Reetz, 1945
Wladimir Gelfand, Soviet soldier
28 January 1945. Germany. 38 kilometers since our last overnight stop (yesterday). We have managed 90 kilometers in two days. Germany has greeted us inhospitably, with snow flurries, fierce winds, and almost completely deserted villages. The people here, the Germans, fear the wrath of the Russians. They are fleeing, leaving behind all their belongings. […] 30 January 1945. […] The locals are terribly frightened. […] Their homes have been ransacked and anything of use has been taken. But the lavishness of these houses—the furnishings and interiors—is almost indescribable. And the wealth and refinement of these people’s possessions is overwhelming. Our Slavs will be amazed.1
From the Prussian administrative reform of 1815, Brandenburg was a province at the center of the monarchy and, from 1918, of the Free State. It was created in place of the Electorate of Brandenburg (Mark Brandenburg), whereby its core area, the Altmark region west of the Elbe, was incorporated into Saxony. In the south, on the other hand, Lower Lusatia and other areas were incorporated into Brandenburg from the former Kingdom of Saxony. Its administrative seat was initially Potsdam, later also Berlin for a time. Between 1881 and 1920, Berlin was gradually separated from Brandenburg as the Prussian capital and residence city. In 1938, individual parts of the dissolved province of Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia were added to Brandenburg in the east, while areas in the north-east were separated from the province of Pomerania. In 1939, the name “Mark Brandenburg” was officially reintroduced as the name of the province. In 1945, the parts of Brandenburg to the east of the Oder went to Poland, while the remainder in the Soviet occupation zone in Germany was transformed into the state of Brandenburg in 1947.
The Neumark (also New March) is a historical landscape and a former part of the Mark Brandenburg, from which the Electorate of Brandenburg developed as a predecessor of the Kingdom of Prussia already in the Middle Ages. Between 1815 and 1945, the Neumark was part of the Prussian province of Brandenburg. Nowadays, the Neumark is situated largely on the territory of Poland, mostly on the territory of the Polish voivodeships of Lubusz and West Pomerania and Wielkopolska. Important cities are and were for example Gorzów Wielkopolski (before 1945 Landsberg an der Warthe) or Choszczno in the northeast (before 1945 Arnswalde).
After 1945, the parts of the Prussian province of Brandenburg located east of the Oder River, which are now Polish, and hence also part of the Lubuskie region, were also referred to as East Brandenburg, but this does not correspond to any historical region or landscape. Nowadays, with reference to the former bishopric, the name Ziemia Lubuska or Lubuskie Land is usually used, even if not entirely accurate.
The Oder is one of the largest rivers in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Oder Hills and separates the historical regions of Moravia and Silesia in its upper reaches. In Silesia, it also forms the border with Poland for a short section before crossing over into purely Polish territory. From the confluence with the Lausitzer Neiße south of Eisenhüttenstadt, the river forms the German-Polish border for 162 km. Only shortly before Szczecin and until it flows into the Baltic Sea via the Szczecin Lagoon does the Oder again flow only through Polish territory in sections. The former length of the Oder of approx. 1,150 km has been reduced to 842 or 866 km today due to regulation measures on this river, which has been important for inland navigation for centuries - depending on whether the Szczecin Lagoon is regarded as a sea water. Its catchment area covers 118,561 or 122,512 km². Human intervention in the river landscape has led to numerous extreme events such as devastating floods or extremely low water levels as well as mass mortality of river organisms. The economic importance of the Oder declined sharply after the Second World War, particularly in Poland.
Prior to this, columns of refugees and prisoners of war—driven westward under guard—had heralded the advance of the Red Army. At the end of the war, there were waves of deportations alongside both civilian and military flight. The full extent of this upheaval becomes strikingly clear in the example of the small German town of
Recz is a small city (population 2024: 2,632) in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in north-western Poland. It is located in the historical landscape of the Neumark. The Slavic settlement, which was founded before 1269, was mentioned as a town in 1296 with the German form of its name. After its incorporation into the Polish state in 1945, several versions of the name were used until the current one was officially adopted in 1946.
