Siege of Küstrin, 1945

When the Soviet troops reached the east bank of the Warthe, the situation on the peninsula became very dangerous. The way in, following the railway line, led in full enemy sight over an about 50-metre-long railway bridge spanning across the flooded land to our peninsula. Anyone moving on it could expect heavy machine-gun and mortar fire.

One of the two officer cadets that had come with me to the peninsula lay in a small dugout just a few paces from the bridge. He was wounded by a mortar bomb splinter in the upper thigh and had to wait until darkness before he could be extracted. He was in great pain, which he bore bravely. Presumably he got away from Küstrin as the fortress was not completely surrounded at this stage. The other officer cadet died from a mortar splinter to the head while delivering a message.

The route to the peninsula was little liked, but had to be managed every day, not least because of the water level report, which had to be read at the risk of one’s life at the foot of the swing bridge and reported to the company command post. Since the Russians had arrived on the Warthe, this had been located in a cellar of the first house on the edge of the Altstadt. If we did not receive the water level report, I had to do the job, something I particularly disliked.

My main task at this point was maintaining contact between the company commander and the individual platoons deployed near the bridge. Apart from this I had to deliver the Warthe water level report daily to the fortress commandant in the Schloss. This message carrying became increasingly dangerous as the fortress area diminished, as firing could come from all sides and there were big stretches offering little cover. More and more often I saw the bodies of soldiers lying on the streets and squares that had been hit by sudden barrages far behind the front line. The Red Army had plenty of ammunition and used it industriously.

On my messenger rounds I regularly came past the Oder Potato Meal Factory, where I could call on my father. From mid-February until the end of March I saw him practically every day.[3]

It must have been between 15 and 18 March that a Führer-Order demanded all the youths be evacuated from Küstrin. Some 40 to 50 youths assembled in a casemate room one evening. We were told that we would leave the town with the nightly supply convoy. We were briefed about the route and the way the convoy operated between the almost completely surrounded town and through the Russian lines. We could put our packs on the tracked vehicles, but would have to walk behind. Meanwhile I had acquired a pack again with some laundry and utensils. All weapons were to be left behind, but I took a small 6.35 pistol and ammunition with me despite the prohibition. As well as our packs, the tracked vehicles took the wounded to the hinterland.

Long thick ropes were attached to the rear of one of the vehicles to enable us to walk behind without losing contact. The convoy set off, left the town over the Oder and Vorflut Canal bridges, and set off into the night as quietly as possible, without any noise and without lights. We three remaining Birnbaumers kept together with others behind an armoured personnel carrier, and during the dangerous section were protected by being in the middle of the tracked vehicles. Hardly ever on proper roads, mainly on tracks and fields, we went stumbling on, but never letting go of the life-saving rope, towards safety and freedom. We reached Seelow in the early morning, recovered our packs and felt saved and at peace.

After a break in a Wehrmacht shelter on the Marktplatz, 30 to 40 of us were ordered to go on by rail to a retraining camp. The train left Seelow at midday. The orders to go to the retraining camp did not apply to us, so when the train stopped at Eberswalde we secretly got off. There was a local train on the track alongside going to Berlin-Bernau, so we stepped straight across from one carriage to the other without using the platform. As both trains set off in opposite directions, we separated from that closed and supervised group.

We knew that the main administration of our Heim Schools was based in Berlin-Spandau, so we reported back there. After three days in Berlin with nightly bombing attacks and the exchange of our fantasy uniforms for civilian clothing, my war service came to an end. With some difficulty we went by train from Berlin to Thuringia at the end of March. In Haubinda, near Hildburghausen, we found our Birnbaum school encamped, and with them my younger brother.[4]

We relieved units of the 25th Panzergrenadier Division and took up positions in the area around Alt Bleyen manor farm, the battalion headquarters and dressing station being set up in the farm. The 2nd Company’s command post was set up in the cellar of one of the few farm labourers’ cottages. The company itself occupied the prepared trenches directly in front of the farm, with a field of fire covering the Schäferei [sheep farm] and Alt Bleyen. The dugouts, however, only provided protection from splinters and light shells. Immediately south-west of the farm were two infantry guns, and two machine guns were positioned about 100 metres south-west from them. From there they could cover the whole western and southern sides with their fire. Another 100 metres further on towards Gorgast was an 88mm flak gun dug in for ground fighting. A communications trench connected these firing points and ended in the trenches we were occupying. The flat terrain started in front of our positions, extending to the Schäferei and Gorgast to the south-west. Far off to the south, towards the railway, a line of trees obstructed our view. The land was completely flat and easy to observe. Behind the labourers’ cottages were three self-propelled guns. The supply route between the hinterland and fortress ran past near the farm. Every night German tracked vehicles went along to the Altstadt and back again.

