east to create a diversion and, due to the heavy enemy mortar and machine gun fire, contact with him and his group was soon lost.
Using the cover of the thick smoke and dust of an artillery barrage, Captain Boge’s group reached the hollow southwest of Klessin just ahead of a group of twenty to thirty Soviets and were able to use captured Panzerfausts found in the hollow to blast their way through and reach the unoccupied first and second lines of Soviet trenches. By this time the Soviet troops were fully alerted and using flares and Verey lights to illuminate the breakthrough point, which was brought under heavy machine gun fire from both north and south. But Boge’s men, using the last hand grenades and Panzerfausts stormed the third, heavily-manned Soviet trench and broke through, just 26 of them reaching the German lines.
Meanwhile Lieutenant Schone’s group reached the potato shed and then followed the track west across the fields for about thirty minutes before they too had to storm the last of the Soviet trenches. Using the last of their strength, some 30-35 men, including some severely wounded, got through to the German lines. Several others were to slip through the Soviet lines during the course of the night and reach the neighbouring Grenadier Regiment 1241.
The Political Department of the Russian 8th Guards Army utilised the victory over Klessin to issue a special pamphlet aimed at the 1242nd with the text:
SOLDIERS of the Officer Cadet Grenadier Regiment 1242! More than 300 German soldiers were surrounded in Klessin. On the 23rd March 1945 the entire garrison was destroyed. No man broke through to their own lines. 75 men raised the white flag and stayed alive. All the others died senselessly.
HITLER IS TO BLAME!
He began this senseless war. He demanded in his orders: “
YOUR COMMANDERS ARE TO BLAME!
They did not withdraw the troops from Klessin when they should have done and then condemned them to death with lying promises. With their futile attempts at relief they sent hundreds of other soldiers to their deaths, as well as squandering many tanks and self-propelled guns.
When the war ended, just part of the front portal of the Schloss remained, together with the rusting hulks of the destroyed German and Soviet tanks. Tens of thousands of mines littered the landscape. The mines and hulks were removed and the remaining ruins collapsed. Later the hamlet was revived with the construction of a row of houses along the Wuhden road and two cottages on the old site.
In 1995 a stone was unveiled in Wuhden commemorating those who had fought and died on the Reitwein Spur, with the inscription:
FIVE
The Bridge at Golzow
HORST ZOBEL (6 MAY 1918 – 3 OCT 1999)
Horst Zobel, as a captain, commanded the 1st Battalion of Panzer-Regiment ‘Muncheberg‘ in the fighting in the Oderbruch. Here he relates his experiences near Golzow as the Soviet 5th Shock and 8th Guards Armies united their bridgeheads, isolating the fortress of Kustrin. Zobel’s newly-formed battalion was under threat of disbandment at the time.
Suddenly the division was allocated a sector of the front and, as the preparations for our proposed disbandment were not yet complete, we were committed intact. At the commanders’ conference at Division, I was able to establish that at least two of my squadrons would be included, although our mixed 2nd Squadron would have to detach its SPG (self-propelled gun) Troop to secure the Kustrin ‘corridor’. It had unfortunately become the practice for the tanks to be split up on the ground in order to reinforce strong points. This tactic had been born out of the necessity of the time, the tanks being needed to bolster the fighting spirit of the infantry, and was known as ‘corsetting’. Only after I had pointed out that the completely flat terrain with its kilometres-long visibility enabled me to guarantee that I would be in a position to repel any attack promptly, were my proposals for deployment accepted. Fortunately, I had enough time to inspect my squadron commanders’ individual areas and to give them explicit instructions before we drove out to our positions on what must have been the night of 20/21 March 1945. That same night the individual tanks were dug in and camouflaged. I was able to assure myself next day that the tanks were superbly camouflaged from view both from the front and above, and that many had a field of fire of from two to three kilometres.
The 2nd Squadron, less one troop, was located in Gorgast, the 3rd Squadron in Golzow, while the 1st Squadron blocked the highway at the Tucheband level. I and my staff were located with the 3rd Squadron at Golzow. My command post, there being not much of a choice, was located in a cellar that was spacious, but unfortunately very high-ceilinged. The tank crews were also sheltering in cellars when not required to be in their tanks, as the Russians were using harassing fire and heavy bombardments at irregular intervals on the villages, which had been almost completely cleared of civilians.
We believed the danger of being detached from the division was over, but the very next day the new regimental commander, Major Marquand, visited us with his staff to see our positions and be briefed, as he would be taking over command the day after. There was nothing we could do but accept orders and await our fate.
So we came to 22 March, the day of our intended relief. We were all in our improvised lager – it must have been about 0600 hours – when the morning quiet was torn apart by a chain of powerful explosions that caused us to leap up in shock and take cover in the corners of the room, as the house rocked down to its foundations. The next moment the windows blew in and a whole flood of plaster and stones swept into the cellar, followed by a thick cloud of dust that darkened everything around us. Our lovely, high-ceilinged cellar threatened to be our undoing. The explosions and splintering continued, hit following hit. With an effort, we were able to hang some rugs over the windows. Now we crouched in the dark while the shells crashed down around our house. Whenever the house sustained a direct hit, everything shook around us. It was simply impossible to leave the cellar and climb into our tanks. The telephone lines were already shot through. We sat close together and waited for what was to come. How long this lasted, I cannot say, all sense of time having left us.
Quite suddenly a feeling of unease came over me. This unease I knew of old. Its meaning was quite clear; we had to get out of here and into our tanks. It was high time. The shells were still hailing down on our house, which unfortunately lay in the middle of the village. One by one we leapt out of the cellar into our tanks. It was a wonder that no one was hit, and even more a wonder that all the tanks except one, which had only minor damage, were still fully serviceable. All the company’s crews were aboard when we formed up on the street with our tanks
