Avescope HORROR

The Horror of Halbe
Photos:
Modern: LD Towers
Historical: Deutsches Bundesarchiv
In English, when one army completely encircles another,
we call it a pocket or an encirclement. In German, they call
it a kessel, translated as a kettle. A boiler. I’ve always
thought the German translation has more descriptive
flavour. Being trapped in a pocket could almost sound
benign. Being trapped in a kettle makes you feel the
water getting hotter and hotter. The only thing to do in a
kettle is boil.
World War Two has many famous pocket battles.
Stalingrad turned into a pocket battle. The battle of
Arnhem during Operation Market Garden. The Battle of
the Falaise Pocket just after the D-Day landings. If one
were to list the encirclements on the Eastern Front, the
list would be huge.
But this article is about one particular pocket, the Battle
of Halbe. As the Germans call it, the Kesselschlacht von
Halbe, or the Kessel von Halbe. Schlact in German is
battle. Halbe is one of the battles talked about when one
discusses the Battles of Berlin and because of this is
somewhat overlooked.. The last ditch efforts to save the
besieged city of Berlin from the Red Army are well studied
on the whole. The most famous of these is the Battle of
the Seelow Heights and the fighting on the Eastern side
of Berlin seems to get most of the attention. What most
people don’t realise is that when Marshals Zhukov and
Konev attacked Berlin, they did soon all sides to ensure a
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LD Towers
complete victory. It is said that there was a gentleman’s
agreement between President Roosevelt and Stalin that
the Soviets could take the city of Berlin and I personally
believe that. For whatever reason, Eisenhower held his
forces at Elbe and left Berlin to the Red Army.
Halbe is a tiny municipality in the Spreewald Forest, about
50km/30 miles south of Berlin. It rests near the Dahme
River and the whole area is beautiful to drive through, but
it is the site of one of the most terrible scenes of the war.
The ground still aches from it. People enjoying the forests
are instructed to stay to the paths because there is still
danger in those green glens. Some areas are, to this day,
barred from the public.
So what happened? The battle of Halbe officially started
on April 24, 1945, when the forces of the German Ninth
Army became completely encircled by the approaching
Red Army of the Soviet Union. South of Berlin were,
officially, three armies. The German Twelth Army, under
the command of General Wenck was to the south west,
officially to halt an American invasion of the city. The
Ninth, approximately 150 000 men under the command
of General Busse, was in the center to the south. Army
Group Vistula, part of the Waffen SS forces under General
Heinrici was in the south east. 120km/75 miles further
south east was General Steiner and the 4th Panzer Corps
trying to hold the Red Army off at Cottbus.