Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

by Unknown

  “At that time,” he told me later, "I was the driver of a jeep for a platoon commander in the 4th Engineer Company of the 2nd French Armored Division under General Leclerc. On 30 October our division attacked, to force a crossing of the River Meurthe.

  This attack was apparently badly prepared and was repulsed.

  Then in the night before 31 October we crept up to the Germans and cleared away their mines. After good artillery preparation we accompanied our tanks and were able to cross the Meurthe northwest of Baccarat. In a little village we took a few prisoners, boys of sixteen, one of whom I kept the whole day in my jeep. We knew from prisoners that the German 21st Panzer Division lay opposite US." I could remember the fighting around Baccarat well, and also that we had been able to beat off an attack by the French.

  Unfortunately, Feuchtinger turned this defensive success of ours into a victory report: “With the combined fire of the artillery and our few antitank guns we were able in a very short time to destroy more than 40 enemy tanks.” It was humanly understandable that in such a desperate situation as ours attempts would be made through such reports to gain a little glory with the higher commands and give one's own people heart. But as the responsible commander of the combat group, I cannot confirm the defensive success in this form.

  Michel Dufresne naturally wanted to know later how things had seemed to us. When I told him of Feuchtinger's report, he said, “We had several dead and wounded in our patrol. In the attacks of 30 and 31 October the division lost about a dozen tanks and 40 men. This is confirmed by the Fonds Historique, Archives-Musge in Paris, and by General Cholley, who found Feuchtinger's statement 'somewhat fanciful.”' During the following days, we managed to hold the western outlets of the Vosges. Then the order reached us to move to the area west of Strasbourg on 12 November, to be rested there for 14 days.

  On 9 November heavy falls of snow set in. The roads were soon iced over and passable only with difficulty. We were afraid that the enemy would push us into the Vosges, where we would have had enormous problems in getting over the icy, winding roads. But the enemy, too, slowed his advance. He was now aiming northeast in the direction of Strasbourg. An infantry division brought in from Slovakia relieved us. We were pulled out and very pleased at the prospect of a few days' rest, of replacements of men and materiel.

  Instead of that, in the evening of I I November the division was sent north, to stop Patton's advance on the River Nied, between Metz and Saarbruecken. After a few days of heavy defensive fighting we were outflanked on the left and in the evening of 18 November pulled out.

  We started to feel like the fire brigade, which has to go wherever there's a fire to put out. But it was burning everywhere.

  The very next day we were sent north, to occupy the approaches to the Western Wall at Saarlautem (Saarlouis). As we crossed the French-German border, it came home to all of us that from now on we would be fighting on our own native soil.

  At the beginning of November my adjutant, Liebeskind, became very ill and had to be admitted to hospital. He didn't come back until 22 December. His duties were taken over by Captain Krieger, who on Liebeskind's return had to be given special leave: his only son was killed in an air raid on Solingen. The French chapter was closed.

  Fighting the Americans, December 1944 As yet we were in the approaches to the once proud “impregnable” Western Wall. A quick inspection of the fortifications confirmed our fears. Since the end of the French campaign in 1940, the bunkers and defense installations had come to resemble the castle in Sleeping Beauty. Armaments and communication systems had been dismantled and reinstalled in the Atlantic Wall. In the approaches to the bunkers a wild growth had sprung up which certainly made the hideous concrete blocks look more peaceful, with trees, bushes, and flowers, but it reduced the field of fire to nil. I at once sent a party to the Western Wall to find out whether it would be at all usable.

  My orderly officer came back with this report.

  "Lieutenant-Colonel, we first had to round up the responsible 'caretaker' from the local theater, to get the bunkers unlocked.

  It would take weeks to put the installations into a defensible state, to say nothing of arming them with heavy guns and antitank weapons and mine fields. The 'caretaker' hasn't even got a plan of the installations and doesn't know whether one exists. We can forget about any effective defense from the system of bunkers." On the western bank of the Saar lay the little town of Wallerfangen, its houses clustered around a manor house.

