Siege of Küstrin, 1945

The logic of combat is inexorable; it accepts neither justifications nor plausible excuses if during the fighting the logistical services fail to supply the frontline troops with everything necessary.

We can find any number of valid explanations and excuses why on reaching the walls of Posen we did not have enough heavy guns to pulverise the enemy fortifications. But the fact remains that the assault on Posen dragged out for a whole month instead of the several days allotted for the operation by the Front Command.

It was not a simple matter to adapt the logistical services to the troops’ heightened rate and depth of advance. The Front Commander’s orders and his determination could not solve the problem. Within a few days the advancing troops had considerably outdistanced their supplies. Motor vehicles had to make longer runs. As a result fuel consumption increased. And there was no magic to turn 100 trucks into 300. You’ve got to have them, man them and provide the maintenance for them, which means additional repair shops and whole repair complexes. In a word, combat operations demanded that the logistical services perform their functions faultlessly, for a miscalculation or blunder in the transport operations could cost thousands of lives.

But the closer we approached the Oder, the deeper we penetrated into Germany, the more complex became the supply system.

Here is an example. Railways were a constant source of worry. The absence of a standard railway gauge during the initial stage of our advance into Germany adversely affected the supply of the advancing troops. The oversight was put right eventually, but time was lost.

In order to save fuel, half the motor vehicles making empty runs from the front were towed to their destination. All captured fuel was registered and distributed under strict control. Captured alcohol was mixed with other components and used as fuel, and all serviceable captured guns and ammunition were used against the enemy.[2]

Our tank troops attacked without pause for breath by day and night, in fog and in snow. Only the lack of fuel and ammunition could check our attack. The communication routes had extended to almost 400 kilometres, the supply depots having remained on the east bank of the Vistula. The railways were not functioning and the road bridges over the river had been destroyed. There was petrol for motor vehicles in the captured German camps but no diesel. Often combatant units were stuck for days.[3]

By the same day the tank armies shall gain control of the following areas:

The 2nd Guards Tank Army: Berlinchen, Landsberg, Friedeberg; the 1st Guards Tank Army: Meseritz, Schwiebus, Tirschtiegel.

Upon reaching this line, the formations, particularly the artillery and the logistical establishments, shall halt, supplies be replenished and the combat vehicles put in order. Upon full deployment of the 3rd Shock and 1st Polish Armies, the Front’s entire forces shall continue the advance on the morning of the 2nd February, 1945, with the immediate mission of crossing the Oder in their drive, and shall subsequently strike out at a rapid pace towards Berlin, directing their main effort at enveloping Berlin from the north-east, the north and northwest.[5]

There is evidence that the enemy is hastily bringing up his forces to take up defensive positions on the approaches to the Oder. If we manage to establish ourselves on the western bank of the Oder, the capture of Berlin will be guaranteed.

To carry out this task each army will detail one reinforced rifle corps… and they shall be immediately moved forwards to reinforce the tank armies fighting to secure and retain the position on the west bank of the Oder.[6]

On the evening of the 26th January, the vanguard of the 11th Guards Tank Corps, Colonel Morgonov’s 45th Guards Tank Brigade, reached the town of Tirschtiegel and the former German–Polish border. Before us lay the Obra River, beyond began Germany.

How long we had yearned for this day, and now it was there. We just had to take one more step and we would be standing on German soil. Our spirits rose. The vanguard tried to take the river on the move, but it was not so easy, as the enemy had blown all the bridges in his retreat and offered bitter resistance.

The 45th Guards Tank Brigade attacked Tirschtiegel in vain on the 26th January. On the night leading to the 27th January, Colonel Gussakovski’s 44th Guards Tank Brigade circumvented the town to the north, forced the Odra and thrust on to Hochwalde without encountering any resistance.

At 0300 hours the brigade’s vanguard, Major Karabnov’s 3rd Battalion, came up against a barricade across the road. The engineers made a reconnaissance. To the left and right of the road were ranged anti-tank ditches covered by minefields and concrete obstacles. The engineers pulled out the girders supporting the barricade, and the tanks were able to continue.

Gussakovski had reached the so-called Oder Triangle, the fortified area of Meseritz, a strong and difficult-to-take obstacle on the way to the Oder that began on the west bank of the Obra. This main line of defence strip extended between Schwerin, Meseritz and Schwiebus about 20 kilometres further west.

