SS Charlemagne

Chapter Two Action

The circumstances in which the Charlemagne was committed to war were indeed desperate.

In mid-January the Soviets had broken out of their bridgeheads across the Vistula River and swept up to the Oder River opposite Berlin by the end of the month in a lightening operation. But, in doing so the Soviets had left Pomerania out of the line of advance, enabling the Germans to muster a force there that was intended to strike south into the flank of the Soviet vanguards and annihilate them while Soviet lines of communication were still hampered by lack of bridges across the Vistula.

Under the prevailing conditions, with the old men of the Volkssturm and the 14-year-olds of the Hitler Youth being mobilised for defence, it was obvious that the departure of the Charlemagne for the front, even if insufficiently trained and equipped, could not be delayed much longer. Consequently, on 17 February 1945, the first elements of the Charlemagne, now officially up-graded to a division, entrained at Wildflecken railway station.

According to the orders received, upon arrival in the forward area the advance elements of the Charlemagne would report to Headquarters Army Group Weichsel. This Army Group had been created on 23 January from the wreckage of the 9th Army pushed back to the line of the Oder River by Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian Front, and the remains of the 2nd Army now standing with its back to the Baltic around Danzig as a result of the advance of Marshal Rokossovsky’s 2nd Byelorussian Front. The commander of this new formation was Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who would later establish his headquarters at Prenzlau.

Incredibly, Himmler had arrived to take up this appointment in his personal train with only one Wafjen-SS staff officer and a single map. His train then parked in Deutsch Eylau railway station, blocking the line for refugee trains heading west, and forbidding further evacuation of the civilian population, not that this order would be obeyed.

With the arrival of Himmler as commander of Army Group Weichsel came a plethora of police officers to keep order in the rear areas and, in particular, round up deserters and stragglers to return them to the front in march companies.

By this stage of the war, it was not uncommon for units to raid trains destined for other units in order make up their own deficiencies. With a view to preventing this, Himmler renewed his orders of 4 February in a telex of the 26th to SS-General Hans Juttner, who was standing in for him as commander of the Replacement Army, to ensure that every train carrying ammunition, fuel, vehicles or weapons destined for the front were to be escorted under command of an energetic officer of at least the rank of captain, assigned by name and personally responsible, to ensure that the wagons were not stolen, uncoupled, left in sidings or sent off in the wrong direction. This unusual state of affairs, which had become quite normal, despite the Wehrmacht’s usual strict discipline, was to have grave consequences for the Charlemagne. Because of a serious situation arising in one of the areas through which it had to pass, either in Bohemia or Silesia, another formation appropriated all the Charlemagne‘s Hetzers for its own more urgent needs.

It so happened that the Soviet had made a serious error in their planning, so that between Marshal Zhukov’s thrust towards Berlin and Marshal Rokossovsky’s thrust on Danzig, no allowance had been made for a simultaneous clearing of Pomerania, and it was into this gap, between the 9th Army lining the Oder and the 2nd Army defending Danzig–Gotenhafen area, that the German High Command began pouring a miscellany of hastily assembled units now assigned to SS-General Felix Steiner’s 11th SS-Panzer Army. Then, taking advantage of this temporarily advantageous situation, Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, chief of the general staff, proposed a pincer movement to cut into Marshal Zhukov’s forces from north and south, converging on Küstrin. Hitler, however, was more concerned with the situation in Hungary, to where he sent the bulk of his remaining armoured forces, leaving Guderian only the resources of the 11th SS-Panzer Army to mount Operation Sonnenwende (Solstice) for a thrust southwards into Zhukov’s northern flank.

Guderian, concerned at Himmler’s military ineptitude, after a long and blistering argument with Hitler, finally obtained agreement for the operation to be commanded by his own deputy, Lieutenant-General Walter Wenck. Operation Sonnenwende was launched on 15 February, achieving temporary surprise with a thrust by the 11th SS-Nordland Division on Arnswalde, where the besieged German garrison was relieved. The remaining German forces attacked on the 16th and also achieved some limited success over the next two days despite persistent Soviet counterattacks and also coming up against strong anti-tank defences of guns and mines.

