Eastern Inferno: The Journals of a German Panzerjäger on the Eastern Front, 1941-43 (33 page)

Occasionally I meet old comrades who have struggled through to our position. Their pale faces are contorted with terror and deep despair. They tell us about their horrible experiences. Heinz Scheele from Latuaja arrives and talks about the attack of Russian tanks on a hospital train: partisans blew up a railroad bridge near Kastornoje. Two trains filled with helpless, injured soldiers were stuck on the tracks. In that moment Russian tanks arrived and launched shells at the train cars. This was an easy target for them. After half an hour only smoldering remains are left on the railroad tracks. The last scream and the last whimpering have since died off. One of the thousand of catastrophes in these days has come to an end.

The Reds have reached Ponyri, the important railroad line to Orel; Schtygri has to be abandoned. Kursk is now also in jeopardy. The military command orders the defense of the city, but the rank and file soldiers feel that this is useless, that it is too late. The motivation of the armies, divisions, and the hundred thousand soldiers is at its lowest point. This is the consequence suffered by most soldiers who fought on the murderous front for 41 days and nights without any break, while their comrades were having a good time in France. You can only endure this up to a point. And, God help us in case an unforeseen emergency arrives.

Damn we are tired, our hearts are broken! God knows, we are totally committed soldiers on the front line! We trust our leaders and accept heavy burdens without complaint and with an open heart—but let the spoiled soldiers in the west act as soldiers. Don’t talk to me about the English invasion. Let the Tommies come. They will never return when we fighters on the Eastern Front pull off their “roast beef legs.”

The enemy is now at Kursk’s gate. Food supply, equipment, and spare parts depots have been cleared out, and the last medical corps has evacuated the city. Bombs are raining down on the buildings day and night. The railroad station is burned out and totally destroyed. No train is under steam anymore for its many expectant happy vacationers.

Railroad Station Kursk—this was the dream of a hundred thousand German soldiers! This is where the bliss of four weeks of indescribable vacation began; it is here where I climbed onto the train with a pounding heart yearning for my home, Germany! The terrain is now covered with deep bomb craters; the barracks where we received our food supply is burned out; the sign advertising “vacation trains to Germany” has been torn to shreds by the bombs. Isn’t this like a symbol, or maybe an admonishment to wipe away all sweet thoughts about vacation, homeland, wife and children, to open the heart for the horrible fight for our very existence? There will be no victors or losers in this fight, only survivors and permanently marred human beings!

The situation is now serious. Once more I receive orders to secure any remaining sensitive documents and records. The rest of the important communication equipment is transported in a second truck. During the night we arrive in Sudsah via Lijgoff.

7 February:
The next morning we continue marching in the direction of Sumy. The streets are covered everywhere with snow and crowded by the retreating Hungarians. There is an endless convoy of sleds and tanks. What a miserable bunch! They lumber through the snow apathetic and somber, their feet covered with rags, heavy hiking poles in their fists, and some are carrying only their rifle case—they discarded or sold their rifle a long time ago. Yes, they sold their own rifle! The sleds are loaded with loot or goods for which they have traded. These are no longer soldiers but riffraff. Their own downfall was caused by themselves.

By the afternoon it is only 14 kilometers to Sumy. We are hungry and freezing. The icy storm rattles our bones. Fourteen kilometers more and we will enjoy a warm shelter.

The village Schewtschenko is on the right, a forest is on the left and ahead of us. The deep red sun sets over the treetops. It is a peaceful picture that reminds us of our homeland, since forests are rare in this area, yet we are so accustomed to them. Nobody can hold it against me for being nostalgic about my home. I am cherishing my beautiful memories.

Suddenly, we are faced again with the harsh reality; a single loud bang knocks us over. Constant flashes of light appear at the edge of forest and now also at the villages located further above. Three shots hit our windshields, several pieces of shrapnel fall to the left and right. Let’s get out of the car immediately! We are wedged in by the Hungarians’ last vehicles. Ahead of us are a German car and a truck. Everywhere Hungarians run in all directions, panicked. None of them shoots—they don’t have any weapons left anyway! All we hear is screaming, whimpering, the singing and chirping of machine gun fire, the dull thump of the mortars, and the howling of the anti-tank guns.