We obtained our ammunition and food supplies at night, as our supply column was located well behind the main front line. The noise of fighting came from Küstrin and the Gorgast direction all day long. At night fires reddened the sky over the fortress. For us at the Alt Bleyen manor farm Tuesday and Wednesday passed peacefully. We just had to be careful, for the Russian snipers reacted to every movement.[5]

On Wednesday afternoon [21 March] two to three hundred twin-engined Soviet bombers in close formation dropped two bomb carpets on the boundary line near Gorgast. Although the bombing area was 3 kilometres from us, the earth around us shook. This and an otherwise suspicious silence indicated that the next enemy offensive was imminent.[6]

On 20 March my company command post moved into the cellars of the Court House. It was no longer possible to check the Warthe water level and report it to fortress headquarters, but nobody asked for it. I made my rounds as a messenger under fire, visiting my father every day, on the last occasion just a few hours before his death. I believe this was on 24 March.

I remember that I returned to the Court House at dusk and was given the job of mending a shot-though cable providing power from a generator in the town to the courthouse cellar to enable us to hear the news on the radio. It had become dark, but nevertheless I still had to take cover from the ‘Sewing Machines’ flying overhead and dropping flares and incendiary and explosive bombs on anything that moved. Once the aircraft had flown off, I resumed looking for the break in the cable and was suddenly shocked by a tremendous explosion that must have occurred close by. But I had heard no bomb falling, which shocked me, as it was completely unusual. Soon afterwards I found the fault in the cable, repaired it and turned back for the Court House cellar. Then I heard on the radio the news that Allied troops had crossed the Rhine and were fighting around Dinslaken, my home town.

A little later, an NCO of my company came in and told me that my father’s command post at the Oder Potato Meal Factory had been hit by an incendiary bomb that had ignited a stack of shells. After a while the fire had reached the hand grenades stored there, setting off a violent explosion that had destroyed the north-west side of the factory. Second-Lieutenant Schröter had been left hanging head down in the beams, still conscious, but he died soon afterwards. Nothing had happened to my father, however. So I had another quiet night.

The next morning I went to my company commander asking to go to the Oder Potato Meal Factory to see what had happened. The whole way I thought what the worst could be. The previous evening the NCO had said that my father had not been seen. I found the factory mainly destroyed, above all glowing as hot as an oven so that it was impossible to go in. I then went to the nearby Artillery Barracks to ask Captain Fischer about it. On my way I passed a soldier named Müller in a trench who was in my father’s company and asked about him: ‘I cannot say’, he replied and turned away, and at that moment I knew that my father was dead.

I remember the feeling that suddenly overcame me and blanketed out everything else. I felt no sadness or despair, rather a frightful emptiness before a background that was filled with anxiety, an increasing depression and returning anxiety. A strange rigidity gripped me. If I had recognised it, it was as if I had slipped out of myself.

It was in this state that I met Captain Fischer, who officially informed me that my father was dead and expressed his sympathy. My father had personally led the team trying to extinguish the burning ammunition with water from the Oder and wet sacks. The explosion caused the building to partially collapse, burying the firefighters under the debris. They experienced a mercifully swift death, while those who had survived the collapse in the hollow space beyond were behind a wall of fire that no one could penetrate. Their cries for help could be heard but no one could get through and they were burned alive. Between ten and twenty men of my father’s company died with him.

I went back to the command post in the Court House, but cannot remember what I did or felt.[7]

The second Russian offensive on Küstrin began with an artillery preparation on the morning of Thursday, 22 March 1945. The whole front line as far as our horizon, the southern and northwestern parts of the corridor position lay under heavy artillery fire, but no shells fell on us. We had orders to hold our fire. The central part of the corridor was to remain as quiet as possible, but barely 2 kilometres from us was a frightful wall of fire, steel and earth.

