With Our Backs to Berlin

by Tony Le Tissier

  I had now sent out two of my NCOs as forward observers, one covering the area Hallisches Tor-Möckern Bridge, the other the area Potsdamer Bridge-Lützowplatz. They both came back at night when there was nothing further to see. But they too could not offer any targets for the rockets, and we could not use these weapons for shooting at sparrows.

  However, the pressure from the Reichs Chancellery continued to increase, and I had to do something to please my superiors, sitting in their bombproof cellars with no consideration for the civilian population. The rockets would only destroy their homes, burying them under the rubble. No, I would not do that. If I was not hitting the enemy, I had to find a target where I would not do any damage.

  So I went into the Tiergarten where the tanks of the ‘Nordland’ under the command of the brave SS-Lieutenant Colonel Peter Kausch were located. When I explained my problem to him he clapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘You are quite right. Those gentlemen are shitting themselves.’ He pulled out his tanks and I fired two rockets into the vacated area. None of my superiors noticed, as they were not going to stick their heads outside. Following my report, all these gentlemen were content and left me in peace.

  As I was curious how things were going, I used my wound as an excuse to visit the Reichs Chancellery almost every day, although I had our own nurses do the bandaging. There were about 1,500 wounded lying in the cellars almost on top of each other. The doctors bustled about tending to them with carbide lamps as only the Führerbunker had its own electricity supply. At least there was enough to eat, as well as sufficient supplies of other kinds. We could also get mortar bombs from there, but the shells for the artillery were almost finished, and once Gatow Airfield had fallen there were no more. Consequently the German artillery fire became ever weaker.

  With regard to artillery, a one-armed army lieutenant approached me. He had two 105 mm guns but had lost contact with his unit, and was looking for another unit to attach himself to. With my battalion commander’s permission, we combined forces. He still had some ammunition for his guns, which he had brought with him. We put them under cover down below with us. If a super shell burst through the roof now, we would all be blown to smithereens. These Wehrmacht soldiers stuck with us to the end and we worked well together, including our forward observers.

  The military police now wanted me to send my Volkssturm men forward into action. Despite my protests, they said: ‘No one can afford to sit around doing nothing any more. Send them into action somewhere.’

  I suggested they comb out the Reichs Chancellery, where there were plenty of Party officials doing nothing, but they protested that that was not their job. These obnoxious types, whom every front line soldier hated, went off grumbling, but I realised that I would have to find something useful for my Volkssturm men to do.

  I had asked the women that had established themselves on the station platforms with their children how we could help them. They said that they were hungry, for no one supplied them with anything, but that the worst thing was thirst. There was no water available down below as the system was out of order, and they were going crazy with thirst.

  So we collected all the containers we could and set off to search for water. There were still some street water pumps in Berlin that had not been been used for years but were relatively intact. When we found one at last, the water carrying role began. Once I told my men that we would carry on doing this, there was no more wrangling about water. Of course, anyone attempting to use the water for washing would have been lynched, and men under 60 had to fend for themselves, but the Volkssturm men remained undisturbed in their task, for the women would have beaten up the military police mercilessly if they had intervened.

  In the meantime the Russians had moved forward up to the Landwehr Canal on one side of the Tiergarten and up to the Spree on the other. Now we had targets enough, except in the Tiergarten where our own forces lay, and especially round the Zoo bunker, whose anti-aircraft guns were now engaged in the land battle.

  On 27 April I took another group of stragglers up to Belle-Alliance-Platz (Mehringplatz), but found no one there to hand them over to, so I appointed the senior serving soldier in charge of the mob, which is all you could call them, set them on guard and went back. I could see that they would run when the first Russian appeared, but I hoped that there would still be some of our comrades around in the ruins that would take them on. The companies were now a complete mixture of different kinds of combatants. Often the stragglers made their way back, only to be rounded up and sent forward again like cattle to the slaughter. Among them I recognised some familiar faces, but I played dumb and pretended not to notice.

  On my way back I made a detour to check on my forward observer, who was located on top of a tall building, but when I got there the building had gone. A super shell must have demolished it. I thought that he must have had a quick death and could not have suffered much.

