I went off with my half filled buckets. The nearer I got to the city centre, the more and stronger the checkpoints I came across. I noticed that they seemed more interested in those leaving the city centre than those entering, which was understandable as fighting had been taking place only the previous day. There was a checkpoint ahead of me where papers were being examined. I stopped and put down my buckets as if taking a rest.
Then a Russian one-and-a-half tonner, one of their own primitive construction that had no battery and whose windscreen wipers were hand operated, drew up and stopped near me. Inside were three men packed close together on the narrow seat, the driver and two officers, with a German civilian standing beside them on the running board. The officer on the outside hit the civilian in the face with his fist, swore at him and threw him off.
This, I thought, is my chance. I quickly went up to the vehicle and asked the Russians if I could help. They were happy to have found someone who could speak Russian and show them the way to the Reichstag. I said: ‘I am a Pole and so not at home here, but I do know the way to the Reichstag and can take you there. But there is nothing there for you to take.’
‘We just want to scratch our names on the pillars of the Reichstag. Every Russian soldier with legs is making his way to this central point to scratch his name, and if he has a photograph of it he will be a hero back in Russia. Anyone can say he did it, but he needs evidence that he was there. Now stop talking and come!’
This I did as quickly as possible and told the driver to set off. We came to the checkpoint and went through without stopping. When we reached the Reichstag I jumped off the running board, A female supervisor grabbed me and wanted me help clear the rubble. I swore at her in Russian. Then one of the Russians came up to me and asked if I could use a Leica. He had acquired it somehow but did not know how to use it. I checked the camera to see if it had a film in it, then they stood in front of the Reichstag and I took several pictures of them. Then I had to give the camera to the driver for him to take a photograph of me with the two officers.
They were anxious to scratch their names, so I left them without saying goodbye. I wanted to make my way across to Friedrichstrasse to say farewell to my dead comrades if they were still lying there. I thought that the wounded would already have been taken to hospital. Close by was the Charité where during the fighting a point had been made of not taking in military casualties in order to preserve its civilian status, but that probably did not apply any longer.
The Friedrichstrasse was still full of dead and some German prisoners of war were clearing those away on the Weidendammer Bridge. Bulldozer tanks were pushing the burnt out wrecks into the ruins to clear the street.
I still had no papers to identify me, not even the usual Waffen-SS blood group tattoo under the armpit, as I had missed having it done through having been on guard duty when the company was tattooed.
As I passed up Friedrichstrasse into Chausseestrasse I passed a shot-up armoured personnel carrier, a picture of which was later featured in many books. To avoid walking over the dead soldiers lying there, I passed the vehicle on the right side in which there was a small entry hole from a captured Panzerfaust. Several of the occupants had managed to bale out but had then been mown down by machine gun fire. When I reached the place where our way out had ended, I found my comrades lying entangled in death with soldiers of other units. No infantry had been able to get any further, only some armoured vehicles that had been shot up later.
I then looked into the ruins where we had pulled our wounded comrades. They still lay there, not as wounded but dead. The Russians had murdered them with shots at close range, that was obvious. They had been plundered, their pockets opened and their watches taken. Naturally this hit me hard. I stood there and could have howled like a young dog that has lost its master, but I sensed that I was being watched and crept away through the side streets, drawn like a magnet back to the Reichs Chancellery.
I do not know what impelled me, but I made my way through the Tiergarten and over Potsdamer Platz to come to Hermann-Göring-Strasse. There I saw that the boundary wall to the Reichs Chancellery plot had been demolished and one could see over into the garden, where many dead were lying around. (I later learned that the Russians had tasked an engineer battalion to blow down the wall, expecting strong resistance, and that they called it ‘The Suicides’ Garden’ after the many suicides to be found there.) The dead were especially thick around the former fountains in the centre.
I walked around the whole complex like a bored stroller. The Wilhelmstrasse entrance was also open. On a post that had been set up I saw a badly charred corpse that, when I got close, I recognised as Goebbels. Russian soldiers and foreign workers were standing around making comments and making a mockery of his corpse.
I decided to make my way to Lichterfelde and tell Frau Mundt what had happened to her husband, but as I approached the Potsdamer Bridge a new obstacle confronted me. Bulldozers and engineers were making the bridge passable again, but impassable for me. A checkpoint was demanding to see the papers of anyone not a Russian soldier. I was wondering what to do next when the one-and-a-half-tonner came to my rescue once more. They spotted me leaning against a pillar and beckoned me over. Now they wanted to go to Steglitz and asked me if I could help them find it. ‘I have more to do than just drive around with you, but since no one else can help you, I will. Only, that is not on!’ I said, pointing at the checkpoint.
‘Oh, we will soon see about that!’ said one of the officers. ‘Climb aboard!’
He drew his pistol and, when one of the sentries asked for my papers, he showed him the drawn pistol. ‘That’s OK then,’ said the sentry and let us through.