As passive spectators, we had to look on as the barrage began to move. Then came the Soviet infantry and, behind the storm troops, enormous columns, including panje wagons.

The self-propelled gun commander sought me out to complain strongly about our battalion commander. Despite orders to the contrary, he had begged Major Quetz for permission to open fire, and having been refused, he said: ‘We will never have the Russians so concentrated in front of us. What losses we could inflict upon them now! All those that we don’t put out of action today we will have to defend ourselves against tomorrow under worse conditions of increased superiority. Apart from that, we would be supporting our comrades on the main front line!’

The sounds of heavy infantry and cannon fire came from Gorgast and the Schäferei that seemed to move a little and then increase into a strong cannonade. Towards noon it changed to short, raging infantry fire, then became weaker and finally ended with a dull explosion.

Since the assault that had gone past us that morning we had seen no one, either Russian or German. At dusk a wounded SS man came towards us unimpeded across the open fields. He belonged to the Leibstandarte ‘Adolf Hitler’ and reported the destruction of his battalion. He now wanted to join the other Leibstandarte battalion that should be somewhere near Berlin. When he realised that he was in an encirclement and had also been heading east, he asked for some bread and water and went back the way he had come.

Later that evening the battalion was redeployed to cover the farm from the south-west. One section took up position every 100 to 150 metres. I had to dig in with my men about 75 metres from the 88mm gun with no communications trench to the rear. The company commander personally gave me my orders: ‘This position is to be held to the last man. Evacuation only on orders!’

Towards midnight Sergeant Hoffmann and I made a reconnaissance towards the railway line. We went forward about a kilometre without seeing or hearing anyone on this dark night. Only from Küstrin was there occasional artillery fire and burning fires.[10]

It must have been one or two days later [after 20 March] that ground-assault aircraft attacked the Court House with heavy bombs. I was about to leave on my messenger rounds, but stayed in the cellar with my back to some steel air-raid shelter doors as both neighbouring cellars had been partly destroyed by direct hits. The company command post was in one of them. When the clouds of dust subsided, the steel doors were completely buckled and two men pulled the company commander out into the open.

The company command post was then established in an earth-covered bunker that was about in line with the Court House, but further north-west near the railway line in quite thick undergrowth. That afternoon or the next day, I was given the task of reconnoitring the area and trenches to the south-east. These stretched from behind the Court House, parallel to the Warthe, to the road leading to the Neustadt, where Soviet troops were expected soon. In an earth bunker I found a Russian soldier who had been wounded in the foot. I ordered him to come with me, but finally I had to put his arm around my neck and support him.

I took him to the wooden bunker and we tried to carry him between four of us to the field hospital, but this did not work, as the Friedrichstrasse that we had to cross was under heavy shellfire and we had to turn back. When we returned to the bunker, the order to retreat arrived together with the news that the railway and road bridges would be blown up behind us.

An NCO saw the wounded man and said: ‘In a fortnight he will be fighting against us again.’ He handed me his pistol and went on: ‘Take him outside and shoot him!’ I refused, as did the others, until the company cook took the pistol, led the wounded man outside and shot him. The whole scene took place in the presence of the company commander, Lieutenant Schröder, who said nothing, as if he was not in charge. I have long thought that I should have left the young Russian soldier in his hole. He would have been in safety next day, and I am convinced that his foot would have taken the rest of the war to heal.[11]

On 22 March we moved our battalion command post from the Law Courts to the Oder Malt Factory, which was not far from the Artillery Barracks on the west bank of the Oder. As I knew the town well, I had to go back over the Oder bridges into the Altstadt. The road bridge had already suffered considerable damage in the meantime. It was often difficult taking messages to the Altstadt.

Once I had to find out at night in complete darkness whether the Warthe bridges had been completely destroyed. This was not the case with the road bridge. For this task I had an escort of several men, one of whom was lost. Upon our return to the command post I had to take some bitter words from his friend.

