By Tony Le Tissier. Stroud, Glos., UK: Sutton Publishing, 2001. 215 pp. $27.95.

Lt Col Harold E. Raugh, Jr., United States Army (Retd) reviews these books exclusively for DJ.

Lieutenant Colonel Tony Le Tissier, who served in the British Army and later as British Military Governor at Spandau Prison in West Berlin, has spent many years researching and studying the World War II military operations around Berlin. His expertise was demonstrated in two earlier books, The Battle of Berlin, 1945, and Zhukov at the Oder.
In the course of his research, Le Tissier discovered many interesting and generally unpublished accounts of veterans of fighting on the Eastern Front during the final months of the war, and included some of them in this volume. Eric Wittor, a twenty-year-old second lieutenant commanding an armoured reconnaissance squadron in 1945, describes the actions of his unit and of a company of panzer grenadiers — with the invaluable assistance of German dive-bombing “tank-busting” Stukas — in attacking a Russian-held village. A second vignette from Wittor describes actions during a Soviet artillery barrage (when he and his men lay “as flat as flounders” on the ground) and when defending against Russian tanks. The only episode in this book of combat against the Americans on the Western Front is Ernst Henkel’s “The Last Defender of Schloss Thorn”, narrating actions against the US 94th Infantry Division along the Moselle River in February 1945. Rifleman Gerhard Tillery relates his account of the ferocious fighting on the Oderbruch battlefield, in the retreat to Berlin, in the beleaguered metropolis, and during the breakout to the west. Captain Horst Zobel of the Panzer-regiment “Muncheberg”, and Second Lieutenant Karl-Hermann Tams and Sergeant Fritz-Rudi Averdieck, the latter two of the 20th Panzergrenadier Division, describe in detail their horrific experiences in various areas of the German last-ditch defensive positions in the Oderbruch sector. Especially interesting to read is the reaction of German leaders and units to the unprecedentedly devastating 40,000-gun Soviet artillery barrage that heralded the final Soviet offensive on 16 April 1945. The sight of seemingly endless attacking Russian tanks and infantrymen, according to Tams, “made the blood run cold.”
As a sixteen-year-old Flak Auxiliaryman, Harry Schweitzer manned a 128 mm anti-aircraft gun at the Zoo Bunker flak tower in Berlin before breaking out and being captured by the Soviets. Corporal Harry Zvi Glaser provides a unique perspective on the final months of World War II, as he served in the Soviet 129th Division. Le Tissier makes two contributions to this study. The first is a chronicle, based upon radio transmission logs, of Panzergrenadier Division “Kurmark” during the siege of Klessin; the second is the story of American intervention to ensure that the 11th Panzer Division, and the famous Lippizaner stallions, escaped Soviet captivity. The final contribution is the sixty-four-page account by highly decorated SS-Sergeant Major Willi Rogmann of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, who recounts in tremendous detail his combat in the centre of Berlin during the final weeks of the war.
Oral histories and anecdotal accounts have become increasingly popular in history books. While they may be considered a strength of the book, they may actually be more of a weakness to historical veracity, since forty- or fifty-year-old recollections may be selective, self-serving, and untrustworthy, and the victims of embellishment, wishful thinking, or just a bad memory. The accounts in this book, with one possible exception, all seem realistic and honest. The one possible exception, which Le Tissier apparently anticipated, is Rogmann’s account. Le Tissier asks, “How believable is Rogmann’s account?,” then includes in the book’s one appendix Rogmann’s 1944 recommendation for award of the German Cross in Gold. This three-page document highlights Rogmann’s bravery in 1944 and earlier, but does not address basic concerns in Rogmann’s account. Rogmann states, for example, that in February 1945 when he was in charge of the Inner Guard at the Reichs Chancellery, Hitler engaged him in a conversation and asked his advice about war strategy — and Rogmann quotes the entire conversation. Later, Rogmann rebukes a woman who turns out to be Eva Braun. While full of accurate details of the topography of Berlin, there are numerous examples of contradictions, Rogmann’s insubordination, his mysterious appearances at high-level meetings, and other coincidences that strain credulity. Later, while battling near the Reichstag, Rogmann states the “infantry used mortars firing horizontally to blast a small hole in the bricked-up doorway . . .”
(p. 183). While this may seem a small or insignificant detail, Rogmann, as the experienced front fighter he claimed to be, should have known it is impossible to fire mortars horizontally. The mortar must be elevated, so that when the round is dropped into the bore (mouth) of the tube, it slides to the bottom where the firing pin drives the striker into the primer of the ignition cartridge, thus firing the round. A mortar round cannot strike the firing pin and be fired if the mortar tube is horizontal. It seems Le Tissier was correct in having doubts about the veracity of Rogmann’s account.
With Our Backs to the Wall is a generally superb compilation of fascinating German accounts of combat on the Eastern Front during the final months of World War II. These detailed and riveting accounts shed light on the ferocious fighting little known to most Western readers. Even more interesting, great insight is provided on the human element of leadership and soldiering. While these vignettes accurately depict the Germans as outnumbered brave defenders of their Fatherland, it must also be remembered that they were not innocent victims of war.