Schulze suddenly swore, "Gottverdammte noch'mal . . . look over there!" He exclaimed and handed me his binoculars. "They are officers!"
I could distinguish two officers among the working prisoners. They were the ones the Russians seemed to abuse.
the most. "The taller one is a captain," Eisner announced. "The other one I can't tell."
"What shall we do about the poor devils?" Schulze queried. "We cannot sit here and look on."
I glanced at my men, deployed along the forest's edge. Filthy, unshaven, and worn as they were, I could see on their faces that they would have resented inactivity. "I am all for freeing them," I said briskly, answering their silent question. "But if we still want to reach Bavaria, we should stage a pretty good diversion afterwards."
For some days we had been moving northwest, making a beeline for a small German town, Sebnitz, where we hoped our people could help us in our trip across the Elbe. We could not liberate the prisoners without killing the Russians and consequently revealing our presence to the enemy, the very thing I was trying to avoid all the way. A line drawn on the map between the pass which we had evacuated and the small clearing down below would inevitably point at the border near Sebnitz. I turned the problem over and over in my mind but it seemed more hopeless at every new angle.
Captain Ruell found the only feasible solution.
"We wanted to move toward Sebnitz," he began excitedly, motioning us to have a look at the map. "Having hit the Russians here, we will probably have all night before the enemy sends someone up to investigate. We are about . . . here!" He placed his finger on the map, then looked up. "After liberating the prisoners we should turn south. Away from Sebnitz and the German frontier. Here is a small village. We could make it by midnight. We need some civilian clothes anyway. I don't think our folks at home will have many clothes left. A quick raid on the village might confuse the Russians, especially if we grab every Czech identity paper we come across."
"Czech papers!" Schulze exclaimed. "What for?"
Ruell grinned. "The Russians might conclude that we are heading inland, toward Austria. Otherwise why should we collect Czech papers?"
"I think it is a good idea, Herr Hauptmann," a young lieutenant of the Austrian Alpenjaegers remarked cheerfully. "Austria is precisely the place we would like to" go. After the raid we might as well keep going south."
"And run into a Soviet blocking party," Eisner grunted.
"You had better stick with us, taking the longer way but arriving safely."
"After the raid on the village we should double back toward the north and cross the border at Sebnitz," Captain Ruell concluded.
"So be it!" Eisner stated and I agreed. Captain Ruell's plan seemed as feasible as any we might conceive.
By five o'clock in the afternoon both trucks were loaded and the prisoners had been lined up for head count. There were twenty-three of them, escorted by twelve Russians. Schulze deployed three sharpshooters for each Red army man. "Drop them with a single bullet, otherwise some of the prisoners may get hurt."
"Don't worry," one of the troopers remarked. "At two hundred yards we could hit a field mouse between the eyes."
Schulze waited until the prisoners had climbed aboard the trucks. Standing in a small group the Russians watched them with their submachine guns ready.
"Fire!" said Schulze.
Thirty-six rifles fired a single volley. The bewildered prisoners threw themselves flat thinking that they were about to be killed. But our sharpshooters had aimed well. There was no return fire.
Our liberated comrades, as we soon learned, had been captured five days before the capitulation. The majority were officers. The captain, whose rank Eisner had recognized, was the former commanding officer of a signal battalion. He had naively believed that the Soviet commander would react chivalrously to his protest against compelling captive officers to remove roadblocks, fill antitank ditches, and perform other manual labor. The Soviet officer in charge, whose name Captain Waller never learned, had been quite drunk at the time, and having booted the "Fascist dogs" from his presence, he had ordered his troops to strip the "Gerrnanski" officers of their rank badges and insignias. Then roaring with drunken laughter he yelled: "Now you are no longer officers but ordinary ranks, .. . . tvoy maty!" Captain Waller and Lieutenant Mayer were, however, permitted to retain their badges "to serve as an example" of what happens to complaining Fascist officers. "Now you go and cut wood, we need telephone poles." The Soviet officer swore. "You destroyed all the telephone poles. . . . Now you are going to make new ones from here to Moscow."
