With Our Backs to Berlin

KARL-HERMANN TAMS

My thoughts go back to March 1945 when the situation on all fronts was relatively stable and the feeling among us young soldiers could still be described as confident. We had not been brought up to political contemplation. The situation appeared different at home in the now surrounded remains of the Reich, where there was already a widespread feeling of defeat, although the transport system was intact and food supplies still reaching the population.

I was already 21 years old and had passed a company commanders’ course at the Boehm-Kaserne in Hamburg-Rahlstedt, when on Good Friday, 30 March 1945, I received my orders to join the troops on the Eastern Front. I said farewell to my family and remaining circle of friends with truly mixed feelings; as, the longer the war lasted, the more difficult it was for a soldier to return to the front. I had already been wounded twice in action in Russia. The feeling of parting was, in view of the strange situation, hard to describe, inwardly burdened with the uncertainty of the future, yet outwardly confident nevertheless. For us the collapse of the Reich and of the Wehrmacht was unimaginable and one’s own ignorance about what was happening was deliberately suppressed and played down. So I set off with three other comrades full of inner tension on the adventurous route to Berlin, a city which, even in the sixth year of the war, had not lost its appeal and radiance as a metropolis.

Naturally we had a night out ‘on the town’ in Berlin at a small bar on the Kurfürstendamm. Next morning, Easter Saturday, 31 March 1945, we continued our journey to Fürstenwalde, until then still a delightful little town. It made a great impression on us, being accustomed to living in one destroyed city after another. (Just three weeks later I came through here again freshly wounded and found only a dead town of smoking rubble.) At the Movement Office in Fürstenwalde we were directed to exactly where our unit was at the moment, namely in Seelow and in positions in the Oderbruch eastwards of there opposite Küstrin. Our destination was Seelow.

There was a train laden with supplies for our unit (20th Panzergrenadier Division) at the railway station. Departure was expected at dusk, as Seelow already lay in the combat zone. The designation HKL (Hauptkampflinie = Main fighting line) had been given up at the end of the war and replaced by a new term ‘Kampfraum’ (combat zone) covering an area about 3 kilometres deep. Thus Seelow was in the front line and the population had been evacuated.

Our train moved off and groped its way, fully blacked out and without any lights at all, almost step by step through the night; part of the route being visible to the enemy. Familiar flares stood in the sky above the front; single tank gunshots bellowed through the night, and heavier gun barrels boomed and thundered their greetings from here and there and all around, while machine guns rattled sporadically in the distance. Although the train rolled on, the front had already bypassed us, and our senses adjusted once more to a different reality from that to which we were otherwise normally accustomed.

Finally the train drew up at a siding, a branch line to an agricultural barn on a small slope on the southwestern edge of Seelow, where we were cheerfully welcomed by our comrades. Suddenly we were hearing our Hamburg dialect again and the odd familiar smiling face with the right jokes on their lips. After my frightful experience in the bombing of Dresden and having avoided the general rounding up of those heroes that had been grabbed and commandeered for a wild, emergency unit raised on the spot, I was happy to be back in one piece, with my unit at last. We used to call it ‘our gang’. People today would hardly credit it, but we young soldiers felt at home being back in our unit.

The reception and disembarkation went quite quietly, briskly, without noise or excitement. We were quickly briefed and told to report to our Commanding Officer, Colonel Reinhold Stammerjohann, at the regimental command post on Easter Sunday morning. Father Stammerjohann was no stranger to me and I was delighted at the prospect of seeing him again. Assigned to him as a second lieutenant, of course I immediately requested a combat command. With a grin, he clapped me warmly on the shoulder and said: “Son, you have only just got here from the slaughter-house, stay here with me for a while!”

Naturally I thought this was an excellent Easter present. The staff officers greeted us young second lieutenants with vodka, as was the custom.

