Does anyone know the name of the man

[Annelie]

that is mentioned on page 357 in Bloody Streets?

(He was one of the bravest men Lange had ever commanded. He had received the German Cross in gold for exceptional merits, and the Purple Heart [sic., Wound Badge]. He had been taken prisoner in France after invasion, had managed to escape and to
fight his way back to his unit. When the unit reached Berlin, the same officer was asked by his cammander to take a self-propelled gun which was out of order and get it repaired. On his way, accompanied by a Feldwebel, the officer was stopped by an
SS-Obersturmbannführer who ordered that he take the self-propelled gun to his positions nearby. The officer explained that the self-propelled gun was out of order and had to be repaired first. The SS-Obersturmbannführer then called several of his SS men and had both the officer and the sergeant hanged on the spot... [Author's note: this is how two bodies came to hang under the Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn bridge mentioned by several participants in the battle].

Would be interested also to know the name of this SS-Obersturmbannführer and what perhaps happened to him after the war if at all he lived?

[Nicolai]

Hmm, it could perhaps be possible to figure out.. But first you'd have to figure out which unit this Lange belonged to.. The book doesn't specify anything but his rank (Hauptmann), so that would be hard. If you pull it off you could perhaps look up the German Cross in Gold holders (using a book about the holders of the award, perhaps?) of his unit, and then narrow it down to the holders of the wound badge who took part in the invasion of France and fought in Berlin.

I don't think that it would be possible to identify the SS-Obersturmbannführer, since no name or unit or..anything else, really, is specified.. If you figure out which units were posted around the bridge on 1. May (check the maps in the book, I guess?) you'll be a bit closer, but I don't think that it's possible to get a full identification.

Hamilton has his own thread here, so you could perhaps ask him if he left out some details from the accounts?

[pzrmeyer2]

is this event true? are there sources to verify this is the reason the men were hanged?

if their lives were at stake, why didnt they simply reluctantly obey the SS-Obersturmbannführers order?
or why not return to the vehicle, and place a few MG shots at the barbaric SS-Obersturmbannführer ?

I mean, if I m about to be taken to be hanged for something as stupid at that< id rather die fighting than be led like a lamb to the gallows.

[Paddy Keating]

All sounds a bit contrived to me. Some blameless people were hanged by roving military police squads and other groups charged with the maintenance of discipline but I can't really see a Lieutenant-Colonel of the SS summarily executing a highly decorated army officer and his sergeant, who were clearly not trying to desert or surrender. It's one thing to string up someone who, when stopped, cannot offer any convincing reasons for being away from his unit. Refusing the benefit of the doubt in such cases is already pretty tough and it certainly happened. But two combat veterans in an SPG on their way to a repairshop? One of them wearing a DKiG? I don't think so.

PK

[Paulus II]

Read about his 'event' before but in that version it was about two Waffen-SS men being hanged. There used to be a commemorative plaque of this incident attached to a storefront in the Friedrichstrasse but it was removed after the "Wende". And that probably brings this story into the realm of DDR-propaganda.
The plaque mentioned the hanging and that a sign was attached to one of the men that said something like: "I haven't taken care of my StuG in the way the Führer has ordered".

It may well be possible that people have seen two bodies hanged from the railwaybridge, after all such incidents did occur, but the way this particular incident is described in various versions and used to commemorate the barbarity of the Hitler-regime by the DDR makes it a very suspect story.