Officer Cadet Corporal Hans Kirchhof of the tank turret unit recounted his experiences in the Kietz Gate area:
One day in February we were doing some firing practice with our pistols on the fortress walls near the Kietz Gate and witnessed two guns south of there at the Bienenhof shoot up an enemy tank of the T-34 type that had broken through a long way.
In the meantime, while waiting for the anti-tank guns, we took over the transport of supplies to the Bienenhof and the removal of the badly wounded from there. The Bienenhof was defended by a unit of Probationary Battalion 500.
We were three men that had come from the NCO training school at Jülich to the front line as tank-hunters. A volunteer was sought as a gun captain from the three of us. To avoid any preferment or discrimination, we put ourselves at the disposal of our superiors. This was accepted and a little later all three of us were designated gun captains. This happened because–in contrast to both the other guns, two of which were further back–the location of the third was directly in the front line. Here at the Bienenhof were two relieving gun crews. I led one and my friend, Wolfgang Paul, the other. Each crew remained three days and nights in the position and rested afterwards for the whole time at the company command post.
As there were sufficient gunners available, the gun crews could be picked by their captains with the consent of those selected, which included some experienced corporals. None declined to be selected.
About two-thirds of the way through February we took up our new position. About a week before, the first defenders of the Bienenhof had been so reduced by casualties that a flak unit in the infantry role had replaced them. Shortly afterwards the Bienenhof was lost and men of the Probationary Battalion were called into action once more and the flak troops sent back.
Our anti-tank gun was aimed directly at the Oder dyke and was sited in the infantry position, whose southernmost bunker lay within grenade-throwing distance of the Russians. The latter had posted a sniper who, despite all the efforts of the infantry, could not be knocked out of action. Our 36mm gun, useless against tanks, was a silent gun and only supplied with explosives. We had a good relationship with the infantry.[38]
Luftwaffe Officer Cadet Sergeant Helmut Schmidt wrote of his experiences at the Weinbergshof Farm and in Kietz in mid-February:
We were not feeling good. We were sitting in a trap called Küstrin. It was only a fortress in name, with ancient fortifications and without heavy weapons. The Russians had it firmly in their grasp. (We did not then know that there was a ‘corridor’ through to the main German front line, but we did know what was meant when Führerheadquarters designated a place a ‘fortress’ to be defended to the last man and the last drop of blood.) We did not even know our fortress commandant.
The Russians had set up a 120mm mortar. The first bomb suddenly exploded near the Weinbergshof during the course of the day. At irregular intervals they sent over two or three bombs, but none hit the target. We got used to the new situation, becoming alert and keen-eared, reacting quickly to the typical bubbling of the discharges.
It became dark, and after the rations orderly had delivered our food to the trench, we were relieved. Tiredly we shuffled along the communications trench to the chaussee, our legs automatically following the road ditch to Kietz. We ducked our heads whenever the tracers from a Maxim machine gun came our way. Our quarters were in one of the first houses. We climbed up the steep and narrow stairs to the first floor of the wretched building, laid down on the bare floor and immediately fell asleep, some using their helmets as pillows.
Early in the morning we were awoken by noise, shouts and the stamping of boots. I did not react immediately, but at last heard someone shouting ‘Alarm!’ I jumped up and woke the sleepers around me. We grabbed our weapons and tumbled down the steep stairs. Our group then assembled in a small yard between the buildings. We were urged to hurry and marched eastwards in well-spaced single file towards Kietz.
A fight was going on somewhere to our south-east. We could hear German and Russian machine guns, sub-machine-gun fire and the harsh shots of Russian tanks or anti-tank guns.
We had left our quarters with rumbling stomachs. The morning was cloudy and we trembled from the cold. While we trotted along the road under cover of the houses, we listened attentively to the increasing noise of fighting coming from a short distance to the south-east.
We encountered no vehicles or pedestrians on Reichsstrasse 1. In the middle of the Horst-Wessel-Strasse/Kaiserstrasse crossroads stood a hunting tank, a Hetzer. Its weak armour was reinforced with concrete panels, its tracks moving it about nervously. It seemed to have found a target, but did not fire. After a short stop we turned right towards the sound of fighting. The road ran south-east and ended in the meadows after about 300 metres.
We hurried to reach the buildings on the south-eastern edge of Kietz. We passed a large block of flats on our left. The attackers could now see us and opened fire with infantry weapons. Moving in bounds we reached the cover of an individual house, one of a row of them extending westwards. When a tank shell hit the roof, we pressed against the wall of the house. There was a frightening bang, followed by a reddish cloud of smoke and a clattering of slates landing at our feet.
I took a quick look round the corner of the house. Two T-34s were standing about 500 metres away. I had just pulled back my head when there was a bang and a tank shell whistled past a few metres away. I had a brief glimpse of its tracer and then saw the shell hit the block of flats. There was a double bang, dust billowed out and there was a jagged round hole in the wall.
We moved over to the next house and crept crouched past the cellar windows. One of my section found a bottle containing fruit in an open window, but when he reached for it, he was rapped on the fingers. We then noticed that the cellar was full of civilians, several families with children.
We divided up among the houses. I went to the end house with several comrades. It was badly damaged, and the occupants had moved next door. I came across some infantrymen in a cellar room. A dead man lay on a laundry table, a sergeant or sergeant-major. The soldiers had a machine-gun position behind the fence in the garden. I climbed upstairs. Broken slates covered the steps of the wooden staircase. I looked through a hole that the tanks had shot in the outside wall. Both T-34s stood front left. They had got stuck in the meadows and the attack had come to a halt. The tank guns were silent, but their engines were roaring, emitting blue exhaust smoke, their tracks digging deeper and deeper into the ground. Russians were working frantically on the tanks. I could hear shouts, orders and swearing. The two T-34s were trying to tow each other out, but without success. They only sank deeper. The tracks pulled cleanly showering fountains of dirt behind them. More shouts and more Russians hurried up.
The Russians called off their attack. Without tank support they dared not get closer to the buildings of Kietz. We watched their hours-long efforts with malicious grins. The Hetzer did not attack, although the T-34s offered a suitable target. Our infantry weapons were also silent. We had received no order to open fire. Were we saving ammunition, or was it to avoid provoking the Russians?
The Russians vanished back to their trenches, the T-34s remaining behind, still offering a threat to us that could quickly become dangerous. We crouched in the cellars of the unoccupied houses while our sentries concealed themselves in the foliage behind the fences.