  It so happened that another group of stragglers had been rounded up for me to deliver to the same area. By some fluke, I was taking them past the pile of rubble under which my comrade was buried, when we heard groans. I stormed into the rubble, assisted by the others, and found the unconscious comrade about two metres down. We carried him back to Potsdamer Platz, where we handed him over to our nurses, who kept him with them rather than take him to the field hospital. ‘We will soon have him back on his feet,’ they said, ‘and he will be among familiar faces.’ And they were quite right. I took my group of stragglers back to the assigned area, and by the time I had returned he had regained consciousness. The shell had struck like lightning and he could remember nothing about it, but all he had suffered was a bruised head and some other contusions. He had been extremely lucky.

  On 28 April I went across to the Reichs Chancellery again, overtly to liaise, but in fact trying to get some idea of the overall situation. As I was about to enter the gate off Hermann-Göring-Strasse, I bumped into my old company comrade, Bruno Weinke. Some years before Bruno had been promoted over me, but he was then transferred to the Führer Escort where there were no promotions, so I now outranked him, and there he was standing on sentry duty like an ordinary soldier. He engaged me in discussion about the war situation, which he said he knew about first-hand, for the walls of the Führerbunker were not so thick that nothing got through. Backstairs gossip, I thought, but listened, not wanting to be rude. He told me of Hitler’s plan for the decisive battle of Berlin that would bring about a major change in the war. General Busse, who was southeast of Berlin with his 9th Army, had been ordered to break through the enveloping arms of Marshal Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front, thus cutting through his lines of communication and causing chaos, and then push through to Berlin.

  (What no one here knew was that Busse’s young, inexperienced soldiers lying quiet and still in the Halbe woods were currently being shot up like rabbits by Koniev’s tanks and that the remainder, mainly armoured units, were not breaking through to Berlin but to General Wenck’s 12th Army.)

  The Führer had great hopes in Wenck’s 12th Army, he said. Since it had been pulled back from the line of the Elbe, assembled and directed on Berlin, its armoured spearheads had reached Treuenbrietzen and tank gunfire had been heard in Potsdam. I said to Bruno: ‘I hear the news but I lack the faith. I got to know those divisions on the Elbe and they consist merely of emergency units. They may have proud names but I do not believe they have anything beyond that. I have met these troops and I simply do not believe that they can get us out of this mess.’

  Then Bruno went on about SS-General Steiner and his IIIrd Germanic SS-Panzer Corps. I had more confidence in an SS-general. In accordance with Hitler’s orders, he was supposed to be attacking down from the north in the Oranienburg-Eberswalde area to our relief. But I no longer believed in miracles, so I left Weinke at his post and went on my way.

  Gatow Airfield was lost on 27 April, despite a desperate defence. This was a bitter blow for the defence of the capital, as most of the ammunition was being flown in through
there. An attempt was next made to use part of the East-West-Axis as an airstrip, but this only lasted a short while. Some of the incoming transport aircraft were shot down by enemy fighters and others crashed into shell holes.

  THE BATTLE FOR THE MOLTKE BRIDGE

  The main Soviet attack was directed at the Reichstag, which we could not understand as it had been in ruins since the fire of 1933. The assault was conducted by Colonel General V.I. Kutznetsov’s 3rd Shock Army’s 79th Rifle Corps, commanded by Major General S.I. Perevertkin, and led to the Moltke Bridge.

  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 li
ke 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.

  The piles of scrap metal grew higher, especially on the far bank, but this did not deter the enemy, who simply brought fresh tank regiments in from his reserve like a cardsharper pulling aces from his sleeve.

  But now we started to counterattack, and on both sides of the river. From our side we saw some close-quarter fighting suddenly start up among the guns, so the troops on our side attacked too. The Russian infantry in their small bridgehead thus came under fire from both sides, so most of them just kept their heads down, as I charged forward with my men.

  Green Verey lights were fired to warn the Zoo Flak-tower to stop firing. Normally this would have meant the opposite, but fortunately the flak-tower gunners understood straight away and held their fire.

  But how was it that German troops had so suddenly appeared on the other side of the river? They were in fact men of the Colonel Harry Herrmann’s 9th Parachute Division that had been defending the Lehrter Station and had been cut off in the goods station area. The Russians had overlooked them in their haste to cross the Spree and get to the Reichstag. Now they were using the opportunity to take the Russians by surprise from behind, putting many of the gun crews to flight and creating chaos before charging across the bridge to us.