Tony Le Tissier - With Our Backs to Berlin

It was only then that it sunk in that Hitler had already been dead thirty hours. It had been kept secret, the adjutant told us, so that the front would not collapse. Goebbels had wanted to negotiate a ceasefire with the Soviets. When I asked about Goebbels, I was told that he had had SS-Colonel Rattenhuber shoot his wife and himself.

I then asked about Martin Bormann, and was told that Bormann was now the highest ranking party official in Berlin and had nominated Mohnke to lead the break-out.

Now Schäfer issued his orders. We were to go through the S-Bahn tunnels as far as was possible, which would be partly under enemy lines. As the tunnels did not run directly to Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn Station, we would climb up a certain emergency exit and continue above ground to the station, where we would wait for Mohnke to issue further orders.

I now asked about our companies up forward. ‘They will follow on later, but will first have to cover our withdrawal,’ Schäfer said. ‘You and the lieutenant can come with us, but your men will have to stay and cover our rear, or the Russians will get us from behind.’

I did not like the idea of leaving without my men, and neither did the lieutenant, so I said to the battalion commander: ‘You alone are answerable for your companies, but I will not go one step from here without my men.’

The lieutenant said the same.

I went on: ‘So I will stay here until you have gone. No Russians will get you from behind.’

‘Oh no!’ said Schäfer, ‘I need you for your close combat experience in the break-out!’

‘And with whom am I going to break out, if not with my men?’ I asked. ‘With a crowd like this, virtually unknown to me, it will not work. They would run round me like a flock of sheep!’

‘I had not thought of it like that,’ said Schäfer. ‘As far as I am concerned, do as you like. As usual you have the last word!’

I then gave orders to my Hitler Youths, who were standing there with their mouths wide open at this discussion. One of them was told to blow up the two remaining mortars immediately with hand grenades and to return as quickly as possible with the gunners. The lieutenant nodded his approval.

The other one was told to go to our S-Bahn carriages and, if any of our men were there, to get them out with some excuse and send them back here. I used this ruse to avoid having the women and Volkssturm joining us in the break-out.

Kurt Abicht explained to these Volkssturm men what we intended doing. They should discard their armbands and caps and become proper civilians again. I also persuaded my Hitler Youths to go back home. At least they would be held in their mothers’ arms once more, even if the mothers of those that had been killed cursed me.

Then I thrust aside the quartermaster standing distraught outside his S-Bahn wagon loaded with supplies and forced my way in. I sought and found boxes of ‘Schokolada’ and threw them on to the platform, where some burst open, sending the cans rolling around. I looked for some schnapps and found some cases of ‘Aqua-Witt’, a brand sometimes issued to the common soldier as part of his rations, and placed two of them on the platform. Meanwhile my men had gathered round wondering what was happening. ‘Don’t ask too many questions,’ I said. ‘Take as much ‘Schokolada’ as you can, as it will be the only nourishment you get during the next few days. Then everyone take a bottle of schnapps, but only one! You can all take one gulp, but keep the rest in case someone is wounded, when it will help ease the pain.’

They eagerly did what I said, as did the gunners. Then we set off. I led with my men. The torch batteries had all been exhausted, so I held a burning tallow candle in my hand.

We found the right emergency exit from the tunnel and we climbed up into the open air without having taken a step in the wrong direction. We then went across to Friedrichstrasse Station, where thousands of people had gathered. Instead of just Waffen-SS as had been planned, there were soldiers of all arms of the service standing around waiting for the breakthrough to start, even women. Some were secretaries from government offices with their chiefs, but there were also officers with their wives on their arms, which would handicap them in any fighting.

I am not sure of the exact time, but it must have been about midnight and everything was quiet at the Weidendammer Bridge except for the murmuring of the crowd. Our battalion had formed a circle and were discussing the situation. I kept apart, even though they wanted my opinion. There was no point. I had never been in such a situation before and my fighting experience was of no value here. The one-armed lieutenant was bored with it all. He did not feel himself bound to Mohnke’s orders, and said to me: ‘We will find our own way out. Good luck to you.’

I wished him and his men the same, and they left. I saw him again twelve years later, for they did not get through and had to tread the bitter road to Siberia, where they spent the next five years.

It was all too quiet for my liking, and that made me suspicious. Why was it taking so long? Time was not on our side, I thought. I took my HQ Section leader by the arm and we went up Friedrichstrasse. I had learnt not to do things without first making a reconnaissance, and here nobody was getting ready. We got as far as Chausseestrasse, about 780 metres up Friedrichstrasse without coming under fire. Had I been free to do so, I would have taken my men and gone there and then, and with Alfred’s local knowledge we probably would have got through without heavy casualties, but it was not my choice, I had to obey orders. The Russians did not appear to have noticed us and there could only have been some of their scouts in the neighbourhood.

So we returned to our startpoint, where the discussion was still going on. I pulled the battalion commander out of the group and told him what I had observed. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said: ‘I have already realised that this is the weakest point where we will break through.’

The biggest mistake here, however, was hanging around waiting for the leadership. The Russian scouts must have realised what was happening and passed the word. Friedrichstrasse seems to have been the boundary between the 3rd and 5th Shock Armies. Apparently their scouts must have established contact here and the gap was not closed until after midnight.

Gradually the comrades from the outlying companies joined us. Whether they had been informed by runners, or just noticed that the battalion staff had gone, I cannot say, but one company commander knocked Schäfer down under circumstances I was not party to. The Reichs Chancellery people also began turning up at intervals, and from some comrades from the Führer Escort that I knew, I learnt something of what had gone on.

Dismay and panic had broken out among the many wounded that could not come along and had no weapons left to shoot themselves with. Where one had been hidden, it was passed around until the ammunition ran out. Others begged the doctors, Professors Werner Haase and Günther Schenk to give them fatal injections, but they had none to give. Even the bandages were having to be washed and used several times over.

After Goebbels’s ADC, Schwägermann, had set fire to the bodies of Goebbels and his wife, he had sprinkled petrol over everything in the Führerbunker and set it alight so that the Russians would not find anything worthwhile. This again caused panic as people thought the fire was due to sabotage, and the smoke made conditions in the bunker even worse.

Apparently Mohnke himself had decided the composition of the groups that would leave the Reichs Chancellery at regular intervals. There had been no mention of a combined break-out, the situation we now had here. Whether this was intentional, or through misunderstanding, I have never been able to clarify.