Just short of the road we made a pause under cover to get the feel of things, and lying there were several lads from my battalion, who gave me the comforting feeling that I would not be left behind. Then a senior Flak officer appeared and asked why we were not moving on – the roar of the anti-tank guns gave him his reply.
Immediately the shells had exploded, two of our men picked me up and took me forwards; a whole mass of men crossed the road and vanished into the woods beyond. After several hundred metres we came to the multi-track railway line. We picked up a wounded man and went past a shot-up Königstiger.
We went further along a woodland track, then from behind came a whole crowd with cars. The vehicles were driven by senior officers and fully loaded behind with their belongings. They only shook their heads at the requests from the wounded; not once did one of them take one of those with them that were lying on the roadside unable to move on.
Then we met up with our group again. They had had to make a detour round a wooden bridge (near Liebätz) and were only making slow progress across the marshy meadows. There were still two Jagdpanzers and a 105-mm self-propelled howitzer.
We reached Märtensmühle as night fell. The village was under fire from heavy artillery and anti-tank guns were firing into the village from the north-east. Once it was dark, we moved on.
In the woods we came across our battalion commander, SS-Captain Krauss, who directed us to the Märtensmühle forest warden’s lodge, where the divisional command post was supposed to be. We had long since given up believing that there would still be one.
Then our divisional commander, SS-Colonel Kempin, appeared at the forest warden’s lodge, and with him was Wache, his Intelligence Officer. We heard that one break-out group had already made it. Kempin pressed for an immediate break-out so as to complete the breakthrough during the night. Hörl and I said our good-byes to Kempin and gave him our home addresses.
There were several bangs outside. A sentry reported excitedly that Seydlitz people were blowing up the last of our vehicles, but whether they were really Seydlitz people, no one could tell. Most vehicles had completely run out of petrol.
One of our youngsters appeared with 40 litres of fuel, which we poured into the tank of our last SPG. Following a short discussion, we decided to drive on as long as the fuel lasted. We set off after midnight.[10]
By midnight the group containing General Busse had reached the Märtensmühle–Berkenbrück sector. They were now within ten kilometres of the positions held by 12th Army’s Hutten and Scharnhorst Divisions.[11]
Ever since passing through Halbe the remaining troops of the 23rd SS Panzergrenadier Division Nederland had been in the lead of the infantry breakthrough, and there were still about a hundred of them left at Märtensmühle, including their divisional commander, SS-Major-General Wagner, and the commander of the 1st Battalion, 48th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment General Seyffarth. They had also brought their injured along with them in their own vehicles, but these had now run out of fuel and some 40–50 badly wounded had to be left behind in the village school. The survivors moved on to the Märtinsmühle forest warden’s lodge to prepare for the last bound.[12]
The main group had survived the day, despite heavy losses in men and equipment – 1st Ukrainian Front claimed to have taken 20,000 prisoners.
Ernst-Christian Gädtke with the 32nd SS Tank-Hunting Battalion was also in this area later that day:
Dry, sunny spring weather. We rolled on through the woods on tracks and fire-breaks, myself luckily still sitting on the assault gun. Along the route was the occasional dead body, equipment discarded in heaps, abandoned vehicles, and once even a Volkswagen jeep squashed flat in the middle of the road.
In the evening we reached Märtensmühle, between Trebbin and Luckenwalde. Russian troops had passed through here days before on their way to Berlin. Next to the dead soldiers lying in the gardens and alongside the road were civilians, old men and women, and in the ditches discarded plunder, broken suitcases and washing baskets with scattered items of clothing.
We took cover in the Märtensmühle barns. Bread was shared out with canned dripping, which we washed down with ersatz coffee from our mess tins. Someone said that in the morning we would be attacking Beelitz, which was occupied by the Russians. We would break through their positions and then meet up with the troops of General Wenck’s 12th Army west of Beelitz, where they were waiting for us.[13]
Other splinter groups were not so lucky. The 117th Guards Rifle Division encountered a group of about 5,000 Germans near Luckenwalde, of whom eventually 4,500 were captured. Other groups were eliminated by 3rd Guards Army east of Staakow, and by 28th Army east of Kummersdorf Gut.
That night, to prevent 9th Army getting through, Marshal Koniev ordered the redeployment of some of 4th Guards Tank Army into the area east of Beelitz. This included elements of 68th Independent Guards Tank Brigade, 7th Motorcycle Regiment, 71st Light Artillery Brigade, 61st Guards Tank Brigade of 10th Guards Tank Corps, 12th Guards Mechanized Brigade of 5th Guards Mechanized Corps, together with some corps troops. They were given the task of blocking the Michendorf–Treuenbrietzen road (Reichsstrasse 2).
Those elements of Marshal Koniev’s forces fighting in the woods north and north-west of Staakow were relatively successful and by the evening of 30 April had closed up to the line Zesch–Radeland, but in the Baruth area 28th Army and 50th and 96th Guards Rifle Divisions were less successful. Their attacks north of the Hammerfliess depression were met with strong resistance and only reached the line Mückendorf–northern edge of Baruth–Radeland. The 13th Army’s 395th Rifle Division also met strong resistance near Kummersdorf Gut and was unable to penentrate any deeper into the woods. This perhaps reflects the Red Army soldiers’ weariness with the war. In order to prevent the German groups pushing south on Luckenwalde, 280th Rifle Division was redeployed from Jüterbog and was ordered to attack towards Gottow–Schöneweide. It reached these places by evening but without fully completing its task.[14]
A member of Battlegroup Schill, forming part of the rearguard of the Halbe pocket, reported on this day:
Late on the night of 29/30 April, the Schill Battlegroup abandoned its positions east of the Dahme, other combat units having left hours previously. The order for leaving was already 20 hours overdue. Mobs, unarmed of course, and refugees were wandering around in vast numbers, some of them with vehicles, which hindered our progress. What was intended, we had no idea, we only knew and wanted to reach our goal, if necessary by force, which was the 12th Army’s position this side of the Elbe. We first clashed with enemy forces near the Klein Hammer forest warden’s lodge. Then came enemy tank probes, in which we lost heavily, even though we were reinforced by gunners from the 1st Battalion of 32nd [SS] Artillery Regiment. Those men still capable of fighting reassembled for a break-out to the south-west, but without success. Because of the flood of other shattered troops fleeing back, our hastily-prepared positions were almost overrun. We only held on to the position by the hardest resolve and even won some additional combatants. Those in uniform unwilling to fight vanished into the woods and ran into the next Russians only a few hundred metres away. The day was filled with minor skirmishes with Russian scouts, who withdrew immediately they encountered the least resistance. There were constant air attacks.