The commands of both fronts applied to GHQ to clear up the problems of troop coordination so that unnecessary argument could be avoided.
The GHQ directive established a new boundary running through Mittenwalde, Mariendorf, Tempelhof and the Potsdamer Railway Terminal. All these points, as the military documents put it, were inclusive for the 1st Ukrainian Front.
That was in the evening. By the time the line of demarcation had been established a whole corps of Rybalko’s army was far beyond it in a zone which was now under the jurisdiction of the 1st Byelorussian Front. This corps had to be withdrawn from the centre of Berlin and deployed outside the new line of demarcation. But this was easier said than done. Anybody who fought in that war will understand how hard it was psychologically for Rybalko to withdraw his tankmen back inside the line of demarcation.[2]
It is interesting to note that the fronts had to apply to GHQ to sort out this problem, being incapable of doing so themselves, the hostility between the two commanders being too great. However, the change of inter-front boundary still left the Reichstag within Koniev’s reach, as a subtended line from this boundary shows, there being no designated end line across the front of the troops advancing from any direction.
In the early hours of the morning 13th Army’s reserve corps suffered a severe rebuff from the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Infantry Division when it tried to regain Wittenberg. The Soviet infantry had been hastily trucked forward from Jüterbog without armoured support and were just leaving their forming-up areas when the German troops ran into them while expanding their own perimeter. In this surprise encounter the Germans came off best, driving the Soviets back ten kilometres by midday. The fighting continued all day. The Soviets brought up some T-34 tanks and tried to force their way in along the various streets leading into the town, but the German flak gunners formed a ‘hedgehog’ and used their 88-mm guns in the anti-tank role to hold them at bay. The German division then received orders to disengage and to move to Jeserigerhütten, where it was to prepare to attack eastwards. This was achieved by launching a series of sharp counterattacks before withdrawing.[3]
There was also some fierce fighting around Treuenbrietzen with a German penetration south of the town eastwards towards Bardenitz, but by 1500 hours this had been driven back to the southern outskirts of Treuenbrietzen by elements of 13th Army assisted by 5th Guards Mechanized Corps’ artillery, whose commander, Colonel Nikolai P. Dyakin, was killed in the action.[4]
Oblivious to the conditions under which the German forces were operating, Hitler was planning the relief of his capital and re-ordering the command structure. In future OKW was to be responsible for overall operations under his instructions. His orders would be passed through the Chief of the General Staff of the OKH, General of Infantry Krebs, who was with him. OKW would deal directly with 12th Army and Army Group Weichsel with 9th Army. The main task of OKW was: ‘By attacks with all forces and means and greatest speed to re-establish broad contact with Berlin from the north-west, south-west and south and thus bring the battle for Berlin to a decisive victory.’[5]
That day Hitler told General Weidling, now commanding the Berlin Defence Area:
The situation will improve. The 9th Army will come to Berlin and deliver the enemy a blow with General Wenck’s 12th Army coming up from the south-west. This blow will be delivered against the southern flank of the Russian troops attacking Berlin, and from the north will come units under Steiner’s command to attack the Russian northern wing. These strikes will change the situation to our advantage.[6]
In numerous urgent telephone conversations, Krebs demanded, on Hitler’s orders, counterattacks by 12th Army, SS-General Felix Steiner’s corps north of Berlin, and even by 9th Army. Krebs was fully aware of the impossibility of executing these orders, and was only passing them on to calm Hitler down. Although completely out of touch with reality, the orders signed by Krebs were still being sent to 9th and 12th Armies for action.
General Wenck’s orders for his 12th Army concentrated on the reception of the break-out elements of 9th Army. He had begun the day before with the deployment of a weak security screen against the southern flank of 1st Ukrainian Front as his XX Corps assembled and marched on the Beelitz–Niemegk area. This thrust towards Beelitz and Potsdam was to have some initial success, but brought no relief to the Berlin situation, except to provide a source of hope to the encircled population and defenders.
Major-General Ernst Biehler’s Frankfurt-an-der-Oder garrison at last succeeded in breaking through to 9th Army, a full three days after receiving Hitler’s permission to do so. General Busse could now begin to concentrate his troops for a break-out attempt to the west. Whether he was mentally prepared to act in defiance of Hitler’s orders, however, remains doubtful. Meanwhile his pocket was being harassed day and night from both land and air, and it was time to act if the people in his charge were to have a chance of escaping death or capture at the hands of the Soviets.[7]
Wolfgang Fleischer has provided the following description of the scene in the Märkish Buchholz area that day:
The village was burning. The concrete bridge over the Dahme had been badly damaged in an air attack and was no longer usable by vehicles. Units of 9th Army were making their way to the north-west, coming through the Kleine Wasserburg Forest and across the Bürgerheide Heath up to the Dahme on a broad front, leaving abandoned vehicles, discarded weapons and equipment strewn along the forest tracks.
During the night sappers threw two emergency bridges across the Dahme. Because of the mainly swampy ground, heavy vehicles could only get to the river south-west of the Hermsdorf [Grossemühle] Mill and Herrlichenrath. The sappers’ work was interrupted from time to time by Soviet night bombers and occasional artillery fire in between. The first vehicles crossed over once it was fully dark, the tanks grinding their way over the banks of the river with engines thundering and tracks spinning, while refugees continued to hurry across the bridges between them.
Gradually the congested mass of men and vehicles made its way westwards, the Berlin road (Reichsstrasse 179) was crossed, and the Hammer Forest absorbed the refugees. An unholy chaos reigned. Soviet artillery fire kept forcing people to take cover. Hissing and howling rockets came in between and left flat, smoking craters. Sharp-edged splinters swept across the woodland and found numerous victims among those pressed close to the ground. Almost continuous sounds of combat could be heard to the east, south and north, heavy firing coming also from the direction of the autobahn.
Having crossed the Dahme, the units of 9th Army moved along the Berlin road and through the Hammer Forest to Halbe. With daylight the Soviet ground-attack aircraft would be engaging the encircled troops again, making movement even more difficult. The columns became stuck at the crossroads east of Klein Köris. Several Il-2s flew along the road, firing with their machine guns and rockets, the ammunition belts and cartridges clattering down on the road surface, the tracer bullets biting into vehicles, horses and human bodies.[8]
In the woods of the Halbe area were now concentrated the remains of XI SS Panzer Corps, V SS Mountain Corps, the Frankfurt fortress garrison, and V Corps, with in all the remnants of one tank and 13 infantry divisions, plus a number of independent units. Also with them were a large number of sick and wounded, as well as refugees, Wehrmacht employees, female flak and signals auxiliaries, forced labourers, prisoners of war, and even concentration camp inmates. The exact number of people surrounded in the Halbe pocket has never been calculated with any exactitude, but estimates vary from 150,000 to 200,000.
5
Förster/Lakowski, 1945 –
6
Lakowski/Stich,
8
Fleischer, ‘Der Kessel von Halbe’. The Il-2 was named