Siege of Küstrin, 1945

^{Chapter Six} The Russians Close In

With the arrival of the 16th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division, the 8th Guards Army was able to resume its crossing operation in daylight on 3 February. The loss of three aircraft in the first attack of the day obliged the Luftwaffe to change tactics from attacks en masse to individual sorties. Consequently, most of the infantry divisions of the 4th Guards Rifle Corps and the 79th Guards Rifle Division (28th Guards Rifle Corps) crossed the river with minimal losses, taking their artillery observers with them, although the guns had to remain on the east bank for the time being, as no bridging or ferrying facilities had come forwards with the 8th Guards Army’s vanguard.

That day saw the rapid and virtually unopposed expansion and unification of three small bridgeheads into one extending for several kilometres from Reitwein to Kietz and reaching as far forward as the Frankfurt–Küstrin railway line, which thus became unusable. The 35th Guards Rifle Division went on to occupy the southern part of Kietz and some terrain to the west of the suburb, while the 47th Guards Rifle Division occupied Neu Manschnow about noon and moved on to block the Küstrin–Seelow highway (Reichsstrasse 1) in Manschnow itself.[1] The following day Soviet scouts were seen as far forward as the Golzow–Alt Tucheband road.[2]

Zhukov’s eyes were still firmly on Berlin, despite the previously mentioned deployment of most of his forces to clear Pomerania, as the following orders sent to Chuikov show. It is interesting to note that there is no mention of Küstrin, from which one can presume that it was considered too difficult an obstacle to overcome under the immediate circumstances, and that adequate bridging could be provided across the Oder at Reitwein and Kienitz.

Yet, as Professor Erickson summed up the situation:

Almost at the same time the Soviet troops in the southern bridgehead launched their first major offensive. There was no longer a secure front line, as the German formations clung on to the villages and isolated farms in the almost coverless Oderbruch. Thus Hathenow–almost 5 kilometres from the Oder on the Frankfurt–Küstrin road–was quickly developed into a strongpoint, as was Rathstock, 2 kilometres to the north, but this was soon lost. A few kilometres further on Soviet troops reached and crossed Reichsstrasse 1 near Manschnow, only being stopped when they reached the parallel-running railway. Over-hastily mounted counterattacks failed. Küstrin’s rail and road connections to the hinterland had been severed.

There followed some critical hours during which it was doubtful whether the fortress troops could hold their lines on the southern edge of Kietz and whether they could extend them to the west. However, it was to their benefit that the northern bridgehead remained quiet. The unusually early thaw with its accompanying mud in the Oderbruch valley meant that, with the lack of firm roads, no great counteroffensive could be expected in the near future, and no tanks had appeared in the bridgeheads as yet. The strips of land occupied by the 5th Shock Army to the north and the 8th Guards Army to the south of the fortress were still separated from each other, but at the narrowest point were only 3 kilometres apart, posing an acute and visible threat.

The Soviet occupation of Reitwein attracted considerable harassment from Stuka dive-bombers and from the German artillery, a battery of which was now located in Sachsendorf, where the roads were still congested with refugees, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates on the move.[5]

For days now the only source of information for the population had been wild rumours. The news that the route to the west was blocked spread more quickly than most. There could be no doubt: there were enough wounded returning to the dressing stations in the town, while all those who had hoped to get a train from Kietz railway station had also returned. No one had been able to leave.[6]

This Saturday, 3 February, however, was the kind of day one sees as a forecast of spring after a long hard winter. The sun was still low in the sky but there was already a pleasant warmth from a cloudless sky, and the last traces of snow were melting away. Some women went out with their babies in prams but kept close to the buildings, aware of the need for flight in an emergency, and, as the only concession to the changed circumstances, never crossing the open squares.

Suddenly there was the sound of aircraft engines and a few heavy explosions marred this peaceful picture for a moment, but the word quickly spread that these were German aircraft and one could see them attacking Reitwein from the Oder bastions. Several dozen people actually gathered on the walls of the Wallkrone to watch a group of Ju 87s and Me 109s flying around and dropping bombs on targets out of sight. Unusually heavy anti-aircraft gunfire filled the sky with sparkling belts of tracer and there were grey-black clouds of smoke from the explosions. Those sightseers busy revelling in memories of Stukas in the ‘Lightning War’ days suddenly fell silent, and were among the first to flee when mortar bombs ripped up the brittle ice at the foot of the bastion. Soon afterwards civilians were barred from the Katte walls, which had been made into a promenade above the river and were popular for taking a stroll.[7]

Luftwaffe Officer Cadet Sergeant Helmut Schmidt witnessed this air activity on 3 February:

The outpost at the bucket elevator on the Sonnenburg Chaussee was lost to the Soviets that day and immediately afterwards an antitank gun started firing from here at the flak positions on the Warthe side of the Altstadt. Then the firing died down in the immediate area, enabling even the most cautious to venture further from their dwellings than they had previously dared. Now that few of the shops scattered around town were open, shopping entailed going some distance, and the older people in particular tried to avoid the risk of finding themselves under fire.

