Once more I crossed the fully exposed Vorflut bridge. Again I ran for my life with bullets whistling past my ears, and rolled down the embankment. A sergeant was lying there with a frightfully shot-through foot, who had bandaged himself. We gathered up the shreds together and stumbled off with him on my back through the enemy fire to the command post. There the cellar windows were covered with iron plating so I had to bang hard until we were let in. Once inside both of us lost consciousness.
Later I was sent to a dressing station. Here, to my great surprise, there was warm barley soup, of which I gulped down two ladlefuls. Here I was shown that I must have had a guardian angel, for there were two holes in my steel helmet. One bullet had, without wounding me, gone twice over the top of my forehead, and I had not noticed it. The medical orderly thought my arm would have to be amputated, as a result of which I was given a wound chit to leave the fortress and was taken by night in a supply convoy to the hinterland.
Following a doctor’s intermediary check, I landed next morning in a little field hospital in Strausberg, where I fell into a two-day sleep. When two young nurses woke me up, I thought they were angels and that I was in heaven. The glaring contrast between the hell of Küstrin and the peace in the field hospital had given my fantasy wings. Next day I was transferred to a big Strausberg school overfilled with wounded. Freshly wounded were being constantly brought in and the dead taken out. Here one could see what victims the Oder Front was demanding.[17]
SS-Grenadier Oscar Jessen witnessed the second Soviet assault on Küstrin:
As we no longer had a gun, I became a runner and saw how the destruction of Küstrin Altstadt continued daily. From my time as a runner, I recall the Alt Bleyen manor farm, a view of the enemy-occupied paper mill, and the Russians moving across the flooded land between the Oder and Warthe.
Next came action in the casemates opposite Kietz at the far end of the bridge [Lunette D]. If I remember correctly, there was an old cannon standing on the left-hand side. There was a field dressing station there where the wounded were given first aid. There were many dead in a little wooden hut in the inner courtyard. There was talk of a remote-controlled Goliath having been used in Kietz, and I believe I saw one.
Then we experienced the second main Soviet attack on Küstrin. After a strong artillery preparation, the Soviets attacked again somewhere. In the end we were down to one Panzerfaust. We reached the Altstadt by the railway bridge under enemy fire and over dead comrades. The church north of the Schloss and the buildings on the market place were on fire, with dead lying around.
I became a runner to Fortress Commandant Reinefarth, whose command post was in the Schloss behind the gate in the forward left corner. The thick walls of the Schloss had been breached to allow access to the communication trenches. A field hospital for badly wounded had been set up in the cellars. If I remember correctly, all the wounded lay on plank beds, only one of the worst injured was on a camp bed under a gauze tent. A doctor and a Red Cross nurse did what they could, but I believe there was a shortage of medical supplies.
The runners’ route led me to a weapon that I had never seen before. It stood on the north-east edge of the Altstadt outside the casemate. At first I thought it was a V1 rocket until someone told me it was a ‘Stuka zu Fuss’–a large projectile in a wooden case that also served as its launcher.[18]
On 10 March, two days after the fighting in the Neustadt had started, the OKW mentioned ‘the reduced Küstrin bridgehead’ in its official daily announcement. Despite the frequent mentions of the place in the Wehrmacht Reports, Reinefarth had so far waited in vain for an honourable mention of his name. Other commandants in similar situations had usually obtained recognition with an award or promotion, but of course Reinefarth knew nothing about the report from his headquarters staff.
At first glance the situation in the Neustadt had not basically changed despite continued bitter fighting. Outbreaks of fighting of varying intensity, in which the defenders lost ever more ground, marked the day, until the resistance in the ruined centre was down to a few small groups.[19]
Among them was Officer Cadet Corporal Hans Dahlmanns:
About 10 March I was ordered to take up quarters in the courthouse. I could find nobody there, but found a cellar filled with camp beds and lit by a petroleum lamp, and had a long chat with a young second lieutenant. I believe his name was Schröter and he was about two years older than me. His idealism influenced me greatly. His brother had fallen for Germany and he too would give his life for his country. There was no such thing as a meaningful death for a young man. The second lieutenant said this without any fanaticism and completely calmly. And his simplicity impressed me immensely, although I knew that I would never think this way myself.[20]
On 11 March the pressure on individual sections of the Neustadt garrison appeared to have eased overall, but on this fourth day of the fighting it was noticeable that the Soviet troops were pressing for a conclusion. The still partly burning factory quarter had to be given up bit by bit. Individuals were able to reach the shrunken perimeter in the town centre over a field of rubble between collapsed sheds, broken pipelines and giant stacks of burnt railway sleepers, through the cellars of ruined buildings and shattered backyards. However, the organised resistance here soon collapsed. Isolated soldiers could find hiding places at first in the wrecked former business streets, still skirmishing here and there with their opponents, but most soon gave up, either giving in to the overwhelming Soviet force or waiting to be captured in the air-raid shelters that still existed under piles of rubble. Only a few reached the deserted allotment and meadow area and found cover in concealed earth bunkers, still hoping to get over the Warthe. None of them succeeded.
By evening only the Neues Werke, the Army Supply Depot on the Heerstrasse and the Infantry Barracks were still in German hands as the core of resistance. The Soviet corps commander ordered a bombardment of the fort with its metre-thick red brick walls and deep moat for the next morning as the signal to start the final assault.
Corporal Hans Arlt recalled:
Then came 11 March. In the early morning we moved to our last position in the Wald Cemetery. It was a Sunday and also Heroes’ Memorial Day. The red sunrise reminded me of the words of the song ‘Morgenroth, Morgenroth, leuchest mir sum frühen Tod’ [‘Red dawn, red dawn, light me to an early death’]. In view of the ever-decreasing encirclement of the von Stülpnagel Barracks, this thought was not without significance in my state of mind.
After several air attacks and especially after their mortar fire, the Russian pressure from the west and north became ever stronger. Somewhere in the cemetery complex I lost my way. Somehow I became separated from my platoon and suddenly found myself opposite two Soviet soldiers in a trench; they had sub-machine guns in their hands but not aimed at me. Like lightning I threw aside the two hand grenades stuck in my belt and ran off to find my comrades, who had noticed my mistake and called me back. At first they thought that I was deserting, as I had not heard them shouting over the din of battle.
17
Kohlase [Band 3], pp. 46–7. Peters was given his marching orders on 13 April, being sent to Engineer Replacement and Training Battalion 3 in Brandenburg. He eventually got across the Elbe to the Americans, who handed him over to the Russians in a group of 50,000, but he managed to escape before they crossed back over the Elbe and found his way home safely to Ringelheim, near Salzgitter.
18
Kohlase [Band 3], p. 53. The Goliath was a small, tank-like tracked vehicle used for demolition purposes. It could be steered by cable or wireless to a range of 650–1,000 metres and was only 67cm high.