Biography
The Last Battle
On 8 August, the Allies were to launch another heavy assault with the aim of sealing the pocket of resistance in the area around Falaise, Operation "Totalize". At this time Wittmann and his company were attached to 12. SS Pz. Gren. Division 'Hitlerjugend', a tough new division consisting of former members of the Hitler Youth and commanded by the legendary Kurt 'Panzer' Meyer. Wittmann's crew at this time consisted of SS-Unterscharführer Karl Wagner as gunner, SS-Sturmmann Günther Weber as loader, SS-Unterscharführer Heinrich Reimers as driver, and SS-Sturmmann Rudolf 'Rudi' Hirschel as bow machine gunner and radio operator. The small Kampfgruppe had a total of around sixty vehicles, and Wittmann had under his command only eight servicable Tigers. This was compared to some six-hundred Allied tanks which had been organised for "Totalize".
Left: One of the most famous photographs of the war, shows Michael Wittmann atop his Tiger. Note the 'Adolf Hitler' cuffband. Right: Wittmann in the cupola of Tiger Nr. 231, one of the last photgraphs taken before his death on 8 August 1944. The Knight's Cross with Oakleaves and Swords can clearly be seen at his throat, and he wears the collar patches of an SS-Hauptsturmführer.
Wittmann's task was to attack the town of Cintheaux, which stood on the N158 between Caen and Falaise, and to occupy the heights to the north. Wittmann's tiger set out around 12:30, and after travelling a short distance encountered a team of Shermans belonging to the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, who were themselves advancing on Cintheaux. Using the powerful 88mm guns, the team of advancing Tigers proceeded to smash the small formation of Canadian vehicles, desperate to push towards their objective. According to a number of his colleagues, Wittmann had been nervous that morning, and uncharacteristically indicisive. His foreboding proved justified.
What exactly happened next is still a matter of conjecture, but it would appear from the various versions that have been presented is that Wittmann had found his Tiger surrounded on the outskirts of the woods outside Cintheaux, and fell victim to an attack that both disabled the track mechanism and set it alight. According to all of the reports that have since become available, this took place at around 1247 hours. At 1255 hours, SS-Hauptschführer Hans Höflinger of the 2nd Company had seen Wittmann's Tiger in a stationary position but still intact; however neither Höflinger nor the medical officer SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Wolfgang Rabe were able to reach their commander's stricken vehicle, and were forced to retreat. It was only some time after this that the turret of Tiger Nr. 007 was separated from the hull, no doubt the result of an internal explosion caused by the on-board ammunition and burning fuel. No shell could have achieved this result; the turret was so heavy that the result could only have been caused by a blast from within the vehicle.
Not more than an hour into the afternoon of 8 August 1944, Michael Wittmann and his crew were reported missing in action.
The shattered turret of Wittmann's Tiger, Nr. 007. The turret has been completely torn away from the hull, and ruptured by an internal explosion. Wittmann's Tiger has been 'claimed' by a number of Allied units, although it has also been argued that it had been destroyed by airborne forces. The photograph was taken by a French civilian.
Michael Wittmann's death on 8 August 1944 could well have been avoided; he did not have to accompany the other Tigers, but did so nevertheless on account of the fact that SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Heurich, newly promoted to the command of the 3rd Company, lacked the necessary battlefield experience. The words he uttered were no doubt etched on the minds of those who survived: "I must go with them". As ever, Wittmann was there for his men, and perished as a result. A soldier's soldier to the last, he would not have had it any other way. The news of the loss of their beloved "Michel" sent shockwaves through the ranks of the Leibstandarte, from the ordinary soldier through to "Sepp" Dietrich himself; the day proved to be one of the blackest in the history of the division.
Unanswered Questions
The full story of what exactly happened to Michael Wittmann and his crew might perhaps never be known, although his legendary reputation has led to him being 'claimed' by a number of Allied units that had been operating in the area at the time. According to one source, Wittmann's Tiger had found itself cornered by tanks of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry, B Sqn, 144 Regiment Royal Armoured Corps and the 27th Canadian Armoured Regiment (The Sherbrooke Fusiliers) in the area around St. Aignan-de-Cramesnil, while the Canadians have claimed that the Panzer ace had been surrounded and destroyed by a platoon of Shermans belonging to their 4th Armoured Division. The Polish 1st Armoured division also staked their claim. Elsewhere it has been postulated that Wittmann's Tiger had fallen victim to an attack carried out by Allied airborne forces.
Further research has exposed the holes in many of these claims; for instance, the like taken by the Poles actually took them east of St. Aignan-de-Cramesnil, and moreover they did not cross their start line until 1355, more than an hour after Wittmann had been reported missing. The claim made for the Canadian 4th Armoured can also be doubted in that their main thrust had taken place through the town of Rocquancourt. The operations record book of 2 Tactical Air Force and the lack of any tank kill conformation in the area on that day can be used to discount the claim that Wittmann's tiger had been destroyed from the air - although there had been confirmed tank kills in the Argentan-Fliers-Falaise area.
