During the course of the afternoon, enemy air activity and tank attacks concentrated on an area about three kilometres south-west of us. Occasional 20-mm flak fire indicated that our own troops must be holding out there. The constant firing of white flares by the enemy indicated their targets.
They closed in on us from three sides, our weak perimeter defences being virtually untenable, so that we had to abandon our original intention of fighting our way through the Russian positions during the night, and had to move immediately. After a somewhat hesitant start, the will to fight on prevailed, and we charged with a thunderous ‘Hurrah!’ right through the Russian positions, which promptly gave up all resistance and collapsed.
Our next move was in the direction of the flak fire we had identified. Abandoned items, from water bottles to intact 88-mm flak guns, including their towing vehicles and ammunition, indicated that we were on the same escape route as the units in the days before us. The peaceful heathland here had become a deathtrap for many thousands of brave soldiers and at least as many refugees. Within a few days we had gone from barely negotiable tracks to roads of death and horror. Women and children who had sought safety in flight from the enemy forces and the horrors of war had been overrun here and crushed, just like the thousands of soldiers who had abandoned their fighting and protective roles, thinking only of saving themselves by fleeing.
Communication with the combat team south-west of us was soon re-established and we discovered that it was the remains of SS-General Kleinheisterkamp’s XI SS Panzer Corps group, which included the Panzergrenadier Division Kurmark. This group was getting itself ready for the final breakthrough. The unifying password ‘Freedom’ was given out and the military column set off. The first part of the route was reconnoitred by scouts, and the civilians and wounded placed in the centre. The enemy immediately followed up on both sides as well as at the rear. We saw a barrier in front of us that we had to overcome. It was clearly of Russian construction, and not up to the usual Volkssturm standard. A storm troop was detailed to clear the way and mine detectors were already in operation, despite heavy enemy fire from the flanks exacting a considerable number of casualties. The barrier was taken by assault and the Russian troops gave in.
We were now standing on the outskirts of Halbe and had to redeploy. With all the shooting going on all around us, we were taking considerable numbers of casualties among those in uniform as well as the waiting refugees and wounded, so we reinforced our cover on the flanks. Meanwhile it had become dark, and we could clearly see the flashes of the Russian artillery and rocket launchers firing to the north, south and west of us, so could also see a little of what lay ahead. We could definitely make out the outlines of T-34 and Stalin tanks with a Tiger in between, among the stacks of timber in the sawmill in front of us. Our anti-tank guns opened up, but it was a waste of time as these were already wrecks from the previous days.
From above us came the tacking of the Lame Ducks[15] as they fired one flare after another, so that it became almost as light as day. However, this came in useful in deploying our weapons to the best advantage.
We were hardly reacting to the explosions from shells and mortars, but the Stalin-Organs always caused a disruption. Heavy Russian machine-gun fire was raking us from a certain place in the village; it could not fail to hit something. Halbe village had become a place of death and horror. Equipment, vehicles and corpses of all kinds and many nationalities were lying about alongside and on top of each other, reaching as high as the roof gutters of the smaller village cottages. The buildings were almost all burnt out, little better than ruins. There must have been some fearful fighting here during the last few days, and the village must have changed hands several times.[16]
The remaining groups in the central pocket were pressed by four divisions from the south, while all the armoured forces attacked from the north. The 63rd Guards Tank Brigade set off south from the area south of Trebbin–Klein Schulzendorf while 28th Army’s 71st Mechanized Brigade and 61st Guards Rifle Division advanced on the Sperenberg area, thus blocking the Trebbin–Sperenberg road to the German groups with strong forces. These Soviet attacks created a stable defensive front, but they were unable to split up the German groups any further, and 54th Guards Rifle Division failed to block the Wünsdorf–Baruth road (Reichsstrasse 96), its advance being stopped on the Zossen–Baruth road between Zesch and Neuhof. Meanwhile Marshal Zhukov’s troops had continued clearing the woods around Halbe and by 1730 hours could report the complete destruction of the German units found there.[17]
THIRTEEN
The Last Leg
1 MAY 1945
By midnight the leading elements of 9th Army were in the woods between the Märtensmühle forest warden’s lodge and Berkenbrück. Discussion about when and how the break-out should continue was interrupted by the armour moving off and the rest automatically following.
Relatively weak Soviet resistance in Berkenbrück was rapidly overcome and the road to the west was open. At about 0330 hours the leading elements broke through Hennickendorf, where a barrier was crushed by a Tiger. The fighting here was again described by SS-Lieutenant Bärmann:
We took over the lead at about 0400 hours. The woods were full of the exhausted and wounded. Just before Hennickendorf we had to go over a little hill that was defended by Russian anti-tank guns. A few shells and these anti-tank guns were silenced and the Russians withdrew. We drove on through Hennickendorf, where some houses were burning. After a few hundred metres we came to a barricade at the Pfefferfliess stream. Karl Hörl drove the SPG to the edge of the woods on the left and took up a firing position where we had a good view. On both sides of the stream in front of us lay a swampy meadow, and about 1,500 metres away there was a hill with a few buildings and the Dobbrikow windmill. In between were Russian tanks and anti-tank guns, and some Stalin-Organs to the right of the windmill.
There was a Königstiger near us, still in the lead, and an eight-wheeled armoured car of 10th SS Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion. About fifteen of our men advanced across the meadows, making a start, and a flood of soldiers and civilians streamed out from everywhere, thousands of them, across the Pfefferfliess stream towards Dobbrikow.
The Russians let fly with all their barrels from the windmill hill. Our SPG, Tiger and armoured car returned the fire. Then, as ammunition and stacks of rockets began exploding alongside the windmill, the enemy fire faltered and the Russian tanks started to withdraw.[1]
Major Otto-Christer von Albedyll, commander of the Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion Kurmark was killed near Hennickendorf when going to the assistance of his wounded adjutant. He was a brave, wise and much loved officer, whose men stopped to bury him by the roadside.[2] The last vehicles of 561st SS Tank-Hunting Battalion ran out of fuel at this point, and Lobmeyer’s men had to go on as infantry.[3]
Hermann Pätz, a soldier at home on sick leave in Hennickendorf as the result of an eye injury, remembered these events:
The Russians came on Sunday 22 April, at about noon, having occupied Luckenwalde. We had all hidden ourselves, everyone having a bunker in their garden. They even set up a command post in Hennickendorf and many Russian positions were prepared.
The firing started early on 1 May, when German troops chased out the Russians. Three T-34s were shot up, one towards Märtensmühle, one towards Stangenhagen and the third towards Schönhagen. German soldiers were here all day; the leaders went along the road from here to Dobbrikow. At about 0700– 0800 hours a half-tracked APC stopped in front of our house with several others behind it.
15
This was a nickname for the Po-2, sometimes also called the Sewing Machine because of the distinctive sound of its engine. The Po-2 was a biplane, armoured against infantry fire, and used extensively for night bombing, the observer dropping either clusters of hand grenades or light bombs by hand in First World War style. Many of the crews were female.
2
He was the heir to the Klessin estate featured in the author’s