The firing came at regular intervals of 15 to 20 minutes, then there was a hefty explosion and a chain of lighter detonations in quick succession. A rain of splinters poured over into the Altstadt. A provisional ammunition dump near the youth hostel, in which heavy flak shells had been stacked in open pits, had been hit. The blackened remains of wickerwork baskets used for carrying shells were blown into the water, and the ground was strewn with bits of explosive materials and unexploded shells over a wide area. This dangerous hail came right over the fortress walls and hit the quarters of an engineer platoon in the hostel there.
Although a considerable number of civilians still remained in the town, they had not been hurt. Because of the apparent peace of the past days, some were already thinking about leaving the fortress. Many elderly people found it unbearable to be carted off somewhere else when their own four walls still stood, and many families of soldiers and Volkssturm men serving in the fortress wanted to stay on as long as possible to be with their fathers, husbands and sons.
This barrage and its consequences had a sobering effect, especially among those who lived close to ammunition stores. The capacity for accommodating military stores in vacant or somewhat shellproof rooms in the Altstadt was already about exhausted before the convoys from Seelow started arriving. Since then, however, many truckloads of supplies had arrived in the last ten nights, particularly ammunition. For instance, the shells for the heavy infantry guns had been stacked under the archway of the Berlin Gate, in the last remaining fortress stores, and the adjacent small casemates. But cases of Panzerfausts, together with anti-tank and flak ammunition, had been laid out on the grass under canvas in the immediate vicinity. A nearby garage was packed to the roof with aircraft bombs, being unusable in that role because of the lack of fuel for the aircraft to carry them, but useful to the sappers for demolition purposes. Even the lower-ranking Wehrmacht staff who had taken up quarters in this area were unhappy, and eventually protested when it was proposed putting a petrol canister depot in the open air here.
Towards evening the area around Friedrichstrasse came under a short barrage again when about 300 civilians were gathered waiting for transportation from the nearby Boys’ Middle School. One shell hit the new Law Courts. Volkssturm men accommodated there left their supper and took shelter in the passages. Later recorded as the only damage, the swastika over the doorway lay smashed on the ground.[8]
‘Artillery activity continues to increase’, commented the Feste Küstrin of 23 February. The front lines and the town continued to resound to surprise bombardments of varying intensity. There was hardly a building whose roof had not already been pierced, whose façade had not been damaged with shell splinters. There were shattered stones and glass splinters everywhere. Only in the narrow alleys of the inner town, where the buildings provided some shelter for each other, could the ground-floor rooms still be used without permanent danger. But here too rows of windows had been broken. Sappers went from one staff quarter to another to prepare the cellars for permanent residence, putting wooden timbers under the ceiling beams to support them, and sandbags over the rooms above and in front of the windows.
The subject of the mail came under discussion in the town hall, regarding the fate of the packages and packets abandoned by the officials in the Neustadt post office when fighting broke out. There were thousands of items, mostly en route to places east of the Oder, that had only been found by chance. Since then a Volkssturm guard had been maintained on the stores at the station, which already showed clear signs of having been looted. Cut strings, paper strips, ripped cartons and trampled cakes covered the floors of the passages from the stores to the loading platform. Withered sprigs of fir clearly showed that many of the packages had been there since before Christmas. Getting any to their destinations or back to the sender could not be taken seriously under the circumstances, so the post office was ordered to open the parcels and sort out the contents for distribution to the Volkssturm and soldiers.[133]
Of particular significance to the future of Küstrin that day was the fall of Posen after five weeks of siege, releasing those six divisions of the 8th Guards and 69th Armies that had been engaged there and could now be used on the Oder front.
Heavy rain overnight washed away the dust from the road surfaces, making the dirty traces of artillery strikes barely noticeable on the morning of 24 February. The progressive diminution of the population began to have an impact on the town, much to the chagrin of the self-justifying Party administration, whose estimated 1,000soul domain would vanish within a week at the current rate of evacuation. The local authorities were embarrassed by the idea of having to do Volkssturm service, but the Landsberg prominenti knew how to utilise their special position. The task of managing the civilian supplies, given to them now that nearly all the shops were closed, had become meaningless, but their three-week stay in the beleaguered fortress would be well noted in ‘higher places’. The lesser civil servants could be sacrificed to hold the fort, while the close circle around the former mayor of Landsberg could leave the hot seat on the Oder inconspicuously. The gentlemen gathered together in their quarters out of the rain that evening to wait for transport. Some had donned civilian overcoats over their brown uniforms ‘because it will be cold in the open wagons’. They could only conceal their unease with difficulty as they puffed away on thick cigars. One of them went to the door from time to time to ensure they would not miss the arrival of the tracked vehicles. For the first time the evacuees were to be taken from the town and not from Alt Bleyen, the rapidly reducing numbers having made the special intermediary shuttle service unnecessary. The refugees’ departure time had nevertheless yet to be agreed by the headquarters, by which of the two night convoys–at 2000 hours or midnight–the requisite number of vehicles would be available. The 2000 hours convoy had already gone and they now had to wait another four hours before the halftracks rattled back along the empty streets. This time the gentlemen did not even allow themselves time to button up their greatcoats before plunging outside.
That same day the Fortress newspaper sang the praises of a 76year-old man: ‘He too did not want to be left behind’. He had–possibly simply out of fear of exile in an asylum–tried to be taken on by the Volkssturm for attachment to a fighting unit. However, in view of the volunteer’s age, he had been taken on instead as a clerk in a Wehrmacht office.[10]
Officer Cadet Alfred Kraus recalled:
Towards the end of February the enemy brought many tanks and trucks into Alt Drewitz, the noise of which came over to us. Observers established the presence of Stalin-Organs and guns. We expected a Russian attack. Instead, one lunchtime a Stuka squadron appeared, Rudel’s squadron, and bombarded the enemy positions.
Although this meant that a Soviet offensive was now unlikely, enemy pressure on the Cellulose Factory increased. It was less quiet in our position on the north-west side of the factory premises. The firing of mortars and Stalin-Organs increased. Since we were not visible from the front, I sometimes had the impression that an enemy observer was located on the chimney behind us and was directing the fire.
When a returning Soviet bomber squadron flew over us, our anti-aircraft gun shot down the leading aircraft, whose tail plane hit a second bomber and the remainder hit a third. All three enemy bombers fell from the one direct hit.
I was wounded by a shell splinter in the right arm while taking a message to the firing position. Nils Fauck brought me back. The dressing station was on the first floor in one of the housing blocks opposite our company command post. It was in the charge of a corporal with a glass eye. He had tended the wounded during a mortar barrage. There was a rumour that he was a degraded doctor. He operated on me straight away. During the night I awoke from my drugged sleep when a 105mm flak gun fired not far from my window. This gun which we had found in the Cellulose Factory had an alternative firing position in front of our dressing station and was tended by former Luftwaffe auxiliaries of our company. While I was detained at the dressing station I saw it shoot up two enemy tanks that advanced over the open land between the Cellulose Factory and the Drewitzer Unterweg at night camouflaged as haystacks.