The Oder Triangle formed a massive defensive installation. It consisted of numerous reinforced concrete bunkers, so-called armoured works, incorporating the latest technical measures and echelonned to a depth of up to 6 kilometres. These armoured works went down two or three storeys into the earth and were mounted with armoured cupolas with artillery pieces and machine guns that could be exposed or retracted. The walls were up to 2.5 metres thick and the cupolas had 350 millimetres of armour. These armoured works were connected by underground passages, had their own power and air filter systems, water and drainage systems, ammunition and food stores. They were further reinforced with field works, anti-tank ditches, barricades, barbed wire and minefields. In front of the main defensive installation was a chain of lakes running from north to south.

As quickly as possible, our corps regrouped north of Schwiebus and entered the fortified area from the rear without encountering strong resistance. Once the enemy realised that he was surrounded, many of the garrisons surrendered to our all-arms armies following up behind.[7]

In 1942 I was badly wounded in an attack in the woods in the Voronesh area east of the Don and lost my lower right arm.

In January 1945 I was a lieutenant commanding a company in an infantry replacement and training battalion under the command of Major Shellack and based on the Strantz Barracks in the East Brandenburg town of Landsberg an der Warthe.

At the end of January there was a sudden alert. I had to see off my wife and little son who were visiting me in the barracks and put them on a truck going west. Then I received orders to form a line of defence against the expected Russians hard east of Landsberg. My sector began on Reichsstrasse 1 at the Oldenburg Experimental Farm (inclusive) and extended some 1.5 to 2 kilometres south to the village of Lorenzdorf. My left-hand neighbour to Irrenanstalt was a unit under Second-Lieutenant Clemens in a situation similar to mine, and my right-hand neighbour an inserted unit of Hungarian Honveds.

I had about 400 recruits at my disposal, some of whom had yet to be sworn in, i.e. mainly youngsters who had just completed their pre-military Hitler Youth training and were at the beginning of their barrack training. Sergeants and NCOs were completely lacking, so these functions were undertaken by recruits with some military knowledge and whose appearance seemed the most suitable. I had no information about our own forces or the enemy.

The temperature on the 28th January was minus 15 degrees Celsius with a thick and frozen blanket of snow. There was great movement to the rear on Reichsstrasse 1 of men on foot and in vehicles. The enemy situation remained quiet, unknown and uncertain, but attacks by advance units could be expected at any time.

A makeshift occupation of the defences was made in and around the farm but there was no infantry for this. However, in front was a twin 20mm flak gun with its crew, its second lieutenant having disappeared. There were also two Hetzers.

That afternoon of the 28th January I administered the oath to those recruits who had not yet been sworn in, in the cover of the farm.

On the morning of the 29th January a sergeant-major of the Waffen-SS reported to me with two Königstigers, two heavy recovery vehicles, a tanker and an amphibious jeep, as well as plenty of ammunition. There was a third Königstiger of his 500 metres from my position that had broken down. My youngsters had to help with the recovery of this vehicle, as the Russians had already probed Lorenzdorf. The recovery succeeded and my escorting infantry were not only highly praised by the tankers, but the sergeant-major decided to support me with his platoon for our cooperation.

Once the vehicles had refuelled in Landsberg, the two recovery vehicles towed the twin 20mm flak gun into a well-covered firing position behind our sector, as well as the two Hetzers and an 88mm flak gun on its trailer that I had acquired from the fleeing columns. Thus all the heavy weapons had taken up secure positions and had good fields of fire in depth in front of our sector and our neighbour’s. My unit was now ready, quietly and confidently awaiting the enemy attack.

During the second half of the 30th January the Russians attacked and took Lorenzdorf. The Hungarians withdrew without concern for us, their left-hand neighbours, without orders or even a ‘good-bye’, but with the fire of our heavy weapons into the flanks of the enemy, we stopped his advance. Then we forced him to withdraw and abandon Lorenzdorf with the reserve and a Königstiger, during which a captured recruit from my company was released.

I still did not know what my superior formation was or who its commander was. Since receiving my orders in the barracks I had not received any further instructions and had no communications with any staff whatsoever. No officer or messenger had sought me out. I only knew that the Russians were attacking and that, since the flight of the Honveds, I now had an almost 3-kilometre-wide open and unprotected flank to the Warthe over which the Russians could renew their attack.

