We clung to the Tiger’s hull, choking on its acrid fumes, while it reversed over the wreckage on the bridge, crushing bodies and smaller vehicles as it retreated. A Stalin tank lumbered up onto the ramp, but the manoeuvre exposed its underside for a moment, and the Tiger gunner fired a round directly into its belly. The Red tank shook and rolled back, trailing smoke.
The Tiger’s rear turret hatch opened, and the gunner looked out at us.
‘That was our last round, Herr Ober.’
‘Good man. The bridge will blow soon. Very soon.’
At the entry to the bridge, between the blazing fortifications, the few remnants of our German infantry began a frantic scramble to get across. It was better for them to die in this attempt than to be caught by the Russians on the other side, as the JS tanks and their ground troops began to swarm between the bunkers. A dozen Germans ran at full tilt, some throwing aside their weapons, swerving between pursuing fire, vaulting the corpses and debris in their path. Of the dozen troops, I think that three or four made it across, chasing after us as our Tiger thumped down onto the German-held side, skidding backwards in the frozen snow.
As we came to a halt, up against a blockhouse, Helmann and I jumped off, dragging the Russian woman with us. We threw ourselves with her behind a sandbagged wall, the object of much interest to the handful Panzergrenadiers who were in position there already with an MG42.
‘Now the bridge will blow,’ Helmann said. ‘Now!’
On the abandoned bank, the Reds were engaged in a frenzy of destruction, the SU guns firing again and again into the ruined forts, and the infantry machine-gunning into the slit trenches which must already be full of corpses.
From that maelstrom, another Stalin tank moved up onto the bridge, straddling the width with its broad tracks, and came lurching towards us, eager to be the first onto the German side, whatever the cost. It fired on us, but we were low down on the German ramp, and the shell screamed over our heads in a streak of orange. The Stalin began firing wildly as it advanced, shooting into the German territory – and, looking around, I saw that there were plenty of targets here. There was a unit of Panthers, only just arriving and still moving into position; several Tigers, still in their narrow transportation tracks, meaning that they had come straight from the railhead. Behind them, more armour was moving up: a column of Stugs, and a few of the big Marder self-propelled guns, surely enough to hold back these Stalins and infantry for good.
‘The bridge must blow now,’ Helmann said, as if giving it a direct order.
Nothing happened.
On the bridge, though, that Stalin was getting closer, crushing the already mangled corpses and debris on the surface, and smashing against the upright girders as it accelerated across. Behind it, a second Stalin was emerging onto the bridge – and beyond that, I got a glimpse of other Stalins and an SU, actively jostling each other for the status of being among the first to storm the crossing point.
Our Tiger had no ammunition remaining, but the other German armour on this side of the river belatedly sprang to action, beginning to fire on the Russian vehicles in a storm of red and white tracer. That first Stalin was reaching the end of the bridge now, though, and was almost on top of us; it was traversing and firing at whatever it could see, as our shells slammed into its armour. Behind it, there were another two Stalins moving on the bridge by now, clearly intent on bursting across and leading a spearhead into our lands.
‘The bridge,’ Helmann shouted into the air. ‘Blow the bridge.’
As the leading Stalin thumped down onto the ramp right in front of us, the bridge finally blew. The noise was colossal – louder than anything else I had heard in the war, and for a few seconds everything and everyone froze still, except for the disintegrating bridge.
The aircraft bombs built into its supports detonated one by one, within a fraction of a second of each other, in a wave of explosions which roared back from our bank to the Russian bank. The steel uprights rose into the air and span sideways, while the wooden surface was driven into thousands of fragments, whirling distantly into the river and across the land.
Caught in the rolling blast, the two audacious Stalins on the bridge were thrown sideways, their running gear shearing off and flying into the water as they span over and crashed into the river upside down. The very last of the demolition bombs caught an SU gun as it tried to reverse back off the ramp, and blew its gun and mantle completely off its hull, sending the huge gun tumbling end-over-end against the walls of the burning bunker.
Debris showered down on us, on our reinforcements, falling all along the river bank and for a great distance along the river. All that remained of the crossing were a few girder beams projecting jaggedly from the churning water, where the two Stalins had disappeared under the surface.
With my ears ringing, I tried to take in the changed situation.
The single Stalin that had reached our side stood stationary on our ramp, with its engine running and its turret rotating, perhaps still taking stock of the number of enemies now ranged against it. Our Panthers, our Tigers, all our fresh and fully-loaded armour, even the big Marder guns, all traversed and focussed on this one solitary Russian invader.
Bravely, the Red commander chose to advance, not to reverse into the river. The Stalin lurched forward, flames shooting from its exhausts, and smashed past the Tiger that had carried us over the bridge, knocking it aside. The Stalin had time to fire one shot, which flew out uselessly across our territory into the distance, before our guns opened fire.
