17. Hungarian Infantry Battalion IV
18. Turkomen Action Battalion (German)
19. Turkomen Action Battalion (Turkish)
20. North Caucasian Action Battalion (German)
21. North Caucasian Action Battalion (Caucasian)
22. Officers and officials from the Schloss Barracks
23. Volkssturm
Total Combatant Strength: 8,196 men
Source: Bundes-Militärisches Zwischenarchiv Potsdam, WF03/5084 Sheets 966–7
Annex B
Reinefarth’s Report on the Fall of Küstrin Fortress and the Breakout of the Surviving Garrison
I. I took over the Küstrin Fortress as commandant on the 2nd February 1945. For troops I found only soldiers of whole Wehrmacht units that had fled, completely undisciplined (one was rarely saluted in the street), lounging about and without any unit organisation. Artillery, described in the Fortress Regulations as the backbone of any fortress, was there none. No trenches or fighting positions were to be seen whatsoever. Here one should note that Russian tanks had already broken into Küstrin on the 31st January 1945 and some had been shot up. The suburb of Warnick and a part of Alt Drewitz were in Russian hands, the front line to the north had been pushed in and, in particular, Height 63, which gave a view over the whole fortress, had been occupied by the enemy. The town already lay under artillery and mortar fire in the first days of February, and my office in the Kommandatura Building received a direct hit.
My first concern was the rounding up and organisation of the stragglers, as these alone would form the fortress’s combat teams, as well as construct the defences. The particular difficulty here was that a considerable number of them were either gunners or flak gunners that would have to be deployed as infantry. The fortress was divided into two sectors, the Neustadt under Colonel of Gendarmerie Walter and the Altstadt under Major Wegener. The construction of the defences was undertaken with the help of the troops, the civilian population, prisoners-of-war and foreign labour. In the course of time it was established that the cellars in Küstrin were not at all proof against artillery fire and that many had already collapsed when the sappers blew up the narrow passages to prevent fires from spreading. The casemates were crumbling away and had already been penetrated by medium calibre shells and collapsed.
II. Regarding the fall of Küstrin-Neustadt, I refer to my attached report of 9.3.45. As I reported in the conclusion, the timely occupation of the inner defensive ring was missed by the sector commander. I cannot attribute personal blame to the sector commander for, as a Gendarmerie officer, he obviously lacked adequate training to deal with the situation. There was no other officer available to me as sector commander. I had given Captain Felk to Colonel of Gendarmerie Walter as tactical adviser, but he apparently did not oversee the situation adequately enough during the fighting. Captain Felk fell during the fighting in Küstrin.
III. On the 28th March 1945, my command post was transferred to the cellars of the Artillery Barracks in that part of the town between the Oder and the Vorflut Canal after the enemy had destroyed all the trenches and casemates in the Altstadt and set the Schloss on fire. The enemy had come up to within about 30 metres from the Schloss. At the time the command post was moved, the enemy had occupied the parade ground right up to the Artillery Barracks’ trenches. Several counterattacks activated by me threw back the enemy, but the positions could not be held, as all of them had been flattened under artillery and mortar fire as well as bombing. The small bulwark off the parade ground south of the barracks was in enemy hands. The attempt to regain it on the night of 29th March 1945, using the last of the good troops, led to the momentary closing down of the work, but also to the destruction of the attacking troops.
The situation in this last part of the fortress deteriorated during the course of 29.3. The barracks were on fire and the fires could not be extinguished for want of equipment. The still unbuttressed cellars were full of wounded and soldiers who had retreated. I had the cellars constantly combed through by officers commanded by a captain to lead those men still capable of fighting to an assembly point in the cellars. From there they were led back to the defences by officers in order to close the gaps caused by flight and casualties as best as possible. Even these trenches and positions had been completely levelled meantime.
Gradually the ceaseless fire from enemy heavy weapons clearly began to increase, together with dangerous signs of breaking up among the troops. From fifty sought-out soldiers the officers brought only about five to the positions, while the remainder falsely pretended to be wounded or actually fell wounded from enemy fire. As continuous artillery and mortar fire fell over the whole area, control was made extremely difficult. I gave strict orders that weapons should be used against anyone wavering in their duty. Several soldiers were thus shot by the officers, whereupon those remaining declared that it was all the same to them whether they were shot by German officers or Russians, they would not go any further.
Meanwhile the officers in the defences were calling for ammunition, giving rise to the idea that the ammunition had not only been fired off or lost to enemy action, but had partly been thrown away. Finally the regiment’s last ammunition was distributed. From then on there was neither a Panzerfaust nor a hand grenade to be had.
From midday the reports piled up that the troops were leaving their positions and going into the barrack cellars and that soldiers were even hiding under the beds of the wounded. Towards evening, the battalion commanders with other officers and SS leaders came to my command post and in a clear, dutiful manner reported that the troops had declared that they would go over to the enemy that night. They had still hoped that help would come from outside but now the ammunition had run out and they felt themselves betrayed. A large number of the soldiers emphasised this with the words that they were now going over ‘to the side of the victors’. It was already known among the troops that two officers and several men had gone over with white flags.
I summoned the battalion commanders as well as some officers and SS leaders to an official conference and also called in the sector commander and regimental commander, Major Wegener. First I told them of the radio message received by me at about 1630 hours from Headquarters 9th Army with the Führer’s order to continue to hold on to the fortress. Then I reminded the officers forcibly of their oath to the Führer, requiring unconditional obedience, even to death. I then described the tactical situation. The Russians were sitting on the burning barracks and on the Vorflut Canal road bridge that had been blown on my orders meanwhile. The most important strategic point was now the Vorflut Canal railway bridge that unequivocally had to be defended and must in no case fall intact into enemy hands.
The officers told me unanimously that they no longer had control over their men, and the experience of the past few days had shown that neither encouragement nor threatening with weapons would avail. They thus no longer had any possibility of influencing them in the general collapse, with the new units raised during the past two months breaking up yet again. Finally the darkness and the continuing fire by heavy weapons made any supervision impossible.
Again referring to the Führer-Order and the Soldiers’ Oath, I told the individual officers and SS leaders that due to lack of ammunition and the soldiers’ refusal to do their duty, holding on to a few square metres was no longer possible. Thus the Führer-Order to hold the fortress to the last bullet had been fulfilled.
There was now only the choice: Either, having lost every opportunity of defending themselves, to proffer the Führer and the German people the shame of 1,000 German soldiers going over to the Bolsheviks, Or to grasp the only opportunity of gripping the fully demoralised troops once more, give the order to attack, and so avoid a shameful outcome.