  It,suddenly occurred to me that the manor house of Wallerfangen was the seat of the von Papen family. I drove there at once and met the two sisters of my friend Franz von Papen. Both told me in no uncertain terms that they wanted to stay there whatever might happen. I tried to persuade them to leave the manor house, since there would be heavy fighting and no one would be able to have any regard for them or the house. With heavy hearts they eventually agreed. Not long afterward Wallerfangen became a heap of ruins.

  We set up our positions between the,bunkers, which could now serve only as shelter from heavy artillery and air attacks.

  Then, on 19 November, the Americans began their attack on the Saar crossings between Saarlautern and the

  “Orscholtz block” east of Metz. We were concerned with the 10th U.S. Armored Division and the 90th U.S. Infantry Division, which attacked our line Saarlauternorscholtz along a wide front. Their goal seemed clear to us: to push through, over the Saar to the northeast, past Kaiserslautern, to the Rhine.

  My combat group was split up: while Major Kurz with 11 Battalion defended in Saarlautem and became involved in tough houseto-house fighting with black Americans, who climbed the houses with knives in their mouths, I had to send Major Liehr with I Battalion to Merzig, to help the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, which was engaged in heavy defensive fighting there.

  Again, the excellent American artillery helped to force small breaches.

  Between 23 November and I I December, fierce fighting raged in the whole area of Saarlautern, Dillingen, and Merzig, where on 29 November the enemy managed to open a deep breach to the east at Saarlautem (Saarlouis). Owing to its heavy losses, our division now consisted solely of my combat group. We were pulled out in the middle of December and sent far to the east, past Saarbruecken, to the area between Pirmasens and Wissembourg, to be restored to strength, as reserve for Army Group G. For the 3rd U.S. Army the way to the Rhine lay open. It thrust north of Saarbruecken toward Kaiserslautern.

  Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

  The next danger now looming came from the U.S. army group that was advancing northward from the south and southwest; from the Nancy-Baccarat area, past the slopes of the Vosges, it was trying to penetrate the Rhine valley between Kaiserslautern and Colmar, with the goal of taking Strasbourg and crossing the Rhine.

  Yet we were granted a short respite. We had now been in action for more than six months without a break. Our losses had been high. All the same, our young replacements-thanks to our veterans-had been successfully integrated time and again. Here at the front the young men had quickly shed their illusions about marching with Hitler into a “Thousand-Year Reich.” They had soon grasped the difference between propaganda and reality.

  We lay with the combat group between the now useless installations of the Western Wall at Zweibruecken on the Saar and Pirmasens. On New Year's Eve we all got together. We didn't know how things would go, but we understood nevertheless that the war was no longer to be won. We only knew that we had to do'our duty.

  Meanwhile, something had been happening: on 16 December 1944, Hitler had started the Ardennes offensive. We had heard about it marginally and had heard Goebbels's strident voice on the radio: “The Wehrmacht has launched its great offensive. We will Fighting the Americans, December 1944 225 destroy the enemy and cut all his lines of communication. Paris is our goal.” Our comment on this news had been unanimous: How did Hitler think he could ever succeed in getting through the snowed-in Ardennes, over the icy, winding roads, with batt
ered or inexperienced divisions and under the complete air superiority of the Allies?

  What we didn't yet know on that New Year's Eve was that the unexpected offensive on our part had at first been successful, but then, on 28 December, had come to nothing.

  The turn of the year had just been celebrated; we had drunk to a New Year full of question marks with a modest glass of punch, when a message reached us that the division was to prepare to move out that very night. I was summoned to Feuchtinger at his command post. He was very grave, wished me a happy New Year, and gave me the following briefing.

  "On 28 December, I was called to Army Group G, where I met all the Army, corps, and divisional commanders. From there we went to Field Marshal von Rundstedt, who told us that Hitler wished to speak to us all that afternoon at his HQ in Bad Nauheim.

