by Unknown
At 2000 hours on 25 April I moved off with the combat group.
Thank goodness we had maps. Our first objective was Baruth, on the important Dresden-Berlin railway line. We had to go through a huge wooded area, ill-suited to an advance, along forest tracks and firebreaks, and by night at that.
At first we made good progress. On the nearby Dresden-Berlin highway Russian supply vehicles rolled north now and then. We at once closed the road, to the south and the north. At every stop hundreds of civilians, who were following us on foot, moved up and kept still until we moved on. At about midnight we approached the village of Baruth, with the important railway line and behind it the road running parallel. As we emerged cautiously from the wood, we suddenly came under heavy fire from antitank guns, mixed with machine-gun fire. Although we were operating far in the rear of the Russians advancing on Berlin, Marshal Koniev had apparently seen to it that his long, open right flank was secured. A violent tank duel broke out. We spotted “Stalin” tanks, which were superior to ours, especially as they were dug in and thus hard to get at.
I decided to regroup, bypass the town to the north, and then take it with my grenadiers while it was still dark. I sent off a message to the 9th Army to the effect that we had come up against stiff resistance, but hoped to crack it and then break through further to the west.
It was clear to me that things would be easier for us if the central point of Baruth was taken. We couldn't let ourselves in for a fight of any duration. We had only one allotment of ammunition and just enough fuel to get us to the Elbe. Every hour we were held up here meant a strengthening of the Russian defense, which in such situations was very flexible.
I asked the Army, therefore, for permission to move on at once.
This was refused: “You will wait until further elements are able to break out of the pocket.” At that moment a Panther V rolled toward me in the dark. From the turret an SS officer jumped down and came up to me-my friend and army classmate Ruediger Pipkom.
The End 263 “My God, Ruediger, what are you doing here, and how come in SS uniform?”
"Luck! What a way to meet after all these years! As a generalstaff officer I was transferred, without option, from the army to the SS and now command the 35th Police Division. I too had orders to break through, south of you, but was forced aside.
I have a few Panthers with me: what's up here?" I put Pipkom in the picture, also about the 9th Army's order to wait there.
“That's utter nonsense,” said Pipkom. “The Russians have already closed up again behind us. We ourselves are now surrounded. What do you propose?”
“My plan is to attack Baruth from the north and eliminate the Russian defense before they send reinforcements at daybreak. I suggest that you, Ruediger, provide cover here with your Panthers and advance as soon as I am in the town.”
“Good idea, Luck, we'll do that and then nothing but forward to the west. I'll just see how things look on the outskirts of Baruth.1' ”For God's sake, stay here, or steal forward on foot.
There are Stalin tanks dug in, with nothing but the turret showing; they're dangerous." Pipkom didn't listen to me, but climbed back onto his tank and drove out of the woods. A few moments later I heard heavy tank fire and Pipkom's tank came rolling back to me, into cover. beside the gun lay the body of my friend Ruediger, who had to die now, So shortly before the end.
Meanwhile we had regrouped, in order to attack Baruth from the north. I took over the SS tanks. As we moved into the attack, we came under heavy fire, this time also from Russian artillery.
Shells burst among the trees; fragments now hit the hundreds of civilians too, who ran about wildly, screaming, some of them wounded. I had to get through here; there was no alternative.
For several hours we carried on a gun battle, but all attempts to swing further north came to nothing. The Russians had brought up considerable reinforcements. Then it had come to this: we were out of ammunition; we hadn't been allowed totake ammunition vehicles with us. Fuel was getting short. I had now to come to a decision. Shortly before dawn, I called the unit commanders together.
“Listen, we have already been cut off in the rear. We are virtually out of ammunition; fuel is getting short. I hereby release every one of you from my command. Any remaining fuel is to be trans ferred from the SPWS to the tanks. Try to get through to the west by night in small groups, with grenadiers sitting on the tanks. Our regimental doctor is staying here with the wounded, including the civilians. I personally, with my adjutant, an orderly officer, and a runner, will go back into the pocket, to report to Army command and assist with operations. My thanks to you all. May God protect you!” I could see in each of them how hard the moment was for them, but also that my decision was understood. I had no wish to be regarded as a coward or a deserter; that much I owed myself.
While the unit commanders said good-bye to each other, we grasped our machine-pistols and set off on foot along the route back into the pocket.
As I heard many years later, a few small groups did in fact succeed in reaching the Elbe and falling into American hands.
The bulk of my officers and men ended up in captivity. As for the women and children, I have never been able to discover anything about their fate.
After marching east for a few kilometers through the woods, our little group-it was 26 April-decided not to march by day, but keep under cover. We intended to go on that night. We had practically nothing to drink or eat; in the confusion of the last hours we had simply forgotten about it. In the distance we could hear the bark of machine-guns, in the east the rumble of vehicles. On crossing a broad forest track we saw about a hundred yards away a stationary column of Russian trucks. The Russians were talking to each other in the dark; they were probably making a halt. Like shadows we flitted across the track; we had not been seen. In fact we ought soon to be back at the highway, the last obstacle. Meanwhile it was growing light; we had to look for cover. We found a hiding place under a thick clump of bushes. Suddenly we heard Russian sounds. To our dismay we saw a line of Russian soldiers combing through the wood and heading straight for our hiding place. “We must get away from here,” we whispered to each other.
