrenadier Division Nederland had been in the lead of the infantry breakthrough, and there were still about a hundred of them left at Märtensmühle, including their divisional commander, SS-Major-General Wagner, and the commander of the 1st Battalion, 48th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment General Seyffarth. They had also brought their injured along with them in their own vehicles, but these had now run out of fuel and some 40–50 badly wounded had to be left behind in the village school. The survivors moved on to the Märtinsmühle forest warden’s lodge to prepare for the last bound.12
The main group had survived the day, despite heavy losses in men and equipment – 1st Ukrainian Front claimed to have taken 20,000 prisoners.
Ernst-Christian Gädtke with the 32nd SS Tank-Hunting Battalion was also in this area later that day:
Dry, sunny spring weather. We rolled on through the woods on tracks and fire-breaks, myself luckily still sitting on the assault gun. Along the route was the occasional dead body, equipment discarded in heaps, abandoned vehicles, and once even a Volkswagen jeep squashed flat in the middle of the road.
In the evening we reached Märtensmühle, between Trebbin and Luckenwalde. Russian troops had passed through here days before on their way to Berlin. Next to the dead soldiers lying in the gardens and alongside the road were civilians, old men and women, and in the ditches discarded plunder, broken suitcases and washing baskets with scattered items of clothing.
We took cover in the Märtensmühle barns. Bread was shared out with canned dripping, which we washed down with ersatz coffee from our mess tins. Someone said that in the morning we would be attacking Beelitz, which was occupied by the Russians. We would break through their positions and then meet up with the troops of General Wenck’s 12th Army west of Beelitz, where they were waiting for us.13
Other splinter groups were not so lucky. The 117th Guards Rifle Division encountered a group of about 5,000 Germans near Luckenwalde, of whom eventually 4,500 were captured. Other groups were eliminated by 3rd Guards Army east of Staakow, and by 28th Army east of Kummersdorf Gut.
That night, to prevent 9th Army getting through, Marshal Koniev ordered the redeployment of some of 4th Guards Tank Army into the area east of Beelitz. This included elements of 68th Independent Guards Tank Brigade, 7th Motorcycle Regiment, 71st Light Artillery Brigade, 61st Guards Tank Brigade of 10th Guards Tank Corps, 12th Guards Mechanized Brigade of 5th Guards Mechanized Corps, together with some corps troops. They were given the task of blocking the Michendorf–Treuenbrietzen road (Reichsstrasse 2).
Those elements of Marshal Koniev’s forces fighting in the woods north and north-west of Staakow were relatively successful and by the evening of 30 April had closed up to the line Zesch–Radeland, but in the Baruth area 28th Army and 50th and 96th Guards Rifle Divisions were less successful. Their attacks north of the Hammerfliess depression were met with strong resistance and only reached the line Mückendorf–northern edge of Baruth–Radeland. The 13th Army’s 395th Rifle Division also met strong resistance near Kummersdorf Gut and was unable to penentrate any deeper into the woods. This perhaps reflects the Red Army soldiers’ weariness with the war. In order to prevent the German groups pushing south on Luckenwalde, 280th Rifle Division was redeployed from Jüterbog and was ordered to attack towards Gottow–Schöneweide. It reached these places by evening but without fully completing its task.14
A member of Battlegroup Schill, forming part of the rearguard of the Halbe pocket, reported on this day:
Late on the night of 29/30 April, the Schill Battlegroup abandoned its positions east of the Dahme, other combat units having left hours previously. The order for leaving was already 20 hours overdue. Mobs, unarmed of course, and refugees were wandering around in vast numbers, some of them with vehicles, which hindered our progress. What was intended, we had no idea, we only knew and wanted to reach our goal, if necessary by force, which was the 12th Army’s position this side of the Elbe. We first clashed with enemy forces near the Klein Hammer forest warden’s lodge. Then came enemy tank probes, in which we lost heavily, even though we were reinforced by gunners from the 1st Battalion of 32nd [SS] Artillery Regiment. Those men still capable of fighting reassembled for a break-out to the south-west, but without success. Because of the flood of other shattered troops fleeing back, our hastily-prepared positions were almost overrun. We only held on to the position by the hardest resolve and even won some additional combatants. Those in uniform unwilling to fight vanished into the woods and ran into the next Russians only a few hundred metres away. The day was filled with minor skirmishes with Russian scouts, who withdrew immediately they encountered the least resistance. There were constant air attacks.
During the course of the afternoon, enemy air activity and tank attacks concentrated on an area about three kilometres south-west of us. Occasional 20-mm flak fire indicated that our own troops must be holding out there. The constant firing of white flares by the enemy indicated their targets.
