The command post is in a large library that has some magnificent works of art. One of us has pulled out an album of coloured pictures of Spain, which becomes a distraction for men taking a break. We flip through it in search of sunny country scenery as an antidote to our vision of hell. Passing the rows of bookshelves, I am angered by the thought that they will become victims to the flames, or worse, will be torn up and trampled underfoot by bands of drunken Mongols.
We are living in scenes from another world: the days are the colour of the dust that overcomes and devours us. We no longer see the blue sky, being absorbed in a gritty fog that only dissipates at rare moments until a new torrent of missiles plunge us back into yellowish opaqueness. Buildings are burning everywhere, ruins collapse with a great noise, thickening the atmosphere with soot, dust and smoke, which we breathe with difficulty. The silence that follows a bombardment is only the prelude to a roaring of engines, the clanking of tracks, announcing another wave of tanks. Crouched in the doorways or behind windows with Panzerfausts in our hands, we await our turn to release the storm. A long tongue of flame behind the firer, a violent explosion, shortly followed by another marking the arrival of a mortal blow, almost always firing at point blank range, which is more certain. The explosions follow each other within several seconds: one, two, sometimes three tanks are immobilised in the middle of the street. The others retire and several minutes later they return to tow back the dead carcasses under cover of clouds of dust raised by the bombardment that always follows an aborted attack.
The battle continues to rage throughout the night. How can one describe the night? Darkness, chased away by this enormous brazier that the city has become, has vanished and only the colour of the light varies by the hour. The burning buildings and tanks are our torches, and Berlin is illuminated by the fire devouring it. A sinister clarity hangs over the city, now suffused with a reddish glow on which the flames rising around us shed their violent light. Beneath this tragic display the ruins cutting the incandescent sky take on unreal, incredible shapes,
The rumbling upheaval of the battle has now submerged all the city, which fiercely struggles and fights on not to let itself be engulfed by defeat, prolonging its hopeless agony to the extreme limit. In this duel to death, as the hours pass and the enemy accumulates against us more tanks, more men, more shells, our determination only grows, our resolution hardens more. Hold on, the words always returns to our lips, invades our spirit as an obsession. Hold on, as if tomorrow will be like today, like yesterday. Until when? The question no longer arises: as long as we have bullets, grenades, Panzerfausts. The Red infantry continue to bite the dust, the tanks, despite their furious assaults, are checked in front of or inside our lines, where they burn in agony. We can see the flames emerging between the tracks, then climbing progressively up to the turret, while the ammunition explodes in an uninterrupted series of detonations that shake the steel carcass belted with fire until a formidable explosion shakes the whole area, sending enormous chunks of steel flying until nothing remains of the tank but a mass of twisted, blackened scrap.
On the evening of the 30th April a Russian is brought to the command post who had allowed himself to be captured without difficulty. He is a Ukrainian NCO, a big, well fed lad. He brings with him several loaves of bread, which the men share between them with pleasure, for they haven’t seen anything like that for several days. In exchange the prisoner is given cigarettes, which seems to please him. Very talkative, he explains to the interpreter that he is Ukrainian and not Russian. Compulsorily mobilised, and a ferocious adversary of bolshevism, so much so that we could not have a better friend than himself in the Red Army. Of course we are under no illusions about the sincerity of his good will, but we pretend to listen with interest. Confident, he chats with the interpreter, replying at length to the questions negligently put to him during the course of the conversation. A communiqué has been distributed in the Red lines today announcing imminent victory; there is only one square kilometre left in Berlin to be taken, and this last bastion must be taken by tomorrow in honour of the 1st May. A burst of laughter greets the translation of these last words: ‘We will still be here tomorrow, old chap, and your pals will get the same as usual if they try and pass!’
He recognises that we are giving them a hard time and that morale in the area leaves much to be desired, but we don’t believe our ears when he adds that the tank crews will only board at pistol point. The interpreter asks good humouredly if he is kidding us. ‘Niet! Those getting into the leading tanks know that they will not be coming back!’
SS-Major-General Krukenberg resumed his account:
During the night and morning of the 1st May the battle continued with extreme violence. The Russians were glued to the ground with the fire from our assault rifles. That afternoon the enemy resorted to using flamethrowers to reduce isolated points of resistance, an effective tactic, for there was no water to extinguish the flames.
Tuesday, the 1st May, at about 0700 hours in the morning, I was summoned by telephone by SS-General Mohnke, who told me that during the night General Krebs (a former military attaché in Moscow), Colonel von Dufing and Lieutenant Colonel Seifert had crossed the lines in the latter’s sector to conduct negotiations with the Soviets. He could not give me the exact details about this mission, but he gave the impression that one could no longer count upon being relieved by Wenck’s army, which had been forced to withdraw by superior enemy forces.
Contrary to expectations, General Krebs and his companions, for whom those opposite had guaranteed free access, had still not returned or reported their news, despite an existing radio link. He suggested a possibility of betrayal and said that now the Soviets knew the weakness of our defences we could now expect a sudden attack.
We had been able to establish that the Potsdammer Platz S-and U-Bahn stations were not barricaded, thus offering an opportunity for an enemy shock troop to approach the Chancellery via Voss-Strasse. I should do the necessary in this respect, but before all else, go to the Air Ministry and take charge of the Seifert sub-sector from its commander. It seemed to him that there were things going on there that I should suppress by all means.
I crossed Wilhelmplatz under enemy fire accompanied by a Franco-German escort and advanced along Wilhelmstrasse as far as the Air Ministry, on which there were no security guards, although the Russian mortars and anti-tank guns were only several hundred yards away.
There was an old Luftwaffe general asleep in the cellars of the Air Ministry with a hundred airmen. Then I came across a young army captain, who was the staff watch keeper for the sub-sector, who told me that Lieutenant Colonel Seifert, having told him he had no need of anyone, had shut himself in his office with his liaison officer to apparently destroy documents. I immediately went with him to the sector command post in which he was the only member of Lieutenant Colonel Seifert’s staff. We entered into a lively discussion, during which, having explained my mission, he refused to tell me what had happened the day before, nor where his commander was, when the latter entered the room escorted by two NCOs from my escort, having found him in another part of the building.