Siege of Küstrin, 1945 - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Tony Le Tissier (Chapter Three Defence Preparations) #6

^{Chapter Three} Defence Preparations

Küstrin was declared a fortress on 25 January 1945. At that time the garrison consisted of depot, training and convalescent infantry, plus engineer and artillery units with a few anti-tank weapons but no air defences. The newly named fortress commandant was 50-year-old Major-General Adolf Raegener, holder of the Knights’ Cross and a soldier since the First World War. He began by incorporating the local Volkssturm and police resources into his garrison, having nothing else to fall back on. Above all, General Raegener needed heavy weapons. Flak guns had been assigned to him from the Berlin area, but would they arrive in time?

Under the circumstances, the most useful role for the fortress, which Clausewitz once described propitiously as a ‘place of refuge for a weak or unfortunate corps’, was to provide secure river crossings for those army elements still east of the Oder and not withdrawing upon Frankfurt. Raegener’s men would have only a few days in which to prepare if the Soviet advance was not delayed by the old border fortifications 70 kilometres east of the town. This was in any case a very vague hope, as all the troops that had been sent there were of equally limited fighting ability, such as the Volkssturm companies of the first levy from Küstrin, Neudamm and Königsberg/Neumark that were being transported by rail that day to Trebisch, 15 kilometres south-east of Landsberg.

Preparations for any sort of defence of the town appeared almost impossible with the existing materiel and personnel available, especially for the Neustadt. In contrast to the Altstadt, it was unhindered by walls and ditches and within a few decades it had developed into a significantly important part of the town, extending over a kilometre beyond the 75-year-old Neues Werke, the small fort that had been built to protect the railway station. Housing and industrial buildings had long since extended along the river as far out as the boundaries of the Drewitz and Warnick villages. A town bus service had connected the districts until the fuel supply began to run out, and then the buses were fitted to run on town gas supplied from tanks fitted on the coach roofs.

This extension of the Neustadt, with its new infantry barracks, a country pub and its sports stadium erected in the late 1920s, came up against dense woodland in the north-east. Here the land began to climb steeply and the Zorndorfer Berg, the horror of all cyclists, led over 2 kilometres to a high plateau above the Oder-Warthe valley bottom. This plateau exceeded the town in height by about 50 metres and offered, together with a fort in the centre on the road to Zorndorf, an outer defensive ring if only it could be adequately manned. But the garrison was not in a position to do this from its own resources. It was indeed doubtful if the Neustadt bridgehead would be able to hold up to the first energetic attack, however wide or short the front line stretched. Military necessity therefore required that it be held only as long as the railway station and Warthe bridges were needed for the withdrawal. Beyond that there were no reasonable grounds for keeping a considerable proportion of the troops in an unsuitable position. A sufficiently strong Altstadt garrison to bar the river crossings to the enemy would suffice with less risk. But decisions of this nature were no longer to be made according to tactical and strategic considerations.[1]

Back in Küstrin there was concern over the state of the ice on the Oder and Warthe rivers, which showed little sign of movement. During the first winter of the war the ice had formed metre-high barriers and in the subsequent thaw giant lumps of ice released from the flooded Warthe meadows had crushed the pontoons of the bathing stations. Damage to the bridges had only been avoided by some risky explosions with concentrated charges. Now attempts in several places to dislodge the ice with explosives proved ineffective, as the ice floes quickly froze back together in night temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees.

The cold and snow also made digging difficult. Firing positions and anti-tank ditches were prepared on the roads leading into the town from the east and south, from where the first attacks were expected; mines were laid and barbed wire obstacles erected. On the Landsberger Chaussee 14- and 15-year-olds tackled the deeply frozen earth, having to bring their own tools from home, under the direction of a few grumpy soldiers. Even the few picks passed from hand to hand were inadequate. Only when fires were lit over lines marked in the snow to warm the ground a little were they able to make small holes in the frozen earth and then laboriously extend them, but this took hours. Then someone forbade the lighting of fires for fear of attracting aircraft, although locomotives at the nearby goods station were sending thick smoke up to the low-hanging clouds.

