With Our Backs to Berlin E-Book

Tony Le Tissier

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 443

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Beschreibung

'An excellent collection of ten semi-short stories of soldier's experiences in that grand battle . . . This is a stunning account of the Battle for Berlin.' - Thomas Ham, Axis History Forum In the final months of the Second World War, the German Army was in full retreat on both its Western and Eastern Fronts. British and American troops were poised to cross the River Rhine in the west, while in the east the vast Soviet war machine was steamrolling the soldiers of the Third Reich back towards the capital, Berlin. Even in retreat, the German Army was still a force to be reckoned with and vigorously defended every last bridge, castle, town and village against the massive Russian onslaught. Tony Le Tissier's interviews provide access to vivid first-hand accounts of the fighting retreat. The dramatic descriptions of combat are contrasted with insights into the human dimension of these desperate battles, reminding the reader that many of the German soldiers whose stories we read shared similar values to the average British 'Tommy' or the American GI. With Our Backs to Berlin is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the final days of the Second World War.

Leseprobe

First published 2001 by Sutton Publishing

This paperback edition first published 2021

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Reprinted 2006, 2007

© Tony Le Tissier, 2001, 2005, 2021

The right of Tony Le Tissier to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7524 9469 2

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

List of Drawings

Introduction

1 In the Steps of Frederick the Great

2 The Last Defender of Schloss Thorn

3 With Our Backs to Berlin

4 The Siege of Klessin

5 The Bridge at Golzow

6 The Defence of Seelow

7 Marxdorf

8 Retreat from Seelow

9 At the Zoo Flak-tower

10 Halbe

11 The Surrender of the ‘Phantom Division’

12 The Band of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler

List of Drawings

The Oderbruch Battlefield

The Saar-Moselle Triangle: Schloss Thorn & The Orscholz Switch

The Second Battalion, Grenadier Regiment 1234, at Rathstock and Tillery’s Escape after the Soviet Attack of 2 March 1945

The Second Battalion, Grenadier Regiment 1234, at Solikante

The Original Deployment of Grenadier Regiment 1234 and Tillery’s Retreat from Solikante to Gottesgabe

Tillery in Wilmersdorf

The Deployment of the 2nd Battalion, Fahnenjunker-Grenadier Regiment 1242, on 7 March 1945

The Deployment of the 2nd Battalion, Panzer-Regiment ‘Müncheberg’ on the 21–23 March 1945

The Defence of Seelow

Breaching the Stein-Stellung – Routes of Tams, Wittor & Averdieck

Rogmann’s Main Area of Activity

Rogmann’s Mortars in East Berlin

The Reichstag Battle

Introduction

Leafing through the material I have accumulated from over twenty years of studying the Second World War Berlin battlefield scene, much of it ‘feedback’ from the German editions of my books, The Battle of Berlin 1945 and Zhukov at the Oder, I came across so many interesting, hitherto unpublished pieces that I decided to bring some of them together here as a collection of short stories.

These heroic, often poignant accounts of the desperate, last-ditch defence of the Fatherland should not be taken in any way as an apology for the German cause. It is precisely because one so seldom hears their side of the story, that they deserve a wider readership. They are mainly told by former members of the Wehrmacht and even the dreaded Waffen-SS, some of them still surviving. Perhaps surprisingly, the stories are characterised by the same individual human warmth and soldiers’ humour as you might normally expect from the ‘good guys’ – the GIs, British and Commonwealth infantry and armoured brigades, who had to contend with a surprising degree of resistance before ending the war in Europe. The lesson, I suppose, is that we are all pretty much alike, under the uniform.

With Allied forces – and, above all, the avenging Red Army of the Soviet Union – closing in on all sides; with their communications, fuel supplies and heavy industries under constant air attack, it is noteworthy that the German armed forces managed to maintain such an effective resistance. One has only to recall General Eisenhower’s decision not to attack Berlin after his forces had reached the line of the River Elbe, because of the anticipated 100,000 further casualties this might cost him. Field kitchens still operated. Dispatch riders still got through. Transfer orders were carried out. Drill parades were still held, even under the Russian shellfire. Eventually, as in W.B. Yeats’s famous line, ‘Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold’ . . . and the rout began. But the patriotic determination of the individual German soldier to defend his Fatherland with skill and discipline even at the cost of his life was never in question. Author Christabel Bielenberg summarised the situation neatly in The Road Ahead:

Germany had nothing to be proud of during Hitler’s reign, but there were two outstanding exceptions. Firstly, the courage and tenacity of her soldiers when, inadequately equipped, they ultimately found themselves defending this country against the whole world. Secondly, the 20 July plot, when those who had taken part so nearly succeeded in ridding their country of a monster who had ruled over them for eleven years and who claimed their lives when they failed.

Only one of these stories covers the fighting on the Western front, where the US 94th Infantry Division had to breach the Siegfried Line in the severest of winter conditions, the infantry units suffering up to 500 per cent casualties. Despite bitter hand-to-hand combat, there was much mutual respect, as the stories about General Patton’s handling of the surrender of 11th Panzer Division and the snatching of the famous Vienna Riding Academy’s Lippizaner horses from under the noses of the Russians are included to show. (It is interesting to note that in the part of Germany that lies between the Moselle and Saar rivers, the Americans are still regarded as the ‘Liberators’ . . .)