The next few days were full and passed quickly, although the front remained quiet. I was assigned to the regimental combat reserve, i.e. as a general dogsbody. The days were filled with inspection visits, ground familiarisation and looking at the possibilities open to us, and to infantry close combat training of the sailors in our Field Replacement Battalion. One would hardly believe it, but these men had been assigned to us because of the lack of ships for them to man, there being no other alternative for them. They were all experienced in naval warfare, many of them having had their ships sunk under them, and I should stress that these sailors generally made an outstanding impression on us. They were a very likeable lot, as were our own soldiers, who were all up to Ivan’s cunning tricks and knew how to turn them to their own advantage. In a short time, however, all of them were killed in action. I still maintain that our regiment in Seelow was undermined by the faulty assessment of these men’s ability to convert into infantry. That applies above all to the employment of two Volkssturm companies in our sector. Their losses were devastating. Certainly we could never have foreseen the stubborn doggedness of those troops facing us. We were to lose our last optimistic assumptions pretty quickly.

If I can quote from a report in ‘Stern’ magazine of April 1975 – thirty years after – the scale of the differing force strengths in this battle can be properly evaluated.

We survivors can give our own troop strength estimates. In the roughly twelve kilometres-wide sector concerned, there were certainly not more than 5,000 German soldiers lined up for the defence, of which apparently only five to ten individuals survived. So we can calculate troop strengths of twenty to one confronting each other on the Seelow Heights in April 1945.

But to return to our experiences and impressions.

On the Friday, 6 April, I was attached to the combat commander of Seelow, Helmut Wandmaker – then Major Wandmaker – i.e. allocated to the Seelow Combat Group. Out task was simple: to defend Seelow, if necessary to let it be surrounded and to tie down enemy forces as long as possible. This was a suicide mission, but Helmut and I survived it.

First I set up quarters with Second Lieutenant Günther Reimers and another comrade in the building of a grocery store right on the market place. Naturally, standing on this market place in the middle of the town, there was also a church with a tower. That this church tower would or could eventually become the aiming point for the Russian artillery we simply ignored in view of what this building offered, with all the amenities in the world. Not only enough food for us three for a whole year, but comfortable furnishings, beginning with the feather beds and the intact bath on the first floor behind on the east side. The building had been left by its inhabitants as if they had just gone off for a short holiday. Certain rooms were locked and sealed and so unavailable to us.

So we first heated the bath water and had a proper bath, one after the other. Günther Reimers willingly took over the kitchen and served us up one luxurious dish after another. For a few days we did not appear at the field kitchen. The wine and spirits supplies were inexhaustible. We became overconfident and shot pigeons off the roof with our pistols for the eventual pleasure of eating them.

One day the Russian artillery opened fire. We noticed during the course of the day that at regular intervals single shots were being aimed at the church tower in the town centre. We first realised that our building lay right in the line of fire late that afternoon, after duty, when we were all sitting in our quarters.

I had already started running my bath water and was standing naked in the bathroom doorway, Günter was busy in the kitchen over our supper, and our third comrade was sorting out his kit for the next day in his bedroom, when we became aware of the familiar noise of a gun firing. Involuntarily we froze, as we tried to determine the direction of flight. Missing the great roar and howling of its passage over us, it suddenly became crystal clear that the hit must occur in our vicinity in the next three or four seconds. The combat experienced soldier recognises this immediately – CRUNCH! We all ran to the centre of the first floor of the building as it landed under the shop. We were completely covered in brick dust, glass splinters and falling plaster. It lasted at least two minutes or longer until the dust settled and we could recognise one another again and see our tensed faces. Although none of us were wounded, we were shocked and released our tension with laughter at our appearance and funny situation. The shell had exploded at the back of the building on the windowsill of the office under the bathroom. The partition wall with the shop, with all its shelves and their contents, lay on the market place in front of the building. All our ‘luxuries’ had been brought to an end with one blow. We had to retire to the cellars, as were the instructions. Once more we had got away scot-free.

A further example of how a soldier took things easy when there was an apparently stable front, we felt fully tactically secure; for, as defenders on the Seelow Heights, we thought we could overcome any attacker through our geographical advantage, especially as they first had to break out of a bridgehead. So it was decided to hold a social evening. I cannot remember who was the host, but it certainly was an excellent party. All the officers and NCOs of the regiment who could get away for the evening were invited, including those of the Field Replacement Battalion of our 20th Panzergrenadier Division. Where exactly in Seelow we then sat down together at table, I cannot remember. Nevertheless, I recall a large banqueting room with tall Roman windows, a table laid for thirty to fifty persons with white tablecloths, place settings for many courses and the same number of glasses for various drinks, and radiant, festive electric lighting.

