Product Description

While the Battle of Berlin in 1945 is widely known the horrific story of the Halbe Kessel remains largely untold.

In April 1945 victorious Soviet forces encircled 80000 men of the German 9th Army in the Halbe area South of Berlin together with many thousands of German women and children. The German troops desperate to avoid Soviet capture battled furiously to break out towards the West where they could surrender to the comparative safety of the Americans. For the German civilians trapped in the Kessel the quest to escape took on frantic dimensions as the terror of Red Army brutality spread.

The small town of Halbe became the eye of the hurricane for the breakout as King Tigers of the SS Panzer Corps led the spearhead to the West supported by Panthers of the battle-hardened 21st Panzer Division.

Panzer by panzer unit by unit the breakout forces were cut down - until only a handful of Panthers other armour battered infantry units and columns of shattered refugees made a final escape through the rings of fire to the American lines.

This first-hand account by the commander of one of those Panther tanks relates