Eastern Inferno: The Journals of a German Panzerjäger on the Eastern Front, 1941-43 (7 page)

The Reds make a retreat to their fortified positions by the woods where the masses of enemy soldiers are regrouping for a counterattack. We, however, are rewarded by having our heads bloodied for our attempt to follow and destroy the Russians; we are outnumbered. With our one and only division we’re supposed to hold the city and bridgehead until noon tomorrow. We can only expect the adjoining divisions to arrive tomorrow at the earliest.

The faces of the officers and soldiers are very serious. How far along are the preparations on the other side for an attack? Will the flank reinforcements arrive in time? Nothing but questions for which there are no answers. The situation is grave or even desperate. If the Russians attack now, or during the night, their sheer masses will trample us into the ground. Stories from the Great War about the Russian steamroller [
dampfwalze
] suddenly come to mind. Yes, they will definitely smash us to a pulp of blood and dirt. Again, the orders are made clear: “The town and bridgehead will be held to the last man!”

It is evening. Hour after hour, we expect the attack; however, nothing happens. With the exception of the flashes from cannon fire, nothing out of the ordinary is occurring on the other side.

What is happening? Are the Russians going to miss their big chance once again? Don’t they know that their opponents are nothing more than small combat forces? Again, we start to ponder our thoughts, which are beginning to eat on our nerves. At midnight, the order to send out reconnaissance troops comes as a blessing. Soon after, the old caste leaves our lines. The Russians have also sent out patrol units. We encounter one of them during our investigation. We take one prisoner after a brief exchange of fire.

The night is pitch black. Occasionally we hear the whistling of a shell or of tracers flying through the sky. Otherwise it is quiet. It is only between the lines that scouts from both sides are crawling around, trying to sniff their way around the enemy’s position and gather information. Upon their discovery, a short burst of a machine gun follows, and then it is quiet again. The damn silence is making me suspicious.

10 July:
We returned to our lines at dawn. Interrogation of our prisoner confirmed our suspicions: an entire army lies on the other side. However, they appear not to be firmly entrenched yet.

Someone delivered the mail during the night. A letter received by one of our comrades is passed from trench to trench. In it, someone is complaining about working overtime, the shortage of beer and cigarettes, and other similar matters. How little does that idiot understand about the things that go on out here? Is that the voice of the homeland? They will hear our stories of success at home and Mr. “Indispensible” will say in triumph: “Well, we’ve done a great job, haven’t we?” Let it be said: you local natives, if anyone has accomplished anything it was us! Well, we are indebted to you for our great weapons and ammunition without duds, but the Russians too have good weapons—sometimes even better than ours! The key factor is the spirit and bravery of the person carrying those weapons. None of you guys have any idea of these two things. Shame on you if you think that you have fought these battles and have accomplished such great victories with your overtime! Think about our overtime out here. The reward for some of us was a burning piece of metal in our spine.

The idiot continues to write in his letter to the front that we had it better out here; here, not because he has remembered his manhood, but “because there is an abundance of cigarettes, beer, and schnapps at the front, and the shootings aren’t that bad at all!” Such impertinence leaves one speechless! Dear Sir, you are more than welcome to join us! You will shit in your pants because of all these cigarettes and cigars in the air. But enough of that—we have other issues and problems than talking about the whining of a “home-fighter.” My anger is blown away when I think of the pure idealism of my parents.

IR 530 [530th Infantry Regiment] receives orders at 1000 hours to push forward from Rzadkowka toward Czykowka. After battling for four hours over every yard, and suffering an enormous amount of casualties, they have to retreat to their original positions. If we hadn’t had the heavy artillery, which protected the flanks with an iron curtain, the Russians would have rolled over our entire front line from the flanks.

Unfortunately the Russians have encircled part of the retreating regiment. It is impossible to utilize our artillery; the danger of hitting your own guys is too large. Therefore, “Volunteers are needed!” There is not much discussion among us—comrades are in danger, which is all we need to know.

