11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland - The Final Battle

The Final Battle

On 16 April, Nordland was ordered back into the line east of Berlin. Despite recent replenishment, the division was still grossly understrength and, with the exception of the French and Spanish, many of the new recruits had little if any combat experience. From the 17 to the 20 April the division was involved in constant combat all along its front, and was pushed back into the city itself. On 24 April, the main Soviet assault was towards the Treptow Park area, where the rest of the Pioneer battalion and the few remaining Tiger tanks of Panzer battalion Hermann von Salza were defending. Obersturmbannführer Kausch led the few tanks and armoured vehicles in a counter attack and succeeded in temporarily halting the enemy advance at the cost of some of his last vehicles. However, by midday, the 5th Shock Army was able to advance again. A later counter-attack by three assault guns was stopped by a Soviet soldier named Shulzhenok with three captured German Panzerfaust.

On 25 April, Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg was appointed the commander of (Berlin) Defence Sector C which included the Nordland Division, whose previous commander Joachim Ziegler was relieved of his command the same day. The arrival of the French SS men bolstered the Nordland Division whose "Norge" and "Danmark" Panzergrenadier regiments had been decimated in the fighting. They both equaled roughly a battalion.

By 26 April, with Neukölln heavily penetrated by Soviet combat groups, Krukenberg prepared fallback positions for Sector C defenders around Hermannplatz. He moved his headquarters into the opera house. As the Nordland Division fell back towards Hermannplatz the French SS and one-hundred Hitler Youth attached to their group destroyed 14 Soviet tanks with panzerfausts, and one machine gun position by the Halensee bridge managed to hold up any Soviet advances in that area for 48 hours. The Nordlands remaining armour, eight Tiger tanks and several assault guns, were ordered to take up positions in the Tiergarten, because although the two divisions of Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps could slow the Soviet advance they could not stop it.

On 27 April, after a spirited but futile defence, the remnants of Nordland were pushed back into the central government district (Zitadelle sector) in Defence sectore Z. There Krukenberg's Nordland headquarters was a carriage in the Stadtmitte U-Bahn station. Thereafter, the defenders of the government district were pushed back into the Reichstag and Reich Chancellery. For the next few days, the few survivors of the division held out against overwhelming odds. On 30 April, after receiving news of Hitler's suicide, orders were issued that those who could do so were to break out. Prior to the breakout Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke briefed all commanders that could be reached within the Zitadelle sector about the events as to Hitler's death and the planned breakout. The break out from the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker started at 2300 hours on 1 May. There were ten main groups that attempted to head north west towards Mecklenburg.

Fierce fighting continued all around especially in the Weidendammer Bridge area. What was left of the Nordland Division under Krukenberg fought hard in that area but Soviet artillery and anti-tank guns dispatched the groups. The Nordlands last Tiger was knocked out attempting to cross the Weidendammer Bridge. Others such as the 3rd (Swedish) Company of the Reconnaissance battalion fought a desperate and ultimately useless battle to escape the surrounding Soviets, as described by Erik Wallin in the book 'Twilight of the Gods'. Several very small groups managed to reach the Americans at the Elbe's west bank, but most (including Mohnke's group and men from Krukenberg's group) could not make it through the Soviet rings. Krukenberg made it to Dahlem, where he hid out in an apartment for a week but then had to surrender.

On 2 May hostilities officially ended by order of Helmuth Weidling, Kommandant of the Defence Area Berlin and General of Artillery. All remaining pockets of resistance were mopped up by the Red Army and the 80,000 or so Prisoners of War were marched east. Many SS men, loyal to their oath to Hitler, had already either fought to the death or taken their own lives. Of the few survivors who reached the Western Allies' lines, most were handed over to their respective countries and tried as traitors, some serving prison time and a few even receiving the death penalty.