The other side of the hill

[V.Manstein]

Las experiencias personales de los soldados alemanes en la guerra han tardad o en conocerse por motivos obvios. Hay hace poco tiempo urgencia en los medios por sacar esas vivencias a los pocos que quedan vivos y se han escuchado historias conmovedoras. La de Hein Severloh lo es en cierto modo; el hombre que disparó y mató a miles de seres humanos con su MG42 por orden de sus superiores ha vivido muchos años con esos recuerdos para contarlos:

6. june 1944 S. is a 20 years old Private, who has to defend Hitler´s Atlantic Wall at Normandy, between the villages of Colleville and Saint Laurent-sur-Mer. He is the batman of Olt. Bernhard Frerking of 1. Battery 352. Artillery Regiment. They live under the roof of a French family. Frerking´s civilian job is teacher for English, French and Sports, "a phantastic guy", an old front pig" how Severloh says.
Shortly after midnight the Olt. wakes him up: "Fast Hein, we have to go, they are coming!" Resistance-nest "WN 63" situates 25 m high in the craw-stones of the steep coast. Down at the beach a mine belt, barbed wires and a ditch, supposed to stop tanks. Above the German bunkers and underground trench labyrinths, which one can enter still after 60 years and feel the narrowness. They are 30 men and everybody thought "how to get out of the shit alive". It was a windy night, the waves were rolling. "I did not want this war, I did not want to go to France, I did not want to make the MG-gunner", says S. But now he lies in Normandy behind his MG 42, called also "Hitler-Saw". Hein Severloh was in the "Jungvolk" Youth organization, went later to Agricultural School. In 1942 he got conscripted and sent to Russia.
A tonsil inflamation saved perhaps his life, when he returned from hospital he was sent to France. "For men like me this war significated obedience. "Shut your mouth when talking to me" told him the officers, or "leave thinking to horses, they´ve got a bigger head than you". At morning dawn of 6. june S. observed a wall of ships on the horizont. "My God..." he thought. He was handed out the cartridge belts: 12.000 rounds. It starts at 05.00 o´clock with the attac of bomber planes. Low clouds and the fear to hit the own ships makes perhaps the pilots to delay for some 3 or 4 seconds. Behind the German positions French civilians and cows are being hit. "I received only dirt", says Serverloh. Than they are there and Severloh shoots. The Americans disembark pair wise "young guys like we". He holds on them with his MG, single soldiers he takes with the carabine. What is it, hatred? panic? "Nothing, one doesn´t think, one is calm, one does it. One knows that they would do the same if in the position". The hours pass, at the beginning they were still in 600 m distance, now they were close, maybe 150 m. The flood has intonated, the water shows red coloured, the tide moves the deads on the beach. The landing boats arrive in waves, giving a break to cool the MG. Severloh notes that many comrades have already left. Why did he stay? "I would have had a bad conscience for lifetime, if I had left back my Oberleutnant, that was impossible", says Severloh. Thus he shoots. During the last hours he is the only German still shooting at Omaha Beach. The tide drifts the landing boats towards "WN 63". The Americans row with their arms and dip, they are wrong by thinking that water would stop the bullits... At 15.00h it´s over, the first tanks roll over the beach and the Americans climb up the hill. Olt. Frerking orders retreat. Severloh rushes through the bomb craters and waits for the Olt. He does not arrive. S. visits him if going to Normandy after 30, 40, 50, 60 years. A flat cross in the grass at La Cambe cemetery - a head shoot. During next night S. is taken prisoner, 11 days later embarking for Boston. He works at cotton wool and potato-plantations and returns home 1947. "I kept of course silence, otherwise I wouldn´t have made it home..." says he. He made friendship with David Silva, who received 3 bullits on the beach but survived, keeps letter contacts with him, they met once at Karlsruhe/Gy.
In America he becomes "the beast of Omaha Beach". A man - a machine gun - 3.000 deads? The Americans lost on 6. june a total of 4.184 men on Omaha Beach. But there were also German grenades and other MG´s - at least during first hours. Many drowned also - in reality Severloh had killed "a few less" Americans. Were "300" easier to sustain...?
Severloh tells in dry manners about the war, the bombs and the deads and about the longest day which rules his life. He ends after 3 hours, because is tired, recovering also from a stroke. But when he remembers the 2 men - the first American he hit with a head shoot, the man sinking down and the helmet rolling into the waves - and his Oberleutnant - Severloh shows tears. During the first years the scene has haunted him at nights. "One may not imagine it", says Severloh, "otherwise es kommt einem das Kotzen" - the vomit.


Fuente: "Der Spiegel" 23/2004


http://www.916gr.co.uk/severloh.shtml

[fangio]

Interesante artículo.
En un principio pensé que ibas a hablar del libro "The other side of the hill" (que se tradujo al español como "Los Generales alemanes hablan") de B. H. Liddell Hart, pero me equivoqué. De todas maneras el título es muy acorde.
Saludos,

FANGIO