On the 17th Wenck was summoned to Berlin to brief Hitler on the progress of the operation. On the way back Wenck took over the wheel from his exhausted driver, only to fall asleep himself and crash the car, hurting himself badly. General of Infantry Hans Krebs assumed control of the operation the next day, but by then the initiative had been lost. The German units had all been forced to go on the defensive and that evening Army Group Weichsel abandoned the attack. Some of the armoured elements were then immediately sent in haste to the Küstrin front, where the situation was even more critical, and SS-General Steiner was left with insufficient troops to continue.

In turn, Zhukov decided to launch an attack toward Stettin on 19 February, using the 2nd Guards Tank Army, the 61st Army and the 7th Guards Cavalry Corps. Two corps of the 61st Army surrounded Arnswalde while one division went in to clear the town in bitter street fighting, so Zhukov temporarily called off the operation and switched to the defensive.

The first train load of the Charlemagne arrived at Hammerstein station on the Pomeranian boundary with East Prussia at 0200 hours on 22 February. This was unexpected, for when the train carrying the Divisional Headquarters had stopped at Gollnow, near Stettin, at about 1700 hours the previous day, Brigadier Puaud, SS-Colonel Zimmermann, Captain Renault and Officer-Cadet Platon had left the train and driven on to Rummelsburg, only to discover upon arrival that the train carrying the main body had meanwhile been diverted to Hammerstein. Now allocated to the 11th SS-Panzer Army, the Division was to regroup at Hammerstein Camp, where it would receive additional arms and equipment and have a week to prepare before going into the line.

However, back in Moscow after the distractions of the Yalta Conference, between 17 and 22 February the Soviet High Command issued fresh instructions to Marshals Zhukov and Rokossovsky calling for a combined attack that would split the Pomeranian group of German forces in half and then fan out to clear the area. In pursuance of these instructions, Rokossovsky launched his 2nd Byelorussian Front in an attack on 24 February in which the 3rd Guards Tank Corps and 19th Army spearheaded a northerly thrust to the Baltic coast near Köslin, while the main body did a right hook toward Danzig and Gotenhafen.

It was calculated that the German forces defending Pomerania were facing an enemy superiority of 1 to 3–5 in infantry, 1 to 2–4 in tanks and 1 to 4–6 in artillery.

At Hammerstein Camp at dawn on 24 February, a strong artillery bombardment could be heard and seen some 15km to the southeast as the Soviets conducted an artillery preparation. Five divisions of the Soviet 19th Army had launched an attack on the 32nd Infantry Division between Marienfelde and Konitz.

That same morning Major Emile Raybaud arrived by train with the 58th Regiment’s headquarters and Captain Emile Monneuse’s 1st Battalion.

Consequent upon the Soviet attack, the Charlemagne was now assigned to the 2nd Army’s XVIIIth Mountain Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Hans Hochbaum. Until the arrival of the Charlemagne, this corps, which had no mountain troops, consisted of only the 32nd Infantry Division and the 15th Waffen-SS-Grenadier Division of Latvians, and was responsible for a 45km front, for which the Charlemagne came as a welcome reinforcement. The Latvians had their divisional headquarters in the village of Krummensee, with their two regiments covering the western flank along the Kuddow River through the town of Landeck and then facing southwards along the line of the Dobrinka River as far as the village of Rosenfelde. The 32nd Infantry had their headquarters at Stolzenfelde, north of Schlochau, and covered the line eastwards, north of Preussisch Friedland to Konitz.

Both divisions were of excellent fighting quality, the Latvians seeking revenge for the Russian invasion of their country, while the 32nd Infantry had been raised in Pomerania and was literally defending its home ground, but both had already been engaged with the enemy for a month and had suffered severe casualties.

During the course of the morning, a conference was held at the camp with SS-Major-General Krukenberg, Brigadier Puaud and the two regimental commanders, Captains Raybaud and Victor de Bourmont, attending. The front held by the Latvians had been penetrated and the Division had just received orders to plug the breach. The command intention was to form a stop line facing east in the area between Hammerstein and Schlochau, with the front supported by the Haaken River in the south and southwest and by the Kramsker See and Gross Ziethener See lakes in the north.

