Fascinating, horrifying, sad: Interview with a former German soldier who by himself may have accounted for about 3,000 American casualties, almost three-quarters of all the US losses at Omaha Beach on D-Day, the anniversary of which was yesterday:

Severloh, then just 20, gasped when he saw the ocean. He was confronted by what seemed to be a wall of Allied ships. He said: “My God. How am I going to get out of this mess?”

The veteran explained: “What could I do? I just thought that I was never going to make it to the rear. I thought that I was going to shoot for my very life. It was them or me - that is what I thought.”