On one of our long strolls through the park, we experienced a close call when my Aunt and Uncle Stork from Lüneburg suddenly appeared off in the distance up the trail. Spotting them, I quickly pulled Anneliese into the bushes beside the path just before they caught sight of us. Hiding from relatives might seem an overreaction, but people at the time viewed an unmarried man and woman alone together as improper. Had they seen us, it would have been a highly embarrassing situation.
While Anneliese never met my Aunt and Uncle Stork, I made occasional visits to their large home for meals. When they adopted my ten-year-old brother Hermann in April 1939, I initially approved of the arrangement as beneficial to everyone. My mother had been hesitant about the adoption, but grandfather Matthies strongly encouraged it as a means to assist my parents financially and provide his daughter’s childless marriage with a son.
By the summer of 1939, any optimism that the Munich agreement had achieved a lasting stability in Europe had faded as the international situation again grew tense. In spite of the increasing likelihood of war, I had no hesitation about fulfilling the two years of military duty required of all males reaching 18 years of age. Still, if service had not been compulsory, I would probably not have volunteered at that time. Even with my long-held desire to experience life as a soldier, I was simply not interested in a professional career in the army.
Rather than waiting to be conscripted, I decided to volunteer with the intention of entering the military in January 1940 after completing my two-year apprenticeship as an electrician. This would allow me to perform my required two years of military service before beginning my college engineering program.
In early May, I took a train to the army recruiting center in the nearby town of Winsen to volunteer, or rather to complete the necessary paperwork to commence my military service at the start of the next year. Despite my interest in reading about naval combat during the Great War, I possessed no love for the sea or interest in being a sailor. Nor was I interested in serving as a pilot. Long before reaching military age, I determined that I wanted to serve as a soldier in the German Army when I performed my military service.
With my strong interest in mechanical and electrical machinery, my ambition was to join one of the new Panzer (armor) units. While feeling my technical skills could be useful as part of a tank crew, I was also simply drawn to the exciting and prestigious reputation of the armored branch. After receiving a short physical exam and quickly completing the necessary paperwork, an officer informed me I would begin training with a Panzer division in Berlin that January as I had requested.
At that time, all German males were obligated to serve six months in the RAD, or Reichsarbeitsdienst (National Work Service) before their two years of military duty. The RAD operated along military lines, except that its members carried spades rather than weapons. It provided the state with a free labor force and helped prepare young men for military service. Perhaps because I had volunteered for the army, I was never drafted into the RAD. Of course, the imminence of war may also have played a role.
Several times since arriving in Lüneburg, I had joined the crowds that gathered to watch the local cavalry regiment’s band stage one of its three annual parades. As the slow-moving procession of 30 or 40 magnificent horses mounted by soldiers in dress uniforms promenaded down the town’s narrow streets that summer, the thunderous din of the brass instruments and great kettle drums reverberating off the high walls of the houses seemed to echo the martial mood of the times. Europe was on the edge of another war and would not see peace again for six terrible years.
Chapter 4
TRAINING FOR COMBAT
August 1939–May 1940
BY THE LATE SUMMER OF 1939, an intensive Nazi media campaign was stridently demanding that Germany be granted a land corridor through Poland that would link East Prussia to the rest of the country. Because the hated Treaty of Versailles had imposed this separation of German territory, there was widespread public support for what was seen as Germany’s just territorial claim. The anti-Polish mood was further heightened by repeated accusations of Poland’s severe mistreatment of its ethnic German population.
On August 23, 1939, the Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was signed in Moscow. While the bitter ideological hostility between the Nazi and Communist regimes made the agreement paradoxical, this diplomatic move seemed to ensure peace with Russia if military hostilities broke out between Germany and Poland. Since Great Britain and France were not expected to go to war over Poland, a wider European conflict now appeared less likely.
When I arrived back at the house in Hagen from a trip to Lüneburg on the morning of Sunday August 27, Aunt Dora handed me a special delivery telegram that had just arrived. It was an order from the Wehrmacht directing me to report the next day to the barracks in Lüneburg for a short period of military training. Until that moment, I still believed that I had another four months to complete my apprenticeship before I would be called to military service. Now it was clear that my plans might have to change.
Despite this uncertainty, I was immediately swept up in a wave of eager anticipation that one feels at the start of an adventure. In my excitement, I did not know whether to call my parents or pack my belongings. When I reached my parents by phone, their reaction was more subdued. Naturally, my mother was particularly concerned. She made plans to come visit me that first week, though I saw little of her since boot camp was already underway.
This unexpected induction into the army left me feeling something between a volunteer and a draftee. My earlier plans to enter a Panzer unit in Berlin where the army had assigned me would not work out. Instead, the army had conscripted me into the newly established 58th Infantry Division.
