Now our radio-operators and commanders listened in too. They now knew at the same time as their counterparts, of the moves being made. They could take countermeasures and with more than enough time. It was the biggest piece of ‘luck’ that fate could have given us, in our time of need.
Naturally enough, we too used code names for our military operations. They were constantly changed, for we also knew that our radio messages were overheard. We used botanical names, or career, job or profession titles. The sergeant-major was the ‘painter’ and our Regimental commander ‘Mr 22’. The noble residential areas of Breslau equipped us with more than enough exotic and tropical names, or fantasy-based material, not to mention the familiarity of the city’s buildings. The city hall was now the gas-works, the kindergarten the crematorium, or vice-versa. The wounded were called mulatten and the dead, Indianer. The growing numbers of both, mentioned in reports from the front, became more difficult for those working in official departments who wanted to veil the official fighting strength. I was told by one of them, that they adopted the motto, “Even when we lose the war itself, we will have won it on paper!”
The prophesy that “when the Oder flows with blood then the end of Breslau is near” was one well known to every ‘Breslauer,’ having learned it in their schooldays. The river already tainted, flowed with the blood of many. Marshall Koniev still had to wait before he could withdraw his troops from Breslau. He waited for the rest of April and into May.
In his headquarters, General Gluzdovski had not reckoned on the endurance of the soldiers or the civilians in the besieged city, not even after the mercilessness of the Easter bombing raids. As if the Soviets wanted to give us time to consider our plight, for the next few days all was unusually quiet. Unbeknown to us there was also another very grave reason on the Russian side. After the Easter attack, the forces of both the 6th Soviet Army and the 1st Ukrainian Front were so depleted, and the remnants so exhausted, that they were unable to recover from their enormous losses.
In spite of this, our command could not even afford a well-earned rest, for there was a great deal still to do, to think about and to organise. As well as our own losses in soldiers and civilians, there was an extreme shortage of ammunition, so extreme that our artillery were ordered to use their ammunition only in emergency situations. Our legendary FAMO armoured train could only occasionally be used for the same reason.
Not everyone possessed the same threshold for pain or stress, and many of our own changed sides. They deserted. Those deserters exposed the whereabouts of General Niehoff s HQ, at Liebichshohe. It was instantly under continuous bombardment from artillery and bombs. It was engulfed in smoke as if from a slumbering but puffing volcano, which could be seen from a couple of miles away. Even the move of his HQ to the cellars of the State University Library, on 14 April, was known to the Russians twenty-four hours later. There were with certainty other ‘Tanyas’ at work, who were to be found within the walls of the fortress. They infiltrated resistance groups as well, to form small cells of opposition, and kindle the flame of mutiny among the soldiers, or even to plan the assassination of Niehoff. Therefore, when the suspects were found and arrested, their fate was an instant court martial.
We had the bitter experience of Germans fighting against Germans in Breslau. That former comrades could fight against their own, and with Russian weapons, was in sharp contrast to the sacrifices made by those not in uniform. As late as 2 May, 80 men of the ‘National Committee for Free Germany’, in German uniform, crept into western Breslau. Their task ended before it had begun, although they did overwhelm the guards of a battalion command post. Their undoing was coming face to face with Waffen SS who recognised their ruse. A former Leutnant, Leutnant Veith, and his deserter accomplices were arrested and shot. Even a group of former Ukrainian Waffen SS tried their luck, but fled.
After the war, those gullible German hiwis for the Red Army were to receive a short sharp lesson about the Communist character. Radio Moscow reported in a broadcast firstly that the Free Germany Committee had been dissolved, and secondly that the desertion of both Paulus and Seydlitz had been nothing else but ‘war propaganda’ to discredit them. For those who had deserted in following the example of the two ‘gentlemen,’ who had been the epitome of the German soldier for so many men, it brought about the realisation that their sacrifice had been totally worthless.
Who were Paulus and Seydlitz and what was the Committee for a Free Germany? Friedrich Paulus began his career in an infantry regiment. He was an officer of the General Staff in 1918, and captain within various staff and other units until 1931. In 1935 he was Chief of Staff of the 16th Army Corps, Chief of General Staff in 1939 and General and Commander-in-Chief of the 6th Army in the winter crisis of 1941/42. He was captured by the Russians in January 1943. His army career was brilliant until the siege of Stalingrad, which appeared to be his undoing, for various reasons, one being that this situation was one with which he could not cope. He as Field Marshal joined the already existing Committee for a Free Germany whilst in captivity in the camp for officers, in Lunjewo. One must ask why?
Only after his death were the memoirs of Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, known as the ‘Stalingrad General’ published. To this day there is a divided school of thought about this man. Was he a traitor, or a patriot who had ‘changed horses in mid-stream’ to become a resistance-fighter in order to save his own skin? He, like Friedrich Paulus, also had a brilliant military career and was the 54th soldier to receive the Knight’s Cross with Oak-leaves from Hitler. He had fought in France. In February 1942, on orders from Hitler, he released 100,000 German soldiers with four divisions and a mountain infantry brigade from the besieged city of Demyansk. He was captured by the Russians in late February 1943. He spent the next four months in a special camp in Krasnagorsk on the outskirts of Moscow, for reasons only known to the Russians. The Generals were separated and given quarters of their own. At the end of June they were transferred to Voikovo.
On the initiative of the Russian government and German emigrants, the ‘Committee for a Free Germany’ was formed as a propaganda machine on 12 and 13 July 1943. Seydlitz learned of those events from fellow prisoners who could read the Russian newspaper Isvestiya. Reports were read daily about the latest military disasters on the front. Meetings were organised for the Generals to attend. A delegation of officers and men had, at the end of the day, persuaded 12 officers, 13 subordinates and 13 emigrants to be members. The Committee was at first ignored by the German Generals. So on 19 August Seydlitz, together with Generals Korfes and Wulz, was transferred to the same camp as Paulus, which was now overflowing with prisoners, mainly those who had fought in Stalingrad. There were around 70 prisoners in all, officers from General down to Lieutenant.
Was it co-incidence? Was Stalingrad the basis of their association? Perhaps it was in combination with the realisation, at almost the same time as the ‘Committee for a Free Germany’ was founded, that without the prominent names of the highest ranks of German prisoners, there would be very little success for the Russian government in their propaganda campaign.
The seeds of that action had not fallen on totally barren ground. Those accustomed to commanding, and who came from aristocratic houses, had military fore bears and backgrounds, were also accustomed to being part of the ruling forces. Seydlitz was one such. Perhaps there were noble intentions from those who knew that the end of the war was near, and that Germany would lose. Perhaps others wanted to end the misery of thousands. It was suggested that they form their own Association of Officers, the Bundes Deutscher Offiziere, the BDO. But that was not without some protest from the original delegation.