An appreciation of the situation showed that we were surrounded by the enemy, forgotten and lost.

As it was suspected that the town commandant of Landsberg had fled in panic, and that Soviet infantry could infiltrate the town by bypassing us, I decided after consultation with my neighbour and the SS-sergeant-major to withdraw [to] preserve lives and fighting ability…the untrained recruits would also be spared possible house-to-house fighting at night and Landsberg bypassed to the north. This succeeded during the night in deep snow on field and woodland tracks without enemy interference. Clemens’s unit also used the same route to evacuate its position. For the heavy weapons, especially the mechanically incapacitated Königstiger and the recovery vehicles, the only route was by road through Landsberg, if necessary fighting through. The SS, flak and Hetzer crews therefore combined and arranged a rendezvous for the next day between Landsberg and Vietz.

On the morning of the 31st January my unit rejoined the Königstiger SS-sergeant-major about 4 kilometres west of Landsberg in the Wepritz area. As we were still without a superior command or orders, I had us retreat westwards.

Beyond Dühringshof I was met by a car with a general, who received my report. He did not introduce himself, nor did he name his formation. He ordered me to deploy left of the road to Diedersdorf. My left-hand neighbour would be Second-Lieutenant Clemens’s unit.[11]

On the 28th January 1945, my birthday, we were deployed on the northern exit from Kreuz in artillery support of Infantry Battalion ‘Schulz’. As we were about to fire our guns at about 0600 hours, the sentry reported to me that the infantry had already withdrawn. That seemed unbelievable to me, as there had still not been any enemy movement. I thought that they had perhaps seen runners, food carriers and wounded. The sentry was convinced, however, and as it appeared, he was correct.

We opened fire without having any infantry protection in front of us and without having been told of this withdrawal. Naturally the Russians fired back and we had one man wounded.

When the tanks rolled through the rows of houses on the parallel street, we could only beat a hasty retreat. We got away from the Russians, crossed a still intact bridge over the Drage and reached Dragebruch, which consisted of only a few houses. Our vehicles stood on the roadway, while the soldiers looked in the houses for something to eat, but the civilian inhabitants had gone, taking all their food with them.

Our troop leader drove off to re-establish contact with the vanished infantry battalion. Then at about 1000 hours the enemy tanks caught up with us. They were as surprised as we were and did not open fire immediately. They first pulled back a little to open fire from a covered position. Our drivers and some of the men jumped into their vehicles and drove about 200 metres on to the edge of a wood to take cover. The other men who had been searching the houses for food ran across the snow-covered open plain, offering perfect targets, to reach the woods, where there was a prepared position already occupied by our troops.

Among our vehicles was a furniture van, whose driver had not made the dash in time. The tanks fired at our retreat and there were some dead and wounded, of whom the last could not be recovered for hours until the tanks withdrew.

We assembled at a forester’s lodge deep in the woods behind the front line and waited there until evening.

In the darkness some officers of the unit occupying the position gathered and talked quietly among themselves, completely ignoring us. I wondered about this behaviour, which was contrary to normal army conduct. We also discovered that they had been given orders to withdraw towards Woldenberg. The enemy had apparently broken through north of our position, but it must have been far away for we had heard no sounds of combat. The infantry assembled at about 2200 hours and marched off.

We still sat there! Our troop leader was still looking for the Battalion ‘Schulz’. It was possible that he would not return. Russians, military police or an energetic commander could have arrested him. Meanwhile we had recovered the furniture van that had been stuck between the lines with its engine still running. Its radiator was leaking and had to be provisionally repaired. As the forester’s pump was frozen, some snow was melted on a stove.

In front of us were the Russians, our own troops had vanished, and we were in the middle of a wood with no idea of the place or surroundings. Apart from this, when we moved out that morning, our second gun had driven off with its commander, crew and vehicle and had not been seen since.

Our troop leader reappeared at about midnight. We decided to follow the route taken by the infantry, but soon lost our way in the woods in the dark, especially as the infantry had used footpaths and tracks. Following an adventurous journey with the furniture van and other ‘combat vehicles’ through loggers’ and woodland tracks, at dawn we eventually reached a road with a kilometre stone with an arrow pointing towards Woldenberg and, in the opposite direction, to Driesen. At last we had hit the route to Woldenberg. But from there through the morning stillness came the sound of tank guns. It made no sense for our troop to drive into a rolling tank attack with no idea of the place or the situation. We therefore decided to drive towards Driesen, although it could already have been in Russian hands, as from there it was only a few kilometres from Kreuz, which we had abandoned. On the road to Driesen and in the village itself all was dead quiet. Only a few civilians were standing around, apparently foreign labourers awaiting the arrival of the Russians.