In ‘The Siege of Klessin’, which I compiled mainly from the regiment’s surviving radio ‘logs’ and the unit’s after-action report, one gets a vivid impression of the combat: the extraordinary heroism of the frontline troops, trapped in their positions, unable to retreat – and the basic futility of their military task, as ‘Corporal’ Hitler played out his doomed role of the ‘Greatest Field Commander of All Time’ . . . .

In the late Horst Zobel’s account of the tank battle for the bridge at Golzow, a small armoured unit with a hopeless mission pits its exceptional fighting skills against Zhukov’s seemingly limitless Soviet armoured forces. Erich Wittor describes an encounter with history and a Stuka ace at Kunnersdorf, and returns later with a longer account of the confused action at Marxdorf. Harry Schweizer recalls his experiences as a schoolboy anti-aircraft gunner posted to the Berlin Zoo flak-tower; and how, briefly, he got a taste of tank-busting with the SS. Gerhard Tillery gives us a rifleman’s account of the fighting in the Oderbruch, the retreat across Berlin and the eventual breakout of servicemen and civilians to the West. Karl-Hermann Tams describes the defence of Seelow, with a motley platoon of sailors and soldiers (who suffered over 90 per cent casualties) cowering under the greatest artillery bombardment in history. Rudi Averdieck, then a regimental radio sergeant, describes the harrowing retreat from Seelow to Berlin, and how he became involved with a newly-organised armoured brigade that had only one mission, to surrender to the Americans.

Quite properly, there are two Jokers in the pack. One is an account by Harry Zvi Glaser, a Latvian Jew who joined the Red Army and tells of his experiences at Halbe, where the remnants of the German 9th Army and its accompanying refugees suffered over 40,000 killed. (Harry, who became a US citizen, did not receive his medal until it was presented to him by President Yeltsin on a visit to the White House in 1995!) Finally, there is the insubordinate SS Sergeant Major Willy Rogmann, a born survivor (and the shortest man in his regiment) who, having ‘done his bit’ for Führer and Fatherland in some of the toughest theatres of the war, found himself leading an unlikely team of combatants through the ruins of Berlin, armed with a British Sten-gun (they didn’t jam, like the German Schmeissers).

These exciting ‘true tales’ beg the ultimate question: what might we have done, With our Backs to London, or even Washington?

A H Le T

Frome, Somerset

January 2001

ONE

In the Steps of Frederick the Great

ERICH WITTOR

In 1945 Erich Wittor was a 20-year-old second lieutenant of three months’ standing, leading a squadron in the Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion ‘Kurmark’, commanded by Major Freiherr von Albedyll, only son of the squire of Klessin (see The Siege of Klessin). The Panzergrenadier Division ‘Kurmark’, to which his unit belonged, had yet to be fully formed on the basis of the Panzergrenadier Replacement Brigade of the famous Division ‘Grossdeutschland’. This brigade had been sent forward from Frankfurt under Colonel Willy Langkeit a few days earlier to try and help plug the gap caused by the collapse of the German 9th Army on the Vistula, and was now itself trapped immediately east of Kunersdorf. Marshal Zhukov’s troops, here elements of the 1st Guards Tank and 69th Armies, were rushing forward to close up to the Oder River, hoping to secure bridgeheads on the west bank before the ice melted.

On 1 February 1945, I received orders to take Kunersdorf, a village directly east of Frankfurt an der Oder. This was the Kunersdorf where Frederick the Great fought a battle against the Russians and the Austrians on 12 August 1759. On the very same ground the cavalry regiments under General von Seydlitz1 had attacked and the dead-tired Prussian infantry advanced against vastly superior numbers of Russians. The battle was lost with immense casualties. Now we were standing on historical ground, having to fight for our country. Would we have any better luck?

I drove out from Frankfurt an der Oder with eight to ten armoured personnel carriers (APCs). The enemy situation was unknown. All that was known was that the Replacement Brigade ‘Grossdeutschland’ was trapped in the Reppiner Forest northeast of Kunersdorf and was making desperate attempts to break out. We had to try and force a passage through to the west.

As we got close, I saw that fighting was taking place in Kunersdorf. We reached the edge of the village, where we stopped and I went forward to reconnoitre. I worked my way forward as far as the centre of the village, which was still held by our infantry, the eastern part being occupied by the Russians. T-34s and anti-tank guns were firing down the main street and Russian infantry were occupying the houses and gardens. An attack on our part could not have been successful and would only have led to severe casualties. I had my men dismount under covering fire from the APCs. The Russians were then unable to make any further headway.

While running across the street I ran straight into a burst of fire from the Russians and was scorched by a tracer bullet on my leg. We tried to drive the Russians out of the eastern part of Kunersdorf with shock troops but, after gaining thirty to fifty metres, we had to give up. The enemy forces were too strong and were far from idle: we had to keep on our toes throughout the night to avoid being surprised.

A new day began. Our comrades were still unable to break out of their encirclement. Our forces were too weak to break through the Russian ring. Then, towards midday, I was ordered to hand over my positions to some SS-grenadiers and to take the village of Trettin, about four kilometres north of Kunersdorf. The relief came, hand-over and briefing were soon completed and I got my men to mount up and drive off.

