SS Charlemagne

Chapter Four Retreat

After the division left for Körlin on 4 March, the 2nd Battalion of the March Regiment, 600 strong and still completely surrounded in the town, continued to hold out against enemy forces considerably superior in numbers and equipment. Violently bombarded by the Russian tanks and mortars, and at about 1900 hours harassed by partisans (probably Polish workers) who threatened the command post for a moment before they were chased off and destroyed, Captain Bassompierre hoped to leave the town under cover of the coming night.

The Russians occupied the cemetery on 7 March, but were immediately chased out again by a counterattack with fixed bayonets led by Sergeant-Major Walter.

At about 1800 hours, having held out for two days with his weak battalion, Captain Bassompierre decided to try to carry out the order to rejoin the Division with the nine officers and 500 men remaining.

The order having been given, the seriously wounded were stripped of their military clothing and documents, and left in the care of the civilian German representative of the German Red Cross in Körlin. The less seriously wounded were mounted on horses, whose hooves had been wrapped in sacks to silence them, to try to move along with the column.

At about 1900 hours the vanguard under Second-Lieutenant Rigeade left the town to the east by the railway bridge under cover of a diversion on the other side of town, a barrage by all the heavy weapons to use up the last of their ammunition. Under cover of night, the battalion followed the Belgard railway line for about 4km and then slipped between the Russian lines into the woods. In fact, as a result of false information, Bassompierre believed Kolberg to have fallen, so had decided to go round Belgard by the east and south, aiming for Stettin. He marched in the middle of the column, the last troops leaving Körlin at 2200 hours. It was high time; armoured vehicles were arriving from Köslin.

There then followed a long series of marches, detours (often through woods), constant encounters with the enemy, about fifteen of them, individual acts of bravery, such as Warrant-Officer Robert saving the column trapped by Russian tanks by destroying two of them with Panzerfausts.

One night the battalion was obliged to cross a main road on which there was heavy enemy traffic in both directions. While crossing the road diagonally, the vanguard ran into a Russian guard-post. Then, risking all or nothing, instead of crossing by bounds, the battalion prepared to cross together by surprise. At the same moment a column of Russian assault tanks appeared. To avoid all being destroyed, the men suddenly opened up a violent fire. Within several minutes four tanks and a dozen trucks and other vehicles had been destroyed with Panzerfausts. Unaware of the relative weakness of their opponents, the surprised enemy fled in all directions. But the enemy reaction also cost dear; Captain Monneuse was killed and Lieutenant Dr Joubert disappeared.

Tired and hungry, the column had to abandon its wounded. One of them, a youngster of 18 and unmoveable, was finished off by his section leader. Anyone who leant against a tree fell asleep from fatigue, and anyone who fell asleep was lost.

During another fight with tanks coming out of a wood, the column was dispersed in the area north of Schievelbein. Captain Bassompierre and several survivors were captured by the Russians on 17 March.

After this dispersal, however, certain elements, guided mainly by the best NCOs of the old LVF, were able to reach the banks of the Oder, where they were captured by the enemy for lack of means to cross the river. This was the case with twenty men led by Company-Sergeant-Major Girard. Then on the night of 23/24 March, Battalion-Sergeant-Major Gobion, also ex-LVF, reached the Oder with ten men at the cost of much suffering. They tried to cross the river by the half-destroyed bridge at Wollin, found it and were fired upon, suffering three wounded, two of whom had to be abandoned. On the other bank the attention of German soldiers had been attracted by the firing. They signalled to the nine survivors and showed them where some pneumatic boats were hidden in a branch of the river, but they would have to swim to get them. One man tried but took cramp in the icy water and gave up. At dawn on the 24th, following an artillery duel from one side to the other, the Russians attacked and a group of Polish soldiers captured the nine of them in a potato store.

The vehicular column and the Divisional services that had been quartered at Gross Jestin, south of Kolberg, left at 0200 hours on 4 March with the Russian tanks on their heels, but had been able to reassemble later that morning at Treptow an der Rega. There a lone Russian soldier, who had been able to run behind the vehicles during the night and climb aboard and cause some damage, was knocked down by one of the drivers with his rifle. The column left Treptow at 0600 hours and reached the mouth of the Oder and tried to cross the river, but was unsuccessful. There were Russians swarming everywhere, and the column had another narrow escape at about 1000 hours.

Eventually the column reached the port of Swinemünde at 1100 hours on the 6th. There were about 200 men with Majors Katzian and Boudet-Gheusi, Captain Jotard, and SS-Lieutenants Meier and Weber.