With only three battalions available, the orders for the move were given out immediately and took place at about midday as follows:

a) The 1st/57th (Lieutenant Henri Fenet) towards Heinrich swalde and Barkenfelde.

b) The 2nd/57th and HQ 57th Regt (Captain de Bourmont) towards Geglenfelde. (For tactical reasons the 57th Regiment was provisionally attached to the 32nd Infantry Division and was to hold the prescribed line of the front for about 7km running from south of Heinrichswalde to east of Barkenfelde. The right wing of the 32nd Infantry Division extended as far as Bärenhutte railway station.)

c) The 1st/58th (Captain Emile Monneuse) and HQ 58th Regt (Captain Emile Raybaud) to Barenhutte as the divisional reserve.

However, it should be noted that not only was the Division incomplete, but it was going into action with only those items, including ammunition, that it had brought with it. There were no radios and only a few maps. The military installation at Hammerstein was empty of all military stores as a result of its previous use as a prisoner-of-war camp.

Fenet’s 1st/57th left its temporary position and advanced towards Heinrichswalde, which it was to occupy and defend as a firm base of operations, but its march was delayed by the very poor state of the road. At times the carts carrying their heavy weapons and ammunition sank up to their hubs in the mud through which the troops had to march, while refugees fleeing in the opposite direction forced them to the side of the road. On the way Lieutenant Fenet learned that the Russians had broken through and were also heading for Heinrichswalde. The battalion immediately prepared to encounter the enemy.

Towards 1900 hours, as night fell, Second-Lieutenant Counil’s leading 3rd Company was approaching Heinrichswalde when it was met by a hail of fire. The enemy had just occupied the village without a fight, for the front in this sector appeared to have been completely abandoned. Second-Lieutenant Counil estimated the enemy effectives no more than a company, so Lieutenant Fenet decided to attack in strength.

The 3rd Company would pin down the enemy from the south-west, the 1st Company would surround the village from the southeast and Lieutenant Bartholomei’s 2nd Company from the northwest. During the mortar preparation by Staff-Sergeant Couvreur’s 4th Company, the 2nd Company was to establish contact with the 2nd Battalion on the left, but none of the patrols sent out were able to make contact with anyone in that direction. The mortar preparation proved of short duration, as the ammunition soon ran out.

The 1st and 3rd Companies attacked, while the 2nd Company swept the ground to the east with automatic weapons, reducing the enemy resistance in the village. But the enemy machine guns proved judiciously well placed and the enemy effectives were now estimated at being a battalion. Flares and a clear night prevented further progress.

The 3rd Company advanced at the cost of very heavy losses, Second-Lieutenant Counil being killed, and rapidly reached the centre of the village, which it occupied and began to clear. When the 1st Company tried to advance, it was quickly checked by violent fire coming from heavy weapons. There was some hesitation, and a tentative flanking movement had no more success than the direct attack. The 2nd Company could not move, as enemy fire had it pinned down and the enemy could not be dislodged from this part of the village.

At this moment, the Soviets launched a violent counterattack to retake the village. The 3rd Company, reinforced by Battalion HQ, and supported by the fire of the other companies, intervened and neatly stopped the Russians, who resumed their attack several times, being rebuffed each time. Eventually Lieutenant Fenet was thinking of surrounding Heinrichswalde left and right with his 1st and 2nd Companies in a concentric attack, when the 1st Company signalled that Russians were advancing northwards unopposed between the Schönwerder and Peterswalde roads. The 2nd Company also reported that strong Russian infantry formations were advancing non-stop on Barkenfelde.

Towards midnight the Russians conducted a reconnaissance in strength with an infantry company reinforced by anti-tank guns and mortars advancing towards the 6th Company. The company commander, Second-Lieutenant Brunet, allowed the enemy to approach to within 20m of his positions before opening a murderous fire to cut down the attackers. The survivors avoided coming to close-quarter fighting and fled, but a little later a terrible bombardment fell on the battalion’s positions for about an hour from Soviet artillery, 80mm and 120mm mortars, 76mm anti-tank guns and Stalin Organ rockets.