The fortress situation report for 3 February read:

The next morning the situation report read:

This was followed by a further report later that day:

The anti-tank gunfire from the bucket elevator generated the first official evacuation. Some unauthorised moves had already taken place, such as tenants of an upper storey moving down into vacated accommodation that appeared safer. Most shots had gone over the flak positions hidden by a railway embankment and hit a block of flats near the Catholic church. There were no casualties, but some housing was so badly damaged that alternative accommodation had to be found. This was, as were all such tasks, undertaken by the Nazi welfare organisation NSV, whose local office now took on the roles of supervising housing and social welfare with practically unlimited and only partially defined powers. The emergency administration formed from the fragmented magistrates and NSDAP district offices acted in a similar fashion. Abandoned apartments in the less damaged streets of the Altstadt were taken over, opened by an officially appointed locksmith and the homeless allocated to them.[9]

A combat team of officer cadets named after its commander, Captain Kain, was tasked with retaking the bucket elevator on the Sonnenburger Chaussee and eliminating the threat from there. The Soviet garrison was later reckoned at 103 men with ten machine guns and a lone anti-tank gun, the restricted artillery content of such an exposed position indicating that the Soviets were still short of heavy weapons in this sector. The chaussee, set on a narrow dyke running parallel with the railway line, was surrounded by the waters flooding the Oderbruch and covering the meadows on either side, and was clearly marked by a regularly spaced alley of trees. It was in clear view of a 105mm flak battery that had been deployed in an allotment garden and meadow just outside the fortress walls. Even the distinctive building housing the pumping station was clearly visible from there. On such a narrow approach the attackers had to be aware of the guns behind them.

Heavy Soviet defensive fire inflicted severe casualties on Kain’s combat team but, under cover of the flak, the battle group finally reached its goal, a shot-up brick building and a few rifle pits and machine-gun nests that then changed hands for a few hours before the area had to be abandoned once more while it was still visible from the flak position, for without covering fire Kain’s men would stand no chance against a Soviet night attack.[10]

The first shots of a firing squad rang out this Sunday when fourteen Ostarbeiter (eastern forced labourers) were executed without investigation, trial or sentence. A two-sentence notice stating that they had been caught plundering was intended to counter public indignation over the increasing number of buildings being broken into and ransacked. The forced labourers still remaining in the town were forbidden to leave their huts between 1800 hours and 0600 hours under pain of the severest punishment. They were having to work all day long on the defences as the businesses they had been allocated to had now come to a halt. However, the plundering continued.[11]

A Soviet thrust along the eastern railway line reached the line Gorgast–Bleyen on 5 February, thus cutting off Küstrin, its last remaining route over the fields being made unusable. The 5th Shock Army desperately tried to get some tanks across the river to reinforce its bridgehead. Several fell through the ice, but four T-34s managed to cross, enabling the Soviets to extend their bridgehead at Genschmar up to a line running through the centre of the village.[12]

Elsewhere on the fortress’s front line the day was relatively quiet. Skirmishes that broke out here and there were limited to company-strength actions and were hardly noticed from behind the screen of buildings in the town. At this point there were some 20,000 people–soldiers, Volkssturm and civilians–in the town. Most of the civilian population, including those who had fled here from the Anglo-American air attacks, had been able to leave the town in good time, but some 8,000–10,000 civilians had been overtaken by events and remained surrounded in the town.

On 5 February the NSDAP county office produced its first news-sheet, four type-written pages roneoed on cheap wartime paper. Half of it was devoted to the Wehrmacht Report, followed by statements on the local military situation using the same sort of vocabulary, but there were also announcements such as the addresses of the three civilian doctors still practising, one each in the Altstadt, Neustadt and Kietz, and a request to hand in all battery radios. The latter were carefully guarded by their few fortunate owners, for other sets could not be used for lack of electricity.

Nevertheless, the NSDAP district leadership was determined to take over this unexpected monopoly of information in order to resume its influence over the population. This news-sheet was sent almost entirely to offices, staff and dormitory accommodation, and some were stuck on walls and fences, and there was already a plan to produce a regularly printed newspaper. How many people this reached is unknown; one rough estimate was 8,000. Flight and Volkssturm service had torn apart the block and cell Party structure during the last weeks of January, and in the confusion of the first fighting the last remnants of control over the lives of ordinary civilians had completely come off the rails.

This was of little significance to the population. There were still some basic foodstuffs in a few of the shops, naturally available only with ration cards, and the sewage and water systems were still functioning as normal. Mortar fire was still sporadic, more tiresome than dangerous if one did not go out into the open, and aircraft had still to show themselves. Thus casualties among the civilian population until now had not been due to enemy action. The official deaths register recorded about a dozen suicides under the date of 31 January when the first shots were fired. Some had not been found by chance until much later and no one knew how much more work awaited the undertakers.

Pedestrians and vehicles moved virtually unhindered once the usual midday harassing fire was over. Fortress staff and Party officials were already describing the 5th as a ‘quiet day’ when at almost exactly 1500 hours a series of heavy explosions shook the town. The few people strolling around hastened to take cover, the threat of the blasts driving them down into the cellars, but then the explosions broke off as abruptly as they had begun. Only those with front-line experience knew what this was: artillery salvoes.

Mushrooms of smoke rose into the clear sky above the Neustadt in rapid succession, distinctly apart at first, then combining as a grey wall at the foot of which a rose-coloured glow quickly spread as the first bright red flames took hold. A number of 130mm explosive and incendiary shells had hit about three dozen houses. Within a few minutes most of them were alight from the roof to the ground floor. Showers of sparks ignited curtains, while broken furniture and rafters were scattered over the streets. A witness to this event reported:

This was not such an unusual sight for most of the firemen, for most had been involved in the air raids on Berlin. Following the first such raids in November 1942, the simple Küstrin fire engines, like others in a wide area around Berlin, had been modernised on a generous scale. Then in the summer of 1944 they conducted an exercise in rescuing trapped people from a narrow street in the Altstadt known as the Wassergasse. Now the route to the deployment site was much closer. The smoke and flame-engulfed quarter was isolated at street junctions and gaps between the buildings to stop the spread of fire to the rest of the neighbourhood. The ruins in the Neumarkt, in the neighbourhood of the town centre around the Stern, and the streets leading to the railway station, gradually cooled down.

