Heinrich "Hein" Severloh, also known as the Beast of Omaha, (23 June 1923 – 14 January 2006) was a soldier in the German 352nd Infantry Division stationed in Normandy in 1944.

In the book, Severloh claims that - as a machine gunner - he inflicted over 1,000 and possibly over 2,000 casualties to the American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

[3] Severloh was born into a farming family[4] in Metzingen in the Lüneburg Heath area of North Germany, close to the small city of Celle.

As punishment for making dissenting remarks, he was forced to perform physical exertions that left him with permanent health problems and necessitated six-month convalescence in a hospital.

[citation needed] In October 1943, Severloh was sent for non-commissioned officer training in Brunswick, but was recalled after less than a month to rejoin his unit which had been reclassified as the 352nd Infantry Division[6] and was stationed in Normandy.

[7] Infantry deployments on the Beach consisted of five companies concentrated at 15 strongpoints called Widerstandsnester ("resistance nests"), numbered WN-60 in the east to WN-74 in the west.

Severloh was returned to Germany in March 1947 after his father wrote to the British military authorities saying he was needed to work back on the farm.

[citation needed] In the 1960s, an American military chaplain, David Silva, who had been wounded by three bullets in the chest on Omaha Beach, was contacted by Severloh - who had found his name in the Cornelius Ryan book The Longest Day.

[citation needed] On 5 June 2004 RTL showed a two-hour documentary in co-production with CBC Radio: "Mortal enemies of Omaha Beach – the story of an unusual friendship," by the filmmaker Alexander Czogalla.