Our two trucks swerve on the snow-covered road. The Hungarian sleds are blocking the road. We beat on the guideless horses, and with superhuman strength succeed in tilting the sleds off the road. We now remain the only target and are now attracting fire from carbines and guns. We are in a stupor. We have to get the trucks ready! We succeeded. The first truck starts moving. The cover of the truck is hit by machine gun fire. The carbine was shredded into two pieces in the hands of my comrade, Deuschle. But our track is rolling. Fire bombs hit the snow in front of us; 2cm anti-tank projectiles drop on the side of the road! Damned bastards! I stand on the running board of my truck and look around! Black smoke billows from the truck cover, the gas is burning! We are close to our destination and it is over! The second truck is lost as well; a burning Ford blocks the road.

Now we have to run for our lives! We run through snow that is up to our knees; we are surrounded by rifle fire. Totally exhausted we arrive in the evening in Junakowka. It is incredible: none of us six comrades have sustained any injuries. God help us in our future!

The village had been cleared and leveled. In the forest are traces of approximately 200 partisans or remaining Red Army troops. It is not our task to verify this. The area of the attack is horrific even after the snow has blown over the mangled corpses. Smashed sleds, trucks, cars, dead horses, and about 80 fallen Hungarians lie on the ground. A German car was riddled with bullets like a sieve. It is covered with soft snow, as if to pity the distorted bodies of our comrades. At a short distance, in the middle of the ruins, is the German truck which provided a path for us though the snow. The sergeant and the soldiers are dead, killed by shrapnel! And now I recognize my truck. I am tremendously relieved. A quick check reveals that the truck has been pillaged but the documents are still there. Some of the boxes have been opened. The motor is still okay, but the loading structure and the cover have been heavily damaged.

The second truck has burned down to the tires, blackened iron rods lay in the snow—a sad picture. But we are happy since we still have the second truck including its valuable load. In the evening we arrive in Sumy and are temporarily on safe ground. Sumy is now being threatened from the south. Far on the west side the enemy has broken through and is now near Romny, half the distance between Kursk and Kiev.

The air is totally calm on this icy cold February morning. The sun rose on a cloudless sky. Its yellow-red sphere provides a stark contrast to the pale, grey sky. Above the horizon are stripes of green interspersed with shades of pink. The icy air generates a crackling sound. Day and night are reflected in the hollows of the snow, which when uncovered by the sun light, shimmer with a blue light, mysterious as the light in a grotto. Where the sun beams hit the snow, the colors change to the paleness of a corpse, touched by a vibrant, reddish breath.

With our tired legs we shuffle through the snow; ragged horses pull the six sleds. Attached to the first sled is an
Akja
, a toboggan which is weaving left and right in its attempt to follow the tracks. It is a silent convoy, a death knell. The
Akja
carries a precious load, the body of our leader, First Lieutenant Simon! His corpse has been with us for eighteen days and nights as a token of our comradeship. During this, shots from the enemy were being fired above his body, intending to destroy us. We finally broke through the Red ring; our first lieutenant is with us, and this is good!

We can’t stop now. Charkow has been abandoned due to pressure from the enemy. The large depots and buildings have been blown up; the beautiful mansions dating back to the times of the czar have been burned down.

Stalingard-Rostow-Charkow: the big triangle is now in the hands of the Reds and lost for us. We desperately cling to every village and city. But the enemy is too strong. We have to retreat after a few hours of bitter fighting. Our faces are grey; bitter desperation settles in our hearts as our toughest enemy. It is –40° C; the snow level is as high as our bodies. The steaming, agitated and exhausted horses can’t even pull the empty sleds anymore. Our small group becomes smaller and smaller, only half of them are still able to fight. Injured soldiers, many with frostbite, load their carbines and shoot. They lumber through the snow; their faces are contorted with pain. In the midst of the blizzard, some fall behind and lose their group, which was supposed to support them.

