Der vergessene Kessel von Halbe: Die größte Tragödie der Wehrmacht

60 kilometers south of Berlin lies a forest area that most Germans do not know about.  Pine and birch trees grow close together here.  Their roots burrow into the sandy soil of the Mark Brandenburg region. Anyone hiking through these forests today has no idea that beneath their feet lie the remains of one of the greatest tragedies of the Second World War.

  The Halbe forest cemetery contains over 28,000 dead.  It is one of the largest war cemetery cities in Germany.  And yet, while the Battle of Seelov Heights and the Battle of Berlin  are firmly anchored in the collective memory, the Battle of Halbe remains largely forgotten.  This forgetfulness has its reasons.

  The story that needs to be told here is not about heroism and military successes.  It deals with despair, senseless death, and the question of how high the price for escaping captivity should be.  To understand the events in Halbe, we must turn our gaze eastward to the or.  In mid-April 1945, the German Reich was on the verge of its end.

  In the west, American and British troops have crossed the Rhine .  In the east, the most powerful fighting force the Red Army has ever assembled is gathering.  Marshal Georgy Zhukov commands the First Belorussian Front.  Nearly 1 million soldiers, 3155 tanks, over 20,000 artillery pieces. His mission: to capture Berlin; his ambition: to be the first Soviet commander to enter the Reich capital.

South of Zhukov, Marshal Ivan Kevsten is operating on the Ukrainian front.  He also wants Berlin. Stalin deliberately fostered this competition between his marshals. Whoever chooses Berlin makes history. Facing the Soviet armies was the ninth German army under General of the Infantry Theodor Busse.

  Approximately 200,000 men.  But this number masks the true situation.  Many divisions exist only on paper.  The soldiers are exhausted, ammunition supplies are low, and fuel is running out.  The Soviet offensive begins on April 16th .  At 3:15 a.m. in the early morning light, thousands of Soviet guns opened fire.  A German non-commissioned officer who survived the attack later described it: “It was as if the world were ending.

” The Battle of the Seelober Heights became the largest tank battle on German soil. For four days, the Germans fought with a ferocity that  astonished even seasoned Soviet officers. But in the end, their superior numbers were too great. On April 19, the German front broke. The Ninth Army began to disintegrate.

 In Berlin, Adolf Hitler followed the fighting from the Reich Chancellery bunker. He still believed in a turning point. He ordered the Ninth Army to relieve Berlin from the south. An absurd order. The Ninth Army had no reserves, no tanks, no ammunition for an offensive. General Busse ignored the Führer’s order not for political reasons, but out of military necessity.

 He knew that if he advanced north towards Berlin , his army would be decimated. His only chance was a breakout to the west. But while Busse was still planning, the trap closed. The Soviet tank units advanced with breathtaking speed. Konev’s First Ukrainian Front  The Soviets are advancing from the south.

 Zhukov’s troops are coming from the north and east. On April 2nd, the catastrophe becomes apparent. Soviet units cut off all roads to the south. On April 23rd, the fortress commander of Frankfurt an der Oder evacuates the city. The garrison tries to fight its way to the remnants of the Ninth Army. On April 24th, the ring closes.

 Over 100,000 German soldiers are trapped in a pocket stretching between Merkischbuchholz, Halbe, and Teupitz . The pocket measures approximately 1,200 square kilometers, but it shrinks with each passing hour. This pocket contains not only soldiers. Tens of thousands of civilians are also trapped: refugees from Silesia and the east who fled the Red Army, inhabitants of the surrounding villages, forced laborers from Eastern Europe, women, children, and the elderly.

 Estimates range from 150,000 to 200,000 people. They all share the same fate. The forests of Merkischbuchholz are transformed into a hell. Those who spent the days in the pocket  Those who survived still speak of it decades later with a trembling voice. The Soviet Air Force possessed absolute air superiority.

