​​In January 1945, the Soviet Army advanced from the east, making great territorial gains. To the complete surprise of the German population, a Soviet unit established the first bridgehead on the western side of the River Oder in Kienitz as early as 31 January 1945. On the same day, about 40km further south, another Soviet unit reached the Sonnenburg (now Słońsk) concentration camp, where all 819 inmates had been tragically shot to death the night before.&nbsp;​The Red Army's main objective was the city of Küstrin (now Kostrzyn nad Odrą), with its historic fortifications and rail and road bridges over the rivers Oder and Warta, which led directly to Berlin. The German forces declared Küstrin a fortress once again and strengthened the defences. It took the Red Army 52 days of fighting and unprecedented bombardments to take the city, which was then completely destroyed.&nbsp;​The German forces had used this time to build a last line of defence on the terrain edge of the Oderbruch. On 16 April 1945, the Red Army launched its last major offensive in the direction of Berlin. In the battle of the Seelow Heights, tens of thousands of people lost their lives in just three days, and villages like Klessin were wiped off the map. Shortly afterwards, the Allied troops reached Berlin, and Nazi Germany capitulated on 8 May 1945 in Berlin-Karlshorst. Due to the western shift of Poland, former German towns such as Küstrin and Sonnenburg became Kostrzyn nad Odrą and Słońsk in present-day Poland.&nbsp;​The Oder-Warta 1945 History Trail follows these events at the border of Germany and Poland, connecting the key sites and stories of what happened here at the end of the Second World War. Discover this unique history through local museums and memorial sites along the trail.

Germany

​In 1945, the Wehrmacht built three defence strips based on the edge of the Seelow Heights to prevent the Soviet Army from accessing Berlin.​

View of the Oderbruch

​Kietz Gate

View of the former railway station building in Seelow (Mark) with the Seelow History Station Museum on the ground floor​​.

Former railway station (Bahnhof) building in Seelow (Mark)​

​Memorial "To the victims 1939-1945" (right) and Memorial I. World War I 1914-1918 (left) in the centre of Kienitz

War memorials in Kienitz

Aerial view of the memorial​

Circular route with notice boards​

Museum of Martyrdom and monument to the victims of the Sonnenburg camp and prison​

​​History of the Oder-Warta Region in 1945

​​In January 1945, the Soviet Army advanced from the east, gaining considerable ground. The then named city of Küstrin was an important target on the River Oder because a railway line and a road led directly to Berlin via the bridges. The German forces once again declared Küstrin a fortress. They made makeshift additions to the historic defences and assembled a garrison of around 10,000 men to hold off the enemy for as long as possible while they captured the town and occupied the bridges.​The first Soviet Army units reached Kostrzyn on 31 January. In the following weeks, bridgeheads were set up under fierce German resistance and the city was sealed off except for a small corridor. However, it could not be taken.​On 6 March, the Soviet Army began a simultaneous attack from several sides, which was to lead to the complete elimination of the fortress. On 22 March, the Soviet bridgeheads were successfully brought together and the Küstrin fortress was cut off from supplies. German attempts to relieve the fortress were unsuccessful, and Hitler's personal intervention did nothing to change this. From 24 March, the old town was bombed so heavily that no building survived. In the days that followed, the fortress was finally captured and replacement bridges were built for transport and the railway. As early as 25 April, the first train rolled over the bridges towards Berlin.​The German forces had expanded their defences on the Seelow Heights, around 10 km away. The last major battle of the Second World War took place there from 16 to 19 April 1945. On 8 May 1945, Nazi Germany capitulated and the national borders in Europe were redrawn. As a result of Poland's shift to the west, Küstrin became Kostrzyn nad Odrą. The new town was rebuilt. The area of the old town was left to its own devices in the new German-Polish border region and was "forgotten" for almost 50 years. It was only after 1989 that some areas of the fortress began to be opened up, with ruins of old houses, paved streets and pavements coming to light under the earth fillings.​Today, the Kostrzyn Fortress Museum in Kostrzyn nad Odrą is a uniquemonument, also known as the "Pompeii on the Oder". It is an impressive reminder of war and its consequences. Exhibitions tell the story of the fortress and information boards help visitors to tour the former old town centre of Küstrin.

