6 June: The Legacy of Heinrich Severloh

by Karl Richter

Karl Richter highlights the potential farce of today’s 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, emphasising its implications for European sovereignty and freedom.

Today’s 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion has the potential to become a farce. French President Macron wants to use the occasion to officially announce the deployment of an initial contingent of French soldiers to Ukraine — marking the beginning of NATO’s ground war against Russia. Following the recent approvals by the USA and, finally, Germany, allowing Ukraine to attack Russian territory with Western-supplied weapons, this is the next incomprehensible provocation directed at Moscow. One wonders how long the Russian bear will remain patient. Perhaps future historians will also mark the 6th of June 2024 as a turning point in their annals.

Moreover, the anniversary of the invasion is not a cause for celebration. Europe has lost its sovereignty and soul through the victorious advance of the Western Allies and the continued neutralisation of the European central power, Germany. Had the Allied soldiers, who landed on the French coast in the early morning hours of 6 June 1944, known that their cities would become cesspits of immigration and crime a few decades later, they probably would not have boarded their boats. It would have been better for Europe.

The victory celebrations of the Allies and their accomplices are of no concern to us. They are dedicated to a faded glory and false heroes. Germany can still present true heroes from the distance of eighty years who are worthy of our remembrance. Among them is the then 20-year-old private Heinrich Severloh. He was not a highly decorated Knight’s Cross holder but rather a ‘poor’ soldier who had received a disciplinary measure for a critical remark. Yet, on 6 June 1944, he defended his machine gun position at Omaha Beach in the American landing zone for many hours against the landing US troops, firing 12,000 rounds with his MG 42 and 400 rounds of rifle ammunition. How many US soldiers fell or were put out of action due to Severloh’s efforts is unknown — it must have been hundreds. After running out of ammunition around 3 pm, he left his position and was captured the following day. He later confided his story to the publicist Paul Carell, who dedicated a gripping, vivid account to the German defenders on the invasion front titled ‘They Are Coming’.

Heinrich Severloh, who passed away only in 2006, left us a legacy: the fight for Europe’s freedom and the end of its foreign domination. If all appearances are not deceiving, this fight is just beginning.

(translated from the German)