The terms enabled officers to retain their sidearms and the men to continue to be armed until clear of Czechoslovakia. The division was then to form a camp at Kötzting until able to disband.
Also involved in the surrender negotiations was Colonel Charles H. Reed of the 2nd Cavalry Group, which had been an opponent of the 11th Panzer in Lorraine, when a good rapport between foes had been formed to the extent of even exchanging seriously wounded prisoners during lulls in the fighting. Now he was responsible for preventing Soviet representatives from intervening in this matter.
The various units of the division paraded for a last ‘hurrah!’ for the fatherland before marching across the border into captivity.
Fresh clothing and supplies had been drawn from depots in Czechoslovakia and these were now evenly distributed among the troops, as were the divisional funds, professional soldiers getting a little more than the others as their transition to civilian life would be harder for them.
Meanwhile General von Buttlar canvassed his task force near Wallern for opinions whether to continue with their task or join the main group in American captivity at Kötzting. The majority opted for the latter, so at 0700 hours on 7 May General von Buttlar contacted the 101st US Infantry Regiment of the 26th Yankee Infantry Division at Andreasburg. However, it was to be another week before von Buttlar’s task force rejoined the main body of the division at Kötzting after the delivery by American tankers of 135,000 litres of fuel for their vehicles.
The story is not over, for at Kötzting the main event of the year was the Whitsun mounted carnival, a major attraction for the old cavalry hands of the 11th Panzer Division and 2nd Cavalry Group alike.
It so happened that the famous stud of 400 Lippizaner horses had been evacuated to the German Army Stud Farm at Hostau, where they had been joined by a Russian stud of 200 horses. On 26 April, with the Red Army only 60 kilometres away, elements of the 2nd Cavalry Group reached the Czechoslovakian border, where they stopped in accordance with the terms of the Yalta Agreement. This placed them nearer to the stud than the Russians. By means of a letter written by a Luftwaffe colonel in American captivity, it was suggested to Lieutenant Colonel Rudofsky, commander of the stud farm, that it might be possible to bring the horses across the border into American custody. Rudofsky sent his chief veterinary surgeon, Dr. Lessing, to negotiate and on the evening of the 26th he met Colonel Reed in a farmhouse on the border. The Americans suggested that the horses be brought out on foot, but this was impractical as there were too few grooms and also many of the mares were about to produce or already had newly-born foals at their heels. Dr. Lessing returned to Hostau accompanied by Captain Stewart of the 2nd Cavalry Group, to see what could be done.
Meanwhile an officer had arrived in Hostau to organise its defence. At first he refused to meet the Americans, but after long discussions, not least with the relevant Corps commander, he was persuaded that resistance would be pointless, and that it would be a good idea to get the horses back into Bavaria. The next day the Americans arrived and took over the entire stud establishment without having to fire a shot.
On 15 May the bulk of the herd set off, partly on foot and partly in trucks acquired from a captured artillery school. The Americans blocked all the main crossroads so that the horses passed through safely via Furth im Wald to prepared quarters in the little village of Schwarzenberg. Out of the whole herd only three young colts were lost when stopped by armed Czechs near the border. Again the Americans had successfully prevented the Soviets from intervening.
The first discharge certificate from the 11th Panzer Division went to the man leading the mounted procession in the Kötzting carnival.
Apart from the Generals and General Staff Officers, who came under a special detention category, all members of the division were soon released in accordance with the instructions given. Those going to the western part of Germany were provided transport to near their homes, while those from eastern Germany that did not accompany them found accommodation locally.
TWELVE
The Band of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler
WILLI ROGMANN (5 APR 1923–18 FEB 1997)
A builder by trade, Willi Rogmann volunteered to do his military service as a policeman, but found himself transferred into the ‘Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler’ when it suffered heavy casualties in the invasion of Poland in 1939, for both the police and the Waffen-SS came under Himmler’s aegis. He served in the same company for four years as their smallest man, first in Greece and then in Russia, ending up a SS-Oberscharführer (sergeant major) and winning the Iron Cross Second and First Class, the German Cross in Gold (see Citation at rear) and the Gold Close Combat Clasp. After being wounded for the eighth time in the fighting near Caen, and subsequent convalescence, Willi Rogmann was posted to the Guard Battalion in Berlin, where he served in the Guard Platoon on duty within the Reichs Chancellery until those duties were taken over by the SD Security Service of the SS.
Cheeky, outspoken and opinionated, he held strong views on the ineptness of some of his superiors and was seldom afraid to voice them.
THE LAST BIRTHDAY PARADE
At 0300 hours on 16 April 1945, the Soviets began their major offensive on Berlin with what was to be a four-day battle before they broke through the last of the German defences masking their Oderbruch bridgehead only eighty kilometres east of the city.
Of all this we knew little in Berlin, where duty in our barracks at Lichterfelde went on as normal, as if it was of no consequence. However, it was another matter with our Training & Replacement Battalion in Spreenhagen, 25 kilometres southeast of Berlin. Part of our twelve company-strong battalion had already been sent off to the Eastern front as Regiment ‘Falke’ under the 9th Army, and the rest were preparing to march to Berlin to join Combat Team ‘Mohnke’ in the defence of the Governmental Quarter. This battalion under SS-Captain Schäfer was supposed to fight as part of the Regiment ‘Anhalt’.
I myself was sent home by SS-Major Kaschulla, the commanding officer of the Guard Battalion, on a sham duty journey ostensibly to collect some orthopædic boots, as if they were still available. In reality I was being sent home for good. Quietly I understood that Kaschulla had given me the opportunity to decide for myself whether to return to Berlin or not. At this point the front in the west had been shattered and was quickly falling back, and I, as an experienced front line soldier, could count on five fingers the number of days until my home would be overrun. By the time I was supposed to return to Berlin on 4 April, if I did not propose deserting or simply staying at home, in just three days the front had reached Hannover. However, as a conscientious, duty-bound soldier, I took the last train for Berlin and what seemed like certain death.
I could not say anything of this to my wife and relatives. Unlike myself, they all still believed in final victory, hard as it is to credit now. If I had expressed my opinions to them they would have reported me to the local Party official. However, he could not have locked me up, as he would have done with a civilian, for I came under military jurisdiction. No, the Party official would have sent a report to my unit, which would have landed on SS-Major Kaschulla’s desk. He would have put me on report, closed the door behind us so that his adjutant could not hear, for he was a sharp one, and would have told me off for being so outspoken, torn up the report and thrown it into the waste paper basket.