Meanwhile the inhabitants of the affected area had taken shelter with friends and relations or had requisitioned empty properties for themselves. No one can say how many people were affected by the explosions, or if all reached the cellars in time. Only two severely injured were reported.[13]

Under General Reinefarth the fortress area was divided into two defence sectors, Altstadt and Neustadt. The larger sector consisted of the Neustadt on the right bank of the Warthe, where the majority of the population lived and most of the military establishments such as barracks, drill squares and exercise areas, hospital, magazine, bakery and supply depot were located, as was the Neues Werke bastion north-east of the main railway station. This sector also contained the town’s gas works, water works, a sewage farm, a civil hospital, the cemetery and a large industrial complex.

Despite his total lack of experience in such a role, and in the face of protests from Headquarters 9th Army, Reinefarth appointed fellow policeman Colonel Walter of the Feldgendarmerie as commander of the Neustadt Defence Sector, a decision he was later to regret with the words: ‘For lack of relevant previous experience, the situation was consequently not mastered. There was no other officer available as sector commander.’ That there was no senior military officer of adequate rank and experience for this role in the garrison is hard to believe.

The Neustadt Defence Sector was overlooked by Height 63, which provided the besiegers with observation over the town. With their backs to the Warthe and Oder, a full two-thirds of the garrison awaited the enemy attack here in positions that ran from the Cellulose Factory, through divided Alt Drewitz, then around a bulge to the north, east via the Küstrin Forestry Office and across the Zorndorfer Chaussee, then in an up and down curve to the south-south-west (about 500 metres east of the water works) to the Jungfern Canal at Warnick.

The remaining parts of the town formed the Altstadt Defence Sector. This included the Altstadt with the Island, Kietz and Kuhbrücken, and for a while also Neu Bleyen and the dyke-enclosed area to Alt Bleyen. The Kietz and Bleyen areas were apportioned between the fortress and the ‘pipeline’ defenders according to the situation. The sector commander was 55-year-old Major Otto Wegner, in civilian life the manager of the city administration office of Schneidemühl, whose military experience had been in the infantry. He had been awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class in the First World War, and the bar to both Iron Crosses in the Second World War during the Polish campaign. In the Russian campaign he had commanded the 1st Battalion, Infantry Regiment 96, of the 32nd Infantry Division, for which he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. At the beginning of 1945 he was given command of Replacement Battalion 4 in Kolberg and, upon release of the code-word ‘Gneisenau’, went with it to the Filehne area on the Netze River 10 kilometres east of Kreuz, where his battalion became part of the ‘Woldenberg’ Division and took part in the subsequent retreat to Küstrin.[14]

The spring floods, preceded by the thaw, turned the little Altstadt into an island. In the east the flooded area, several kilometres wide from the Warthe to the Oder, was only broken by the dykes carrying the two railway lines and the two chaussees. Field emplacements on these narrow causeways secured the approaches. Where the chaussee from Göritz joined the Oder dyke some 2 kilometres from the citadel lay the Bienenhof outpost, which became the focus of constant skirmishing. It was defended mainly by members of Probation Battalion 500, whom Reinefarth described as ‘Küstrin’s best troops’. The Bienenhof was often cited in his morning and daily reports. From here, opposite the Dammeisterei (dyke master’s house), the defensive positions ran parallel to and not far from the Oder dyke about 1,200 metres north, crossed the Göritz railway embankment to Kietzerbusch Railway Halt, then went further north curving east to where the road and railway bridges crossed the Warthe.

The Altstadt offered good defensive possibilities provided that the defenders could counter enemy artillery and air attacks with the equivalent weapons and intensity of fire, which was not the case. Further disadvantages for the Germans derived from the crammed nature of the Altstadt and the inflammable nature of many of the old buildings due to their high wood content, as well as the fragility of the century-old casemates that were not capable of withstanding heavy calibre bombs and shells. Keeping the Altstadt, Bienenhof and Kietz in German hands depended upon holding the Island and the two ancient lunettes in the Pappelhorst thickets.[15] The small suburb of Kietz on the west bank of the Vorflut Canal protected Küstrin’s precarious supply route to the link with Gorgast at this point. Hard fighting could be expected here, as the besiegers would try to take the road and railway bridges over the Vorflut Canal to separate the fortress from its line of supply. The German positions in Kietz extended from the railway embankment (here connected to the 2nd Battalion, 119 Panzergrenadier Regiment, 25th Panzergrenadier Division) to the western end of Kietz as far as the Dammeisterei at the entrance to the Vorflut Canal.

Throughout the fortress great efforts were made to improve the defensive positions and provide protection from enemy fire and bombs. This involved not only soldiers but also people who had seldom if ever been concerned with the principle ‘fight and dig’, especially the Volkssturm, civilians, forced foreign labourers from the factories and prisoners of war. The clearing of fields of fire and the reduction of fire risks in the town’s narrow streets was conducted by the sappers.[16]

Suddenly permission to evacuate the civilian population was received. Gauleiter Emil Stürtz telephoned it through on the morning of 4 February, stressing the need for action, but the public heard nothing of this telephone call, not even a rumour. It seems that Reinefarth must have suppressed any mention of such an evacuation because of the sheer difficulty of implementing it at this stage. The evacuees would have had to run the gauntlet of the pipeline under the noses of the Soviets to reach the comparative safety of the German front line. Next day a Soviet thrust reached the line Gorgast–Bleyen, thus cutting off Küstrin from the last route over the fields.[17]

Although isolated from the hinterland, Küstrin was not entirely cut off. The Soviet forces from the bridgeheads south and north of Küstrin had acted one after another, but lacked the strength to effect a proper union between Bleyen and Gorgast. Consequently both sides tried to hold on to the positions they held or had reached. The besieged garrison was unable to gain a way out, although the 9th Army was banking on the 21st Panzer Division now arriving from the west to improve the situation in its favour. The Soviet 5th Shock and 8th Guards Armies had orders to dig in on the Oder while most of the rest of the 1st Byelorussian Front was engaged in Pomerania. Consequently the disputed flat terrain of the Oderbruch was ruled by machine guns, anti-tank guns and mortars during the day, both German and Soviet, while at night patrols of reconnaissance and storm troops from both sides tried to prevent their opponents from infiltrating and establishing themselves further forward.

