The German army had reinforced Seelow Heights, overlooking the Oder river where it passed closest to Berlin. Erik’s aid station was in a village a mile back from the line.

Dr Weiss, who had a friend in army intelligence, said there were 110,000 Germans defending Berlin against a million Soviets. With his usual sarcasm he said: ‘But our morale is high, and Adolf Hitler is the greatest genius in military history, so we are certain to win.’

There was no hope, but German soldiers were still fighting fiercely. Erik believed this was because of the stories filtering back about how the Red Army behaved. Prisoners were killed, homes were looted and wrecked, women were raped and nailed to barn doors. The Germans believed they were defending their own families from Communist brutality. The Kremlin’s hate propaganda was backfiring.

Erik was looking forward to defeat. He longed for the killing to stop. He just wanted to go home.

He would have his wish soon – or he would be dead.

Sleeping on a wooden pew, Erik was awakened at three o’clock in the morning on Monday 16 April by the Russian guns. He had heard artillery bombardments before, but this was ten times as loud as anything in his experience. For the men on the front line it must have been literally deafening.

The wounded started to arrive at dawn, and the team went wearily to work, amputating limbs, setting broken bones, extracting bullets, and cleaning and bandaging wounds. They were short of everything from drugs to clean water, and they gave morphine only to those who were screaming in agony.

Men who could still walk and hold a gun were sent back to the line.

The German defenders held out longer than Dr Weiss expected. At the end of the first day they were still in position, and as darkness fell the rush of wounded slowed. The medical unit got some sleep that night.

Early on the next day Werner Franck was brought in, his right wrist horribly crushed.

He was a captain now. He had been in charge of a section of the line with thirty 88mm Flak guns. ‘We only had eight shells for each gun,’ he said while Dr Weiss’s clever fingers worked slowly and meticulously to set his smashed bones. ‘Our orders were to fire seven at the Russian tanks, then use the eighth to destroy our own gun so that it could not be used by the Reds.’ He had been standing by an 88 when it suffered a direct hit from the Soviet artillery and turned over on him. ‘I was lucky it was only my hand,’ he said ‘It might have been my damn head.’

When his wrist had been taped up, he said to Erik: ‘Have you heard from Carla?’

Erik knew that his sister and Werner were now a couple. ‘I haven’t had any letters for weeks.’

‘Nor me. I hear things are pretty grim in Berlin. I hope she’s all right.’