We drove on to Friedeberg, hoping to bump into our own troops. The civilian population had almost completely gone and there was no trace of the army. We stayed all day in Friedeberg. Our anti-tank team looked for a garage as their vehicle was not functioning properly, and one of our men tried to bake some bread in an abandoned bakery.

Finally we needed something to eat. Our troop leader was once more away trying to make contact, and returned that evening. Then the Russians rolled into the town from one side while we left from the other. If I remember correctly, the tanks were firing as they entered the town, otherwise we would not have noticed in time and would have been wiped out.

We drove during the night to Landsberg, always with the feeling that we might be overtaken by the tanks at any moment.

At Landsberg we caught up with the Wehrmacht for the first time and drove into a barracks complex. Mounted troops were deployed on the barrack square, all spick and span, feeding their horses. Everything was peaceful with no sense of the Russian spearheads approaching.

We found a headquarters staff in one of the barracks, reported and asked to be allocated. An adjutant wanted to know all about us, especially from where we had come. When our troop leader said that we had belonged to Emergency Battalion ‘Schulz’, the doubts vanished from his face. That is how one can innocently arouse suspicion of lying. He vanished and we had to wait a long time. We had the impression of being unwanted. We still had the feeling that live firing could begin any moment. It was a strange feeling.

Finally the adjutant reappeared with the order: ‘Drive to—and deploy!’ This was naturally as unmilitary as the withdrawal ‘towards Woldenburg’. The order should have read: ‘Drive to—, report to command post X and deploy in support of their troops.’ I still believe that they wanted to get rid of us and were sending us out no matter where. There was no sign of any defensive organisation.

In any case we had the bad experience of Dragebruch behind us, where we had also been left in the dirt. Instead of driving to—, we drove towards Küstrin, and were not the only ones. The road was full of vehicles. That was on the 30th January 1945.

We reached Küstrin on the morning of the 31st January. We immediately got the feeling of a more orderly establishment.[12]

On the 1st January 1945 I was 15½ years old, a pupil in the 5th Class of the Deutsche Heimschule in Birnbaum in the Warthegau. This chain of senior schools educated us up to Arbitur level. We were called ‘Jungmann’, were boarders, and wore Hitler Youth uniform and a narrow armband with the words ‘Deutsche Heimschulen’ on the left forearm. The pupils came mainly from bombed cities or, like me, from the countryside. My parents’ home was in a small village about 30 kilometres east of Birnbaum. Birnbaum itself, a small town of some 15,000 inhabitants, lay 90 kilometres east of Küstrin on the Warthe. From 1919 to 1939 Birnbaum was located just beyond the old Reich boundary on the then Polish side.

The Christmas holidays ended during the first days of January, after which the whole boarding school was back, but only Class 4 and below had school classes. We pupils in the 5th Form and upwards were given warlike organisational tasks in the town. Our 5th Form was still at full strength, but the 6th Form was reduced to half and the 7th Form down to about three pupils, and the 8th Form ceased to exist as they were assigned as Luftwaffe auxiliaries or conscripted into the Wehrmacht.

Our task in the town, equipped with horses and carts, was to do as much as possible for the German people flowing through the town. At first we were dealing with only small and individual groups, but this changed. As helpers for the Red Cross, NSV, Party and other organisations, we distributed food, warm drinks, arranged schools and gymnasiums as overnight accommodation and looked after them. There was much to do from morning to evening, so much that we would gladly have exchanged it for normal school classes. But we had to do our duty.

On about the 20th January the situation became serious and threatening. Russian troops were getting closer and were unstoppable. Wehrmacht units were mixed in with the treks, moving west. There was snow on the ground and the temperature dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius.

