SS Charlemagne: The 33rd Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS

The new front will be easier to defend, for a system of interior courtyards provides excellent communications protected from the enemy, a small compensation for the 50 metres we have just lost. There is only one dangerous corner, alongside Friedrichstrasse, where a ruined building, very difficult to keep an eye on, offers our opponents magnificent possibilities for infiltration.

We quickly set up our sentries, for the Reds are not going to waste any time. Our old east front enemies, the 120mm mortars, take us on and keep lashing us right until the very end, harassing us with the diabolical precision to which they are accustomed. The infantry too engage strongly. We have to mount a little attack in order to set up new forward positions to obtain a little peace, relatively speaking. This is done by the men from the Main Security Office, who carry out the operation with remarkable spirit. Unfortunately, for lack of support from heavy weapons, our losses are very heavy.

While the infantry are fighting it out furiously, another tank attack begins. This time the Reds have taken into account the errors they have been making until now. Instead of arriving one by one to serve as ideal targets for our Panzerfausts, seven or eight set off together and remain bunched together, only a few metres apart from each other. They want to make us concentrate to maintain the effectiveness of our fire. Fortunately, our men are up to this change of tactics. The two leading tanks block the middle of the street, barring the way for the others, who are obliged to turn around. Shortly afterwards there is another alarm, this time the Reds are trying to tow away their wrecks to clear the street for their next attack, so again there a fine scrap.

We have hardly time to draw breath before the next shelling begins. Sergeant-Major Rostaing, commanding No. 3 Company, is buried under the debris of his observation post on the second floor. They call him and someone climbs up to the second floor with difficulty, but nothing moves, where is he under all this debris? An hour later he reappears, somewhat haggard, saying that he had been knocked unconscious by the fall of the ceiling, and had only just regained consciousness.

I award him the Iron Cross First Class in a little courtyard nearby, and also Roger Albert, who has just bagged his fourth tank. While we are shaking hands, another tornado falls on us, raising clouds of dust so thick that we remain blinded, suffocated, unable to move a foot, no longer knowing where we are, and it takes a moment or two before we regain the use of our senses.

We begin to get bad headaches. Outrageously smothered with dust, our eyes shining, deep in their sockets, our cheeks lined, we hardly look human. Water is scarce and we often don’t even have enough to drink. Occasionally a few rations arrive from Division. One eats what one can find, when one can find it, otherwise, in the feverish state we are in, it is not a problem that concerns us much. After the days we have just been through, we are now only acting on our reflexes, and everything we do seems as natural as everyday life. We seem to have been living this infernal life for ever, the problem of the future does not even arise, and we see ahead of us more days like this, knocking out tanks, firing at the Reds, throwing grenades, alarms, bombardments, fires, ruins, holding on, not allowing the enemy to pass. All our strength, all our energy is only for this, it is simultaneously our reason for living and for dying.

I get visitors from time to time, particularly from an officer of the Nordland commanding a neighbouring company. He comes, he says, to refresh himself with us, although he does not seem to need it. He does not hesitate to express his admiration for his French comrades. Every time he comes he repeats: ‘While you are there, we are content that all is well and certain that the sector will hold.’ He only knows how to show his sympathy, and thanks to him, we can pass around several bottles of wine, from which everyone drinks a symbolic mouthful with pleasure.

In one place or another, our frontline positions are shrivelling up, and we are now in front of the lines, an advance defence post in front of the Reichs Chancellery. Also, more and more the Reds hound us. We no longer keep count of the tank attacks, the infantry are more and more aggressive, and abandoning frontal assaults, now attempt to penetrate a little everywhere to dislodge us with grenades or flame-throwers. If the Red’s losses are high, our effectives are also diminishing, even though only the severely wounded are evacuated; the others make do with a summary bandaging and carry on fighting, or take a few hours’ rest in the first aid post before returning to their positions. Staff-Sergeant Ollivier, commanding No. 4 Company, beats all records in this field. Hit three times, three times evacuated, he has calmly returned to his post three times. Our young officers, second-lieutenants and officer-cadets, have already paid a high price: Labourdette, Le Maignan, Billot, Protopopoff, killed, de Lacaze, Bert, François, Ulmier, seriously wounded. Weber, who since the beginning has shown an extraordinary ardour, and has put all his energy into it, has been evacuated in his turn with a serious injury. In all the unit only Douroux and von Wallenrodt remain uninjured among the officers. Douroux is very proud of the fact that an officer of the Nordland removed his own Iron Cross to award him with it after an engagement in which he had performed marvellously. As for von Wallenrodt, he remains very calm and very much at ease in all this din, a former war correspondent, he is at once both spectator and actor, acquitting himself remarkably in his new role as adjutant. He also receives a well earned Iron Cross.