They closed in on us from three sides, our weak perimeter defences being virtually untenable, so that we had to abandon our original intention of fighting our way through the Russian positions during the night, and had to move immediately. After a somewhat hesitant start, the will to fight on prevailed, and we charged with a thunderous ‘Hurrah!’ right through the Russian positions, which promptly gave up all resistance and collapsed.
Our next move was in the direction of the flak fire we had identified. Abandoned items, from water bottles to intact 88-mm flak guns, including their towing vehicles and ammunition, indicated that we were on the same escape route as the units in the days before us. The peaceful heathland here had become a deathtrap for many thousands of brave soldiers and at least as many refugees. Within a few days we had gone from barely negotiable tracks to roads of death and horror. Women and children who had sought safety in flight from the enemy forces and the horrors of war had been overrun here and crushed, just like the thousands of soldiers who had abandoned their fighting and protective roles, thinking only of saving themselves by fleeing.
Communication with the combat team south-west of us was soon re-established and we discovered that it was the remains of SS-General Kleinheisterkamp’s XI SS Panzer Corps group, which included the Panzergrenadier Division Kurmark. This group was getting itself ready for the final breakthrough. The unifying password ‘Freedom’ was given out and the military column set off. The first part of the route was reconnoitred by scouts, and the civilians and wounded placed in the centre. The enemy immediately followed up on both sides as well as at the rear. We saw a barrier in front of us that we had to overcome. It was clearly of Russian construction, and not up to the usual Volkssturm standard. A storm troop was detailed to clear the way and mine detectors were already in operation, despite heavy enemy fire from the flanks exacting a considerable number of casualties. The barrier was taken by assault and the Russian troops gave in.
We were now standing on the outskirts of Halbe and had to redeploy. With all the shooting going on all around us, we were taking considerable numbers of casualties among those in uniform as well as the waiting refugees and wounded, so we reinforced our cover on the flanks. Meanwhile it had become dark, and we could clearly see the flashes of the Russian artillery and rocket launchers firing to the north, south and west of us, so could also see a little of what lay ahead. We could definitely make out the outlines of T-34 and Stalin tanks with a Tiger in between, among the stacks of timber in the sawmill in front of us. Our anti-tank guns opened up, but it was a waste of time as these were already wrecks from the previous days.
From above us came the tacking of the Lame Ducks15 as they fired one flare after another, so that it became almost as light as day. However, this came in useful in deploying our weapons to the best advantage.
We were hardly reacting to the explosions from shells and mortars, but the Stalin-Organs always caused a disruption. Heavy Russian machine-gun fire was raking us from a certain place in the village; it could not fail to hit something. Halbe village had become a place of death and horror. Equipment, vehicles and corpses of all kinds and many nationalities were lying about alongside and on top of each other, reaching as high as the roof gutters of the smaller village cottages. The buildings were almost all burnt out, little better than ruins. There must have been some fearful fighting here during the last few days, and the village must have changed hands several times.16
The remaining groups in the central pocket were pressed by four divisions from the south, while all the armoured forces attacked from the north. The 63rd Guards Tank Brigade set off south from the area south of Trebbin–Klein Schulzendorf while 28th Army’s 71st Mechanized Brigade and 61st Guards Rifle Division advanced on the Sperenberg area, thus blocking the Trebbin–Sperenberg road to the German groups with strong forces. These Soviet attacks created a stable defensive front, but they were unable to split up the German groups any further, and 54th Guards Rifle Division failed to block the Wünsdorf–Baruth road (Reichsstrasse 96), its advance being stopped on the Zossen–Baruth road between Zesch and Neuhof. Meanwhile Marshal Zhukov’s troops had continued clearing the woods around Halbe and by 1730 hours could report the complete destruction of the German units found there.17
NOTES
1. Gellermann, Die Armee Wenck, pp. 97–8; Gorlitz, The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel, p. 223.
2. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, p. 128.
3. Helmut Jurisch in correspondence with the author. Schoka-cola was a form of chocolate containing an energising substance.
4. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 327.
5. Ibid.
6. Letter to Dr Lakowski, cited in Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, p. 183.
7. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 327.
8. Ibid., p. 334.
9. Ibid., p. 335.
10. Ibid., pp. 335–7.
11. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, p. 129.
12. Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, p. 337.
13. Gädtke, Von der Oder zur Elbe, p. 36.
14. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, pp. 128–30.
15. This was a nickname for the Po-2, sometimes also called the Sewing Machine because of the distinctive sound of its engine. The Po-2 was a biplane, armoured against infantry fire, and used extensively for night bombing, the observer dropping either clusters of hand grenades or light bombs by hand in First World War style. Many of the crews were female.
16. Wilke, Am Rande der Strassen, pp. 71–4.
17. Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, p. 129.