Reetz (Neumark)
The Ina is a right tributary in the lower reaches of the Oder in the north-western Polish voivodeship of West Pomerania. It is 126 km long and has a catchment area of 2,151 km². There was a port at the mouth of the Ihna since the 13th century. The Polish name of the river was not officially established until 1949.
The district of Arnswalde was initially created in the 16th/17th century as one of the so-called Hinterkreise in the south of the Mark Brandenburg. After the founding of the German Reich and its division into individual provinces, it belonged to the Prussian province of Brandenburg. In 1938, the district of Arnswalde was incorporated into the province of Pomerania, but in 1945 it fell to the People's Republic of Poland (along with other parts of Pomerania). The district, now named after the Polish name of its main town, Choszczno, existed until 1975 and was re-established in 1999 after the reintroduction of district structures (powiaty). Its current boundaries roughly correspond to the historical boundaries of the Arnswald district.
The German invasion of Poland in 1939 initially had only an indirect impact on this border town. Personnel from the Gabbert airbase to the north frequented Reetz as the closest small town, and some of them even lived there. During the war years, Reetz also saw an influx of women and children who had been evacuated from cities threatened by Allied air raids and relocated to the rural regions of eastern Germany.
In January 1945, as the major Soviet offensive on German territory began, streams of refugees from the nearby Reichsgaue of “
The Reichsgau Wartheland, also known as Warthegau, was a Nazi administrative district in occupied Poland. It was created on October 16, 1939 as Reichsgau Posen and renamed on January 29, 1940. The Reichsgau was in large parts congruent with the historical landscape of Wielkopolska and had 4.5 million inhabitants. The capital was today's Poznań. Wartheland was finally conquered by the Red Army on January 23, 1945.
The almost six-year occupation period was characterized by the brutal persecution and murder of the Polish and Jewish population on the one hand and the targeted resettlement of German-speaking parts of the population on the other.
Image: „Map of the administrative division of the German Eastern Territories and the General Government of the occupied Polish territories as of March 1940“. Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association, map collection, inventory no. K 32 II L 43, edited by Copernico (2022). CC0 1.0.
The Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia was created on October 26, 1939 as the Reichsgau West Prussia. It comprised the military district of West Prussia, which was founded shortly after the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 and included the parts of the Polish voivodeship of Greater Pomerania that had belonged to the German Reich until 1918, the former Free City of Danzig and the administrative district of West Prussia, which had been detached from the province of East Prussia. On November 2, 1939, the area was renamed Danzig-West Prussia. As a Reichsgau, the area was not subordinated to an existing province, but directly to the German Reich. However, the incorporation of the occupied Polish territories was contrary to international law and therefore legally ineffective. At the end of 1939, 2.287 million people lived in Gau Danzig-West Prussia, and after numerous (forced) resettlement and Germanization measures, Poles made up around two thirds of its population in 1943. In view of the conquests by the Red Army, the Reichsgau finally ceased to exist in February 1945.
The Theatre of War: Neumark 1945
Warsaw is the capital of Poland and also the largest city in the country (population in 2024: 1,863,845). It is located in the Mazovian Voivodeship on Poland's longest river, the Vistula. Warsaw first became the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic at the end of the 16th century, replacing Krakow, which had previously been the Polish capital. During the partitions of Poland-Lithuania, Warsaw was occupied several times and finally became part of the Prussian province of South Prussia for eleven years. From 1807 to 1815 the city was the capital of the Duchy of Warsaw, a short-lived Napoleonic satellite state; in the annexation of the Kingdom of Poland under Russian suzerainty (the so-called Congress Poland). It was not until the establishment of the Second Polish Republic after the end of World War I that Warsaw was again the capital of an independent Polish state.
