Hitler's Final Fortress - Breslau 1945 (35 page)

17.
Ahlfen, pp.124-5.

18.
Arnhold, pp.188-9, 230-54, 259-60.

19.
Knappe, pp.311-12.

20.
Hartung, pp.56-7.

21.
Schlesische Tageszeitung
, 16/2/45.

22.
Gleiss, vii, pp.1272-3,
Schlesische Tageszeitung
, 18/2/45.

23.
Gleiss, ii, p.508C and Gleiss, vii, pp. 1111 and 1261. Similar bacchanalian scenes would be repeated in Berlin two months later.

24.
Based on Gleiss, ii, p.328C and HGr Mitte papers in the author’s collection.

25.
Majewski, pp.32-4.

26.
Scherstjanoi, pp.52-3.

27.
Gleiss, vii, p.1152.

28.
Hornig, p.65.

29.
Peikert, p.69.

30.
Based on Gleiss, vii, p.1279, Hartung, p.58 and Arnhold, pp.260-1.

31.
BA-MA RL7/535 and Arnhold, pp.260-2.

32.
Verton’s account of fighting on the Weistritz is based on his memoirs in Gleiss, vii, pp.1302, 1315, 1345, 1397-9 and Verton, pp.149-50. The Goliath attack can be found in
So Kämpfte Breslau
, pp.46-7; Verton, pp.149-50.

33.
Gleiss, vii, pp.1311-12.

34.
Based on Malinin’s diary in Gleiss, ii, pp.553, 667, 710, Peikert, pp.73-7 and Majewski, pp.51-2, 54.

35.
Gleiss, ii, pp.568A-B.

36.
Ibid., ii, pp.588-9.

37.
Gleiss, vii, pp.1397-9.

38.
Hartung, pp.59-60.

39.
Bannert, pp.75-7, 80.

40.
Propaganda accounts based on
Völkischer Beobachter
, 28/2/45,
Kaadner Zeitung
, 24-25/2/45, Wette, Bremer and Vogel,
Das letzte halbe Jahr: Stimmungsberichte der Wehrmachtpropaganda
, p.382,
Schlesische Tageszeitung
, 1/3/45 and Peikert, p.82.

41.
Based on Peikert, pp.73-7 and Gleiss, vii, p.1421.

42.
Based on Gleiss, vii, pp.1433, 1480.

43.
Gleiss, vii, pp.1716-17.

44.
Christoph’s experiences are based on Gleiss, vii, pp.1433, 1480, 1616, 1620-1 and Ramm, pp.192-3.

45.
So Kämpfte Breslau
, pp.49-51, 52-3.

46.
Punishments based on Documenty No.35, No.49, and
Schlesische Tageszeitung
, 21/2/45.

47.
Documenty Nr.65.

48.
Gleiss, iii, pp.56, 65, 66 and
So Kämpfte Breslau
, pp.60-1.

49.
Gleiss, iii, p.117.

50.
Ibid., iii, p.118-19, 121.

51.
Ibid., iii, pp.183, 190-1, Van Aaken, pp.202-04,
So Kämpfte Breslau
, pp.55-6.

Chapter 6

The Breslau Method

Oh, you beautiful Breslau, how you have changed,
how you have turned into a field
of ruins and all because you are no fortress,
you were merely turned into one with words

Conrad Bischof

T
he first day of March 1945 was bright, mild, wonderful. The sun was strong enough now to melt the snow by day. The first spring bulbs were poking through the surface of the earth, the first green shoots timidly and slowly appearing. This augury of spring was the only hope. Life in Breslau, librarian Friedrich Grieger observed, “has gradually become like that of a besieged medieval fortress”. By day the streets were empty, except for military vehicles and fire engines. At first and last light, civilians rushed to and from their places of work, or dashed with pails to water fountains. Shops remained open. Butchers, bakers, grocers – all preferred to close, but were ordered not to by the Party. They received little custom, for as electrician Hermann Nowack wrote, “a shell can come through the window or door at any moment”. The traditional greeting of ‘Heil Hitler’ had long since been replaced by another:
Bleib übrig
– stay alive. In many parts of the city the mains had failed, flooding the churned-up streets. By night there was a macabre firework display as Russian searchlights, flak and tracer sought transport aircraft bound to and from Gandau airfield, while their loudspeakers proclaimed the latest Allied successes and repeatedly broadcast demands for Breslau’s surrender.
¹

Karl Hanke delivered his response on the evening of Saturday, 3 March. His speech was carried by the wire radio network across the city and, beyond Breslau, by state radio. It was mercifully short; the
Gauleiter
was neither a great writer nor passionate orator. Tonight his words were aimed less at the defenders of his city than what was left of Hitler’s ever-contracting empire. “When the history of the struggle for
Festung
Breslau is written one day, then it will have to remember all the men and women who today simply do their duty, unaware that they are setting an historic example.” At first light each morning, “tens of thousands of dutiful men and women” cleared rubble, rubbish and dust from the city’s streets “so that messengers, ambulances and trucks can make their way”. The people of Breslau had demonstrated to the entire world “that determined resistance halts even our Bolshevik foe”. He singled out the
Volkssturm
– “sixty-year-olds have often acted like young soldiers” – and the Hitler Youths. “Anyone who has seen these youths with their own eyes knows the truth of the words: with us comes the new age.” That new age would see the Silesian capital built anew, Hanke continued:

We do not know what Fate has decided for us and
Festung
Breslau; but one thing we do know when we look into the eyes of our youngest and most faithful of our fanatical youths: whatever happens after we’re gone, they will rebuild, yes here in Breslau, yes here in Lower Silesia, and for those who come after us it will be easy – just like the colonists of 1241 – to rebuild this city greater and more beautiful than it once was.