In any case it was obvious that there would be no major attack on the fortress in the immediate future, and Reinefarth could breathe again. The strongest Soviet blows had so far been directed on the town with only some minor subsidiary actions. The German deployment remained substantially unchanged. The troops were a colourful collection, including even the remains of some Turkomen and North Caucasian battalions, and had at best a combatant strength of 8,196 men (not identical to the almost double ration strength), an acceptable potential force. The increased firepower of the flak batteries, now consisting of twenty-four heavy 105mm guns and the same number of medium 20mm and 37mm guns, was the most valuable asset, but in inadequate positions. These batteries formed the backbone of the defence sometimes even in the foremost locations, their crews mainly consisting of the youngest RAD boys and Luftwaffe auxiliaries with no front-line experience.

On the morning of 6 February the commandant unexpectedly issued orders for that part of the Altstadt around the Schloss bordered by the market and Berliner Strasse to be evacuated by noon. The only exceptions were in such establishments as the post office and shops in order to prevent looting. The police were made responsible for informing the inhabitants and meeting the evacuation deadline, the NSV for accommodating those evacuated. No official reason was given for this action, leaving it a matter of speculation. One possible explanation was that Reinefarth’s staff believed the smoking chimneys acted as aiming points for the Soviet artillery observers, so the area around the command post had to be evacuated and declared a smoke-free zone.

The townsfolks’ reaction to this order ranged from anxious questions about where they could go and how they would find somewhere to live, to angry remarks about the conduct of the war. The police who had to go from door to door were not in an enviable position. They were mainly elderly men, including some with friends and relations among those being evacuated, so none of these adverse comments was reported.

Many evacuees appeared outside the town hall without their baggage wanting to know where their future accommodation was to be; they wanted to see it before deciding what to take with them. In any case they had to take all items of value, for they were instructed to leave the doors of their vacated premises open. Everyone knew what that meant: by the next day there would not be a single drawer that had not been rummaged through.

The allocation to new quarters took hours. The NSV had only two of its normal staff of three, assisted by young messengers. The whole of the remaining Party apparatus, although concentrated in the town hall, remained out of sight, leaving the people to their fate. The lists of available accommodation that had been carefully compiled over the previous days were already out of date in many cases, for the homeless from the burnt-out part of the Neustadt had taken them over, or attic dwellers had moved into less dangerous lower storeys, and many of the beds had been removed from the premises the day before. It was evening before the last people had moved into their new accommodation. Many of the old people had brought with them only the most urgent items, as much as they could carry or pull behind them on a handcart. Nobody had offered to help them. They intended returning to their homes the next day to collect more stuff, but they would only too often find empty shelves.[18]

Reinefarth reported for 6 February: ‘Small enemy breaches on northern side of Neustadt. Fighting in progress to clear them. Several enemy attacks in the Kietz area repelled.’ The Neustadt once more became the target of an early morning barrage on 7 February from Stalin-Organs. The buildings along Zorndorfer Strasse and some individual houses on the roads leading to the town centre and on the Landsberger Strasse and Schützenstrasse turn-offs to the railway station were in flames. The fire brigade had to defend its own premises when its Neustadt station became flanked by burning buildings, but escaped unscathed.

Tumbled walls, torn-up tramlines and burning stock in the shops made Zorndorfer Strasse impassable as far as the Stern. Shards of glass from shattered shop fronts, broken mirrors, torn bedding and bent chairs lying in the roadway recalled the November night six-and-a-quarter years before when brown-shirted mobs had demolished Jewish premises, thrown the furniture of Jewish citizens into the streets and set light to the synagogue near the railway station. Such recollections were naturally not to be found in the War Diary that the Party officials had ordered to be kept. An elderly civil servant was acting as the chronicler, his task being to record daily the latest information from the Party offices, police and fire brigade.

Totally unexpected was the arrival in Küstrin of about a dozen women, children and elderly people from a village on the east bank of the Oder. They arrived with a few household goods on two horse-drawn wagons. Overtaken by the front, they had been living ‘on the other side’ for a week. The women had been allowed to cross the Soviet lines to buy food when their supplies ran out, but had been stopped by German sentries who had orders to prevent anyone entering the town. The Soviet commander responsible for the area had ordered them to leave, giving them the choice of heading for the hinterland or going into the beleaguered town.[19]

From 7 to 10 February the 21st Panzer Division, newly allotted to this sector, encountered bitter resistance in its attacks northwards out of Gorgast to Küstrin, but it broke through the Soviet encirclement and opened a narrow passage, and the first supplies were driven through to the fortress that night. This ‘corridor’, as the opening was called, began in the south near Gorgast and ended in the north in the Genschmar area, its width varying from 3 to 5 kilometres; it was about 6 kilometres long, running from Gorgast, via the Bleyen manor farm (Gut Bleyen) to the Vorflut Canal railway bridge. It was only usable at night and heavy loads could be carried only by tracked vehicles.[20]

Erich Zeschke described his experiences as a ‘pipeline’ truck driver:

The news-sheet of 8 February reported: ‘The army commander-in-chief has expressed his appreciation to the brave garrison of Küstrin for its fierce resistance until now and its considerable success.’ The local situation report noted ‘lively reconnaissance and assault troop activity’ and gave enemy losses as 113 killed. As usual, nothing was said about the extent of German casualties. The dressing stations were still adequate, but the number of casualties they held had increased with every action since the interruption of transportation to the hinterland. The large garrison hospital in the town woods offered excellent facilities as a main dressing station, but this extensive complex had been on the front line since the very beginning, so additional dressing stations had been improvised in two of the Altstadt schools, their old walls giving ample protection against the now dominant mortars. Since the rocket salvoes had started landing on the Neustadt, the wounded had been shaking with every explosion. Some were even lying in the gymnasium of the Boys’ Senior School in Friedrichstrasse. This single-storey functional building of recent construction only had a light, flat roof and thin brick walls with wide expanses of window. Nobody went there voluntarily.

