The factory was fired at from the Altstadt by the light flak guns and some fires broke out. These had no effect on its modern skeleton steel construction, but the nearby Spiritusmonopol tank farm with several million litres of alcohol and fuel oil was also set on fire. The big tanks burnt like giant torches all night, and in the light from the flames an engine shunted a row of goods wagons out of the railway viaduct workshops next door in order to screen the Warthe bridges from this flank.[13]
The interruption of power and gas supplies gave some idea of what could be expected in the long term. Portable emergency generators were quickly made available for the garrison’s most important needs, for the staff and dressing stations, and their fuel requirements could be assured. Nevertheless, the civilian population would have to do without electricity in general. This meant not only no lighting, but also no radio, the only source of information at the time, as the local newspaper had given up. By this sixth year of the war battery radios and accumulators were the privilege of a few wealthy owners and were very rare.
The gas supply was soon restored so that cooking and making coke could be resumed, and brickettes for fires could be taken from abandoned neighbours’ houses. There were ample stoves or at least iron ovens in the town’s old buildings. The rising temperatures raised hopes that less coal would soon be needed for heating purposes, as was usual at the beginning of February, but a general deterioration in the situation could be expected in motor and household fuel stocks, while supplies of candles and petroleum lamps were already exhausted.
Many of the women, children and elderly people that had spent the night in Kietz wandered back into the town, struggling with their toboggans through the ankle-deep slush created by the thaw over the still-frozen ground. No one warned the people of the dangers now that the town had been declared a fortress and surrounded, and no bunkers or other suitable shelters had been provided for the population. Most had hardly noticed the short bombardment early that morning. If it really was that serious, why had no orders been given to evacuate? Would they be allowed to cross the Oder bridges? But nobody stopped them. The officers and Feldgendarmerie posts had vanished and only a few old Landeschützen (home guards) protected the demolition charges on the bridges.
When the Volkssturm paraded again at 0900 hours, their ranks had thinned out. A considerable proportion of the first levy belonged to the Finance Ministry department that had been farmed out to Küstrin, and these civil servants and some other men had disappeared overnight. Only 300 men were left.
There were hardly any vehicles remaining. The treks had streamed off to the west and no more were coming in. All that remained was a group of civil servants and Nazi officials from Landsberg with the mayor and county Party leader in charge, over whose heads hung the same taint as that over Major-General Kegler for not having either died defending the town or at least not having left it a waste of rubble. So they remained ‘at the front’, the minority to demonstrate their unbroken determination to hold out, the others out of sheer fear of reprisal, but even those most faithful to the Führer did not pursue their thirst for action as far as purging their guilt in the front line. Instead they found it more convenient to join the Küstrin mayor and county Party leader Hermann Körner in his nearly empty town hall, from where he was still administering the population of some 8–10,000. The Landsbergers were happy to help with the administration, the only hope they had of making a contribution of any significance without becoming involved in bureaucratic complications. Just to show that they were still persons of some importance, a policeman had to stand guard at night in front of the Altstadt town hall, where they had taken over a whole floor for their accommodation.[14]
Luftwaffe Officer Cadet Sergeant Helmut Schmidt gave his account of events on the east bank of the Warthe on 1 February:
It was shortly after midnight. We had returned dog-tired from our storm troop enterprise, the fatigue overriding our hunger. I quickly sorted out the sentry roster and lay down on the floor with my men.
In the railway hut was an iron stove. The sentry coming in lit it and soon it was warm. There was hardly a minute’s peace in our primitive accommodation. Sentries came and went, weapons clattered, as well as the sounds of boots and men attending the oven. With daybreak I was on my feet again, checking the sentries. I heard their reports. The rest of the night had remained quiet. There had been no sign of the enemy.
At last I could see our surroundings in daylight. I had stood on the bridge without realising how close Küstrin station was. Under me to my left flowed the Warthe. I looked across the factory tracks. About 800 metres away began the prominent Cellulose Factory complex.
We had positioned our machine gun immediately north of the bridge, where there was a ready prepared machine-gun position, a long breast-deep hole from where one had a good field of fire up to the Cellulose Factory. The sappers appeared to have completed their job without a fuss during the night.
Our immediate frontage made me restless. I took a couple of volunteers from my section and went to reconnoitre it. We went a bit towards the Cellulose Factory but kept a respectful distance from the factory premises. In front of us was a long, two-storey building with many pipes and rails leading to it. Its windowed front was facing us, the windows painted blue. This was no place for caution. If the Russians were inside, they could see us through scratches in the paint.
About 150–200 metres from the railway bridge we came across a little half-timbered hut between the railway lines. We took it for a signal box at first, but this turned out to be wrong when we entered it. The building had two storeys with a tiny ground floor. Here the marshalling yard personnel had perhaps formerly taken shelter in bad weather, but lately it had been used for private purposes. Why had this little house been built so lavishly when it was only intended for railway personnel? I was particularly curious.
The entrance door stood half open. As I entered I immediately realised that the Russians had been here. Several drawers from the few bits of furniture had been torn out and the contents barbarically searched. The whole floor was covered in items of female underclothing of the finest quality and dirty soldiers’ boots had trampled all over them. On a low table stood a gramophone in a wooden box such as was to be found in many middle-class homes before the war. Most of the gramophone records were scattered broken on the floor. A narrow spiral staircase led to the upper floor, where there was a square wicker basket, a wash basket secured with a lock with clean labels attached, ready for despatch, also some suitcases. The Russians had not penetrated here. I especially remember the basket in the middle of the room, heavy and undisturbed, waiting for collection.
I went back downstairs and collected some stockings. Fresh underwear, even if dirty, was always useful and the feminine aspect did not worry me. I asked myself what kind of people these were that in the sixth year of war would have such feminine underwear. The owners could easily have taken them with them, but presumably it seemed too dangerous for them.
Meanwhile my men had inspected the gramophone. It was still working. Fortunately the Russians had not touched it. Only two of the records were still largely whole. Triumphantly my comrades carried the box back to the start point at the foot of the railway embankment. While my comrades were returning to our railway hut base, I had another look at the books in the shed with the petrol barrels. I came across wonderful leather-covered books from a German publisher, with a dozen copies of each. Apparently someone had put them there in great haste. Even in daylight the shed was quite dark and I had difficulty making out the book titles. As far as I could make out they consisted of Party-acceptable literature, morally correct novels, the usual lying idylls of a healthy world. For me it was reading material for a week, should I be left in peace.