He called on the rest of the Germany to summon “the Reich’s final forces” to help the beleaguered city. Until that day of relief arrived, Breslauers would fight. “We in
Festung
Breslau vow to stand unshakeably with our faith in the Reich and the Führer, never to falter even though even more bitter days may come, to fight as long as there is an ounce of strength within us!”
²

Waiting at an airfield outside Schweidnitz for his flight into Breslau, Hermann Niehoff had listened to Karl Hanke’s speech. Now, three nights later, he would meet Breslau’s political master face-to-face for the first time. It was nearing midnight on 6 March as a group of junior SS officers led the general along a long corridor in Breslau’s
Oberpräsidium
and down numerous flights of stairs. The bowels of the Party headquarters, Niehoff realized, were “utterly bomb proof” – far more secure than his own dungeons on the Liebichshöhe. They were also far more sumptuous. There were offices, a telephone exchange, radio room, galley, pantry, canteen, showers, bedrooms with fine curtains. The SS officers showed the general into a large room, dominated by a diplomat’s writing table. Several people – some in SS uniforms, others in civilian clothes – rose. Hanke, in his brown
Gauleiter
’s suit adorned with red and gold braid, approached Niehoff and offered his hand. “So, my new commander is here,” he said. “Thank God. A hearty welcome!” The general bowed gently before the two men sat down. Niehoff said nothing. The
Gauleiter
spoke endlessly. To date, every general had been a
Nichtskönner
– washout. They had done nothing right, opposed his every action. But he ended encouragingly. “Now I’ve got the right man in you.”

Still Niehoff said nothing. Only when Hanke’s staff departed did he open up. He had come determined to lay down the law. He was the fortress commander, not Karl Hanke. “From today I alone give orders in all military questions!” Hanke leapt out of his chair. “That means you want to neutralize me!” The general was unapologetic. “If you want to put it that way, yes.” For a moment the
Gauleiter
looked at his belt lying on his desk – and his holstered pistol – before wearily directing his gaze back at Hermann Niehoff and offering the general his hand.
³

Back in his headquarters beneath the Liebichshöhe, the forty-seven-year-old fortress commander began to contemplate the task ahead. “I was in no doubt that I had to lead the battle for Breslau, this piece of German soil, with inflexible ruthlessness,” Niehoff wrote.
⁴
He told Breslauers as much in his first address to them as their general.

People of Breslau!

On the Führer’s orders I have taken over command of
Festung
Breslau.

Since my arrival in the fortress I have seen the admirable bearing of the populace and observed that in all areas what needs to be done is being done and the right forces are committed at the right places.

The struggle has made you hard and has strengthened your powers of resistance.

I am firmly convinced that every warrior, every working man, every woman and, not least, the youth of Breslau have given their best in defence of their home.

Given our dogged powers of resistance and the proven courage of the fortress, powerfully supported by our great Fatherland, utterly convinced that we will be victorious in the end, we will hold the fortress until there is a change of fortune.

The eyes of the Führer and all of Germany are upon us.

Long live the Führer!
⁵

The front Hermann Niehoff inherited was some thirty miles long – fifteen miles shorter than when Breslau was encircled three weeks earlier. In the north and east, the perimeter had barely changed its course. But in the west and south, all the outlying villages – Goldschmieden, Schmiedefeld, Lohbrück, Opperau, Hartlieb, Brockau – had fallen to the Red Army. Fighting raged in Breslau’s southern residential districts, while Soviet troops stood just a few hundred yards from the city’s lifeline, the airfield at Gandau. But never again would
frontoviki
advance as rapidly as they had during those first days after the city was surrounded. The reason was obvious. “There’s stubborn fighting for every house, usually for every floor, every cellar, every staircase,” Sixth Army war correspondent Vassily Malinin wrote. “You have to use all your strength, all your skill as a soldier and cunning.”
⁶
The Red Army had been introduced to the ‘Breslau method’. It began with inhabitants being driven out of their homes. The battlefield, first von Ahlfen and later Niehoff determined, was no place for the ordinary Breslauer. Block by block, street by street, civilians living near the front were evicted. The methods used were brutal. “Party representatives come in the middle of the night and, using every possibly threat, bully people into leaving their homes,” priest Paul Peikert wrote. There was no word of consolation, no word of comfort, no apology from the Nazi functionaries. “Their attitude was bossy,” Ernst Hornig recalled. “They thought that they alone had the authority to give orders, something which the populace viewed as arrogance and ruthlessness.”

Barely had people left their homes than the fire parties moved in to destroy the blocks. Hitler Youths were ordered to throw anything combustible out of the newly abandoned apartments: furniture, pictures, curtains, books, pianos. “We piled the items up in the street and set fire to then,” recalled Hitler Youth Peter Bannert. “If residents had seen their expensive possessions going up in flames, they would have been in tears.” Many did watch – and many did cry. Commercial properties fared no better. The boys carried files out of one bank and threw them on to a pyre. “Who knows whether we helped debtors or hurt creditors?” Bannert wondered half a century later.
⁷

Now the buildings were ripe for demolition. “As soon as we cleared a house, we set it on fire,” recalled Luftwaffe non-commissioned officer Herbert Richter. “Those were the orders – it prevented the Russians establishing themselves inside.” The Soviets sent fire-fighters inside to extinguish the blaze. The Germans counter-attacked with the aim of rekindling the flames.
⁸
Corner houses would often be left standing as high as the first floor and turned into strongpoints, with the rubble from the rest of the block offering protection, while the houses opposite were flattened to create a field of fire. Communications trenches carved up Breslau’s streets and open spaces, while cellar walls were knocked through so that troops, replacements, ammunition, food, the wounded could move around the city without ever having to set foot above ground.