Then one of my comrades said: ‘Now we are a foursome, and that is too many to get through. Don’t take it wrong, but we prefer to make our own way.’
I sympathised, for they would have fewer difficulties without Mundt. Also Alfred was a Berliner and would soon find them shelter. So I thanked them for the loyalty they had shown and we hugged each other and said our farewells, thinking that it would be for ever. So off I went with Mundt, our first objective being to find civilian clothes.
I did not have to warn the other comrades. The place had thinned out considerably. Of the thousands that had been there standing around before only a few hundred remained and soon there would be even less. They were enthusiastically throwing their weapons on to a pile, on which I threw the sub-machine gun that I had liked so much, after removing the breech block so that no one else could use it.
We had reached Bornholmer Strasse and were crossing an open square when we were suddenly surrounded by a dozen armed foreigners, whose nationality I did not catch. They demanded we put our hands up and surrender.
I played dumb in order to allay their suspicions, with the idea of making a break for it, and this worked. The gang drifted off, looking for other targets, but two of them remained with us and started searching us. This infuriated Mundt. who picked his opponent up by the scruff of his neck and then kicked him hard. I had to join in too and felled my opponent with a hand chop to the throat. He fell without a sound and I grappled in my message pouch for my hidden 7.65 Mauser pistol.
Now we were attacked by the other foreigners, who had seen what had happened. There must have been a dozen of them dancing around us with knives. Mundt threw aside his lifeless opponent and pulled out the pistol from his hip pocket. We stood back to back for all-round defence. Time was not on our side, so I opened fire, as did Mundt. At this range every shot was a hit and soon they were either lying on the ground or in flight.
Then we suddenly had to deal with a far better armed enemy. There were several of them armed with rifles firing at us from only fifty metres away. We returned the fire but, while fifty yards is nothing for a rifle, it is too much for a pistol.
I emptied my magazine and had to change it, as did Mundt, so for a moment we were defenceless. The enemy, who had been dodging about with every shot we fired, noticed this and kept on firing. Two of them must have aimed at Mundt for he was hit twice in the head and fell down dead.
Having changed magazines, I rushed forward to close the range and so got the advantage of my faster firing weapon. I zigzagged as I ran, but they hit me twice, one a graze to the head and another to my lower left arm, which in my anger I only noted as a light blow. But then my enemies suddenly scattered in front of me and I heard sub-machine gun fire coming from behind me.
I had no time to look round to see who had fired, but raced into a doorway on my right. When my other enemies saw me appear, they tried to stop me, but I quickly pulled my second pistol out of my boot top and shot my way through with both hands. I found myself in a long passageway and, quickly looking back, saw a large group of armed Russians coming round a street corner.
I ran down the passage and came to a door at the far end with a key in it. I opened the door, pulled out the key and locked the door from the other side. Then I stood by the doorway listening to my pursuers creeping up. They began to break down the door. There was a crush of them there, so I fired through it a few times with my 7.65 pistol. Howls of pain announced that several of them had been hit, more than one with each round.
It was time to leave. I went across the backyard, climbed the wall into the next yard and so on. I could hear my pursuers some distance behind as they kept shouting. Eventually I came to an old disused cemetery, which gave plenty of cover with its clumps of bushes and big gravestones. I crouched down behind them as my pursuers passed quite close. I did not want to stay here long, as I was still without civilian clothes. When I checked my pistol, I saw that I had only two rounds left, too few for action. I rummaged through my message pouch, which I had stupidly been reluctant to part with, and emptied my pockets. Those contents that would have identified me, such as my paybook and decorations, I stuffed into my message pouch and buried in a hole that I dug with my hands behind a gravestone.
I crept through the cemetery and saw some multi-storied apartment blocks in the distance that looked undamaged. They were occupied and hardly any fighting had taken place in this area while the occupants sat in their cellars. I jumped over the cemetery wall, entered one of the buildings from the rear, and then went up to the second floor and knocked on a door. It opened and a voice came from inside, where two women, mother and daughter, were peacefully sorting out some bed linen. I told them that I needed some civilian clothing to change into. ‘But why?’ the mother asked naively. ‘The Russians won’t do anything to you, just look out into the street. You can see them leading German prisoners away peacefully.’
I offered the mother some valuables I had with me and said: ‘I only want some old clothes such as your husband does not wear any more.’
So she got me some trousers and a jacket from a cupboard. The jacket was a bit too big and the trousers a bit too short, but these suited me fine. I wanted to look like a foreigner, best of all a Pole, since I spoke a bit of Russian and could pass as a Pole speaking it badly.
But I was not quite finished with these two women. I did not want to change my special boots, but I needed something on my head for, like all soldiers, I felt only half dressed without a hat. When I asked her for one, the woman said: ‘I have only one hat and that’s my husband’s best thing.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘give it here.’
But before she did so, she spotted my wedding ring and said that the Russians would take it off me if they saw it, which was true, finger and all probably. These avaricious women had made me angry so I decided to leave them a ‘present’ that would not please them. I quickly pushed my little pistol behind the kitchen cupboard, thinking that it would do me more harm than good as a civilian. However, I kept the two egg grenades that I still had, and stuffed my knife into my boot.
So I said goodbye to the two women and went down to the street. Two Russians standing in the doorway looked at me curiously. I went straight into the attack, accosting them in Russian with: ‘Instead of gawping at me, give me something to smoke.’
So they gave me a piece of newspaper and some of their strong Machorka tobacco. Although a non- smoker, I knew how to roll a cigarette Russian style, and the Russians’ confidence in me grew as they watched. I then asked them for a light and drew in some smoke. I told them that I had just been visiting my girlfriend, whom I had only been able to see secretly before. As I was about to leave one of them joked that I must have been in my underpants for the last few hours, so we parted on friendly terms.
The street was now empty of victors and their prisoners. I thrust my hands into my pockets and strolled along. I had only gone a little way when I heard a voice from behind me. ‘Willi! Wait a moment!’
I thought that nobody knew me here, but the call was repeated and a hand grabbed my arm. I told them in Russian to leave me alone, but then the familiar voice said: ‘Willi, don’t you speak German any more?’
The two people looking at me, who themselves looked like tramps, were Alfred and his comrade, both now in civilian clothes and no better dressed than myself. We moved aside to avoid drawing attention.
According to Alfred, after we had gone our separate ways, they felt sorry about leaving me alone with Mundt, as they did not think it would turn out well. So they had followed us, but first had to change clothes behind a wall. Both had been carrying haversacks with a civilian jacket and trousers, thinking from the beginning that they would need them at some stage. So they hid their uniforms but in this process lost sight of us. They only found us again when we became involved in the fire fight.
For Mundt they were a minute too late, but firing their sub-machine guns saved me by stopping the Russians. They had then hidden themselves until they could follow the sounds of the chase, which is how they had caught up with me again. Needless to say, we were all delighted to meet up.
Alfred then suggested that we should all go to his home not far away, where he lived with his young wife. I advised against it as he had been seen there in uniform countless times and could easily be betrayed to the Russians, but he insisted that he had no enemies that would do this. I was still sceptical, but it was getting dark and we had better get off the streets, as there was bound to be a curfew. So we set off.
There was a lot of movement on the street. Now that people were no longer confined to their cellars, they were moving around pushing handcarts and carrying parcels. They were also looting the shops, most of which appeared to have no owners present to stop them. The Russians as the occupying power seemed unconcerned and were doing nothing to prevent the looting.