However, the two wings of Fenet’s 1st/57th were now in the air, already bypassed, with no chance of liaison to either left or right, and about to be surrounded.

Meanwhile, things had not gone well in the 2nd/57th’s sector. HQ 57 Regiment and Captain René-André Obitz’s 2nd Battalion had arrived at Geglenfelde from Hammerstein at about noon. Learning that the Russians had already occupied the village of Barkenfelde, where he was supposed to have set up his command post, Captain de Bourmont immediately took up fighting positions with his regimental staff. The 32nd Infantry Division holding this sector had been so seriously crushed that there was no one left between them and the enemy.

Captain Obitz’s 2nd/57th continued its advance to contact, while the regimental command post was being established in Bärenwalde. At about 1500 hours Second-Lieutenant Erdozain’s Reconnaissance Section came into contact with an enemy detachment wearing German uniforms (turncoat German prisoners of war, so-called Seydlitz-Troops) several hundred metres from Bärenwalde, but managed to get away. The 2nd/57th immediately attacked from the march, threw back the enemy and reoccupied the village, which it held until the evening when, under pressure from fresh Soviet troops engaging against the French positions with a strength of about 10 to 1, Captain Obitz ordered the disengagement and retirement to a line of craters in front of Bärenwalde to the northeast of the road to Barkenfelde.

At about 1900 hours, things calmed down and reinforcements arrived. These were Lieutenant Serge Krotoff’s heavy anti-tank company from the tank-hunting battalion, a battery of 105mm howitzers, and two 88mm flak guns detached from the 32nd Division.

Major Raybaud set up the 58th Regiment’s command post in Bärenhütte during the afternoon, while Captain Monneuse’s 1st/58th deployed on the other side of the road to Barkenfelde, where he organised his fighting positions on the southern edge of the Bärenwalde woods.

The bulk of the 58th Regiment having meanwhile arrived on foot, a conference was held in the 57th Regiment’s command post attended by Major de Vaugelas (the Brigade chief-of-staff), SS-Captain Jauss (the Inspection’s operations officer) and Captain Monneuse. The practical conclusion was that the 1st/58th should re-establish a continuous front between the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 57th Regiment, which were isolated from each other, and to this end come under the command of the 57th Regiment as reinforcements. Brigadier Puaud at the Brigade HQ in Bärenwalde confirmed this order with Major Raybaud and also detached Lieutenant Michel Saint Magne’s 6th Company of the 58th Regiment to a point halfway between Bärenhütte and Elsenau.

Captain Monneuse’s deployment of the 1st/58th had Lieutenant Fabian’s 1st Company on the left, Second-Lieutenant Yves Rigeade’s 3rd Company on the right and Lieutenant Géromini’s 2nd Company in reserve. The heavy weapons of Lieutenant André Tardan’s 4th Company were shared out between the other three companies.

At about 0500 hours on the morning of 25 February, a fresh Siberian division attacked the 2nd/57th, relieving the red Polish units hitherto engaged, and overran the French position. Captain Obitz withdrew foot by foot, while asking for support, but the inopportune withdrawal of an SS Latvian unit exposed his left flank and the situation became critical. Too thinly dispersed over the ground, the 2nd/57th was torn apart by the enemy attack, although the isolated companies fought well at the cost of heavy casualties. Cut off from the rest of his company, Officer-Cadet Million-Rousseau was last seen for an instant fighting alone in the midst of the Russians.

Captain Obitz was obliged to withdraw his battalion along the railway line, uncovering in his turn the left flank of the 1st/58th and provoking the evacuation of Bärenwalde, for which he was subsequently relieved of his command by SS-General Krukenberg.