At the beginning of World War II, Warsaw was conquered and occupied by the Wehrmacht only after intense fighting and a siege lasting several weeks. Even then, a five-digit number of inhabitants were killed and parts of the city, known not least for its numerous baroque palaces and parks, were already severely damaged. In the course of the subsequent oppression, persecution and murder of the Polish and Jewish population, by far the largest Jewish ghetto under German occupation was established in the form of the Warsaw Ghetto, which served as a collection camp for several hundred thousand people from the city, the surrounding area and even occupied foreign countries, and was also the starting point for deportation to labor and extermination camps.
As a result of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from April 18, 1943 and its suppression in early May 1943, the ghetto area was systematically destroyed and its last inhabitants deported and murdered. This was followed in the summer of 1944 by the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation, which lasted two months and resulted in the deaths of almost two hundred thousand Poles, and after its suppression the rest of Warsaw was also systematically destroyed by German units.
In the post-war period, many historic buildings and downtown areas, including the Warsaw Royal Castle and the Old Town, were rebuilt - a process that continues to this day.
Within a short time, the Red Army broke through the resistance of the few scattered German units and triggered a mass exodus of refugees. Unlike in the First World War, this time the German side was unwilling to surrender as it retreated behind the borders of the Reich—now those of 1939. Instead, the forces under the command of Army Group “Vistula” launched a counteroffensive in February in the district of Arnswalde. As a result, Reetz experienced two separate evacuation orders and weeks of intense fighting. The reason was that the city had now come under the regulations governing “rear areas.”
From the beginning of the Soviet winter offensive, the roads and railway stations of the Neumark region became scenes of disarray and confusion, as illustrated by the words of local resident Dora Münch:
Reetz, late January 1945. The town lies under a thick blanket of snow, and it is bitterly cold. For days now, the thermometer has shown between minus 18 and 20 degrees Celsius. When I go into town I freeze to my very core. And day after day, there’s the same harrowing sight: endless columns of refugees heading west, fleeing the horrors of war. Their vehicles are piled high with household goods and provisions; in the wagons, elderly people and small children lie on beds of straw, mercilessly exposed to the cold. The market square has become one big military encampment, crammed with vehicles, livestock, and people. I’m shaken to see a dying woman lying in wet straw in an open wagon. Next to her, a young woman wraps her newborn child in blankets and pillows. Only one thought consumes me: I must get away from this chaos! But at the station outside town, my last hope deserts me. For weeks, endlessly long trains have been passing by. People hang off the freight cars like grapes, or squat with prams, boxes, and suitcases, even on the roof. How am I supposed to manage that with an eighteen-month-old child?6
The roads were also crowded with civilians fleeing westward. The evacuation of civil institutions and civilians from the war-threatened areas had not been adequately planned in advance. Evacuation orders were only issued when the front was already within roughly 20 to 30 kilometers—in effect, it was a call to flee. Once an area had been abandoned by German forces, Wehrmacht engineering units destroyed bridges, as well as drinking water supplies, gas lines, and power grids. For those left behind, the consequences were devastating.
The End of the War in Reetz (Neumark), 1945
Die Hansestadt Anklam (Bevölkerungszahl 2023: 11.965) liegt im Nordosten von Mecklenburg-Vorpommern gegenüber der Insel Usedom, mit der sie eine Brücke verbindet. Sie wurde im 11. bzw. 12. Jahrhundert als Marktflecken gegründet, der unter dem slawischen Namen Tachlim bekannt war. 1264 wurde er als Stadt erwähnt. 1283 schloss sich Anklam der Hanse an. Ihren Wohlstand verdankte die Stadt vor allem dem Heringshandel. Ab dem 14. Jahrhundert ist in Anklam die Anwesenheit jüdischer Bevölkerungsteile bekannt, die im 19. Jahrhundert ca. 3% der Einwohnerschaft ausmachte. Nach dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg fiel die Stadt an Schweden. Im Großen Nordischen Krieg (1700-1721) wurde die Stadt von den russischen Truppen zerstört und nach dem Krieg bis 1760 zwischen Schweden und Preußen geteilt. In den 1930er Jahren wurde die Rüstungsindustrie in der Stadt stark ausgebaut, insbesondere seit 1936 die Flugzeugindustrie, für die auch die Häftlinge des Anklamer Wehrmachtsgefängnis Zwangsarbeit leisteten. 1943-1945 wurde Anklam zunächst von den Alliierten – und nach der Eroberung durch die Sowjetische Armee – von der Deutschen Luftwaffe zerstört. 1945-1990 lag die Stadt in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone bzw. der DDR. Seit der Wiedervereinigung verlor Anklam knapp 40% der Bevölkerung.