We drove continuously through the potentially dangerous terrain with all necessary care, having to reckon with enemy intervention at any moment, crawling unseen through the dips and hollows to Trettin. We reached to within a thousand metres of the village, from which we were concealed by a low hill. Trettin was already occupied by the enemy. We could see several enemy tanks. Although they were partly covered positions, we could still make them out. We did not know how strong the enemy was. What were we to do?

To attack across the open ground to the edge of the village in our lightly armoured vehicles would be suicidal, and to go round by a flank impossible. We had no artillery at our disposal and there were certainly still some civilians in the village. How could we take Trettin under these circumstances? It was a damnable situation, but a soldier has to have luck.

Suddenly we heard aircraft approaching. ‘Stukas!’ I shouted, ‘Get out the identification panels!’ We did not want to be attacked by our own aircraft.

They flew at medium height over us and banked round over Trettin. The village was flown over once more and then, with the next flight, we witnessed a unique display with deadly results for the enemy. From medium height the first machine flipped over on its wings and dived down with an ear-splitting noise. Was it the rush of air, or a switched on siren, or both?

The dive was aimed straight at the village, the pilot only pulling up again just short of the roof tops. One would have thought he would crash into the houses, he was so close. Shortly before pulling up again, he fired a single shot from his cannon, but the result was devastating.

A stab of flame shot up like an explosion and black smoke rose up into the sky between the houses. ‘He’s got a T-34!’ we cried, for we were quite certain. Meanwhile the other two aircraft had done the same, diving and firing their cannon, and two more Soviet tanks were on fire.

Once they had climbed up again, they banked round once more and dived down on Trettin. The T-34s stood no chance against this attack from the air. They were not camouflaged from above and insufficiently armoured, and so could be destroyed one after the other by our Stukas. We were particularly impressed by the accuracy of the leading aircraft, which only fired one shot each time and each time scored a hit. Our delight was indescribable. Meanwhile the Stukas had destroyed eight or nine enemy tanks. Just think what they would have done to us if we had attacked twenty minutes earlier?

After their last attack the Stukas flew over us waggling their wings. That was the signal that they had finished their job and now it was up to us.

During the air attack we had been joined by a company of panzergrenadiers led by a dashing young second lieutenant. Now we attacked together, he taking the left of the road and ourselves the right, and we charged into the village. The Russian infantry had not fully regained their senses, having been completely demoralised by the loss of their tanks. We broke into the village firing on all sides, and had an easy job of it, the Russians losing many dead and prisoners. Some of them, however, managed to reach the safety of a prominent patch of woodland. I had only one wounded among my men, and that just a graze on his back. The grenadiers immediately took up defensive positions and we went into attack reserve.

After a dangerous night in reconnaissance behind enemy lines and an even luckier return to my own troops, I discovered several days later how the success in Trettin had been made possible. It was due to the famous Luftwaffe Colonel Rudel, bearer of the highest German decorations for bravery.2

That same day the ‘Grossdeutschland’ managed to break out, and we had done our bit towards it.

Erich Wittor’s story continues in Marxdorf (p. 110).

1 This was an ancestor of the General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach captured at Stalingrad, who became Chairman of the ‘Bund Deutscher Offiziere’ (League of German Officers) and Vice-President of the ‘Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland’ (National Committee for a Free Germany), giving rise to the term ‘Seydlitz-Truppen’ given by the Nazis to those German prisoners of war who did propaganda work and even fought with the Red Army against the Wehrmacht, although he totally disassociated himself from those activities and was later exonerated by a West German court after the war.

2 Hans-Ulrich Rudel specialised in tank-busting with cannon-equipped Stukas, often working at turret-height and was credited with 519 Soviet tanks destroyed and 800 damaged, as well as the sinking of a cruiser and the severe damaging of a battleship. He was to lose a leg in action that same month and was treated at the Zoo Flak-tower hospital in Berlin.

TWO

The Last Defender of Schloss Thorn

ERNST HENKEL

I met Ernst Henkel while conducting a tour for veterans of the 94th US Infantry Division, when we visited Schloss Thorn as guests of Baron von Hobe-Gelting in September 1999. He had previously published this article, which I have translated with his permission, in the magazine Kameraden and later wrote another short one about our encounter.

The 94th Infantry Division had previously been employed in blockading the remaining German garrisons on the Atlantic coast of Britanny, so its first real combat experience came when it began deploying in front of the Orscholz Switch of the Siegfried Line on the 7th January 1945 (see diagram on next page). The Switch, built in the late 1930s, protected the base of the triangle formed by the Saar and Moselle Rivers and terminated on its western end at Schloss Thorn, opposite previously neutral Luxembourg. The German defences consisted of ‘dragons’ teeth’, barbed wire and minefields backed by concrete pill boxes. This was one of the coldest winters of the century, the snow was deep, and the terrain high and exposed to the winds. The weather and the defenders, soon to be reinforced by the 11th Panzer Division (see The Surrender of the ‘Phantom’ Division) exacted a heavy toll from the Americans, casualties being as high as 500 per cent in the rifle companies, where replacements tended to be killed before they had a chance to learn the ropes.