When the artillery was relatively quiet, the street traffic livened up. Cars, apart from those bearing the Red Cross, were rarely seen for lack of fuel but horse-drawn carts and tractors were common. Those who begged could, with the right words or cigarettes, according to the mood of the driver, reach their destination more quickly. Because of the extensive flooding resulting from the thaw, there were no other means of conveying people to and from the more distant parts of the town. The trams had given up even before the fighting started and the depot with all its trams in the Neumarkt had since been destroyed by the first salvoes, and there had never been a town bus service except to Drewitz and, for a while, to Kietz.

Even the most fragile wagons were in use transferring civilian and military stocks from the Neustadt into the presumably safer Altstadt. Volkssturm men not deployed in the front line for lack of weapons or on health grounds were ordered to clear the Army Supply Depot, which had been prepared for demolition with explosives. They were in no great hurry, for there were always more difficult and dangerous jobs for them to be allocated to. But neither the willingness of the labour force nor the capacity of the transport was the decisive factor here, for it was the capacity of the almost 200-year-old military barn in the Altstadt that set the limits.

Next Hitler Youth teams quartered in the Hitler Youth office building on the Marktplatz began moving the stocks of abandoned private wholesale and retail businesses into the Altstadt, this being momentarily the main task for those not yet called up for the Volkssturm or military service. The boys often had difficulty convincing their parents of the quality of the household articles, textiles and foodstuffs they were moving from the partly ruined Neustadt, for everything was still strictly rationed in the few shops still open.[22]

Then came a restless night, the most disturbed night since the refugee trains and treks had passed through in January, as windows shook to extensive booms that arose in irregular waves, only to diminish and then resume at full strength. The cannonade was far enough away that one could not distinguish between the firing and the explosions, but too near to enable one to sleep peacefully. The flashes of gunfire and exploding shells were like sheet lightning in the sky. For days there had been talk of heavy Bavarian artillery regiments unloading at Müncheberg. These were only harmless rumours like others that arose daily and often developed into dramatic legends before being quietly forgotten again.

The thunder of the artillery kept soldiers and civilians fully clothed until morning in expectation of having to take shelter in bunkers and cellars. (So far the use of shelters for permanent residence had not been necessary.) After eight days of only candles or paraffin lamps for illumination, it was now possible to enjoy the luxury of electric light. The power plant of the Potato Meal Factory in the Neustadt, which with its 1,000 or so employees was the biggest business in the town, had become the town’s power station after all the cables to the outside world had been cut. An announcement in the news-sheet warned everyone to be exceedingly economical in order to avoid overloading the system. Heating appliances and suchlike were not to be used.

The artillery battle died down but in the early morning all parts of the fortress came under harassing fire, the main concentration being on the Altstadt, and Küstrin suffered its first civilian casualties. A man and a woman in a side street near the town hall fell to shrapnel splinters while taking advantage of a pause in the firing to attend to their needs. The roneoed news-sheet that afternoon described the night’s exchange of fire. Contact had been made with the formations attacking from the west. This was the first official acknowledgement of the existing encirclement and almost complete isolation of the town. Its restrained formulation and its position at the end of the situation report showed that success was not taken as certain. In fact the 21st Panzer Division had pushed through to the town on the general line of the railway and opened a roughly 2-kilometre-wide aisle in the Soviet encirclement. However, both the railway and the road remained impassable.[23] The fortress situation report for 9 February read:

A new threat appeared on 10 February when Soviet aircraft appeared for the first time, presumably on reconnaissance. The weather was perfect for them, being sunny and cloudless. They circled at gradually lower heights until the flak thickened. There was no sign of any German aircraft, for there was sufficient fuel only for the ground-attack aircraft to engage the Soviet crossing points from the Neu Hardenberg airfield and elsewhere. Once again Fürstenwalde was the base for the almost legendary tank-busting exploits of ace pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel. In fact he had been shot down the day before by flak over Lebus and severely wounded, but was able to make an emergency landing near Seelow with the help of his air gunner.

In the south Infantry Battalion 500 became heavily engaged on both sides of the Oder. Only a week earlier it had had difficulty holding off an attack by seven tanks supported by two companies of infantry. The little hamlet of Bienenhof on the east bank blocked the approaches to the Altstadt from the south, preventing direct fire from along the river banks, and also covered the flank of the positions in Kietz on the other bank of the Oder, giving good tactical reasons for either side to hold or take it. This time the Soviet tank-supported infantry assault was increased to battalion size and the group of buildings was lost, but the Soviet troops were unable to consolidate their success. Behind the hamlet the passable strip of land narrowed down to the Oder dyke, where the defenders regrouped. One of the attacking tanks turned back on the roadway running along the top of the dyke right in front of the flak, apparently afraid of mines, and exploded. Reinforcements from the town enabled the lost ground to be regained after some costly close-quarter fighting.

