Description
Soldbuch
Issued in August 1939 with 3 Kompanie, Nachrichten Abteilung 3.
Born in 1904 in Oberbayern Germany, he was in civilian life a technical salesman.
Operated as a Radio Man, (Funker) with:
Kraftfahr Ersatz Abteilung 23 in Sorau – Later moved to Rathenow (Berlin).
Faas was married to Erika Faas they lived together with their two sons both children during the war in Frankfurt Oder.
He had two awards during the war, a War Merit Cross with Swords and an October 1938 Medal.
By January 1945, he was in the C Positions with Division Raegener on the Oder River. He even had leave granted for the later two weeks of January 1945, likely the last time he ever seen his family at their wartime home. Interestingly, he was sent home in 1943, due to the emergency with the harvests to help.
Faas would only see real combat with General Holstes last attempt to relieve Berlin in the last days of the war, along with Steiner in the North and Wencks 12th Army south of them (See Below).
Found fit for service at the Garde Füsilier Kaserne in Rathenow on the 3rd of April 1945.
Faas was issued a full list of equipment, including iron rations in Rathenow on the 21st of April 1945. Armed with a FN Pistol (Personal Pistol).
On the 26th of April 1945, Faas arrives at the Korps San Komp, Stab General Holste with a 31b – meaning grenade fragments from artillery, mortar or hand grenade.
What we know about the movement of this ad hoc unit set up to try and break the ring around Berlin, which failed.
“On 22 April 1945, Holste became part of a poorly conceived and incredibly desperate plan that Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Colonel General Alfred Jodl proposed to Adolf Hitler. The plan envisaged for the few remaining German forces in central Germany to attack the Soviet forces encircling Berlin. The plan called for General Walther Wenck’s Twelfth Army on the Elbe and Mulde fronts to be turned around and to attack towards the east, then linking up just south of Berlin with General Theodor Busse’s Ninth Army. Then both armies would strike in a northeastern direction towards Potsdam and Berlin. Wenck’s objective would be the autobahn at Ferch, near Potsdam.
Holste’s directive was to attack from the area northwest of Berlin with his XLI Panzer Corps across the Elbe between Spandau and Oranienburg. To give Holste as much punch as possible, Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner (who had been himself the subject of another desperate attempt by Hitler to save Berlin, a few days earlier) was to turn over to Holste his mechanized divisions (the 25th Panzer-Grenadiers and the 7th Panzer). Wenck’s army did make a turn around and attacked towards Berlin, but was soon halted outside of Potsdam by strong Soviet resistance. Neither Busse nor Holste made much progress towards Berlin. By the end of the day on 27 April, the Soviet forces encircling Berlin linked up and the forces inside Berlin were cut off.
Late in the evening of 29 April, General Hans Krebs contacted Jodl by radio from Berlin and requested an immediate report on the whereabouts of Holste’s spearhead. On 30 April, Jodl replied that Holste’s Corps was on the defensive. Early on the morning of May 1, Holste is reported to have appeared at Twelfth Army HQ having abandoned his troops. A day later, on 2 May, the Battle for Berlin came to an end when General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered the city to the Soviets. Holste surrendered 8 May 1945. In 1947, he was released.”
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/6868/Holste-Rudolf-Generalleutnant.htm
Faas was moved to a different hospital, although he was captured by the Soviet Army.
This is where it takes an unusual twist, according to his Heimkehrer Bescheinigung – A form of identification issued to people who have fled either from the Eastern Zone of Germany, or those suffering the aftermath including refugees of the war.
This ID was issued in Berlin Marienfelde in 1954 – it clearly states he was a Prisoner of the Ostzone KZ – meaning German Eastern Zone Concentration camp – from 1948 till 1954. What his alleged crime was we will not be able to find out, maybe he tried to escape to go towards his family and was caught in December of 1948?
The NKVD Speical Camps in Germany
NKVD special camps (German: Speziallager) were NKVD-run late and post-World War II internment camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany from May 1945 to January 6, 1950. They were set up by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and run by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs MVD. On 8 August 1948, the camps were made subordinate to the Gulag. Because the camp inmates were permitted no contact with the outside world, the special camps were also known as silence camps (German: Schweigelager).
The Soviet occupation authorities did not admit to the existence of the camps until the Western press led the Soviet Union to respond with a moderate propaganda campaign of their own admitting and defending the camps’ existence.No inmates were released before 1948. On January 6, 1950, the camps were handed over to the East German government, who tried the remaining detainees. Officially, 157,837 people were detained, including 122,671 Germans and 35,166 citizens of other nations, at least 43,035 of whom did not survive. The actual number of German prisoners was about 30,000 higher.
For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD_special_camps_in_Germany_1945%E2%80%931950
Today the location Faas crossed into West Berlin is a museum, commemorating the long history of the building.
(Erinnerungsstätte Notaufnahmelager Berlin Marienfelde)
He was found not guilty of the alleged crimes and the German Government helped him and his two sons as refugees in their own country find a home again.
Final Comments
Max Faas passed away in the 1970s, a record exists in the German Archive along with his marriage certificate. His story is quite incredible, what he endured and of course what we will never know. But he was very lucky to survive such a long time in a NKVD Special Camp. Interestingly, you can see how much he has aged in a short time, his Soldbuch picture taken during the war and his picture inside the driving licence was renewed by the City of Ulm after the war. Very rare.
This will also make it into the Berlin 1945 book which will be sold on this website in the coming future, with 100s of other interesting personal stories surrounding the Battle of Berlin 1945.
