The Russians finished their assault on the Ministry of the Interior at about 0400 hours on 30 April. I had had to send a forward observer back there, for the battalion commander had forbidden me to go myself. I had told my NCOs on no account to let themselves become cut off in the Ministry of the Interior. If the Russians found their field cable they would cut it and render it useless. So they went to the Swiss Legation building and stayed there until forced out by the 171st Rifle Division clearing the western half of the Diplomatic Quarter.
We had now used up the last of our mortar bombs and there were no more available, so I sent a runner to recall my men. I also recalled the observer from our left flank for the same reason. Now that we were ‘unemployed’, I used my NCOs for taking forward stragglers, and from the reports they brought me on their return I gained the following picture. The Russians had occupied both sides of Leipziger Strasse and had also occupied the Anhalter Station. The pressure was increasing as they closed in from all sides. The Zoo Bunker and its surrounding area was cut off from us and formed its own ‘pocket’. Several stragglers from there got through the Russian positions to us at night and reported that barricades in the area manned by Hitler Youth and Volkssturm had been attacked by the Russians using 45mm guns at point blank range and then the Russians had forced civilians out of their cellars to clear them under German fire. Now that things had hotted up at the Zoo bunker, some of the civilians sheltering there had been driven out, thousands suddenly emerging into the open looking for cover and protection, and had come under fire from the Russians as they left the bunker.[53] Some of them got through to us and reported how terrible conditions were inside the bunker. There was hardly any air to breathe, the guns were constantly firing, and the screams of people breaking down under the strain made it unbearable. In contrast to the Zoo bunker they found the conditions in our tunnels quite pleasant. Even though there was not much room, they could still walk about and move around a bit. We had to supply these newcomers with water too, but there they had only received a mouthful from time to time.
THE BATTLE FOR THE REICHSTAG
This was a real battle in itself. I cannot describe it from my own experience but only from that of surviving combatants and also Russian reports, although the latter should be treated with great caution.
The commander of the defence at the Reichstag was SS-Lieutenant Babick of our battalion, who came from the same 2nd Regiment of the ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’ as I did, where he had previously commanded the 11th Company of our 3rd Battalion. After hospitalisation he had taken over the Potential Leaders Company at Spreenhagen in February 1945. I am not sure, but I think it was that company that he had at the Reichstag. The company was about 100 strong and he received no more support from our battalion commander. To this can be added the 250 sailors that had been flown in though, as previously mentioned, these men were not properly equipped for combat. We called them ‘The Dönitz Contribution’ and the accompanying naval officers acted as his platoon and section leaders. Then came the company of paratroopers from the 9th Parachute Division, plus the approximately 100 Volkssturm stragglers that I brought him. So in all Babick had a force of no more than 550 combatants at his disposal, as opposed to the 5,000 attributed to him by the Russians.
An all-round defence was established and Babick set up his command post in a cellar behind the Reichstag, from where there were several underground tunnels leading to other buildings. The Reichstag itself had been walled up after the 1933 fire, presumably to prevent further arson attempts.
The Russian attack began with a massive artillery barrage. As the attacking infantry of the 150th Rifle Division wheeled left out of the Ministry of the Interior building, it came under strong flanking fire from the fortified Kroll Opera House, the ‘Nordland’ tanks in the Tiergarten and Zoo Flak-tower. The attack had been launched immediately after securing the Ministry of the Interior, by which time the division had been reduced to only two regiments, without time for either rest or reconnaissance, and it soon foundered. Meanwhile the 171st Rifle Division had launched an attack on the eastern half of the Diplomatic Quarter across Alsenstrasse with an equal lack of success and at a heavy cost.
The corps commander, realising he would have to clear the Kroll Opera House, called in his reserve 207th Rifle Division, which had first to clear the lightly defended Schlieffenufer block alongside the Spree in order to get at the Opera House. The Russians were under tremendous pressure as Stalin wanted the Red Flag hoisted on top of the Reichstag in time for the May Day celebrations. Additional artillery, tanks and rocket launchers were brought across to reinforce the Ministry of the Interior building in preparation for the next attack.
The second Soviet attack stalled on the line of a cutting for a U-Bahn tunnel that ran across Königsplatz to the Diplomatic Quarter and was not shown on the Russians’ maps. This abandoned worksite was flooded and its depth and steep sides made it an ideal anti-tank obstacle, which had naturally been incorporated into the defensive system.
Although the 171st Rifle Division managed to secure the eastern half of the Diplomatic Quarter as far as the Kronprinzen Bridge, the 150th Rifle Division stuck fast on the line of the ditch under heavy fire from the Reichstag, so it was decided to await the cover of darkness for the final assault.
With nightfall at about 1800 hours, the Russian tanks became invisible to the Zoo Flak-tower and were able to get round the flooded ditch to give support to the infantry storming the building. The infantry used mortars firing horizontally to blast a small hole in the bricked-up doorway and, supported by the fire from the supporting tanks and self-propelled guns, were able to enter the building itself, where merciless close-quarter fighting broke out, gradually spreading over the various stories of this vast building. But it was very dark inside, which placed the newcomers at a serious disadvantage to the defenders who knew their way around.
The military council of the 3rd Shock Army had issued a special Flag No. 5 for this historical occasion and sent it forward under an escort of Communist Party members. Two sergeants were able to slip through and find a way up to the roof and hoist the flag. The official account and the photographs and filming taken next day to commemorate the event for posterity, showed them holding the flag against one of the pepperpot-like ornaments on the rear parapet of the building overlooking the Brandenburg Gate, with the claim that this had occurred seventy minutes before May Day. The two sergeants were awarded the golden stars of ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ for their deed. However, it later transpired that the first Red Flag to be hoisted over the Reichstag was in fact raised by an artillery captain on a statue above the front entrance well before midnight, whereas the sergeants had been two hours into May Day and had used an equestrian statue over the rear entrance as their prop. The photographer then made them change location because of the lack of background establishing the site, resulting in the famous picture that was published round the world. The captain received only the ‘Order of the Red Banner’ for his pains.
Fighting continued inside the building all day on 1 May and until 1300 hours on 2 May, when General Weidling’s order to surrender reached the survivors, who had by then been cut off from us for over thirty-six hours. Meanwhile, Soviet flamethrowers had started a fire within the building whose choking smoke made conditions even worse.
53
14 Schweizer’s breakout from the Zoo Flak-bunker had occurred sometime after midnight and his group managed to get away unscathed during a lull in the fighting, but these conditions did not apply either earlier or later up to the surrender at dawn on 2 May.