In company formation we attempt to attack the Russians simultaneously from both sides. We each throw our two smoke grenades at the right moment. The Russians seem to be sensitive to the white smoke. They assume a large-scale counterattack from the west and retreat to their fortified positions. We lose a few comrades who approach too close to the iron curtain that the Russian heavy artillery has erected around our position. We make our way back to our lines with just a small number of casualties.

Arriving at our positions we receive good news: reinforcement divisions have arrived on our flanks. Thank goodness! A huge weight has been lifted from our chests. The attack will commence tomorrow. Wonderful!

11 July:
The hellish spectacle starts all over at night. The ground shakes for an hour from the exploding shells. Shrapnel is whistling over our heads. Flares rise into the skies and light up the smoke. They then direct the fire into our vicinity in heavy batteries. What is going on? Do these
schweine
want to attack us as well? Flare after flare rises into the sky. Our faces are white and petrified. No shots are being fired from our side. However, B-officers [
B offizier
] and light and sound measuring troops [
licht und schall messungtrupps
] are working feverishly. The fire then becomes weaker. It must be time for their attack. Our eyes try to penetrate the darkness. Where are the Red flares? Nothing? Everything is as it was before; the fire slowly dies out. It is now quiet, much too quiet for our nerves.

0330 hours: initial fire from 36 batteries suddenly begins. 150 cannons of all size calibers spit their shells across enemy lines. Like the sound of a sawmill, they howl, hiss, and streak through the air. Light flashes along the edge of the forest; these are the impacts of our shelling.

We advance along the train tracks under the cover of our firewall. From there we take over and cover our advancing infantry regiments. The Russians, understanding the importance of such a position, attempt to storm the train tracks. Our shelling has brought them enormous casualties; however, more and more enemy fighters are flocking to the scene. My machine gun barks and spits out its deadly rounds against the attackers. It is magnificent! The railroad embankment provides excellent cover.

Not a single shell sprays its splinters near our heads.
Prima, prima
! [Awesome, awesome!] It is like a shooting range out here, and it goes on like this for a long time. Our mood is excellent. Some are even making cruel jokes. Oh how these young men have become so cold-hearted. Yet one should never forget the gravity of the moment during battle—it might just take its bitter revenge, which is what happened in our situation.

During target practice we completely forgot about the right end of the railroad embankment. Despite all our wild fire, the Russians somehow managed to position a heavy machine gun there—and shortly after, a second machine gun. It cost a lot of our sweat and blood to get them off the embankment. We are unable to bring our PaK into position atop the embankment. All that is available to us are our machine guns and a bunch of hand grenades—a lot of hand grenades. We were able to get them off of the embankment within two hours. We had one dead and one wounded comrade lying over there behind the bushes. And the day had started so well!

It’s two in the afternoon, the sky is deep blue. It is so hot that one can see the air coming over the embankment in waves. The train tracks are steaming they’re so hot. The ties are slippery and stink from the hot tar. The vapors from the tar are good for the lungs, they say!
Scheisse
! There is a dead body on the ground over there—shot through the chest. Because of the stupid scene at the other end of the tracks, the Russians have had enough time to entrench themselves just 300 meters from us. If we had enough, we could hammer them with grenades. If we had enough…

We’ve already thrown too many grenades. Two men went back to retrieve more ammunition, but they don’t seem to be coming back. Thank goodness—the Russians have lost their drive to keep attacking us. They are occupied with digging themselves in. They’re masters at that. I look carefully to the left. What a splendid view. For as far as I can see, there are plumes of smoke above the impact craters from our shells. The artillery from both sides is doing its job at creating a protective firewall. The position of the Russian fire unfortunately tells me that we have only advanced about one kilometer.

Reinforcements arrive at night, as we expect a major offensive from the Russians around sunset. If we are unable to receive protection from our artillery, we will hold the embankment with iron will. We wait and wait, and not a single shot is fired. It is getting dark. I am lying between the tracks in a lookout position. What was that? There is a clang and crashing of pieces of metal. Almost immediately one of us fires a flare. Shots are fired, and shortly after bullets from a heavy machine gun whistle over our heads.