It must have been on 22 March that Soviet bombs hit the casemate in the Friedrichstrasse. The event was devastating for us. Among those platoon commanders gathered there for a conference were Lieutenant Hagen, Second-Lieutenant Behr, Battalion Sergeant Major Gleiche, and Staff Sergeants Tewes and Kukei.

On or about 20 March the fortress commandant, SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant-General of the Waffen-SS Reinefarth, moved his command post out of the Altstadt to the Artillery Barracks. About five days later he gave over command of the fortress to Captain Fischer, who mockingly said: ‘So a little captain will now take over the fortress.’ This fact has not been noted in any book to appear so far. However, I had this from the mouth of Captain Fischer himself![12]

The Russians attacked us on Friday afternoon without any preliminary reconnaissance, artillery or armoured support. They came from the direction of the Gorgast–Kietz railway line in line abreast, widely spaced out and several metres apart, holding rifles or sub-machine guns in their hands. The first row was followed by a second, this by a third, then the fourth, fifth and sixth. Despite orders to the contrary, the two machine guns behind us opened fire at 800 metres and all the other weapons joined in. The Soviet infantry then advanced in bounds as our artillery in the Seelow area joined in the battle. They merely dug themselves in before us as they came under direct fire from the 88mm gun. This position was the turning point of the Russian attack. West of us the attackers stormed further northwards, thus thrusting eastwards and digging in 100 to 200 metres from the heavy machine guns and the rifle trenches west of the farm. This attack was a difficult but precisely executed manoeuvre, assisted by the inaccuracy of the German defensive fire.[14]

During the night leading to Saturday [24 March] more fires flamed in Küstrin. In the south-west German troops sought to break out of the encirclement. They forced the Soviet front back with strong artillery fire and started fighting for Gorgast in the depths of the night. However, they were brought to a halt and shortly afterwards were driven back to the west by the Red Army.

For my comrades and me this failure was a great disappointment. With my section I had marked the south-westerly point of the Küstrin encirclement and seen the fire of our relieving troops about 3 kilometres away.

The noise of combat came from Küstrin all day long. At night, when it was quiet, fires lit up the town. The Russians also shot a building within the farm area into flames practically every night, making the delivery of ammunition and food difficult. Sometimes it took more than two hours for the few hundred metres to be covered, and once it succeeded only at the second attempt. Every night the ‘Orderly Sergeant’, an armoured Soviet biplane, appeared and would switch off its engine near its target then glide over it dropping small shrapnel bombs. During the day several German aircraft flew over Küstrin and dropped supply containers by parachute.

The Russians penetrated a gap in the positions between us and the 3rd Company, and occupied an isolated farm. From there a gun brought us under such uncomfortably direct fire that the battalion’s assault platoon received orders to regain the farm. The badly led attack in the dark, without the support of heavy weapons, failed.

One evening I had a stupid altercation with the 88mm battery commander. He inspected the flak position and then came to my section under cover of darkness. A steel helmet protected the head of this officer. After I had made my report, he told me off for wearing a field cap in the front line. When I told him that we only wore steel helmets under certain conditions, and that my company commander also wore a field cap, the altercation became louder until in the end I had to give way, if only for a few minutes, until he had disappeared in the direction of the manor farm.

The battalion lay under heavy fire on the Saturday and Sunday from infantry weapons, Stalin-Organs and guns. The worst were the often hour-long attacks by ground-attack aircraft, which concentrated on the infantry guns but failed to put them out of action. The battalion’s losses increased, but my section was lucky so far.[16]

On Saturday [24 March] the 3rd Company on our left was thrown out of its positions. Their counterattack on Sunday failed because of the company commander having a nervous breakdown. The immediate enemy response thrust into the company’s departure line, occupied it and closed up to the south-eastern corner of the manor farm complex.[17]

In March I received orders to build and occupy a new position, also on the Oder dyke, but about 100 metres from the infantry bunker. This put us about 500 metres from the Bienenhof, lying on a mound where once a pub had stood. From here I could fire towards the Sonnenburger Chaussee. Far off to the south-west, south and south-east we could sometimes see enemy vehicles, but did not fire at them. Sometimes when we had permission to open fire, we fired at targets on the west bank of the Oder.