When we reached Steglitz the Russians were about to thank me and disappear into a house. ‘What now?’ I asked. ‘I have had no breakfast and am terribly hungry and now have a long way to go back into the city!’ So they gave me a hunk of bread and a large piece of bacon, and I said goodbye.
In similar cheeky manner Rogmann was finally able to make his way home through Russian occupied territory, cross the Elbe at Magdeburg and get home to his wife in the still American-occupied part of the designated Soviet Zone at Eilsleben. Here, his luck ran out. His jubilant wife told a neighbour in confidence of his return, the word spread and someone betrayed him to the Americans, who captured him still in bed the very next morning.
After the war Rogmann was banished by the East German government to a remote hamlet in the Erzgebirge Mountains, close to the Czechoslovakian border, where he resumed his original trade as a builder.
Appendix
How believable is Rogmann’s account? Though much of it reads like the script of the latest Indiana Jones adventure, there is no doubt of Rogmann’s military exploits as the following citation obtained from the former Berlin Documentation Center shows.
CITATION
1st SS Panzer Division
‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’
SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 2
Commendation No: 87
For the Award of the
German Cross in Gold
AWARDED 8 FEB 45
Regtl HQ, 15 Dec 44
(signed)
SS-Obersturmbannführer
and Commanding Officer
Short basis and recommendation of the nominee’s superior officer:
SS-Sergeant Major Rogmann, as a member of the Leibstandarte has taken part in all the engagements of the Regiment in the East and in Italy.
In the battle for Rostock in 1941 he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class for his personal courage.
In the winter battle for Charkov in February–March 1943 he distinguished himself as a section leader in the 6th Company, SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 2, by his personal bravery and courage.
Despite being wounded, he always remained with his men until the situation allowed him to seek medical attention. In all, R. was wounded eight times.
On 9 Nov 43 his company, which was under strong enemy pressu
re, received the order to move to new defensive positions that were already occupied by the bulk of the battalion. On his own initiative, R. attacked the head of the attacking enemy forces with his section and drove them back in close-quarter fighting. As a result of this counterattack the company was able to occupy the positions it had been ordered to.
On 19 Dec 43 the battalion had the task of breaking through the enemy positions in the bushy and woodland area of Korosten, and roll them up. At 0430 hours R. received the order to reconnoitre and find a weak point in the enemy positions. R. carried out his task, returning with prisoners. The attack on these positions at 1000 hours was a complete success, the successful breakthrough bringing the Malin-Korosten airstrip into the battalion’s possession. During the attack R. especially distinguished himself by his personal drive.
During the night of 21/22 Dec 43 the enemy attacked our weakly held positions in front of Melini four times with strong forces. R., who was lying in front of the company position with his machine gun, through his exemplary handling and steadfastness with this machine gun and his men, mowed them down, so that the enemy were driven back each time. At 1100 hours the battalion launched an attack on Melini, but the attack was stopped short through the enemy outflanking. Again it was R. with his machine gun that prevented an enemy breakthrough on the flank.
The company moved to new defensive positions in front of Bobrick on 2 Jan 44. Several enemy attacks were successfully beaten back but, after a renewed attack, the enemy were able to break through on either side of the company and surround it, thus cutting it off from the battalion. At 1630 hours the company commander gave the order to break through the enemy lines and re-establish contact with the battalion. Charging forward with his men, R. destroyed three enemy machine gun nests, thus effecting a breach in the enemy line, and took over the protection of the right flank. Once the company was through, R. attacked an enemy position and rejoined the company with six prisoners.
On 5 Jan 44 SS-Sergeant Major Rogmann was occupying an advanced position with his section when the enemy launched an attack on the positions near Katchkian during the morning hours. R. let his position be overrun by tanks and then engaged the charging enemy. Through his cool thinking and his determination he was able to maintain complete control of the situation, the main mass of the enemy being brought down by rifle and machine gun fire. He then engaged those of the Bolsheviks that had got through to this position in close-quarter fighting until the area was cleared. R.’s courageous behaviour was decisive here and prevented a sudden enemy breakthrough.
On 6 Jan 44 R. and his section were the first to break back into our own positions that had been occupied by the enemy near Pietki, and then pinned down enemy resistance with fire until it was possible to reoccupy the whole of the position once more. R. destroyed three enemy machine gun nests during this engagement.
In the hard defensive fighting southwest of Proskuroff, the enemy attacked the battalion’s positions on the northwestern edge of Andreievka with armoured support during the evening. The enemy cut through our weakly occupied lines and established themselves on the northern edge of Andreievka. Eight enemy tanks tried to force their way into the village, four of them being destroyed by our own self-propelled guns. R. received the task of establishing the strength of the enemy on the northern edge of Andreievka. At 2000 hours he attacked the enemy with a storm troop, using the enemy’s surprise to split up the enemy combat teams. The enemy fled, leaving 20 dead and two prisoners behind. This decisive act enabled the battalion to establish a new security line on this position.
