Tony Le Tissier: With Our Backs to Berlin

The artillery forward observer told me that he had ordered fire on our own position. I do not know whether we as forward observers for the mortars gave a similar order with Verey lights. It is unlikely, for the fire position must have been experiencing the same as ourselves. Schloss Thorn was being raked by our own weapons, and there was also heavy fire on the American infantry advancing on Kreuzweiler.

After a short discussion we decided to give ourselves up, otherwise we would be smoked out. One of us would have to go outside. Nobody wanted to be the one to go, but the lads picked on me as apparently I had once casually said something about speaking a little English. I opened the cellar door and climbed over the corpse of the corporal that had collected an assault rifle from us. He had been shot in the head by a sniper from the other side of the Moselle. The damaged screen that had sheltered us from view from the river had fallen down, and we had not found it necessary to put it up again last night. No one had felt responsible, and this poor devil died because of it.

My main problem was now the sniper across the way, for as I climbed the steps he would have me in his sights. Would the same thing happen to me as to the corporal on the cellar steps? I knew from my own experience how great the urge is to squeeze the trigger when one has an enemy in one’s sights. I raised my hands as high as they would go, climbed the first step and shouted out aloud: ‘American soldiers, we surrender!’

There was no reply. I climbed the next step with my hands stretched up high and shouted again. Then the third step, and the lad must be able to see my hands now, I thought. Then step four. I was sweating. With the fifth step he would surely see my head. Did he have me in his cross hairs? Would he squeeze the trigger? He did not, so I slowly climbed the rest of the steps and stood in the castle’s inner courtyard.

Calling out loudly I turned around and got a reply. From the adjacent cellar that we had used as a toilet came about ten Americans. They surrounded me and pointed their weapons at me. Their leader, whom I took to be a staff sergeant, cocked his big revolver and pointed it at my stomach. I was greatly relieved, for the sniper could not get me now. We looked at each other silently for a moment until I somewhat superfluously repeated: ‘We surrender!’

The section leader pointed toward the cellar. ‘How many?’

I shook my shoulders. ‘I don’t know, maybe six or eight. Some are dead like him’, and I indicated with my head toward the dead man. The Americans stretched their necks and looked down. That satisfied the section leader. ‘Let them come up, hands up and no weapons!’

So I called down below: ‘Lads, unbuckle, weapons away and hands up, then come out!’

The first was the artillery forward observer, who grinned at me and threw me a knowing look. (They had meanwhile rendered the radio unserviceable.) With me included, we were six men in all. The war seemed to be over for us, and we had survived. They led us from the inner courtyard outside through the big arched gateway. The Sherman tank was there further up with three or four others. Several other men came out as prisoners from the outer cellars. It was clear to all of us that there was no way out of this trap.

Then we heard the first rounds of our 105 mm coming. Everyone threw themselves down in the dirt, Germans and Americans, trying to bury themselves in the earth. Here would have been a chance to escape. It would have meant running back through the fire of our own shells, hoping that they would not get me and that the Americans would not shoot after me. By the time I had thought it through, the opportunity was gone. One has to do these things without thinking, but today I am glad that I did not do it.

With our hands clasped behind our necks, they led us down the road coming up from the Moselle. The dead enemies that I had shot were lying there. One of the guards pointed to them with a threatening gesture. I was the last in the line. As we turned into the Moselle river bank road, I stopped and turned round once more, looking at the destroyed Schloss Thorn. It was a wretched sight and I vowed to myself never to forget it. This vow I have kept. My guard, a lanky, gum-chewing lad, struck me sharply in the chest with the barrel of his sub-machine gun and said: ‘Let’s go!’, an expression I was to hear often.

They took us to Nennig for our first interrogation. There were already about ten men there, including the captain and battalion commander from Kreuzweiler, who had found their way into captivity surprisingly quickly. The artillery forward observer went in first, then myself about a quarter of an hour later. In passing, the forward observer whispered: ‘Watch out for the blows!’

In the room were an officer who spoke good German and a bullish sergeant. They knew me by name, as the Americans had been listening in to our telephone line. That was easily possible technically, as we had no double lines, only one strand with an earth. His first question: ‘Where is your fire position?’

I said: ‘I will not betray it. You cannot force me to.’

The officer pulled back and the sergeant gave me a blow with his fist. All the same, it was not very hard and only meant as a warning shot. The officer then said: ‘Now will you tell me? Here is the map. Show me where your fire position is on here.’

Then I realised what to do. Without hesitation I showed him the place where our first fire position had been. ‘No,’ said the officer, ‘there is no fire position there. Our tanks are already there.’

I did not let my answer wait. ‘Then we have moved it. I had no verbal contact any more. Fire was only called on with Verey lights and tracer.’

To my relief he accepted this outrageous lie and I was taken back to join the others. Although Sergeant Schultz was nominally the senior forward observer, they left him alone. Thus we survived the first critical hours. Towards evening they took us by truck to the rear. The battle for Schloss Thorn was over, and for us the war. And the most important thing was that we had survived!

To round off this account, a small postscript. I could not forget Schloss Thorn, the memories of 20 February 1945 were too strong. I first passed by again in 1953 when there was a fire brigade festival in Kreuzweiler. The castle still looked in a bad way, but at least the roofs had been restored. I returned to the Moselle in 1956 and 1959 and could see the progress made in the arduous process of restoration. Finally, in a visit to the castle in the autumn of 1995, I made myself known. The ‘lord of the castle’, Dr Baron von Hobe-Gelting made me very welcome and called me the ‘last defender of the castle’. We talked in his office for a good hour then went on a tour of the premises that brought back old memories.

I discovered that several veterans of our former opponents, the 94th US Infantry Division, had also been here, the place having a similar meaning for them as it has for me. They had even funded and erected a Peace Monument at the strategic point between Sinz and Oberleuken, the inscription being signed by the then-President Bush. Veterans from both sides had come to the unveiling. Unfortunately I had not been among them, although I was apparently the only member of the 256th Volksgrenadier Division to have survived the fighting here and later.

The so-called Orscholz-Switch, the land between the Saar and the Moselle, had suffered a lot in the months-long fighting; all the villages had been largely destroyed, burnt, and the fields laid waste. But through the untiring industry of the inhabitants, the villages have been rebuilt and the countryside is flourishing. Schloss Thorn is a vineyard today. Even Kreuzweiler has been rebuilt. The evacuated inhabitants were only able to return to their destroyed village the following April. The men searched the neighbourhood for the dead that had been left lying around after the Americans had left. Twelve men were found and buried in the Kreuzweiler cemetery. When several years later the German War Graves Commission wanted to move them, the villagers objected, so the fallen still lie in the earth that they defended. Today, above the cellar in Kreuzweiler where I spent the night, stands a magnificent guesthouse with comfortable rooms and excellent cuisine. Unfortunately, in the years after 1945 there was a string of deaths and injuries arising from our mines, but this is all now forgotten.