Monday 9th April 1945 – The day of the Fall. Despite the hysterical urgings of Hitler, General Lasch knew that he could not fight on. Beseiged in the city centre at his headquarters in the Paradeplatz in front of the university, the city smashed and burning all around him, men, weapons and ammunition rapidly running out, the remaining townsfolk shocked and cowed, he knew the time had come. Envoys were sent out, parleys were held, and at 9.00am General Lasch and Red Army officers Janovsky and Kruglov signed a surrender document in the Paradeplatz bunker. At the 9th hour of the 9th day, it was all over. Half an hour later the fighting stopped, and some 50,000 German soldiers surrendered as the Red Army entered the ruins of the city. Hitler sentenced Lasch to death in absentia and detained and tortured his family. The people waited in the void, thinking the nightmare might be over. Sadly, the real nightmare was just about to begin.

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The fears of the Königsbergers, continually raised since the air raids and then Nemmersdorf, compounded by the consistent stories that filtered into the city of rape, killing, looting and terror inflicted upon the civilian population by the Red Army as it swept through Poland and Eastern Germany were fully realised during the invasion of the city, and then during the occupation.