SS Charlemagne: The 33rd Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS

b) The 2nd/57th and HQ 57th Regt (Captain de Bourmont) towards Geglenfelde. (For tactical reasons the 57th Regiment was provisionally attached to the 32nd Infantry Division and was to hold the prescribed line of the front for about 7km running from south of Heinrichswalde to east of Barkenfelde. The right wing of the 32nd Infantry Division extended as far as Bärenhutte railway station.)

c) The 1st/58th (Captain Emile Monneuse) and HQ 58th Regt (Captain Emile Raybaud) to Barenhutte as the divisional reserve.

However, it should be noted that not only was the Division incomplete, but it was going into action with only those items, including ammunition, that it had brought with it. There were no radios and only a few maps. The military installation at Hammerstein was empty of all military stores as a result of its previous use as a prisoner-of-war camp.

Fenet’s 1st/57th left its temporary position and advanced towards Heinrichswalde, which it was to occupy and defend as a firm base of operations, but its march was delayed by the very poor state of the road. At times the carts carrying their heavy weapons and ammunition sank up to their hubs in the mud through which the troops had to march, while refugees fleeing in the opposite direction forced them to the side of the road. On the way Lieutenant Fenet learned that the Russians had broken through and were also heading for Heinrichswalde. The battalion immediately prepared to encounter the enemy.

Towards 1900 hours, as night fell, Second-Lieutenant Counil’s leading 3rd Company was approaching Heinrichswalde when it was met by a hail of fire. The enemy had just occupied the village without a fight, for the front in this sector appeared to have been completely abandoned. Second-Lieutenant Counil estimated the enemy effectives no more than a company, so Lieutenant Fenet decided to attack in strength.

The 3rd Company would pin down the enemy from the south-west, the 1st Company would surround the village from the southeast and Lieutenant Bartholomei’s 2nd Company from the northwest. During the mortar preparation by Staff-Sergeant Couvreur’s 4th Company, the 2nd Company was to establish contact with the 2nd Battalion on the left, but none of the patrols sent out were able to make contact with anyone in that direction. The mortar preparation proved of short duration, as the ammunition soon ran out.

The 1st and 3rd Companies attacked, while the 2nd Company swept the ground to the east with automatic weapons, reducing the enemy resistance in the village. But the enemy machine guns proved judiciously well placed and the enemy effectives were now estimated at being a battalion. Flares and a clear night prevented further progress.

The 3rd Company advanced at the cost of very heavy losses, Second-Lieutenant Counil being killed, and rapidly reached the centre of the village, which it occupied and began to clear. When the 1st Company tried to advance, it was quickly checked by violent fire coming from heavy weapons. There was some hesitation, and a tentative flanking movement had no more success than the direct attack. The 2nd Company could not move, as enemy fire had it pinned down and the enemy could not be dislodged from this part of the village.

At this moment, the Soviets launched a violent counterattack to retake the village. The 3rd Company, reinforced by Battalion HQ, and supported by the fire of the other companies, intervened and neatly stopped the Russians, who resumed their attack several times, being rebuffed each time. Eventually Lieutenant Fenet was thinking of surrounding Heinrichswalde left and right with his 1st and 2nd Companies in a concentric attack, when the 1st Company signalled that Russians were advancing northwards unopposed between the Schönwerder and Peterswalde roads. The 2nd Company also reported that strong Russian infantry formations were advancing non-stop on Barkenfelde.

Towards midnight the Russians conducted a reconnaissance in strength with an infantry company reinforced by anti-tank guns and mortars advancing towards the 6th Company. The company commander, Second-Lieutenant Brunet, allowed the enemy to approach to within 20m of his positions before opening a murderous fire to cut down the attackers. The survivors avoided coming to close-quarter fighting and fled, but a little later a terrible bombardment fell on the battalion’s positions for about an hour from Soviet artillery, 80mm and 120mm mortars, 76mm anti-tank guns and Stalin Organ rockets.

However, the two wings of Fenet’s 1st/57th were now in the air, already bypassed, with no chance of liaison to either left or right, and about to be surrounded.