“Over there, about 80 yards away, there's thick undergrowth. We must try to run there and disappear into the bushes.” The Russian skirmish line came menacingly closer.
“Go!” I whispered. With a bound we ran out and reached the undergrowth. The Russians had seen us. Giving their shouts of “Davai, davail” ("Hurry, hurry!), they ran after us. Some fired on the move, but without hitting us. To our dismay once again
The End 265 undergrowth was only a few yards deep; behind it we were suddenly confronted with a lake. The end, all over. There was no more escape.
“Weapons in the lake!” I shouted to the others.
Surrounded by Russian soldiers, with their guns at the ready, and with no chance of getting away, we slowly raised our hands on that morning of 27 April 1945.
Capture and Deportation So this was it: after more than four and a half years of war on almost every front, the end where I would have least wanted-the Russian front. Since the Allied landing in Normandy, we had all known that the end was coming. We hoped, however, that if we were to be captured it would be by the Western Allies, among whom we could take for granted respect for the Geneva Conventions. Goebbels's propaganda about “subhumans” and rumors of atrocities by Russian soldiers now made us fear the worst, along with what we knew of what the SS had done in the USSR.
What does a soldier feel when he is taken prisoner? First of all, that for him the war, and the danger of being wounded or even killed, is over.
He then asks himself some worrisome questions: Where will he be going? How will they treat him? Will they torture him or even shoot him? He tries to master his rising fear and show courage, and he is concerned at first to suppress any thoughts about the implications of the lost war, or about his personal fate in the coming months or even years.
At this decisive moment in my
military life all that mattered to me personally was to show no fear, and hence weakness, but to maintain in this heavy hour my bearing and self-respect, a bearing which we had so often admired in the past years among Allied prisoners.
So there we stood with our hands up: from all sides the Russians came at us with their tommy guns at the ready. I saw to my dismay that they were Mongolians, whose slit eyes revealed hatred, curiosity, and greed. As they tried to snatch away my watch and Knight's Cross, a young officer suddenly intervened.
“Stop, don't touch him. He's a geroi (hero), a man to respect.” I looked at him and just said, “Spasivo (thank you),” surprised at this unexpected reaction.
This correct young Russian officer took us at once to the nearest regimental command post, where he handed us over to a colonel of the tank corps. My adjutant and dispatch rider were separated from me, and I was taken to a farmhouse. The colonel was agreeably Capture and Deportation 267 impressed that with my slight knowledge of-Russian I was able to answer his questions.
“I see that you are like me a polkovnik, a colonel. What unit do you belong to? Where have you been fighting in the past weeks?” It turned out before long that it had been his tank regiment on which we had inflicted such heavy losses at Lauban. This burly man, who made such a brutal first impression, slapped his thigh and laughed.
“You see,” he cried, “that's poetic justice: you shot up my tanks and forced us to retreat; now in recompense I have you as my prisoner.” He fetched two glasses and in Russian style filled them to the brim with vodka, so that together we would drain them with one swallow.
When I asked where my adjutant and dispatch rider had been taken, I received what was for me a very surprising answer.
“They are both with my people of the same rank,” he said..,You know, in the Russian army we have four categories: generals and colonels, the staff officers, field officers and lieutenants, and other ranks. So don't you worry about it." There were also, incidentally, corresponding differences in their food rations.
It passed through my mind that this division was hardly compatible with the idea of Communism. These social differences were quite unknown in the German army.
In the middle of our conversation, we suddenly heard a wild burst of firing. The colonel jumped up and said, “Give me your word that you will not leave this room till I come back. I rely on you.” And he rushed out.
I looked through the window and saw that elements of my own tank reconnaissance section of our division were advancing from the wood opposite, another attempt to breakout, so it seemed to me.
I saw the Russian colonel draw his pistol and run toward his tanks. He drove them forward with threats from his pistol and loud cries, with the result ihat the attempted breakout was foiled. He came back cursing, “These sons of whores are still afraid of you.” In the night that followed I remained with the colonel, guarded by a tired soldier, to whom I passed on one of the papyrossi ciprettes the colonel had given me.
My thoughts took shape. The conduct of the young lieutenant and the colonel scarcely fitted into the image of the Russians that we had formed for ourselves. Certainly, the atrocities of the masses that had invaded Germany were indisputable and exceeded all that could be imagined, but then what had been inflicted on the Russians in huge losses, also among the civilian population, in the treatment of Russian prisoners in Germany and in the devastation of the areas conquered by us had with reason given rise to immense hatred, which had been further inflamed by Russian propaganda and was now venting itself. In personal encounters, however, as in my own case, it appeared that soldiers all over the world have one thing in common: they have chosen their profession or been called upon to defend their homeland. They respect their opponents, who are doing no more than they themselves, namely, their duty.
