Fight for Küstrin

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The bastion king

The battle for Küstrin began towards the end of the Second World War with the capture of the districts of Küstrin east of the Oder by the Red Army at the end of January 1945 . Shortly afterwards, on February 2, 1945, the transfer of Soviet troops north and south of the old town on an island in the Oder and the Küstrin fortress followed . The two bridgeheads formed in the process, which were separated from the German supply line to the fortress, were fiercely contested in the second half of March 1945. However, the Wehrmacht succeeded neither in removing the bridgeheads nor in holding the fortress. On April 16, 1945, the Küstrin bridgehead was the main starting point of the Soviet high command for the attack on Berlin. The old town of Küstrin was completely destroyed in the fighting.

prehistory

During the Second World War, the Soviet Army succeeded in using Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944 to push the German Central Army Group back from Russia to Poland on the Vistula. After the Warsaw Uprising , there was relative calm on this front until mid-January 1945.

After the offensive from the Vistula to the Oder from January 12, 1945, troops from Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front were able to push through Poland in two weeks and had also reached Küstrin at the end of January 1945.

Historical plan of the fortress, old town and Oder bridge

“At the confluence of the Oder and Warthe rivers , the Küstrin fortress was one of the most strongly fortified sections of East Germany. [...] He blocked direct access to Berlin. "

Soviet advance to Küstrin

“In the snowstorms that raged from January 26th to 29th, Zhukov's first units advanced as far as the Oder. On February 1, the advance departments saw the river in front of them. It was frozen over. […] On February 2nd, Chuikov's first units crossed the Oder. Apart from the fact that an icy stream did not form a natural obstacle , it did not seem to be defended at all where it is closest to Frankfurt and Küstrin Berlin. "

The 8th Guards Army under the leadership of Colonel General Tschuikow gained the southern bridgehead and the 5th Shock Army under Colonel General Bersarin managed the crossing north of Küstrin. With that, the Soviets had gained a foothold west of the Oder. It was 65 kilometers to Berlin and the city reacted in a panic at times.

Old town - location of the fortress on the left

“However, (Bersarin) did not succeed in taking the city located centrally on the Oder Island. This meant that the Soviets were initially unable to use the only Oder bridge in this section. "

From February to mid-March 1945, the Soviet strategy was limited to reaching and consolidating the full length of the Oder line and, in a second offensive , conquering Pomerania from the mouth of the Oder to Danzig and in East Prussia Königsberg . The Baltic coast was thus reached and secured for the Soviets on this line. The build-up of the supply organization, which was made difficult by the harsh winter, was a reason for the six-week rest at Küstrin.

Conquest of Küstrin

Both sides were aware of the extraordinary importance of Küstrin as the “gateway to Berlin”. On the German side the chief of staff had Guderian namely the replacement of the previous military completely unqualified commander of the defending an der Oder Army Group Vistula , Heinrich Himmler enforced by Hitler and him by Colonel General on 20 March 1945 Heinrici be replaced, but at that time had already the Russian attack to unite the two bridgeheads started:

Rail connection to the west bank

“Until now there was still a gap of three kilometers [...] between the bridgeheads on the western bank of the Oder. Through this narrow strip the enemy kept the connection with the fortress Küstrin (upright) […] When the wings of our two armies united, the garrison of the fortress was cut off. "

Union of the bridgeheads

Remains of the Marienkirche in the old town of Küstrin

The Soviet attack began on March 18 with a 4-day bombardment of the German fortifications. On March 21, the 8th Guards Army under Chuikov's command from the south and the 5th Shock Army under Colonel General Bersarin advanced from the north against the railway line that still separated the two bridgeheads west of the Oder and on the German side established the connection to the otherwise completely enclosed fortress Küstrin . After the assault on March 22nd, the Russian bridgeheads merged and the fortress was enclosed.

Two counter-attacks by the Wehrmacht on March 23 and 24 were thrown back with heavy losses on both sides.

"Guderian, to whom Heinrici reported it, said gruffly: 'It has to be attacked again.' Hitler wanted it and that was decisive for Guderian. [...] And so on March 27th, Busse threw his troops against Küstrin again. This time some of the tanks actually managed to break through to the city. But the advancing units went down in the defensive fire. ”[…] In the“ bloody massacre, 8,000 men - almost a whole division - were killed. ”

- Cornelius Ryan: The Last Fight , p. 135.

“The Army High Command wanted to come to terms with the situation because it considered further attacks to be futile after the enemy had had time to consolidate the newly won area. Despite all opposing ideas, Hitler ordered another attack for March 28, 1945. "

During the briefing with Hitler on March 28, there were furious speeches between Guderian and Hitler about the meaning of these attacks, whereby the use of troops from the Army Group Reserve resulted in Guderian's energetic objection, who refused to tolerate these deployments for preparatory offensive operations. Hitler said goodbye to him on a six-week convalescent leave.