By the time Ernst Henkel’s division arrived, the Americans had secured the western end of the Orscholz Switch. The day it finally fell, the Americans were engaged in a major operation to clear the high ridge dominating the Switch from east of Sinz.

Towards the end of January, beginning of February 1945, the 256th Volksgrenadier Infantry Division, and with it Regiment 481 to which I belonged, was pulled out of the northern Vosges Mountains. We were all glad to be able to leave that sector. Four weeks of hard infantry combat in the snow and cold lay behind us.

Partly by rail and partly on foot over the Hunsrück Highroad, we reached Irsch, where I met a member of the 11th Panzer Division that we were relieving. The 11th Panzer were required elsewhere urgently. When I replied in some amazement to his query as to how many tanks we had with ‘none at all’, he laughed out aloud. ‘Have fun,’ he called behind him as he made off, ‘you will never be able to hold on to the sector without tanks!’1

The sector in question was the so-called Orscholz-Switch, a section of the Siegfried Line between the Moselle and the Saar, that had been fought over for months. It got its name from the little place of Orscholz lying directly opposite the Saar Loop.

From Irsch we marched by night, as one could only march by night because of ground-attack aircraft, down the steep mountain road and across the Saar into Saarburg. Our platoon found accommodation in a building at the entrance to the town nearest the river, where an old man was still holding out, although Saarburg was supposed to have been evacuated. This was the last time we got a skinful.

On the evening of the next day we continued our march. The front was not very far off now with the lightning flashes of guns firing, exploding shells and the usual sounds of the front line. Here and there a fire glowed in the night. At dawn we came to an abandoned, half-destroyed farm. The enemy was firing at night on the roads and crossroads. After the previous day’s drinking bout and the long march, we threw ourselves down anywhere and slept.

Next evening we moved on again. Smoking was strictly forbidden. Toward morning we came upon a well spread-out, destroyed village called Kreuzweiler, where we split up among the cellars. There were big wine cellars with massive, vaulted ceilings. There were also numerous wine casks of various sizes, but all were empty. Our predecessors had made a good job of it. As I later discovered, Kreuzweiler had changed hands several times, as the state of the village showed. My platoon spent the night in a big wine cellar where a guesthouse stands today.

We were a mortar platoon equipped with 80mm mortars. I was the platoon range-finder and so ended up a maid of all work, mainly, however, as a forward observer. I found myself a really good sleeping place in the cellar, sharing a worn-out sofa with two other soldiers. As I was dropping off to sleep, I heard two officers talking and my name was mentioned. I pricked up my ears and discovered that I was to go to Schloss Thorn as a forward observer with Staff Sergeant Witt. I nearly had a fit. Witt was about forty years old, a professional musician who had been conscripted into a Luftwaffe orchestra and gained the rank of staff sergeant with it. Then at the end of September 1944 the orchestra was disbanded and Witt was transferred to combat duty. I had never then or since come across anyone who lived in such a constant state of panic as Staff Sergeant Witt. His escapades in Holland and Haganau were known throughout the division, but that is another story.

From Kreuzweiler a narrow road twisted down toward the valley, made an almost ninety degree turn to the left, then about 150 m further on another similar turn to the right, then went straight on again to meet the road alongside the Moselle (today the B 419). In the angle formed by these bends lay Schloss Thorn, an imposing rectangular building, now, however, totally destroyed. It was not surprising, as this had been the front line for almost five weeks. The road leading from the valley had a small stream running parallel to it on the right that had cut down to about four metres at the deepest part, thickly overgrown but dried out at the moment. The light reverse slope, relatively good cover and road close by, ensured our ammunition resupply.

Several days later two enemy ground-attack aircraft made a low-level attack on Kreuzweiler and strafed our fire position as they flew off. They had apparently not seen our fire position as such, only some soldiers running around. However, we thought that we had been discovered and moved further to the right, where a track led to a small gully nicely concealed by a copse. There our mortars were to perform magnificently.

Neither Witt nor I had anything to do with the first fire position nor the change over to the new one, as we were by this time already in Schloss Thorn. We followed the road to the first sharp turn to the left, where we turned to the right and came across two half-destroyed buildings. We went through a hole in the wall to the right again and along past a long, destroyed building to a big arched gateway (without the gates) through which we came to the castle’s inner courtyard. As the whole area was strongly mined, we had to keep strictly within the denoted paths. As I said, it was a rectangular building with one side to the south and another to the west overlooking the Moselle. There were the remains of a thick tower, the top half of it shot away, and a long connecting building to a more slender tower, still intact, from where I was later to do my observing.

There were also two big cellars, the first used as a toilet, the second, reached by a flight of steps, served as accommodation for about fifteen soldiers. From the latter a passage led to another, smaller cellar, where Witt and I made our home. It had a small stove, for which our predecessors had knocked a hole through the ceiling. There was an artillery forward observer in the big cellar and a heavy machine gun team. The forward observer had two radio operators with him, through whom he had radio contact with his battery. From the big cellar a narrow flight of steps led to a platform with an arrow-slit-like view of the road leading down to the Moselle, and then a few more steps to the long corridor on the ground floor, from which one entered a big corner room with views to the south and to the west over the Moselle to Luxembourg.

We received almost exclusively only cold rations, occasionally also meat, which we had to cook ourselves, about which no one knew anything except Witt. He was an exceptional cook but, because of his permanent anxiety, had no appetite. I still remember him making a delicate goulash, which I stirred endlessly. Normally a cook would be pleased when others praise the food he has prepared, but not Witt. He even once called me a hog.

I spent a lot of time in the narrow tower, from where I had a good view of the destroyed bridge leading across to Remich. There was a small customs house on the German side with an American forward observer in it. When they changed men over, they would have to run about 50m across open ground, which they always did flat out. But my narrow tower required a special skill in climbing it. The spiral staircase leading up had long narrow windows on the enemy side under which one had to crawl on one’s belly, or the Americans would see you and immediately open fire, something which would set Staff Sergeant Witt off into a panic.

For me it was like a holiday. The hard weeks in the Vosges Mountains with deep snow, icy temperatures and hard fighting in the woods, were forgotten. Here at Schloss Thorn we had shellproof accommodation, thanks to the vaulted cellars, and adequate rations. We did no sentry duties, as that was for the infantry, their heavy machine gun being in the big corner room covering the bridge and Nennig. I often chatted with the machine gunners. The No. 1 was a Sergeant Flinn (or Flint), the No. 2 a little chap with the Iron Cross First Class. Our mortar target area ‘Anton’ lay close behind the ridge beyond the road, in what was dead ground for me. My attempts at getting Witt to bring the target area directly on to the road were brusquely rejected.

There were also some incidents. Once an American reconnaissance aircraft, similar to our Fieseler Storch, circled over us and Kreuzweiler. We opened a ferocious fire on him and the lad hastily turned away and was not seen again. Now and then a couple of ground-attack aircraft would come back and strafe Kreuzweiler. Pulling up again they had to pass over Schloss Thorn, and we fired with everything we had. Staff Sergeant Witt threw a fit, saying that we should not provoke them, or the Americans would reply with their heavy artillery. However, nobody took any notice of him any more.

But there was an even better incident to come. One night two men from the Propaganda Company were brought to us, who naturally wanted to see some action. So the infantry had to creep through the rubble with grim expressions and weapons at the ready, jump up and lie down again, and occasionally fire a few bursts with their assault rifles. The shots had to be taken all over again, because one or other of them had grinned at the wrong moment. One of the Propaganda Company men also wanted to film a mortar bomb exploding in no-man’s land, so we climbed up the narrow tower, I going on all fours as usual but not noticing that the Propaganda Company man was walking upright. I gave the order for a salvo on ‘Anton’ and the hits were easily visible in the foreground. The cameramen filmed eagerly away, even turning the cameras on me, but then I heard the incoming fire; ‘Quickly down below! There’s going to be a row!’ I shouted, and we slipped down the spiral staircase, not a moment too soon, as some heavy shells landed on us. The propaganda men enjoyed their stay and that night were led back again through the minefields.

It must have been about 15 February that we had an experience with bad consequences. An extra heavy machine gun fired across from the Luxembourg side on Kreuzweiler and strafed the battalion command post. The battalion commander ordered us tersely to engage the machine gun immediately. Engaging a machine gun with mortars when it is firing from behind cover is almost impossible, apart from which the 80 mm mortar is intended for open spaces, with pin-point firing practically an impossibility. But orders are orders. If one drew a straight line from the crossroads in Kreuzweiler right past Schloss Thorn into Luxembourg, that would give the approximate location of the machine gun. I climbed the tower, taking the usual precautions. Staff Sergeant Witt remained below. My fire order was: ‘60 degrees less, down 200, key mortar one shot!’ The fire position reported: ‘Fired!’ I heard the explosion but did not see it. I reported this to Witt, who exploded with anger and swore at our mortar crews. I repeated my fire order with one degree change and this time I saw the hit, which was on the slope of the Moselle, almost in dead ground. Now it was simple. Again: ‘15 degrees less, down 300, fire two salvoes!’ The hits occurred either on the buildings or on their roofs. Marvellous! The machine gun stopped firing.

I reported to the fire position: ‘Situation fine, cease firing!’ Peace returned, but only for a moment, for the battalion commander had heard everything. We all depended on a single line, sometimes the whole regiment, as signal wire was in such short supply. The captain called Witt everything under the sun and, as the worst punishment, transferred him to the infantry. As he was being relieved of his post, the relief would take place that night. Witt asked me to escort him through the minefields that evening. He was a broken man. I was sorry for him. Although our relationship had not always been of the best, there was still a comradely bond between us. We shook hands on the road to Kreuzweiler for the last time and wished each other luck. He was convinced that he was going to his death, but in fact he was to survive, although, yet again, that is another story.

The relief was Sergeant Schultz. He was in his mid-forties, an East Prussian, a reserved type, but a good comrade. We were on ‘du’ terms, having survived the severe fighting in Holland, Hagenau and in the Vosges together. He had had a very sketchy education because of what had happened in East Prussia after the First World War, and his reading and writing were at best indifferent; a map was a complete mystery to him. As before, he left all these things to me. He was even more withdrawn than usual, as he knew what the Russians were doing to the unarmed civilians in East Prussia.