In the course of the offensive on the Altstadt we too came under strong artillery fire. The dugout in which I was received two direct hits, causing the entrance to collapse and making a hole in one of the walls. At least the latter served me well, for I was able to crawl out through the hole. The cause of this was a Soviet anti-tank gun on the west bank of the Oder.

My right eye had been hit and was falling out. In addition one nostril had been pierced through and a large wooden splinter was stuck in my upper lip. One of my men suffered a bruised groin from the same shell-burst. There were no other casualties as at the beginning of the barrage the men had spread out so that a direct hit would only get one man. I said good-bye to my men and went back to the Altstadt alone. There were no communication trenches from our position to the rear, only individual foxholes. My route was along the foot of the dyke across the Oder levels, followed for a long time by bursts of enemy machine-gun fire, fortunately too high or too far away.

Because of my sudden reduction to one eye, my progress was uncertain and not very fast. To avoid the enemy fire, I crossed the dyke and went on along the Chaussee. Here, however, the Russian rifle positions were closer, so I crossed back to the Oder levels, where I soon reached the dead angle.

Our company command post was in a casemate near the Kietz Gate, right on the road and a bit north of the big road junction. There was also an infantry command post here, a room for the Panther turret crew and the replacement crew for my gun. I sought out the latter first and was bandaged for the first time. The infantry company commander had me brief him on the events at the Bienenhof. I was able to stop Wolfgang Paul from going forward with his men for the moment, as it made no sense to do so, and also avoided unnecessary injuries.

As the Altstadt was under strong artillery fire, I remained in the casemate. Only at nightfall did the firing reduce to harassing fire. When comrades took me to the Schloss the streets were still burning right and left. The field hospital was in a cellar with the rooms for patients laid out with mattresses. I did not receive the attention of a doctor until the following day, because, in my opinion, the only doctor was expecting many acute cases of badly wounded soldiers. When I asked the doctor about the condition of my eye, he replied that I would have to get used to it for a long time.

How long I was in the field hospital in the Schloss cellars, I do not know. The weak lighting was the same day and night. There was plenty of coming and going, but I lost all sense of time. I lay on my mattress and dozed.[18]

Later I was sent to a flak battery located on the west bank of the Oder near the Reichsgarten pub. There were two guns in the position, and from there we were able to shoot up two Soviet tanks coming up the Sonnenburger Chaussee. Several German dead were buried behind the Artillery Barracks at the Reichsgarten pub.

When we had run out of ammunition for our guns, or the guns had been hit by enemy fire, I was assigned as an infantryman in the Altstadt. We were accommodated in the Girls’ Middle School on Schulstrasse, which received a direct hit one day that buried twenty-eight of our comrades. We could only dig out seven men alive, and the remaining twenty-one could well still be buried under the rubble.[19]

On the night leading to Monday [26 March] we lost our left flank protection about 150 metres away. The leader of the three-man section there was wounded. A warrant officer, who was a bit simple but also very brave, sorted out the men. As the enemy situation was not clear to him as a result of the changed circumstances, he simply crept over alone and orientated himself. All went well while he traced the enemy position, but he was spotted on the way back and shot through the thigh by one of his own men. While his comrades were taking him back to the dressing station, the Russians established themselves in the abandoned trench and took us under uncomfortable fire from the flank.

The infantry guns, the heavy machine guns, the Hoffmann section, the 88mm flak gun and my section still formed a long, narrow finger into the enemy, from which we were connected to the manor farm only by a trench from the flak position. Our battalion position in the manor farm area was itself only a part of a wedge reaching from Kuhbrücken to the north-west.

Night after night the Soviet units moved in closer, spending the day in quickly dug out scoops ready to take another jump forward the following night. With our 42 machine guns and the necessary supply of ammunition we were able to slow down their rate of advance. Nevertheless we were not able to sleep any more. Only during the day, crouched in our foxholes, could we take a short nap or sink into a light half-sleep in which any change in the position would immediately awaken us.

My section received no more cold rations on the last night, only a few canteens of drinking water. The Russians had worked their way forward to less than 100 metres from us and dug foxholes all around us. The night was as disturbed as if daylight had driven off the darkness.[24]

This Monday morning the Red Army units made a concentrated attack on the Alt Bleyen manor farm. Katyuschas opened fire, and were joined by guns and mortars. The opening blow was so strong that we could not see the flak position 75 metres away.