Having bypassed Belgard during the night of 4/5 March, Lieutenant Fenet’s 1st Battalion headed south, southwest towards Denzin after avoiding the Standemin area, which was reported strongly occupied by the Russians. The column passed within sight of Boissin, then continued in a south, southwesterly direction.

At daybreak on the 5th, the divisional commander had the soldiers spread out in a wooded area, but the harassed men had no chance to rest, for it was very cold and the snow continued to fall. Certainly there was no question of lighting a fire and forced immobility only emphasised the cold.

According to the locals, the roads and paths through the forests were permanently patrolled by cavalry during the day, so General Krukenberg had a council of war with SS-Colonel Zimmermann, SS-Captain Jauss and Lieutenant Fenet. The latter insisted that they did not wait for nightfall to continue, for the men would freeze if they did not move all day and would not be able to go on, and besides, there was no time to lose. A vast forest extended westwards and they should make use of it to march by compass during the day, avoiding the roads. General Krukenberg agreed with him.

At about 0900 hours the battalion set off again after disposing of some of its equipment too unwieldy for a march through the forest. The first difficulty occurred in crossing the Rambin– Belgard road, which was heavily guarded by Russian posts, and this was only managed by making a long detour that enabled the battalion to cross under cover of the woods at a point out of sight of the guard-posts. All this was accomplished in silence and without incident. During the morning halt, the battalion had been helped by the distant fighting developing in the Zarnefanz– Ristow–Boissin area, unaware that it involved the rest of the Division.

At nightfall the battalion left the forest and continued its march without incident. Passing to the south of Stolzenberg during the night, the column crossed the Schievelbein–Kolberg highway between Russian trucks and tanks. The column even went through a village occupied by a Russian regimental headquarters without being seen. Then men of SS-Captain Jauss’s rearguard, wanting to enter a house for a drink, set off the alarm, waking the Russians, but fortunately there were no serious losses. Then the battalion passed Falkenberg, which bore traces of the fighting on the previous day between the Soviets and an armoured division of the Corps.

After 3 hours’ rest at Schlenzig on 6 March, the battalion set off again, but this time the situation became worrying. Having crossed the dangerous Standemin–Stolzenberg area, it was hoped to reach Greifenberg without difficulty, but that morning civilians reported that the Russians were at Plathe, 15km southeast of Greifenberg, and that Greifenberg had been surrounded by the enemy. But it was also learnt that several kilometres away there was an estate occupied by a retired Army major and that German troops had been seen there in the past few days. However, this information could not be confirmed.

Nevertheless, the battalion made a hook to the north as far as Petersfelde, where the white flag was already flying, but there it was learnt that a Wehrmacht corps was regrouping at Meseritz, about 10km away. The battalion arrived at Meseritz as night was falling. Men and vehicles were still milling around and camping in the castle park, where the headquarters of General Munzel’s Corps was located. General Munzel gave General Krukenberg his own Iron Cross First Class to award to Lieutenant Fenet.

Further east, the remains of Lieutenant-General Hans von Tettau’s Corps, some 10,000–15,700 strong and consisting of 5 or more scratch divisions, including the Panzer Division Holstein and Division Pommern, had lost all radio contact with the parent 3rd Panzer Army. It broke out of encirclement in the area south of Belgard early on 5 March and started making its way towards the tiny harbour of Horst, from where von Tettau hoped to be evacuated by sea.

The men of the Charlemagne were able to sleep for several hours at Meseritz on the 6th, but the columns set off again through woods towards midnight to arrive at Pinnow on the Plathe–Körlin highway early in the morning.

On 7 March the column reached Natelfitz, some 10km from Greifenberg, where it was hoped that they could relieve the surrounded German garrison. The French battalion, which was completely exhausted and had practically eaten nothing for three days, did not take part in the attack from Natelfitz. It had come to within 7km of Greifenberg before being stopped by the Russians. It was now necessary, without loss of time, to pass north of the town to reach the new rallying point at Kammin on the Oder estuary. At this point thirty men that had been lost for three days rejoined the main body.

After passing the night at Wendisch Pribbernow, the march continued on 8 March towards the northwest, but it was then reported that Kammin had been taken by the enemy. They then tried to reach the Baltic coast at the nearest point, passing the Rega near Treptow. The same day, seven men were wounded by a mine exploded by a vehicle on the Treptow–Greifenberg road. During the afternoon some fighting developed towards Gorke and Woedtke, the last village having been retaken from the Soviets, who had pillaged the place and committed numerous acts of violence. During the day the battalion complimented General Krukenberg on his fifty-seventh birthday. The last night before reaching the Baltic was spent at Zapplin.

