Walking the Ground – Kaiserbahnhof Halbe #2

The breakout from the Halbe Pocket begins

The latest episode of Encircled: The Halbe Pocket Podcast, episode 1.10, covers the 28th of April 1945 – the fateful day when the German 9th Army launched their final breakout attempt through Halbe.

The train crossing in Halbe saw some of the bloodiest fighting that day, as here the lead tanks of the German armoured spearhead were stopped by a heavily defended Soviet anti-tank barrier guarding the entrance into town. – With the tanks’ progress temporarily halted, the Soviet troops positioned in the surrounding houses seized that moment to unleash all manner of hellfire down onto the column of German tanks, troops, and escaping refugees.

As Oberscharführer Ernst Streng, from the 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, described:

“After some hundred metres, the column comes to a standstill. Kuhnke radios that he has got 30 metres short of the anti-tank barrier and is asking for infantry support. I don’t have a clear view of the blockade. In the meantime, the streets are choked with trucks and exploding shells. Soldiers and civilians jam themselves in between the trees lining Angerstrasse, which is thirty metres wide. I turn off to the right in order to orientate myself. Enemy shells relentlessly pound the surrounding buildings and the Lindenstrasse.

Smoke billowing from the buildings covers the battleground, tongues of bright flame leap skywards. Lofts are alight, blazing fires illuminating the ghostly night. The murderous attacks reach a crescendo, and total chaos follows: the break-through of the Ninth Army has reached its climax.”

It’s not melodramatic at all to say that the events of the 28th of April transformed Halbe into hell-on-earth. And the utter brutality and carnage of the fighting between the Germans and the Soviets that day would leave a trail of death and destruction throughout the town, which would scar the people of Halbe for years to come.