The Wehrmacht Report of 23 March pulled a veil over the fatal development at Küstrin with the fable that a Soviet attack on the flanks of the bridgehead had been checked by ‘the effective defensive fire of our Oder defences after a minimal initial success’.
The Soviets resumed their attack to the west with new forces. The XXXIXth Panzer Corps commanded by General Karl Decker, with the ‘Döberitz’ Infantry Division on the right, the 25th Panzergrenadiers in the centre and ‘Müncheberg’ Panzer Division on the left, had to withstand the heaviest pressure all day long, the focal point being in the centre astride Reichsstrasse 1, but they were able to hold all their important positions or regain them by counterattack.
In the now fully encircled fortress, the worsening of the now critical situation became noticeable. A new line of defence had to be drawn straight across the ‘corridor’ near Bleyen, and the forces thrown back in this encirclement were now having to fight facing west.
Ground-attack aircraft attacked the Kommandantenstrasse leading from the Marktplatz to the fire brigade depot, where a group of armoured personnel carriers was standing. Within minutes these vehicles, condemned to immobility by the rubble-strewn streets, were in flames under a hail of bombs and explosive shells. A platoon of Volkssturm just released from the front line was surprised by this attack, only a few of the men being able to reach cover in time.
For the first time there were no night convoys, but food reserves gave no reason for concern and there was enough ammunition left for several days, as hardly any of the heavy weapons were still serviceable. But the closure would have a disastrous effect on the main dressing station as now no serious cases could be evacuated to the hinterland and the number of casualties was mounting by the hour.[13]
Officer-Cadet Corporal Fritz Kohlase described the Soviet advance:
The Russians attacked us on Friday afternoon without any preliminary reconnaissance, artillery or armoured support. They came from the direction of the Gorgast–Kietz railway line in line abreast, widely spaced out and several metres apart, holding rifles or sub-machine guns in their hands. The first row was followed by a second, this by a third, then the fourth, fifth and sixth. Despite orders to the contrary, the two machine guns behind us opened fire at 800 metres and all the other weapons joined in. The Soviet infantry then advanced in bounds as our artillery in the Seelow area joined in the battle. They merely dug themselves in before us as they came under direct fire from the 88mm gun. This position was the turning point of the Russian attack. West of us the attackers stormed further northwards, thus thrusting eastwards and digging in 100 to 200 metres from the heavy machine guns and the rifle trenches west of the farm. This attack was a difficult but precisely executed manoeuvre, assisted by the inaccuracy of the German defensive fire.[14]
Shortly after midnight on 23 March the 25th Panzergrenadier Division attacked along the Golzow–Gorgast road to reach the Alte Oder. By daybreak it had penetrated Gorgast, where bitter fighting broke out, but later overwhelming Soviet forces forced a withdrawal to the starting point.
Both sides were preparing for big operations to decide the Küstrin situation. The 9th Army was planning a relief attack for Küstrin that would include the ‘Führer’ Grenadier Division under Major General Otto-Ernst Remer. The 8th Guards Army was preparing to attack the Altstadt fortress. Meanwhile the commander-in-chief of the 1st Byelorussian Front, Marshal Zhukov, had been summoned to Moscow for consultations about the forthcoming Berlin Operation. Before leaving, recalling the false report of 12 March on the taking of the fortress, he asked the commander of the 8th Guards Army when he thought he could take it. Chuikov riposted that it lay in the attack path of Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army, which had already claimed to have taken it. Zhukov said that when mistakes occurred they had to be corrected. Chuikov promised to take Küstrin before Zhukov met Stalin. The attack was fixed for 29 March and would be led by divisions on both banks of the Oder. Heavy batteries were dug into the dykes to provide direct fire on the bastions. Soviet units had already worked their way forward into the corner between the Oder and Warthe rivers at the Kietzerbusch railway halt and skirmishing no longer died down at night.[15]
Officer-Cadet Corporal Fritz Kohlase again:
During the night leading to Saturday [24 March] more fires flamed in Küstrin. In the south-west German troops sought to break out of the encirclement. They forced the Soviet front back with strong artillery fire and started fighting for Gorgast in the depths of the night. However, they were brought to a halt and shortly afterwards were driven back to the west by the Red Army.
For my comrades and me this failure was a great disappointment. With my section I had marked the south-westerly point of the Küstrin encirclement and seen the fire of our relieving troops about 3 kilometres away.
The noise of combat came from Küstrin all day long. At night, when it was quiet, fires lit up the town. The Russians also shot a building within the farm area into flames practically every night, making the delivery of ammunition and food difficult. Sometimes it took more than two hours for the few hundred metres to be covered, and once it succeeded only at the second attempt. Every night the ‘Orderly Sergeant’, an armoured Soviet biplane, appeared and would switch off its engine near its target then glide over it dropping small shrapnel bombs. During the day several German aircraft flew over Küstrin and dropped supply containers by parachute.
The Russians penetrated a gap in the positions between us and the 3rd Company, and occupied an isolated farm. From there a gun brought us under such uncomfortably direct fire that the battalion’s assault platoon received orders to regain the farm. The badly led attack in the dark, without the support of heavy weapons, failed.
One evening I had a stupid altercation with the 88mm battery commander. He inspected the flak position and then came to my section under cover of darkness. A steel helmet protected the head of this officer. After I had made my report, he told me off for wearing a field cap in the front line. When I told him that we only wore steel helmets under certain conditions, and that my company commander also wore a field cap, the altercation became louder until in the end I had to give way, if only for a few minutes, until he had disappeared in the direction of the manor farm.
The battalion lay under heavy fire on the Saturday and Sunday from infantry weapons, Stalin-Organs and guns. The worst were the often hour-long attacks by ground-attack aircraft, which concentrated on the infantry guns but failed to put them out of action. The battalion’s losses increased, but my section was lucky so far.[16]
The Küstrin garrison’s fighting capacity rapidly diminished. All movement by day outside the foxholes, bunkers and casemates was unthinkable. The Soviet artillery observers had virtually every bit of the remaining fortress within view of their binoculars, even in the Altstadt, whether over heaps of rubble or through the skeletons of burnt-out buildings, and even their infantry weapons could reach almost everywhere. Ground-attack aircraft tackled systematically every street that showed signs of life. The police station on the Marktplatz collapsed under their bombs. Those units not deployed in the front line kept within the hollow spaces of the old fortifications. Numerous stable cellars had been destroyed in the previous days, shattered or burnt out.
Officer-Cadet Corporal Fritz Kohlase recalled:
On Saturday [24 March] the 3rd Company on our left was thrown out of its positions. Their counterattack on Sunday failed because of the company commander having a nervous breakdown. The immediate enemy response thrust into the company’s departure line, occupied it and closed up to the south-eastern corner of the manor farm complex.[17]