The noise of this fighting was muffled in the Altstadt by unusually heavy firing. Hardly anyone dared go out into the streets before midday. In the quarters occupied by the Party officials from Landsberg the birthday of the well-rounded NSV district leader, a former butcher, was celebrated unconcernedly, and there was no lack of drink or food for the table. They had not occupied all the important positions in the supply organisation for nothing, and were getting twice the rations of the people they were responsible for. The celebrations also offered an opportunity to mark the fortunate turn of events that Major-General Kegler had been made the scapegoat for their precipitate breakout from Landsberg.[24]

The 21st Panzer Division, now urgently needed elsewhere, was withdrawn from the ‘pipeline’ to Küstrin and replaced by Major-General Arnold Burmeister’s 25th Panzergrenadier Division, which took over the sector from Neu Manschnow to Genschmar with the task of keeping open access to the fortress, the handover taking place in pouring rain.[25]

Sunday, 11 February was comparatively quiet, the peace disturbed only by the flak opening up from time to time when Soviet aircraft ventured too low. In the news-sheet that appeared in various places in the afternoon there was no mention of the local military situation.

One week after the Soviet advance had interrupted regular rail and road connections with the hinterland there was no chance of these being reopened. The encirclement had quickly solidified, withstanding counterattacks at all the decisive points. The town was now utterly dependent on the track between Bleyen and Gorgast. Heavy half-track vehicles, including the towing tractors for the 88mm guns of Army Flak Battalion 292, were being assembled in Seelow. The drivers were on stand-by in the Drei Kronen pub, waiting to bring the most important loads through the ‘corridor’. Tests had shown that the convoys could make the return trip twice a night, but in daylight they were forbidden to go anywhere near the Soviet lines. The approximately 25-kilometre route began along Reichsstrasse 1, turning off as for Golzow, past Golzow railway station and then along the road to Gorgast. The most difficult part of the journey was the 4-kilometre track to Bleyen, where the road on the Oder dyke connected with the road into the town.

The most urgent requirement at the moment was ammunition, particularly for the heavy weapons. The flak batteries that had been thrown in with the utmost haste were not equipped for sustained action, and their ammunition stocks had rapidly diminished. Reinefarth must have been concerned about the fighting capability of the fortress’s main armament. The foreseeable end to this scarcity gave him confidence once more. The access route was narrow, but relieved anxiety over the growing number of desertions and the need for an extensive control system. The system of military sentries on the ‘corridor’ was so dense that no one could get through without permission. No soldier, even when the planned traffic started working, could pass as wounded unless he had a special evacuation label.[26]

Concerned that the ‘corridor’ might prove to be a trap, Reinefarth had a provisional aircraft landing strip prepared. His choice was the straight and open strip of roadway running across the foot of the Hohen Kavalier from the Altstadt to the Warthe road bridge. Engineers removed the rest of the snow, the street lamps and the posts carrying the power for the trams, levelled fences and the young red-thorn trees lining the street where just four and a half years previously the garrison had held a victory parade celebrating the success of the Blitz wars over Poland and France. The cobbles were smoothed over with gravel but one did not need to be an expert to see that the barely 300-metre-long strip was inadequate for all but a Fieseler Storch, which could only take one passenger, and who would that be?

At the same time Reinefarth required the soldiers and inhabitants to pay particular attention to the words of Hitler’s speech of 30 January, in which the Führer had called on everyone to ‘exert themselves to the utmost to prevent unnecessary loss and damage’. Reinefarth gave orders that this phrase was to be used in the introduction to the first edition of the Feste Küstrin garrison newspaper that day, and finished with the charge: ‘We hold to our country and thus grant our leadership the freedom to deliver the final blow.’

The Feste Küstrin appeared for the first time on 12 February. It was printed in the old Oderblatt printing premises on Plantagenstrasse in the Neustadt, and the last issue was number 23 of 7 March, the day the Neustadt fell. The first edition contained the following appeal:

Gauamtsleiter Westphal added his own contribution to this first edition with: ‘It is difficult from the local District point of view to form an opinion whether a sort of evacuation is desirable, expedient, absolutely necessary or even possible. The evacuation of the town has not been ordered and consequently cannot be executed. An “unpredictable military development” just as permission had been given “made its execution impossible”.’ Interestingly, this was the first public acknowledgement of receipt of the evacuation order.

There was also an appeal in the fortress newspaper for the registration of people living in the Neustadt, by which each household on production of the blue household pass would report the number of family members. Cardboard to replace shattered windows could be obtained from either the town hall or the town savings bank. Finally the newspaper announced, without providing any reason, that going out at night was immediately forbidden for civilians between 2000 and 0600 hours, and for foreign workers between 1800 and 0600 hours. Exceptions required the permission of the local police authority for a special curfew pass.

More important to the Küstrin garrison’s future was the Army Order issued this day ordering that the fortress ‘conduct the fighting so that contact is maintained with the Oder and that the construction of [Soviet] crossings over the river can be hindered by combat teams to the last’. This was just another formulation of ‘fighting to the last man’.[27]

The local situation report for 12 February read:

Luftwaffe Officer Cadet Sergeant Helmut Schmidt resumed his account of events in mid-February:

There was more skirmishing activity than usual on 13 February, a rainy day. The Soviet harassing fire increased and the fortress artillery also became more active now that the first convoys from Seelow had replenished their ammunition stocks. The bombardment routine, which was still mainly mortar fire, set the course of the day for the population. Particularly critical in this respect were the hours from 0800 to 1000, 1200 to 1400 and 1500 to 1700. At other times shopping and other business could be dealt with at relatively little risk.

The Feste Küstrin described the population enduring this restricted kind of life as showing ‘a determined hardness’. However, this assertion was undermined by the increasing number of impatient questions being asked about the possibility of leaving the town. Some emergency measures were introduced to try to curb this growing unrest. Letterboxes in every part of town were regularly emptied, or so it was said, indicating normal postal services were still operating, and an administrative office was opened in the Neustadt to save people having to use the dangerous route over the Warthe bridges, while a deserted building was taken over to replace the closed hospital.