  There we also met Field Marshal Keitel, Colonel-General Jodl, Himmler, and Bormann.

  “The presence of the highest Army and Party leaders pointed to an important communication from Hitler. He began as usual with a long speech and emphasized that we were waging an ideological war, the loss of which would destroy the German people. ”I haven't the slightest intention of losing the war. Think of Frederick the Great and his Seven Year War."

  “Hitler then came to speak of the Ardennes offensive, in which not all the objectives had been achieved' (a highly optimistic view, it seemed to me), but which had had an 'incidental' consequence, namely, the weakening of the American front opposite us, where”Operation North Wind' was to begin. He estimated the strength of the Americans on our front as down to only four or five divisions, which he proposed to 'destroy' with eight offensive German divisions, in order to follow up with further blows. Hitler then ended his address by saying, and these were his words:“It must be our absolute goal to settle the matter here in the west offensively; that must be our fanatical goal.”

  “'Operation North Wind' began on New Year's Eve,” Feuchtinger went on, “our division is the Army group's reserve. Hitler's plan is to break through the Maginot Line south of Pirmasens with an armored group and advance south along the western fringe of the Vosges, in order to make contact with the 19th Army's bridgehead at Colmar. Five divisions of Volksgrenadiers are to push through the (snowed-in) Vosges from the west into the Rhine valley and join forces with a bridgehead west of the Rhine. Although we've received replacements and now have 74 Panthers and Panzer IVS again,” Feuchtinger concluded, “two things are being overlooked: we have no air superiority and nothing equivalent to set against the massive U.S. artillery. Our men are spent and the replacements have no experience. In accordance with orders, we shall assemble in readiness today, I January 1944, just north of the Maginot Line. God be with youl” Major Spreu, who had now been given command of Regiment 192, and I looked at each other. Although nothing was said, it seemed to both of us that Hitler had decided to fight to the last man and to be prepared if necessary to have the German people conquer or go under.

  What happened was inevitable: the Americans had made very good preparations for an attack on their right flank and established themselves in the Maginot Line. The division of our forces into two assault groups, especially with the inexperienced infantry group, was unable to produce the desired result.

  Nevertheless, as we learned from prisoners and intercepted messages, Eisenhower, under the impact of the Ardennes offensive and “Operation North Wind,” begun on New Year's Eve, had ordered the attack on the Western Wall in northern Alsace to be abandoned for the time being. According to reports, Eisenhower and de Gaulle had agreed, on 3 January, to withdraw to the Maginot Line in lower Alsace, retaining weak forces for the defense of Strasbourg.

  “Operation North Wind” made no progress. In the snowed-in Vosges and to the west of them the two assault groups came to a standstill.

  A new plan was conceived. Our division and the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, swinging east from the area south of Wissembourg, were to break through the Maginot Line and trap the enemy in.the Haguenau depression.

  The two divisions were moved east and received orders to prepare themselves for this attack. One last dramatic battle lay before US.

  As I was leaving the divisional command post, an orderly officer of the staff took me to one side.

  Fighting the Americans, December 1944 227 “Lieutenant-Colonel,” he said, "I feel obliged to inform you, in your own interest and in that of your people, that court-martial proceedings are likely to be started against our divisional commander. Ten days ago General Feuchtinger was ordered to High Command West to provide information as to why on the night of 5 to 6 June 1944 he was not at his command post but in Paris.

  "Feuchtinger was not at his command post but in Germany. I had to fetch him from there on 24 December and take him to HQ West.

  “I feel obliged to inform you of this, as the commander of our combat group, so that you will know why our brave division has such a bad reputation with the higher commands.” I was speechless. On Christmas Eve, while we had been putting up a desperate fight in the Western Wall at Saarlautern, our divi-, sional commander had been at home.

  Certainly, we knew of Feuchtinger's fondness for la dolce vita.