Conquering the fortress

The fortress from the site of the former bridgehead

In the heavy fighting for Küstrin in 1945, the new factory served as accommodation and was largely spared from the heavy fighting. The fort was held until March 12, 1945, before it had to be abandoned due to lack of ammunition. On this day the Küstriner Neustadt was overrun by the Red Army.

Only the Küstrin fortress on the Oder Island was still in German hands. The offensive for their conquest began after the retreat of the German troops on March 28 a day or two later and the assault on the fortress the following day.

“At the end of March, the Russians succeeded in taking Küstrin and expanding the bridgehead on the opposite side, as well as building another south of Frankfurt. Both bridgeheads were less than 65 kilometers from Berlin. "

"The commandant of Küstrin [...] reached his own lines with weak remnants of his [...] crew that were no longer fit for action on the night of April 1st. He himself was arrested on Hitler's orders to be tried. "

Hitler, who realized that the battle for Küstrin and the bridgehead already brought a preliminary decision, had in vain relied on its removal and the free fighting of the fortress. "But the Russians were way too strong."

The Red Army's immediate preparations for the attack on the Reich capital now began.

During the fighting for the Küstrin fortress, the old town of Küstrin was completely destroyed. The remains were used in the post-war years as a quarry for the reconstruction of the Polish city of Kostrzyn. The streets are still recognizable and signposted, but not much more has been preserved than the foundation walls.

  • Rosengasse in the old town

  • House entrance in Kirchgasse

  • Entrance of the former parish church

  • View from the palace over Berliner Strasse

  • Ruin of the castle

Expansion of the bridgehead

After an eruption, the bridgehead near Küstrin offered the direct route to Berlin and a large number of tanks could be accommodated in it, which first had to be brought across the river at other points of attack. The next obstacle was the Seelow heights.

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, the two Marshals Zhukov and Konev were in Moscow to report to Stalin and the State Defense Committee. A plan of attack had to be drawn up within two days. Zhukov declared that the main attack from the meanwhile "forty-four kilometers long Oder bridgehead (will)." Six armies, including two tank armies and "including the advancing troops [...] 768,000 men, were to be deployed here." Zhukov hoped to be able to set up at least 250 guns per kilometer in the Küstriner bridgehead. ”April 16, 1945 was set as the date of this last offensive.

By the time the attack began, 4500 positions for the artillery had been built in the Küstriner bridgehead, 636 kilometers of connecting trenches and 25 bridges, many of them “underwater bridges”, had been built over the Oder. There were also huge stocks of ammunition, fuel and food. The 16th Air Army was assigned to the front section.

German defense preparations

"From March 30, the German aerial reconnaissance detected numerous movements of Soviet troops in the direction of Küstrin and Frankfurt an der Oder."

Modern road bridge

Regardless of the actual situation, “(Hitler) came to the realization that the concentration of the Russian armies near Küstrin was nothing more than a great deception. The main Soviet offensive, in his opinion, was aimed at Prague - not Berlin. […] On the evening of April 5, he ordered four of Heinrici's proven armored units to be moved south. Heinrici would have needed them in particular to intercept the Russian advance. "

The German commander of the Vistula Army Group , which comprises the 3rd Panzer Army in the north and the 9th Army in the center and south, met with Hitler on April 6 for a decisive briefing. Colonel-General Heinrici gave an unvarnished lecture on the defense situation - above all, there were no reserves whatsoever. Spontaneously Göring, Himmler and Dönitz made 150,000 men available from their associations. With that the subject was settled for Hitler. Heinrici did not get back the surrendered tank divisions either. After Hitler had declared the preparations in Küstrin to be a "side attack" and had renounced Heinrici's further presentation of the situation, Heinricis withdrew with the hint that he could not guarantee a successful outcome.

"With 25 German divisions of various arms and combat strength, 857 tanks and assault guns and an air force that can hardly be in action for more than three days due to a lack of fuel ..." - Heinrici is supposed to launch the Russian offensive across the entire front from the mouth of the Oder to Muskau with 1.5 million men, 6,000 tanks, 40,000 guns and 6,696 aircraft.

