As the situation heated up, our companies deployed near the bridge called for reinforcement, for they were spread out in two-man holes fifty metres apart.
We had not fired in this area until then, but now I had to send a forward observer to direct fire. The area around the bridge was to be brought under fire upon demand. My battalion commander suggested I withdraw an observer from the Potsdamer Bridge, which I did, but I still had the big problem of having to take our stragglers forward several times a day, which was getting on my nerves. So I convinced the battalion commander that the fire direction would be so difficult there that I should do it myself, and that the NCO I had withdrawn should remain at base. My battalion commander did not like this, but I told him that I could not go on dividing my responsibilities. He should look for someone among the unemployed eaters walking around to take over the stragglers from me. Why, for instance, did we need a Duty Officer on our level? We could keep order ourselves. And my men should remain here, ready to form an instant storm troop should the Russians break through. (I did not want them used up, but kept back for the final battle.)
Whether he liked it or not, he must have taken me seriously, for there were no reserves left to deal with such a situation except ourselves. So he left and made no more objections.
I was important in this situation, because I was apparently the only one who could handle the rockets. The buck had been passed to me and my comrades. Goodness knows what had happened to the real owners.
When Kurt Abicht, the battery sergeant major, saw what I was up to, he decided to come along with me as a forward observer. We had become friends in the meantime, which happens quickly under such circumstances; one soon sees what the other is made of. He had absolutely no problems in his relationship with his battery commander, but had been feeling hemmed in and wanted to get out. He was also experienced, about the same age as myself and with the same way of speaking his mind in front of superiors.
The gunners had a radio, but it was needed by their forward observer, who had been sharing a nest close to the Potsdamer Bridge with the observer I had withdrawn. They had used the radio together, but now he would direct fire for both our resources with it, while Kurt would use my field cable.
So we set off for the Ministry of the Interior with my HQ Section NCO, two signallers and two runners during the early evening of 28 April. We were able to go part of the way underground by tunnel, but then had to make a dash across Königsplatz in daylight while paying out the field cable.
At the Ministry of the Interior, an extensive complex like a road block in front of the Moltke Bridge, a police colonel was in charge with his command post in a bunker in the cellars. This man straight away wanted to give me orders and we had a heated argument. I told him that my only interest in his building was as a good viewpoint over the bridge. I wanted to know why he had not sent some of his men to reinforce our positions at the bridge, but he would not be moved. This question caused him to howl with rage and brought a hollow laugh from Kurt and my men.
So we left and went across to the Diplomatic Quarter that filled the bend in the Spree. The embassies should have been left in peace, but neither side had time for that.
We found ourselves inside the deserted Swiss Legation, which had been burning for days and had a bombproof cellar that had been deepened and reinforced with concrete. With the steel door closed behind us, we soon warmed up. Outside it was still relatively cold at night, but here the heat from the fires came through the thick concrete walls.
Once we had warmed ourselves up, we looked for a building with a view of the bridge and the Customs Offices behind on the left. As it was quite dark at the time, I cannot say which building it was. Once the field cable was ready, we fired the first rocket, which landed across on Washingtonplatz to the right of the bridge. I gave the corrections, which could only be done roughly, as previously explained.
Then Kurt fired his guns, taking the bridge as his target. His battery commander had gone with a liaison officer from our battalion to the Reichs Chancellery to ask for shells. As the liaison officer sent by our battalion commander confirmed that he was firing from only two hundred metres, he got what he wanted.
My Volkssturm men then carried the shells across at night. It was relatively quiet at night as our opponents had other things to do and even their snipers disappeared.
Now we fired our mortars at the bridge as well, which was easier than with rockets. If I am not mistaken, this was at their maximum range. Hardly a shot came back from the other side, which made me suspect that they were up to something. Whenever a rocket hit Washingtonplatz there was such turmoil and running about, it was as if we had disturbed a hornets’ nest. I later discovered that their artillery was fully deployed there in the open without any cover whatsoever. We heard more than we saw, because only the odd fire lit the scene.
The Spree was about fifty metres wide at this point with embankments walled with hewn stone rising about three metres above the level of the water. The bridge was also of hewn stone and had four arches spanning the Spree. Although the bridge was massively constructed it had already been badly damaged. There were barricades built at either end of the bridge, but the one on the enemy side had been bulldozed aside.
As the enemy planned a surprise attack, this was not announced by an opening barrage that would have alerted us. The infantry attack began suddenly. According to Russian accounts this was made by a battalion each from the 150th and 171st Rifle Divisions, which stormed across the bridge toward us.
The machine guns of our two companies, which had been reinforced in the meantime by sailors, hacked away with steady fire. On their first attempt the infantry stuck on the barbed wired barricade at our end of the bridge. I was directing mortar fire to hail down on the bridge and my friend Kurt was using his guns to send shells ricocheting along it. They tried to withdraw, but none got away, for as they withdrew they were hit several times by the fine splinters from the mortar bombs and Kurt’s ricochets ripping across the bridge, throwing bodies into the river with their blast.
Meanwhile a whole battery of rockets had been set up on Potsdamer Platz and I had them directed on Washintongplatz and the Customs Yard. I later learnt that General Perevertkin had his forward command post there, where he could observe the attack at close hand, but there is no mention of the effects of the rockets in the books. I only hope that they scared the pants off him and his divisional commanders.
Now bulldozer tanks rolled on to the bridge, scraping the dead and injured aside and then pushing aside the barricade at our end. Kurt’s ricochets soon turned them into scrap. Anti-tank guns had joined in from our side as well as the ‘Nordland’s’ tanks from the Tiergarten. Then the heavy anti-aircraft guns on the Zoo flak-tower also opened fire once they could see a little from the fires on the bridge, and a vast heap of scrap metal formed, blocking the way for the new tanks rolling forward.
Fresh infantry stormed the bridge and were able to form a small bridgehead on our side. Now the officials from the Ministry of the Interior went into action, frantically pouring fire from their windows with their old MG 34s.[51] They defended their building like a fortress, for they knew what their fate would be as ‘Himmler’s people’, and were bypassed at first.
The Diplomatic Quarter was barely defended, for we wanted to respect the neutrality of the embassies as much as possible, something which did not bother the Soviets. This was now stormed by the 171st Rifle Division. It was like the breaching of a dam; there was no holding them back. Russian artillery of all calibres was laying down a barrage on us that left a clear path for their infantry in the centre. We could hardly lift our heads to fight them off. Now I could see that their artillery was not just on Washingtonplatz but also deployed on the Customs Yard with self-propelled guns behind, all firing without cover. However, once it became light, this was not so good for them. Guns of all sizes opened up on them from the Zoo Flak-tower. I had not seen the heavy anti-aircraft guns in action before. They did not simply hit a tank, but blew it apart, especially when catching it in the flank as was the case here.