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-Goring-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.
Appendix
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.
On 19 Dec 43 the battalion had the task of breaking through the enemy positions in the bushy and woodland area of Korosten, and roll them up. At 0430 hours R. received the order to reconnoitre and find a weak point in the enemy positions. R. carried out his task, returning with prisoners. The attack on these positions at 1000 hours was a complete success, the successful breakthrough bringing the Malin-Korosten airstrip into the battalion’s possession. During the attack R. especially distinguished himself by his personal drive.
During the night of 21/22 Dec 43 the enemy attacked our weakly held positions in front of Melini four times with strong forces. R., who was lying in front of the company position with his machine gun, through his exemplary handling and steadfastness with this machine gun and his men, mowed them down, so that the enemy were driven back each time. At 1100 hours the battalion launched an attack on Melini, but the attack was stopped short through the enemy outflanking. Again it was R. with his machine gun that prevented an enemy breakthrough on the flank.
The company moved to new defensive positions in front of Bobrick on 2 Jan 44. Several enemy attacks were successfully beaten back but, after a renewed attack, the enemy were able to break through on either side of the company and surround it, thus cutting it off from the battalion. At 1630 hours the company commander gave the order to break through the enemy lines and re-establish contact with the battalion. Charging forward with his men, R. destroyed three enemy machine gun nests, thus effecting a breach in the enemy line, and took over the protection of the right flank. Once the company was through, R. attacked an enemy position and rejoined the company with six prisoners.
On 5 Jan 44 SS-Sergeant Major Rogmann was occupying an advanced position with his section when the enemy launched an attack on the positions near Katchkian during the morning hours. R. let his position be overrun by tanks and then engaged the charging enemy. Through his cool thinking and his determination he was able to
