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 Kotzting 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
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-Oberscharfuhrer (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 Schafer 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 orthop?dic 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.
But I had even been outspoken with our Fuhrer when I had had the opportunity to do so, and he had asked me to. This happened as follows. From February 1945, I was in charge of the Inner Guard at the Reichs Chancellery, a permanent duty as I was not allowed to return to the front as I would have preferred because of my golden close-combat badge, for the regiment was my home. One night the sentry at the bottom of the steps rang me, signalling that something special was happening. When I rushed down to him he told me that the Fuhrer was wandering around.
Then I saw him in the half darkness (caused by the blackout) coming toward me. He went past me toward the Mosaic Hall. I stood there like a pillar of salt, as we were not allowed to salute him or draw attention to ourselves. Then he beckoned me to follow him. Shortly before a dud bomb had broken through the Mosaic Hall down to the cellar, leaving behind a hole in the ceiling and floor about three or four metres across. He stood in front of it looking at it gloomily and turning to me, said: ‘Now they want to crush us.’ Naturally I did not reply, as it was not for me to do so.
Then he asked me directly what I as a front line soldier, as he could see from my many decorations, made of the way the war was going. I was taken aback and said: ‘My Fuhrer, you have many more competent advisors.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘certainly, but they all lie to me. I want to know from you, the front line soldiers.’
‘What do you want to hear then,’ I said, ‘a propaganda speech or the naked truth?’
‘Naturally the last,’ he said.
Then I told him: ‘If you haven’t got a good ace up your sleeve, then the war is long since lost.’
‘How does this effect the fighting morale?’ he wanted to know.
‘With the Waffen-SS hardly at all,’ was my reply. ‘We fight on even when we know that all is lost. But with the Wehrmacht it is devastating.’
‘Can you give me examples?’ he wanted to know.
‘That I can.’
Then he sighed deeply and left.
When I went back to barracks after this episode on 4 April, I was told that the commanding officer wanted to see me immediately. When I reported to him, he told me that my Reichs Chancellery duties were finished. There were no more visitors and the SD (the SS security service under Criminal Director Hoegl) had taken over. I was told the same by my deputy and landsman, Karl Berg, when he returned to barracks. As I had to have something to do, SS-Major Kaschulla put a convoy of trucks and men at my disposal, and with them I drove to the Elbe River every day.
At first we drove to an underground petrol depot at Ferchland. Then I went further north along the eastern bank of the Elbe to where there were some moored barges containing special supplies for the U-Boats. There were some police units guarding the Elbe, and I could hear their stomachs grumbling, but from fear of fire from the Americans, who had taken up positions on the other bank. When we arrived, they did not want to let us get at the goodies, which was hardly to my liking. I promised them that they would get a share.
I went ahead with a torch and determined what should be stuffed into the mail bags. The loveliest things that we had not seen for years were stored here for our submariners, who had little hope of returning, and nothing but the best sufficed for them.
