Life and Freedom! Among them a Knight's Cross Holder

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Gentlemen,

Army Group Center was destroyed. Countless German soldiers had been killed,wounded or had gone missing for good. Those that were captured were assembled by the Red Army and forced to march to the great assembly camps,suffering from hunger and thirst.
Still there were thousands who had slipped through the enemy forces all around them and sought to make their way west to where the German lines must be. Their watchword was:Life and freedom! No more than 900 men escaped from the various pockets in which the units of the army group had ended up. The most senior rank to escape to the German lines was a Major who was a Knight's Cross holder. He had to make his way back alone,walking barefoot at the end. Does anyone knows the name of that Knight's Cross holder?
Source is from the book "Ostfront 1944" by Alex Buchner.

Sincerely,

Edward L. Hsiao