If I recall rightly, it was about noon when we heard sounds of combat from the north or north-west, rifle fire. Somewhat later a man on a bicycle arrived in a hurry and told us excitedly that a swarm of Russian tanks had driven through his village. We asked him if he was not mistaken? Perhaps they were the expected Königstigers? But no, he assured us that he had seen the Russian tanks with infantry sitting on them from his window. There had been half a dozen tanks passing quickly through his home village, and the place was only a little north of Tamsel.
Somewhat later we heard renewed sounds of fighting from behind us to the south-west. This time it was not only rifle fire. Now flak, anti-tank or tank guns were firing.
We reported to Lieutenant Kühnel, our chief. But he did not take the continuing noise of combat as important. He believed we should remain quiet and tried to tell us that Hitler Youth or Volkssturm were undergoing training on the Panzerfaust. We were of a different opinion. We could easily distinguish between the explosions of Panzerfausts and the hard crack of tank guns. We were angry that our chief failed to react and would have preferred to return to Küstrin, but Kühnel kept us waiting for the Königstigers.
Meanwhile the sounds of fighting from the direction of Küstrin had become weaker and finally died out. We were convinced that the Soviet tanks had been able to penetrate the town and had raised hell. We puzzled only over whether they had been driven off or wiped out.
At dusk we abandoned our position on Reichsstrasse 1 and drove back to Küstrin. The expected Königstigers had not turned up. Our jeep was the leading vehicle in our little convoy. A few minutes later we reached the town, following the Landsberger Strasse to the centre of town. The street was wide and it was pitch dark. I stood next to the driver looking over the windscreen to see better. This was necessary as along the right-hand side of the street stood a long row of refugee wagons packed together, fully loaded with cushions, baskets, boxes and cartons, with feather beds and bundles of straw. The refugees seemed to have found accommodation.
We had no maps. None of us knew the town. The road took a turn to the right and became considerably narrower. It occurred to me that the line of wagons here appeared more disorderly. Wagons stood in the roadway or across it with baggage lying on the ground, bundles of clothing and bedding covering the pavements. We followed a street of shops and approached a crossing point of several streets, the Stern. The shop doorways and windows were shattered. Dark figures flitted quickly out of the insecure businesses taking things away. Glass splinters crackled under their feet. We saw that the windows of the buildings, even on the upper storeys, were broken. Roof slates lay in the roadway and the wheels of our vehicles rolled with a crunching sound over shards of glass.
It was obvious to us that Russian tanks had caused this damage. Although the event had taken place hours ago, apart from obvious plunderers there were no people about, either soldiers or civilians. Küstrin was in a state of shock. The people had either been wiped out or were in hiding. It was now early evening, perhaps 1800 or 1900 hours. One would have expected the refugees to be seeing to their wagons or putting them somewhere safe, but no one was attending to them.
We crossed the Stern, which looked especially bad, although the place had been made passable. We went along Plantagenstrasse, where the destruction continued. A little later we drove up to a railway bridge across the street. A few paces from it our vehicle drove over a large obstacle that we had not seen in the dark. It looked like a bundle of clothing. A torch was switched on. A dead Russian soldier was lying on the ground. On the shoulder straps of his brown field blouse was a narrow red stripe. A second lieutenant of the Red Army?
We left our vehicles behind and walked on. Under the bridge we came across more dead Ivans on the left-hand side, about ten men. All seemed to be unwounded, as if asleep. Some lay noticeably one over another. A few paces further on we came across a shot-up tank. It stood on the right-hand side of the street, right against the embankment with its rear to us. When it was hit it was already through the underpass and had stopped a few metres beyond. I could not quite identify the tank. We had had nothing to do with this type before. Then it slowly came to me. It was an American Sherman from the Lend-Lease pact of the western Allies with the Soviet Union. The strongly rounded turret bore a five-pointed star, and a long-barrelled 76.2mm gun projected from the turret.
We went back to our vehicles and I reported the situation at the underpass to my chief. He immediately gave our company the order: ‘Anti-tank section get ready!’ I was to take my section along the high railway embankment to the left of the underpass, i.e. to the south-west, reconnoitre and possibly clear and occupy it. We took our hand weapons, our machine gun and quite a few Panzerfausts, and set off, leaving our jeep behind at the underpass.
We climbed up the railway embankment and tiptoed along the southern track south-westwards. If only we had had a map! We did not know that we were approaching the Warthe. Every few steps one of us stumbled swearing over some wire or other. We also did not know that our legs catching in the shot-up tensioned signal or points wires caused them to ring. These were real foot traps.
We were unable to go along quietly. We were shot at, at first individually then en masse, the shots zipping past uncomfortably close to our heads. They came from a northerly direction and the firers could not have been far off.
I directed my men down from the embankment and we trudged along the foot of it, safe from the firing. We had not taken the noise seriously at first and cursed the Volkssturm whom we thought must have mistaken us for Russians. After we had gone about 500 metres the steel structure of a railway bridge over the Warthe appeared. I stumbled on a sapper sergeant-major preparing the demolition of the bridge with a few men. He was pleased to see us and even more so when I assured him that we would provide him with cover for his work. As we talked in the lee of a steel girder, sparks flew around us from the structure every few seconds. The sergeant-major took the firers to be Russians who had crept forwards to try to secure the bridge.
I went across to the north side of the bridge to take up position with my men immediately behind the northernmost track of the many-tracked station area. We had to lie flat and keep our heads down as the firing intensified with sub-machine guns. It was raining lightly. We lay on the railway gravel, which was covered with the remains of snow.
Perhaps five or ten minutes had passed since our arrival at the bridge when immediately in front of us a green Very light whistled up, spreading a pale light for two or three seconds. The weak light was enough to show some 25 Russians or more forming up to attack the bridge. They were no more than 20 or 30 paces away from us, right in front of the embankment. They gave a shout and ran to the embankment firing their sub-machine guns. We immediately fired back and fired some Panzerfausts at them. Unfortunately, we had no grenades.
While we were quelling the Russians’ surprise attack, train after train rolled past behind us southwards over the Warthe bridge, taking numerous wagons, mainly goods wagons, to safety. The engine cylinders hissed barely a metre from our boots. The trains left Küstrin close together, without lights and almost without sound. We could not concern ourselves with them and did not know what they were taking: wounded, refugees, military or civilian goods?
We fired wildly from the embankment for about a quarter of an hour without being able to recognise a precise target. Finally I shouted my order above the noise: ‘Hold fire!’ Once I was heard, peace was restored, but it was several minutes before we could hear properly again. From the other side of the embankment individual shots could still be heard but at a great distance. The attackers had disappeared. We had urgently needed Very lights!