Of the heavy tanks we now only had Klust’s Königstiger from No. 1 Company and Streng’s from No. 2 Company. Streng’s tank had been hit several times during this decisive breakthrough. Even so, he was still able to engage in a tank duel and knock out three T-34s, but then his tank was hit by an anti-tank gun and burst into flames. After a dozen severe hits, this time the tank could not be saved. It was the tank that I had been on in Halbe and which had been hit by a phosphorous shell and caught fire there. A few minutes later SS-Second Lieutenant Klust’s tank was also knocked out, thus writing off the last of the 14 Tiger tanks which 9th Army had sent to join up with 12th Army.
For the first time I held my four comrades of the 1241st Regiment back from attacking as we had done so often in the last days and weeks. We remained lying at the edge of the woods and watched the course of the uneven fight. It was not fear or cowardice, but military common sense and combat experience that led me to this decision, its correctness being demonstrated only a few minutes later.
An APC with Hitler Youth leaders appeared from the left flank and drove into cover near us. They had the task of warning the remains of 9th Army about this strong enemy cordon and were meant to direct us south-west towards Wittbrietzen. These youngsters looked just like Seydlitz-Troops. What an irony of fate for the many who had fallen on this open ground and the soldiers and civilians who had been wounded.
While death awaited north of Wittbrietzen, the way south of it was ‘an easy walk’ to 12th Army’s front line. Had this APC with its certainly courageous crew arrived only two or three hours earlier, 9th Army’s spearhead could have been directed in this direction.
With unfortunately so few soldiers, we turned to the south-west and within about 1,200 metres reached the described spot under cover of the woods, from where it was only a short distance over open ground to the woods opposite. The men of 12th Army dug in on the edge of the woods were expecting us and directed us back behind the railway line.
We could hardly believe that we had managed to make the last section alive, and without having fired a shot. It was only later that we realised how often death had stretched out a finger towards us, in the purest sense our constant companion, and what enormous luck we had had to belong to the few to have survived the fighting on the Oder Front, the Hell of Halbe and the death march to 12th Army’s lines.[8]
SS-Lieutenant Klust, commander of the other Königstiger in this group, gave a slightly different account of his experiences during this final stage:
We approached Schönefeld. The engine of our Tiger started spluttering, being about to run out of fuel. There was none to be had anywhere. Then we learned from local civilians that there should be some stored at the transmitter south of Schönefeld, so we struggled on there on the last drops in our fuel tank.
We found, as described, a 200-litre barrel and put the contents into our fuel tank, but when the engine started up, Bert Fink, my driver, expressed doubts about the fuel. The engine was running unevenly and kept stopping. Only through my driver’s technical skill could our Tiger be got moving. We had to keep the engine hatch open with a man pulling on a lever.
The 12th Army’s reception point could not be far off. Thousands of soldiers and civilians were streaming across the open ground to the west. But our tank could not go much further either.
We received orders again, but orders had little effect anymore. Our Tiger engine gave up, making bubbling noises. We were then told to dig the Tiger in and to use the gun as artillery to cover the remains of 9th Army but, in view of the situation, I decided otherwise. We made our Königstiger unserviceable and made off to the west with the others. We left our our old wreck behind with pangs of regret, for we had fought so many fights together.
My radio-operator, Heimlich, was killed in a bombing attack on the autobahn south of Beelitz.[9]
Ernst-Christian Gädtke also battled through successfully:
The morning of 1 May was as cold as the night. We prepared ourselves for the attack with some more ersatz coffee and a few cigarettes.
We rolled on towards Beelitz via Ahrensdorf, Stangenhagen and Zauchwitz.[10] Shortly after Zauchwitz the road emerged from a wood on to open fields, and round a bend to the left we could see Beelitz ahead of us and hear artillery and infantry fire coming from there. On either side of the road stragglers were waiting in the ditches for a breach to be forced up ahead. We could see flashes of gunfire coming from Beelitz and then fountains of earth sprang up around us as the shells exploded, splinters whistling through the air.
Our guns received the order to open fire, so we had to get off as the hatches were closed down. I jumped off to the right and tried to keep up with the moving gun at some distance to the side, but the guns speeded up towards Beelitz and I was soon left behind. Russian artillery fire was still falling on the road, so I moved away northwards from the road without noticing I was doing so. The meadows were strewn with clumps of bushes and trees, and here we found cover. There were small groups of soldiers from various units advancing here, but no properly led attack, more of a loose and accidental movement. No one was in command, and no one really knew what was happening. After a few minutes I found myself separated from my group, having got lost somehow. The assault gun had vanished up the road, and with it went my last worldly goods including my carefully packed haversack.
Unwillingly, I let myself be drawn away from the road and the artillery fire. Someone shouted: ‘Get round the place to the north’, and ‘Keep right.’ Then we came to a drain that cut right across the land. A wounded man was lying on the bank with his thigh ripped open by shell splinters. ‘Take me with you!’ he cried. We called for medical orderlies, but there were none around. Finally four of us placed him on a tent-half and carried him through the knee-deep water. We laid him down again at the edge of the woods, by which time he had lost consciousness, and left him there.
The woods were swarming with stragglers, most of them unarmed. They were lying down in groups, apparently having decided not to do anything, just wait for it to be all over.
I joined on to a section of infantry under a lieutenant who were moving purposefully through the wood. ‘Come with us, comrade’, one of them called out to me, ‘You don’t look as if you just want to be taken prisoner.’
We went a short distance through the woods to the north-west and then concealed ourselves in a thick pine plantation. The lieutenant called us together and explained what he proposed doing. According to him the Russians were only holding a thin line here, concentrating on places like Beelitz. An attack on Beelitz was just stupid. North and south of there one had a far better chance of getting past the Russians. We would wait hidden in this plantation until dusk and then make our way through the Russian lines in the dark. Everything depended on sticking together, moving dead quietly, maintaining discipline and, should something happen, acting decisively. This made sense. We set sentries on the edge of the plantation, stretched ourselves out on the ground and got a little sleep.
Once it was dark, we shared out all that we had left to eat, crispbread and tinned cheese. We left the plantation in single file moving silently towards the west. We reached the autobahn without stopping and observed the wide gap from the edge of the woods for a few minutes. Nothing moved. Then we raced across, ducked down, in a body. Not a shot was fired as we disappeared into the woods on the far side.
10
From Stanganhagen onwards the road was Route 246, the main road from Trebbin to Beelitz, so Gädtke’s subsequent moves took him north of the latter town.