German & US Tankers meet at Köln 1945 and 2013

The attached article is in German. I used G@@gle Translate to come up with the following transcription, so any assistance to improve the translation will be most welcome.

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“At that time we had nearly killed ourselves”

Commemorating American and German soldier set laid flowers for the victims of their battle in the Christophstrasse

“Give me a few more minutes”, says the older gentleman in the Army Blouse and looks quietly at the wooden cross with the inscription "The Unknown Dead". Behind Clarence Smoyer (87) stands Gustav Schäfer (86) in the small cemetery of St. Gereon. They have just set laid flowers together. The two were enemies and on March 6, 1945, when the Americans invaded Cologne, they delivered a fierce tank battle in the Christophstrasse. 68 years later they face each other eye-to-eye for the first time and can hardly restrain the tears. They speak out. "Now we're friends, even though we almost killed each other back then," says Smoyer. And Schäfer concluded: "Hopefully this madness will never happen again."

As a youth he had seen it differently. At 17 he had volunteered for the Wehrmacht, a year later he fought in Luxembourg and France. On the withdrawal of the Americans he had already reached the saving right bank of the Rhine in March, when he was ordered again to advance to the attack on the invading Americans over the Hohenzollern Bridge.

Three tanks rolled to their doom. "As soon as we had arrived on the left bank of the Rhine, have blown up the bridge - our own people," Schäfer says. Just before the crossing of the Christophstrasse with the ring, the three German tanks meet with the American troops. In a Pershing tank of the "Third Armored Division" the 19-year-old Clarence Smoyer sits at the gun, on the other side the 18-year-old Schäfer. They start a multi-hour duel.

The episode might be forgotten if the Americans had not kept the invasion of Cologne in the film. The material discovered by the filmmaker Hermann Rheindorf also shows how a private car, coming from Hansaring, turns into the Christophstraße and is riddled by machine gun fire. The driver is immediately dead. Later, the American film shows how a young woman is still pulled out of the car alive.

Both tank gunners have noticed the incident. "I've often seen the scene in my dreams, I do not know if I hit the girl, probably yes," says Smoyer. Schäfer, too, can not forget: "I hope it was not me who hit her, but I have to accept it soon, and when I took my finger off the trigger it was probably too late."

When the documentary film scene became known in 2007, the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" called on its readers to help identify the unknown young girl. The late Anna Lettau recognized her lost sister Katharina Esser again. Her further fate was also elucidated. According to witnesses the just rescued was overrun during the further advance of the American tanks. She and her companion Hans Delling were not the only ones who died at St. Gereon.

The fight came to an end only when Smoyer's tank with a grenade brought down a house wall that buried the German tank underneath and blocked the turret. Schäfer was taken prisoner, while the Americans were advancing to the cathedral. Katharina Esser and other dead of the battle were buried in the cemetery at St. Gereon, where the former opponents Smoyer and Schäfer now laid their flowers.

Scenes from the documentary material that Hermann Rheindorf has edited in his documentation "Cologne 1945 - Close-up", can be viewed on the Internet.


CAPTION UNDER PHOTO:

In 1945 they fought against each other, now they shared the sacrifices: Clarence Smoyer (right) and Gustav Schäfer.
Images: KOELNPROGRAMM, GOYERT

 

The German documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsCexqmhMY4

 

Tommy, thank you, great post and made me wish I spoke German. I costantly use Google to translate but would love to hear it. , such a poignant story . .

Takao, than you for the video. I have lost tract of the video of the combat between the M- 26 and the Panther in Cologne but think it is on U-Tube.
Remarkable film but to me rather sad.

Gaines

PS, Found it, I had forgotten that is is so unclear but the fact it exists at all is remarkable .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFG2i4y3kXs

 

Fascinating stuff. I wish my high school German was up to the narrative in the video.

 

One of my cousins loaned the article to me. Her father was in Company E, 32nd Armored Regt. He was WIA at Stolberg, so was not with them at Cologne. However, my cousin has been very involved with the 3rd AD Association and got to know Mr. Smoyer personally. There is also another article that is much longer. I will add it to this thread when I get the translation done.

Clarence Smoyer - My Combat Story

My Experience in Cologne March 6, 1945

 

I took German in high school and only remember enough to pronounce most of the words. The meaning, however, is another matter. I thought that GT worked pretty well for the most part. There were a few times where I went out on a limb and changed it so that it made sense based on the context. Hopefully I didn't get too far off the mark.

Yes, it is poignant. The tank battle itself is so amazing that it tends to overshadow the civilian casualties. Of course, for the men who were there, that was not the case. It is nice to see that they were able to get some mutual closure (for lack of a better term).

 

You should have worked harder at school lads. . I Iearned German from my mum .
Great typing Job Tommy. The Google translation is actually fairly accurate and respects the translation (for instance set flower would be laid flowers.)

Note at the end of the documentary, it says the the death certificate mentioned she was shot by an American tank and killed ran over and cut into pieces by a tank. according to the account of an eyewitness.. The documentary show she was actually helped by U.S medics but probalby died from her bullet wound.

 

Thanks, Skipper. And thanks for the set/laid correction. That was one I missed. Translation from one language to another is never exactly word for word. There are always nuances that need to be taken into account, so your assistance is very much appreciated.

 

Skipper, that's exactly what it is. I was shocked to hear what had happened to this young woman, finally. It's terrible. This event, which is the reunion of these 2 soldiers, enemies of yesterday, becomes secondary when one becomes aware of the destiny of this poor girl. It's ugly.