From 18 February onwards things began to happen. We could hear the artillery fire from the Saar to our left going on nearly all day, easing up a little at night and resuming fully on the 19th. Something was happening there, and although it was quiet where we were, we were on high alert. Shortly after dusk a sentry reported sounds of movement on the street leading from the Moselle. We peered out into the night from the big corner room. Things were certainly moving down there. Our heavy machine gun fired two belts into the gully, the noise stopped and it was quiet once more. I could not give any fire orders as the flashes from the firing mortars would have given their location away.

We went back into the big cellar. Shortly afterwards a runner appeared with orders for the heavy machine gun and the remainder of the infantry to go back to Kreuzweiler. Behind remained Schultz and myself, the artillery forward observer with his two signallers, and another two or three men, apparently signals fault finders. We stayed quiet. Outside it was exceptionally quiet.

I woke at dawn on 20 February to unusual sounds. I went through the small stairwell up to the big corner room, from where we had the best view of the gully and the road leading up from the Moselle. I leaned out of the window with a stick grenade. I caught my breath. The little road was buzzing with activity. American infantry, with the occasional Jeep, were making their way up. I hurried back to the cellar. A corporal from a section of infantry occupying a cellar outside our yard burst in from the inner courtyard, grabbed an assault rifle and left the cellar again by the outside steps. I told them in the cellar what was happening and slipped back up again. In the castle courtyard, seen at close range from the landing, an American tank drove in with a man on the back behind a heavy machine gun or quick-firing cannon. He was not being heroic, just damn’ stupid. Only the fact that I had left my rifle in the cellar saved his life. So back to the cellar, grab my rifle and back up again, but the tank had gone.

Even today, after several post-war visits to the castle, I still cannot understand how it got in and then vanished again. It could not have come in through the arched gateway, as it was too narrow. But through the gateway I could see a Sherman tank with its gun pointing toward us. I turned round again, crossed the corridor and went down the narrow steps, stopping at the intermediate landing. Through the arrow-slit I had a good view of the road and the hilly ground beyond. American infantry were coming through a narrow gap in this hilly ground and jumping down on to the roadway. That was what we had heard the night before. Sheltered by the hills, the Americans had dug a communications trench parallel to the Moselle river bank road and made the last cutting during the night.

The first steep difference in height had to be covered with a two-metre jump down, the remaining four or six metres by sliding down as best they could. Strangely enough, the GIs were not even looking at the castle, where their enemy was. They saw their problem as being that first jump. Without hesitation, I set my sights at 100m and took aim at the first one. He looked down, jumped, and I squeezed the trigger. Hit as he jumped, he bent his knees and slid on his stomach down to the roadway, where he lay still. I reloaded and already the next candidate was preparing to jump. He was a small, fat chap. I squeezed the trigger and he slid down on top of his comrade. A third man had already appeared. The game was repeated; he jumped and I fired. Now some medical orderlies appeared. At the same time a Jeep drove up the road and an officer in the front passenger seat started giving instructions with many gestures. From the white stripe on his helmet I could see that he was a Lieutenant. After my shot he slumped forward and slid down. Because of the medical orderlies that attended to him straight away, I held my fire. Apart from this, I could hear the crunch of footsteps from outside. If the Americans were already there and one of them threw a hand grenade through the arrow-slit, that would be my lot. Despite these thoughts, I still tried to bring a machine gun into position, but the slit was too narrow. I could not set up the bipod properly, nor could I lean forward into it enough to take the recoil. My attempt failed miserably. The recoil ripped into my right shoulder and the machine gun fell clattering to the ground. Now I had had enough. I went down to the cellar, where the lads looked at me questioningly. I gave a brief account and concluded: ‘We are sitting like rats in a trap!’

The artillery forward observer told me that he had ordered fire on our own position. I do not know whether we as forward observers for the mortars gave a similar order with Verey lights. It is unlikely, for the fire position must have been experiencing the same as ourselves. Schloss Thorn was being raked by our own weapons, and there was also heavy fire on the American infantry advancing on Kreuzweiler.

After a short discussion we decided to give ourselves up, otherwise we would be smoked out. One of us would have to go outside. Nobody wanted to be the one to go, but the lads picked on me as apparently I had once casually said something about speaking a little English. I opened the cellar door and climbed over the corpse of the corporal that had collected an assault rifle from us. He had been shot in the head by a sniper from the other side of the Moselle. The damaged screen that had sheltered us from view from the river had fallen down, and we had not found it necessary to put it up again last night. No one had felt responsible, and this poor devil died because of it.

My main problem was now the sniper across the way, for as I climbed the steps he would have me in his sights. Would the same thing happen to me as to the corporal on the cellar steps? I knew from my own experience how great the urge is to squeeze the trigger when one has an enemy in one’s sights. I raised my hands as high as they would go, climbed the first step and shouted out aloud: ‘American soldiers, we surrender!’

There was no reply. I climbed the next step with my hands stretched up high and shouted again. Then the third step, and the lad must be able to see my hands now, I thought. Then step four. I was sweating. With the fifth step he would surely see my head. Did he have me in his cross hairs? Would he squeeze the trigger? He did not, so I slowly climbed the rest of the steps and stood in the castle’s inner courtyard.