From all of the evidence that has been presented, it would appear that only two of those parties named can present claims that can be supported by any kind of evidence: the 1st Northants Yeomanry and the Sherbrookes. According to members of the Sherbrookes, one of their Fireflies had engaged a Tiger close to the RN158, but that this Tiger had been at the time facing in the direction of an orchard where tanks of the 1st Northants Yeomanry had been deployed. From this, it can be deduced that Wittmann's Tiger could have been destroyed by any one, if not both, of these two parties. However, the RHQ vehicle of the Sherbrookes had been destroyed not long after this sighting, so there is no concrete record of the event. (Thanks to Brian Reid for further information on the events of 8th August 1944).
The Story of Joe Ekins
In 2006 another story concerning Wittmann appeared, one that was presented in the British tabloid The Daily Mail, concerned a then twenty-one year old Firefly gunner belonging to the 1st Northants Yeomanry, Joe Ekins. According to the report, Ekins' Firefly - accompanied by a further three Shermans - encountered three Tigers on 8th August, one of which was Wittmann's Tiger 007.
Ekins, who at the time could best be described as something of a novice who had fired a mere five practice rounds, described the action that followed:
"I could see at least three Tigers coming and we had three Shermans and one Firefly... The squadron had two other Fireflies and I expected them to send one to help, but they decided not to and left me alone.
"We pulled out of the orchard and I fired twice at the third tank at the rear and it blew up. We reversed into the orchard so we could come out in a different place. But the second Tiger fired two or three rounds and hit our turret lid.
"The lid must have hit the tank commander's head and he jumped out, so our troop officer took over. We pulled out again and fired at the second Tiger and it exploded. We pulled back again and by this time, the third Tiger knew it had lost its two mates.
"I finished it off with two shells and had taken out all three in 12 minutes. We later hit one more tank and then we were knocked out. There was a loud bang and sparks flew and we got out and ran like hell - the officer was hit by shrapnel. When we got back, we were made into new tank crews and I was made a wireless operator. It seemed a bit odd making your best gunner a wireless operator.
"But it proved lucky, because over the next eight months we were one of the few crews who got through the lot. I only found out eight years after the war that one of the people in the tank we hit was Wittmann, but I'd never heard of him.
"He was very well known in Germany and there were lots of claims about who killed him, but it is well accepted now that we got him. He was an ace, but he wasn't too clever that morning."
"Usually, it took five Shermans to beat one Tiger, but the Fireflies were better. When I heard about the concentration camps, I knew it was all worth it. I'm quite proud. Wittmann was a Nazi from the start - he must have known about the camps. It didn't matter who killed him, just that he was killed."
(Extract cited in the article "Revealed: the hero who wiped out Hitler's notorious tank ace", Daily Mail, 24th June 2006 [Source])
While it is fair to say that the article is clearly written for an anti-German audience, there is little either way to support or dispute Ekins' claims. Rather than adopt the Mail's position, I'd just add this story to all of the others that have done the rounds over the years; there is little in Ekins' account that adds anything concrete to the existing evidence.
Conclusions
In spite of all the evidence that has been presented, it would appear that questions over Wittmann's death will go on being asked, which is, given the fact that he has become something of a legendary figure in the history of modern warfare, rather fitting. In spite of all of the various claims and counter-claims, however, one thing is certain: the turret of Tiger 007 had been competely separated from the hull following an internal explosion, and there had been no survivors.
Michael Wittmann and his crew had been buried nearby by a group of local civilians soon after the battle, and thanks to the research of Monsieur Jean Paul Pallud during 1981-82, the grave was finally discovered at Gaumesnil beside the main Caen-Falaise road. At the request of the German war grave commission (VDK), the bodies of four men were disinterred, one of whom was Wittmann, who was positively identified by the dental prosthesis that he had had to wear following his facial injury in Russia. The identity disc belonging to Wittmann's driver Heinrich Reimers was found on another one of the bodies, but the two remaining skeletons could not be positively identified.
Two of Wittmann's crewmen who perished on 8 August 1944. Left: Driver SS-Sturmmann Heinrich 'Hein' Reimers. Right: Radio Operator SS-Sturmmann Rudolf 'Rudi' Hirschel. Both men, along with their commander Wittmann and colleagues Günther Weber and Karl Wagner, are buried at the Soldatenfriedhof in La Cambe.
In 1983, thirty-nine years after their death in the field outside Cintheaux, Michael Wittmann and his crew were finally laid to rest at the German military cemetery at La Cambe in Normandy, located on the road NR13 between Isigny-sur-Mer and Bayeux. The grave, which is adorned with the names of Wittmann and all four crewmembers of Tiger 007 - driver Heinrich Reimers, gunner Karl Wagner, loader Günther Weber and bow machine-gunner/radio operator Rudolf Hirschel - is the 120th of row 3, block 47.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittmann was to leave behind his widow Hildegard, and a legacy that no-one is ever likely to match. In an astonishing career, he destroyed a total of 138 enemy tanks and 132 anti-tank guns and other heavy artillery pieces, not to say hundreds of other light vehicles. It must be remembered here that his initial tank kills were achieved while he was commander of a Sturmgeschütz III; one cannot begin to imagine what his final score might have been had the Tiger been developed earlier during the war. Balthasar Woll, Wittmann's friend, comrade-in-arms and gunner during the campaigns in Russia and the amazing events at Villers-Bocage, was undergoing medical treatment at the time of his Wittmann's death, and hence escaped the fate suffered by his commander and fellow crew members. 'Bobby' Woll was to survive both the war and the upheaval of the immediate postwar period, and sadly passed away in 1996.
"Ein Soldat wie andere auch"
