Then there was another incident on the left-hand side of our sector opposite the railway station. Here I came across a Waffen-SS staff sergeant with some other stragglers that had originally belonged to the Küstrin garrison and were now already in their fourth day of combat since the break-out. They were coming out of the defile that led toward us from the railway station from the northeast and reported that the station was swarming with Russians. This was only 120 metres directly in front of us.
The Waffen-SS men looked completely exhausted, both physically and mentally, and I had to force them at gunpoint to make a stand and accept my orders. I put them on my left flank, and was delighted to be able to make up my losses with these combat-experienced soldiers. Unfortunately, in the haste and excitement of the moment, I did not take down their names and so could not be surprised next morning when I found that they were no longer there. It was if the earth had swallowed them up, leaving a gap in positions that was to prove fateful next day.
Then back to Küstriner Strasse at about 2100 hours. How had the connection to my No. 1 Platoon been lost? I set off with my company sergeant major. We crawled up to the main road then darted across to the side wall of the building opposite. Here we recovered our breath and listened for the reaction to our move. To our horror, we could hear Russian voices in the building where we were standing. Suddenly a Russian hand grenade landed right at my feet. I instinctively kicked it away, and we ran off into the back garden. Following the explosion of the hand grenade, there was a burst of sub-machine gun fire behind us. The nature of the terrain and darkness had protected us. Even using a flare, Ivan could not see us.
A few metres further on we were challenged by our own sentries. There was great astonishment on the faces of our comrades, who were expecting the Russians and not us from this direction. No. 1 Platoon was in good fighting order. The men had blown up the windmill in front of their positions to give a better field of fire. I joined with Second Lieutenant Rebischke in the forcible clearance of the cottages on Küstriner Strasse, which lasted until daybreak. This went quicker than expected, the Russians pulling back without serious resistance.
Shortly after midnight, Captain Rosenke of the 1st Battalion, Panzergrenadier Regiment 76, appeared with the news that we were now directly under his command. From then on we would be called Combat Group ‘Rosenke’ on the orders of the regiment.
In the early hours of 17 April I had things relatively under control once more. Contact on either flank was established, the last fighting strength of my company was about eighty soldiers, and I could pass this figure on to my superiors. What would the day bring us now? Consideration had to be given to the state of our troops, most of whom had now been in action for three or four days. The losses in men and weapons could no longer be made good. It was impossible to relieve our men.
Dawn brought yet another blast of artillery fire, which was supplemented and supported by wave after wave of bombing attacks by heavy aircraft. It was horrific. I was at my command post in the cellar of the same house. At one point there was a tremendous explosion, and the whole building rose and settled down again a little tilted to one side. We found a man-sized hole in the exterior wall opposite, and outside a crater deep enough to have taken the whole house before being levelled off. One petty officer went crazy, started foaming at the mouth, and had to be forcibly restrained.
The artillery fire ceased abruptly. Now the moment had come to get out of the house and occupy our positions. Our main point of aim was toward Küstriner Strasse. The sounds of combat led me to make my way to the northern part of the company sector, which had been quiet until then. Something was wrong here. I was accompanied by our petty officer, Sergeant Lohmann, Lance Corporal Bayers and Corporal Liefke. To our surprise, the positions, partly demolished by artillery fire, were empty. As already mentioned, the Waffen-SS men had vanished. Our No. 3 Platoon no longer existed; Staff Sergeant Kühlkamp had fallen the day before. Our northern flank was open and contact with our neighbouring unit, a Volkssturm company, could not be established. If I was going to save anything, I would have to act fast. Lohmann, Bayers and Liefke were tasked by me to maintain visual contact with Küstriner Strasse, to hold the position and to fall back on the centre of Seelow if necessary, where we could meet up again. I would go with our petty officer and ask our Commanding Officer for the reserve platoon and bring them to the rendezvous.
Now everything seemed to move at the double. Our goal was the battalion command post at the manor farm. Our route took us via the street leading in from Gusow, which, to our surprise, was under direct fire. Then we recognised some T-34s close by and coming toward us. I had not expected to be attacked from the north so soon. I still remember a long white wall about two metres high leading past the knacker’s yard, which gave us cover from fire from the north.
The Russians must have seen us, for the wall received a broadside from the barrels of several tank guns and disintegrated briefly in smoke as soon as I had passed. Our sympathetic petty officer immediately behind me was buried by the wall and disappeared in the smoke. I felt powerless, as if hypnotised, and rushed across Reichsstrasse 1 into the gateway of the manor farm.
The yard was about a hundred metres square and surrounded by barns, stalls and storehouses with loading ramps. Our battalion command post was in the cellar of a storehouse and reached via the loading ramp through a large sliding door. I reached the top of the steps out of breath and called down: ‘Everyone outside, the Russians are here!’ The faces that I saw were apathetic, virtually defeated. The command post as such had already been evacuated, and the soldiers remaining there were seeking shelter and cover from the bombardment. One of the soldiers told me that our Commanding Officer, Colonel Stammerjohn, was dead. This event had caused something of a sensation, paralysing the leadership for a while. His body had already been sent back.
The soldiers came back to life when Sergeant Stein aimed a shot at a Soviet officer as they were leaving the storehouse through the sliding door. Two T-34s were standing in the yard with their engines running and their gun barrels aimed in our direction. The man on the tank with a red band on his hat fell, apparently hit. The shock caused by the Russian presence spread among the men emerging from the building along the ramp. The ensuing unequal exchange of fire caused panic among us, so that my original intention to lead the men back to the centre of town to redeploy them was forcibly abandoned. Meanwhile a third tank entered the yard, and there being no anti-tank weapon ready to hand, the men disappeared. Only Sergeant Stein remained beside me. We went back behind the building to the railway siding where I had arrived seventeen days previously.
There I found three men of my company headquarters, who, knowing what I had intended, and having experienced the collapse of the remains of the company on Küstriner Strasse, had worked their way back through the town to the manor farm. It was a real joy to see them again. They brought news of the wounding of Lieutenant Ludwig.
We moved about 200 metres further south to the Seelow-Diedersdorf railway line. Here our Captain Rosenke (or was it Captain von Wartenberg?) was lying on a mound observing the movement on the battlefield. In fact Seelow had been surrounded and cut off from the north, giving us the feeling that the stricken ship was sinking. From here we could see khaki-coloured figures enveloping and attacking the town. The sounds of combat rose sharply once more in the southern part of the town, and then all was quiet again.
I was given the task of occupying the heights in front of Diedersdorf. Lieutenant Schäfer, badly wounded in the lungs, was led past us by two soldiers on their way to the Main Dressing Station. I was able to speak to him and wish him a speedy recovery. So we pulled back in a sad column under cover of the railway embankment toward Diedersdorf, always with the feeling that Ivan was breathing down the back of our necks. On the next hill Lieutenant Diesing directed us to the so-called ‘Stein-Stellung’.[26] Here I came across a further eight men from my company, making thirteen men in all, the strongest company left in our combat team. Only one man in ten had survived the last 27 hours fit and well.