The soldiers read the pamphlets several times as if they wanted to learn these impressive words. Finally the column of Kosciuszko fighters moved off towards Berlin.
Next, the 3rd Regiment took up the fight, attacking from the Charlottenburger Chaussee. To the right of it operated the division’s 2nd Regiment and to its left the 12th Soviet Tank Corps. The tanks had already penetrated as far as the Englische Strasse area, but individual enemy groups remained in their rear trying to stop fuel and ammunition supplies. Now Polish troops came to the aid of the tank soldiers, battalions of Colonel Archipovicz’s 3rd Regiment. They had to fight for every building and every floor. The attacking infantry were supported by gunners. With their accurate fire they opened up the way for the infantry through the city district. Finally the Soviet tanks could be seen, fighting half-surrounded.
The tanks were topped up with fuel by the tankers brought forward and the fight was resumed after a short pause. Covered by the fire from the Soviet tanks, the Polish infantry’s assault groups entered the buildings and cleared them of the enemy.
Soldiers of the 2nd Regiment took part in the storming of a housing complex near the Landwehr Canal. The fighting did not ease off for a minute during the night. Enemy resistance was first broken towards morning as the Soviet tanks and Polish infantry appeared on Berliner Strasse. But there they were checked by a housing block in which the Fascists had established themselves. Frontal attacks brought no success, but a group of our soldiers managed to get in from the rear. They reached the first floor up a staircase and threw down grenades, causing panic among the Fascists. Now our shock troops made a resolute attack on the next building and then the whole block. Almost 200 prisoners were taken in the fighting.
The Technical High School, surrounded by barricades, was strongly defended. The Fascists covered them with the fire from guns that had been installed in neighbouring buildings. The soldiers of the 2nd Regiment were sent sappers to assist and explosives came on request.
The infantry stood beside the gunners. Often they dragged the guns after they had dismantled them – carriage, barrel and wheels – into the upper storeys of the buildings, thus becoming able to fire in retaliation over the heads of the Fascists.
The Technical High School could not be taken until the morning of the 2nd May. Afterwards the soldiers crossed the S-Bahn and railway lines and penetrated the Zoological Gardens. On the Budapester Strasse they met up with soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Front who were storming Berlin from the south. It is difficult to describe the pleasure that seized the combatants at that moment. The soldiers of both brotherly connected armies clasped each other, threw their hats into the air and gave loud cheers. This was the long foreseen moment of triumph over the Fascist beast!
Nevertheless it was a little premature to celebrate victory. Soviet and Polish soldiers were still fighting in Bismarckstrasse and Schillerstrasse, where the 1st Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Maksymczuk was attacking. It had entered the battle later than the other elements of the division and had come under strong artillery fire. The battalions deployed east of the Schloss-Strasse, which was defended by SS and Police units.
The attack of the 1st Regiment had begun here at 0300 hours on the 1st May. The soldiers pressed forward fighting on Bismarckstrasse. The artillery fired at point-blank range, the walls of buildings collapsed noisily and there was the uninterrupted fire of machine-guns and machine-pistols. The Polish soldiers attacked the German Panzerfaust men, who were waiting for the Soviet tanks with hand grenades.
The enemy was firing from a cellar with machine-guns, forcing the Polish troops to the ground. But Sergeant Levczyszyn crawled, pressed to the tarmac, to the building and threw two hand grenades into the cellar. The machine-guns fell silent. Soon the building was in the hands of the Polish soldiers. On the roof they hoisted the red-white flag, the first Polish flag over Berlin’s ruins!
And again a hail of bullets fell on the tarmac, this time from the first floor of a large corner building. The gunners came to the infantry’s help again. The advance continued.
A U-Bahn line ran under the Bismarckstrasse. The first stations could be taken relatively easily, but then came a station that the Fascists had turned into a strongpoint. Guns, machine-guns and even a tank had to be used. Lieutenant Wassenberg’s gunners assisted in the taking of this little ‘fortress’, firing at point-blank range. Under cover of their fire, the infantry forced their way into the strongpoint and the garrison had to surrender.
In the advance along Grolmannstrasse the mortar crews under platoon leader Bdych especially distinguished themselves. They dragged their weapons along the sewers in the rear of the Fascists. An unexpected barrage from the rear and a simultaneous attack from the front and the Fascist defenders of a large building complex were finished.
I quote these episodes as they show quite clearly how decisively and bravely the Polish soldiers behaved in the street fighting and thus helped the Soviet soldiers in destroying the enemy. In the storming of Berlin the members of the Kosciuszko Division had covered the weapons and flags of the Polish Army with glory.
Two regiments – the 1st and the 2nd – had engaged later in the battle than the 3rd, but were able to end it sooner. But finally also the 3rd Regiment pushed forward to the Brandenburg Gate riding on Soviet tanks. The enemy resistance was finally broken. Only occasional bursts of fire from machine-pistols here and there were still heard. That evening peace came to liberated Berlin.
Polish aircraft were also involved in the Berlin operation, including the 1st Mixed Air Corps that had arrived at the front in April 1945 with 300 combatant aircraft. The Polish high command had altogether four air divisions and three regiments of auxiliary aircraft at its disposal.
Two days before the beginning of the Berlin operation our 4th Air Division, including the technical air battalion, moved to airfields 30 kilometres north of Küstrin.
If I am not mistaken, it was on the 24th April that the commander-in-chief of the Polish Air Force, General F.P. Polynin, came to my command post. I knew him already from before the war. Later we met on the western front where he was then commanding an air army and organising air support for the ground forces. Polynin spoke very highly of the Polish airmen. For example, he particularly praised Lieutenant Bobrovski and Second-Lieutenant Lazar, who had participated in the air battles over Eberswalde, and also both Lieutenants Kalinovski and Chromy. During a reconnaissance flight they had attacked two Focke-Wulfs that were wanting to bomb our positions. Kalinovski shot one of the aircraft down, while the other one, after it had discarded its bombs, flew off.
Polynin had come with an operational team to see me in Wriezen. Among them was the chief of staff of the Polish Air Force Telnov, the chief engineer Koblikov, and other generals as well as the commander of the mixed air corps Agalzov. They occupied the command post permanently and directed the aircraft in accordance with the tasks of the infantry divisions.
From the first day on we maintained close contact with the airmen. I learned from General Polynin that an infantry division from the Steiner group had pushed forward to the Ruppiner Canal with fifty tanks with a view to making a flanking attack. Our situation on the northern bank of the canal was anyway somewhat difficult. We only had the cavalry brigade left in reserve and a redeployment of the widely spread out division would be very difficult. But we could not let the considerable forces of Steiner’s group cross over to the southern bank.