With Our Backs to Berlin: The German Army in Retreat 1945

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.}

^{31. Soviet troops with a panje wagon and a Stalin II converging on the rear of the Reichstag to sign their names on the walls.}

^{32. The author with Willi Rogmann in Berlin in 1994.}

^{33. The staged hoisting of ‘Red Banner No. 5’ of the 150th Rifle Division by Sergeants M.A. Yegorov and M.V. Kantaria on the rear parapet of the Reichstag on the afternoon of 2 May 1945. (Imperial War Museum)}

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

Copyright