It was a wonder that no shots were fired. Nevertheless, heavy infantry and mortar fire broke out behind us towards Küstrin. I was happy to be away from there, where it must be bad.
There was no sign of any Soviets when my column passed a few metres from an anti-tank gun. I do not know how long we marched silently through the night, but it must have been for some time. Finally an even darker line appeared through the dark night, a road running along a slightly raised embankment. A horse-drawn cart was moving from left to right. We could hear it but not see it. Suddenly the driver began to shout; the horse started galloping and we began running.
At the same time firing broke out from left, right and in front of us and we ran as quickly as we could across the weak ground, up to and across the road, and as we ran we sang: ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles, über alles…’.
It was so exhausting that I had no strength left to sing. We could not do anything but run through the night over the heavy ground through the continuing fire. But the firing was not always intended for us. One could get out of it with a bit of luck. My main thought was to keep going forward. They were not firing at individuals, and I found myself quite alone at one stage. I knelt down until I saw or heard the first man behind me. Then I looked for the lead again and jumped over a trench, seeing in the middle of my leap three or four Russians on my right who were beginning to shoot.
Then it was quiet for a short while, after which machine-gun fire opened up and mortar bombs started exploding. I was so exhausted that I could only run on when a machine gun turned on me. Someone fell close by who had been in the lead with me.
Again it became quieter. I jumped into a stream. The water ran into my rubber boots and cooled my feet and then became uncomfortable. I had to go round a large pond, passing some dead lying in the mud. I recognised the uniforms as Waffen-SS. I went round a shot-up tank with a German cross on it and was shocked when I saw and heard another tank a little later as it slowly moved across my line of march. I got out of the way, as I could not make out whether it was Soviet or German.
Then another dark strip appeared out of the darkness of the night. I thought: ‘If it is another trench, then I will stop and lie down. I can’t go on any more!’ It was a railway embankment, hardly higher than a metre. I let myself fall on the slope. A steel helmet appeared a few metres away. ‘German?’ I asked and received in reply: ‘Man, I nearly shot you!’ Ever after I was grateful that I had come across a man who had inhibitions about killing. I crawled across and embraced him. He was, I believe, no older than myself and appeared very insecure. He told me that the company command post was in a farm behind him. I reached it a few minutes later. Some German soldiers came up to me and said: ‘We have just stopped firing our mortars.’
Trucks arrived at first light, loaded us aboard and drove a while and then we climbed up to a railway line that took us, despite the proximity of the front line, to Fürstenwalde.[16]
Sergeant Horst Wewetzer again:
The breakout took place at about midnight. It was a purely infantry attack without any preparation or support from heavy weapons. In the darkness of the night there were no orders, no leadership and no general engagement. The whole crowd marched, at first closed-up, simply westwards. After about 300 metres we came to the Nork Ditch (a name I learnt later), which was full of water and too wide to jump across, so we had to wade through and became wet up to our stomachs.
The enemy was alerted as we climbed out of the ditch and the first shots fell about 20 metres from us. We immediately took cover and wanted to wait, but then I said to a captain next to me: ‘If we take cover at the first shot, we will never get out of here!’ That acted like a signal–or so at least I thought–for they all climbed out of the ditch firing blindly into the night and shouting ‘Hurrah!’, storming the first Soviet position.
For a short while I thought that was the main task complete, but it then appeared that this was only the outermost Soviet line that we had broken through. Because of the lack of manpower on our side, we had become accustomed to only having a thinly manned front line and I suspected that it was not very much different with the Soviets, but I was grossly mistaken and we had only overrun one of their forward positions.
After perhaps another 200 metres we came up to the real Soviet front line. They had naturally been alerted and fired flares, in the light of which I could make out our seemingly compact group of some two to three hundred soldiers at most. The Soviets now opened fire on us and we spread out as far as possible, only a few of us dropping to the ground. It was a repeat of the first line, fire and ‘hurrah!’. I had already been wounded in the lower thigh during the attack on the first line, but it was only a flesh wound right through the leg, and I was still able to carry on.
During the course of the night we stormed one Soviet trench after another. No sooner had we crossed one than we came under fire from the next. As I remember it, we crossed six Soviet trenches, three facing Küstrin and three the west.
As the first weak morning light appeared, presumably at about 0500 hours, I saw the outline of several tanks, but could not make out whether they were German or Soviet, not that it made any difference, we had to keep going. The tanks did not fire at us, and today I think that they must have been German tanks that had been shot up or abandoned on 27 March during the attempt to relieve Küstrin.
In any case we also stormed the first German line, and when we reached the second German line we found a few apparently bewildered soldiers, who showed us the way to the first aid post. This was accommodated in a barn on the edge of a village and so far from the front line and so conveniently located that the ambulances could drive right up to it without being shot at. I was driven to Schlagenthin, seen to by a doctor, and then sent off from nearby Müncheberg station to a field hospital in Naumberg on the Sale. My Staff-Corporal Macknow, who had also been wounded in the break-out, was in the bed next to me.[17]
Sapper Ernst Müller continued his account:
As far as I know, only the middle rank got through. I was one of those that Captain Fischer had told that when we reached the first Russian positions we should quickly cross the first line and run to the west so as not to be cut off by the enemy. Accordingly, I hurried forward, although hampered by rheumatism. I threw my Panzerfaust away after a while as I could not carry it any further. Loud sounds of heavy fighting had broken out behind us. It was a dark night. The only chance of finding one’s way was when a flare went up, then I ran towards where I saw comrades.
After a long time I met a technician who gave me a compass that I still have 50 years later. The technician later trod on a mine and was killed. At that time we were only 20 metres apart as we were disputing which direction to take. From then on I kept to tank tracks, where presumably there were no mines. Finally I was alone.
At dawn I reached a railway embankment with a watery ditch in front of it. There were several dead near a shot-up tank. Here I met a Luftwaffe second lieutenant who had a slight wound in the heel. We discussed whether there could be German or Russian positions behind the embankment. We first quenched our thirst in the ditch, then the second lieutenant went ahead over the low embankment and called me after him. We had made it and reached the German lines.
I was at the end of my strength and could hardly move. I could not climb up on a truck without help. Many hundreds who had broken out of Küstrin were assembled in the Mars-la-Tour Barracks in Fürstenwalde. Among them were Captain Fischer and Corporal Dahlmanns. I was put in the sick bay suffering from severe rheumatism.[18]