Poland

​​Kostrzyn Fortress Museum

​​Słońsk (named Sonnenburg until 1945) is a town with a remarkable, centuries-old history. One of the most painful chapters of its past were the years of the prison and concentration camp. During the Weimar Republic, Sonnenburg Prison served as a penitentiary for many political activists. After Hitler's seizure of power, it became the first German concentration camp where opponents of the Nazi regime were brutally repressed.​The prisoners were mentally and physically abused and the place soon became known as ‘torture hell’. One of the most famous prisoners was Carl von Ossietzky, a German journalist, Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition activist. After operating as a concentration camp for more than a year, the facility became a prison again and was a place of execution and suffering for opponents of the Nazi regime for years to come.​The most tragic event took place on the night of 30 to 31 January 1945, when a detachment of SS men from Frankfurt/Oder carried out the mass execution of 819 prisoners. Among those murdered were representatives of many nationalities: French, Belgians, Germans, Dutch, Norwegians, Luxembourgers and others. The massacre began at around 22:00 and lasted all night. Ten people at a time were led out of their cells and shot between the prison wall and the workshop building.&nbsp;​In 1973, a small group of Słońsk residents decided to set up a museum and memorial to commemorate the victims of Sonnenburg and warn against a repetition of this terrible history. The official inauguration of the Museum of Martyrdom took place on 28 September 1974.​The memory of the victims of these events is upheld not only by museum, but also through commemorative events organised by the municipality of Słońsk every year on the anniversary of the tragedy. The commemorative events are attended by prisoners' families, representatives of the authorities and delegations from Poland, Germany, Luxembourg and other countries whose citizens perished in Sonnenburg.​The programme of commemorations includes: events at the Martyrdom Museum and cemetery of the victims of imprisonment in the Sonnenburg concentration camp and prison, a mass, and a meeting to develop a common historical culture of remembrance and European identity. These events are also an important element of German-Polish understanding and contribute to awakening interest in the history of the Second World War, especially among the younger generations.​&nbsp;

​​Museum of Martyrdom, Slonsk​

​​In 1877, the railway line Angermünde – Frankfurt (Oder) was put into operation and the Seelow (Mark) train station building was opened. The new north-south train connections along the Oder were of great importance for regional passenger and freight transport.​When the Soviet Army reached the Oder in 1945, the railway line became part of the frontline. Its main task now was to transport fleeing civilians, German troops and war material. Wounded soldiers were also evacuated by rail to treatment centres further inland.​The armoured train ‘Berlin’ and the railway gun K 5 were deployed on the railway line to defend the western bank of the Oder and to keep Soviet troops under fire.​With the beginning of the Battle of the Seelow Heights on 16 April 1945, the Seelow (Mark) station building was also directly in the German line of defence and was consequently fiercely contested.​The fighting left the entire railway line in a catastrophic state. By the end of the war, many bridges and tracks had been destroyed. The second track was dismantled and taken to the Soviet Union as reparations. It took a few years before rail traffic could be provisionally resumed, and in March 1947, the Oder flood destroyed large sections of the line again.​Miraculously, the historic station building survived the heavy fighting of the Second World War in 1945 and the Oder flood in 1947 but was already taken out of service in the 1980s. In 2012, the town of Seelow acquired the building and from 2018, conversion and renovation work was carried out.​Today, the ground floor houses the Seelow (Mark) History Station Museum. The exhibition shows the transformation of an entire region over the span of a generation between 1930 and 1961. Fascinating exhibits from this period, supplemented by biographical details, symbolise the profound change from the beginning of National Socialism, through the war and its grave consequences, to socialism in the former Soviet occupation zone.​The exhibition is complemented by thematic special exhibitions and events. Guided tours and various educational formats enrich this extraordinary place of remembrance in the European multi-perspective landscape of remembrance at the rivers Oder and Warta.

​​Museum History Station Seelow (Mark)​

In the early hours of 31 January 1945, lightly armed advance units of the Red Army reached the Oder River near Kienitz and established a bridgehead to the western bank of the Oder at the ferry crossing and the harbour mill. ​This event came as a complete surprise to the local population. German troops were not stationed in the village. According to Wehrmacht reports, the Soviet Army was still believed to be far to the east. As a result, a bridgehead four kilometres wide and two kilometres deep was quickly established on the west bank. German units were hastily withdrawn from various combat sectors and marched to destroy the bridgehead again.​The civilian population now also felt the full force of the devastating effects of the war, which they had previously only known from newsreels or reports from soldiers on leave from the front.​On 1 February 1945, Kienitz harbour was bombed by the German Luftwaffe. Numerous refugees from the eastern provinces of the German Reich, who sought shelter on their barges in the harbour, were killed by the attack of their own air force. The population of Kienitz fled eastwards, against the actual flow of refugees, in order to escape the impending heavy fighting.​The fighting for the village of Kienitz lasted 76 days before the Soviet Army was finally able to take the village, which was 80% destroyed. The last refugees returned to their hometown in June 1945.​The small town of Kienitz and its wartime experience embodies all the unimaginable suffering inflicted on people during the war: the destruction of the landscape, the houses, war dead on both sides, hunger, cold, death, flight, expulsion, illness, the tearing apart of families, the loss of loved ones, imprisonment, the destruction of lives and the gnawing uncertainty of what was to come after the end of the war.​The "T-34 tank" memorial was unveiled in Kienitz on 24 October 1970, made possible by donations from contemporary witnesses of the war. The T-34 is considered the most famous Soviet tank of the Second World War. Between 1940 and 1945, 56,400 tanks are said to have been built. This enormous number contributed significantly to the Soviet Army's victory over the German Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe.​The stele on the Oder embankment on the way to the former ferry pier symbolises the crossing of the Oder by the Red Army. The metal stele is artistically sparse and extremely impressive. It was inaugurated in 1987.

