When we were relieved from our positions at the Institute for the Blind, I made my way from the line of battle and wandered into a cellar. It was filled with civilians, the old, and mothers with their children tightly pressed against them, as if in the thunder and lightning of a storm. All were hunched together, fear engraved into their faces as they sat on ledges around the cellar walls. The cellar was in a large block of rented flats, and as usual supported with wooden posts. There was an older man, who was the air-raid warden. He was in the uniform of the German Railways. I was in the uniform of one of the ‘front-swine’ which awoke a sense of trust and protection in them. I was therefore bombarded with questions. My uniform was not at its best! It was dirty, crumpled and covered in soot and ash, and I was not able to hide the fact that I had just come from the combat-zone. It was natural that I was asked, “how near are the Russians?”
The house swayed and the cellar floor rose and fell under the blast of each explosion. The noise was deafening. After a while we all looked like ghosts, dusted in white distemper from walls and ceiling, like an unwanted shroud. There was no electricity. The only candle giving us light was extinguished time and time again from the air pressure from exploding bombs, as they fell nearer and nearer.
I was the only soldier in the cellar and I had to hide my feelings. Enduring an air raid in such a confined space was not something that I was used to. Such a bombardment as this, even in the main line of resistance was something that I had never experienced. At least when outside, one was armed, and active. Here in this cellar I was not, and so I tried to hide my fear. I made myself useful, as a waiter, handing each one a piece of the traditional crumble and poppy-seed cakes that the women had baked, ready for the Easter celebrations. This action produced weak smiles from starched and stony faces, but didn’t reach the frightened and staring eyes of their distraught owners. I wanted to leave that suffocating place but couldn’t for the crescendo of the falling, whistling bombs was continuous. There was hardly a pause in which I could escape. Spontaneously, loud praying began. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.” Then someone lost his nerve and shouted “Hold your tongues!” The cellar was full of chalk and loosened mortar dust. Mixed with the biting stench of explosives wafting through the cellar ventilators, it was suffocating.
I realised that there seemed to be a lessening in the raid. But still there were a number of low-flying Soviet planes with trigger-happy machine-gunners. I wanted to leave and return to my unit. At last I dared to take a look and saw a dying city, in unending agony, waiting for the next bombardment. It must have been pure unadulterated lust on the part of the Soviet pilots, to fly over the defenceless city as if they owned the sky above Breslau. There was no fighter-bomber resistance, nor any anti-aircraft fire. How long it had all lasted, no one really knew. But it was twilight enhanced with the light from flames.
I made my way back to my unit, with the very strong impression that Breslau was one giant glowing smithy. It was only possible for me to walk in the middle of the road. The houses were licked with flames on both sides of the road. It became a zig-zig obstacle course for me. Then a house suddenly collapsed. The road and I were enveloped in a giant cloud of dust and flying stones which reached to the other side of the street.
Some hours later, a church bell, high in its belfry, was heard to ring out the Easter message over Breslau. But it was not rung by bell-ringers. The sheer waves of heat, from the burning city below, gently nudged the bell into movement. It was no ‘happy Easter’ message, but a death-toll.
The storm of fire would not die, for it was fanned through every glassless window like a giant bellows. The waves of heat blew sparks and glowing particles of wood high into the air, where they nested on the roofs, to create a new fire. There seemed to be no end to Marshall Koniev’s ‘decisive battle’, for during the night, we heard that familiar and unmistakable sound of engines belonging to ‘sewing-machines’. Who could forget those Russian biplanes? They too had the treat of flying over the broken city of Breslau and making sure that it didn’t rise from its knees. They fired tracer ammunition into the already burning buildings.
There was an eerie peacefulness over the city next day, 3 April. The polluted air stank of burning buildings. Gentle rain began to fall. After experiencing the demon in modern explosive techniques, one realised what a God-sent peacefulness was, and how determined nature could be. Here and there, undamaged tulips and hyacinths poked their heads through the rain-washed earth, heralding the spring. They bloomed alongside yellow forsythia, now black, having been burnt to charcoal. At dawn, soldiers and civilians alike, armed with shovels and an assortment of rakes etc, went to work, feverishly looking for the dead and the living under the rubble. The corpses were wrapped in sheets, curtains, even brown packing-paper, without ceremony or consideration of male or female, officer or private. But some were wrapped in flags, for tenting was too costly. What of the usual gun salute? The explosions of time-bombs had to suffice for that.
Crowds of inhabitants who had survived the Easter inferno, went about looking for a new shelter over their heads. Some were overjoyed when, standing in front of a pile of rubble which had been the former home of friends or family, they found a scribbled message in chalk on the stones to say they were alive, and where they could be found.
We were asking ourselves why the Russian high command had used this tactic of attack on Breslau? The answer was easy. It was an example to the Western Allies. The desired result being that when Russian infantry and tanks could not succeed, ‘carpet’ or ‘blanket’ bombing could! Breslau had to be razed from the surface of the earth. It had to be another Stalingrad! The Red Army had sealed Breslau’s escape routes. There was no escape for man nor mouse, and that was the way they wanted it. Attrition, to the last man.
The Russians had reached parts of the centre of the city. But not even with Siberian guards and the enormous numbers of Mongolian sub-machinegun squads could they break the last German defenders. The decisive battle was still not over. General Niehoff reported later that two battalions of the Waffen SS Regiment Besslein had caused the enemy heavy losses, with their excellent performance, and above all their endurance, during that Easter attack. Their commanders were named, being Captains Roge and Zizmann, the same Zizmann for whom I was messenger at the beginning of the fighting. He was wounded during that Easter attack.
The threatened and unavoidable end of the capital was not destined to take place just yet, for through a stroke of ‘luck’, a rather daring Russian officer pushed his ‘luck’ a little too far. He and his tank were captured. One could suppose that the Russian was under orders, just as we were, never to have his combat orders or his map of operations on his person, which could be of help to the enemy or show the secret co-ordination grid-map. This one did, however. As was to be expected the Russians based all their operations on this grid, consisting of numbers and letters of the alphabet. The garrison’s staff could never previously have deciphered messages such as “the attack is to be directed in the direction of F6”, or the operations commander report that “the spearhead has reached lines H3 to B5”. Confirmation came in seconds by quick reference to this map of the Russian commanders themselves — but for our radio-operators who were listening in, without a copy it was a puzzle.