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  With Our Backs to Berlin

  Tony Le Tissier

  In the final months of the Second World War in 1945, 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 steam-rolling 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 has interviewed a wide range of former German Army and SS soldiers to provide ten vivid first-hand accounts of the fighting retreat that, for one soldier, ended in Hitler’s Chancellery building in the ruins of Berlin in April 1945. The dramatic descriptions of combat are contrasted with insights into the human dimensions 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 and were not all crazed Nazis.

  Illustrated with photographs of the main characters and specially commissioned maps identifying the location and course of the battles, With Our Backs to Berlin is a fascinating read for anyone who is interested in the final days of the Second World War.

  Tony Le Tissier

  WITH OUR BACKS TO BERLIN

  The German Army in Retreat

  1945

  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editions of my books, The Battle of Berlin 1945 and Zhukov at the Oder, I came across so many interesting, hitherto unpublished pieces that I decided to bring some of them together here as a collection of short stories.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

  The Oderbruch Battlefield

  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 Seydlitz[1] 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).

  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 o
n 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!’[3]

  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.