​​Memorials at Kienitz​ 

​​On 2 February 1945, the Soviet army crossed the frozen Oder and marched into Reitwein. They entrenched themselves below Wuhden and Klessin. German army units were assembled and sent to the Oder, while the civilian population fled in the days that followed. &nbsp; A bitter fight for the small villages of Wuhden and Klessin began, in which both sides suffered heavy losses. Wuhden fell at the end of February. The Soviet Army increased the pressure on Klessin from three sides (north, east and south). The German soldiers in the Klessin base were trapped. During the night of 23 to 24 March, the men who were still mobile broke through the Soviet lines towards Podelzig. Klessin fell into Soviet hands. In total, over 62,000 shells were fired at the Klessin area. The village of Podelzig was not taken by the Soviet army until 16 April 1945, when it was part of their major offensive, and was subsequently uninhabitable.When the civilian population returned in mid-May, they were confronted with unimaginable chaos. Houses had been razed to the ground, fields were mined and criss-crossed with trenches. Dead soldiers lay everywhere, unable to be buried and instead having to be buried in trenches and bomb craters. In addition, in September 1945, manors and large landowners were expropriated by the land reform in the Soviet occupation zone. Afterwards, those who had been expropriated had to leave the district of Lebus and were not allowed to resettle within a radius of 200 kilometres.The devastated site of the manor house, contaminated by explosives, lay fallow for 65 years and became a rubbish dump. The dead soldiers still lay under the mountains of rubble and rubbish. From 1995 to 2015, the most important task in Klessin was the search for the remains of the fallen on both sides. Since 2008, the Association for the Recovery of Fallen Soldiers in Eastern Europe (VBGO) has been helping with this, and over 90 soldiers have been solemnly buried in the military cemetery in Wuhden. &nbsp; Today, the ‘Klessin Castle 1945 Theatre of War’ is a peaceful place of remembrance and encounter, built, maintained and supported by members of the Wuhden Heritage Society and many volunteers from the region, companies, institutions, funding agencies and donors. A circular trail with information boards, acoustic steles and metal sculptures, as well as original shell holes and trenches, commemorates the events of the war. The memorial was officially inaugurated on 5 May 2023 and has been open to the public ever since.

​​Klessin Castle: a theatre of war in 1945​

​​The Battle of Seelow Heights, fought from 16 to 19 April 1945, was one of the last major battles of World War II on German soil. It marked the beginning of the Soviet offensive targeting Berlin, the aim of which was to end the war with a complete victory. The Nazi leadership hoped to hold back the attackers long enough for the anti-Hitler coalition to fall apart. &nbsp; For months, the German army had been retreating. In January 1945, it was pushed back from the Vistula. Now, the Soviet Army, standing at the River Oder, threatened the centre of the German Reich, including its capital, from the east. However, the ‘Seelow Heights’ ran between Berlin and their positions, a steep and elongated mountain range. This was selected and expanded by the German side for defence purposes. &nbsp; The battle began on 16 April 1945 with a massive artillery bombardment, followed by ground fighting in which the German lines of defence were gradually broken. On 20 April, Soviet troops reached the outskirts of Berlin, marking the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. The mobilisation of all men still fit for battle in the final days of the war illustrates the National Socialist regime's determination to sacrifice others for its survival. &nbsp; The Seelow Heights Memorial keeps the memory of this dramatic event alive and commemorates its victims. The barrier-free memorial site includes a war cemetery, a visitor centre, a forecourt with Soviet military equipment and a museum. The exhibition there displays original equipment, and infantry weapons and uses a model, eyewitness accounts and documentary films to describe the course and consequences of the battle. &nbsp; Above the museum, visitors can see for themselves the strategic location of the terrain from the vantage point. The memorial, completed shortly after the battle, features a young Soviet Army soldier looking thoughtfully across the cemetery towards home. On the forecourt, the view shifts from people to military technology. An ensemble of original weapons gives an impression of the Soviet Army's arsenal. The memorial also reflects the complex and changing history of domination and the culture of remembrance in present-day eastern Germany. &nbsp; Guided tours offer in-depth insights into the battle and the place of remembrance. Just like the text panels in the permanent exhibition and in the outdoor area, these are designed in German and English: the documentary films also have Polish and Russian versions.​

History of the Oder-Warta Region in 1945

Photos

Sites and stories along the route

Kostrzyn Fortress Museum

Museum of Martyrdom, Slonsk

Museum History Station Seelow (Mark)

Memorials at Kienitz

Klessin Castle: a theatre of war in 1945

Memorial Site and Museum Seelow Heights