On 30 January 1945 Ahlfen was promoted to major general and appointed by Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner as the commandant of the city of Breslau[1] which Adolf Hitler had declared in August 1944 to be a ‘fortress’, to be defended at all costs.

Hanke advocated a breakout using parachute troops which Ahlfen did not consider realistic and he disagreed with him on several other issues, including the construction of an auxiliary airstrip that would be less vulnerable to attack.

Great loss of life and destruction then followed during the Siege of Breslau as Soviet forces sought to capture the city which held out for two months defended partly by elderly Volkssturm home guard and boys from the Hitler Youth, with little defence against air attacks.

[2] Ahlfen was captured by the Western Allies on 17 April 1945 whilst serving with Army Group B as General of Pioneers and was released from captivity on 30 June 1947.

In 1959 they jointly published the book So fought Breslau (Graefe and Unzer Verlag, 1959), which was a big commercial success, and a year later, a second expanded edition followed.