Then in 1902–3 the new Artillery Barracks were built on the Island opposite the Altstadt railway station, and in 1913 barracks for an engineer battalion were constructed on Warnicker Strasse. The dwindling defensive value of the medieval citadel could only have been welcome to the citizens, hemmed in as they were by the walls and ditches. After years of negotiation the town managed to obtain a considerable amount of the fortress property from the state in order to be able to lower the walls and fill in the ditches. The First World War delayed this process but, none the less, most of the works fell into civilian use, with a casemate becoming the town museum, one lunette a home to a canoe club and another a youth hostel. Eventually, in 1930, part of the Hohen Kavalier was demolished together with the northern ramparts, allowing the improvement of the stretch of main road (Reichsstrasse 1) running through the Altstadt between the Oder and Warthe bridges.[1]
Another wave of military construction began under the Nazi government with the provision of a large supply depot and bakery. New barracks, later named ‘von Stülpnagel’, were built to accommodate an infantry regiment on Landsberger Strasse, the engineer barracks were extended, and a garrison hospital was constructed on Warnicker Strasse nearby.
From the invasion of Poland in August 1939 onwards the town became an important transit centre for the war in the east, but was spared immediate involvement in the war until January 1945. Only twice were bombs dropped here during the night raids on Berlin, landing on the outskirts without causing any noticeable damage. Right at the beginning of the air war an apparently inadequately blacked-out farmhouse off the Sonnenburger Chaussee had attracted attention and next day the curious could see deep craters scattered over the fields nearby. Then in 1941 raiders spotted the chimneys of the Cellulose Factory sticking up above the fog bank, but only the factory toilets and washrooms were hit.
The apparent lack of interest shown by the staffs of the Anglo-American air forces in the vulnerable communications nodal point of Küstrin–five large and three smaller railway and road bridges spanning the Oder, Warthe and Vorflut Canal in a so-called multi-level railway station, a rare design enabling the important west–east (Berlin–Königsberg/East Prussia) line to cross over the north–south (Stettin–Breslau) line–simplified the requirement for effective antiaircraft defence.
For a while during the opening stages of the war heavy flak batteries were deployed in the open fields near Manschnow on the road to Seelow as part of the Berlin defences. Later the flak defences were reduced to the garrison’s machine-gun troops, who were stationed at night at various points near the bridges. Luckily for the place and its inhabitants, the effectiveness of these old, water-cooled weapons was never put to the test, but the pointless firing of reconditioned tracer bullets into the night sky occurred whenever the sound of an aircraft engine could be heard, however far off.
There was also a Home-Flak battery manned by schoolboys and elderly men. Its 20mm cannon were stationed at the river crossing points, mainly on hastily assembled metal scaffolding towers, but also on wooden platforms on school and factory roofs near the Oder bridges. There were also some small searchlights. In daytime the gun crews either went to work or to school, taking it in turns to assemble in the evenings at the provisional accommodation at these positions. The same applied to the whole troop whenever there was an air raid alert. However, their weapons never fired a live round in anger. Two or three times they fired at a target pulled by a single-engined Ju W 34 at a reasonable height with practice ammunition. The gun crews’ duty time was mainly taken up with theoretical instruction, preparatory exercises and even with drill conducted by a small group of regular Luftwaffe personnel. These guns were unable to reach the Anglo-American bomber fleets that attacked Berlin from 1944 onwards, using the eastward-running railway as a guide to the Oder before turning north for the Baltic, and eventually they were dismantled at the beginning of 1945.[2]
The Nazi influence on the town could be seen in the renaming of streets after Nazi heroes. Brückenstrasse and that part of Zorndorfer Strasse between the Stern and the Warthe river was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Strasse, Drewitzer Oberweg in the Neustadt became Schlageterstrasse, while the section of Reichsstrasse 1 running through Kietz became Horst-Wessel-Strasse. The town mayor, Hermann Körner, also doubled as Kreisleiter or District Party Leader, his immediate superior being the Gauleiter of Brandenburg, Emil Stürtz, whose offices were in Berlin, although Berlin itself had its own Gauleiter, Josef Goebbels. Next in the Party chain of command was Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, Hitler’s head of chancellery, to whom Körner would duly report.
Refugees began arriving in the town by train on 20 January. The first ones arrived on scheduled trains and mainly with a destination in mind. Some were evacuees from Berlin, fleeing from the devastating air raids there, and hoping for emergency accommodation with someone they knew. Then there were the families of civil servants and lower ranking Nazi officials from the Warthegau (the senior ones returned by motorcar). Then there were those who had not waited for orders to evacuate or to join the Volkssturm. These people were tired and irritable from constantly delayed journeys in cold and overfilled trains, but in this they did not differ much from other railway passengers in Germany in those days. Their preparations for the journey had clearly not been made in haste, for they wore suitable clothing and the belongings they brought with them were manageable and solidly packed, ready for frequent alighting from the trains. The assistance they needed from the improvised services at the railway stations, apart from the free distribution of refreshments for the journey, was very little. Those who had not managed to get aboard a passing train nearly always stayed in the station waiting rooms. The danger of missing the next connection to the west was far less there than in the emergency accommodation provided outside the station.
But this picture soon changed. At first there were a few individuals, then small family groups, then the numbers began to grow until the carriages arrived filled to the last inch. Now they were having to sacrifice some of their luggage in the fight to obtain a place on a train. Adherence to train schedules was no longer the norm. Fast and express trains were being slowed down throughout the whole country, and passenger trains could only be used without special permits for journeys of up to 75 kilometres. Shuttle services arrived irregularly, having been hurriedly assembled somewhere. Almost all the trains finished their journeys at Küstrin and were emptied there, a fact which was accepted without protest by the exhausted travellers. There were stories of deeply snowed-under roads with wearying waits at train stops on branch lines and, often enough, of having to walk on to the next big station. At Küstrin, there was at least the chance of spending a night in a heated room, resting on bundles of straw for a few hours. The classrooms to which they were taken could not be illuminated as there was no blackout, but bread and coffee were handed out in the corridors. Those who had lost family members could have the names noted down to be called out at the other locations offering shelter.
As late as Sunday, 28 January 1945 it seemed that life in the town was going on as normal. The local children were enjoying themselves with toboggans and skates, paying little attention to their parents’ warnings to remain within call. No one could say whether the factories and businesses would reopen after the weekend break. But then the first treks began arriving in the town, having left distant villages several days ago. The people and their animals were exhausted. The horses were tended to in the streets wherever shelter from the wind could be found, and the refugees asked at the houses for warm drinks for their children. The columns then moved on. Others wanted to stay at least one night under a proper roof. Some had given up completely, their horses having been overwhelmed by the snowdrifts during the last stage; often their wagons could only move on when everyone got off, removing the heaviest loads until the wheels could get a firm grip on the ground. After three or four such incidents, boxes and baskets were often left behind, for it was not worth saving them if one was going on by train.