Theodor Busse Ernst Hermann August Theodor Busse ( 15 December 1897 – 21 October 1986 ) was a German officer during World War I and World War II . Career . Busse , a native of Frankfurt ( Oder ) , joined the Imperial German Army as an officer cadet in 1915 , and was commissioned in February 1917 . He also won the Knights Cross with Swords of the Hohenzollern Order . After the armistice he was accepted as one of 2000 officers into the new Reichswehr where he steadily rose in rank . Busse was a General Staff officer in April 1939 , and prepared a training program which was approved by the Chief of the General Staff in August . The program covered a period from 1 October 1939 to 30 September 1940 . Between 1940 and 1942 he served as the Chief of Operations to General ( later Field Marshal ) Erich von Manstein in the 11th Army on the Eastern Front . He remained serving on von Manstein ' s staff from 1942 until 1943 as Chief of Operations of Army Group Don and then from 1943 until 1944 he was Chief of Staff of Army Group South , both Army Groups on the Eastern Front . While serving with Army Group South he was awarded the Knight ' s Cross of the Iron Cross on January 30 , 1944 . He spent a short time in reserve and was then appointed General Officer Commanding German 121st Infantry Division . In July 1944 he commanded I Army Corps . During the last five months of the war , Busse commanded the 9th Army which was by then part of Army Group Vistula . As the Soviets continued to advance into Germany , he fought to protect the German capital city in the Battle of Berlin . Specifically , Busse commanded the 9th Army during the Battle of Seelow Heights and the Battle of the Oder - Neisse . While Busse took command of the 9th Army on 21 January 1945 , his appointment was never confirmed . It would appear that it was customary for commanders of formations of the status of an Army and higher to be on six months probation before their final appointments as Commanders - in - Chief . Germany surrendered unconditionally before Busse ' s probationary period expired . Relief of Berlin . On 22 April 1945 , Busse became part of a poorly conceived and incredibly desperate plan that Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl proposed to Adolf Hitler . The plan was proposed to Hitler to mollify him ; Hitler was in a rage earlier that day after he discovered that forces under General Felix Steiner would not be coming to his relief in Berlin . The goal of Keitel and Jodl ' s plan was for the few remaining German forces in central Germany to attack the Soviet forces encircling Berlin . If successful , the German attacks would relieve the city and throw the Soviets forces back . Hitler ordered that the desperate plan be implemented . The plan called for General Walther Wenck ' s 12th Army on the Elbe and Mulde fronts to be turned completely around . Wenck ' s army faced the American forces advancing from the West . The Western Front and the Eastern Front were so close that , by simply turning completely around , Wenck ' s army would face the Soviet forces advancing from the East . The 12th Army was to attack towards the east and link up just south of Berlin with General Busse ’ s 9th Army . Then both armies would strike in a northeastern direction towards Potsdam and Berlin . The plan called for the combined armies to mop up the elite Russian troops that they thereby cut off . Wenck ’ s objective would be the autobahn at Ferch , near Potsdam . The plan also called for an attack from the area northwest of Berlin . The XLI Panzer Corps — commanded by the reliable General Rudolf Holste , an old regimental comrade of Keitel ’ s — would be brought back across the Elbe . Holste was to counterattack between Spandau and Oranienburg . To give Holste as much punch as possible , Steiner was to turn over his mechanized divisions ( the 25th Panzergrenadier s and the 7th Panzer ) to Holste . Wenck ' s army did make a sudden turn around and , in the general confusion , surprised the Soviets encircling the German capital with an unexpected attack . Wenck ' s forces attacked towards Berlin in good morale and made some initial progress . But they were 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 completely cut off from the rest of Germany . Late in the evening of 29 April , from Berlin , Hans Krebs contacted Jodl by radio and made the following demands : " Request immediate report . Firstly of the whereabouts of Wenck ' s spearheads . Secondly of time intended to attack . Thirdly of the location of the 9th Army . Fourthly of the precise place in which the 9th Army will break through . Fifthly of the whereabouts of Holste ' s spearhead . " In the early morning of 30 April , Jodl replied to Krebs : " Firstly , Wenck ' s spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake . Secondly , 12th Army therefore unable to continue attack on Berlin . Thirdly , bulk of 9th Army surrounded . Fourthly , Holste ' s Corps on the defensive . " Two days later , on 2 May , the Battle for Berlin came to an end when Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered the city to the Soviets . This last desperate plan to save Berlin was never fully implemented , never had the manpower nor the equipment it required , never achieved its objectives , and ultimately came to almost nothing . The link up between Wenck and Busse , the Battle of Halbe , did allow a remnant of Busse ' s army and some German civilians to escape to the West . Post war . Between 1945 and 1948 , Busse was a prisoner of war . He had before that traveled some 800 km on bicycle as a civilian and traveling salesman to rejoin with his family in Bavaria . At the Nuremberg Trials : Various witnesses were asked why they took over command of the Army at the end of the war when the situation was already desperate . Busse , for instance , said that he was moved by the sight of miserable groups of countrymen traveling west and wished to protect them from the enemy coming from the East . He said that he followed the example of many other soldiers who have preferred death to surrender . After the war Busse was West Germany ' s director of civil defense , and wrote and edited a number of works on the military history of World War II .