  We knew of his contacts from prewar days with high functionaries of the Nazi regime and disapproved of them. We also had been unable to understand why, during the decisive hours of the invasion, he had been in Paris, and not, moreover, only at the “special HQ.” We commanders had always maintained our loyalty to Feuchtinger whenever our friends in other panzer divisions had sneered at his style of leadership and his way of life. Now even I felt this to be the last straw.

  Although I too hold to the saying de mortuis nil nisi bene (“of the dead say nothing but good”), whei brave men, who fought so brilliantly, and of the thousands of dead, wounded, and, missing of those six months, I cannot help reproaching Feuchtinger with having done us all poor service.

  At the end of January 1945, when the bitter fighting was over, General Feuchtinger said good-bye to us, his commanders.

  Impassively we received his thanks for what we had done.

  In March, Feuchtinger was condemned by a court-martial. The sentence, however, was mitigated on “orders from above” and under the pressure of events was not carried 6ut. I only heard of the court-martial proceedings against Feuchtinger long after my return from captivity.

  After his release from American captivity, he had eked out a living at various jobs and died at the end of the 1950s, shortly before new proceedings were to be brought against him.

  THE BATTLE FOR HATREN-RITRERSHOFFEN At the beginning of January 1945 the Vosges were deep in snow.

  In the lowlands between Wissembourg-Haguenau and the Rhine the snow was a foot deep. It was bitterly cold; the roads were icy.

  The civilian population was apprehensive, fearing that the war would once again ravage their villages. In many farmhouses there was no running water; the pipes were frozen.

  Wissembourg is a small town in northern Alsace on the border with the Palatinate. On the slopes of this area, around Landauahrweiler and Bergzabern, the good Palatine wine was grown. TO the east the Rhine was not far away, on the other side of which lay Baden-Baden in the Black Forest.

  Between the eastern slopes of the Vosges and the Rhine a wide lowland stretched south as far as Strasbourg.

  Our concentration area lay north of Wissembourg, where we arrived during the night of 5 to 6 January after a difficult march over icy roads.

  It was planned that the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division which had been unable to break the Maginot Line west of the Vosges, was likewise to assemble behind us during the following night.

  Our task was to push southward through the Maginot Line with two combat groups hard by the eastern foothills of the Vosges, close all outlets from the Vosges, and cut the enemy's communications with Strasbourg.

  I asked for maps with the exact location of bunkers and other fortifications. There were none. Not even the upper echelons had maps. To reassure us, we were tol
d that the Maginot Line was barely manned and constituted no obstacle.

  “Blind,” we set off south on 6 January. Even before we had reached the first bunkers, we came up against fierce resistance and once again the concentrated fire of the American artillery.

  By the afternoon the two combat groups had indeed driven the enemy back, but we had still not come across the bunkers of the Line.

  We continued the attack during the night of 6 and 7 January.

  Thick mist lay over the Rhine valley, visibility was down to a hundred yards. Suddenly we could make out the first bunker, which received us with heavy fire. Our leading men and the accompanying SPW landed in thick mine fields; the artillery stepped up its barrage of fire. There was no doubt about it: the enemy intended to hold his Fighting the Americans, December 1944 229 position on the Maginot Line under all circumstances and keep his lines open to Strasbourg and the Rhine. Ou'r division, which was now reduced to the fighting strength of a grenadier regiment, would not suffice to force a passage..

  From the prisoners we took in the approaches to the Maginot Line we knew who our opponents were: the experienced 79th U.S. Infantry Division, part of the 14th U.S. Armored Division and elements of the 42nd U.S. Infantry Division, as well as strong artillery. These were to be our concern for the next 14 days.

  Army group seemed to have realized that the Americans were far stronger than expected.

  On 8 January, Captain Herr, accompanied by grenadiers and army engineers, once again moved south. This assault party, with 12 Panthers, managed to force one bunker into surrender, shoot up , three Shermans, and take many prisoners. He lost one Panther through mines. Then such heavy artillery fire descended on the bunker that Herr lost 20 grenadiers and engineers, who had been sitting on his tanks. He had to withdraw.