According to 9th Army’s rear area commander, Lieutenant-General Friedrich-Gustav Bernhard, there were some 50,000 fighting troops and 10,000 Volkssturm personnel in the pocket and ‘including rear service units, there were up to 150,000 men in the pocket. Also in the pocket were the whole headquarters of 9th Army under General Busse and his staff, the commanders and staff of XI SS Panzer Corps, V SS Mountain Corps and V Corps, as well as senior officers of the rear area services.’
Soviet accounts reckoned that the German force amounted to 11 regiments, 4 brigades, 71 battalions, one artillery regiment, 5 artillery battalions, 1 tank regiment, 1 tank battalion and the Frankfurt fortress garrison. Some, certainly exaggerated, Soviet accounts also include figures of over 2,000 guns and mortars and about 300 armoured vehicles in the pocket.
There would be little sense in attempting a comparison of strengths between the opponents, as no reliable figures are available for the German side. Witness accounts give subjective impressions and are seldom based on documentary evidence available today. Apart from this, only definitive comparisons at an exact time and place would have any value, as the strengths of the surrounded group varied daily, if not by the hour, for the worst. Accordingly all figures given serve only as a rough indication.
What is certain is that, after a week of heavy fighting, defence and retreat, the German formations were down to seldom more than half their original strengths and equipment holdings, bearing in mind also Soviet claims that German units on the Oder and Neisse fronts had suffered up to 80 per cent losses. Taking into consideration that the heavy artillery pieces and static flak batteries would have had to be blown up and abandoned in the retreat, there were probably fewer than 1,000 guns and mortars available in the pocket, all with extremely limited supplies of ammunition. A similar situation applied to the armoured vehicles. In contrast to the Soviet figures, 9th Army reported to army group headquarters on 24 April that V Corps had 79 tanks of all kinds and XI SS Panzer Corps had 36. No figures were given for the other formations or units. In fact it now seems that there was possibly a maximum of 250 armoured vehicles in all, but only between 150 and 200 of these would have been available for combat. The acute and ever-worsening fuel and ammunition situations made things even worse for the encircled troops.
The following were in the pocket just before the final encirclement:
Northern Front
On the general line Königs Wusterhausen–Wolziger See–Storkow–Bad Saarow–Berkenbrück:
XI SS Panzer Corps with the staff of the Kurmark Panzergrenadier Division and several battlegroups; battlegroups of the 303rd, 169th and 712th Infantry Divisions; the Schill regimental battlegroup with the 2nd Battalions of the 86th and 87th SS Grenadier Regiments; en route the Kurmark battlegroup with the 1st Battalions of those regiments; Battlegroup Hengstmann; elements of the 32nd SS Tank-Hunting Battalion; 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion; 561st SS Tank-Hunting Battalion; 23rd SS Panzergrenadier Division Nederland (HQ and one battlegroup), 21st Panzer Division’s battlegroup; the Dora II tank-hunting commando.
Eastern Front
On the general line Burg–Butzen–Schwielochsee–Beeskow:
V SS Mountain Corps; 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division 30. Januar (HQ plus one battlegroup from the 32nd SS Field Training and Replacement and 32nd SS Fusilier Battalions); 391st Security Division (HQ and elements); 286th Infantry Division (HQ and elements); Becker regimental battlegroup with elements of other units from the Müllrose–Beeskow area; the remains of 505th Corps’ corps troops as well as a battlegroup formed of mixed artillery and flak gunners from static units from near Merz.
Southern Front
Along the general line of Halbe–Krausnick–Lübben:
V Corps with the remains of the 35th SS Police, 275th, 214th and 342nd Infantry Divisions; elements of 36th SS Grenadier Division; a battlegroup of 10th SS Panzer Division; elements of 6th SS Gendarmerie Battalion.
There were no prepared defensive positions available for the encircled troops, so they used natural obstacles, or quickly improvised defensive positions in villages, barns and other suitable features. Often the encroaching enemy forced them into small pockets within the greater encirclement. The fighting along the pocket’s perimeter also continued remorselessly. The 1st Byelorussian Front was able to gain some 10–15 kilometres in various sectors that day, and 9th Army was unable to prevent the further constriction of the encirclement, especially in the north and north-eastern sectors.[9]
Ernst-Christian Gädtke, who was now on foot with his unit’s supply section, having had to abandon his assault gun due to engine failure, continued his story:
Without being disturbed by the enemy, we reached the edge of Niederlehme at dawn and came to a thin line of defence almost totally occupied by Hitler Youth under a young second lieutenant.
We passed through the village and, just before the Neue Mühle locks, were accosted by a sergeant-major, who ordered us to dig trenches facing east in the gardens along the street and to prepare for an attack. What had happened to the rest of our unit, nobody seemed to know, nor what the rendezvous was. We tried to get across the lock bridges, but there were some military police sentries standing on them, letting nobody cross.
So we dug in, protected by a hedge running along the edge of the street, from where we could see the eastern exit. But nobody came all day long, and it became boring for us crouching in our holes and staring at the street, so we wandered around the gardens and looked into the cellars of the houses there, where women and old men, inhabitants of the village, were sitting crammed close together. Anxious questions everywhere: ‘When are the Russians coming?’ ‘What will they do to us?’ There were some wounded soldiers among them.
The day passed quietly.
Then, suddenly at dusk, it all changed. Sounds of fighting from the north, exploding shells, the dry crack of tank guns. Individual groups of soldiers hurried past and somebody shouted: ‘The Russians are coming! Everyone back! The bridges are being blown!’
We jumped up and ran back to the bridges, where the second lieutenant from early that morning was. ‘Stop!’ he screamed, ‘Stop! Don’t blow the bridges! My youngsters are lying up there in front on the edge of the village. You can’t leave them there!’ But the engineer captain wouldn’t budge. ‘It doesn’t matter to me what happens to those kids. Get over now or not at all, we are blowing now!’
We rushed across the bridges past the second lieutenant, who turned round and slowly went back.
Hard behind the bridges stood both of our two remaining guns on either side of the street with their engines running. Relieved, we jumped aboard and drove off to Prieros. The bridges went up behind us with a powerful bang.
That night of 25 April we found accommodation in a school at Prieros. For the first time in days we slept on straw, deep and sound.[10]
The situation for the surrounded soldiers and civilians was becoming more desperate by the hour. The troops’ freedom to manoeuvre was becoming less and less. They were now completely cut off from their supply lines and attempts at air supply produced less than at any time in the war. Soviet fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft fire were too strong and the German air transport facilities too weak. Fuel and ammunition were in even shorter supply than they had been on the Oder.