'Beast of Omaha' weeps as he recalls slaughter of thousands on beach

Scotsman ^ | 6/6/04 | Murdo MacLeod

[LibWhacker]

FOR Hein Severloh the ‘Longest Day’ meant nine hours constantly machine-gunning American soldiers as they attempted to land on Omaha Beach.

One image still brings tears to his eyes. A young American had run from his landing craft and sought cover behind a concrete block. Severloh, then a young lance-corporal in the German army in Normandy, aimed his rifle at the GI. He fired and hit the enemy square in the forehead. The American’s helmet flew away and rolled into the sea, his chin sank to his chest and he collapsed dead on the beach.

Tormented by the memory, Severloh now weeps at the thought of the unknown soldier’s death.

Severloh was safe in an almost impregnable concrete bunker overlooking the beach. He had an unimpeded view of the oncoming Allied forces. He was the last German soldier firing, and may have accounted for about 3,000 American casualties, almost three-quarters of all the US losses at Omaha. The Americans came to know him as the Beast of Omaha.

He had been saved from the waves of Allied bombing by the poor weather. The US aircrews were worried that if they allowed their bombs to fall too soon they might destroy their own landing ships. As they flew over they lingered before releasing their weapons, meaning the bombs often landed far behind the Nazi bunkers.

The Germans joked that the ‘Amis’ - their slang for the US forces - had merely bombed French cows and farmers rather than the German installations.

Alerted by the bombers, Severloh and the 29 others in his bunker rushed to their firing holes and prepared for the onslaught. Severloh, then just 20, gasped when he saw the ocean. He was confronted by what seemed to be a wall of Allied ships. He said: "My God. How am I going to get out of this mess?"

The veteran explained: "What could I do? I just thought that I was never going to make it to the rear. I thought that I was going to shoot for my very life. It was them or me - that is what I thought."

As the landing ships neared the beach, Severloh listened to the final orders from his commander, Lieutenant Berhard Frerking. They wanted to stop the Americans while they were still in the water and could not move easily. But if he fired too soon - while the soldiers were still some way out in the water - he risked missing them.

Frerking explained: "You must open fire when the enemy is knee-deep in the water and is still unable to run quickly."

Severloh had seen little action before. His previous stint on the Eastern Front had been cut short by tonsillitis. But he was anything but enthusiastic. Severloh said: "I never wanted to be in the war. I never wanted to be in France. I never wanted to be in that bunker firing a machine gun.

"I saw how the water sprayed up where my machine gun bursts landed, and when the small fountains came closer to the GIs, they threw themselves down. Very soon the first bodies were drifting in the waves of the rising tide. In a short time, all the Americans down there were shot."

He fired for nine hours, using up all the 12,000 machine-gun rounds. The sea turned red with the blood from the bodies. When he had no more bullets for the machine-gun, he started firing on the US soldiers with his rifle, firing off another 400 rifle rounds at the terrified GIs.

A leading German historical expert of the Second World War, Helmut Konrad Freiherr von Keusgen, believes Severloh may have accounted for 3,000 of the 4,200 American casualties on the day.

Severloh is less sure about the number, but said: "It was definitely at least 1,000 men, most likely more than 2,000. But I do not know how many men I shot. It was awful. Thinking about it makes me want to throw up. I almost emptied an entire infantry landing craft. The sea was red around it and I could hear an American officer shouting hysterically in a loudspeaker."

Lt-col Stuart Crawford, formerly of the Royal Tank Regiment, and a defence consultant, said it was entirely possible that a single German soldier had killed so many GIs.

He said: "I have fired that machine-gun. I did it as part of my training, and it has an extremely high rate of fire. He was in a position which was almost impervious to the weapons which the Americans could bring to bear on him. The Americans made the mistake of not landing tanks with the first wave of troops, so they had no support or protection."

[prisoner6]

Very well said!

prisoner6

[rlmorel]

Also...the British did not land at Omaha Beach.

It was a much more deadly environment than any other landing site.

[DB]

Thank you.

[DB]

I didn’t know that.

I can’t imagine the noise of being in front and below those guns being fired.

A truly horrible day.

[saganite]

He estimated 1,000 to 2,000 himself. Also, targets were tightly packed as in the comment about emptying the landing craft single handed.

[R. Scott]

Yes indeed. He did his duty.

[MARTIAL MONK]

I would still look at this with extreme skepticism. It parallels but does not match what I know of the landing. This is too much like a John Kerry war story.

I'd bet that no American ever heard of the "Beast of Omaha".

