Scherzer, Veit (Hrsg.) Verheizt im Oderbruch. Überzähliges Fliegendes Personal als "Fliegerschul-Bataillon" im April 1945 im Erdkampfeinsatz

Towards the end of the war, due to a lack of petrol, thousands of members of the flying personnel, the ground organisation - aircraft guards, airfield operations companies, radio direction finders etc. - and of the schools and other training establishments, were surplus to requirements. They were mostly professional soldiers at the enlisted and non-commissioned officer level. In mid-March 1945, about 150 flight instructors and radio instructors of the Aircraft Pilot School B 31, crews of the Fighter Squadrons 53 and 40, etc. were gathered in Brandis-Polenz and brought by E-transport to Wandlitz, north of Berlin.

Among them were fighter pilots with over 200 missions in England, highly decorated with the German Cross in Gold. Other Luftwaffe personnel had already been assembled there. From these approximately 1000 men, a regiment was formed into 2 battalions, structured like an infantry regiment, and put into paratrooper uniforms. The I Battalion was given the designation Fliegerschul-Bataillon. At the beginning of April, the regiment was transferred on foot to the 9th Army on the Oder at Wriezen and placed under the 25th Panzergrenadier Division. When the Red Army moved to storm Berlin on 16 April, the Luftwaffe regiment was caught up in the maelstrom of the 9th Army's demise. The author, a radio operator instructor with 3,000 flying hours, initially assigned as a telephone squad leader with the regimental staff, describes the desperate and horrific defensive battles, and after the regiment was crushed, the terrible retreat battles of the combat group he led until his capture on 4 May, in detail, very vividly and stirringly. In July 1945 he managed to escape and on 27 August 1945 he returned home to his home town in the Allgäu.