Because of the withdrawal of the 2nd/57th on the previous evening with a view to establishing a continuous front with the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 57th Regiment, Captain de Bourmont commanding the 57th Regiment had ordered Lieutenant Fenet to pull out of Heinrichswalde to the level of the lake midway between Barkenfelde and Bärenwalde. For lack of other means of communication, the order had been given to a mounted messenger, none other than Lieutenant de Londaize, the adjutant of the 57th Regiment.

However, the situation was evolving very fast and a new push meanwhile had obliged the 2nd/57th to withdraw to Bärenwalde, and when the 1st/57th reached its prescribed positions in the middle of the night, after having got away from Heinrichswalde without difficulty, it again found it impossible to establish contact with the 2nd/57th on their left or the Latvians on their right.

Towards 0715 hours, a patrol from the 3rd Company, 1st/58th, brought the 2nd Company, 1st/57th, an order to withdraw signed by Captain de Bourmont. The 1st/57th was to withdraw under cover of darkness to the north by a new route to some 500m parallel to Bärenwalde to receive new instructions.

At the same time, the Russian infantry moved into the attack against the 1st/57th breaching the centre of the line and threatening to split the battalion in two. To prevent this and chase the Russians off, Lieutenant Fenet collected all his available forces on the right wing of the battalion and counterattacked immediately along the line of the front.

The counterattack succeeded and while the battalion was regrouping not far from Bärenwalde, contact was established with the 1st/58th defending the edge of the woods in liaison with elements of the 15th SS-Latvian Division. At about 1100 hours Lieutenant Fenet learnt that orders had been issued at 0800 hours for him to return to Bärenwalde, where fierce fighting had been going on all morning.

At about 0600 hours, the first Russian reconnaissance units made contact with the 1st/58th and were vigorously repelled. The first proper attack took place at 0900 hours and was also checked with the loss of a few casualties. Although the battalion had contact with the 2nd/57th on the left, with which its initial forward positions were aligned, it had no contact with anyone on the right, neither German, Latvian, 1st/57th, nor even Rigeade’s 3rd Company, which had been detached to occupy a position to the southeast. The 1st/58th thus had no protection on its right flank.

Captain Monneuse therefore ordered Lieutenant Tardan to make contact with the 3rd Company. Lieutenant Tardan took with him his command group and a section of mortars under Sergeant Salmon, and spent 2 hours searching for it in vain. Then, seeing elements of the 1st/57th and Latvians coming back, he sent the mortar section to opposite Bärenwalde along the Neustettin–Schlochau railway line, which was being organised as the second line of defence.

Several violent attacks developed on the 1st/58th’s front during the course of the morning, but, after enduring the heavy opening bombardments, the battalion was able to check all the Russian attacks. The 1st/57th played its part late in the morning when it came under flanking fire from the heavy weapons of the Russian infantry. Once it had stopped an attack, it continued on its way.

But the enemy had more success in the 2nd/57th’s sector, breaking all contact between the 1st/58th and the 2nd/57th. The Soviets occupied Bärenwalde and infiltrated the rear of the 1st/58th, obliging Captain Monneuse to withdraw in turn. Being delayed, he ordered Lieutenant Géromini’s 2nd Company to open a passage and then provide a rearguard for the battalion’s withdrawal.

The 2nd Company’s attack proved irresistible and all the heavy weapons got through without incident except for two 75mm guns, the carriages of which had been damaged and were made unserviceable. All the wounded were carried out on the men’s backs to the new position along the railway line.

It was almost noon when the vanguard of the 1st/57th came into sight of Bärenwalde and found that the village was already occupied by Russian tanks. The 1st/57th then made a half turn to resume contact with the 1st/58th, but some members of that battalion encountered on the way said that there had just been another Russian attack, more violent than before and supported by flame-throwers, which had completely disorganised the defence.

With the Russians occupying Bärenwalde and advancing along the Heinrichswalde road to Hammerstein, Fenet’s 1st/57th was in danger of being encircled. To avoid this, the battalion marched westwards under cover of the woods that occupied a large part of the terrain between Bärenwalde and Hammerstein, and arrived at the camp at nightfall having sustained another two attacks on the way.