"You are lucky, Herr Hauptmann, that we came by here," I said after our mutual introduction.
"You were more lucky that you could come by here at all," he replied with a smile. "There's no prisoner-of-war treatment for the SS, Herr Obersturmfuhrer. I saw with my own eyes how the Russkis lined up and machine-gunned four hundred of your men into the Vistula."
"They did that, eh?" Eisner grunted.
"Not the officers, mind you," the captain added. "The officers are to be tried and hanged. It was all agreed upon between the Americans and Stalin." He uttered a short sardonical snort. "And that will be about the only Soviet-American agreement Stalin will keep! You had better watch out."
"They won't get us, Herr Hauptmann ... at least not alive," I stated, more resolved than ever to reach Bavaria. "Not me, that's sure!"
Schulze nodded, lifting his gun. "First they'll have to take my toy away."
"I expected nothing else," Eisner fumed. "Now comes the great carnage . . . the revenge, gentlemen. There is going to be such a bloodbath in the Fatherland that all the SS ever did will look like a solemn church ceremony in comparison. .. ."
"You may thank Himmler," Waller said. "To kill the Jews was a great folly, my friends. He could have gotten away with anything but the Jews. . . . The Jews are a world power, but not those wretched bastards whom Himmler was busy exterminating around the clock. These had done nothing and would never have done anything against the Reich. Nevertheless their ghosts are returning now, many of them wearing the conqueror's uniform or the judge's stola."
"But what have we got to do with the whole bloody affair?" Schulze cried. "I was hunting partisans in the Gottverdammte Russian swamps and in the forests of Belgorod. They should hang the 'Einsatzkommandos' or the Gestapo. It was their lousy job to kill Jews, not mine. Are we responsible for what those loafers did?"
"Don't ask me, ask Stalin!"
"What does Stalin care about the Jews? He always regarded them as rotten capitalists. Most of the Ukrainian
Jews were rounded up and executed by the Ukraine Militia."
"What the hell are you arguing about!" Eisner snapped. "Himmler did kill the Jews, didn't he? Now the world needs a scapegoat and it is the SS. Whether we pulled the trigger or just threw a ring about a village while the militia or the Gestapo rounded them up, it is one and the same thing for them. It was all because of the SS. We murdered everybody in sight, looted the corpses, and are now returning home loaded with stolen Jewish gold. We are the Scourge of God, the Devil Incarnate, the Teutons. They are murdering right now a million German prisoners in Siberia, maybe not by shooting—Stalin simply starves them to death. But is there any difference? All right . . . we gunned down a hundred hostages. They take a group of army officers from a prison camp, give them a mock trial, then hang them. It is one and the same treatment as far as I am concerned. I know that the SS destroyed Lidice. I have not been there, but if they did it—they had a reason. Why did the SS level that particular place? Why not the other ten thousand? Maybe it was because of the assassination of Heydrich, maybe it wasn't, but there must have been a reason for it. They say the killers of Heydrich were Czech commandos from England, who dropped by chutes. Why did they go hide in Lidice? They should have stood up, fought, and gone down fighting— the brave paratroopers. No one would have associated them with the Czechs in Lidice. And what if the SS destroyed Lidice? Was it an overkill? How about Hamburg
which the Allied bombers demolished, killing eighty thousand civilians in a couple of hours? How about Dresden and the hundred thousand civilian dead there? Just before the war's end. . . . Because their execution was done by bombs and not by machine guns should we call the Allies saints? Goddamit all," he swore, wiping the sweat from his forehead, "all that kept us alive was the thought of surviving and returning home. If we still have homes to return to," he went on. "Now everyone is telling us that we are going to hang. It is enough to drive you mad."
"I am sorry," Captain Waller said apologetically. "I did not want to upset you. Especially not after what you did for us. But I thought you had better know the truth instead of falling into a trap at home."
"Just let them come and try to trap me," Eisner fumed.
"I haven't killed an American yet but I don't think they are tougher than the Ivans—and I sure as hell killed a lot of the Ivans."
