The outpost at the bucket elevator on the Sonnenburg Chaussee was lost to the Soviets that day and immediately afterwards an antitank gun started firing from here at the flak positions on the Warthe side of the Altstadt. Then the firing died down in the immediate area, enabling even the most cautious to venture further from their dwellings than they had previously dared. Now that few of the shops scattered around town were open, shopping entailed going some distance, and the older people in particular tried to avoid the risk of finding themselves under fire.
The fortress situation report for 3 February read:
Enemy resumed attacks on Küstrin from north, east and southeast. Early morning a company-sized attack on the bucket lift (1 km south-west of southern Küstrin exit). The strongpoint fell with the loss of almost all the garrison in enemy hands. In a battalion-sized attack either side of the Zorndorf–Küstrin road on Height 63, the enemy gained about 100m ground. Enemy breach south-west of Warnick cleared by counterattack. Enemy thrust from a southerly direction on the west bank of the Oder opposite Küstrin.
The next morning the situation report read:
Enemy thrust in platoon strength south-west of Warnick repelled. Strong enemy reconnaissance activity and lively artillery fire from both sides.
This was followed by a further report later that day:
Attack against southern and south-western front of Küstrin west of the Oder. Attack via Gorgast and Alt Bleyen towards Kietz blocked by Oder Corps.
The anti-tank gunfire from the bucket elevator generated the first official evacuation. Some unauthorised moves had already taken place, such as tenants of an upper storey moving down into vacated accommodation that appeared safer. Most shots had gone over the flak positions hidden by a railway embankment and hit a block of flats near the Catholic church. There were no casualties, but some housing was so badly damaged that alternative accommodation had to be found. This was, as were all such tasks, undertaken by the Nazi welfare organisation NSV, whose local office now took on the roles of supervising housing and social welfare with practically unlimited and only partially defined powers. The emergency administration formed from the fragmented magistrates and NSDAP district offices acted in a similar fashion. Abandoned apartments in the less damaged streets of the Altstadt were taken over, opened by an officially appointed locksmith and the homeless allocated to them.[9]
A combat team of officer cadets named after its commander, Captain Kain, was tasked with retaking the bucket elevator on the Sonnenburger Chaussee and eliminating the threat from there. The Soviet garrison was later reckoned at 103 men with ten machine guns and a lone anti-tank gun, the restricted artillery content of such an exposed position indicating that the Soviets were still short of heavy weapons in this sector. The chaussee, set on a narrow dyke running parallel with the railway line, was surrounded by the waters flooding the Oderbruch and covering the meadows on either side, and was clearly marked by a regularly spaced alley of trees. It was in clear view of a 105mm flak battery that had been deployed in an allotment garden and meadow just outside the fortress walls. Even the distinctive building housing the pumping station was clearly visible from there. On such a narrow approach the attackers had to be aware of the guns behind them.
Heavy Soviet defensive fire inflicted severe casualties on Kain’s combat team but, under cover of the flak, the battle group finally reached its goal, a shot-up brick building and a few rifle pits and machine-gun nests that then changed hands for a few hours before the area had to be abandoned once more while it was still visible from the flak position, for without covering fire Kain’s men would stand no chance against a Soviet night attack.[10]
The first shots of a firing squad rang out this Sunday when fourteen Ostarbeiter (eastern forced labourers) were executed without investigation, trial or sentence. A two-sentence notice stating that they had been caught plundering was intended to counter public indignation over the increasing number of buildings being broken into and ransacked. The forced labourers still remaining in the town were forbidden to leave their huts between 1800 hours and 0600 hours under pain of the severest punishment. They were having to work all day long on the defences as the businesses they had been allocated to had now come to a halt. However, the plundering continued.[11]
A Soviet thrust along the eastern railway line reached the line Gorgast–Bleyen on 5 February, thus cutting off Küstrin, its last remaining route over the fields being made unusable. The 5th Shock Army desperately tried to get some tanks across the river to reinforce its bridgehead. Several fell through the ice, but four T-34s managed to cross, enabling the Soviets to extend their bridgehead at Genschmar up to a line running through the centre of the village.[12]
Elsewhere on the fortress’s front line the day was relatively quiet. Skirmishes that broke out here and there were limited to company-strength actions and were hardly noticed from behind the screen of buildings in the town. At this point there were some 20,000 people–soldiers, Volkssturm and civilians–in the town. Most of the civilian population, including those who had fled here from the Anglo-American air attacks, had been able to leave the town in good time, but some 8,000–10,000 civilians had been overtaken by events and remained surrounded in the town.
On 5 February the NSDAP county office produced its first news-sheet, four type-written pages roneoed on cheap wartime paper. Half of it was devoted to the Wehrmacht Report, followed by statements on the local military situation using the same sort of vocabulary, but there were also announcements such as the addresses of the three civilian doctors still practising, one each in the Altstadt, Neustadt and Kietz, and a request to hand in all battery radios. The latter were carefully guarded by their few fortunate owners, for other sets could not be used for lack of electricity.
Nevertheless, the NSDAP district leadership was determined to take over this unexpected monopoly of information in order to resume its influence over the population. This news-sheet was sent almost entirely to offices, staff and dormitory accommodation, and some were stuck on walls and fences, and there was already a plan to produce a regularly printed newspaper. How many people this reached is unknown; one rough estimate was 8,000. Flight and Volkssturm service had torn apart the block and cell Party structure during the last weeks of January, and in the confusion of the first fighting the last remnants of control over the lives of ordinary civilians had completely come off the rails.
This was of little significance to the population. There were still some basic foodstuffs in a few of the shops, naturally available only with ration cards, and the sewage and water systems were still functioning as normal. Mortar fire was still sporadic, more tiresome than dangerous if one did not go out into the open, and aircraft had still to show themselves. Thus casualties among the civilian population until now had not been due to enemy action. The official deaths register recorded about a dozen suicides under the date of 31 January when the first shots were fired. Some had not been found by chance until much later and no one knew how much more work awaited the undertakers.
Pedestrians and vehicles moved virtually unhindered once the usual midday harassing fire was over. Fortress staff and Party officials were already describing the 5th as a ‘quiet day’ when at almost exactly 1500 hours a series of heavy explosions shook the town. The few people strolling around hastened to take cover, the threat of the blasts driving them down into the cellars, but then the explosions broke off as abruptly as they had begun. Only those with front-line experience knew what this was: artillery salvoes.