Ulrich von Hutten Division tried to reach Potsdam, with the Scharnhorst Division on its eastern flank, to open a corridor into Berlin, other elements of the Twelfth Army, as Wenck had agreed with Busse, pushed east to meet the Ninth Army. In the words of Busse to Wenck, the Ninth Army was planning to push west "like a caterpillar". According to General Busse's plan, the heavy King Tiger tanks of the 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion should lead this caterpillar. The metaphor is quite apt because, as the head led the way, the rear-guard in the tail was going to be engaged in just as heavy fighting trying to disengage from following Soviet forces. On the night of April 25/26, a new order was issued to the Ninth and Twelfth Armies by Hitler. It stipulated that: The Twelfth Army was to cut off the 4th Guards Tank Army by reaching the line Beelitz to Ferch, and to attack eastwards to unite with the Ninth Army. The Ninth Army was to hold on to its eastern front between Spreewald and Fürstenwalde, and to attack westward to link up with the Twelfth Army. Once both armies were combined, they were to attack northwards and open a corridor through the Red Army's encirclement of Berlin. The final army conference of the Ninth Army took place at 1500 hours on April 28. At this point, contact was lost with the V Corps and the V SS Mountain Corps. The conference found that the only possible break-out route had to lead through Halbe. This was not difficult for the Soviet commanders to deduce as well, while, on the other hand, Ninth Army had virtually no information about the Soviet force dispositions between it and the Twelfth Army. From this conference onward, command and control within the Ninth Army collapsed. There was almost no contact between the Ninth Army headquarters and Army Group Vistula, and little contact with formations under Ninth Army command. There were few or no maps to guide planning or combat operations. In his book Slaughter at Halbe, Tony Le Tissier accused General Busse of failing to exercise effective command and control of the encircled army, thereby contributing to the failure of successive break-out attempts. Le Tissier writes that Busse's initial movement of his HQ put him into a situation where he lost the ability to control the formations in the pocket. In