I’ve just started reading this one, and after some 90 pages I got to say it is a really interesting one, packed with witnesses stories and as mentioned in the title - from the German view.
I’ll post two examples:
“[…]Here Major Oswald Finzel’s 1st Battalion Fallschirmjäger Regiment 2 were being attacked by elements of XII Corps supporting GARDEN. A company messenger in Captain Ortmann’s company, H. Sitter, vividly describes the scene as the 15th Scottish Infantry Division attacked their positions. His disjointed notes sent as a letter to Finzel after the war read like a series of film clips:
'Railway embankment with a signalman’s cabin which changed hands several times during the course of the day. You Finzel, occupied the battalion command post in a farmhouse. Suddenly a strong enemy attack, you were cut off. Captain Ortmann sent me to you as a messenger. Received machine gun fire en route, dashed for cover in a hedgerow, can’t get any further. Range to the machine gun is approximately 20 metres, am under continuous fire. Then a German tank rolls by. I hope that it has got you out. Afterwards I see eight to ten paratroopers walking towards the machine gun nest with their hands up, followed by Tommies or Canadians. A brief halt, the machine gun swings around and shoots up all the prisoners. I am powerless, having lost my machine pistol when I dashed for cover to the hedgerow. It is lying a few metres away. I went to reach for it slowly, suddenly “Hands up!” [in English]. I think that’s it. Another mortar barrage. My captors take cover. I get my machine pistol. Short bursts of fire, a few enemy less, including the machine gun nest. Able to report back to Ortmann and also report on the killing of the prisoners. Ortmann informs me that you have made it back.[…]” p. 88
“[…]Richter’s Kampfgruppe reached Budel in the late afternoon. 1st and 2nd Companies secured the village entry points, and 3rd
Company, little more than a platoon strong, established itself as a reserve jointly located with the command post in the centre of the village. Having been denied rest for 38 hours, observing the steady build-up of Allied strength in the bridgehead, and exhausted and dismayed by their sudden retreat, all ranks snatched what rest they could. This lasted well beyond midnight, until suddenly, at 0430, four English tanks accompanied by infantry roared into the centre of the village, having slipped past the dozing security outposts. Fifteen other tanks bypassed the perimeter and took up positions on either side of the village. Tanks stood between the outlying companies and the command post and reserve. They were trapped. Machine guns and main tank armaments covered all the exit routes. There appeared to be no route out. SS-Lieutenant Heinz Damaske, Richter’s adjutant, described the ensuing rout:
'Enemy night raids in such strength had until now been the exception rather than the rule. After the initial panic caused by the tank-shock “Willy’s” desire to survive quickly surfaced. The commander and his adjutant as well as the signallers demonstrated by example how to destroy four Sherman tanks in close combat. The battalion was then able, albeit with heavy losses, to flee between and through houses, over walls and through hedges and gardens eastwards clear of Budel. This withdrawal in contact, which had to be conducted without anti-tank cover, lasted until 0930 the following day.[…]” p. 85
And here’s my question: anybody knows what was the British unit that got involved in Budel village?
source: “It Never Snows in September: The German View of Market-Garden and the Battle of Arnhem September 1944” by Robert J. Kershaw
