Towards midday we came under an especially bitter barrage from the 76.2mm gun, most of the shells exploding in the area of our communications trench. I crouched down in my hole. All hell was being let loose around me. I began mechanically counting the explosions to get through it.
It gradually quietened down. My ears were drumming. Dazed, I crept out of my hole. As I stood up I saw a dud shell lying on the barely 30-centimetre-thick cover of my shelter hole. The shell was right in front of my eyes. For seconds I stared at it like a mouse at a snake. I was unable to react or move. I looked at this plain piece of slightly rusted iron lying crossways. I saw the badly dented detonator, the fine threads and the blackened copper ring that the rifling of the barrel had caused.
Eventually I overcame my shock and quickly left that dangerous spot. I called out to Tiedemann and crept into his hole. He gave me my next shock. Tiedemann was kneeling propped on his carbine with his back to me. He was not wearing his steel helmet and a shell splinter no bigger than a fingernail had gone into the back of his head. There was a thin trickle of blood from the wound. Tiedemann’s face was totally altered and I could hardly recognise him. His face was unnaturally yellow, waxen and completely relaxed. He seemed to be asleep. Heinz Tiedemann, the unwarlike soldier, was dead. Why wasn’t he wearing his helmet and lying flat on the ground?
Sadness and anger overcame me. Yesterday Tiedemann had passed his 31st birthday unnoticed by us all. That evening Tiedemann’s body was taken back to Kietz by two men of my section, carried in a tent-half. We stood sad and depressed in the trench and saw him taken away without a word. We were not allowed to bury him ourselves.
A few days later came some totally unexpected news for Schmidt’s unit:
Like a bombshell came a radio message from the 23rd Flak Division that the company commander passed on immediately to the men in the trenches. All members of the division were to be withdrawn from Küstrin.
At first we took the order for a latrine rumour. Why should we be selected to leave the fortress? It took a while for us to begin to believe the authenticity of the news. The company command post announced that we would be leaving the position that night. But what would happen to the Army members of our company? We were actually a Luftwaffe battery, but without our guns. Could we take the comrades that had joined us with us? I thought of Bombardier Horn. Could we leave him behind? We were completely confused.
It became dark early that evening. Our relief appeared, a mixed bunch. Many young soldiers and with them old corporals with Iron Cross ribbons. Their arms were not much, just carbines and a few machine guns. Then things began to happen quickly. We briefed our successors quickly as the company commander was calling for us to hurry. Saying farewell to our brave Bombardier Horn was particularly hard. I stood before him and gave him my hand and wished him well. Both of us tried to smile, but it did not come right. We knew that we would never see each other again.
I did not look back. Even before we reached the Chaussee I was overcome with weariness. I did not register that vehicles were waiting for us in Kietz, that we climbed on to the trucks, drove to the Alt Bleyen manor farm and left the fortress area from there in a bumping, rocking night journey. I slept on the truck like a dead man. It was daylight when I awoke from my exhausted sleep. I tried to remember what had happened but was unable to. My comrades had also slept through it. The air was fresh and my legs were stiff. I got up from the bench and pushed the tailgate of our little truck down and saw two pairs of boots hanging in front of my eyes. I jumped down from the truck and found two soldiers hanging from telephone wires with cardboard notices around their necks on which was written: ‘I was a coward!’ The sight was shocking. The soldiers’ boots almost touched the garden fence alongside which we had stopped. Everyone found this barbaric, disgusting and idiotic. On the roadside was a shield that read: ‘Anyone who is encountered west of the Oder as a straggler has forfeited his life. Any soldier that has become separated from his unit must immediately join the nearest front-line unit. There is no going back from here. The Russian avalanche must be finally stopped at the Oder!’
We were in Seelow. Our truck was alongside a small cottage. A group of men were standing near the hanged men, cursing and swearing at the SS and Feldgendarmerie; they would not be quiet.