The Russians used the cover of darkness to approach our position to within one hundred meters and commence a hellish concert. The bursts of their machine gun fire are situated only a couple hands wide above the top of the embankment. Series of rounds strike the train tracks. A few projectiles ricochet off the train tracks in sloping trajectories. The singing of infantry carbines can be easily distinguished from the buzzing and hammering of the heavy machine guns.

The damn Russian water-cooled machine guns crackle like a thousand alarm clocks. We carefully bring a PaK into position onto one of the canals below the embankment to our right. A large group of soldiers is also deployed to protect the cannon. (Only five comrades return the next morning after this suicide mission.) We are unable to shoot due to our lack of visibility and our need to save the flares for a later moment. We just lie there and wait. We keep our carbines or machine guns positioned in our arms, our legs bent, prepared to jump up and fire. Our hands grip reassuringly our grenades and ammo clips. The light machine gun crews are sitting alert, ready to tilt the barrel and start firing. As the fire pauses, I realize that it is my neighbor, the “greenhorn,” who received the letter earlier today that made me so angry. He rolled down the embankment—dead from a shot to the head. Poor guy! He had just shown me pictures of his young wife this morning.

The shooting, however, has picked up again. New showers of shrapnel are raining down; the air is filled with singing and whining. Ricocheting bullets howl. It sounds like the crackling of a fire or the blazing of spruce trees. The mad fire suddenly subsides. A final few hungry carbines are still spitting their last bullets from their clips—then, absolute silence. We leap up onto the railroad embankment, staring and listening into the night. We cup our hands behind our ears as funnels in order to improve our hearing. Then flares soar up into the sky, burst, and sail slowly to the ground. More flares rise up, and we continue to stare and listen. The stillness is disturbing. We can feel our hearts beating in our chests and temples. Our hands search reassuringly for hand grenades. More flares take off like fireworks.

Now we can see them coming, those Red bastards, that Asian mob. Night attacks are a particular specialty of this gang. Flare after flare shoots into the sky. We open fire from a distance of 150 meters. Our shells slam into the attacker’s lines and tear open large holes. However, it is night and the terrain is full of natural obstacles. Wave after wave approaches. A bitter battle of man against man is being waged along the canal to the right of the embankment. The cannon over there is out of ammunition and the Russians finish off its crew. Our machine guns are still able to keep the bastards away from us, but for how much longer? Messengers return to HQ.
Verflucht noch mal
! [Damn it!] Artillery fire is the only thing that can help us here. We shoot signal flares into the sky again and again—in between, enemy flares illuminate the scene. Red tracers also soar into the air in the neighboring sector. What wonderful fireworks, what a grandiose illumination of fear and horror!

We receive orders to retreat to our baseline positions. The entire front line must be pulled back to its original position. Damn it, it is unbelievable that we must retreat—we, the 299th Infantry Division, have to run; German soldiers have to abandon the field to those Russian
schweine
!

Now the drama of the retreat is beginning, which costs us many dead and wounded. We reach our original positions around 0200 hours. Our artillery provides us cover.

12 July:
A
Sturmgeschütz
[assault gun] group takes over our section of the front. We are pulled back about 3km. A mass dropping of Russian paratroopers is expected in this area to the rear of our artillery positions, and we are the ones who will have to deal with them.

Shrapnel trenches are dug in great haste. They must be dug deeper since there are no tree trunks in the area to use for cover. This is a dismal landscape. Apparently the Reds cut down all the trees years ago and kept the water, rendering large areas into swamps. Man-high bushes cover the areas of open marshes, but not us attackers.

The Russians, masters of camouflage and the construction of tactical barriers, have erected their HQ alongside a large forest at the northern entrance to this cauldron of a landscape. The perimeter of the forest was left to grow wild and is therefore covered with hedges and swamp bogs. Beneath the hedges, they have dug escape tunnels about two meters deep, which can be flooded in case of emergency. The bunkers for the positioning of their machine guns are grown over with vegetation. Even with the best optical instruments, it is impossible to make them out. A deserter has told us that hundreds of rangers and soldiers worked for years to transform this area into its present condition. Villages that are still indicated on our maps have disappeared.