The column continued on its way without incident all day on 9 March and arrived late at the little fishing port of Horst, where it rested. The forces of Generals Munzel and von Tettau, about 50,000 strong, half of which were civilians, combined to form a bridgehead there, but hopes of evacuation by sea proved unattainable, as all available shipping resources were already employed in the evacuation of Kolberg and other ports further east.

A report submitted by a Major Kropp to Army Group Weichsel on 9 March 1945 stated:

With the Russians closing in, the Charlemagne battalion left Horst during the afternoon to reach the seaside resort of Rewahl at about 1700 hours.

Accepting the impossibility of evacuation by sea, Lieutenant-General von Tettau opted for running the Soviet gauntlet westwards along the coast to Dievenow, where German troops from the Swinemünde area were in occupation. Von Tettau being a personal friend of SS-Colonel Zimmermann, the latter succeeded in persuading him to allow the Charlemagne to lead the breakout of the refugees, now numbering several thousand.

At Rewahl, 10 March was meant to be a rest day, but Russian reinforcements in the form of the 7th Guards Cavalry Corps started attacking the German concentration during the day.

The breakout along the narrow beach was led by an advance party formed from members of the Fusilier Battalion of the Holstein Panzer Division and officer-cadet Regiment Buchenau. This was followed at midnight by the main body of refugees led by twenty members of the Charlemagne under the command of Lieutenant Fenet, who was accompanied by SS-Colonel Zimmermann to deal with any mines encountered in his capacity as an engineer. A covering party, including SS-Major-General Krukenberg, went along the top of the dunes, to try and prevent alerting enemy patrols and sentries, while the remainder of the battalion formed a rearguard with some members of the 4th SS-Police-Panzergrenadier Division. Another group commanded by Captain Roy escorted the convoy of those vehicles still remaining along the coastal road, leaving some 2 hours later.

However, the many hold-ups that occurred slowed down progress so much that after the penetration made by the advance party the Soviets had time to return and attack the main column with grenades and machine guns. (The Soviet troops involved were from the 79th Rifle Corps, which was later to gain fame in the storming of the Reichstag in Berlin.) The advance was hampered by the narrowness of the beach, which was only 1–10m wide between the sea on the right and the several metres high dunes covered in vegetation on the left.

Local counterattacks were made by the Fenet Battalion as it passed through. SS-Colonel Zimmermann was lightly wounded in the foot during the first encounter and continued the march wearing slippers. There were several deaths and a certain number of injured. Among those that disappeared was the medical officer, Senior Officer-Cadet Anneshaensel, who was last seen attending to the wounded.

Tasked with providing naval support, the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer and the heavy torpedo-boat T-33 started firing on the groups moving along the seashore, mistaking them for Russians, but the firing fortunately stopped when signal flares set off by the troops alerted the ships to their error.

One of the Frenchmen recalled encountering the scene of a previous Soviet attack:

After several encounters with the enemy, the battalion succeeded in getting through thanks to its counterattacks, and met up with the German forces guarding the approaches to Dievenow, which they eventually reached at about 0800 hours. The men were then able to rest for a few hours. They were soaked to their hips, for they often had had to wade in the sea. The battalion had evaded encirclement but was the only Charlemagne unit to be able to rejoin the German lines.

At about 0500 hours the coastal road convoy had had a severe engagement with alerted motorised Russian elements. It was not until about 1000 hours, after some lengthy fighting in the woods, and with the support of German motorised troops and parachutists, the support of naval units and the cooperation of the Luftwaffe, that were they able to disengage and reach the Dievenow bridgehead.

Captain Roy’s detachment rejoined the Charlemagne Battalion at Dievenow at about 1400 hours and set off with it across Wollin Island towards Kolzow. The battalion reached Swinemünde by short stages. On the way SS-Colonel Zimmermann reported to General Aiching’s headquarters at Misdroy, where the chief-of-staff complimented him on the fine bearing of the battalion, marching in orderly ranks and singing, which contrasted so strongly with the general ambiance that the General decided exceptionally to let the battalion retain its arms instead of handing them in, as was customary.

From Swinemünde the battalion set off again for Jargelin, near Anklam, where the Division’s other individual escapees were already regrouping, arriving at about noon on 16 March.