Because of the proximity of the enemy and his overwhelming superiority in numbers, we had no choice but to keep firing during the fire preparation so that he could not get up to attack. Within a short time four of our six machine guns were out of action with ripped barrels from lacquered ammunition. Our lives depended upon these machine guns. Replacements were needed. To get through the barrage only Fischer, Krell and I were available. The machine-gunners could not leave, so I had to go. I jumped out of the trench and dived into the wall of fire. Suddenly I received a blow, was lifted up and lost consciousness. When I came to, I carefully moved my arms and legs and felt my head and body. Nothing. My steel helmet lay several metres away. Now I crawled on until I reached the flak position, where a sentry pulled me into the trench. I sought out my platoon commander and the gun commander. Together we controlled the gun. It was ready to fire. The crew had so far had only a few wounded. The flak machine gun also began to fire. I took two of its four replacement barrels. Then the gun commander pushed me up out of the trench. This time I was scared and crawled back.

Then the storm began on the manor farm. First a Soviet storm troop broke into the trenches of our 1st Platoon, rolled it up and approached the company command post, threatening to split the battalion in two. The company headquarters troop was able to clear this breach in an immediate counterattack using sub-machine guns, hand grenades and Panzerfausts. The troops attacking the flak position were gunned down by the 88mm gun at point-blank range.

The battalion commander also sent the three self-propelled guns to our support. They drove right up to the Soviet rifle pits and turned, squashing all who lay there. Immediately the Soviet fire concentrated on our self-propelled guns. When one of them received a direct hit, the others turned back.

The firing slowly died down. The noise of combat could only be heard from the dyke road to Kuhbrücken. Here, between the parallel dyke roads to the southern hamlet of Alt Bleyen, a panzergrenadier battalion of the ‘Müncheberg’ Panzer Division was defending itself, together with an officer-cadet company and another dug-in 88mm flak gun, against the tank-supported enemy attack from the north. That afternoon the attackers were able to break through to the southern edge of Neu Bleyen. By evening nine destroyed enemy tanks stood in the area, the officer cadets were down to only a few men and the 88mm gun had been rendered unserviceable. The Russians had reached the dyke road between the manor farm and Kuhbrücken.

On this beautiful sunny Monday morning the Soviet artillery resumed firing at us, slowly increasing in intensity. This lasted several hours. Then the ground-assault aircraft appeared flying sometimes in threes, sometimes in sevens. They crossed over our battalion’s positions always in the same order: orientation, dropping bombs, firing with machine guns or rockets. Once one group was finished, another would follow. When the aircraft tipped over to attack, one could only pull one’s head in and trust to luck. The infantry guns were attacked the most. In the afternoon even phosphorus was dropped on them.

I was afraid that the Russians would overrun us when the ground-attack aircraft forced us to take cover. But, despite their superiority, the Soviet infantry did not dare to do so. Apparently they had not recovered from their bloody repulse that morning.

One had to be unbelievably cautious. My field cap was shot through several times when raised to see what would happen.

That afternoon, as the relentless fire from Soviet artillery and ground-attack aircraft continued and it became simply a matter of luck whether my foxhole would suffer a direct hit, I lost my last belief in a higher Being connected with human history. My belief no longer existed, driven out by the fearful development of air attacks on the civilian population and the knowledge that the Christian priests on our side prayed to the same God as the Allies for the success of their weapons.

The enemy attack had cost us a lot of ammunition. I had only two Very light cartridges for the coming night. For supplies we had half an iron ration and half a canteen of water per man. That afternoon supply containers were dropped on Küstrin again.

With darkness a runner from the company appeared. Because of the losses the division into platoons was cancelled and the number of sections reduced. Half an hour later I was shot in the chest during a short exchange of fire. I reported to my platoon commander, whom I found in the flak position, and went on through the trenches of the Hoffmann section over the dead bodies left from that morning. The Russians were dug in here close to our positions.