The tanks of the Reds arrive everywhere. All of a sudden silhouettes can be seen on both sides of the road. Our Stukas always arrive on time to get us out of this mess. We continue to rush through the snow. Everything is so totally useless! The icy cold numbs us so much that we are losing the will to survive. Who cares about the shrapnel of the tank shells and ricocheting bullets from the enemy carbines? We are tired, incredibly tired.

After the relatively mild weather of yesterday and the day before—temperatures ranged between -15° and -29° degrees C—a sudden change in the weather. A whistling, piercing wind sweeps through, pushing ahead the dry snow in wide sheets. A dirty, grey sky, in which the sun is glued on it like a lemon yellow, starts to fade.

We have met up with other retreating troops that have suffered equal losses and are now forcing our way together as a considerable fighting power toward the northeast. During the day we take turns fighting or sleeping in snowdrifts. At night we sneak past villages that are occupied by the enemy. Provisions and ammunition are scarce but the mood is better, because here and there we keep hearing about new divisions that are supposed to be attacking from the south.

A thin sickle of a moon is hanging in the ink dark night. With the fall of darkness we have moved away from the enemy. At first the road is blocked by a snowdrift. Then there is hissing rifle fire and loud thuds in the snow from exploding shells. Assault troops are filing along the waves of the snowy desert. Corpses are lying around everywhere, there were many fatalities. And we continue to march, a forever lasting and painful rush though the deep snow.

We are now sitting in a dank basement around a fuel drum which substitutes for an oven, and are enjoying the comfortable heat. This morning we broke through the last line of the Soviets. The dark blood from our dead horses still sticks to our uniform from when we had to lie along the highway behind their still warm corpses. These short and shaggy horses from the steppe saved the lives of some of our comrades.

But let’s not spend any more thoughts on this anymore. As a matter of fact we don’t even want to reflect about the past! We just want to sit around silently and hold our icy cold hands to the fire and feel the warmth streaming through our bodies, slowly, very slowly. And as we look at each other we are trying to smile. Where is the winter? At the front door? Where is the horror? We have probably passed the last barrier. Outside, death is still haunting the streets. Heavy Soviet artillery is shelling the northern part of the city. But we’re just sitting around a glowing fuel drum and trying to smile. We are quite safe and are now getting homesick. We yearn to join our brave and courageous army division. We heard that they fought gallantly.

But right now we have only one question, how can we get to Orel? With a few tricks and some cigarettes we secure several flat railcars [
Rungenwagen
] to head up north on this beautiful evening. (Beautiful is certainly not an apt word in this context considering the icy blizzard whipping across the railroad tracks.) The trip turns into an endless misery, and the rumor spreads once again that these are the foot soldiers’ final weeks in the East.

The hissing curse “
scheisse
” [shit] is an expletive used by generals and privates alike and is now used also by the Russian civilian population. This crude expression is symptomatic for the entire state of the war. It characterizes the disappointment and rage, reluctance and impatience. But a bit of humor alleviates everything, even if it is just morbid humor. But not to despair; in case we don’t get a meal, if our vehicles get stuck in the mud or snow, if our machine gun is covered with layers of ice when we change positions, when we miss the mail from our home country, we use only one word:
scheisse
!

We stop in Gomel for two hours. This is the area where the “glorious” 8th Italian Army has settled down. It is not a friendly reunion. A rumor is going around that some of these guys haven’t been allowed to take any vacation for two years, and that several regiments have been decimated. I don’t know whether this correct, but this certainly should teach them a lesson.

We are now in Orel. We left the vast partisan-infested forests and the air attacks behind us. On the same day we rejoin our comrades who were deployed in Orel. We are now at home; ready to face our next adventures.

This is the time when an invisible force sucks all color and light from the surrounding landscape and immerses it with a grey layer which is the desolate national color of this country. Very often this country is depressing—but never as poignant as in this hour. It is now five o’clock, yet it is dark in our bunker. The narrow slit offers only a pale grey view to the outside. Our little stove is glowing, the fire cracks and spits. In these grey hours we can enjoy the warmth of the fire. This is not possible during the daytime, since it would betray our position to the enemy.