In Fürstenwalde we went to a hutted camp. We thought that we had landed in another world, it was so clean and orderly. Signs showed that there was even a canteen. The barrack rooms were large and everyone got a freshly made bed. We could at last have a wash, a shower to scrub away the earth of the Weinbergshof trenches. And we got fresh underwear. What a luxury! A little later we were given a good lunch.[4]
The leading article in the newspaper of 20 February began in encouraging style: ‘The garrison and population of Küstrin already have twenty days of fighting behind them. Traces of the fighting have made themselves more evident in the appearance of the town.’ Success could be measured in physical terms: 54 prisoners taken, 23 tanks and SPGs destroyed, 3 aircraft shot down and ‘several Soviet divisions held up’. There was also a flood of decorations: 28 Iron Crosses First Class, 94 Iron Crosses Second Class, two Tank-Destroyer awards, three Infantry Storm awards, one Close-Fighting award. There was even an award for the population: Reinefarth had given the Party district leader 16,000 packets of fruit drops from the soldiers’ supplies as a gift from the garrison to the women and children of Küstrin. These would be distributed as soon as possible.
It was now the turn of the people of the Altstadt to dig out their most valuable and useful items from cupboards and drawers, and secure them in handy bundles. Some had seen the first transports leave and knew what to expect, and so were able to prepare themselves better. They were also spared the long march to the assembly point, but the weeks of anxious waiting made them leave their houses earlier than necessary. The crowd of people waiting in front of the school and nearby grew quickly and soon amounted to another 3,000, including late arrivals from the Neustadt, people who had only just received the order to evacuate or did not want to wait in uncertainty from one hour to the next. Others had not yet been able to make up their minds, although eviction threatened sooner or later. Quite a number of those surprised at the assembly point by the breaking off of the evacuation the evening before and sent into emergency accommodation had gone back to their homes, lacking the energy to become involved in the turmoil yet again.
The Party authorities had again done nothing to make things easier. Not once had they contributed anything, although this time there was some hot coffee prepared by two women in a wash-oven and carried in buckets, as even Thermos flasks and a wagon to carry the container was lacking. (An ownerless bicycle trailer taken for this purpose from the assembly point the night before had been stolen from the NSV cellars during the night.) So the same procedure as on the previous evening was pursued: members of the SD (security element of the SS) escorted the groups on foot, and there was a storm on the first vehicles waiting. Most people took hardly any notice when, one after the other, the mayor and the fortress commandant in full parade uniform appeared. They stood a few minutes talking together and then disappeared equally unnoticed. The people’s only interest was in finding a suitable position in the street and perhaps getting a place on the next wagon.
It was already midnight when suddenly the sound of an aircraft engine was heard in the sky. Invisible, but almost palpable, the PO2 flew several times over the square. Off-duty soldiers who had been watching the evacuation in the absence of any other form of entertainment and some individuals hoping for new loot from the luggage left behind all vanished. They had experience of these double-deckers, which often lurked over the front lines. Most people searched the night sky, bewitched. Where was it? Would it drop bombs? A flare flamed brightly only a little to one side towards the Oder. Hundreds stared as it moved and stopped. There was no movement, no recognisable target, either seen or heard. The light flak woke up. The plane flew off, the light dwindled and vanished. The transport started up again. People relaxed, they had been lucky yet again. But the solders’ scepticism was correct. Fire rose over the roofs and, although the explosion was a good distance away, it caused anxiety in the narrow streets. The next shots were even closer. One wagon was already loading, but the driver was nervous and set off before all the places had been taken. Seconds later there was an explosion on the cobbled square in front of the school, bringing the shattering of glass, cries of horror, trampling and flight. Three people were left unconscious, a soldier and two civilians, and were taken injured to the dressing station. After this interruption the transportation continued until two o’clock in the morning. Even before the last wagon was ready to leave, inhabitants of the neighbouring quarter slunk up to the assembly point to fall unembarrassed and unhindered on the abandoned bundles and cases.