We felt quite at home in this officers’ club. We talked about the war, and what would happen to Germany after it had lost it. Why couldn’t somebody kill Hitler? Was it right for the oath of loyalty to be made to an individual, and did our building in Hamburg escape the last air attack? Then we discussed politics: how long would the Western Powers continue as unequal partners with the Soviet Union. Would we have to have another go to the east along with the Western Powers? How long can we hold the Russians on the Oder, etc.? Finally, we heard it from our Commanding Officer’s own lips: ‘We shall stay here if necessary until the American tanks drive up our arse! Understood?’

The conversation was cut short suddenly as we found ourselves the target of a Russian artillery salvo. The shellfire brought us back to reality. The electric lights went out. Yet nearly everyone remained seated at the table. We lit the candles that had been laid out for emergencies and the celebration continued unhurriedly, although the prettily coloured Roman windows were now without glass. Fortunately we had already finished our meal and the table had been cleared. Fresh glasses were quickly brought out and the congenial atmosphere was enhanced by the candlelight. It just shows how thick-skinned soldiers can be!

Next morning, 14 April 1945, we were awoken by loud sounds of combat. Heavy fire was falling on our forward positions. Could this be the beginning of a new major offensive? The ‘Hurrah!’ cries of the Ivans were smothered everywhere one after the other by the concentrated defensive fire of our troops. What we could not have expected was that the so-called fortress garrison, a Waffen-SS unit, should have broken out of the Küstrin Fortress. This was in contradiction to the current Führer-Order and greatly astonished us. There was considerable confusion in our forward positions, not knowing whether it was our people or Ivan coming towards them. It could not have been worse, for both were mixed up together, making a truly unfortunate scene for us.

Once things had quietened down a little, came the sober assessment. How were we to interpret the Russian attack? Had the confusion been caused through our Küstrin garrison blowing their encirclement and breaking out, or had it been a ‘reconnaissance in strength’ to discover the locations of our main concentrations and the weaknesses in our positions? The latter seemed the most likely and was later confirmed by Marshal Zhukov. Coupled to this event certain decisions about personnel were made, leading to some changes.

The new battle commander of Seelow was a Captain von Wartenberg, who relieved Major Wandmaker, and I had to take over the company detachment of Sergeant Major Eiskamp and thus became a company commander. I was only 21 years old, with considerable Eastern Front experience, and at least half my men were four to five years older, experienced sailors but, as already mentioned, totally inexperienced in fighting on land. In order to establish good relations with these men I appointed the senior petty officer Company Sergeant Major in order to keep him close beside me. On 14 April 1945 our company combatant strength was 136 divided into three rifle platoons and a mortar platoon.

The morale of the company was quite good. We were fully aware of our uncompromising situation. The company sector extended from the northern exit of Seelow, where the road forked to Gusow and Werbig, in a wide semi-circle to the east over Reichsstrasse 1 (200 metres in front of us was the main railway line from Frankfurt/Oder to Stettin with Seelow railway station) and then on another 500 metres past a windmill to a farmstead, enclosing a bow-shaped stretch of land about 1500 metres outside the houses on the eastern edge.

Then we had an inner defensive ring of connecting trenches between the houses over a distance of about 700 metres, and here in the middle I established my command post. We were on an elevation and about 200 metres east of us the land dropped steeply eastwards towards the Oder. The railway line and station lay beneath us in a cutting running across our front. Küstriner Strasse, as Reichsstrasse 1 here was called, led in a straight line away from the bridge over the railway and past a waterworks across the Oder marshes to Küstrin.

My task was to prepare both these objects, the bridge and the waterworks, for demolition, and to blow them should there be a threat of a breakthrough by Russian tanks. Set back a bit in the entrance to the town, we built an anti-tank barrier and placed two anti-tank guns behind it.

I divided the mortar platoon into two sections and deployed them to cover the eastern and northeastern exit roads. On the slopes along and in front of the railway cutting in our sector were six or eight 88 mm anti-aircraft guns dug in in the anti-tank role. The anti-aircraft gunners gave us an impression of great confidence.

The Luftwaffe were very active on 15 April. No doubt as an adjunct to reconnaissance for the SS unit that had broken out, they flew continuous attacks with so-called ‘pick-a-back’ units, i.e. a fighter aircraft mounted over the airframe of a worn-out Junkers 88 packed with explosives, and releasing it over the target in the enemy lines.[25] Each time there was a tremendous explosion and a gigantic fireball. Each hit was a source of great satisfaction to us.

