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

Fenet resumed: ‘Next morning the general seemed better disposed towards me and the report on the battalion’s activities clearly pleased him. I took advantage of this to say that I was feeling much better, which was true, although I was still in a bit of a stupor, but fit enough to leave with Finck and his ammunition party.’

Krukenberg continued:

Early on the morning of the 28th April, the Soviets succeeded in crossing the canal in the vicinity of the Hallesches Tor with the aid of numerous auxiliary bridges. From then on the fighting developed building by building and in the heaps of rubble.

Casualties increased on either side. They resulted not only as the result of enemy arms, but also by the collapsing of buildings on which the enemy increasingly concentrated their artillery. Despite this, on that day and the following the grenadiers of the Nordland succeeded in holding their set positions against the Soviets with the exception of some local penetrations and breaches. The fighting against their accompanying tanks by self-propelled guns, but above all by the French anti-tank troops, played an important role in the resistance.

Thus Sergeant Eugène Vaulot, having already destroyed two enemy tanks with Panzerfausts within 24 hours in Neukölln, went on to destroy another six Russian tanks in the same manner. On my recommendation, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, which I presented to him by candlelight on the morning of the 29th in my command post in the S-Bahn station in the presence of my staff and his French comrades.

In my short address in French, I said that the personal conduct of this young volunteer was in accordance with what French soldiers were renowned for historically for their bravery on all the world’s fields of battle.

In all, the number of enemy tanks definitely knocked out in our sector mounted to 108, of which at least a half was attributable to the French volunteers. This demonstrates well the severity of the fighting and explains why the Soviets were unable to penetrate the front in our sector.

At the divisional command post it was decided to reinforce the forward positions. SS-Major-General Krukenberg decided to keep Captain Fenet with him at this command post.

The majority of the Storm Battalion’s men remained in reserve in the cellars of the Schauspielhaus, where some of them amused them-selves by donning stage costumes. Some were wounded while collecting rations, for the Soviet artillery and ground-attack aircraft were a constant menace to all movement. Staff-Sergeant Jean Ollivier from the 4th Company had two MG 44s installed in an anti-aircraft role at the entrance to the shelter situated alongside the little public garden next to the French cathedral, and this was how Officer-Cadet Protopopoff, a ‘White Russian’, succeeded in bringing down one of two aircraft flying over the Gendarmenmarkt.

Captain Fenet resumed: