The Siege of Kustrin 1945: Gateway to Berlin [Hardcover]

I already had a book by Tony Le Tisser namely "Slaughter on the Halbe" so I had a a reasonable idea of what to expect from the authour and his writing style.

As usual he has a large number of personal recollections from veterans, civilians, Hitler Youth and Volksstrum who fought at the city of Kustrin which was seen as the gateway to Berlin.

Hitler ordered Kustrin, on the River Oder and only 50 miles from Berlin to be held as a Fortress city and the men in the city had no choice but to obey their fuhrer and hold on at all costs.

The Russians needed the road/rail bridges for the attack on Berlin, and even though two Soviet armies beseiged the town the Germans were able to hang on grimly and were assisted by strategic blunders from the attackers.

The book is taken from the German point of view and deals with the fighting for the city over the next 60 days in a siege from January - February 1945 where much of the city was destroyed.

With the initial Russian attempt to capture the city defeated, the Russians brought in artillery and ground attack aircraft to soften up the the patch work defenders of the city. Gradually the Russian attacks wore down the defenders will and with their supply lines cut and totally surrounded, the defenders made a large scale breakout against Hitlers orders to rejoin the German lines.

With around 14,000 german casualties (+ 6,000 prisoners) and 20,000 Russian, the siege finally came to an end with the capture of the city and the Russians could move on and plan for the assault on Berlin.

There are very few photos of the action, from either the Germans or Russians and the minimal maps are spread throughout the book.

My own opinion is that the personal recollections are a little over done in trying to tell the story.

Counter attacks outside the city by other units are only briefly touched on as the main emphasis deals with the fighting in the city.

However as one of the few books around which concerns this type of warfare, on the Eastern front in the closing months of the war, this book is a good addition to your library.

The author provides the tactical level perspective on the German defense of the city of Kustrin prior to the battle of Berlin. This city was a key logistical hub over the Oder River to Berlin with its connection of roads and railways. The city's defense gave the Germans additional time to prepare Berlin for defense.

This book gained my interest after reading Zhukov at the Oder, by the same author. Wanted to learn more about the battle. The book has minimal information from the Russian perspective and provides some strategic overview. The strength of this book is the many first person accounts from the Germans involved. This provides a unique perspective on the logistics and command decisions that impacted the civilians and soldiers.

What is interesting is how the German civilian populace had organized support for food and shelter for the refugees escaping the oncoming Russian troops. Refugees were cared for and when transportation available, evacuated. The problem occurred when the ineffective political cronies denied the truth from the populace and prevented their early evacuation. It was viewed as defeatism and would create panic. The result was thousands of civilians suffered and became casualties during the siege. Civilians who were later captured were abused, especially the women, by the Russians as retribution for what the Germans had previously done to the Russian civilians. The failure of the N*zi political party to make the decision to evacuate and protect the German civilians from harm is told by the witnesses and their first hand accounts.

The book describes the deteriorating situation of fewer skilled soldiers, lack of effective leadership, declining morale, declining discipline, and the horrendously poor strategic military decisions by H*tler and his cronies, that resulted in thousands of dead and captured German soldiers and civilians. During this time period, the German Army had a shortage of tanks, fuel, and proper weapons. Many of the Volkstrum soldiers (high school students and old World War I veterans) were issued obsolete weapons and had minimal training.

Meanwhile, officer candidates were formed into their own companies and sent into ill prepared and under equipped counterattacks that resulted in the loss of badly needed leadership and experienced soldiers. Annex C is the personal report from the District Party Leader that questions the use of the officer candidates in this manner. This is very interesting concept as his suggestion would be to spread these skilled leaders to help train, motivate, and discipline the Volkstrum and regular army units. In theory, this would have improved the overall fighting capabilities of the German units, rather than having a handful of units that were overwhelmed by the superior Russian numbers and firepower.

The defense was able to hold as their stockpile of munitions and food were available in the "new city" side of the town. Once it fell, the German defense became untenable. The Russians already had an overwhelming superiority of artillery (including many captured weapons and ammunition) and once the Russian supply lines and advanced airfields were built, unending air attacks. Unfortunately for the Germans, the senseless H*tler order to hold every inch of ground to the death meant that thousands of German soldiers were taken prisoner when their ammunition ran out. Had they been allowed to retreat to Berlin a week earlier, thousands of valuable troops would have been available for the final defense.

Another interesting topic is how the Germans transferred the American Red Cross packages for the prisoners of war, when they were evacuated. The Germans honored the Red Cross agreement and did not re-distribute the packages to their own soldiers and civilians. The Germans even had mail stockpiled, undelivered. However, once the situation became hopeless, looting became more prevalent.

A repetitive comment made by the first hand accounts is the senseless execution of "deserters" and looters. Looting was a crime, but given the lack of rations, many were searching for food during the siege. Desertion was such a concern, that the approximately thousand soldiers who escaped the final encirclement were questioned as traitors. The political leadership wanted these soldiers to martyr themselves instead of being alive to fight and defend Berlin. Simply mind boggling in being viewed a traitor by avoiding capture to live and fight another day for your country.

Overall, this is a good book (library reading) depicting the ground level, tactical perspective of how the Germans defended the city and took care of the civilian refugees. One negative is that the maps are difficult to read. Another negative is the first person accounts are simply quoted and do not flow as well as written by Franz Kurowski and his series of books.

Kustrin, at the confluence of the Oder and Warthe Rivers and gateway to Berlin, has been an important communication junction for centuries. This book is a verbal history of the people encircled in this crucial gateway in 1945.
This book is largely based on the memoirs of Fritz Kohlase and Hermann Thrams and other members of the doomed city.

While Zhukov and his 1st BRF approached the Oder, encircled the city in January and would nibble away at it with daily air raids, artillery barrages and the occasional probing attack, the main assault would not take place until early March. It would take the Soviets a month to secure the fortress city. Suburbs of Neustadt, Altstadt have the spotlight in this struggle but nearby Kietz, Gorgast, Vorlut Canal, and the Oder River crossing is also covered.
During these three months, the author describes the happenstances of the garrison and civilians, from the mundane to the life threatening, in a doomed situation that Hitler created. He wanted to hold the city at all cost but couldn't supply it with heavy weapons or ammunition or sufficient men and other supplies. You will read about individual soldiers in their front line trenches facing superior forces and T34s attacking them. There is also coverage of the local Nazi Party trying to keep the city under control while the citizen's fears escalate.
While the portrait of the trapped lives is good, the operational coverage of the assault, while having some interesting details, is sadly overall anemic. In fact the chapter on Kustrin in the author's "Zhukov at the Oder" presents a clearer picture of the battle.
There are eleven maps and they're pretty good but you'll have to invest some time to understand them. These maps are the same maps in the author's other book just mentioned.
There is a Notes section and a Bibliography but the list is mostly German so its usefulness, at least for some of us, will be limited. There is also a small but interesting gallery of photos of the key sites of the city. The extensive Appendix presents letters and action reports showing the desperation in the city.

I gave this book three stars for two reasons: First, though the operational aspects were never meant to be the main theme, the author should have still developed the operational aspect fuller in order to support the anecdotes better and to allow the reader to have a better understanding of the siege.
Secondly, while the author does as good a job as anybody in lacing the available anecdotes together, it still wasn't enough along with the little operational aspects, to gleam a solid appreciation of the siege. Perhaps its the scale or intensity that's different but reading about the siege of Stalingrad and Leningrad was more thought provoking and stirred greater compassion for the people.