Walking the Ground – Kaiserbahnhof Halbe

This is the Kaiserbahnhof building and adjacent buildings, which today serve as Halbe’s train station. 

On the 28th of April 1945, as the German 9th Army was attempting to break through the Soviet defences in Halbe, a small Kampfgruppe split off from the main breakout force and tried to slip through the Kaiserbahnhof complex, which had been manned by dozens of Soviet troops. 

The Kampfgruppe, led by SS Hauptsturmführer Krauß, had plenty of civilians (including children) in tow. 

Krauß later described the assault:

“There, in front of us, along the railway embankment, stood a red-brick building occupied by the Soviets who were busy firing at us with machine guns and artillery.(…)

I gathered around me a few sergeants, soldiers, and civilians. I then told those crowding around me that anyone prepared to fight, civilians included, should get ready. ‘Whoever’s still got a weapon and ammunition should shoot the living daylights out of this position. The rest shout “Hurrah!”

‘Forwards, grenadiers, forwards!’ I screamed and charged ahead. And wouldn’t you know it: the whole lot of them, soldiers, civilians, women, and children started racing after me towards the Russians.

They must have been so taken aback that they hardly fired in our direction, fleeing by the hundreds. We stormed forwards a few hundred metres past the station building and barely fired a shot. Then, suddenly, we realised that we’d made it – we had broken through. We had actually managed to cross the embankment without suffering any serious casualties.”

When I visited the train station recently, I went hunting for spang and found lots of damage to the buildings – and clearly some “patch-up” jobs where old damage had been repaired.