Soviet Oder offensive

  • After the 2nd Belorussian Front under Marshal KK Rokossowski had conquered the Baltic Sea coast as far as Gdansk, their armies were relocated eastwards to the northern section of the Oder with headquarters in Stettin .
  • The 1st Belorussian Front took over the section from the Küstrin bridgehead to the north of Frankfurt / Oder. Your commander, Zhukov, was to conquer Berlin directly.
  • The 1st Ukrainian Front of Marshal Konev joined near Frankfurt, who on the one hand was supposed to advance to Dresden and on the other hand received from Stalin the promise to be able to advance with his right wing to Berlin with a quick breakthrough.

“From April 12, 1945, strong Soviet exploratory advances began from the Küstriner bridgehead up to one regiment. These attacks were extremely costly for both sides, but pushed the German lines back. "

The attack by the Red Army began at 5:30 a.m. on April 16, 1945 with an artillery strike on the German front. Commander Heinrici had, however, cleared the front lines shortly beforehand, so that the troops remained intact and could take position on the Seelow heights .

But on the evening of the first day of the attack, the First General Staff Officer of Army Group Vistula noted: “We expect this attack to continue tomorrow. Because of your own losses, the day will be even harder. Focus south of Küstrin, Seelow area and Wriezen area. "

“The German front west of Küstrin crumbled within four days. All reserves of Army Group Vistula have been used up. ”The battle for Berlin had begun.

literature

  • Erich Kuby : The Russians in Berlin 1945 , Scherz Verlag, Munich Bern Vienna 1965.
  • Peter Gosztony (Ed.): The battle for Berlin in eyewitness reports , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1985. First edition: Karl Rauch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1970. ISBN 3-423-02718-5 .
  • Cornelius Ryan : The last battle , 1st German edition: Droemersche Verlagsanstalt, Munich / Zurich 1966, quoted from Fackelverlag, Olten - Stuttgart - Salzburg 1969, original edition: The last battle , Simon and Schuster Inc. New York.
  • Tony Le Tissier: Der Kampf um Berlin 1945 , Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt / Main - Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-550-07801-3 , Original edition: Tony Le Tissier: The battle of Berlin 1945 , Jonathan Cape, London 1988.

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Peter Gosztony (Ed.): The battle for Berlin in eyewitness reports , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1985, p. 123, ISBN 3-423-02718-5 .
  2. ↑ Erich Kuby: The Russians in Berlin 1945 , Scherz Verlag, Munich 1965, p. 24.
  3. ^ Tony Le Tissier: The fight for Berlin 1945 , Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt / Main - Berlin 1991, p. 11, ISBN 3-550-07801-3 .
  4. ↑ Peter Gosztony (ed.): The fight for Berlin in eyewitness reports , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1985, quotation from Schukow, p. 124.
  5. ↑ According to the commander of the 9th Army, the General of the Infantry, Theodor Busse, the attack began the day before: “On March 22nd, under the direction of the General Command of the XI. SS Panzer Army Corps to counterattack the 20th Panzer Grenadier Division and another Panzer Division. Despite strong artillery and air force support, it failed. ”(Gosztony, eyewitness reports, p. 125.) However, buses are also said to have chronological errors (Le Tissier, p. 52: note 16, p. 266) Schukow reports on the storm and the merger of the bridgeheads on March 22nd, but it cannot be ruled out that the German counterattack also began on that day. (Gosztony, p. 124.).
  6. ↑ Gosztony, eyewitness reports , p. 125 f.
  7. ↑ Le Tissier writes of the Army Group Reserve, which "had to give up units for the counterattacks in the Küstrin area." (Le Tissier, pp. 51 and 53)
  8. ↑ For details see Ryan, The Last Fight , pp. 157–169.
  9. ↑ The sources used did not give a more precise date of the day.
  10. ↑ Le Tissier: The Battle for Berlin 1945 , p. 45.
  11. ^ Gosztony: Eyewitness Reports , p. 130.
  12. ↑ Cornelius Ryan: The last fight , Fackel-Verlag, Stuttgart 1969, p. 135.
  13. ↑ Ryan, The Last Fight , pp. 148-155.
  14. ^ Information in Gosztony, eyewitness reports , based on Russian documents, p. 140.
  15. ↑ Le Tissier: Der Kampf um Berlin , p. 54.
  16. ↑ Ryan, The Last Fight , p. 157.
  17. ↑ In detail in Gosztony: Eyewitness reports , pp. 151–156.
  18. ^ Gosztony: Eyewitness reports , p. 167.
  19. ^ Gosztony, Eyewitness Reports , p. 135.
  20. ^ Gosztony, Eyewitness Reports , p. 137.
  21. ↑ Le Tissier: The Battle for Berlin 1945 , p. 54.
  22. ↑ Le Tissier: The fight for Berlin 1945 , report by Colonel HG Eismann, p. 62 f.
  23. ^ Gosztony: Eyewitness reports , p. 199.