There was another heavy bombardment next day. It was terrible. We received orders to render the gun unserviceable and to withdraw taking the machine guns with us. Chaos reigned. There were many dead and wounded crying for help. Of my gun crew only one other survived, a comrade from the Siebenbürgen who was carrying the machine gun, and myself with the ammunition box. The din was hellish. Suddenly a T-34 appeared in front of us. Dead scared we dived into a bomb crater in which live and dead German soldiers were lying. The tank swung its turret round with its gun barrel pointing towards us, but could not reach us because of the dead angle. As it turned away we could hear the ‘Urrah!’ of Soviet infantry. We left the machine gun and ammunition box behind in the crater and joined the others running away. The Russians pressed hard behind us. Suddenly it was back to the Warthe and over the railway bridge to the Altstadt. We crossed a park where, to our horror, snipers sitting in the trees fired at us. Many comrades fell dead or were left behind wounded.
We were unable to get across the bridge, for it was under heavy fire, apart from which several wagons on our side hindered the approaches. Further back behind us was a church in whose tower there must have been an enemy observer concealed and directing fire on us while firing himself. We found shelter in a trench. Many German soldiers were lying wounded outside the trench. Some kept calling: ‘Help me, comrades!’ Others were crying out aloud. More than a few of us wanted to help them, but those who dared to leave the shelter of the trench received deadly head shots from the Russians. Those comrades who risked their lives to help others are owed deep respect. It was horrible lying there as a little group listening to the ever weakening whimpering of the dying.
The way to the bridge from the trench had meanwhile been blocked by Soviet tanks that fired at anyone trying to get out of it. Several comrades tried to dispose of the tanks in the dark with hollow charges or Panzerfausts. They succeeded but it cost them their lives. Some of us, including myself, finally managed to crawl under the wagons. We were lucky and got across the bridge but were almost shot by the German sentries. They asked for the password, but of course we did not know it. Our appearance was hardly encouraging: filthy, bloody and unwashed. Finally they believed us and took us to their headquarters, which was in a building near the town hall.
Apart from myself, I found two comrades from my unit that came from Kiel, Karsten Christiansen and Paul-Werner Schwark. Karsten had fought alongside his twin brother, but he must have been either killed or taken prisoner. (Both the boys from Kiel were released after one year’s imprisonment and died in 1997 and 1998.)[11]
Hitler Youth Hans Dalbkermeyer also recalled the Soviet assault:
We five Birnbaumers had crossed the Warthe without catching colds or other health problems and were given a new task. We had to keep the road bridge under observation from the highest point of Bastion König on the east bank of the Oder. We had to keep an eye out for drifting mines, boats carrying explosives or any other forms of attack. We no longer had an enemy directly in front of us because of the proximity of the bridge, but they were often over us. During the frequent air attacks the firing of the Russian aircraft flying close over our heads towards Kietz was always fascinating. We could watch the show from the zigzag trenches when we wanted.
We were accommodated in the casemates below. I can still remember a room there filled with Red Cross packages for now unreachable Western Allied prisoners. We only took these packages for things we coveted and thanks to these supplementary supplies we were well fed.
Artillery fire and air attacks were intense throughout the day. From our high position on Bastion König, where the Russian memorial obelisk and anti-tank gun stand today, we had a unique view over the badly damaged and severely marked town. A short excursion into the Altstadt during a pause in the firing and our duties confirmed this impression. We found no building undamaged, the streets stacked high with rubble, and in one ruined building we saw a thick dud shell, altogether a sad sight.
In a wholly destroyed shoe shop, which may have been in Berliner Strasse, a pair of spikes attracted my attention. I took them, seeing myself having an advantage in future races.
My best friends and classmates, Blauberg and Chmilewski, lost their young lives in an air attack. A bomb crushed them in a foxhole in front of a building immediately in front of the north-eastern approach to the road bridge over the Oder. Attempts to dig them out after the attack and save them were unsuccessful.
Until now I had regarded my involvement in the war as a unique adventure, but now the full tragedy, cruelty and sorrow of this war gradually became apparent. Hidden in my own corner of the casemate, I cried, trying to get a grip of and understand my situation. The desire to get out of this witches’ cauldron that arose from this was soon to be fulfilled.[12]
Sergeant Horst Wewetzer also had a lucky escape:
Once more there were no infantry to secure our guns, and so it happened that during the morning of 8 March the Russians were suddenly in among them. The gun crews, who were in a nearby cellar, were able to keep the attackers at bay with hand grenades until it was possible to flee into the maze of ruins. We reached the road bridge over the Warthe through piles of debris and completely destroyed streets escorted by artillery fire and ground-attack aircraft.
I lay under fire from the ground-attack aircraft, three of them constantly flying around in a circle, and firing at the bridge as they flew at it. As soon as each aircraft started firing, I ran behind the hits as fast as my feet would carry me. As bursts of fire from the next aircraft hit the road surface behind me I jumped into a doorway, thus reaching the Altstadt.[13]
Officer Cadet Alfred Kraus was injured during the assault:
On the evening of 8 March I was sitting with Second-Lieutenant Thom in the bunker. It was getting dark. It was obvious to us that our end as a German strongpoint was imminent. As Berliners we chatted about pubs and the bands on the Kurfürstendamm. Suddenly Private Koch came in and reported: ‘Sir, the Russians are in the trench!’ Second-Lieutenant Thom ordered the position to be cleared and a withdrawal to the factory. We left. At the end of the factory road we tried to make floats on the embankment to cross over the Warthe. The biplanes dropped parachute flares and watched us.
Remarkably, the Russians did not shoot, although they had closed in around us. At about midnight came the order to launch the floats. The current drew them into the fire of the Russian machine guns. We could hear the men on the floats shouting: ‘Keep back!’
My attempt to cross failed from the very beginning. The float tilted through overloading and I was up to my stomach in the water. I met other stragglers on the riverbank. As I was still carrying my pack, I was ordered by Second-Lieutenant Metz to establish radio contact. It failed to work. The second lieutenant then ordered: ‘Everyone to the air raid shelter!’ Before we could cross the factory road a Soviet tank fired a shell into the factory wall in front of us. A splinter hit Second-Lieutenant Metz in the right breast, came out of his back and hit me in the lower jaw, splitting my lip and ripping out three teeth by the roots. We carried Second-Lieutenant Metz to the air-raid shelter, where he was given our individual tetanus injections. He was very brave.
Meanwhile Second-Lieutenant Thom had reappeared. As I was very wet, I was allowed to take dry underwear, socks, riding socks and boots from his suitcase. My nose was full of blood too, but I drank some orange liquor out of a jar and jammed some canned meat past my wound into my mouth. Second-Lieutenant Thom went on without me. (I later saw him at the entrance to the prisoner-of-war camp at Landsberg-ander-Warthe wearing a postman’s uniform.)