 Fighter-bombers ripped through the forests with their cannons . Hour after hour, they circled above the treetops, firing at anything that moved. A Wehrmacht officer recalls: “It was absolute hell in the pocket . For days, the fighter planes flew and razed the forests, unhindered by any defensive forces. The T-34s drove into the woods and shot their way through .

 The forests were crammed with people—soldiers, civilians, convoys of vehicles. Wounded men lay among the pines , calling for medics . There were no more medics. There were no bandages. There was no comfort. The Red Army artillery systematically shelled the pocket . Mortar fire and bombing raids created a terrible bloodbath.

 The forest paths along which the Germans wanted to retreat became death lanes. A survivor later wrote: “Countless wounded  They were lying in holes in the ground or in vehicles.  One constantly stumbled across mutilated corpses.  It was simply awful not being able to help. Thirst becomes torture. The canteen has to last for days.

  The water in the ditches is contaminated with corpses, gasoline, and blood. By April 27th, the crater had shrunk to a small wooded area. Here, the last combat-ready units are crowded together, mixed with civilians and wounded.  The Soviet leadership sends an offer of surrender. General Busse refuses.  This decision remains controversial to this day.

Was it duty or irresponsibility, rescue or catastrophe?  Busse faces a dilemma that no textbook covers.  He can surrender and  lead his soldiers into Soviet captivity.  Or he can attempt a breakout to the west, even though he knows that thousands will die in the process .  Soviet captivity is a nightmare for German soldiers.

Millions of German soldiers were captured by the Red Army during the course of the war .  Over a million of them will not return.  The last survivors were not released from the camps until 10 years later, in 1955 .  Busse is familiar with the crimes committed by the Wehrmacht and SS in the Soviet Union.

  He suspects what kind of retribution awaits his soldiers .  His decision is final. He wants to break through to the west, to the Elbe, to the Americans.  In the west, the Twelfth Army is operating under General Walter Wenk.  The so-called Army Wenk was Hitler’s last hope. But Wenk has long since abandoned the order to terrorize Berlin.

  He too plans to lead his troops to the Elbe .  Busse and Wenk are coordinating the outbreak.  Wenk is supposed to open a corridor from the west .  The meeting point is Belitz, south of Potsdam.  The outbreak begins on the night of April 28th to 29th .  It is the last organized operation of the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.

  The breakout from the encirclement is not a battle in the classical sense. It is a desperate race for life, a chaos of violence and mortal fear.  The German assault troops are led by the SS Panzer Choir.  Leading the way is the tank unit of the Kurmark Panzergrenadier Division. Crowds are pressed together behind the tanks. Infantry, supply troops, wounded on carts and horse-drawn wagons, civilians with the few belongings they have, could be rescued.

  The route leads through the town of Halbe.  This is where the worst scenes occur.  The streets of Halbe, especially near the furniture factory and the railway crossing, are littered with corpses.  Harry Schäfer, then 15 years old, remembers the subsequent cleanup work.  Among destroyed vehicles, tanks, cannons and dead horses lay dead soldiers, officers, men, women and children.

So-called Seitlitz troops are operating in the forests.  They are former German soldiers who were taken prisoner by the Soviets and are now working for the Red Army.  They wear German uniforms and try to direct the fleeing people into Soviet positions .  Günther Lysk, a 16-year-old soldier in the Waffen-SS, is one of the youngest in the cauldron.

  His only advantage is that he can walk, unlike the thousands of wounded who have to stay behind.  “I was brave and wanted to head west,” he recalls.  We set off with bloody feet and no provisions.  On April 29th, the first German units broke through the Soviet defensive lines. They reach the area northwest of Luckenwalde via Kummersdorf.

  General Wenk kept his word.  His twelfth army has kept a corridor open through which the survivors can escape.  On the morning of May 1, 1945, the vanguard of the Ninth Army reached the lines of the Twelfth Army near Belitz. Among the soldiers of the twelfth army was a young man named Hans Dietrich Genscher.  The future German Foreign Minister will report on this in his memos.

