It was pitch dark. We went slowly past the pond to the dyke road and then along the foot of the dyke, even more cautiously, our weapons ready for action in our hands. For a distance of several hundred metres the Russians were on one side of the dyke and on the other side were our men at long intervals. About 100 to 150 metres from the dyke there was a shallow, weakly occupied trench on the other side of the ‘corridor’ connecting the manor farm with Küstrin. This is where I saw out the rest of the evening. We expected hand grenades to come over the dyke at any moment, but everything remained quiet.
The survivors of Fusilier Battalion 303 were able to withdraw to Kuhbrücken during the night, but only by leaving behind the heavy weapons, including the three self-propelled guns. Together with the remains of other units, they took up new positions here as Combat Team ‘Quetz’.
When we reached the spider’s web of tracks in Kuhbrücken that night, we met Volkssturm men in the cottages there who believed the Alt Bleyen manor farm to be surrounded. Together with others they had been ordered to fight open the way back to the farm complex and get us out. They were mightily relieved not to have to clear the complex.
We went over the Kietz railway bridge to the main dressing station that had been set up in the cellars of the Artillery Barracks on the Island. The doctors could hardly keep their eyes open from sheer exhaustion. One instructed me to take the next wounded transport back to hospital, but when I told him where I came from he fell silent.
Then we were sent on into the Altstadt. We passed a large burning building, apparently stacked full of tins of preserves judging from the constant dull explosions emerging, crossed the Oder Bridge and finally reached the auxiliary hospital in the cellars of the Boys’ Middle School. I was allocated the lower bunk of a two-storey air-raid bed and immediately fell asleep.[26]
Sapper Ernst Müller told a similar tale:
In the evening darkness of 26 March I noticed in leaving the cellar of the Potato Meal Factory that cartridges were on fire in front of the building between heaps of stick grenades. The culprit was apparently a ‘Sewing Machine’, an enemy aircraft dropping bombs. When I reported this, Captain Fischer ordered the fire to be extinguished using sacks soaked in the Oder. Later I was ordered to fetch some firemen. On my return I had just reached the Artillery Barracks when the stack of munitions blew up. The cellar of the Potato Meal Factory was on fire. A wall of fire prevented every attempt to reach those trapped in and behind the rubble. Several of them were burnt alive. Between twenty and thirty men lay buried in the rubble, among them Captain Dahlmanns, Second-Lieutenant Schröter and Corporal Grosch. Second-Lieutenant Schröter should not actually have been in Küstrin. He had been given the job of taking us to the front, and then should have returned to Armoured Engineer Replacement Battalion 19 in Holzminden, as his wound was not yet fully cured. The already mentioned Corporal Hans Dahlmanns thus lost his father, whom I knew as a good man, who had treated me in a fatherly manner. I was also present when Captain Fischer expressed his condolences to Corporal Dahlmanns upon the death of his father.[27]
The German counterattack began at 0400 hours on 27 March and after a few hours got halfway to Gorgast and as far as the Wilhelminenhof farm and Genschmar before the German divisions were driven back to their start points with heavy losses. According to the 9th Army’s situation report of 27 March, 5 commanding officers, 68 officers and 1,219 men had been lost. The reasons given included minefields, heavy mortar and anti-tank fire with accompanying artillery fire, well-constructed strongpoints in the individual barns and lack of ground cover. In fact the Germans had given the Soviets far too much time in which to consolidate their positions in a greatly enlarged bridgehead.[28]
On the northern flank, with flanking protection from the 1st Battalion of the ‘Müncheberg’ Panzer Regiment, the ‘1001 Nights’ Combat Team started the attack with three infantry companies and a total strength of 390 men and 49 Hetzers; by the end of the attack it was reduced to only 40 men per infantry company, having lost 51 killed, 336 wounded and 32 missing, and having had 25 Hetzers destroyed. According to Captain Zobel, the Hetzers were late getting into their start position, having first to negotiate a railway underpass, by which time the Soviet artillery had been fully alerted. One infantry company of this elite battle group reached as far as the western edge of Genschmar, but at daybreak came under such heavy artillery, tank and anti-tank fire from the Henriettenhof farm, Genschmar village, the southern edge of the Genschmarer See and the Wilhelminenhof farm (the latter having fallen to the Soviets in the meantime) that it was forced to withdraw.[29]
Despite the XXXIXth Panzer Corps’ initial lack of success, on the same day at 1730 hours the ‘Führer’ Grenadier Division and part of the ‘Müncheberg’ Panzer Division made a fresh attack on the Wilhelminenhof strongpoint and the wood 700 metres north-west of it, making some progress before having to go over to the defensive.[30]
In the fortress they waited hour by hour for a sign of salvation. The disappointment increased, as did the fire from the Soviet artillery, reaching at times as much as 1,000 shells per hour. Air attacks concentrated more and more on those structures still holding out, the old bastions. The Bastion Christian Ludwig containing the youth hostel was destroyed by three heavy bombs, the casemate used as a front-line cinema being partly destroyed, leaving buried under the rubble numerous soldiers who had sought shelter there. The already badly damaged town hall took another direct hit, the cellar collapsing and burying Volkssturm men lying there in an underground room with some of the lightly wounded. Only a few shattered men were saved by chance hours later.[31] The fate of Johannes and Otto Dawidowski was described by a survivor:
On the morning of 27 March we were told to go from our accommodation in Wallstrasse to the company command post for new orders for the next day. One group of four Volkssturm men set off. We had hardly gone 100 metres when a sudden bombardment took us by surprise. The Russians were firing with heavy calibre weapons on the area we were in. At the same time aircraft were dropping bombs. We sought shelter under a high and thick wall where the Zorn firm stored its coal.
The Dawidowski brothers and another comrade from Drewitz sought cover under the third arch of the wall, while the fourth one of our group and other comrades went under another arch and in a somewhat deeper situated building. The coal-yard wall was under particularly heavy fire, and was swaying to and fro from the hits. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion and a flash of fire. It was a direct hit on the third arch in the wall, exactly where the Dawidowski brothers and the other comrade were standing. This part of the wall collapsed. The men standing under it were buried under the falling masonry and were certainly killed instantly.
The shooting increased. It was no longer possible to get through to the company command post. Although the way back to the platoon accommodation was only about 100 metres, I did not get back until evening. There was no chance of looking for the dead and burying them, as next day the Altstadt was to be evacuated following the Russians coming in through the Kietz Gate. So the dead still lie today under this wall.[32]
Chapter Ten
Breakout