Lieutenant-Colonel Seifert refuted my argument and told me that in his sector everything had been prepared in such a way that we would not need any support. He showed me a map on which were featured command posts, machine-gun nests and other combat positions. When I finally asked him if he would like to have one or two of those accompanying me to reinforce his command post, he refused in an arrogant manner. He would not change his mind, even when in order to overcome his prejudice, I told him that I had only been with Waffen-SS for a year and that during the First World War I had served in Army Headquarters. He dodged my question about what had already been done in this sector, saying that everything was being organised.
I returned to my command post in the Opera most annoyed. After a short rest, I informed the commanders of the Regiments Danmark and Norge about the orders from Corps and the attitude of Lieutenant-Colonel Seifert, asking them to use the next morning to reassemble their units and put them into order.
It should be noted here that, although Seifert had been appointed Defence Sector commander of this central sector that included the Reichs Chancellery, SS-General Wilhelm Mohnke was responsible for the defence of the Reichs Chancellery and regarded all SS troops in the immediate area as subordinate to him, a situation that only added to the general confusion at this stage of the battle.
Krukenberg continued:
The night of the 26th–27th April passed without disturbance. Next morning was passed in reorganising and re-supplying the troops. Towards midday the commanders of the Norge and Danmark reported that each of the two regiments disposed anew of an effective strength of between 6–700 men. I gave orders that not more than a third were to be placed at the disposition of Sector Headquarters and to continue to prepare the remainder for battle. At the same time I ordered that even if Sector Headquarters did not want to speak to them, the commanders remained responsible for their troops and that during the afternoon they should make themselves familiar in advance with the conditions in which their troops would have to fight.
Towards 1900 hours, the commanders signalled that they had found no one behind our grenadiers and that nowhere had they been able to discover the command posts or machine-gun nests that I had indicated as ready. With that I had the impression that all the defensive plans of Sector ‘Z’ existed only on paper and began to realise why my offers of assistance had been refused.
I decided not to defer any longer presenting myself to the Waffen-SS liaison officer to the Führer, SS-General Fegelein, and to go myself. Describing to him what had happened, I begged him to support me in my efforts to prevent the dissipation of the only SS division in the Berlin Defence Area. Defence Sector ‘Z’, where it was to be engaged, would become in time of capital importance. So far its preparations existed only on paper! There would be serious consequences if the regimental commanders of the Nordland were to be removed, having already removed their divisional commander, SS-Major-General Ziegler, whom they fully trusted. It would then be easy to blame the Waffen-SS for any setback in the defence of Sector ‘Z’.
I repeated all my objections to General Weidling, who entered the room at that moment, begging him, to his obvious annoyance, to engage the only experienced formation in the city centre under the command of its own officers. In any case, he wanted to leave Lieutenant-Colonel Seifert only the sector immediately leading to the Chancellery.
Eventually he aquiesced in subordinating the whole of Sector ‘Z’ to SS-General Mohnke, commander of the Chancellery, and in forming two sub-sectors: that on the right with its command post in the Air Ministry reserved for Lieutenant-Colonel Seifert. Outside the boundary formed by the centre of Wilhelmstrasse the Nordland would be engaged under its own officers, its sector being limited on the east side by Döhnhoffplatz–Kommandantenstrasse– Alexandrinenstrasse.
Stadtmitte U-Bahn Station was nominated as the city centre command post. The Nordland units already engaged in Seifert’s sector would stay there until relieved by others and then return to my control. General Weidling then left and I never saw him again nor received any further orders from him.
It was already 0100 hours on the morning of the 27th April when I returned to the Opera.
Meanwhile, the majority of the French volunteers of the Storm Battalion were sat, half-asleep in the entrance of a block of flats on Belle-Alliance-Platz. These troops were the remnants of only three of the companies. The 2nd Company was effectively reduced to the strength of a section, its Company Commander, Lieutenant Pierre Michel, having been gravely wounded the previous evening. The 3rd Company was down to Sergeant-Major Pierre Rostaing with twenty-five men, all the section leaders and many of the men having been either killed or wounded in Neukölln. The 4th Company was temporarily commanded by Officer-Cadet Serge Protopopoff in the absence of Staff-Sergeant Jean Ollivier, and had had one section completely wiped out the previous day.
Detached from the battalion, the 1st Company, commanded by Second-Lieutenant Jean Labourdette, had been engaged the previous day further the west, to the north of Tempelhof Airport. One of its platoons had been engaged defending the Landwehr Canal near the Hallesche Tor while attached to a unit commanded by the signals officer of the 2nd Battalion, SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 24 Danmark, SS-Second-Lieutenant Bachmann, facing attacks from Soviet armour, shelling and mortar fire.
Meanwhile, the SS-Lieutenant Weber’s Combat School had gone off in the direction of the Reichs Chancellery.
At 0500 hours the 1st Company rejoined the remains of the battalion to the relief of Captain Henri Fenet, who now had to negotiate with Lieutenant-Colonel Seifert, who wanted these men to reinforce his poorly manned sector. A section was sent off to the north, but was almost immediately eliminated by a shell-burst, which killed two men and badly wounded the other three.
The battalion adjutant, SS-Lieutenant Joachim von Wallenrodt, found accommodation for the battalion in the Thomas Keller pub opposite the Anhalter railway station, several hundred metres to the northwest, where the men were able to stretch themselves out on the tables and benches for several hours of sleep.
Meanwhile, Captain Fenet was accompanied and supported by his liaision officer, Officer-Cadet Alfred Douroux, for Fenet had been wounded in the foot by a machine-gun bullet. The pain was such that they stopped at the Regiment Danmar’s first-aid post in the cellars of the Reichsbank, where Fenet rested for several hours in a state of semi-consciousness. At daybreak an elderly Wehrmacht officer helped him on to the Nordland’s headquarters, which had been installed in the cellars of the Opera House since the 25th, and where SS-Major-General Krukenberg was holding a command conference. He told Fenet that he was very pleased with the work of the French battalion and that they would have the whole of the day off before reorganising into eight-man tank-destroying sections in support of the armour and assault guns based on Leipziger Strasse.