Wars are begun by politicians. They are the true militarists.
The conduct of the Russian officers gave some hope for the time that lay ahead. In spite of all the misfortunes that all of us were to endure in the following years, I was still to meet, time and again, officers and many ordinary soldiers who behaved like the colonel, especially as the effects of the propaganda began to subside with the ending of the war.
The next morning, the Russian colonel came to tell me, without vodka thank goodness, that he now had to send me to a collecting camp. He gave me his hand in farewell and passed me over to one of his men.
We set out on a three-day march. New prisoners constantly joined our ever growing column. We were guarded by Russian soldiers of a special unit assigned to the task. At night we were usually quartered in deserted villages, close together so that we could be guarded better. On the second day we marched through wooded country that seemed to me ideal for escape. We were only about 30 kilometers from the Elbe, where we supposed the British and the Americans to be. Unfortunately, on that day, because of my rank and knowledge of Russian, I was appointed German commandant of the prisoners and now had always to march at the head of the column with the Russian commander.
Once or twice I managed to distract our guards, so that about a dozen prisoners succeeded in escaping into the woods and, we hoped, in reaching the Elbe. I did not know, unfortunately, that the number of prisoners to be delivered had been precisely determined. When it turned out at our next stop that a few were missing, the guards threatened to shoot me if further prisoners were to escape. But what was worse, they fetched civilians at random from the Capture and Deportation 269 nearby villages to make up the number. These now had to share our fate. I told the column about this, so that no further attempts at escape would be made.
IME physical condition of some of the prisoners began to cause concern. I eventually persuaded the Russian commander to requisition two horse-drawn carts, on which the weakest were allowed to continue the march.
After a few days, we reached Hoyerswerda, near Dresden; this was the site of one of the collecting camps, which was very overcrowded with about 10,000 prisoners. Again I was appointed commandant and had the task of maintaining contact with the Russian commander and maintaining discipline and order in the camp, which in view of the wretched state of the prisoners was not easy. Many tried to resist my instructions with remarks such as, “No more orders, we're all equal now. Officers no longer have any say.” While the bulk of the frontline soldiers behaved in exemplary fashion, ugly scenes arose with others who had taken part in the war, not in the front but in service behind the lines. It was harder for these men to come to terms with the new conditions.
Here too the preeminent problem was the everyday one, not the fate that lay before us.
Provisioning was catastrophic. It consisted essentially of a thin soup, cooked from unhusked oats or fish meal, which was normally used for pig swill. In addition there were 300 grams of bread.
I often had to go with a Russian officer to nearby depots and villages to procure rations for the following days. On one of these journeys I saw some sacks of raw coffee standing in the corner of a warehouse. I suggested to the Russian officer that we should take some of these green beans along as well, to which he raised no objection. So I had several sacks of Colombia coffee loaded up and brought back to the camp. When we arrived there the Russian officer wanted to try the beans himself. When they failed to soften after lengthily boiling in water, he said, “You Germans no kultura, you eat funny hard beans.” In this way I secured the beans for ourselves and told I the German camp cook to brew a cup of pure coffee for the whole camp on the following Sunday. The pleasure of the inmates can be imagined.
Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander
After a few days, we discovered that transports had begun to be assembled for our removal to Russia. Tle Russian camp doctor, a good-natured, elderly man for whom everything revolved around alcohol, told me that only healthy prisoners fit for work would taken to Russia. There were four categories, of which Category 4 meant “unfit for work.” All the prisoners now had to present themselves to the Russian camp doctor and his assistants for examination
, and all those classi-“ tied as Category 4 were sent home. In the course of this I managed to get a few very young men, who had been thrown into the ”final battle“ at the age of fifteen, even with antitank weapons, as well as some people of my own unit into Category 4 by using a simple trick. I made them run around the block four times and do some knee bends before they had to report for examination. Then, when the doctor listened to them, he found a rapid or irregular heartbeat and graded them in Category 4. From the stock of one of the medical stores I managed to scrounge a bottle of pure ether, which the doctor received from me for ”looking after us." We naturally tried to give those who were being released some sign of life for our relations at home. Since written communications were not allowed and contraventions were liable to severe penalties, the only chance was for those who were going home to learn the addresses by heart. My sign of life never arrived, so neither my mother nor Dagmar nor my friends knew whether I was still alive.
Almost every day transports left for the east and the camp began to empty. Last to be assembled was a transport of officers, of which I too formed a part.
Up to 60 men were loaded into barred cattle trucks. To the right and left two-tiered wooden bunks had been fitted, so that not everyone could sleep at the same time. In the middle of the compartment was a hole for calls of nature. Little slits provided some illumination, but one could not see out of them.
The doors were closed tight and were only opened a crack three times a day, for our watery soup to be passed in. We were left entirely to ourselves. The guards, mostly unfriendly and unapproachable, stood by the truck with tommy guns at the ready the moment the train came to a halt. Even under these conditions they were obviously still afraid of escape attempts.