Eastern Inferno: The Journals of a German Panzerjäger on the Eastern Front, 1941-43 (30 page)

After another week of artillery and bombing preparations, we commence the counterattack with our panzers and
Sturmgeschütze
[assault guns]. We tell ourselves that after this incredible, never-before-seen preparation of all the heavy weapons, not even a mouse will survive in the ruins.

There is not much to say. By the evening of the attack, with the exception of a few who remain, our division is destroyed. The loss of life, weapons, and tanks is heavy. The entire undertaking was unsuccessful. By the following day, it is a wonder that we are able to hold up against the enormous pressure from the Reds. Nevertheless, they are able to push us back to our October 20 position and diminish our numbers by many. Their units are fully supported by Stalin’s Organs. This night is the beginning of the most critical battle for the bloody city.

The expected all-out attack by the Russians lasted for five long days and nights, until last night. We held on to every meter of the smoking rubble field with desperate tenacity. The losses were great, but again we were able to withstand the mad assault, if only by using our last inner and outer reserves.

Now it is quiet, friends and enemies are lying low in the stony ruins. Through a gaping hole in the torn-up wall I have a view of the depot area that had been battered by hand grenades. This has been the focal point of the assault; just yesterday the last forty Soviet tanks were attacking here. And just yesterday, in the early morning glow, five heavy tanks, which had assembled in and emerged from a ravine, were suddenly standing on our own lines, rolling over our holes and trenches. With their gun muzzles on the ground, like burrowing trunks, they would stick their guns into our covers, until we got them right in front of our anti-tank guns and were able to shoot them down.

German 105mm howitzer on the Woronesh (Voronezh) front.
(Photo courtesy of
www.wwii-photos-maps.com
)

My heart is full of grief when I talk about these morning hours, because one of our best men, along with his entire gun-crew, had to give their lives. Karl Wissendorf, you will live on in all our hearts; giving your life and those of your men saved all of us from being destroyed; we will never forget this!

The wide field of the terrible combat lies eerily quiet and sad, with its herd of destroyed and broken up tanks. Their burned out hulls lie in the scorching sun like tossed dice in a lost game. Their gun muzzles are turned up in the air, arrested in the moment of their destruction and their torn chains and wheels lying there like the limbs of the dead. One of them has been thrown on its side by the blast of a bomb, like a helpless lump.

Above this scene which is filled with the scent of smoke and dead bodies, the air glistens in silver waves, until it becomes as thick as a yellow veil by dust blown in by the wind. I am tired, very tired even in my heart!

What a bad day! It is pouring, and a strong, cold wind is blowing through the dead streets, and in through the gaping windows. We have taken shelter in a half-buried basement. There is at least a stove that has been left behind here, which will give some warmth once it’s burning. But it is not burning yet, instead it’s smoking and stinking in a way that just about tears your lungs apart. The space is way too small for us all, but you couldn’t ask anybody to go out in the pouring rain and the heavy fire, which is rumbling across the ruins! And that’s why we are squatting between the dirty legs of the man behind us, pressed together like a tin of sardines. But it doesn’t matter now; at least we are somewhat safe in this dank hole of a basement for a few long hours until we are relieved in the evening. On top of everything, water is starting to drip into the basement from above! It’s damn filthy weather today. The right weather for the Reds to attack; judging by the heavy fire, the
schweine
are up to something.

Every other second a tremble goes through the thick walls from the heavy impacts close by. Now a shell must have torn into the ruins right above. How the rubble resonates! The wooden beams are cracking, dirt and stones are falling from the ceiling, but it’s holding up, that good old Russian ceiling!

Ever since that unlucky incursion in the “casino” sector, we are now in a dogged fight for every single ruined city block or street section. An ongoing back and forth of close combat from basement to basement and rubble pile to rubble pile….

There is no use to name the streets, which will forever remain a symbol of unforgettable courage and deep suffering. You may not have maps, but if you ask those who might come home, they will have a lot to talk about; about the minutes of horror among burned out factory complexes, among torn up railroad tracks, and the shredded metal ladders of burned out gas tanks.

During these dark nights, the Reds pounce on our posts to silently bring them down—I say
pounce
, but this word is not strong enough to describe the reality. They know they can’t take us over, therefore their actions are desperate. Everybody knows what human beings are capable of in such a situation, especially if they have weapons. They shout their battle cries like animals, but that does not scare us; they did the same last year, it just sounds more atrocious in the ruins of the city.

These days we are shooting with mortars, anti-tank shells, and multiple-barrel guns. The trajectory of the mortar sometimes becomes near nothing from one house into the yard of another. We take the ruins of five houses and then we give back two just to fight, only to then retake five again. Often enough the numbers are different, I guess you could say there is some variety.

Nighttime is the only time that has remained the same, with its fireworks, burning houses, sparks flying, and the beautiful starry sky. But it is already very cold, and one tries to be close to a burning building, though one is always aware of the possibility that the walls could come crashing down over his night quarters.

Then there are the voices of the night: the chirping of the ricochets, the grumbling of heavy mines, the shattering hits of the fire assaults, and the minute-long hellish music of Stalin’s Organs. Over all of this stands the shimmering twinkle of a starry sky, the most beautiful I have ever seen. But its gentle calm is abruptly torn apart by all the flares from the Soviet bombers. From now on, the sky is not for a single second without these artificial stars. These stars are glaring and glistening like cold silver, flickering and unsettled. Their magnesium light is unlike the warm red from the smoldering ruins in which we look for warmth.