 

I have finally gotten the larger news article translated (thanks to Skipper who helped out on a few of the more difficult portions). Hopefully, I didn't bungle too much of the rest of the translation. As before, please feel free to offer improvements to the translation. Here is the article followed by the English text:

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68 years after the Battle of Cologne, two enemies of that time met at the tomb of the woman who died between the fronts


White roses for Katharina


(Caption of main photo)

Clarence Smoyer (left) and Gustav Schäfer visited the grave of Katharina Esser in Cologne yesterday. 68 years ago, the two veterans were enemies in the tank battle to the cathedral city. Only now did they get to know each other.


Two old men visiting a grave together. They hold roses in their hands. 68 years have passed since Clarence Smoyer and Gustav Schäfer faced as enemies. The one a US soldier, the other a Wehrmacht shooter. In March 1945 they fought together bitterly in the Battle of Cologne. To this day they can not forget the fate of the young Cologne woman, who fell in the crossfire.

Before the church St. Gereon in Cologne the two veterans rise together from the taxi. The 87-year-old Clarence Smoyer who lives in Pennsylvania, looks like a US Veteran would look: Baseball Hat, Army jacket with the insignia of his former 3rd Panzer Division. Gustav Schäfer (86) has come from Stemwede in East Westphalia-Lippe to Cologne.

It is their first meeting since they shot from their tanks at each other in March 1945. Both of them are moved.

It was a great need to visit the little cemetery of St. Gereon, they say. The night before, with tears flowing, they talked about it. Katharina Esser was also buried in the mass grave. The fate of the Cologne woman on this day 68 years ago was linked to that of the two soldiers - in a tragic manner.

Flashback: March 6, 1945, Cologne is in ruins after the bomb attacks. In the canyons of the ruins, US tanks advance towards the inner city at midday. Clarence Smoyer sits in a "Pershing" tank on the gun barrel. The Wehrmacht send US troops against some tanks. Gustav Schäfer crouches at the machine gun. He remembers: "I came to the Wehrmacht at the age of 17, on March 6, 1945, we were to stop the Americans, a madness.”

At the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring the tanks finally met, stopped on sight and delivered a wild fire fight.

Then the fateful moment: A civilian car suddenly rolls over the Christophstrasse into the middle of the battle zone. After several hits the car breaks down.

It takes another hour before the German tank is out of action. Schäfer is still coming out, he can get out of there. The Americans dare to cross the Ringstrasse. When the soldiers open the car door, a young woman falls toward them: Katharina Esser. She survived the inferno, but was seriously injured. She was taken care of on the roadside.

Clarence Smoyer and Gustav Schäfer cannot let these images go. Each of them offer the anxious question: Did I hit the beautiful woman?

Smoyer: "I fired at the German tank. Then this car came from the side, I thought it was an army vehicle. I would never have shot if I had known there was a woman in it." Gustav Schäfer: "She is right in the middle of my machine gun bursts. My field of vision was so narrow. I still think of it a lot, but it cannot go away.”

[For] decades both did not know whether the young woman had survived. Only the search of the filmmaker Hermann Rheindorf on the warfare in Cologne brought the sad certainty in 2007. He was also the one who had arranged the moving meeting of veterans in Cologne.

Clarence Smoyer and Gustav Schäfer stand at Katharina Essers grave. The young woman from Zollstock was 27 years old. Meanwhile the veterans know their history: She wanted to go with her boss, the food trader Hans Helling from Cologne-Sülz, by car to the Rechtsrheinische. For love, as acquaintances reported, there lived Catherine's fiancé.

Helling was immediately killed. Katharina was seriously injured by the roadside. But unexpectedly the Americans came under attack again. Chaos, tanks rolled off quickly. And Katharina Esser was run over and killed by a steel colossus.

68 years later. Clarence Smoyer and Gustav Schäfer put roses for Katharina Esser and Hans Delling on the grave. "I will never forget this day in March 1945 . This whole madness war, hopefully never happens again," said Gustav Schäfer. Clarence Smoyer wants to stay at the grave for a few minutes. Then he says, "For me, this is a kind of conclusion."



The battle for the Rhineland

Densely populated, strategically valuable: the Rhineland is the key to victory over the Third Reich in the Second World War for the Allies. The Wehrmacht defended stubbornly - even as a long time nothing is to be won. Between September 1944 and January 1945, German troops are trying to stop the Allies' advance between Düren and Monschau. 68,000 soldiers died in the fighting in the Huertgen Forest. On October 21, Aachen is conquered after fierce urban combat. During the "Battle of the Reichswald" in Kleve in February, 10,000 people died, including many civilians. The beginning of March saw the fall of Cologne, the first German large city. On March 7th, the US troops crossed the Rhine at the Remagen bridge and pushed further into the east bank territories of the Rhine from Cologne deeper into the Ruhr. Düsseldorf is occupied in April as the last city of the "Ruhrkessel".





(Photo inset top right)

US tanks advance over the ring to the city center.

March 6, 1945: The history of the
images that went around the world



Cologne was the first German metropolis, in which US troops in 1945 had penetrated. To show this in millions of homes, the Americans used the power of images. Thus, camera crews were there at the Front. Also James Bates: His pictures, above all the tank battle at the cathedral, went around the world. Today we know that not everything has happened that way. As the Russians in Berlin staged the hoisting of the Soviet flag on the Reichstag, the Americans have also set scenes here and re-cut them. The filmmaker Hermann Rheindorf (photo) had this in his DVD documentary "Cologne 1945 - close-ups" with eyewitnesses and historical recordings. But the scenes of the fate of Katharina Esser are authentic.


(Captions of 4 bottom photos)

Suddenly this civilian car drives right into the battle zone and remains.

When US soldiers open the door the young woman falls toward them.

Katharina Esser is a little later overrun and killed by a tank.

US armor troops push up to the cathedral: Cologne is conquered.