Pursuing a meticulously designed plan of expansion, the Wehrmacht created new divisions using a nucleus of troops from existing active-duty divisions. The already existing 20th, 22nd, and 30th Infantry Divisions based in northern Germany each provided a cadre of troops to train the freshly inducted recruits for the 58th Infantry Division’s regiments. These divisions also provided the 58th Division with a veteran core of personnel comprising about 20 percent of its final troop strength.
In accordance with this plan, most of the Lüneburg-based 47th Infantry Regiment of the 22nd Infantry Division departed for the French border to deter any potential military action from the west. Only a cadre of experienced officers and sergeants from the regiment remained behind to instruct raw recruits who would bring the new 58th Infantry Division to full strength.
For the duration of our basic training, the army temporarily called up Great War veterans to fill out the ranks of the 58th Infantry Division in order to strengthen the German defenses on the French border. Once our instruction was completed, we would replace these older reservists at the front. At this time, I still believed that my preliminary training period would only last a short time.
When I arrived early that Monday morning at the former base of the 47th Infantry Regiment in the western part of Lüneburg, my initial excitement had somewhat cooled, though I did not share the sense of anxiety that most of the other conscripts seemed to feel. I thought to myself, “This is it. I am going to be a soldier now and have to do my best.” From the start, my competitive nature compelled me to prove myself and seek to become the top soldier in my unit. My aim was to obtain recognition in order to ultimately earn a leadership role.
On reaching the barracks, all recruits were directed to the armory where we were issued a uniform, helmet, and boots. Because no one wore their hair long at that time, there was not a routine shaving of the recruits’ heads. Following a lesson in how to salute properly, the drill instructors broke us into training companies.
Eight conscripts shared a room sparsely furnished with four bunk beds and a table. Having worked inside similar buildings during my apprenticeship as an electrician, I was already intimately familiar with the solid three-story brick and concrete structures typical of Ger
man barracks. Though they contained relative luxuries like indoor plumbing for community toilets and showers, recruits were in no way treated indulgently. Very strict maintenance regulations ensured that the buildings remained immaculate at all times. If the sergeant conducting an inspection spotted even some minor violation, it would mean extra duty for the guilty conscripts.
At seven o’clock the next morning, we headed out to an open area in the pinewoods behind the barracks where the instructors placed our new company in line according to height. At this point, each recruit was officially inducted into the army and received the rank of private (Schütze). During the remainder of the week that followed, our drill instructors concentrated on teaching us how to march in close order and to goose step as we began our transformation from civilians into soldiers.
That Friday morning, September 1, 1939, we woke to hear the radio solemnly announcing that Germany was at war with Poland. Among the conscripts around me, there was immediate recognition that we would not be released back into civilian life any time soon. Though we would not be involved in the immediate campaign, my mother understood clearly what the news meant, telling my family, “Now Wilhelm must also go to war.”
Few Germans doubted the government’s allegation that the Poles had started the war by staging a cross-border raid against a German radio station, and no one I knew questioned the basic justice of the war, even privately. Like most other citizens, I believed Germany had legitimate grievances and had launched the invasion of Poland following the exhaustion of diplomatic efforts. In retrospect, however, it is clear to me that Hitler sought war and simply exploited these issues to accomplish his aim. For him, the attack represented the next step in an aggressive plan of military conquest designed to impose Germany as the dominant power in Europe.
The day after the start of the war, our induction ceremony was held in the drilling area behind the barracks. Standing at attention at the end of the event, we raised our right arms and swore the oath of loyalty for Wehrmacht soldiers:
I swear by God this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath.
In the days that followed, my fellow recruits and I generally tried to follow the progress of the war in Poland and regularly discussed the unfolding events among ourselves. While we had anticipated a short conflict, most of us nonetheless felt disappointed to have missed out on it when the war ended a few weeks later. Perhaps naively, we did not expect to have another chance to engage in combat, even though Britain and France had unexpectedly declared war on Germany in early September. None of our officers led us to believe differently.
TRAINING IN LÜNEBURG
September 4, 1939–January 9, 1940
Once we had learned how to march that first week, our company commenced its field training, which took place every day, regardless of rain or snow. It was about evenly divided between physical exercise to build our stamina and instruction in the use of weapons and other equipment. More basically, it was about learning unquestioning obedience to orders.
On most mornings, we would wake before dawn for a shower and breakfast. After strapping on our 25-pound backpacks, we formed up for the three or four mile hike out to the firing range in Wendisch-Evern. At the start of the march, the second lieutenant (Leutnant)or sergeant in charge would shout, “Ein Lied” (A song), and then call out a title. Singing these marching tunes with enthusiasm, we set out down the road.
Reaching the site that first day, we immediately commenced drilling in an area of sandy terrain of low hills and pines. After an introduction to the bolt-action Karabiner 98K Mauser rifle that would serve as our primary weapon, our first days were spent at target practice. Both in daylight and darkness, we practiced how to disassemble and properly clean the rifle, a task that was essential to perform a couple of times a week in order to prevent jamming. In addition to working with the Mauser, our instructors soon taught us to handle and maintain a variety of other weapons as well.