When the work was abandoned at dusk, only a few shallow depressions showed the run of the planned position. The boys marched back to town frozen through and hungry, and were dismissed with orders to return to the position next morning. Even the prospect of further days without school failed to raise their spirits. Those born in 1928 and not already conscripted as Flak or naval auxiliaries had stopped attending regular classes since the last summer holidays. Until September they had worked on defences near Kalau, between Meseritz and Schwiebus, then had to assist with the root harvest near the town. This task was considerably pleasanter as they could sleep in the barns, were given good food with supplementary ration cards, and did not have to train or mount guard after work. They might even earn a few pennies. By this time, the schools had been concentrated into just a few schoolrooms, partly because the buildings were needed as hospitals or to house refugees. A few hours of tuition were given in shifts well into the afternoon, to which the teachers and pupils reacted only half-heartedly. And now this too was coming to an end.[2]

Panzergrenadier Johannes Diebe, who had only been a soldier since 15 January as a member of Panzergrenadier Replacement Battalion 50 in Küstrin, reported being employed on a similar task:

About six days before the end of the month our basic training was interrupted and we were sent to various locations to build defences. Our platoon had to go to Schlageterstrasse, beyond the entrance to Zeppelinstrasse, to dig foxholes near the GEWOBA buildings, one section to the left and one section to the right of the street. The distance between foxholes was about 2 metres.

Along the road from Alt Drewitz to Küstrin came an endless stream of refugees, civilians with horse-drawn wagons, hand carts, prams and packed bicycles. Among them were wounded soldiers, often with bloody bandages. Civilians, soldiers, officers, all had one aim, to cross the Warthe and the Oder and reach the west bank.

The people going past constantly asked us to go along with them. Fighting was useless in view of the Soviet superiority. Within us the sense of honour competed with the temptation to clear off. Flight seemed a possibility in this confusion, but one’s sense of honour was stronger.

While we were digging, a squad of Feldgendarmerie [military police] appeared from the town and established a control point in Schlageterstrasse. They began to ruthlessly comb the soldiers out of the stream of refugees, registering them and lining them up and sending them marching off to other destinations. Those who refused were either shot or hanged. Those hanged were given a label: ‘I am a coward’.

These events depressed us. The view of the four hanging soldiers along the street was unbearable. We therefore asked our superiors and the Feldgendarmerie to cut down the bodies of the comrades. The answer from the Feldgendarmerie was: ‘You lads can practise your shooting and shoot through the ropes, but your aim had better be good, or you can watch yourselves being hanged.’

We begged our section leader to agree to this proposal and the sergeant agreed. So we shot our dead comrades down from the trees. It was awful, but much better than having this view in front of our eyes. For the civilians, above all the children, this must have been a terrible sight.

The Feldgendarmerie moved their control point further back into the town. We noticed that from then on soldiers came to us, asking for our company command post. In doing so they remarked that nothing made sense any more. This way we acquired a staff corporal and another corporal in our section. The first wore the ribbons of both Iron Crosses next to his Close Combat Badge. He had got as far as Stalingrad and only being on leave from the front had saved him from encirclement, death or imprisonment there.

We learned a lot from the staff corporal and were always asking him what he made of the situation. He reckoned that there was not much chance of a Russian attack as long as refugees and German soldiers in the present numbers were still coming through.[3]

Corporal Hans Arlt was also involved in the preparations for war:

Following my successful conclusion of a course at the Army NCO School at Arnswalde, I was sent to the front together with some other comrades on 26 January 1945 as an RUB [Potential NCO of the Reserve] corporal. We were driven in open trucks to Küstrin-Neustadt in winter temperatures of minus 15 degrees Celsius.

We were assigned to the 2nd Company of Captain von Oldershausen’s combat team [battalion] in Stülpnagel Barracks. A considerable proportion of my platoon consisted of old soldiers who had been on guard duty in Denmark until then. They made themselves welcome to our group with their rich supplies of butter and cheese, but they were not really suited to the coming fighting.

I recall that there was a Feldgendarmerie company in Stülpnagel Barracks.

There were some garages at the rear of the barrack complex that contained large quantities of spare parts for various handguns, and we were all able to improve our personal arsenal by helping ourselves. I too acquired a 7.65mm pistol and obtained the necessary ammunition from the Feldgendarmerie company in exchange for cigarettes. Later a sentry put an end to this self-service.

