by Sven Hassel
He goes on to speak of the ties of blood, the brilliance and warmth of the sun, and ends with a ringing Amen and a ‘Hail the Great Ones of the Earth!’
Then the MPs turn up, but before they get to the P-IV, Russian mortar-bombs begin to fall and the order comes to move off. Grinning all over his face Porta slides down through the hatch. The Maybachs roar out. Tracks creak. The tank drops a curtsey to the war, which is knocking at our door again.
1 PK: Propaganda Company.
2 Watch-dog (slang): Field Police, who wear a chain around their necks.
3 Die eiserne Portion (German): Iron rations (only to be opened on special orders).
4 PAK. (Panzer-Abwehr-Kanonen) (German): Anti-tank guns.
5 Komsomol. Russian Youth Organization.
6 Funker-MG. Telegraphist’s machine-gun.
7 BT-6: Russian medium tank.
8 No. 7: A rag-and-bone merchant who uses a hook shaped like a figure 7.
9 Halten sie etc. (German): Halt at once or I fire!
‘I have often felt bitter pain when considering the German people; how worthy the individual, how wretched the nation as a whole.’
Johann Wolfgang von Göethe.
The Sampolit1 Malajin walked down the field hospital ward, tore bandages from wounds and in the face of protests from the medical staff hustled the solider patients down to the assembly hall where uniforms and equipment lay stacked.
‘Malingering swine!’ he screamed. ‘You deserve to be liquidated, every one of you. But I am not a cruel man. I leave that sort of thing to the Fascists. I intend to make examples only of the worst of you!’ Quickly he chose ten young soldiers, every one of them with a large blood-soaked dressing on some part of his body.
He pulled hard at his cigarette and blew a stream of smoke slowly through his nostrils.
‘You bastards lie there taking it easy in your hospital beds while every other Soviet citizen is fighting for our Fatherland and Comrade Stalin!’
‘I’m wounded, tovaritsch major,’ said the soldier, Andrej Rutych, just eighteen years of age that day.
‘You’ve still got a head on your shoulders, haven’t you?’ roared the Sampolit, ‘and haven’t you still got both your arms and your legs?’
‘Yes,’ replied Andrej, ‘but I have a lung wound.’
‘Use the other!’ The Sampolit turned to a Colonel.
‘These ten are condemned to death!’ He tightened his belt, straightened his flat cap and spat out his cigarette-butt.
‘Get it over quickly! Liquidate them at the crossroads! I want as many as possible to see it!’
‘Very good,’ replied the Colonel. ‘I’ll have them shot as soon as it’s light.’
‘Fine!’ grinned the Commissar and left the hospital with his four Siberian special service men at his heels.
‘All over!’ thought the young soldier Andrej Rutych, whose father was commander of a regiment. ‘Nobody will ever find my grave. They’ll throw me into a hole like a stray dog and stamp down the earth above me so that no trace is left.’
A grey dawn crept from under the veil of night. They were led to the crossroads. All the wounded from the hospital were lined up against the walls of the house. Many had to be supported by nurses. They dragged the first of them forward and threw a cloth over his face.
Three submachine-guns chattered. Ten times the pattern was repeated. Andrej Rutych came last. They had to carry him to the execution post. He had fainted when the two before him were shot. But regulations must be adhered to. A doctor was called to bring him back to consciousness before they tied him to the post and threw the cloth over his head.
Three hours later the regimental commander, Colonel Kujbyschew, was informed that the Sampolit, Major Malanjin, had fallen in battle.
‘It looked for all the world like suicide,’ said the adjutant, confidentially.
‘That devil went up against a tank with nothing but his side arm and was crushed under the tracks.’
‘That son-of-a-bitch!’ snarled the Colonel. ‘He’s cost me half the regiment. We withdraw. It’s madness to stay here. Withdraw,’ he repeated, ‘but fast!’
With his men behind him in close column he ran straight into the Soviet Security Force. They opened fire with machine guns and mowed the Colonel and his 436th Omsk Rifle Regiment down without mercy. Only a few escaped with their lives. They were neck-shot some days later.
‘Nitschewo,’ said an old militia-man. ‘They should’ve known what to expect. That’s what always happens. I’ve seen it often enough. Next time I’ll get my hands up smartly and give Fritz my most friendly greetings. It’s the safest. Staying on this side is certain death.’
3 | Anti-tank
I position my throat mike. The PAKs, which have been pulled into position under cover of darkness, open fire on us. A reverberating roar seems to send the entire wood flying end over end. Whole trees are uprooted and thrown into the air. The leading tank flies to pieces in a fiercely expanding cloud. Bent and buckled scraps of steel are all that remain of it.
A scarlet curtain of fire climbs towards the clouds and spreads across the road. They’re using naphtha shells with pre-contact detonators. The forest is on fire. The flames spread to engulf the overripe unharvested maize fields. Soldiers who have taken cover in them are converted in a moment to living torches, running desperately in circles. Through our observation slots we watch them indifferently. It is a long time since we have been moved by human suffering.
A rain of explosive shells roll across the road and sweeps away an entire company of infantry. It is impossible to differentiate between the sound of discharge and impact. Two P-IVs disappear in one thunderous detonation. The charred remains of an anti-tank crew swing to and fro in a tall fir tree in an oddly casual way. A column of yellow-black smoke mushrooms towards the sky.
‘Panzer, march!’ commands Oberst Hinka over the loudspeaker.
Company commanders signal with raised hand. Section leaders repeat.
The two hundred and sixty tanks form into line. In the van and on the flanks P-IVs. In depth P-IIIs, with their obsolescent 50 mms. P-IIs and Skodas follow, snapping like bad-tempered fox-terriers.
The air quivers nervously with the noise of motors. Russian positions are ironed flat. Hundreds of enemy soldiers are crushed beneath the tracks. A haze of poisonous smoke hangs behind the steel giants.
The tank jerks to a halt. The gun recoils and a spear of flame shoots from the oddly shaped muzzle-brake. Shot and sound of impact occur almost simultaneously.
Flames flare up where the phosphorous shell strikes. We alternate with phosphorous and HE, and with terrible effect. We roll forward, mashing wounded and dead into the mud!
A Russian captain attempts to save himself by hanging on to our tow-line. The ragged steel of the cable tears the flesh from his hands. He falls behind us, his legs crushed, thrown off like a piece of garbage.
Concentrated fire from a Russian anti-tank group stops our advance.
‘Back to the road!’ orders the Old Man. ‘Cover with flamethrowers and the forward MG!’ He peeps cautiously over the edge of the hatch, and kicks Porta gently with his foot; the signal for full speed forward. The P-IV roars at the road.
I catch sight of a T-34 partly concealed in a clump of trees. The turret swings round, but the long gun-barrel knocks against a stout fir-bole and is stopped. The turret gunner becomes nervous. Attempts to force the tree over with the gun barrel.
I rotate our own turret fast. Figures and lines jump in the sighting lens. The T-34 needs to back only a little to be in position to release a shot, and if it does we’ll be nuts and bolts. Long before we can touch it with our weaker armament it will have destroyed us. Our strength lies only in our superior speed. The Russians have committed the unforgivable error of manning a T-34 with a crew of only four men, so that the tank-commander also has to act as turret gunner.
The fifth man, the observer and objective-finder, is badly missed. Invaluable time is wasted while the tur
ret gunner is finding the objective and at the same time must direct the tank’s movements.
‘T-34 at 200 metres! Armour-piercing!’ orders the Old Man. ‘Loaded, ready,’ shouts Tiny monotonously.
A yellow-white spurt of flame; black smoke expanding to a giant mushroom. The explosion tears the T-34 to pieces. In a procession of glowing balls wreckage rolls across the road. A human body is thrown against our tank and bursts like a ripe marrow. A phosphorous shell explodes immediately behind the smashed T-34. We search the area with our eyes, looking for concealed Panzer grenadiers, and then rumble forward over the wreck. A group of wounded hold their arms out towards us as if trying to stop us with their bare hands.
We meet the road at an angle. A shell from a PAK whistles close above us. The left track throws earth and grass into the air. The tank fights like a drunkard to maintain its balance. Porta, cursing foully, wrenches at the gears and accelerates fiercely.
The tracks clatter on the surface of the road. The long-barrelled 75 mm spews out shot after shot. A platoon of infantry is wiped out. The wounded try to duck away before the tracks can churn over them. The battle area is bathed in the corpse-white glare of the tanks’ searchlights.