That these were only drops in the ocean, we could not have believed at that time. Our time was filled with preparatory measures for defence, expecting a major Russian attack at any moment.

At 0300 hours on the morning of 16 April 1945, forty thousand guns opened fire simultaneously. It seemed as if the dawn was suddenly upon us, then vanished again. The whole Oder valley bed shook. In the bridgehead it was as light as day. The hurricane of fire reached out to the Seelow Heights. It seemed as if the earth was reaching up into the sky like a dense wall. Everything around us started dancing, rattling about. Whatever was not securely fastened down fell from the shelves and cupboards. Pictures fell off the walls and crashed to the floor. Glass splinters jumped out of window frames. We were soon covered in sand, dirt and glass splinters. None of us had experienced anything like it before, and would not have believed it possible. There was no escape. The greatest concentration of artillery fire in history was directed immediately in front of us. We had the impression that every square yard of earth would be ploughed up. After two or three hours the fire was suddenly lifted. Cautiously we risked a peep over the Heights down into the Oderbruch, and what we saw made the blood run cold. As far as we could see in the grey light of dawn came a single wave of heavy tanks. The air was filled with the noise of tank engines and the rattling of tank tracks. As the first row came closer we saw behind them another, and then hordes of running infantry.

The first shells had already been hurtling past over our heads for several minutes. With their barrels fully depressed the anti-aircraft guns dug in on the ridge along the chain of hills directed their murderous fire on the Soviets. Tank after tank went up in flames, the infantry sitting on them being swept off. The survivors charged on with piercing cries. The Luftwaffe gun crews were firing into the packs of Red soldiers and the attack began to collapse in front of our eyes. Several T-34s had broken through and were now being knocked out by our troops as they tried to roll up the slope of Reichsstrasse 1 into Seelow. As it became full light, the attack was beaten back with heavy losses for the Soviets.

Now we were in a hurry to prepare for the next Russian attack. Our foremost positions were evacuated and the survivors of our regiment withdrew as quickly as possible to the top of the hill. This had to be done without the enemy seeing in order to surprise him in the next assault. This was successful. Under my direction the waterworks and the road bridge over the railway were blown up, both demolitions going smoothly.

During the course of the morning the Russians increased their artillery support of the land battle with heavy bombers and ground-attack aircraft. They were feeling out our positions on the Heights. All day long we formed a catchment line for stragglers from our forward lines.

About midday a sudden, heavy artillery barrage fell on our positions on the Heights, lasting about thirty minutes and hitting us hard. It was indescribable. Immediately after the bombardment came a Russian attack, this time directly on my company’s positions. A bigger breakthrough could only be prevented by considerable sacrifice on our side. The situation was catastrophic for me. Every fifth man in my company was either killed, missing or wounded, including Staff Sergeant Kühlkamp with 18 men.

About 1800 hours contact with my No.1 Platoon on the south side of Küstriner Strasse was lost. With dusk the Ivans secured the cottages on either side of the street up to our anti-tank barrier.

Then there was another incident on the left-hand side of our sector opposite the railway station. Here I came across a Waffen-SS staff sergeant with some other stragglers that had originally belonged to the Küstrin garrison and were now already in their fourth day of combat since the break-out. They were coming out of the defile that led toward us from the railway station from the northeast and reported that the station was swarming with Russians. This was only 120 metres directly in front of us.

The Waffen-SS men looked completely exhausted, both physically and mentally, and I had to force them at gunpoint to make a stand and accept my orders. I put them on my left flank, and was delighted to be able to make up my losses with these combat-experienced soldiers. Unfortunately, in the haste and excitement of the moment, I did not take down their names and so could not be surprised next morning when I found that they were no longer there. It was if the earth had swallowed them up, leaving a gap in positions that was to prove fateful next day.

Then back to Küstriner Strasse at about 2100 hours. How had the connection to my No. 1 Platoon been lost? I set off with my company sergeant major. We crawled up to the main road then darted across to the side wall of the building opposite. Here we recovered our breath and listened for the reaction to our move. To our horror, we could hear Russian voices in the building where we were standing. Suddenly a Russian hand grenade landed right at my feet. I instinctively kicked it away, and we ran off into the back garden. Following the explosion of the hand grenade, there was a burst of sub-machine gun fire behind us. The nature of the terrain and darkness had protected us. Even using a flare, Ivan could not see us.