Our steel helmets were coated with toothpaste for the winter fighting. On 30 January the 2nd Company deployed. Our platoon was located in deep woods outside the northern boundary of the Neustadt near the railway employees’ convalescent home. The position consisted of a row of rifle pits in which we spent the day and night. The frozen earth made digging in hard work.[4]

One early reinforcement to the Küstrin garrison was 17-year-old Luftwaffe-Auxiliary Fritz Oldenhage:

I was born in Stettin on the 7th April 1928. I was conscripted as a Luftwaffe auxiliary on the 5th January 1944, and soon afterwards my schooling came to an end. I was sent to the 3rd Battery, Light Flak Battalion 850 in Berlin and received my first training with the simple 20mm and 20mm quadruple flak as a gunlayer.

Following action in Stettin and its surroundings, for instance with 20mm quadruple flak at the goods station, protecting heavy and medium flak against Anglo-American aircraft, I was sent to Anklam to guard a flying field. There I was trained on the 37mm flak, telephone exchange operating and telephone line construction.

At the end of January 1945 there was a rush to load everything on railway wagons. The over-hasty securing of the guns resulted in one case of the gun barrel coming loose and starting to swing, hitting something like five wooden telegraph poles alongside the track. Only after sending a written message forward by a level crossing keeper were we able to stop the train.

The order to stop came beyond Stargard. The train was diverted under light snow showers and in full darkness. On the 30th January we reached our new goal, Küstrin-Neustadt, and had to unload immediately.

The guns were allocated to various positions within the town area. The first took up position in the Neustadt, immediately north of the extension of Plantagenstrasse. This was shortly behind the entrance to Anger Strasse, where Plantagenstrasse turns 90 degrees south-west as Strasse 39 towards the sewage farm and from there 90 degrees north-west to Strasse 42 and the Cellulose Factory. The second gun must have been positioned in the Neustadt between the goods station and the Engineer Barracks. The third gun went across to the Altstadt and was positioned on the Island north of the Mittelhöfel between Lunette B and the weir of the Vorflut Canal. Its forward observer sat on the southern point of the Mittelhöfel not far from the point where the Vorflut Canal and Oder separate. All three guns had wide-ranging fields of fire. The fourth gun was unserviceable after the railway journey.

I moved into the Cellulose Factory with the battery headquarters. Within a short time I was telephonist on a 20-plug switchboard, runner and cable-layer, which entailed maintaining communications to the forward observer.

I can only describe the factory premises sketchily and with some reservations. It formed a rough rectangle next to the Warthe. Its tall chimneystack was a well-known landmark. The only access was opposite the Warthe. Coming along the river from the direction of the Plantage, as one approached the Cellulose Factory one passed two housing blocks on the left-hand side of the road, the first on the premises of a petroleum company and the second already in the Cellulose Factory complex. A wall about 2 metres high began here separating the factory from the road. Here too was the main entrance with the factory gate. Parallel to the road was a long extended building in which I sat as telephonist at my switchboard. Parallel to this was part of the factory yard, then came a hut and behind, parallel to the Warthe, the big factory building. Another part of the factory yard stretched beyond the eastern gable of the already mentioned building on the access road. Between the Cellulose Factory and the neighbouring ground I can remember a drainage ditch and an open pipeline running towards the Warthe, but I cannot recall the exact details. A hut stood to the right facing across the end of the road. Last used to accommodate prisoners of war, the hut now stood empty, as the prisoners had been marched away. In the short time we were there we saw no strangers, either soldiers or civilians, apart from the refugees on the access road.[5]

Other reinforcements arrived in the form of Panther tank turrets with 75mm guns and their crews. The German forces were struggling to cope with an acute shortage of fuel for their tanks, so the idea had arisen of using turrets on prefabricated wooden frames sunk into the earth to reinforce defensive positions. Officer Cadet Corporal Hans Kirchhof reported:

We were Fortress Gun-Turret Company 12/11 and together with other companies were dispatched from Fallingbostel to the Weichselbogen, Bromberg-Thorn-Graudenz area. Our company consisted of three platoons each of four turrets, each turret having a crew of five men. Our train was stopped at Vietz, as our destinations were no longer attainable with the Russians already operating in these areas, and we were then detailed, a company of twelve turrets each, to Frankfurt, Küstrin and Stettin.

Tank turrets of the Panther series were to be fitted in earthen bunkers with wooden frames and linings previously prepared by the Organisation Todt. The earthen bunkers, however, had first to be built.