Second-Lieutenant Rigeade’s 3rd Company of the 1st/58th had occupied the position designated, well away from the remainder of the battalion, at night and without prior reconnaissance, in liaison with the 15th SS-Latvian Division. The first Russian attack occurred at 0900 hours on the 25th. The Latvians dug in on the right were soon located by the enemy and, coming under heavy mortar fire, quickly withdrew. Believing that they had swept aside all resistance, the Russian infantry continued to advance but had to retire rapidly when they came under surprise fire from the well-camouflaged 3rd Company.

Then elements of the 1st/57th passed by, coming from the south as they withdrew towards Bärenwalde. Now isolated without contact to either left or right, Second-Lieutenant Rigeade was withdrawing his company on the road to Bärenwalde when two tanks with infantry escorts emerged from the woods on his right. The latter were engaged with automatic fire and one tank was damaged by a Panzerfaust, but the company was split into three groups, which then made their way through the woods to reach Bärenhütte.

The withdrawal of the 2nd/57th was covered by the infantry guns of the regimental company and the heavy weapons of Second-Lieutenant Philippe Colnion’s 8th Company deployed alongside the railway line, as well as a combat team from Second-Lieutenant Brunet’s 6th Company. The remains of the 2nd/57th, in some disarray, had to regroup behind the railway line to the left of Bärenwalde station, which served as the rough boundary with the 1st/58th, of which there was still no news, and the first elements of which had yet to withdraw.

Towards midday on 25 February, as Brigadier Puaud and SS-Colonel Zimmermann watched from the front line, the Russians launched a new attack. Despite the incredible ravage caused to this human tide, the wave of attackers advanced steadily and some twenty tanks emerged from Bärenwalde with the support of ground-assault aircraft. The 6th Company of the 2nd/57th, which had not yet completed its withdrawal, put up a magnificent defence, and was able to break contact thanks to the very heavy and precise fire from Captain Robert Roy’s infantry gun company, which stopped the enemy and allowed the withdrawal to take place.

A total of four enemy tanks were destroyed. The first by an NCO using a Panzerfaust, the second by a mine placed by the regiment’s engineer section, the two others by the regimental 75mm anti-tank guns that were old training pieces towed into position by a tractor taken from the Latvians. However, these guns were soon silenced and rendered useless. Officer-Cadet Vincenot, who was directing their fire, was seriously injured as a result of this violent enemy fire, and Lieutenant Flacy was wounded by a tank shell.

But the enemy started gaining ground and losses were heavy. The position became untenable and, after an hour of fighting, Captain de Bourmont was obliged to give the order to withdraw at the very moment that the first elements of the 1st/58th pulled back on the right wing.

The 2nd/57th was the first to set off to the north towards Elsenau, but its 7th and 8th Companies remained isolated north of the road and railway. Cut off, they retired fighting all the way to Elsenau. Lieutenant Artus, the regimental adjutant, was killed by a burst of fire. As a result of the last attack, an important breach had been made in the centre of the regiment’s lines several hundred metres from the railway station, dislocating the units. The withdrawal was confused and the seriously wounded had to be abandoned. The officers, without exception, stayed behind to cover the men’s withdrawal.

On a bend in the road at the bottom of a ravine, 300m along the way, elements of the 1st and 2nd Companies of the 58th had set up an anti-tank ambush, just in time to catch the first Russian tank surging through. It was destroyed with a hit from a Panzerfaust, probably fired by Lieutenant Fatin, while Sergeant Robert destroyed another by the same means.

Held back by this action, Lieutenants Fatin and Géromini with some of their men lost contact with the remainder of the 1st/58th and followed Captain de Bourmont, who, with the remainder of the 2nd/57th, withdrew to the divisional command post at Elsenau. This village was held by the Inspectorate’s small Honour Guard and Training Company, commanded by SS-Lieutenant Wilhelm Weber.

