and Peiper had counted on taking intact, further slowing the German advance. With each passing day, enemy resistance stiffened and by 24 December the advance was halted. On 1 January 1945, the Luftwaffe launched a series of attacks on Allied airfields but the operation was very costly for the Germans. They suffered losses which could not be replaced. By this time, the Allies had regrouped their forces and were ready to repulse any attacks launched by the Germans. The operation formally ended on 27 January 1945, and three days later Mohnke was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer. A short time later the LSSAH and I SS Panzer Corps were transferred to Hungary to try and bolster the crumbling situation there. Mohnke was injured in an air raid where he suffered, among other things, ear damage. He was removed from front-line service and put on the Führer reserve. Battle of Berlin After recovering from his wounds, Mohnke was personally appointed by Hitler as the Kommandant (Battle Commander) for the defense of the centre government district of Berlin (Zitadelle sector), which included the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker. Mohnke's command post was under the Reich Chancellery in the bunkers therein. He formed Kampfgruppe Mohnke (Battle Group Mohnke) and it was divided into two weak regiments. It was made up of the LSSAH Flak Company, replacements from LSSAH Ausbildungs-und Ersatz Battalion from Spreenhagen under SS-Standartenführer Anhalt, 600 men from the Begleit-Bataillon Reichsführer-SS, the Führer-Begleit-Kompanie and the core group being the 800 men of the Leibstandarte (LSSAH) SS Guard Battalion (that was assigned to guard the Führer). Although Hitler had appointed General Helmuth Weidling as defense commandant of Berlin, Mohnke remained free of Weidling's command to maintain his defense objectives of the Reich Chancellery and the Führerbunker. The combined total (for the city's defense) of Mohnke's SS Kampfgruppe, General Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps (and the other few units) totaled roughly 45,000 soldiers and 40,000 Volkssturm. They faced a superior number of Soviet Red Army soldiers. There were approximately 1.5 million Soviet troops allocated for the investment and assault on the Berlin Defence Area. Since Mohnke's fighting force was located at the nerve center of the German Third Reich, it fell under intense artillery bombardment, which began on Hitler's birthday of 20 April 1945 and lasted to the end of local hostilities on 2 May 1945. Street fighting around the Reichstag and Reich Chancellery was bitter and bloody.