Evacuation of East Prussia - Evacuation

Evacuation

The evacuation plans for parts of East Prussia were ready in the second half of 1944. They consisted of both general plans and specific instructions for many towns. The plans encompassed not only civilians, but also industry and livestock.

Initially, Erich Koch, the Gauleiter of East Prussia, did not agree to the evacuation of the civilians (until 20 January 1945), and ordered that civilians trying to flee the region without permission would be instantly shot. Any kind of preparations made by civilians were treated as defeatism and "Wehrkraftzersetzung" (undermining of military morale). This did not, however, prevent Koch and many other Nazi functionaries from being among the first to flee during the Soviet advance. However, between 12 January and mid-February 1945, almost 8.5 million Germans fled the Eastern provinces of the Reich. Most of the refugees were women and children heading to western parts of Germany, carrying goods on improvised means of transport, such as wooden wagons and carts, as all the motorized vehicles and fuel had been confiscated by the Wehrmacht at the beginning of the war. After the Red Army reached the coast of the Vistula Lagoon near Elbing on January 23, 1945, cutting off the overland route between East Prussia and the western territories, the only way to leave was to cross the frozen Vistula Lagoon to reach the harbours of Danzig/Gdańsk or Gdingen/Gdynia to be evacuated by ships taking part in Operation Hannibal. Mingled with retreating Wehrmacht units,and without any camouflage or shelter, the refugees were attacked by Soviet bombers and fighter aircraft. Many wagons broke through the bomb-riddled ice covering the brackish water. Also horses and caretakers from the Trakehner stud farms were evacuated with the wagon trains. The evacuation was severely hampered by Wehrmacht units, which clogged roads and bridges.

The remaining men aged 16 – 60 were immediately incorporated into the Volkssturm. However, some Volkssturm members, without basic military knowledge and training, escaped into the woods, hoping to simply survive. Refugee trains leaving East Prussia were also extremely crowded, and due to the very low temperatures, children often froze to death during the journey. The last refugee train left Königsberg on January 22, 1945.

Military writer Antony Beevor wrote, in Berlin the Downfall, that:

Martin Bormann, the Reichsleiter of the National Socialist Party, whose Gauleiters had in most cases stopped the evacuation of women and children until it was too late, never mentions in his diary those fleeing in panic from the eastern regions. The incompetence with which they handled the refugee crisis is chilling, yet in the case of the Nazi hierarchy it is often hard to tell where irresponsibility ended and inhumanity began.