Tony Le Tissier - With Our Backs to Berlin

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.

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.

1st SS Panzer Division

‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’

SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 2

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 pressure, 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.