Now schoolwork also ended for the younger classes. A Luftwaffe transport unit moved the school in closed transport, including most of the staff, to Cottbus. From here they went on by train to Thuringia. For us older ones the situation altered for us correspondingly. With the school dissolved, we were attached to the local Volkssturm but still accommodated in the school. The police gave us carbines of all types. In a second issue I acquired one of the desirable short Italian ones. It looked good but often failed later in action. One of my classmates was given among other things a muzzle-loader, possibly from the 1870/71 war, with three rounds of ammunition. We tried it out in a pit behind the school from behind safe cover. From fear of a bursting barrel or false action, we tied the gun to a post and fired it using a long string. A big bang relieved our tension and established that the old weapon still worked.

I was detailed as a messenger and even given a light motorbike. The fuel lasted for three days, long enough in those temperatures. During this time my Volkssturm chief sent me late one evening in an easterly direction to Zirke, some 20 kilo-metres away, to find out where the Russians were. Over snow-covered roads, devoid of humanity and in icy temperatures I rode in total darkness, every so often stopping and restarting. Right on the edge of Zirke I turned round. I had carried out my task and could ride back in an easier frame of mind not having seen anyone.

On the 25th January we left Birnbaum and moved about 2 kilometres west to the Vorheide forester’s lodge. As a messenger I had to maintain contact with the organisations in Birnbaum and travelled to and fro. On one of these trips between the lodge and town, partly by footpath through the woods, I saw the first dead German soldiers. As the Russians had not got so far forward yet, they must have been shot by Polish partisans.

On the 27th January while on duty in the town I saw Russian tanks arrive. The town was cleared virtually without a fight and the bridge over the Warthe leading to the west was blown. On the same day we left the Vorheide lodge and marched about 10 kilometres to Waitze, where we accommodated ourselves in the local school with the veteran Volkssturm men.

On the morning of the 29th January, while being allocated to the defence of an imaginary front line, we received our first artillery or tank fire. Our Volkssturm veterans with their experience of the First World War gave us some very helpful rules that later were life-saving. No one was injured and so we took up our positions along the road to Birnbaum. We could hear the noise of tanks all day and once saw a group of Russians in the distance.

At nightfall our comrades to the west came back to join us bringing the news that the Russians had entered Waitze, and that we were cut off. Led by our old Volkssturm men, who were familiar with the area, we went in single file in a wide curve to the north of Waitze through deeply snowed woods.

Unmolested we came to the Waitze–Schwerin (Warthe) road leading west, which we followed all night. Dead tired, with blisters on our feet, we reached Schwerin at dawn. There the barracks offered us the chance of having a shower, breakfast, a change of clothing and sleep. We felt safe, let the relief overcome us, but were hardly asleep before we were woken up again at noon by enemy artillery fire.

The whole, but nevertheless meagre garrison appeared to have been completely taken by surprise. Disorganised, they fled the barracks and town and, from necessity, we joined in this disorder with the proviso of reporting to specific offices in Küstrin, 65 kilometres away. In view of our previous strenuous journey and the varying individual abilities to march, there was no question of marching in formation. We would have to see how we would get to Küstrin. So, we were on the move once more, now on crowded roads among the fleeing civilian population with and without horses and carts, and among them groups of Wehrmacht stragglers, some with vehicles. The clear thunder of the guns drove us forward.

Here we lost sight of some of the Birnbaum schoolboys. I only met five of them again. Whether the remainder reached Küstrin or were overrun by the Russian armoured spearheads, I cannot say. I have not heard of any of them, and the same applies to the old Volkssturm men. I never saw them again.

After marching a few kilometres, there came an opportunity of riding on the back of a slowly moving Wehrmacht truck for my fellow schoolboy Manni Roeder from the 6th Form and me, as we were marching along together. At first the crew tried to stop us jumping on, but then saw how young we were and let us on. Unfortunately this truck only went as far as Kriescht, 30 kilometres from Küstrin. There we were able to obtain some food. Looking for another means of continuing we found a train about to leave Kriescht station. Although it was packed with refugees, we managed to find places to sit and reached Küstrin late in the afternoon.[13]

I had been in communication with both [the village mayor] Habermann and [Ortsgruppenleiter Fritz] Lorenz about the evacuation until the last moment. I was also in communication with the young commandant during the German occupation. All three said that the civilian population would get the news in time. When asked about the alleged or actual Russian presence near Bärwalde all three were uncomfortable and said that the departure of the population was only possible with their permission. No information or instructions then resulted, as both the Ortsgruppenleiter and the mayor fell into the hands of the Russians.[14]