Bombs strike with a dull, shattering noise, and glowing fragments rain down upon us. Pressed close to the ground, we lie behind rocky rubble or in bomb craters. Some never stand up again; the stiffness in their bodies can’t be undone by the glowing wood embers.

These are the disturbing images which will forever be part of the memories from the ruins of Woronesh: the faces of the men have become old and grey, like heavy shadows from extreme exertion, sleepless nights and never-ending terror, along with tense anticipation and always re-igniting combat, are drawn on their features.

We have been spared nothing by this land: the summer fighting commenced in pouring rain, which filled all our holes with muddy water, making the muck greedily hold on to every step and covering our uniforms with a crusty armor of dirt. Then came July with its scorching heat and the fine, flour-like dust; now the dampness of the rainy, fall days is sweeping over the trenches and the crater landscapes, only to be soon again replaced soon by the ice and snow of the merciless Russian winter.

We are not facing this second year of the Russian campaign as fresh and naïve as we once were. These formerly idealistic daredevils have turned into morose, relentlessly tired soldiers of trench warfare, tough people without a sense of humor. Easily embittered, we view our surroundings with the sharpest criticism. The length of the war has brought with it many changes, to which my comrades react with caustic sarcasm and I with a slight sadness. I am no Renn [Ludwig Renn, German novelist and Nazi opponent] or Remarque [Erich Maria Remarque, German anti-war novelist], therefore no more of it!!

But there is always one thing that keeps us going: the knowledge of the love that people at home have for us frontline bums. The eyes of the entire country are on us, all of Germany is proud of us. Really, all of Germany? Well, with exception of the duds, who don’t deserve to be called Germans!

All soldiers at the front have very different fates. There is the lucky one, his unit is deployed in the big offensive operations and as hard as the fighting might be, his engagement is rewarded with changing events and new experiences. He is also rewarded by the knowledge that the whole world at home is excitedly following the course of the action on their maps and through the radio reports of the OKW.

Much more difficult and draining is our kind of war, the kind that the
Frontschweine
experience, whose fate is currently leading them into heavy defensive battles. Naturally defensive combat is mentioned only briefly in the army reports. The accomplishments on our front don’t provide a great variety of stories for the war correspondents. The going is tough, and days and nights of heavy fighting follow each other. Here you don’t have the great moments, which compensate for even the worst hardships of the offensive. Embittered, we fight for every meter of space: lieutenant, non-commissioned officer, and soldier are lying in dirty foxholes, or if they are lucky, in bunkers; and for days, sometimes for weeks, we have to endure the enemy’s artillery fire. Each attack is followed by yet another attack; time and again we have to fall in for counterattack.

When the word heroism is used, it should be for the achievement of the thousands of anonymous trench fighters, who have successfully fought the defensive battles of the last few months.

A senior chief told me the other day: “You should know that the ac complishments of your soldiers will be written in capital letters on the first page of the immortal book of great deeds of the German soldiers in the year 1942, even when the newspapers report less about them than about the obvious successes of the other fronts.” We are thankful for the kind words.

It’s snowing slightly, and a sharp wind slaps ice cold water onto our faces. All eyes are staring ahead where all hell could break loose any moment. Since first light we have been expecting the Russians to attack. Thousands are waiting and waiting…. Restless, nervous hands check the hooks on the canister of the gasmask, put the hand grenades from the right side of the foxhole to the left and back again to prepare for the defense, they are doing a thousand things that carry no meaning or purpose.

Our comrades of the artillery are standing at their guns, waiting and waiting…. Impatient hands turn the greased screws of the
Libelle
[
Lom-57 Libelled
, reconnaissance glider]. Damn far ahead stand the heavy howitzers, and here again the shells lie ready everywhere. The rocket artillery is checking their fuses again and again, because their destroyer salvo is supposed to break the Russian attack. Everything has to work right in order not to let the superior force of the Bolsheviks overrun us and take possession of more parts of the death city.

We crouch in our foxholes, shivering and freezing…. Though it’s not just the cold which makes our teeth shatter! A thousand grey men have their faces turned forward. The success of the defense depends on the good eyes of a handful of men, these advanced position observers, who have to stare through the snow curtain and recognize the danger in time….

The snow drifts are getting thicker. Through meter-wide mud puddles a messenger approaches. Orders from the division! “The moment the enemy attacks, our own infantry will strike back with an immediate counterattack. Anti-tank gunners will support the attack and will take over the assault of enemy tank forces.” That’s how the message was written on the dirty paper, which means we will have to dodge the enemy fire in order to move into the blind spot of the heavy artillery as quickly as possible.

We are freezing as we stare into the drifting snow with tearing eyes, waiting….

Then, all of a sudden an enormous impact makes the earth explode, and the Soviet annihilating fire begins. Their artillery sends their hail of shells our way, PaKs shoot from inside the houses across the street; tanks are shooting from the sides; flight squadrons are showering us with bombs, and intermittently explode the hard impacts of the mortar.

Storm! Storm through hell! It is hell, the noise and the uproar, the constant detonation of shells of all calibers, the hissing whistle of the bullets in the air, the spray of splinters, the flying dirt from the bursting earth, the constantly quaking ground, the biting and stinking smoke of gunpowder, and amongst all this the hard and fast thuds from the discharges of our own mortar.

We have to get through this inferno; the infantry is storming in front of us. They always have to be diligent; they have to stay courageous and hard, stubborn and cold blooded, and they are not allowed to think for a second that they could die or lie wounded the next minute.