From Chuikov(Commander, 8th Guards Army) "The End of the Third Reich", pages 154-155:
"The 8th Guards Army reached the Oder on February 1, 1945. Without waiting for reinforcements, I ordered the 4th Guards Rifle Corps (Gen. Glazunov) to cross the Oder in its stride and by nightfall, on February 2nd, to secure a bridgehead on the western bank and occupy Kustrin's southern suburbs–Kietz, Manschow, and Rathstock.
The 28th Guards Rifle Corps was to cross the oder and establish a bridgehead in the sector Hathenor–Podelzig–Klessin.
Further to the left, the 1st Guards Tank Army also reached the river and stopped, having no crossing facilities. On the right, the 5th Shock Army upon reaching the river on February 1st began to cross it using rafting expedients.
At 1000hrs. On February 2nd, I visited the observation post of General Glazunov commanding the 4th Guards Rifle Corps. The OP had been set up on the ruins of a fort outside the village of Zabice, south of Kustrin. The Corps had already deployed alongside a dike between Kustrin and Gorzyca poised to cross the Oder.
On February 2nd, our scouts crossed the Oder, reached the Seelowe-kustrin highway and captured two officers of the German General Staff."
Chuikov's unadorned account hints at several interesting issues. The Red Army advance to the Oder had been so precipitous that bridging materials were not immediately available. He also states quite bluntly that his Army was hindered by Luftwaffe attacks upon reaching the Oder, as his anti-aircraft assets had not caught up with his advance elements. Moreover, Kustrin itself lie in a seam between the individual advancing Russian elements. Thus, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army established bridgeheads south of Kustrin, while Lt. Gen. Berzarin's 5th Shock Army established bridgeheads over the Oder north of Kustrin. This would seem to indicate that neither Army was prepared to storm Kustrin Fortress itself. Zhukov adds to this picture in his "Reminisces and Reflections" vol. 2, pages 321-322:
"Here it is impossible for me not to dwell at some length on the heroic deeds of the 5th Shock Army headed by Lieutenant. General Berzarin and Lieutenant general Bokov, member of the military council.
The advance detachment of the 5th Shock Army played a key role in seizing the bridgehead. The detachment was led by Col. H. F. Yesipenko, Deputy Commander of the 8th guards Rifle division and Lieutenant Colonel D. D. Shaposhnikov, representative of the Military Council of the 5th Shock Army and Deputy chief of the Army's political department.
The detachment consisted of the 1006 Rifle regiment of the 266th rifle division, the 220th Detached Tank Brigade under Colonel A.N. Pachkov, the 8th Detached Heavy Tank Regiment and the 489th Mortar Regiment.
By the morning of January 31st, the advance detachment forced the Oder and seized a bridgehead in the area of Kienitz, Gross, Nuendorf and Rehfeld."
The bridgeheads established by 8th Guards and 5th Shock Army drew immediate, if uncoordinated, counterattacks by German forces. These battles were the very beginnings of the Oder Bridgehead battles. Stubborn and unyielding fighting marked these battles as the Russians attempted to expand their bridgeheads across the Oder while the Germans attempted with equal dedication to push them back over the Oder. Of course, the Germans, by this point, were vastly outnumbered and using scrapped together units, while the Soviets, as each day passed, brought up more and more
of their largely intact rifle divisions and tank brigades. In the center of this devastation, preventing the consolidation of the Russian bridgeheads was the German fortress of Kustrin. We return to Chuikov, pages 166-167:
"In the last week of March, we carried out a series of local operations to link our on flank with the units of our neighbor to the right the 5th Shock Army, west of the Kustrin fortress. Here the gap between our armies, or rather the two bridgeheads on the west bank of the Oder had been about 3 kilometers wide. Using this corridor, the enemy maintained communication with the Kustrin citadel situated on an island in the main channel of the Oder. The citadel itself was the base of the wedge separating our bridgeheads. In order to link the flanks of the two armies we had to cut through the wedge in its narrowest place, somewhere west of Kustrin. Should we succeed, the garrison inside the fortress would be completely cut off.
Our troops had gained control of some of the citadel's forts in the course of the initial fighting for the bridgehead. Now we were going to administer a blow at the enemy defenses from the south and reach the Kietz-Dolgelin railway. General Bezarin's troops (5th Shock Army)
would simultaneously launch an attack from the north so as to join up with us in the Golzow railway junction.
This thoroughly prepared operation was carried out on March 22nd...."
This was, then, the situation that lead to "Muncheberg's " first battles. Very Best Regards, David