  The first soldiers of the Ninth Army I encountered were staff officers with submachine guns slung over their shoulders. It is an image that depicts the dissolution of all military order. Staff officers do not carry submachine guns, but this morning the rules no longer apply .  Approximately 25,000 German soldiers and 5,000 civilians reach the lines.

  From there, the march continues to the Elbe River. The first survivors reached Tangermünde on May 3rd.  The bridge was blown up, but a narrow wooden footbridge has been built on the rubble.  On the other side, the Americans are waiting. The situation is more complicated for civilians.  The surrender conditions do not allow them to transfer.

Nevertheless, an unknown number manage to reach the other side with the help of German soldiers.  But for every one who escapes, there are dozens who remain behind.  Most of the troops trapped in the encirclement did not manage to break out.  Approximately 120,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner by the Soviets, and then there were the dead.

  The fight to break out cost the lives of approximately 20,000 Soviet soldiers.  30,000 German soldiers die, at least 10,000 German civilians, although the actual number is probably higher.  60,000 people die on the 60 km stretch from Merkisch Buchholz to Belitz .  If you were to put a cross on every dead person along this route, there would be one every meter.

  When the fighting ends on May 1st, the burial work begins.  Approximately 40,000 bodies lie scattered in the forests.  There is a risk of such diseases.  There is highly explosive ammunition lying everywhere.  The stench of decay is unbearable. Residents of the area, German prisoners of war, and Soviet soldiers begin the funerals. Temporary graves will be prepared by the beginning of June .

  Often they are mass graves, because the bodies are often unidentifiable. In the summer, a man will come to Halbe who will dedicate his life to remembering the dead .  Pastor Ernst Teichmann is 41 years old and served in the Wehrmacht for 5 years .  As he wanders through the woods, he sees the traces of the carnage, dilapidated graves, scattered bones, forgotten dead.

  Teichmann, with the help of local residents, begins to locate unknown burial sites .  The East German authorities have little interest in German war graves, but Teichmann does not give up.  With the support of the Church and Bishop Otto Dibelius, he achieves what others have failed to do .

  The reburials begin on November 1, 1951 .  The Halbe forest cemetery is being built on a 7- hectare wooded area .  Teichmann develops a meticulous method for identifying the dead. Dog tags, wedding rings, pay books. Every piece of information is documented.  He writes thousands of letters to relatives.   They are not heroes.  Teichmann says they are men who just wanted to go home.

Who bears the responsibility for the tragedy?  The simple answer: Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist regime.  But the story is more complex.  General Busse had the option to surrender.  His decision to attempt the breakout cost 30,000 people their lives. His defenders argue that he   saved hundreds of soldiers from Soviet captivity.  His critics respond.

  The fighting had no effect whatsoever on the border.  This had already been decided at the Yalta conference .  Halbel was already located in the future Soviet occupation zone. The transfer of 25,000 soldiers into Western Allied captivity cost 60,000 lives.  It’s a calculation where it’s impossible to say whether it will work out.

  Anyone hiking through the forests near Halbe today will find hardly any traces of the horror.  The pine trees are growing; nature has reclaimed itself. Forestry workers occasionally still come across remnants.  The generation of eyewitnesses is dying out. What remains is the task of preserving history without glorifying it, honoring the dead without making heroes of them.

Today, over 24,000 people are buried in the Halbe forest cemetery .  German soldiers and civilians, Soviet forced laborers, victims of the Ketschendorf special camp .  The cemetery unites perpetrators and victims.  They were not heroes, they were men who just wanted to go home.  This sentence contains no pathos, no glorification.

  It contains only the simple truth.  Young men, some barely older than children, were trying to escape a senseless war .  Many died in the process.  Her death was not heroic.  Above all, he was avoidable.  The forgotten cauldron reminds us that at the end of every war there is not glory and honor, but only suffering and death.