The Stalin was shot to pieces in moments. Rounds pierced the turret and blew fragments away, while its tracks were ripped off and sent whipping through the air, scattering broken links into the river. Its momentum carried it some distance along the road away from the bridge, trailing a sheet of flames; but when it ground to a halt it was knocked left and right by the blows that rained down on it. The upper hull lifted up, revealing a furnace inside, full of burning fuel and exploding ammunition. Then even the hull roof was ripped away, leaving the turret to collapse down into the flames.
*
We went to the Tiger to check on Wilf, who was still lying on the engine deck. He was dead, with his face turned towards the western horizon, where the Reich began.
Helmann shook his head, holding the Russian woman with her arms pinned behind her back. Then he flagged down an armoured car among the reinforcement forces, and explained his mission to the crew. They took us on board, and in the cramped compartment, they drove us at speed away from the river, away from the crossing point that had cost so much blood to defend, along roads crowded with troops and vehicles, to the nearest Divisional headquarters.
‘We have been successful,’ Helmann yelled to me, over the roar of the armoured car’s engine and the clatter of other vehicles on the road. ‘The crossing point has been defended. Our border zone is secured. This has been a great day for us, Faust. A magnificent day.’
‘Sir.’
‘To complete our success now, we will hand our prisoner personally to the intelligence team. And those gentlemen at the interrogation centre will make this Red bitch talk, believe me. They know how to get a pretty tongue wagging.’
The Russian woman, understanding his German words, stared at him through bloodshot, terrified eyes.
*
The sun had passed its zenith, and was growing bigger in front of us, lighting up the western plateau with swathes of a smoky, crimson light. The armoured car took some time to reach the command point in the rear. We had to make our way through columns of armoured infantry in Hanomags streaming down to the river zone; these men were fresh, well-fed and in white-camouflaged winter suits. Beside them, lines of Panzer IVs and Panthers waited to advance, their surfaces neatly whitewashed to blend with the snow. It was a real battlegroup, and I was confident that this force could hold that narrow river crossing against the Ivans indefinitely if needed.
The conflict would surely be grim, though.
I looked out of the
car’s open turret at the eastern horizon, where the crossing point lay. It was lit up again and again with red and white flashes, and columns of smoke rose enormous distances into the air. Overhead, I saw three Messerschmitt fighters race to the east, their wings trailing vapour in the leaden sky. At one point, a group of Sturmoviks appeared over the fields to the north, carpet bombing the land in bursts of orange fire. They turned and banked away, with no Flak being fired, and no Luftwaffe in the sky at all.
‘Scheisse,’ the commander of the armoured car said to me, watching the smoke rise from the fields. ‘That was our Tiger regiment.’
I said nothing, and I noticed that the road was now less choked with transports, as if everything we had in reserve had already been sent to the line.
When we pulled up at the command point, Helmann accepted the salutes of the armoured car crew, and gestured me to bring the woman into the building. I held her by the arm, and found that she was trembling as we went inside. The command point was a wooden forestry cabin of two storeys, reinforced with sandbags and earth mounds. It stretched back a long way, with many sub-rooms visible off a long central corridor lit by a kerosene lamp. Staff teams were hurrying around, carrying papers and calling out updates on the movement of the reinforcements.
While Helmann went to brief the intelligence officers about the prisoner, I stood guard over the woman in a side room piled with stores. There were Russian religious icons on the walls, and the woman crossed herself piously when she saw them.
She stood opposite me, and I held Helmann’s MP40 cradled in one arm.
It was suddenly quiet. After all the noise, all the charging, this was a strange sensation, and the amphetamines were declining in my bloodstream, making me feel exhausted.
‘What will they do to me here?’ she asked me in German.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied – although in fact I had a very good idea of the methods they would employ on her. ‘How is it that you speak German?’
Her eyes filled with tears.
‘I studied German literature at University. I know nothing of any important military matters,’ she said, wiping her nose.
I watched her face.
‘Then why did the Russians come looking to find you, in those tanks? Why did they try to rescue you?’
‘Listen to me, and I’ll tell you. This is the truth. I am the mistress of a senior Russian officer. He is very senior, and I am his woman. One of his women. This is his Army, and he can do what he wishes. I think that he wants to get me back.’
Overhead, aircraft flew low, and a Flak spat from somewhere close. There were explosions, and the building shook. In the corridor, men were shouting, demanding information. Then it quietened down.
‘That doesn’t sound true at all,’ I said. ‘Why would a Russian General have his mistress in uniform, in a bunker in the front line?’
‘I accompany him in the line. He takes me with him everywhere. I have the uniform of a radio operator, but in fact I am purely his mistress. He was inspecting the bunkers when you advanced on them. When you attacked, I was left behind in all the chaos.’
‘He just left you behind?’
‘Yes.’
I stood watching her. The icons on the wall glowed a fiery red colour in the declining sun. Her red hair was loose and grimy.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘You are a good man.’
‘I am not a good man.’
‘You are. You saved me from the fire in the tank.’
‘Because my officer told me to.’
‘You would have saved me anyway.’
‘No.’