Calling out loudly I turned around and got a reply. From the adjacent cellar that we had used as a toilet came about ten Americans. They surrounded me and pointed their weapons at me. Their leader, whom I took to be a staff sergeant, cocked his big revolver and pointed it at my stomach. I was greatly relieved, for the sniper could not get me now. We looked at each other silently for a moment until I somewhat superfluously repeated: ‘We surrender!’

The section leader pointed toward the cellar. ‘How many?’

I shook my shoulders. ‘I don’t know, maybe six or eight. Some are dead like him’, and I indicated with my head toward the dead man. The Americans stretched their necks and looked down. That satisfied the section leader. ‘Let them come up, hands up and no weapons!’

So I called down below: ‘Lads, unbuckle, weapons away and hands up, then come out!’

The first was the artillery forward observer, who grinned at me and threw me a knowing look. (They had meanwhile rendered the radio unserviceable.) With me included, we were six men in all. The war seemed to be over for us, and we had survived. They led us from the inner courtyard outside through the big arched gateway. The Sherman tank was there further up with three or four others. Several other men came out as prisoners from the outer cellars. It was clear to all of us that there was no way out of this trap.

Then we heard the first rounds of our 105 mm coming. Everyone threw themselves down in the dirt, Germans and Americans, trying to bury themselves in the earth. Here would have been a chance to escape. It would have meant running back through the fire of our own shells, hoping that they would not get me and that the Americans would not shoot after me. By the time I had thought it through, the opportunity was gone. One has to do these things without thinking, but today I am glad that I did not do it.

With our hands clasped behind our necks, they led us down the road coming up from the Moselle. The dead enemies that I had shot were lying there. One of the guards pointed to them with a threatening gesture. I was the last in the line. As we turned into the Moselle river bank road, I stopped and turned round once more, looking at the destroyed Schloss Thorn. It was a wretched sight and I vowed to myself never to forget it. This vow I have kept. My guard, a lanky, gum-chewing lad, struck me sharply in the chest with the barrel of his sub-machine gun and said: ‘Let’s go!’, an expression I was to hear often.

They took us to Nennig for our first interrogation. There were already about ten men there, including the captain and battalion commander from Kreuzweiler, who had found their way into captivity surprisingly quickly. The artillery forward observer went in first, then myself about a quarter of an hour later. In passing, the forward observer whispered: ‘Watch out for the blows!’

In the room were an officer who spoke good German and a bullish sergeant. They knew me by name, as the Americans had been listening in to our telephone line. That was easily possible technically, as we had no double lines, only one strand with an earth. His first question: ‘Where is your fire position?’

I said: ‘I will not betray it. You cannot force me to.’

The officer pulled back and the sergeant gave me a blow with his fist. All the same, it was not very hard and only meant as a warning shot. The officer then said: ‘Now will you tell me? Here is the map. Show me where your fire position is on here.’

Then I realised what to do. Without hesitation I showed him the place where our first fire position had been. ‘No,’ said the officer, ‘there is no fire position there. Our tanks are already there.’

I did not let my answer wait. ‘Then we have moved it. I had no verbal contact any more. Fire was only called on with Verey lights and tracer.’

To my relief he accepted this outrageous lie and I was taken back to join the others. Although Sergeant Schultz was nominally the senior forward observer, they left him alone. Thus we survived the first critical hours. Towards evening they took us by truck to the rear. The battle for Schloss Thorn was over, and for us the war. And the most important thing was that we had survived!

EPILOGUE

To round off this account, a small postscript. I could not forget Schloss Thorn, the memories of 20 February 1945 were too strong. I first passed by again in 1953 when there was a fire brigade festival in Kreuzweiler. The castle still looked in a bad way, but at least the roofs had been restored. I returned to the Moselle in 1956 and 1959 and could see the progress made in the arduous process of restoration. Finally, in a visit to the castle in the autumn of 1995, I made myself known. The ‘lord of the castle’, Dr Baron von Hobe-Gelting made me very welcome and called me the ‘last defender of the castle’. We talked in his office for a good hour then went on a tour of the premises that brought back old memories.

I discovered that several veterans of our former opponents, the 94th US Infantry Division, had also been here, the place having a similar meaning for them as it has for me. They had even funded and erected a Peace Monument at the strategic point between Sinz and Oberleuken, the inscription being signed by the then-President Bush. Veterans from both sides had come to the unveiling. Unfortunately I had not been among them, although I was apparently the only member of the 256th Volksgrenadier Division to have survived the fighting here and later.

The so-called Orscholz-Switch, the land between the Saar and the Moselle, had suffered a lot in the months-long fighting; all the villages had been largely destroyed, burnt, and the fields laid waste. But through the untiring industry of the inhabitants, the villages have been rebuilt and the countryside is flourishing. Schloss Thorn is a vineyard today. Even Kreuzweiler has been rebuilt. The evacuated inhabitants were only able to return to their destroyed village the following April. The men searched the neighbourhood for the dead that had been left lying around after the Americans had left. Twelve men were found and buried in the Kreuzweiler cemetery. When several years later the German War Graves Commission wanted to move them, the villagers objected, so the fallen still lie in the earth that they defended. Today, above the cellar in Kreuzweiler where I spent the night, stands a magnificent guesthouse with comfortable rooms and excellent cuisine. Unfortunately, in the years after 1945 there was a string of deaths and injuries arising from our mines, but this is all now forgotten.