A few metres further on we were challenged by our own sentries. There was great astonishment on the faces of our comrades, who were expecting the Russians and not us from this direction. No. 1 Platoon was in good fighting order. The men had blown up the windmill in front of their positions to give a better field of fire. I joined with Second Lieutenant Rebischke in the forcible clearance of the cottages on Küstriner Strasse, which lasted until daybreak. This went quicker than expected, the Russians pulling back without serious resistance.

Shortly after midnight, Captain Rosenke of the 1st Battalion, Panzergrenadier Regiment 76, appeared with the news that we were now directly under his command. From then on we would be called Combat Group ‘Rosenke’ on the orders of the regiment.

In the early hours of 17 April I had things relatively under control once more. Contact on either flank was established, the last fighting strength of my company was about eighty soldiers, and I could pass this figure on to my superiors. What would the day bring us now? Consideration had to be given to the state of our troops, most of whom had now been in action for three or four days. The losses in men and weapons could no longer be made good. It was impossible to relieve our men.

Dawn brought yet another blast of artillery fire, which was supplemented and supported by wave after wave of bombing attacks by heavy aircraft. It was horrific. I was at my command post in the cellar of the same house. At one point there was a tremendous explosion, and the whole building rose and settled down again a little tilted to one side. We found a man-sized hole in the exterior wall opposite, and outside a crater deep enough to have taken the whole house before being levelled off. One petty officer went crazy, started foaming at the mouth, and had to be forcibly restrained.

The artillery fire ceased abruptly. Now the moment had come to get out of the house and occupy our positions. Our main point of aim was toward Küstriner Strasse. The sounds of combat led me to make my way to the northern part of the company sector, which had been quiet until then. Something was wrong here. I was accompanied by our petty officer, Sergeant Lohmann, Lance Corporal Bayers and Corporal Liefke. To our surprise, the positions, partly demolished by artillery fire, were empty. As already mentioned, the Waffen-SS men had vanished. Our No. 3 Platoon no longer existed; Staff Sergeant Kühlkamp had fallen the day before. Our northern flank was open and contact with our neighbouring unit, a Volkssturm company, could not be established. If I was going to save anything, I would have to act fast. Lohmann, Bayers and Liefke were tasked by me to maintain visual contact with Küstriner Strasse, to hold the position and to fall back on the centre of Seelow if necessary, where we could meet up again. I would go with our petty officer and ask our Commanding Officer for the reserve platoon and bring them to the rendezvous.

Now everything seemed to move at the double. Our goal was the battalion command post at the manor farm. Our route took us via the street leading in from Gusow, which, to our surprise, was under direct fire. Then we recognised some T-34s close by and coming toward us. I had not expected to be attacked from the north so soon. I still remember a long white wall about two metres high leading past the knacker’s yard, which gave us cover from fire from the north.

The Russians must have seen us, for the wall received a broadside from the barrels of several tank guns and disintegrated briefly in smoke as soon as I had passed. Our sympathetic petty officer immediately behind me was buried by the wall and disappeared in the smoke. I felt powerless, as if hypnotised, and rushed across Reichsstrasse 1 into the gateway of the manor farm.

The yard was about a hundred metres square and surrounded by barns, stalls and storehouses with loading ramps. Our battalion command post was in the cellar of a storehouse and reached via the loading ramp through a large sliding door. I reached the top of the steps out of breath and called down: ‘Everyone outside, the Russians are here!’ The faces that I saw were apathetic, virtually defeated. The command post as such had already been evacuated, and the soldiers remaining there were seeking shelter and cover from the bombardment. One of the soldiers told me that our Commanding Officer, Colonel Stammerjohn, was dead. This event had caused something of a sensation, paralysing the leadership for a while. His body had already been sent back.