Although the remains of the 2nd/57th retiring on Elsenau had been mostly caught, scattered and bypassed by the Russian tanks advancing on the village, 400–500 men led by several officers, including Major Boudet-Gheusi, Captain Renault, Lieutenants Weber and Fatin, managed to organise a defence. The nucleus of the defence was formed by Lieutenant Weber’s company of about eighty men, which lost a quarter of its effectives but destroyed three enemy tanks. The remains of the 7th and 8th Companies of the 57th fought with equal bravery, especially in the village cemetery, where man-to-man fighting took place. The four anti-tank guns destroyed several tanks. The fighting was relentless and the Russians only made progress with difficulty. They eventually succeeded in taking the cemetery, where they killed all the injured, including a French prisoner from the 1939/40 war, who had voluntarily joined the unit. There were some on the Russian side, probably Poles, who called out rudely in excellent French for the men to surrender.

The Soviet forces engaged here in the push up to the Baltic Coast consisted of the 40th and 136th Guards Rifle Corps of the 2nd Byelorussian Front’s 19th Army, temporarily supported by the 8th Guards Mechanised Corps and 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps of the 1st Byelorussian Front’s 1st Guards Tank Army, Marshal Zhukov having loaned these formations to Marshal Rokossovsky on the condition that they would be returned intact!

During the course of this operation, the commander of the 19th Army was sacked for failing to keep pace with the armoured elements.

After the fall of Elsenau on the afternoon of the 25th, Russian tanks hooked round and attacked the rear of the French positions from the north, while Russian infantry blocked the escape route to the west. A group of eighty survivors, without ammunition or supplies, formed up and retreated to the north under the command of Lieutenant Fatin of the 1st/58th. With other stragglers, this constituted a company of 120 men in 3 platoons on the orders respectively of Officer-Cadets Chatrousse and Lapard, and Sergeant-Major Bonnafous. Following a painful march with the Russian tanks on their heels, they succeeded in joining up with a detachment commanded by Captain Obitz, and then Captain Martin. (The fate of this detachment will be dealt with later.)

As the Russians were advancing on Elsenau, SS-Colonel Zimmermann called on the command post of the XVIIIth Mountain Corps at Stegers to discuss the situation with General Hans Hochbaum. It was decided that the Charlemagne would withdraw to Stegers, while the command post of the XVIIIth Mountain Corps would withdraw to Flötenstein. At the end of the conference, General Hochbaum accompanied SS-Colonel Zimmermann to his command post’s garden gate just as the first Russian tank went past and shot up and set on fire SS-Colonel Zimmermann’s staff car. However, that night the corps command post managed to escape under cover of darkness and re-establish itself in Flötenstein as planned.

Next morning SS-Major-General Krukenberg met up with SS-Colonel Zimmermann at the corps command post in Flötenstein. Before departing for Neustettin, where the bulk of the Division was located, Krukenberg gave orders to SS-Colonel Zimmermann and SS-Second-Lieutenant Patzak to go to Greifenberg to arrange the departure of the replacement battalion to fill the gaps in the Charlemagne following these first engagements.

The 1st/58th, which was withdrawing west along the railway line to Bärenhütte, had difficulty maintaining its cohesion under fire from Russian tanks. That morning Captain Berrier’s 2nd/58th arrived complete and intact at Hammerstein, where it was joined by the remainder of the 2nd/57th and 1st/58th coming from Bärenwalde. The 3rd Company of the 58th was able to organise the defence of Bärenhütte, where Captain Raybaud had established the command post of his 1st/58th. This village became a strongpoint defended by four combat teams, two provided by the 2nd/58th under Captain Berrier, one from the 1st/58th under Captain Monneuse, and the last by Captain Roy from the 58th Regiment.

During the disastrous afternoon of the 25th, while the bulk of the enemy forces were putting everything into pushing north and overwhelming Elsenau, disdaining the road from Bärenhütte to Hammerstein, a light Russian reconnaissance vehicle was stopped by the outposts in front of Bärenhütte, the vehicle and a machine gun destroyed and several prisoners taken. The German second-lieutenant serving as liaison officer to the 57th Regiment was hit by two explosive bullets in the arm and was evacuated.