One outcome of the shelling that day was a chance hit on one of the two demolition chambers on the Warthe road bridge, as Sapper Karl-Heinz Peters described:

The turmoil of the first days of fighting unsettled the outward routine that made life bearable and in which there were at least some traces of normality, such as acts of kindness. However, anxiety about basic survival remained. Apart from the two salvoes on the Neustadt there had still been no concentrated fire on other parts of the town, but the general increase and effectiveness of the besieging artillery was unmistakable. Even in the duty-bound optimism of the Party administration it was recognised that the bounds of ‘normalisation’ had been reached.[30]

The fortress news-sheet complained that ‘despite the statement included in the first issue’ there was still vagueness prevailing about the evacuation, and that rumours were giving rise to questions and requests. It declared: ‘If an orderly evacuation becomes increasingly necessary, all necessary measures will be taken to guarantee its execution and the re-housing. In this eventuality, Werbig has been prepared as a reception camp to which the transport will go. From there, there will be a prepared move to accommodation in Westprignitz.’

All the other pages were equally confident about the future. One example read: ‘He who makes his way from Berlin to Küstrin will traverse no kilometre in which he will not see the lifeblood pulsing eastwards from Berlin in a current of belief, trust and restless commitment. Along the whole stretch from Berlin to Küstrin many hands are active and our strength grows from hour to hour to be released at the desired moment, bringing forth the day of decision and liberation.’ Another read: ‘Küstrin fortress is an important feature in the current military game of chess over our East German homeland. Let us therefore take care we put our utmost effort at the disposal of the Führer, however and whenever he requires. We are convinced that the Führer is already in control and that in the foreseeable future the effect of his handling will be noticeable in our sector of the fighting.’

Events left little opportunity for these exhortations to take effect. Kietz had come under artillery fire during the night, then in the morning ground-attack aircraft in large numbers attacked positions in the Neustadt. At about midday the Altstadt and Kietz were shaken by bombardment by what was reckoned at about 1,000 rounds of all calibres. Bitter fighting erupted once more at the Bienenhof strong-point, involving two Soviet rifle battalions and eight tanks. Precisely as had occurred four days previously, the ruins of the hamlet changed hands twice before the old front line was restored at dusk.[31]

Operation ‘Sonnenwende’ (Summer Solstice) got under way on 15 February when ten German divisions attacked southwards from the area of Stargard. Their objectives were to break through the extended flank of the 1st Byelorussian Front in Pomerania, to cut it off and then destroy the Soviet forces on the Oder, pushing through to the Küstrin area. In the meantime the besieging batteries resumed their fire on Küstrin and engaged nearly all parts of the front line. The headquarters reported 5,860 hits. Several freestanding houses in Wallstrasse on the edge of the Altstadt, not 500 metres from the front, had to be evacuated. The cellars were flooded, as happened nearly every year in the thaw, and could not be occupied in the foreseeable future. The remaining inhabitants of Kietz were advised to move into the ‘less dangerous’ Altstadt from their village homes, which offered little protection, especially now that Soviet tanks had been used in the Reitwein bridgehead. However, the fortress staff forbade their acceptance into the Altstadt ‘on military grounds’, so they had little choice but to head for the Neustadt. Several families moved as suggested. They had heard about the destruction, but now everything was being talked about and exaggerated, both good and bad. Perhaps they really would be safer in these more densely built quarters. However, all illusions fled when they saw the heaps of rubble where once had been thriving streets, and almost all the families returned to Kietz, some slipping unnoticed into the Altstadt.

The fortress newspaper had new reasons for criticising the behaviour of the population, this time because there was some confusion among the men and women about their obligations for labour service. All childless women up to 55 years old were supposed to report for duty. Additionally, all girls from 14 to 21 years old in the Jugendpflicht (Youth Duty Service) were to report immediately to the Hitler Youth offices for employment in dressing stations, kitchens and tailor shops, or to do laundry for the Volkssturm and barracked Hitler Youth.

A group of women had already been mobilised a week earlier to sew enormous screens that the engineers spread like banners from the Altstadt entrance to the Neustadt end of the Warthe bridges. For part of this stretch the trees could be used as securing points, while wooden laths were used on the bridges. Shots and splinters left their mark and at first this damage was quickly repaired, but as time passed either the repair troop became tired of this task or had been given another one. The construction disintegrated, gradually giving the Soviet artillery observers on the Sonnenburger Chaussee a better view of the scanty bridge traffic.

The Feste Küstrin published the first Standing Court’s actions: ‘Corporal Z was sentenced for plundering by the Standing Court on 10.2.1945 to death and military disgrace. The condemned entered damaged business premises in the Neustadt where Hitler Youth were busy saving household goods. He went along with the cart the Hitler Youth were taking to the Küstrin-Altstadt and removed items from the cart to take home with him despite protests. The sentence is to be carried out by shooting on 11.2.1945.’[32] The Wehrmacht Report on the front page of the fortress newspaper of 16 February reported among other things the fall of Budapest, Soviet attacks on Breslau and Golgau, the retreat to Grünberg and heavy house-to-house fighting in encircled Posen; things seemed quieter on the west front, but central Germany, with Saxony, Münsterland and south-east Germany, was suffering, and in particular Chemnitz, Magdeburg and Dresden were named as having been targets for Anglo-American air attacks.

The Standing Court also had a soldier executed for leaving his unit in the front line and hiding in a nearby building for eight days.

Everyday life continued within the fortress. Soviet batteries brought down heavy fire on the Bienenhof and were engaged by the heavy flak guns in return. Low-flying Soviet ground-attack aircraft attacked the Neustadt and a German fighter-bomber attacked Soviet positions near Drewitz.

The electricity supply to the town failed again, but whether this was the result of a direct hit, technical problems or other reasons was not known. Candles and oil lamps came into their own once more, although fuel for the lamps was running out. Here and there a dusty bottle was found in a cellar, but there were no longer any larger supplies. Fuel for motor vehicles was equally scarce. In any case an order had appeared that motor vehicles could only be used with a special pass from headquarters and with a work chit for every journey. Wehrmacht vehicles now carried the letters ‘FK’ for ‘Fortress Küstrin’ painted in white on the wings. The only non-military vehicles in use were those of the fire brigade and one belonging to the NSDAP district office.