‘Loaded, ready,’ mumbles Tiny mechanically. He shouts with pain. He has forgotten he is not wearing his leather helmet and has knocked the safety in with his forehead.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he howls smearing blood across his face.
‘Bloody ’ell! That ’urt!’
‘Stop your boasting!’ jeers Porta. ‘A head as thick as yours pain can’t penetrate! All that’s alive inside it is a bloody woodpecker that thinks he’s found a hollow tree.’
‘It flew straight in up his arse without him even feeling it,’ sniggers Heide.
Tiny throws his battle-knife at him, missing him by a hair as he ducks. ‘You could’ve killed me, you silly bastard,’ shouts Heide, raging.
‘No worry,’ grins Tiny, on top again.
‘Range 500 metres!’ commands the Old Man. ‘With HE! Load! Fire!’
Like a gaping beast the breech gulps the shell.
‘Loaded, ready!’ rasps Tiny aiming a kick at Heide which drapes him over the wireless.
‘You did that deliberately,’ shouts Heide.
‘It wasn’t me, it was me foot did it,’ grins Tiny. ‘All the limbs of me body lives together in self-governin’ freedom an’ brother’ood.’ He begins to sing in an excruciatingly cracked bass:
Wählt den Nationalsozialisten
den Freund des Volkes!
Täglich wechseldnes Programm!
Urkomisch! Zum Totlachen!
Kinder and Militär vom Feldweben abwärts
halbe Preise!2
‘God knows what the Führer would say to such traitorous filth,’ screams Heide, shocked.
In a long roaring line the tanks roll forward. An enemy PAK is smashed. The barrel flies through the air, a wheel thumps against a tank turret. The gun-crew is left a bloody tangled clump of meat. The next gun sends a fireball howling at a P-IV. The Russian gun is served by only two men. The aimer and the commander. The rest of the crew lie dead around it. It is a brand-new gun and corporal Pjotr Waska is very proud of it. His militia regiment was formed only eight days ago and has already been destroyed.
‘Bravo, Alex!’ screams Pjotr enthusiastically. ‘That’s the fourth fascist bastard we’ve taken!’
A new shell flies into the breech. Ammunition is heaped high behind them. The heap of empty casings is even higher.
‘Smack ’em in the teeth, the German swine!’ he roars and throws his green steel-helmet towards a wrecked tank. He intends to obey the regimental commissar’s order: ‘Stand fast! Don’t give an inch!’
The two Russian anti-tank men are covered in mud. They look like devils risen from the swamp. They make two more hits. The torn-off head of a German grenadier, still wearing its steel-helmet, lands with a thump beside them. They roar with laughter and take it for a good omen. They plant the head on top of their gun-shield.
‘Shoot the arse off ’em!’ screams Pjotr, fanatically.
The two soldiers work with machine-like accuracy. Their bodies bend, lift, stretch at their bloody work like automatons. They have no thought of flight. Anybody suggesting it would be shot down on the spot. The regimental commissar’s words still ring in their ears: ‘Comrades, kill the Fascist invaders! Crush them, destroy them like the vermin they are! Die before letting them pass. It is the duty of every Russian soldier to take a hundred Fascist swine with him. If you do not reach that target you are a traitor and your family will suffer for it! Long live Stalin! Long live the Red Army!’
‘Enemy PAK straight in front!’ sounds the Old Man’s quiet voice as he sights Pjotr’s anti-tank gun.
‘Target acknowledged!’ I echo.
Points dance in the sight. The green lamp blinks.
The hum of the turret stops. The PAK shows up clearly in the sighting mechanism. The gun-muzzle winks hungrily at the Russian position. There is a short violent explosion of light and sound and the gun commander is flying away from us, the gun turning and twisting end over end until it lands a pile of scrap. As we drive over the position the gunner is caught in the tracks and dragged after us. An arm drops to one side a leg to the other. The lower part of his body catches on the off-side light cowl.
The incident is over. Forgotten!
A party of infantry appears in front of us. One of them throws his machine-gun at us in desperation. He dies under the tracks together with his comrades.
‘If only blood wasn’t so sticky,’ grumbles Porta. ‘Can’t get it off. If God’d thought of tanks when He created the world He’d’ve made blood that wasn’t sticky, and could be washed off with plain water before inspection.’
