In view of the situation, the Supreme Command decided to move four field and two tank armies from the 1st Byelorussian Front in order to liquidate the East Pomeranian grouping, whose strength by then had grown to forty divisions.
As is known, joint operations by the two Fronts to knock out the East Pomeranian grouping were completed only towards the end of March. You can see what a hard nut that grouping was.[2]
The sheer speed of the ‘Vistula–Oder Operation’ had brought with it problems that made the conduct of this next phase extremely difficult. The railway bridges over the broad expanse of the Vistula were still in the course of reconstruction, a broken link in the essential chain of supply. Consequently there were serious shortages of ammunition, fuel and lubricants. The troops themselves were battle-weary, the units depleted and no reinforcements were coming forward. In addition, the weather conditions were particularly bad with snowstorms, rain, sleet, fog and mud impeding movement. Nevertheless, the East Pomeranian Operation, which had arisen out of Stalin’s failure to award Rokossovsky’s 2nd Byelorussian Front an additional army to help close the expanding gap between Zhukov’s troops speeding westward to the Oder and Rokossovsky’s pushing northward to the Baltic, was an important development. Not only had Zhukov to drop off troops to cover this flank as he advanced, but it gave the Germans the opportunity to bring forward reserves to mount a counter-operation from the Stargard area.[3]
Operation Sonnenwende (Solstice) was the idea of Colonel General Guderian, part of a wider plan that would tackle the Soviet forces from Stargard in the north and from the Oder between Guben and Glogau in the south. This, however, depended upon reinforcements from other fronts being allocated to the task, but as Hitler sent them off to Hungary instead, it was only possible to mount the northern thrust, and that with limited resources. In order to ensure the operation was properly conducted, Guderian managed to persuade a reluctant Hitler, who was outraged at the suggestion that Himmler and his staff might not be competent, to appoint Guderian’s chief assistant, Lieutenant General Walther Wenck, to take charge.[4]
Aware of the German move across the Oder into Pomerania, Zhukov now had the 2nd Guards Tank Army and the 61st Army deployed across his northern flank from east to west, with the 1st Guards Tank, 47th and 3rd Shock Armies in reserve.[5] The clearance of East Pomerania would tie down these forces until 21 March, a full seven weeks before they could be redeployed opposite Berlin, and those elements of the 8th Guards and 69th Armies besieging Posen would similarly be tied down until 15 February. This left Zhukov with insufficient forces along the Oder, so that he could do little more than hold the existing line of advance for the moment.
However, the leading elements of the 8th Guards and 1st Guards Tank Armies arrived on the Oder at the Reitwein ferry point on 2 February and forced a crossing over the breaking ice against a few Reichsarbeitsdienst sentries posted there to assist with the flow of refugees. A quick thrust forward secured the village of Reitwein and the even more important tip of the Reitwein Spur, a projection of the Seelow Heights where General Chuikov was eventually to establish his 8th Guards Army’s command post. Seven tanks were ferried across in support of this operation, only to be recalled when the 1st Guards Tank Army was detailed to assist with the East Pomeranian Operation.[6]
The ineptness of Heinrich Himmler’s appointment as commander of Army Group ‘Weichsel’ is clearly demonstrated in his handling of the so-called ‘Woldenberg’ Division, a random assembly of troops taken from convalescent and training units stationed on the north bank of the Warthe, with which he expected to block the Soviet advance. Major-General Gerhard Kegler later wrote of this:
On the 30th January 1945 I received orders from Himmler to take command of the ‘Woldenberg’ Division without being given any orientation on the subject, nor the division’s task. I had to find the division. I found the division’s command post east of Friedeberg. It had no signals unit and there were no communications with a superior headquarters. I took over command at about midday as I found this recently established ‘division’ in the course of disintegration as it retreated to Landsberg. While I was busy in Landsberg on the morning of the 31st January with the organisation and deployment of the available units, I discovered that the ‘division’ had no anti-tank weapons, no ammunition or food supply arrangements and no signals unit. Neither was there a divisional medical officer. The artillery consisted of two horse-drawn batteries. The ‘division’ was not a ‘strong battle group’ nor were the troops battle-worthy.
The population of 45,000 inhabitants were still in the town and no preparations had been made for evacuation.
I received Himmler’s orders from the commander-in-chief of the 9th Army to defend Landsberg as a fortress over the telephone. Russian tanks were already north of the Warthe–Netze sector. I had the Warthe Bridge demolished. After some conscientious consideration, I decided to disobey this order [to defend Landsberg], which I considered senseless and whose compliance would serve no purpose other than great loss in human life.[7]
Landsberg was abandoned by the ‘Woldenberg’ Division that same night. Major-General Kegler had set the withdrawal for 1 February, as the Soviet spearheads had already reached Küstrin some 40 kilometres to his rear, but his demoralised soldiers would not wait and abandoned their positions in the dark. The headquarters staff were only able to stop these demoralised units with difficulty some 3 kilometres west of the town.
Kegler reported by telephone to the 9th Army commander, General Busse, who had meanwhile established his headquarters in the Oderbruch village of Golzow. Busse demanded that Landsberg be retaken and defended, threatening Kegler with court martial in accordance with Himmler’s orders. Nevertheless, Kegler stuck to his decision to withdraw to Küstrin by stages over the following nights. Even this, in view of the state of his troops and his open flank, was risky, and depended to a large extent upon their not being attacked as they withdrew along the northern edge of the Warthebruch on Reichsstrasse 1.[8]
Lieutenant Rudolf Schröter, whom we last encountered west of Landsberg on the morning of 31 January, was completely unaware that he and his 400 recruits were part of the ‘Woldenberg’ Division,[9] as he related:
On the morning of the 31st January my unit rejoined the Königstiger SS-sergeant-major about 4 kilometres west of Landsberg in the Wepritz area. As we were still without a superior command or orders, I had us retreat westwards.
Beyond Dühringshof I was met by a car with a general, who received my report, did not introduce himself nor did he name his formation. He ordered me to deploy left of the road to Diedersdorf. My left-hand neighbour would be Second-Lieutenant Clemens’s unit.
When we stopped a Russian armoured reconnaissance vehicle with infantry fire, the soldiers jumped over the sides with a blanket that was supposed to protect them from our fire. That night the first Russian attack occurred with more on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd February. Small enemy breaches were driven back with counterattacks by the exemplary fighting recruits.
On the 3rd February I was summoned to a conference by the divisional staff in Vietz town hall. Here for the first time I discovered that my unit belonged to the ‘Woldenberg’ Division. The divisional commander, Major-General Kegler, described the situation.