I was still at the dressing station when I was wounded for a second time. French civilian workers were digging an anti-tank ditch in front of the buildings. The Russians laid down mortar fire on them and a splinter hit my back when I looked out of the window. Until I was fully recovered I was detailed to work in the company’s radio position, but this did not happen, as I had a confrontation with the quartermaster-sergeant, who sent me back into the front line. When I arrived at the Cellulose Factory, Second-Lieutenant Thom had already been informed by a runner and told me: ‘I’ve already heard. However, you will remain as a runner as before. The quartermaster-sergeant can come here and see me if he doesn’t like it.’
That same evening our company commander, Lieutenant Schellenberg, organised a night fighting patrol as ordered. Nils Fauck, who during my absence had been manning the radio and telephone, went of his own accord. The attack took place on 23 February, supported by flame-throwers, artillery and mortars, the latter firing from the Cellulose Factory. (Whether the mortars had been moved here for this reason, I do not know.) In our opinion the undertaking was senseless and costly. My friend Wolfgang Warner was wounded in it. Nils Fauck was brought back to the dressing station with a shot through the arm. I did not see him again, nor did I find him again after the war. I met Wolfgang Warner again in Munich and we are still in contact.[11]
The first execution by hanging took place on 25 February, the victim being a flak sergeant-major. According to the announcement, he had been living in his allocated quarters with a 20-year-old girl, and they had packed a bag with underwear and clothing with which to leave the fortress. Within the same hour that her boyfriend was hanged from the crossbar of a telephone pole near the Altstadt railway crossing, the girl was sentenced to death by shooting. It seems that the real reason for their planned flight was the actual crime of looting. How could the garrison’s flak units, which consisted of so many young soldiers and Luftwaffe auxiliaries under the physical and nervous strain of being in combat, grasp that one of their superiors – for whatever reason–saw nothing wrong in discontinuing to endanger his life? Making a disciplinary example of an officer over stolen property would certainly have a widespread impact. There had been anger for a long time over the increasing looting and malicious damage in abandoned buildings, especially among the remaining civilians and local Volkssturm.
A front-line cinema was opened that day only a few hundred yards from the place of execution. The three cinemas in the town, Urania, Apollo and Küstriner Lichtspiele, had been closed at the end of January and damaged since. A new location was chosen, a former air-raid shelter on the youth hostel plot in the Altstadt. Various containers of household goods deposited there for safety by several families during the evacuation were dumped outside and primitive wooden benches were used to fill the now musty vaults. For the première there was the film Menschen vom Varieté and an old newsreel exhorting victory.[12]
Fighting around the town continued to remain minimal on 26 February. The local situation report–as it already had done for days–spoke only of the activity of the heavy weapons, implying the two sides were equally matched:
Enemy artillery fire especially on the Cellulose Factory and the Oder Vorflut bridges. Lively activity by our own artillery with good success. Our own patrols active against positions northwards of Alt Drewitz and south of Kietz.
Low cloud interrupted the deployment of Soviet aircraft and enabled work on the fortifications to continue relatively undisturbed. This was concentrated on strengthening the naturally poor defences in the Neustadt along the curve of the front line based on the Warthe. After an eight-day interruption, traffic into this sector over the road bridge was partly resumed, engineers having built a wooden structure over the sunken arch. Nevertheless it was little more than one track wide and was only usable by light vehicles owing to its limited weight capacity. Other traffic had to be directed over the railway bridge.
One of the SD (security service) teams stationed in the fortress had begun combing through the streets one by one, ordering the remaining inhabitants to leave. This team of about 30 men, supported in the Altstadt by a few members of the Party administration, pursued the task with enthusiasm. The end of the evacuation was finally achieved when even the rear area troops were withdrawn. Those civilians who had refused to leave were scattered over the whole town, and short-notice changes of residence following fire or artillery damage was part of the daily routine, so another check had to be made of all inhabitable buildings down to the cellars. But the manpower available was insufficient, as the SD also had to enforce the stricter blackout regulations.
The emergency power station restarted after several days of disruption, but only operated from 2000 hours in the evening to 0600 hours in the morning, partly in order to save fuel and partly to avoid smoke from the factory chimney alerting the Soviet observers. As the power came on during the first evening lights appeared in windows all over the town. The fear quickly arose among some fanatics that this was either sabotage or a deliberate act intended to aid the enemy, but the real connection with the evacuation was soon realised. After five years of enforced blackout, thoughtlessness among those remaining rarely occurred. The problem almost exclusively involved buildings whose inhabitants had left for the assembly point in daylight. Most had not closed the shutters and curtains and in those areas where the power had gone off, light switches had been left on unheeded. Because of the increase in these cases and out of well-founded respect for the PO-2s flying over the town at night, the patrols received orders to shoot through the windows at these light sources when shouted warnings were not immediately responded to.[13]
Corporal Hans Arlt was serving on the Neustadt outskirts:
Another reconnaissance in an easterly direction was made towards the end of February. This time we got stuck in no-man’s-land with a similar enemy undertaking. No one attained their goal. Here the greater firepower of the enemy showed itself. This was the first time I had had an assault rifle and experienced a blockage. Nevertheless it ended well.
Our position was in open country east of the Zorndorfer Chaussee. In front of us was a low, lightly wooded hill that was in Russian hands. We lay in partly covered foxholes. Our weapons consisted of carbines, some assault rifles and hand grenades. The enemy was at times only about 100 metres away. Apart from occasional shell bursts, it was quiet all day long, as snipers prevented all movement. At night Soviet double-deckers (‘Sewing Machines’) flew over us and dropped small explosive charges. A three-man team in a hole 20 metres from us received a direct hit.
One day as we were celebrating the shooting down of a fighter with a lot of noise, the Russian side reacted with a long-lasting hail of shells.