The command post is in a large library that has some magnificent works of art. One of us has pulled out an album of coloured pictures of Spain, which becomes a distraction for men taking a break. We flip through it in search of sunny country scenery as an antidote to our vision of hell. Passing the rows of bookshelves, I am angered by the thought that they will become victims to the flames, or worse, will be torn up and trampled underfoot by bands of drunken Mongols.

We are living in scenes from another world: the days are the colour of the dust that overcomes and devours us. We no longer see the blue sky, being absorbed in a gritty fog that only dissipates at rare moments until a new torrent of missiles plunge us back into yellowish opaqueness. Buildings are burning everywhere, ruins collapse with a great noise, thickening the atmosphere with soot, dust and smoke, which we breathe with difficulty. The silence that follows a bombardment is only the prelude to a roaring of engines, the clanking of tracks, announcing another wave of tanks. Crouched in the doorways or behind windows with Panzerfausts in our hands, we await our turn to release the storm. A long tongue of flame behind the firer, a violent explosion, shortly followed by another marking the arrival of a mortal blow, almost always firing at point blank range, which is more certain. The explosions follow each other within several seconds: one, two, sometimes three tanks are immobilised in the middle of the street. The others retire and several minutes later they return to tow back the dead carcasses under cover of clouds of dust raised by the bombardment that always follows an aborted attack.

The battle continues to rage throughout the night. How can one describe the night? Darkness, chased away by this enormous brazier that the city has become, has vanished and only the colour of the light varies by the hour. The burning buildings and tanks are our torches, and Berlin is illuminated by the fire devouring it. A sinister clarity hangs over the city, now suffused with a reddish glow on which the flames rising around us shed their violent light. Beneath this tragic display the ruins cutting the incandescent sky take on unreal, incredible shapes,

The rumbling upheaval of the battle has now submerged all the city, which fiercely struggles and fights on not to let itself be engulfed by defeat, prolonging its hopeless agony to the extreme limit. In this duel to death, as the hours pass and the enemy accumulates against us more tanks, more men, more shells, our determination only grows, our resolution hardens more. Hold on, the words always returns to our lips, invades our spirit as an obsession. Hold on, as if tomorrow will be like today, like yesterday. Until when? The question no longer arises: as long as we have bullets, grenades, Panzerfausts. The Red infantry continue to bite the dust, the tanks, despite their furious assaults, are checked in front of or inside our lines, where they burn in agony. We can see the flames emerging between the tracks, then climbing progressively up to the turret, while the ammunition explodes in an uninterrupted series of detonations that shake the steel carcass belted with fire until a formidable explosion shakes the whole area, sending enormous chunks of steel flying until nothing remains of the tank but a mass of twisted, blackened scrap.

On the evening of the 30th April a Russian is brought to the command post who had allowed himself to be captured without difficulty. He is a Ukrainian NCO, a big, well fed lad. He brings with him several loaves of bread, which the men share between them with pleasure, for they haven’t seen anything like that for several days. In exchange the prisoner is given cigarettes, which seems to please him. Very talkative, he explains to the interpreter that he is Ukrainian and not Russian. Compulsorily mobilised, and a ferocious adversary of bolshevism, so much so that we could not have a better friend than himself in the Red Army. Of course we are under no illusions about the sincerity of his good will, but we pretend to listen with interest. Confident, he chats with the interpreter, replying at length to the questions negligently put to him during the course of the conversation. A communiqué has been distributed in the Red lines today announcing imminent victory; there is only one square kilometre left in Berlin to be taken, and this last bastion must be taken by tomorrow in honour of the 1st May. A burst of laughter greets the translation of these last words: ‘We will still be here tomorrow, old chap, and your pals will get the same as usual if they try and pass!’

He recognises that we are giving them a hard time and that morale in the area leaves much to be desired, but we don’t believe our ears when he adds that the tank crews will only board at pistol point. The interpreter asks good humouredly if he is kidding us. ‘Niet! Those getting into the leading tanks know that they will not be coming back!’