[jebeier]

The Americans lost 3000 men to dislodge one German soldier from a strategic bunker, and it was a victory for the Americans. This is the nature of war.

It’s not always about the body count.

[saganite]

I’m sure there were German machine gunners in WWI who killed and wounded as many or more than this man. A machine gun is an incredibly efficient killing machine.

[wolficatZ]

Path of Forgiveness

A Long Way back to Omaha Beach

Author: Alexander Czogalla

Length: 54'

June 6, 1944 on D-Day: the allies stormed the beaches at Normandy, gaining a tenuous foothold on the shores of France. On a stretch of shoreline the Americans had code-named Omaha Beach, the allied forces were subjected to one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two.

For seven hours German private Heinrich Severloh fired at the oncoming invaders, mercilessly, unceasingly, like a robot. Severloh, then 21 years old, was credited with killing more enemy troops than any other Wehrmacht soldier. The horrifying estimate is anywhere from two thousand to two thousand five hundred men, in a single day. A simple man transformed into a murdering beast. Like a madman, he fired his machine gun killing soldiers that, for him, have no names or faces.

Except for one. David, then 19, a GI from Cleveland, Ohio, survived the massacre with severe injuries. And then a miracle happened. Two men who were bitter enemies, met briefly, then went their separate ways. They exchanged letters, became friends. And now, the former enemies meet again.

year of production: 2004

 

 

 David Silva and Hein Severloh                          Spiegel TV

[MARTIAL MONK]

Severloh, then 21 years old, was credited with killing more enemy troops than any other Wehrmacht soldier. The horrifying estimate is anywhere from two thousand to two thousand five hundred men, in a single day.

I sounds better if they would round it off to, say, 10,000. And as accurate.

[mad_as_he$$]

That is a complicated question. The allies didn't really have any "heavy" armor. The Sherman was modified to 'swim". From Wiki:

"DD tanks (for Duplex Drive) were amphibious swimming tanks developed during the Second World War. The phrase is mostly used for the M4 Sherman medium tanks used by the Allies in the opening phases of the D-Day landings in 1944. The swimming tracked LVTs had already been used in the 1942-43 Solomons campaign in the Pacific, swimming 2 1/2 ton trucks in the 1943 invasion of Sicily, swimming Ford jeeps appeared in 1944, and the Soviets even developed swimming tankettes in the 1930s --but swimming medium tanks presented their own design problems. The swimming tank idea arose when it was realised that the first waves of infantry that reached an invasion beach would be acutely vulnerable without the support of tanks. But if landing craft were used to carry those tanks, they themselves would be vulnerable to German heavy guns. The loss of too many landing craft would slow the movement of reinforcements from ships offshore and the invasion beaches would be choked with disabled and sunken landing craft. By giving tanks the ability to float, they could be launched from landing craft several miles from the shore and make their own way onto the beach. The DD tanks were one of the many specialised assault vehicles, collectively known as Hobart's Funnies, derived to support the beach landings. All were extensively used by the British and Canadians, but the DD were the only ones adopted by the American forces. It has been speculated that if the DD tanks were better used, or if some of the other vehicles had been used, that American losses on the beaches of Normandy, particularly Omaha beach, would have been far less."

A large number of the DD'd were sunk trying to get to the beach. The Sherman could not take out a Panther or a Tiger 1 in a heads up shoot out. Typically 2-3 Sherman were lost killing every German heavy tank. There is tons of stuff around about this. history channel, wiki etc.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

The beach soil and rocks were way too soft for armor. The Sherman tanks that did land quickly got stuck and became death traps for their crews.

[tcostell]

It's heartening to see that.

Maybe western civilization isn't going off the rails after all.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Nice pic, but it’s at Utah, I believe.

[SW6906]

WWII Ping!

[LIConFem]

Amen. Let’s hope that he and all involved find peace.

[BuffaloJack]

Incredible. One single person accounting for so many casualties.

[wtc911]

For a great read on that day from ground level....

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/196011/omaha

[wtc911]

A little reality check, more Americans died on 911 than at Normandy...

From the Brits' D-Day Museum site:

"The breakdown of US casualties was 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured. Of the total US figure, 2499 casualties were from the US airborne troops (238 of them being deaths). The casualties at Utah Beach were relatively light: 197, including 60 missing. However, the US 1st and 29th Divisions together suffered around 2000 casualties at Omaha Beach."

There was a total of @ 2000 casualties on Omaha. This includes wounded. This guy would have had to be responsible for every single US KIA and even that number wouldn't come close to what is claimed in this article.