"That's enough for now!" I interposed authoritatively. "We have more urgent things to do than talk about postwar politics. How about moving on?"
"A good idea," Captain Ruell agreed. "But before we leave let me booby-trap those CMC's. It may help the Ivans to get downhill the shorter way." The troops laughed.
I knew their nerves were strained to the breaking point and each individual was a potential time bomb that might explode at any moment. My men were not killers at large, yet they already felt hunted, outlawed. They were brave soldiers bled white defending the Fatherland. The majority of them had been called up to the SS just like others had been called up to the various other services and put into uniforms. We were Nazis, to be sure, but who was not a Nazi in Hitler's Third Reich? No one could hold any position in the Reich without becoming a Nazi. And if someone held any position in the Reich, his son volunteered for the SS—the "Elite Guard." Others volunteered because it was known to be an honor to serve in the SS. Besides, the uniforms were better, the food, the pay, and the treatment were better, leaves were more frequent. But no one had volunteered because he was told, "Join the SS and you- may kill Jews, or guard concentration camps." I would never deny that the SS was probably the most brutal fighting force ever conceived in the history of warfare. We were tough, maybe even fanatics. We were scared of nothing and no one. We were brought up to be brave. Our brutality was only iron discipline and an uncompromising belief in the Fatherland.
We had been taught and drilled to execute orders and had I been given the order to shoot Jews, gypsies, or prisoners of war, I would have executed that order just as I would have shot deer if ordered to do so. If that is a crime, they should hang every soldier in the world who wouldn't pull his gun and shoot his superior officer through the head whenever he feels like disobeying an order. But my orders were to insure the safety of supply trains, to keep a forest around a vital bridge free from enemy infiltrators, or to track down partisans after an attack against a garrison. And that is exactly what I did!
When I was ordered to take hostages, I took hostages, ten of whom were to be shot for every German soldier murdered by the guerrillas. When the guerrillas stabbed a German sentry in the back or threw a grenade into a staff car, a given number of hostages were executed. Their names had been made known to the population in advance. The partisans had always known that if they committed murder, we would retaliate.
The partisans would never tell a German soldier in advance that he was going to be killed. We did tell the guerrillas that if they killed a German soldier, Pjotr or Andrei would die! We gave them a chance, but they gave us none. Who was then the more guilty? Who did actually kill those hostages? Were the partisans innocent? They were as innocent as the lever of a guillotine. The lever does not kill. It only releases the blade!
As soon as darkness fell, we moved on to execute Captain Ruell's plan. We found a fairly wide dirt road that ran through the forest and, following a small advance guard, made good progress. Having arrived at the village about midnight we quickly deployed along the forest line, and I sent out a reconnaissance party with Schulze in charge. Schulze reported that there were no Soviet troops in the vicinity, only a group of Czech militia billeting in the ancient stone mansion of the local fire service. A captured Wehrmacht troop carrier stood in the archway but he saw no sentries and the place looked ripe for the taking. I selected ninety men to form three groups with Schulze, Eisner, and myself in command. The rest of the troops were to stay behind under the command of Captain Ruell. I told him that should any trouble develop he was not to interfere but should move northward according to our original plan.
Skirting the fields we moved into the village with so many dogs barking that they should have wakened the dead. "Don't shoot except in the utmost emergency," I told my men. "If you have to kill, use your bayonets. And if you must use your bayonets, don't miss!"
"And if you see a window lit up, occupy the house!" Eisner added. "Seize everyone you find awake."
To my great relief I discovered that the battle of Stalingrad would not have disturbed the militiamen whom we found all boozed up and sleeping it off happily on a dozen bare mattresses strewn about the wooden floor. "They haven't got a worry on earth," a young trooper beside me remarked as we quietly removed the militia's weapons. "I sure wouldn't mind being one of them. Boy, to be able to sleep like that."
With the militiamen disarmed, the occupation of the village was only a matter of routine. My troops did not wait for instructions. They knew how to go about their business swiftly and with the skill of veterans. One detachment cut the telephone wires; two platoons left to cover the roads with MG's; four men seized the belfry—an important precautionary measure for a church bell can be a very effective instrument if someone wants to raise the country for miles around. The wires of the air-raid sirens in front of the church were also cut.