Heide enters into a complicated explanation, involving red and white blood corpuscles, of just why blood sticks to tanks.
Slowly we fight our way through the village. Two companies of the 41st Infantry have been liquidated – neck-shot.
Propaganda says it’s the NKVD, but there are a lot of Mpi3 cases round the bodies. There’s a rumour that they’re would-be deserters shot down by the SD Special Commando. When we go to have a closer look at the bodies we get chased off. A mortar bomb drops into the middle of a group of SD-men. A torn-off arm, the hand still gripping a pistol, is thrown through the driver’s hatch into Porta’s lap. He picks it up and waves it admiringly.
‘Look at that, boys! That’s the way we fight in Adolf the Mighty’s army! Even a torn-off arm hangs on to its bloody weapon! Reminds me of when my biological father went off to war with the 67th Potsdam Infantry who were so inspired by the thought of dying for the Fatherland that they marched away decorated with roses in black and white organdie.4 The third day in action they deserted to the enemy. They’d had enough of fighting for the Fatherland, but before they left they gave themselves time to beat up some Austrians from Vienna who were shouting traitorously:
Down with the Prussians!
‘“Hurra, hurra, long live the King!” cried the 67th as they ran across no-man’s-land.
‘The officers never dreamt what these fervent patriotic cries really meant. They thought these coolies were shouting for Wilhelm, King of Prussia. But the Berliners were thinking of Peter of Serbia. The 67th had a drunken Feldwebel called Mateka who had been in front of a court-martial in irons several times, and had it explained to him equally often that a bigger fool than himself had never existed. The Feldwebel’s trouble was that he was a Sudeten German, and as such was forced to change his allegiance the way other people change buses; without feeling any particular interest in either the new or the old one.’
‘Where’d ’e come from?’ asks Tiny who is sitting on a body eating a tomato.
‘He was from Prague,’ explains Porta. ‘His mother was a Pole from Lemberg who’d lived with a Jew horse-trader from Libau who bought Russian horses for the Scandinavian market.
‘These nags from the steppes were so old the Jew h
ad to dye their muzzles before he loaded them. On the way he salted their food so much that they always arrived with nice round bellies from drinking all the time. The oldest of them he doctored with a shot of pepper up the arse to make ‘im seem frisky on arrival. If any of them had been cut out for sale by the Cossacks because they were lame in a leg, this was no problem for him either. The Jew lamed ’em on the other side so the purchaser wouldn’t notice it. If pepper-stick couldn’t liven ’em up he’d gave ’em a dose of schnapps laced with arsenic and believe you me that made ’em jump about as lively as crickets!’
‘Come on! What about Feldwebel Mateka?’ interrupted the Old Man impatiently.
‘Jesus! I nearly forgot him! He reported to a Persian Rittmeister of dragoons who handed him over to the care of Polizei-Watchtmeister Joseph Malán. Malán was the type of policeman who was continually beating his own record for idiocy.
‘After the first bottle of Slivovitz they were calling one another traitors and deserters and swore that each of them would be on the end of a good hempen rope before the evening meal. By the time they opened the third bottle they’d got to singing good patriotic songs and compiling crazy reports and despatching them to places far outside that particular police district. Then they went off arm-in-arm singing away down the Libjatkastrasse. I don’t suppose anything would have come of all this is they hadn’t run into the wife of the CO of the regiment, and slipping their hands up under her dress remarked that it was like feeling-up a frozen Polish cow on a rainy day in November. The well-born officer’s lady rushed straight to the Oberst of dragoons who rang to the Rittmeister of police and demanded that order be kept in the district so that God-fearing married women could walk the streets in safety without the risk of being compared to Polish cows.
‘The Rittmeister of police was well away when the dragoon Oberst rang to complain about the treatment his wife had received here in the middle of a war. After opening a new bottle of Tokay and thinking about it for a while, he paraded his force and numbered the men in threes. Nos. 1 received a slash across the face from his riding-whip, as was usual when officers and gentlemen, as happened occasionally, ran across the rank and file. Nos. 2 were given a regimentally correct kick in the pants. Nos. 3 got a punch on the jaw for being last in numbering-off.