It was half dark in the dressing station in the cellars of the manor house. In the flickering of the Hindenburg Lights, the doctor told me: ‘That is not a shot in the lungs. You have been lucky. If you can walk, then get away. Alt Bleyen is about to be evacuated. Take the lead with the sergeant over there of all the walking wounded.’

It was pitch dark. We went slowly past the pond to the dyke road and then along the foot of the dyke, even more cautiously, our weapons ready for action in our hands. For a distance of several hundred metres the Russians were on one side of the dyke and on the other side were our men at long intervals. About 100 to 150 metres from the dyke there was a shallow, weakly occupied trench on the other side of the ‘corridor’ connecting the manor farm with Küstrin. This is where I saw out the rest of the evening. We expected hand grenades to come over the dyke at any moment, but everything remained quiet.

The survivors of Fusilier Battalion 303 were able to withdraw to Kuhbrücken during the night, but only by leaving behind the heavy weapons, including the three self-propelled guns. Together with the remains of other units, they took up new positions here as Combat Team ‘Quetz’.

When we reached the spider’s web of tracks in Kuhbrücken that night, we met Volkssturm men in the cottages there who believed the Alt Bleyen manor farm to be surrounded. Together with others they had been ordered to fight open the way back to the farm complex and get us out. They were mightily relieved not to have to clear the complex.

We went over the Kietz railway bridge to the main dressing station that had been set up in the cellars of the Artillery Barracks on the Island. The doctors could hardly keep their eyes open from sheer exhaustion. One instructed me to take the next wounded transport back to hospital, but when I told him where I came from he fell silent.

Then we were sent on into the Altstadt. We passed a large burning building, apparently stacked full of tins of preserves judging from the constant dull explosions emerging, crossed the Oder Bridge and finally reached the auxiliary hospital in the cellars of the Boys’ Middle School. I was allocated the lower bunk of a two-storey air-raid bed and immediately fell asleep.[26]

In the evening darkness of 26 March I noticed in leaving the cellar of the Potato Meal Factory that cartridges were on fire in front of the building between heaps of stick grenades. The culprit was apparently a ‘Sewing Machine’, an enemy aircraft dropping bombs. When I reported this, Captain Fischer ordered the fire to be extinguished using sacks soaked in the Oder. Later I was ordered to fetch some firemen. On my return I had just reached the Artillery Barracks when the stack of munitions blew up. The cellar of the Potato Meal Factory was on fire. A wall of fire prevented every attempt to reach those trapped in and behind the rubble. Several of them were burnt alive. Between twenty and thirty men lay buried in the rubble, among them Captain Dahlmanns, Second-Lieutenant Schröter and Corporal Grosch. Second-Lieutenant Schröter should not actually have been in Küstrin. He had been given the job of taking us to the front, and then should have returned to Armoured Engineer Replacement Battalion 19 in Holzminden, as his wound was not yet fully cured. The already mentioned Corporal Hans Dahlmanns thus lost his father, whom I knew as a good man, who had treated me in a fatherly manner. I was also present when Captain Fischer expressed his condolences to Corporal Dahlmanns upon the death of his father.[27]

On the morning of 27 March we were told to go from our accommodation in Wallstrasse to the company command post for new orders for the next day. One group of four Volkssturm men set off. We had hardly gone 100 metres when a sudden bombardment took us by surprise. The Russians were firing with heavy calibre weapons on the area we were in. At the same time aircraft were dropping bombs. We sought shelter under a high and thick wall where the Zorn firm stored its coal.

The Dawidowski brothers and another comrade from Drewitz sought cover under the third arch of the wall, while the fourth one of our group and other comrades went under another arch and in a somewhat deeper situated building. The coal-yard wall was under particularly heavy fire, and was swaying to and fro from the hits. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion and a flash of fire. It was a direct hit on the third arch in the wall, exactly where the Dawidowski brothers and the other comrade were standing. This part of the wall collapsed. The men standing under it were buried under the falling masonry and were certainly killed instantly.

The shooting increased. It was no longer possible to get through to the company command post. Although the way back to the platoon accommodation was only about 100 metres, I did not get back until evening. There was no chance of looking for the dead and burying them, as next day the Altstadt was to be evacuated following the Russians coming in through the Kietz Gate. So the dead still lie today under this wall.[32]