Breaking up into groups of five men each we searched every house, confiscated civilian clothes, food, and personal papers and caused great consternation among the people. Some of them spoke German and were told we were Austrians on the way home, terribly sorry for the inconvenience but we needed their papers to survive the trip across Czechoslovakia. I knew that the nearest Soviet commander would be informed before dawn.
At last on German soil—at the Elbe but still on the wrong side. A battered old farmhouse stood on the edge of the woods with the burned shell of a Tiger visible among the ruins of a barn. Children were playing around the dead tank and smoke rose from the chimney. We kept the place under observation for several hours but spotted no Russians. Schulze decided to visit the farm at dusk. He returned with the farmer, Hans Schroll, a war cripple; a short, lean, embittered man in his early fifties hobbling on a pair of crutches.
"I shall try to help you," he said, his face showing great concern. "But keep in the woods, for heaven's sake. The Russkis are visiting us every day and one never knows when they might show up."
"Life must be hard on you people," Captain Ruell remarked sympathetically.
"Hard?" Schroll exclaimed with a short laugh. "Life here is nothing but assault, robbery, rape, and murder. I am the only man here for miles around. A half of a man," he added bitterly.
"No, Herr Schroll," Schulze shook his head, placing a hand gently on the man's stump. "I think you are more than a man."
"The Russkis herded away the entire male population," Schroll went on. "They wouldn't take me because of my leg. Nowadays you may call yourself lucky for having lost a leg and a female is safe only if she is seven months pregnant or seven years old."
He sat with us for a while and from his embittered words we could form our first impression of our tarnished Fatherland. A Wehrmacht battalion was still fighting on a ridge half a mile away when the invaders had raped Schroll wife for the first time.
"One of them held a gun to my head," the farmer said. "He threatened to shoot me if I moved. I couldn't have moved much even without a gun at my head, could I? They were the front-line mob. Finally a major came yelling, trying to send the bastards out to fight. Do you know what happened to the major? The
y just grabbed him, took his pistol, and kicked him in the ass ... kicked him right through the door. ..."
''How is it now?" I asked wearily.
"Na ja." He smiled resignedly. "The occupation troops are more polite. They are taking me and the children out of the room when they come to visit my wife."
"Don't say—"
"Jawohl, Kameraden. The German homes have become Red army whorehouses. But we should not condemn our wives and daughters. It is all our fault. We should have fought better. Fought like the Japanese with their suicide pilots and human torpedoes. We did not kill enough Russians."
Schroll told us about the pontoon bridge at Pirna. Four T-34's and several machine gun emplacements covered its approaches. "No Germans are allowed to cross the bridge without a special pass," Schroll said. "You will never make it across there, but I can give you a boat."
The boat was a leaky one and could carry only eight men at the most. We had to wait in the forest until the farmer had managed to patch it up. He left it at a prearranged place, driven ashore and camouflaged under the riverside shrubs. In it we found five loaves of dark bread, a sack of homemade biscuits, and two bottles of schnapps. There was also a note: Glueck auf!—Good Luck!
Only a thin slice of bread and a small gulp of brandy for each man but it had been our first slice of bread for weeks and the brandy felt good. So did the small note of Hans Schroll—a great man in a great desert.
Only the clothes and the weapons were ferried across the river. The men had to swim as it would have taken too long, making it very risky. Nine of them never made it.
We pushed on toward the American zone. Four times we ran into Soviet patrols or Czech militia. We had to kill them in order to survive. The enemy troops were getting thicker every day, but the closer we came to Bavaria the more resolved we became to arrive there. We no longer cared to bypass the roadblocks or the enemy camps but attacked them, pouring lead as if we had an inexhaustible supply of ammunition. We were only forty-two men when we finally reached Bavaria at Wunsiedel. Three hundred and seventeen of our comrades had fallen so that we might arrive home.
Devil's Guard Page 4