 SS-"Oberscharführer" Schmidt recalled, "I was assigned as platoon leader of a 'dwindled company' which included a squad of Hungarian volunteers, "Volkssturm" men, "Hitlerjugend", as well as members of the "Heer" [army]... Daily, the Russians advanced closer to the government quarter, which we were to defend.It became more and more difficult to hold the line 'under all circumstances'..."

Hitler summoned Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to take over command of the German Air Force ("Luftwaffe") from Hermann Göring.While flying over Berlin in a Fieseler Storch, von Greim was seriously wounded by Soviet anti-aircraft fire.