By the time Soviet units reached the town, only about a third of the population had fled. What finally triggered the exodus was the shelling of the nearby district capital, Arnswalde, by the Red Army on February 4. Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS units, which had arrived only days earlier, withdrew through Reetz toward
Stargard ist eine Stadt im äußersten Nordwesten Polens, rund 30 Kilometer östlich von Stettin (Bevölkerungszahl 2024: 66.077). Bis heute und ungeachtet erheblicher Zerstörungen im Zweiten Weltkrieg existieren noch zahlreiche (teils wiederaufgebaute) mittelalterliche und frühneuzeitliche Gebäude der historisch bedeutenden Hansestadt, darunter auch Teile der Stadtbefestigung und historische Bürgerhäuser. Stargard liegt in der historischen Landschaft Hinterpommern, fiel 1648 an Brandenburg-Preußen und entwickelte sich insbesondere im späten 19. Jahrhundert und infolge des Eisenbahnbaus zu einem regional bedeutenden Industriestandort. 1945 kam Stargard wie das gesamte Hinterpommern zur 1944 neu gegründeten Volksrepublik Polen. Bis 1946 wurden zunächst auch die Namen Starogród oder Starogród nad Iną verwendet, bis Stargard Szczeciński amtlich eingeführt wurde. Ab 2016 heißt die Stadt Stargard.
The civilian population thus shared the escape routes with retreating Wehrmacht units and westward-bound columns of prisoners. The fleeing residents of Reetz joined the end of the prisoner convoy, inadvertently blocking any potential escape paths the prisoners might have used to reach Soviet forces. Together, they moved toward the Oder River.
Werner Carow’s photographs capture the catastrophic atmosphere of a town population forced to flee under harsh winter conditions. In the cold and falling snow, the few available trucks and horse-drawn carts were hastily prepared with the help of members of the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm. Only a limited number of trains were available for evacuating the Neumark region, but some were deployed in Reetz. The Ina River was frozen, making transport via water impossible. Carrying only a few belongings and with little protection from the elements, some of the population fled in convoys alongside refugees who had arrived in Reetz in the days before.
Immediately after the Red Army’s arrival, the forced deportation of German men and women for labor also began. Those primarily targeted were individuals with proven membership in the Nazi Party—though mere suspicion was often enough. Meanwhile, French forced laborers deployed in the region, who had either not been driven westward or had gone into hiding, experienced the arrival of the Soviets as a liberation. With German troops launching counterattacks, the fighting around Reetz continued, so the Red Army evacuated the remaining civilian population from the combat zone. On February 12, an estimated 1,500 people who had not fled were forced to leave the town—“toward evening, the migration began,”9 as one account puts it. They were relocated to more remote villages and, in some cases, had to change accommodations multiple times before being allowed to return three weeks later.
Afterward, the local population in Reetz was assigned to cleanup operations, dismantling machines designated for transport to the Soviet Union, providing medical care, or working as farm laborers. In the weeks and months that followed, refugees who had fled as far as Mecklenburg began to return and were required to find new housing and employment, the latter to be arranged through the local Soviet command post. By the time the fighting finally ended, it is estimated that around 80 percent of the town’s residential buildings had been destroyed. Meanwhile, deportations for forced labor to the Soviet Union continued.
Following the formal transfer of the area east of the Oder River to Polish administration, the expulsion of the German population began in July. Gathered on Reetz’s market square and placed under Polish guard, the emaciated residents—carrying what little they had left—set out on long journeys on foot toward the Oder River, into an uncertain future.
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