The soldiers came back to life when Sergeant Stein aimed a shot at a Soviet officer as they were leaving the storehouse through the sliding door. Two T-34s were standing in the yard with their engines running and their gun barrels aimed in our direction. The man on the tank with a red band on his hat fell, apparently hit. The shock caused by the Russian presence spread among the men emerging from the building along the ramp. The ensuing unequal exchange of fire caused panic among us, so that my original intention to lead the men back to the centre of town to redeploy them was forcibly abandoned. Meanwhile a third tank entered the yard, and there being no anti-tank weapon ready to hand, the men disappeared. Only Sergeant Stein remained beside me. We went back behind the building to the railway siding where I had arrived seventeen days previously.

There I found three men of my company headquarters, who, knowing what I had intended, and having experienced the collapse of the remains of the company on Küstriner Strasse, had worked their way back through the town to the manor farm. It was a real joy to see them again. They brought news of the wounding of Lieutenant Ludwig.

We moved about 200 metres further south to the Seelow-Diedersdorf railway line. Here our Captain Rosenke (or was it Captain von Wartenberg?) was lying on a mound observing the movement on the battlefield. In fact Seelow had been surrounded and cut off from the north, giving us the feeling that the stricken ship was sinking. From here we could see khaki-coloured figures enveloping and attacking the town. The sounds of combat rose sharply once more in the southern part of the town, and then all was quiet again.

I was given the task of occupying the heights in front of Diedersdorf. Lieutenant Schäfer, badly wounded in the lungs, was led past us by two soldiers on their way to the Main Dressing Station. I was able to speak to him and wish him a speedy recovery. So we pulled back in a sad column under cover of the railway embankment toward Diedersdorf, always with the feeling that Ivan was breathing down the back of our necks. On the next hill Lieutenant Diesing directed us to the so-called ‘Stein-Stellung’.[26] Here I came across a further eight men from my company, making thirteen men in all, the strongest company left in our combat team. Only one man in ten had survived the last 27 hours fit and well.

Late afternoon we received from Major Wandmaker, the new regimental commander, the collective order: ‘All 76th back to Diedersdorf!’

I remember the depression that came over us as we moved back defeated and exhausted through the countryside. The overwhelming might thrown against us had broken our backbone. Our regiment had ceased to exist as a regiment. It was the first time that I had experienced such a loss of self-confidence among our troops, as we recognised our powerlessness against this steamroller from the east. I was reminded of a line from our regimental song: ‘A Hanseatic regiment knows only victory – or death!’

Suddenly we found ourselves in an occupied anti-aircraft position. Two dug-in 88 mm guns, well camouflaged, thirty to fifty metres deep in the wood, with prepared avenues of fire. To our question: ‘What are you waiting here for? We are the last of the infantry – Ivan will be here in thirty minutes!’ came the answer: ‘We still have five armour-piercing shells left per gun, which will get us eight tanks and then allow us to blow up our guns with the last two – then we will come!’ About five to seven hundred metres further on the woods came to an end, and we arrived at our new positions another hundred metres on.

Here, every single soldier was personally briefed and given a specific combat task. In addition, Staff Sergeant Hellbrun was attached to me with several soldiers and we also got the support of three Jagdtigers from a Waffen-SS unit. In this connection, I must recall the unfortunate strength comparisons – what could three self-propelled guns do against the one hundred T-34 tanks we had had constantly in our view for the past two days? Despite the heavy losses we had inflicted on the Russians, reckoning on up to sixty or more shot-up and burning tanks per day, there were always new ones ready to come up against us. It was discouraging.[27]

At last, after two days, we were able to eat again. Everyone remained quietly in his corner. Shortly before dusk we suddenly heard the unpleasant howling sound of the anti-aircraft guns in front of us. This awakened a short and intense noise of gun fire and armour-piercing shells exploding at close range. As quickly as it had begun, the noise subsided again. How had it gone out there in front? To find out and re-establish contact with our anti-aircraft gunners, I sent a scout party through the woods. They reported back about ninety minutes later, with the news that there were seven burning T-34s in front of the woods opposite. A further twenty tanks had turned round and withdrawn out of firing range. Our anti-aircraft gunners were all fine and were calmly preparing their guns for demolition. That our men had not brought back the gunners with them immediately, or provided them with infantry fire cover until they could withdraw, proved to be a fatal tactical error next day.

For once we were not disturbed, the Russians also being quiet, and we assumed that nothing decisive would occur before sunrise. As I had been continuously on my feet for forty-five hours, I collapsed in my trench so exhausted that I slept like the dead. It was already light when I was cruelly awakened. I had slept through two heavy bombardments, so that my men thought I must have been fatally wounded. I had been so over-tired that even an artillery bombardment could not wake me. Harsh reality seized me once more.