The provisional delivery station in Roonstrasse reported the first birth of the siege, a boy. Sadly, he would never get to know his father, who had died three months earlier somewhere in the east.[33]

Fighter aircraft from both sides met early in the morning over the town. The harmless rattling of machine guns so high up brought many people on to the streets. They were sure there was nothing to worry about, as long as the nimble machines were so intensively engaged with one another. The planes stayed beyond the range of the light flak and the heavy guns that in any case were holding back from endangering their own aircraft. This new spectacle attracted interest from all over the front. The Soviet batteries were suddenly silent after having been very active since dawn. For a long time the hunting spurts of tracer bullets found no targets in the cloudless sky, then one aircraft suddenly emitted a plume of smoke, lost height and vanished out of sight. This acted on the other pilots like a pre-arranged signal to break off the fight, and in a few minutes there was no trace of this bitter engagement.

The groups of spectators dispersed without saying anything, not knowing whether the downed aircraft was German or Soviet. As people queued in the few grocers’ shops that still had provisions, the relative strengths of the machines came under vigorous discussion, and the debate continued until the firing started up again, and most people abandoned their places in the queue to go home before the storm broke in all its fury. It was afternoon before people could go out again. The picture that many streets offered was desolate, with broken tiles and windows, masonry and roof timbers littering the pavements. The Marktplatz area had suffered the most, the façade of a corner building on Berliner Strasse having collapsed from a direct hit. The roof truss hung freely over the ripped open storeys. Volkssturm men who had been accommodated in the pub on the ground floor could not understand how they had survived this horror. They stood around covered in dust and white-faced with shock as firemen and air raid wardens cleared the street of heaps of debris. Headquarters staff calmly summed up the day: ‘Harassing fire day and night from all calibres on the whole sector (5,560 shots). The Altstadt and Neustadt suffered heavy damage.’

On 16 February the fortress, which until then had come directly under 9th Army Headquarters, was allocated tactically to SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Waffen-SS Matthias Kleinheisterkamp’s XIth SS Panzer Corps. Kleinheisterkamp’s headquarters were located at Neuentempel, 6 kilometres south-west of Seelow.[34]

There was still no indication that an evacuation would take place in the foreseeable future. The information in the fortress newspaper on 18 February, however, gave the impression that those in the know expected some more difficult days, perhaps weeks, ahead. New identity cards were being introduced, with passes for the Oder bridges and special passes for going out at night during the curfew. Anyone who had moved into a different building without official approval had to obtain an official permit immediately; NSDAP cell leaders and Red Cross personnel were requested to report for further duties. The former Landsberg District farmers’ leader, now head of civilian supplies in Küstrin, spoke of the efforts being made to provide the town with enough supplies to enable it to withstand a siege of weeks or months. Even tobacco would be rationed for men on ration cards in future. ‘The biggest problem is with milk and butter supplies as, due to enemy artillery fire, often milk cannot be delivered from Alt Bleyen and Kietz. Here the NSV is helping out with dried milk. Instead of butter, the same weight in clarified butter or margarine will be issued.’ Issues of ersatz milk were actually not made regularly and in any case were limited to children up to 4 years of age. The official rations were set out as follows:

The dried items came from the stocks of Küstrin merchants. Canned milk had been brought in from Frankfurt on the night of 4 February in a truck guided along by tracer bullets. The route via Seelow was unknown to either the driver or his companion, and from Manschnow they had been exceedingly lucky to get through the Soviet advance positions. Theirs was the last vehicle to reach the town by Reichsstrasse 1.

Fortress surgeon Dr Weglau considered the state of hygiene in the town ‘very good at the moment’, commenting that ‘infectious illnesses have not appeared to any extent’. Nevertheless, the population had only the Altstadt pharmacy to turn to, in its lightly damaged building on the Marktplatz. The Neustadt pharmacy had been closed since the first fighting, and plunderers had subsequently rendered it unrecognisable in their search for narcotics.

Following a relatively peaceful morning there was an unusually big explosion that afternoon that gave rise to the rumour that the Warthe bridges had been destroyed. The engineer staff who quickly appeared at the site discovered that the situation was not as bad as first feared. The bridge structure had not been torn apart, as only one of the two demolition chambers on the central piers had exploded after receiving a direct hit. However, vehicular traffic over this single road bridge between the Altstadt and Neustadt was now impossible. The roadway hung down at a steep angle into the flooded Warthe. At considerable risk pedestrians could cross on the pathway resting on the remains of the piers, but these had substantial cracks in them. The construction of an emergency bridge over the sagging structure would take time, but meanwhile one could use the railway bridge 100 metres away from Breslauer Strasse. Thick planks were laid over the tracks between street-level crossings in the Altstadt and Neustadt, and by evening the first wagons were able to use the new crossing. Nevertheless it was open to one-way traffic only, controlled by the sentries at either end. The water pipes and telephone and electricity cables that had been ripped apart in the explosion could not be replaced so quickly, and the carefully assembled sightscreens had come to the end of their life.[35]

Major of the Reserve Werner Falckenberg, who owned a sawmill and factory in Warnick that had been taken over by the Wehrmacht during the war, wrote a letter to his wife on 16 February:

Officer Cadet Corporal Hans Dahlmanns recalled:

Officer Cadet Corporal Hans Kirchhof of the tank turret unit recounted his experiences in the Kietz Gate area:

Luftwaffe Officer Cadet Sergeant Helmut Schmidt wrote of his experiences at the Weinbergshof Farm and in Kietz in mid-February: