by Prit Buttar
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Extract from Prit Buttar’s Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany’s Eastern Front 1944–45 – out now in paperback and eBook.
Chapter 4
THE LAST CHRISTMAS
The Ostfront must help itself and make do with what it’s got.
– Adolf Hitler
Fighting died down along the East Prussian front as autumn turned to winter. Both sides were exhausted by the battles that had moved the frontline hundreds of kilometres west, from the heart of Belarus and Ukraine onto German soil. Only in Hungary, and in the north around the embattled Courland pocket, did fighting continue at high intensity.
Stalin only agreed to a downturn in Soviet attacks with reluctance. He was keen to continue offensive operations, but Zhukov was adamantly opposed, and his advice prevailed. In November 1944, 1st Belorussian Front and Ivan Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front to its south were designated as the main forces for the coming offensive. They would exploit along the ‘Warsaw–Berlin axis’ in order to deal a decisive blow to German forces in the east. To prepare for this, Zhukov insisted that his battered units needed time to reorganize, incorporate new drafts, repair damaged equipment and to prepare for what should be the decisive battle.
In most respects, it had been a stunningly successful year for the Soviet Union. The prospect of final victory now lay ahead, and the disjointed nature of the fighting on the Ostfront increased the likelihood of Soviet success. The battles in Courland and Hungary tied down German forces some distance from the critical sector of the front, the main axis for the Soviet offensive. Such matters were first discussed in detail in early November. Zhukov’s and Konev’s fronts would receive massive armoured reinforcements in preparation for their key role. Their northern flank posed considerable concerns for the Soviet planners: as Zhukov’s forces moved west, they would skirt the southern side of the heavily fortified German line in East Prussia. Isolation of East Prussia and its elimination, therefore, would be critical for the main Soviet drive into the heart of the Reich.
Meanwhile, German units were redeploying. The Grossdeutschland Division was withdrawn from Memel and began to reform in East Prussia. In conjunction with the recently created Panzergrenadier Division Brandenburg, it was to form a new Grossdeutschland Corps. The 83rd Infantry Division, which had an illustrious record of service on the Ostfront, was transferred from Courland and dispatched to Thorn, where it received reinforcements. The fighting in Courland had reduced the division to about 7,000 men; the division medical officer reported to Generalleutnant Wilhelm Heun, the division commander, that at least 10 per cent of replacement drafts were simply not fit for frontline service, and should be discharged immediately.
Towards the end of November, 7th Panzer Division was withdrawn from the Memel bridgehead, and Huber and his comrades sailed south aboard a freighter called the Volta. The ship made the overnight run down the coast of the Samland peninsula to Pillau, and from there continued up the channel to Königsberg, where the crews and tanks of 7th Panzer Division’s 25th Panzer Regiment were unloaded. From the docks, the men travelled the short distance to the nearby barracks, where they were to spend the night:
We are all shocked during our short drive through the inner part of Königsberg. There are only ruins there. Rubble and empty darkness lie to left and right. There must have been a heavy air raid on the city in recent times. The bombers have reduced everything to soot and ashes. Beautiful Königsberg! The strong smell of smoke surrounds us as we drive through the streets. Everyone thinks of his own folk at home. Does it look the same as this? They have written to us so often about the bombing attacks – although we haven’t had to face this at the front, we are nevertheless familiar with the problem.
Apart from some minimal bombing by a few Soviet aircraft in 1941, Königsberg had survived unscathed until August 1944. On the night of 26–27 August, 174 RAF Lancasters – allegedly violating the airspace of neutral Sweden – struck the city, followed by a heavier raid three nights later. This second raid by 189 Lancasters could only deliver 487 tonnes of bombs, as the aircraft were operating at maximum range, but the damage was considerable. The planes delivered a lethal mix of high-explosive and incendiaries, striking the historic city centre and reducing the Teutonic castle, the cathedral, the university and many other famous landmarks to rubble. About 3,500 people were killed, and many more were left with their homes at least partially damaged. Alerted by the previous raid, in which four Lancasters were shot down by flak, the defenders put up better resistance, destroying 15 bombers.
In anticipation of possible attacks, some of the city’s residents had been evacuated to the countryside. Gretel Dost, the girl from Friedrichstein who had been overawed by Marion Dönhoff’s visit to her school, was now a nurse working in a private clinic in the city, and in midsummer the clinic was relocated from Königsberg to Fischhausen, a small town to the west of the Prussian capital. Dost and her colleagues were delighted with the move, because they found themselves next to a military hospital, with plenty of time to fraternize with the army personnel. Erika Morgenstern, who had been born in 1939, was sent to a farm in the village of Almenhausen with her mother and younger sister:
On a wonderful summer’s day, when there was nothing to suggest death or suffering – at least not in Almenhausen – a few women were standing in the village street with their children in their arms or holding their hands. It was between breakfast and midday, the sun was high in the sky and this gathering was an unusual sight at this time of day. My mother too joined the group of women with we children. Silent and saddened, everyone stared in one direction, in which normally there was nothing to see but fields. But on this day, there was something else. A large part of the sky from the horizon upwards was deep, dar
k red. A grisly image, as if blood was rising into the sky. A woman said, ‘Königsberg is burning.’
Air raids struck other parts of East Prussia, too. Tilsit was bombed several times by Soviet planes, as were other towns along the frontier. For much of the war, the citizens of East Prussia had been envied by their fellow Germans who lived further west, within range of British and American bombers; now, the long arm of the Allies’ air fleets could reach even to here, and Soviet aircraft were close enough to threaten air attacks at any time.
Despite this, East Prussia at the end of 1944 was still relatively untouched by the war, compared to other parts of Germany. Its farms continued to work productively, albeit relying on workers from prisoner of war camps. In some cases, these prisoners had been captives since the opening months of the war, and some had worked on the same farms for years. Many were regarded almost as family by the German women who struggled to keep their farms functioning while their men were away at the front. The Party issued strict orders that the Poles and others were to be kept in isolation from the German population, but the realities of farm life were such that most farmers simply ignored such instructions, as one such farmer related to a girl sent to work on his farm:
Jan is not allowed to go to the next village, not even to church. He is not supposed to listen to the radio or read a newspaper. He must not sleep under the same roof as us and should take his meals in the shed where he lives. They told us not to get too chummy with him; there are hefty penalties for that sort of thing. But I say ‘bullshit’. He’s more like a member of the family; out here a man is as good as his work and I will not have a man treated like an animal on my property. Mind you, when Herr Stiller is here – he’s the rural inspector, a Party man, a real Hitler fanatic they say; you know, ‘Heil Hitler’ here, ‘Heil Hitler’ there – I shout a bit at Jan to make Herr Stiller think I’m keeping Jan on a tight rein!
The East Prussian farms were a vital part of the Reich’s ability to continue to function, with an annual productivity of several million tonnes of agricultural produce – the farms produced more food than all of Holland. Meat, dairy products and fish (from the productive fleets of small boats operating from the Baltic ports) ensured that even with widespread rationing the people of East Prussia continued to be comparatively well fed.
The mood of the German people at this time is difficult to assess, particularly by those who have never had the misfortune to live in a totalitarian state where all forms of communication are firmly under government control. People had abundant evidence of the perilous state of German fortunes – cities right across the Reich had been bombed repeatedly, and every family had lost men on the various fronts. The eastern edge of East Prussia itself was now occupied by the Red Army, and of course everyone knew about Nemmersdorf, and feared further advances by the Bolsheviks. In Berlin, a city that had never enthusiastically embraced Nazism, the grim joke in circulation this Christmas revolved around the eternal question of what to buy as a Christmas present: ‘Be practical,’ suggested the wags, ‘send a coffin.’ Others, such as the dissident Marion Dönhoff, could see only one outcome, but how freely they were able to discuss such matters is open to question. The ever-increasing death toll of the war, though, left few unscathed:
Frau Duttke was … a self-confident, but at the same time modest, outstanding woman. She looked after the pigs and was proud that she hadn’t missed a day’s work for many years. She and her husband had simply worked all their lives so that their children should have something better. The younger son was killed in France, and the older was an NCO – a magnificent, straightforward, reliable chap, that any army in the world would have regarded with pride: he was certain to become an officer one day, and then all the drudgery would be worthwhile.
But this day didn’t come; instead, a day came in autumn 1944, when I saw Frau Duttke crossing the estate yard, a bucket in each hand. The handsome woman looked old, absent-minded, a ghost of her former self. ‘In God’s name, Frau Duttke, what’s happened?’ She looked at me with staring, dead eyes, put down the buckets – and suddenly threw her arms around my neck, and cried and cried: ‘Karl is dead, the news came today. Now everything is at an end. Everything was for nothing – our whole lives.’
Many soldiers in the frontline, too, were under little illusion about what lay ahead:
It was therefore not surprising that confidence in military leadership … from the front to the highest levels of the Wehrmacht, was deeply shaken, given the completely false evaluation of the facts by these leaders. All that remained now was to save innocent victims of the senseless war from the retaliation of the Red Army, driven on by the revengeful Soviet demagogues.
To speak publicly of such things was to invite court-martial for defeatism, so most soldiers remained cautious, even when discussing matters amongst themselves. Some, though, while aware that things looked grim, continued to hope for a favourable outcome:
We receive a startling report on 18 December. Our forces on the Western Front, in the Ardennes, have launched a counter-offensive. Strong army formations and tank units have hurled back the Americans. We hope for a decisive victory by our side on the Western Front. Our own morale rises. That must be why we have received so few supplies and have had to give up so much ground on the Ostfront – the units in the west were being prepared for an attack!
Days later, the radio reports the success of the Luftwaffe. Six hundred enemy aircraft were shot down yesterday! So, the fortunes of war are turning.
The Ardennes offensive broke as an enormous surprise for both the Allies and most of Germany. In a final burst of productivity, German armaments production reached record levels in the autumn of 1944, and several divisions were completely re-equipped and prepared for action. Guderian and others wanted these divisions deployed in the east to shore up the fragile front, but Hitler gambled on a last offensive in the west. Under heavy skies, which grounded the Allied air forces, the German assault formations made good initial progress, but from the earliest stage stubborn pockets of American resistance delayed them. Ultimately, the offensive came to a standstill some distance short of the River Meuse, the first major objective, and as the skies cleared, Allied air power was brought to bear with lethal effect. The offensive cost the Germans 80,000 casualties for no tangible gains.
The Luftwaffe attack on New Year’s Day, 1945, was also far from a great triumph. A secret airstrike was planned against Allied airfields, with the intention of destroying as many planes as possible on the ground. Most German aircrews were unaware of the exact mission until the morning of the attack. The German pilots struck shortly after dawn, and appeared to be devastatingly successful; more than 460 Allied aircraft were destroyed or damaged. But the flak defences of the airfields were stronger than anticipated, and British and American fighter patrols inflicted heavy losses on the German fighters as they flew home. Even worse, the mission had been prepared in such secrecy that the German flak defences had not been alerted. Seeing large numbers of planes flying out of the west, they opened fire on their own pilots, adding to their casualties. The Germans lost more than 270 planes, but most importantly 211 pilots were killed. The Allies, on the other hand, suffered serious material losses, but their aircrews escaped almost unscathed. Once replacement aircraft were brought forward, albeit over several weeks, they were able to resume operations without difficulty. The Luftwaffe, by contrast, suffered irreplaceable losses of experienced pilots. It would never mount an operation on this scale again.
In his New Year message to the German nation, Hitler characteristically showed no sign of doubt:
Millions of Germans of all callings and backgrounds, men and women, youths and girls, right down to the children, have laboured with spades and shovels. Thousands of Volkssturm battalions have been raised or are being formed. Divisions have been re-equipped. People’s artillery corps, rocket brigades and assault gun brigades as well as armoured formations have been deployed, fighter squadrons once more refreshed and supplied with new mach
ines, and above all the German factories have through the efforts of their male and female workers achieved singular results. In this way, whatever our enemies destroy has been restored with superhuman diligence and heroic courage, and this will continue until one day our enemies will find their end. That, my fellow countrymen, will be regarded as the wonder of the 20th century! A people, who labour so endlessly at the front and in the homeland, who endure so much ill fortune, will never be ground down. They will come out of this furnace tested and stronger than ever before in their history.
To some extent at least, Hitler spoke the truth. Tank production peaked in December 1944, with 1,854 tanks and assault guns being completed, equivalent to almost half the entire production of 1941, sufficient to re-equip several Panzer divisions. But this was the last surge of production, and Hitler’s armaments minister, Albert Speer, was well aware that raw materials were running out. There was no longer sufficient brass to manufacture the huge quantities of cartridges required, and in some cases steel was being used. These steel cartridges were more prone to jamming, causing additional problems. There was also a shortage of tungsten, resulting in armour-piercing ammunition being of a poorer quality, and sometimes not even available.
Everywhere, German soldiers and civilians held on in the hope of the promised Wunderwaffen (‘Wonder Weapons’) – the miraculous new weapons that would turn the tide of the war. New assault rifles were now in widespread circulation, and official reports had made much of the advent of new Luftwaffe aircraft, particularly the jet-powered Me 262 and rocket-powered Me 163. Large parts of London had felt the power of V-1 and V-2 missile bombardments, and there were constant hints that other, even more potent weaponry would soon be available. But would it come in time?
All along the Ostfront, senior officers used what little time they had available, organizing training for their new drafts, preparing defensive positions and contemplating a grim future. Günter Emanuel Baltuttis was a member of a replacement draft sent to bring the former 16th Parachute Regiment, now renamed 3rd Regiment, of the Paratroop-Panzergrenadier Division Hermann Göring back to something approaching full strength. The draft consisted of a number of former airmen as well as new recruits like Baltuttis. When they assembled near Insterburg, they were surprised by the greeting they were given by a stony-faced Oberleutnant: ‘Take note, I will not hesitate to drag any laggard or coward before a court martial!’
