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Wenck was fortunate in that many supply barges from all over the country had been trapped and stranded in his sector, so that he had no shortage of supplies, including motor fuel. Although he dutifully reported all this, no attempt was made by the OKW to have this windfall distributed.[5]

By 1100 hours Keitel was back in Krampnitz, where he conferred with Jodl and had a brief rest before they set off for the Chancellery together. At the afternoon war conference Keitel reported to the Führer on his trip and General Krebs announced that 12th Army was already on the move. Hitler asked if 9th and 12th Armies had established contact yet, but there was no information available on this point and Krebs was directed to tell 9th Army to get on with it. Before departing, Keitel again tried, without success, to persuade Hitler to leave Berlin.[6]

This conference clearly illustrates the air of fantasy in which Hitler and his staff operated and which Keitel did nothing to dispel. He must have been fully aware that neither army was ready to act immediately and yet said nothing to this effect. In fact, Wenck did not expect to be ready until the 25th, by which time his formations would be redeployed for the attack and he hoped to have recovered some of his armour from west of the Elbe to assist him. In the meantime Wenck was acutely conscious of the threat from the south-east, where 1st Ukrainian Front was making rapid progress in his direction.

At 1300 hours the signal authorising 9th Army’s withdrawal was sent by Army Group Weichsel. General Busse purportedly used this order to implement his own intended and already initiated redeployment towards the west without openly opposing Berlin. To this end, he reported the following measures taken in fulfilment of his task that day:

1. Withdrawal of the eastern and north-eastern fronts on the general line Burg–Butzen–Schwielochsee–Spree in one move during the night of 23/24 April.

2. V Corps to take over command of the eastern front from the right wing (Königs Wusterhausen) to Burg inclusive. V SS Mountain Corps to take over command of the eastern front from Burg to the Kersdorf locks (2 km west of Briesen)…

3. Released forces: 342nd Infantry Division, one reinforced battlegroup from 35th SS Police Division (deployed until now north of Guben), one battlegroup from the Frankfurt Fortress Garrison (about two regiments) already with XI SS Panzer Corps. No artillery as yet.

4. For the intended assault group to unite with 12th Army within the sense of the new plan: 21st Panzer Division’s battlegroup, 342nd Infantry Division, elements 35th SS Police Division, one SS armoured reconnaissance group (105th SS Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion of V SS Mountain Corps under SS-Major Fucker). Earliest start 25 April.[7]

Busse later claimed: ‘Thus my headquarters had freedom to adjust its forces itself with a view to a rapid redeployment for a break-out to the west.’ However, his subsequent behaviour indicates that he was in fact still attempting to comply with superior orders. Unlike Generals Heinrici and Wenck, he failed to see that his primary concern should have been the fate of his men and the accompanying refugees dependent upon him.

The problem here was that Busse, like many of his contemporaries, basically owed his successful military career to Hitler, to whom he was now in thrall, a situation further exacerbated by the consequences of the failure of Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg’s assassination plot of 20 July 1944, which had imposed an even greater subservience on commanders and the General Staff. A major obstacle to independent action, as previously mentioned, was the personal oath of allegience to Adolf Hitler that the obsequious commander-in-chief, General Werner von Blomberg, had imposed on the Wehrmacht immediately following the death of President von Hindenburg on 20 August 1934, which many continued to think of as binding, even when the failure and criminality of the regime had been exposed.

Busse had enlisted in the German Army as a potential officer in December 1915 and ended the First World War as a substantive second lieutenant. His war service had obviously attracted official attention, for he had been awarded the Knight’s Cross with Swords of the Hohenzollern Order, the Kaiser’s equivalent of the British royal family’s Victorian Order. His subsequent service with the Reichswehr saw painfully slow progress with promotion to captain not achieved until 1933, but then came rapid acceleration to major in 1936, lieutenant-colonel in 1939 and full colonel in 1941, by which time he was on the General Staff. He then served as Chief of Staff to Army Groups Süd and Nordukraine on the Eastern Front, achieving the rank of major-general and then lieutenant-general in 1943, and being awarded the German Cross in Gold on 24 May 1942 and the Knight’s Cross on 30 January 1944. Busse had been given command of 122nd Infantry Division in July 1944, and then, on 1 August 1944, I Corps with Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner’s Army Group Nord, which was trapped on the Courland peninsula and condemned to extinction by Hitler’s refusal to allow evacuation. He would therefore have been mightily relieved to have been flown out and then given command of the shattered 9th Army as a general of infantry on his own home ground around Frankfurt on 21 January 1945.[8]

The withdrawal of Busse’s troops from their eastern and southern fronts was relatively well protected by the geographical features, particularly the dense waterways of the Lower and Upper Spreewald areas, which formed an ‘L’ from Leibsch via Lübben to Cottbus. The Soviets were unable to follow closely enough to endanger the German troops. However, V Corps’ 342nd Infantry Division, fighting an isolated action in the Burg–Cottbus area, was overrun that afternoon. Meanwhile, V Corps headquarters, which had been made responsible for 9th Army’s southern flank on 22 April, reported having established a perimeter defence along the line Löpten–Teupitz–Halbe, south of which a regiment of 35th SS Police Division held the line down to Lübben with the Engineer Training Battalion beyond.

The Soviets were able to gain the south bank of the Spree near Fürstenwalde, and also to close up to the Oder–Spree Canal. The remains of the 561st SS Tank-Hunting Battalion held fast on the autobahn east of Fürstenwalde in the Biegen, Briesen and Kersdorf areas, enabling the Frankfurt Garrison and the remains of 286th Infantry Division and SS Regiment Falke to get through. The 712th Infantry Division was still holding out at Petershagen, the 169th at Alt Madlitz, and Battlegroup Nederland at Falkenberg. Elements of the Kurmark Division prevented Soviet penetration of the woods on either side of the Scharmützelsee.[9]

It was different on the northern flank, where conditions had become worse since the withdrawal of LVI Panzer Corps into the capital. Despite constant counterattacks being mounted, not all the planned lines could be held. In some areas the hard-pressed divisions and battlegroups had to withdraw as much as ten or fifteen kilometres before they could hold.

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5

Gellermann, Die Armee Wenck, p. 48; Ryan, The Last Battle, p. 443.

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6

Gorlitz, The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel, p. 205.

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7

Lakowski/Stich, Der Kessel von Halbe 1945, p. 46 [citing Federal Military Archives RH 19 XV/10, Sitrep of 22 April 45, Sheet 15].

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8

Bradley, Dermot, Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand & Markus Röverkamp: Die Generäle des Heeres 1921–45.

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9

Tieke, Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe, pp. 194–5.