‘Yes, I believe that you would have.’
There was the sound of explosions in the distance, which made her jump.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘They will torture me here. They will hurt me in a terrible way. I have no information to give them, and that will make it worse. They will kill me in the end, but it might take days for me to die.’
I looked into her eyes. She was shaking, but her pupils were dilated with energy, with some kind of hope.
‘And all this was for no purpose,’ she said, in a whisper. ‘All of this was for nothing. Everything you have done, and everything I have done, it is all for nothing. I ask you now, please let something good come from this. Something.’
I lit a cigarette, and gave it to her. She smoked it with trembling hands, but she didn’t look me in the eyes again, ever. She had said what she could say, and now I had to decide.
Was it true, that all of this was for nothing? The shooting, the burning, the crushed bodies? My father, mother and sister, lost forever under the mountain of rubble in Munich? Big, ugly Kurt, and Wilf, and the pilots and the gunners, all the drivers and loaders and soldiers. How could so much be done, and all of it for nothing?
It was impossible that this could be for nothing, I decided. Impossible.
There was a door into an orchard outside the cabin, where frozen trees stood grey against the sky. I opened the door and told her to stand outside, among the trees.
She nodded, and touched my face, still without looking at me.
She went outside. She stood with her face against the first tree, and I shot her with the MP40. Two shots in the back of the head, so easy to fire. Her head blew open, and her body slumped among the roots of the trees in the snow. That was her death, and that would be her grave.
A few seconds passed, while I got my story straight in my mind.
Then Helmann burst into the room, followed by an officer in the insignia of the intelligence branch.
‘What was that shooting?’ Helmann demanded. ‘And where is my prisoner, Faust, damn you?’
‘She tried to escape, Herr Ober.’
‘What in God’s name do you mean?’
‘She said there are partisans in the woods around this post, sir, and she said they will rescue her and return her to the Russian lines. She said she had gathered information about our forces in this zone, and memorised our positions. Then she ran into the orchard to escape. For that reason, Herr Ober, I shot her.’
Helmann cursed me. He punched me on the chest with his gloved hand, called me a verdamm useless fool, and he seized the MP40 from me. The intelligence officer went and examined the body, which was surrounded by a halo of red in the snow. The intelligence man came back and studied me in silence for several seconds, while my throat went dry. I tried not to swallow or blink.
Then he relaxed and shrugged.
‘It is certainly a lost opportunity, gentlemen, and most regrettable. I would have enjoyed the chance to interrogate that particular prisoner. But such things happen. And we must leave here now, anyway. This sector is no longer secure.’ He looked outside again. ‘There may well be partisans around.’
*
In the road outside, I stood with Helmann as the Divisional staff burned documents on a fire, and loaded others into cars and trucks. All the vehicles were pointing to the west.
‘The sector is no longer secure, Herr Ober?’ I asked. ‘What does that mean?’
‘The Reds have bridged the river at the crossing point,’ Helmann said, in a factual way, entirely without emotion.
‘They’ve crossed the river?’ I said. ‘But the bridge was destroyed. We saw it.’
Helmann laughed in his unheimlich manner.
‘After we left, the Red planes bombed our armour on the western bank. We had no Flak, and the Luftwaffe was nowhere in sight, apparently. Then the Reds used Katyushas for an hour to burn the pieces. All of our panzers, the guns, they were all bombed and burned. Now the Reds have used pontoon boats to put a bridge across the river right there, over the old bridge. They have armour building up on our side now, and they’re breaking through. They’re coming west across the plateau even now.’ He laughed again. ‘This Russian General must be a real swine. He drives his men to death, and they simply ask for more.’
He shouldered his MP40. I noticed that he had somehow taken the opportunity to polish his boots, which were as glos
sy as ever before.
‘Now I will form our unit again,’ he said, ‘with new panzers, and new men. There is another river, twenty kilometres to the west, and it’s much more heavily fortified than the last one. We can certainly hold the Reds there. There is no doubt this time. We will make a fine name for ourselves there, I can assure you.’
‘Yes, Herr Ober.’
‘But damn you to hell, Faust. I thought you were smart, but you’re a fool after all. If you’d guarded that prisoner properly, at least some good would have come out of this wretched situation. You saved her from the fire in the panzer, and you protected her, and it was all for no result at all.’ Helmann reached for his hip flask. ‘All for no verdamm result at all.’ He wiped his mouth and handed me the cognac. ‘But it’s done, and we are busy. I shall say no more about it for now. Let’s find ourselves a car, and get moving. Panzer Marsch!’
***
The publisher wishes to highlight that the text of this book contains opinions which originated in the German experience of the Second World War. These opinions are not shared by the current publisher, and the publisher does not condone or promote such views. They are presented in the interests of historical understanding only.
***
By the same author on Amazon:
Wolfgang Faust's astonishing account of his breakout from the Halbe Kessel in April 1945, entitled ‘The Last Panther.’
Tiger Tracks - The Classic Panzer Memoir Page 14