All members of our training company received a cursory introduction to larger weapons like the 75-millimeter howitzer. This allowed us to have a basic level of familiarity with such weapons if we needed to operate them in an emergency. Our brief instruction in how to calculate the coordinates of an enemy target and direct the fire of the heavy guns was especially interesting to me and would prove invaluable later.
Even more elemental to soldiering, our veteran drill instructors passed along essential combat survival skills. In particular, the lesson that a good infantryman should dig a foxhole and get below ground whenever possible would save my life many times.
Though usually returning from the firing range before dark, we occasionally engaged in training at night. The return march back to the barracks was sometimes converted into a race among the hundred or so men of my training company. Jogging most of the way, I regularly completed the three or four miles before the others. Perhaps because I usually led the way in these races, the lieutenant in charge of our drilling assigned me the job of leading his horse to the stable, whereas the other soldiers had to clean the barracks or perform a similar less desirable task.
While a portion of the troops in the company acquired more extensive instruction with mortars and the 75-millimeter short-barreled howitzer, I was assigned early on to our company’s communications platoon. With my civilian background as an electrician it was natural for me to join this unit. It also made sense to have the fastest members of our company in the communications platoon since they might be called on to serve as runners to deliver messages on foot, if communication links had not yet been established or had been destroyed.
After the first couple of weeks, I spent the majority of time drilling with this communications unit. Our instructors gave us specialized training in the operation and repair of radios, field telephones, telegraphs, and other equipment. Most of our time, however, was spent practicing the stringing and maintaining of communication lines. On the battlefield, these lines would be used to deliver targeting information from the forward observer’s position back to gun batteries and company headquarters, as well as from the company headquarters back to the regimental command.
On many mornings that fall, the platoon practiced running a line the entire distance from the barracks to the firing range. Each of us carried a large reel on our backs with a portion of line that would be linked to the end of the preceding length of wire and then spooled out. As the line was released, those following would use long poles to hook it over limbs up in the trees where it would be less vulnerable to shellfire in a combat situation.
Since my grandparents’ villa was located near our training area in Wendisch-Evern, I chanced stopping off there a couple of times on the way back to our barracks in Lüneburg. Despite the risk of punishment if I was caught, a cup of coffee with my grandmother provided a great momentary escape from our routine.
About once or twice a week after our return from the firing range, the lieutenant overseeing our drilling would announce, “It’s five o’clock now. In fifteen minutes, you will be outside in formation in a clean uniform.” After changing into a fresh uniform, we would wearily head out to the drilling area in the pinewoods behind the barracks. In general, my efforts to prove myself and gain top marks proved successful, but I struggled with one particular facet of training: tree climbing.
Even with a sergeant loudly badgering us, “Get up in the tree you monkeys!” I usually only succeeded in ascending about 10 feet. If I avoided sliding backward from that point, I would just hang there like an old sack. Fortunately, I performed better when the drill instructors required us to build entrenchments or to crawl on our hands and knees under barbed wire without becoming entangled as a sergeant yelled at us to keep our butts down.
A short time after the commencement of our training I befriended a couple of other conscripts, Willi Schütte and Willi Sauke, who wo
uld remain my closest comrades in the coming years. In particular, I came to know Willi Schütte with whom I frequently played cards. He was a nice guy who came from the small town of Blekede. Standing only about 5’8,” he was squarely built and strong. Schütte was generally quiet, but also, like me, a bit of a prankster. He was eventually assigned to serve with one of our gun crews.
Our meals from the mess were decent and filling, but we never knew for sure what we were eating or drinking. Every morning, someone in each platoon in the barracks had to go pick up a big pot of coffee from the mess hall. If a conscript committed some violation of the regulations, his platoon leader would delegate him to deliver the coffee for the week.
After fulfilling this duty for a couple of weeks one of the men in our platoon was finally informed that his punishment was complete and he would no longer have to retrieve the coffee pot. He replied with satisfaction, “Good, then I do not have to piss in the coffee anymore.” While the other troops found this prank amusing, our platoon wondered what we had been drinking.
In another instance, one first lieutenant in our regiment brought his horse up the stairs into the barracks. Though he may have been half-drunk at the time, I have no doubt that this officer was demonstrating to us that his aristocratic Prussian background entitled him to flaunt the regulations with impunity. Later, we would encounter a far different type of Prussian officer in our first company commander.
As recruits, we were only permitted a couple of hours out of the barracks on Sunday evenings. Occasionally, I visited Aunt and Uncle Stork to see my brother Hermann and have supper, but most of my free time was spent with Anneliese. Just as before the war, we would sometimes go dancing or see a movie. More often, we would go for a walk or just sit on a bench and talk. Of course, kissing was not unknown in these few moments together, but she was always much more concerned than me that we might be seen.
At Leningrad's Gates Page 7