At 2000 hours on 2 Apr 44, R. received the task of launching an attack on two enemy occupied farms near Losiacz. R. was the first to commence clearing the farms, which were taken after some hard close-quarter fighting, the enemy having to leave several dead behind them in the farms. Several enemy counterattacks that followed shortly afterwards were beaten back successfully by R. until he received the order to redeploy to the edge of a wood nearby. R. covered the redeployment and inflicted such heavy casualties on the enemy spearheads that the new positions could be occupied unhindered by the enemy.
In all his engagements with the enemy, SS-Sergeant Major Rogmann has proved himself to be exemplary, and was awarded the Close Combat Clasp in Gold on 1 Sep 44. In view of his exceptional personal courage and his ever determined drive, I consider him worthy of the award of the
‘German Cross in Gold’
and request that it be awarded to him.
Comments of the Divisional Commander:
SS-Sergeant Major Rogmann has shown himself to be a manifestly brave NCO in all the engagements of the 1st SS-Panzer-Division ‘LSSAH’.
I request that he be awarded the German Cross in Gold for his exceptional bravery.
(signed)
SS-Oberführer and
Divisional Commander
Comments of the 1st SS-Panzer-Corps:
I approve this commendation
(signed)
The Commanding General
SS-Gruppenführer and
Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS
Comments of HQ 6th SS-Panzer Army:
The proposal is approved
J. Dietrich
SS-Oberstgruppenführer and
Colonel General of Armour
of the Waffen-SS
This citation is also notable for omitting an important incident involving Rogmann in late March 1944. The ‘Leibstandarte’ had been encircled with the rest of the 1st Panzer Army near Kamenets-Podolski on the western edge of the Ukraine, when their officers were all flown out on orders from above in order to reform the division in Flanders. Rogmann, then a sergeant, was left commanding the remains of his battalion, and eventually broke out with only six men. When he reported back to the division in Flanders, his reappearance was totally unexpected.
Photographs
1. Soviet troops outside the Brandenburg Gate.
2. German youngsters being marched off into captivity.
3. Schloss Thorn from across the Moselle River.
4. Erich Wittor in the uniform of a subaltern of the Grossdeutschland Division.
5. American troops survey the dead after the fighting for Nennig near Schloss Thorn.
6. Ernst Henkel in 1943.
7. Volkssturm at Frankfurt/Oder.
8. Schloss Klessin before the battle.
The two German ‘Tigers’ destroyed at Klessin.
All that remained of Schloss Klessin after the battle.
German dead in their smashed trenches below Seelow.
9. Karl-Hermann Tams as a sergeant major with the Iron Cross Second Class.
The first visit of the ‘Mook wie’ Old Comrades Association to Seelow on 15 April 1991. Tams in raincoat on left, the author far right.
10. Major von Hopffgarten revisits the ‘Kurmark’ battlefield as a retired Lieutenant General of the Bundeswehr.
11. Soviet T-34 tanks on the battlefield.
12. The Klessin position as seen from the German lines at Point 54.2. Thick trees cover the site of the Schloss in the centre, with the new houses on the Wuhden road to the left.
Horst Zobel on a battlefield tour with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1993.
13. Stalin II tanks under fire on the Moltke Bridge, turrets closed, as seen from the Diplomatic Quarter on 29 April 1945. The demolition hole is indicated by the missing parapet. Two SU-100s and a T-34/85 have their guns trained on the far bank, and a dog sledge for evacuating wounded can be seen centre left.
14. The overgrown site of Schloss Klessin today.
15. The Wuhden memorial to those who fell on the Reitwein Spur.
16. Gerhard Tillery on home leave in 1944.
17. Hinnerk Otterstedt’s grave in Sachsendorf.
18. Harry Zvi Glaser in 1945.
19. 40,000 soldiers and civilians died in the attempted breakout at Halbe.
20. Harry Zvi Glaser in conversation with President Clinton at the White House after being presented with the �
��Order of Glory’ by President Yeltsin during a state visit.
21. The Zoo Flak-tower from across the Landwehr Canal during dismantling. Crowned with four twin 128mm gun mountings and twelve multi-barrelled 20mm or 37mm ‘pom-poms’, this bunker formed the core of the defence while sheltering up to 30,000 civilians.
22. Harry Schweizer in Hitler Youth uniform.
23. Soviet anti-tank guns in action in Berlin.
24. SS-Sergeant Major Willi Rogmann wearing his Close Combat Clasp in Gold.
25. A wrecked Soviet T-34 facing the Reichstag on Moltkestrasse.
26. Adolf Hitler and Youth Leader Artur Axmann congratulating Hitler Youths on their awards for bravery on 20 March 1945.
27. Soviet tanks push through the rubble.
28. Rudi Averdieck as a sergeant with the Iron Cross Second Class in 1944.
29. Rudi Averdieck in France, 28 May 1940.
30. Wrecked Soviet armour on Charlottenburger Strasse.
With Our Backs to Berlin Page 26