Mooney, Peter Defendre Berlin!

Témoinages de Georg Diers, Oskar Schäfer, Henri Fenet

The author presents the memories of three soldiers who fought in Berlin until the end of the Second World War. Georg Diers wrote his memoirs based on entries in his diary, which he kept until his capture in 1945. He tells us about his career as an infantryman in the SS Infantry Regiment Nordland and later as a tank commander in the 503rd SS Panzer Battalion in Pomerania and on to Berlin in 1945. He managed to destroy numerous Soviet tanks and was also one of the last people to see Hitler in the gardens of the Reich Chancellery... Oskar Schäfer was a tank officer in the same heavy tank battalion as Diers and also fought in Berlin. He managed to escape from his burning tank, but suffered terrible burns that left him physically and mentally scarred for life. The last report comes from Henri Fenet, a former officer cadet and officer in the French army who, after the dissolution of the Vichy army, was active in several collaborationist organisations and later became an officer in the Waffen-SS. Henri Fenet ended the war with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer while serving in SS Grenadier Regiment 57 of the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne. It was only after the war that he learned that he had been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 29 April 1945 as commander of the French assault battalion in Berlin.