Luftwaffe Officer Cadet Sergeant Helmut Schmidt resumed his account of events at the Cellulose Factory:
I occupied the machine-gun position with my section from 0700 to 0900 hours. Visibility was good and the temperature comfortable. Only the sun was lacking. We only lay down in the position when Ivan showed himself. First a couple of shots whistled past my ears, and then a Russian machine gun joined in. We could hear the whip of the rounds. Without doubt they were coming from the factory but we could not see the firers.
I reported this to Lieutenant Kühnel, who quickly made up his mind and gave the order to clear the Russians out of the factory complex. It was obvious to me that this was a difficult task. I had the feeling that the Russians wanted to lure us into the factory premises. Certainly they thought they could eliminate us more easily there, as their positions were far more effective than ours.
This was drawn by Helmut Schmidt in March 1998. He commented: ‘It is almost impossible to draw a sketch of events five decades later, but the situation had such an impact on me that I have dared attempt it. An inaccurate sketch has perhaps far more significance than a detailed description. I may perhaps have distorted the factory area and not shown it accurately, but the topographical features are contained in the sketch.’
1. Finkler’s section
2. Schmidt’s section
3. Gesterding’s section
4. Intemann’s section
5. Line of fire of an 88mm gun
6. Stacks of logs
7. Underpass with a small filling station
8. Industrial railway line with dead Hungarian soldiers
9. Small watch tower
10. Water tank with floating logs
11. Building from the cellar windows of which the Russian tried to beat back our attack
12. Big factory building with entrance hall
13. Course of above-ground pipelines
The attack started early in the morning. Two MG 42s gave us covering fire from the railway embankment as we set off. Sergeant August Finkler and I took our sections along the Warthe, while Sergeant Werner Gesterding was some distance to my right with his section. As we crossed the railway tracks we came under mortar fire. They must have received supplies. Apparently they were using a covered entrance to the factory from the north.
The firing forced us to split up. Sergeants Martin Intemann and Werner Gesterding went to the right, away from the coverless ground and out of our sight. August Finkler and his men went to the Warthe somewhat to the right of my section. The deployment should have made the Russian mortar concentrate on one individual target, but our calculation did not come off. The Russians were able to observe us clearly. The mortar was under precise direction. We tried at least to advance quickly and reached a gravelled path alongside a row of raised pipelines. The pipes and a shallow hollow beyond them provided us with some cover from view.
We crawled alongside the pipes, escorted by mortar fire. We wanted at least to reach the factory building that was within striking distance, not 50 metres away. A few paces in front of it stood a wooden watchtower, apparently the perch of a hunter, rising about 2 or 3 metres above the ground. We thought that we had seen some movement in it. Bombardier Horn fired a shot with his grenade launcher at the watchtower. A Russian jumped off in a flash and disappeared behind a corner of the factory as angry mortar fire descended on us. The gravelled path disappeared on the left into a little underpass. We reached safety in short spurts. Unfortunately the protection was a bit pathetic as the mortar splinters also flew in there.
After a short breather I ran to the western side of the factory building, closely followed by my men, getting out of the mortar fire. In front of the factory lay a row of dead men in brown uniforms: Hungarians.
I wrenched open the factory door and came into a sort of lobby, but found no Russians. There was some brown material lying around, as well as some rifles, and along the southern wall was a long table. I ran up an open staircase to the first floor and opened the door to a workroom with a jerk. It was pitch dark inside the room and I could only just make out some machinery. I banged the door to behind me.
Suddenly it was obvious that it was impossible to look for Russians inside the workroom. We needed light. The windows would have to be shot through. We set about it and discovered that there were no Russians inside the building, otherwise they would have fired at me when I opened the workroom door. Or were we in an ambush?
We searched the high-ceilinged lobby and looked at the dead in front of the building. A few paces from the doorway some six to ten soldiers lay face down on a curved driveway. All had been killed in the most terrible way with an entrenching tool. They had been executed with blows to the neck. The Russians had removed the boots of some of them. The sight of this made us very angry.
The Russians must have surprised the Hungarians eating. There were the remains of a meal on the long table in the lobby: bread, sausage and cheese. Between them were mess tins and long cutlery.
From about the level of the factory building there was a vast store of wood extending to the north with man-high stacks of 2-metre-long round logs. This was the raw material for the factory. The stacks were precisely arranged, row by row and as far as the eye could see, all evenly spaced. My comrades pulled out a Russian from behind one of the stacks. He had apparently become separated from the others. He was not much older than 16. He shook all over and his dark eyes went uneasily from man to man, thinking that he had reached his last hour. We took him back later and handed him over to our company headquarters. He was the only prisoner from our attack.
What had the Hungarians been doing in the factory? The little watchtower showed that they had supervised and guarded prisoners of war working there. Certainly they thought themselves well clear of the firing and thought that they would survive the end of the war here.
The attack meanwhile continued. A Russian tank fired at the roof of the factory in which we were deployed and shot it to pieces. Our next goal was a small factory building to the east of us. I believe that it stood at an angle to the main building. The Russians were firing like mad from the cellar windows. We took ten minutes’ pause before attacking, but before we could do so an 88m flak gun shot the building to pieces and thick smoke rose up.
Unexpectedly Senior Officer Cadet Noak and Sergeant Langheinrich appeared with their platoons and relieved us. We set off alongside the Warthe towards our accommodation. Astonishingly, none of us had been wounded.
Meanwhile the attack by Noak’s and Langheinrich’s platoon continued. Despite the 88mm fire, the Russians fought on bitterly. Finally their resistance was broken by some hits with Panzerfausts. The situation offered them no way out, but none had surrendered, and at the end all were dead.
This successful attack had cost the company some serious losses. Senior Officer Cadet Noak died during the attack from a stomach wound, Sergeant Gesterding had a leg wound and was taken off to field hospital. Less seriously wounded was Sergeant Fritz Wenzig. These losses meant a serious weakening of our company and no replacements could be expected.[25]
Corporal Hans Arlt, now out on the northern edge of the fortress perimeter, continued his account:
25
Kohlase [Band 4], pp. 38–42. Despite Schmidt’s account, one 16-year-old Soviet soldier surrendered [Märkische Oder-Zeitung of 15 November 1996].