The village being situated outside their main line of advance, the Russians ignored Bärenhütte, their interminable columns moving on Elsenau. By 2000 hours, the whole of the infantry guns and anti-tank guns under Captain Roy had exhausted all their ammunition on these columns, which also became the target of the mortars of the 58th Regiment’s 4th and 8th Companies, provoking a Russian artillery riposte on Bärenhütte.

It was not until 2300 hours on the 25th that the Russians launched the first attack on the village, which they had encircled after nightfall. Majors de Vaugelas and Raybaud meanwhile prepared the methodical disengagement of their commands, which was to take place at midnight. The 58th Regiment’s 5th Company, under Sergeant-Major Eric Walter, was given the task of engaging the enemy during the move and of forming the rearguard thereafter.

As there were no means of evacuating them, the heavy guns were spiked and abandoned, and each man was given a Panzerfaust to carry. At the set hour the disengagement began under the direct orders of Brigadier Puaud along the only route still practicable, but which Russian patrols had tried to control several times during the evening. This was how Lieutenant Labuze, who had been sent on a liaison mission to Hammerstein, fell victim to an enemy patrol while passing through Geglenfelde.

From the beginning the disengagement took place so noisily that the Russians could not have helped noticing but, unaware of the weakness of the opposition, they failed to take advantage and kept a respectable distance, even though they could have inflicted a bloody blow by attacking the column as it withdrew.

The first elements of the Division began retreating to Neustettin at 1900 hours, a town about 18km west of Hammerstein.

By 0300 hours the retreat was complete, except for one small combat team formed in the camp the previous evening with all available elements from the divisional headquarters and the supply column. This little company of three platoons was commanded by Major Katzian and took up a blocking position on the flanks of the axis of retreat during the night, ready to prevent the enemy infiltrating. Nothing occurred, and it withdrew at 0500 hours.

By noon, covered by the 15th SS-Latvian Division, the bulk of the Charlemagne had reached Neustettin, where it spent the night and took stock. Of the 4,500 men that had left Wildflecken, only 3,000 answered roll call. But the divisional headquarters and all the elements cut off at Elsenau had withdrawn to the north and northeast and, although not immediately available, could not be considered lost. This amounted to about 1,000 missing, including 15 officers, and 500 killed, including 8 officers. A total of thirty Iron Crosses were awarded for various feats of arms. The units regrouped and rested in the barracks of the town, which had not been evacuated by the civilian population.

Annoyed by the slow progress of the 19th Army, whose commander he sacked, Marshal Rokossovsky boosted the rate of advance on his left wing with the insertion of the 3rd Guards Tank Corps. Hampered by the narrow roads, the tanks nevertheless moved forward 40km that day and took the town of Baldenburg. The German XVIIIth Mountain Corps had been split apart by this thrust and the surviving elements of the Charlemagne had been fortunate to extricate themselves.

A report dated 0001 hours on 26 February 1945 from Staff Lieutenant-Colonel Harnack of Army Group Weichsel, probably gives the must lucid account of events:

The situation with the 2nd Army has deteriorated considerably. Following his attack on the XVIIIth Mountain Corps, the enemy has again pierced the corps’ front and has reached Baldenburg via Stegers with his tanks. At the same time he has succeeded in dislodging and forcing back to the north-west the right wing of the XVIIIth Mountain Corps (elements of the Charlemagne Brigade and the 15th SS-Division).

The penetration of the thin front of the 32nd Infantry Division by the enemy cannot be reduced by the forces available to the XVIIIth Mountain Corps. We should expect the arrival of important enemy forces and an immediate change in the deployment of the Russian armies in view of the exploitation of this penetration to effect the splitting of our army group at this point.

The enemy has been able to enlarge the breach in the XVIIIth Mountain Corps’ sector and push his tanks forward to Baldenburg. The 15th Waffen-Grenadier Division SS and the SS-Volunteer Brigade Charlemagne have thus been split into isolated combat groups, partly losing contact with their rear, and have thus practically entirely lost their combat effectiveness.

The Russians entered Hammerstein at 1700 hours on the 26th.