Many of my former comrades lie in the military cemetery at Kastell, where I spend many hours of reflection and also lay flowers. My former regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Gliemann, found his last resting place here. They fought and died in the faithful fulfilment of their duty in accordance with the oath demanded by the law. May the earth lie lightly upon you, comrades!

1 However, it was because the commander of the 11th Panzer Division felt so strongly that it was being misemployed here, the senior LXXXIInd Corps being unused to dealing with armoured formations, that he had appealed directly to the Inspector of Panzertruppen for the division to be relieved. In fact a battalion of Panzergrenadier Regiment 111 remained behind with some tanks to bolster the 256th Volksgrenadiers.

THREE

With Our Backs to Berlin

GERHARD TILLERY

I originally obtained a copy of Gerhard Tillery’s manuscript from Joachim Schneider, an amateur historian from Frankfurt/Oder, and found it extremely useful in piecing together the events portrayed in my book Zhukov at the Oder. Later I was able to establish contact with the author in Bremen and obtained his permission to reproduce this remarkable account of his experiences as a rifleman on the Oderbruch battlefront, in the retreat to Berlin, the fighting in the surrounded city and the breakout to the west.

The potential officer course in Lübeck, which should have lasted until 15 March 1945, was broken off on 16 February. We were already in Cleverbrück on a ten-day field exercise when the orders came through. We had all hoped to become sergeants on 15 March and get some leave, but the Russians had already crossed the Oder, the Americans were also getting closer, and every man was needed at the front.

On 15 February I had gone with my comrade Hinnerk Otterstedt to a cinema in Bad Schwartau, and when we got back to the field positions at Cleverbrück at eleven o’clock our comrades were all ready to march back to barracks. We packed our things quickly and then marched back to the Cambrai-Kaserne, where we exchanged our old kit for new and gave away everything that was not absolutely necessary. I packed my personal stuff and had it sent to an acquaintance in Lübeck.

Then we marched in formation singing loudly to the railway station. Now that we were going into action, we were filled with enthusiasm. We were all young potential officers, most of us corporals, and 18 years old, and we could not wait to get out there. None of us would have believed that the war would be over and lost in the next three months and that soon, many of us would no longer be alive.

We were loaded into goods wagons and set off at last at dawn. We had been discussing whether we would be going east or west. Now at last we knew; we were going east. By midday we had reached Hagenow in Mecklenburg. Next day we reached Berlin and then Potsdam that same evening. Here we detrained and went to a barracks. Next morning we were inspected and issued with rations for the journey, weapons and ammunition. In the afternoon we could walk out. I went with Warrelmann and Gessner to the Garrison Church and then to the Palace. A few days later there was a heavy bombing raid in which much of the town was destroyed.

From Potsdam our journey took us to Werbig. The nearer we got to the front, the more heartily we were greeted by the inhabitants, who all hoped that we would be able to stop the Russians at the Oder and throw them back.

From Werbig we marched via Friedersdorf to Dolgelin, where the command post of the Division ‘Berlin’ to which we now belonged was located. We were assigned to the Officer-Cadet Regiments ‘Dresden’ and ‘Potsdam’. Together with 15 comrades from Lübeck, I went to Regiment 1234 ‘Potsdam’, where the others were from various training courses and officer cadet schools.

We marched to Sachsendorf, where our battalion commander, Captain Albrecht, greeted us. Sachsendorf lay in the Oderbruch, a completely flat landscape. We looked for something to eat in Sachsendorf, as our travel rations were long gone. At a bakery we each got half a loaf fresh from the oven, then sausage from a butcher’s, and tobacco from a pub.

I sat down apart from my comrades in a roadside ditch, ate my bread, smoked my pipe and wrote a short letter home to my parents. It was my birthday. I was 19 years old.

The front line was still about four kilometres away. Several Russian fighters and ground-attack aircraft appeared in the cloudless sky, but soon fled when our own fighters appeared. Our divisional commander gave a speech: ‘It is the Führer’s wish that the Lebus bridgehead be eliminated as soon as possible. Not without reason, our best regiments are here, and you can be proud to belong to these regiments.’

That evening we had to go to Rathstock, immediately behind the front line, to dig trenches. We left our packs with the company quartermaster-sergeant, taking only the absolutely necessary items, such as weapon, haversack and rations. We did not even take our washing and shaving kit, believing that we would be coming back.

That night a long convoy of carts removed potatoes and grain from Rathstock, which had been completely evacuated of its inhabitants. The Russians heard the noise and started laying down fire on the road, but long after the convoy had gone. We were marching silently forward in our ranks when several explosions bringing vile smoke suddenly struck quite close to us, and we vanished into the roadside ditches like lightning. As the explosions gradually got closer, our enthusiasm disappeared. Eventually Ivan quietened down and we could continue on our way. We had survived our baptism of fire well.

In Rathstock, which had been badly damaged by the shelling, we reported to the battalion command post. However, it was now two a.m., so we were no longer required to dig trenches. Instead we could take it in turns to sleep while some of us kept watch.