One of the turrets had slid off its sledge during the move and had been so badly damaged that it was no longer usable. The remaining eleven turrets went to their allotted positions around Küstrin but even before they could be installed eight fell into the hands of the Russians.

Only three turrets went into action. One was built south-east of the Kietz Gate at the junction of the Chaussees to Göritz and Sonnenburg right on the Oder dyke. The second turret was destined for the Island, between the Artillery Barracks and the road bridge over the Vorflut Canal. The main task of both turrets was to stop enemy tanks that had broken through. I never saw the third turret, so cannot give its exact location, but I think it must have been in the north of the Altstadt.

Following the loss of so many Panther turrets even before going into action, we later received two German 37mm antitank guns and a captured Russian 45mm anti-tank gun.[6]

Another new arrival was Officer Cadet Alfred Kraus:

Having been born in 1926, I was conscripted into Infantry Regiment 29 at Züllichau on the 23rd May 1944. After 14 days of basic training, we were sent to Denmark, from where I returned in November to join an officer-cadet company in Küstrin, where my field post address was ‘Officer-Cadet Company Küstrin, Stülpnagel Barracks’, counterstamped with ‘Panzergrenadier Replacement Battalion 50, HQ Company’.

On the 29th January 1945 runners called us back from a night exercise to our barrack huts in the Stülpnagel Barracks. Next day I received a visit from my mother, who returned to Berlin that night. As we were not allowed to leave the barrack grounds, I could only escort her to the barrack gate. This was a farewell forever, for both she and my father were killed in an air raid on Berlin in April 1945.

If I remember correctly, on the morning of the 31st January we moved to a country road south of Reichsstrasse 1 and northwest of the Warnick position. The east side of the road was lined with tall poplars. We had to dig a hole for a tank behind one of the trees with our field spades. As the ground was frozen rock hard, we could not get down deeper than 10 centimetres. Our platoon and company commanders were not with us. Towards noon a Russian officer, whose battalion was fighting on the German side, appeared with an interpreter and threatened to have us shot if we did not complete our task. When he checked us later, he found that none of us had done so.

For hours disorderly groups of soldiers were streaming along the nearby Reichsstrasse 1 from Landsberg towards Küstrin. They said we were crazy waiting to take on the Russians on open fields with only 1898 carbines and machine guns. That evening we heard that the Russians had forced their way into that part of Küstrin on the right bank of the Warthe.[7]

Fifteen-year-old Hitler Youth Hans Dalbkermeyer and his fellow schoolboy Manni Roeder eventually arrived in Küstrin early that morning:

Duty-bound we reported to the collecting point in one of the two barracks in the Neustadt. Which one it was I can no longer recall. I remember, however, an Army officer taking us in a Volkswagen Jeep with a great 180 degree skid in the snow to a canteen in the Potato Meal Factory in the Neustadt. As we were the first from Birnbaum, we were to wait here for our comrades and orders. For once we felt safe. It was heated and there was food to eat. The whole building had been organised as a reception centre for members of the Wehrmacht and other soldiers. As part of the ‘full pension’ was naturally included the Führer’s speech on the 12th anniversary of his assumption of power on the 30th January 1933.

We both listened reverently, convinced we must give everything asked of us by the Führer and Fatherland. As the only youngsters among the many soldiers we remained exactly like the others after the speech, only our thoughts following a different path. I still believed in final victory, which for me had never been in question.[8]

Fortunately for the Germans, the 25th Panzergrenadier and 21st Panzer Divisions had already been extracted from the fighting against the Americans and French in Alsace in preparation for switching to the Eastern Front, and the 25th Panzergrenadiers were actually on their way to Küstrin by rail with the intention of blocking the Soviet advance before it reached the Oder. Orders for the 21st Panzer Division in the Southern Pfalz to entrain for the same destination were issued at 1835 hours on 31 January. These latter orders, however, would take twenty-seven trains and another four to six days to fulfil.[9]

Orders too were given for the formation near the town of that name of the ‘Müncheberg’ Panzer Division from the remnants of experienced units, under the command of the highly decorated Major General Werner Mummert. Considerable priority was given to the equipping and manning of this new division, and later to the replacement of its casualties in vehicles and manpower, but, unlike the other deployed divisions, the ‘Müncheberg’ was kept intact in reserve on the main approach route to Berlin until the beginning of March before being committed to action.[10]