All were in their firing positions, our nerves stretched to the limit. Suddenly we saw movement in the bushes at the edge of the woods. Figures emerged, and I could see how the Russians were preparing to feel their way forward. When they were about sixty to eighty metres away, I called out: ‘Fire at will!’

Our carbines and machine guns fired at the attackers. After our first or second burst of fire we heard German voices, ‘Comrades, don’t shoot, we are German!’

Immediately our weapons stopped firing. Since I had been asleep, I could not have known that our anti-aircraft gunners had not returned during the night. Between the attacking Russians we could now see some German helmets. For seconds there was a paralysing horror on our side.

Our fire resumed individually, but by now it was too late. The Russian artillery laid a barrage on the railway embankment behind us, as their infantry broke into our trenches. The picture that now plays in front of my eyes, still haunts me in my sleep. Although I had been a soldier for three and a half years, of which seventeen months had been in action with a front-line unit, I had never experienced anything like this, nor believed it possible. Men were fighting with clubs and knives just as in the Middle Ages.

‘I can’t take any more of this!’ I felt like shouting. When I stood up over the trench, a second of panic gripped me and I ran back to the wall of fire on the railway embankment. Subconsciously, I noticed that someone was following me. It must have been only seconds before we were about 50 metres from the railway embankment and crawling up it. Two terrifying explosions immediately behind us forced us against the embankment. Corporal Schröder asked me if I had been hit. Yes, a shot through the right lower leg and a hit in the left foot. For a moment I was unable to get up. Schröder himself must have been in the dead angle from the explosion, i.e. immediately next to it, and so was miraculously unwounded. He seized the initiative and quickly pulled me over the railway lines into cover on the far side.

As if ordered, there stood a motorcycle ready to go. So we drove across country in a northwesterly direction to a nearby wood, where Schröder tied me on in a makeshift fashion. Once ready, we were electrified by the sound of tracks of moving tanks. I could see tanks moving slowly toward us like an armada, snapping off the young trees of the little wood like matchsticks. Yet again, as on the previous day, our troops were being surrounded by tanks in a pincer movement and overrolled in a flanking action.

The condition of my unit and the naked fear of death gave me the strength to run. In order to survive, we had to reach the edge of the woods furthest from the tanks and cross the open field beyond. We went up a sloping meadow and had just reached the crest of the hill when we saw the heavy tanks driving out of the little wood. The Diedersdorf-Heinersdorf road, along which the remainder of our supply vehicles, some horse-drawn, were retreating, ran along the far side of the hill in dead ground to the Russians. With the last of my strength, I clambered up on to an open horse-drawn wagon, which took me to the Main Dressing Station in Heinersdorf.[28] The Russian tanks were firing from the edge of the wood, even though their shots could only reach the tops of the trees lining the road. Despite the splinters from bursting shells, nothing serious occurred.

Schröder left me at the Main Dressing Station with a heavy heart. I sat for one or two hours with a lump in my throat. I could hardly think, as the experience kept going around in my mind. Once I had been tended to and bandaged, I was laid on a stretcher outside; outside being an area the size of a football field, filled with with wounded soldiers laid out in rows on stretchers.

Like a flash of lightning from the sky, two Russian fighter-bombers suddenly attacked the Main Dressing Station at low level, mowing gaps in the rows of helpless men with their machine guns. They circled a couple of times repeating their murderous fire before flying off to seek new targets.

I could see how long the transport was taking to evacuate the wounded, there being only four vehicles available, so, with the driver’s consent, I sat on the forward left mudguard of an ambulance with my back to the direction of travel and held fast on to the driving mirror. After a drive lasting over four hours, we were eventually delivered to a reserve hospital in Königs Wusterhausen.

Against all the rules and some well-meaning advice, I did not stay there, but made my way back by train to Hamburg. So, on 22 April, only three weeks after my departure, I found myself back home again. My sister did not recognise me when she opened the door. My mother came to the door with my father behind her. In his surprise he said: ‘Are you a deserter?’ When I replied: ‘No, I have been wounded.’ he said: ‘In that case, you can come in!’