The Last Panther - Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

by Wolfgang Faust

  I saw the projectile exit the turret through the hatch, carrying with it parts of the crews’ bodies and bits of machinery. The open hatch emitted thick smoke, and the lower hull crew began to clamber out.

  The other Stalin, before it could get a shot at us, was hit by a Panzerfaust. I saw our men advancing to the machine’s rear, ducking as they scrambled across the scrubland from the woods. I saw the long, fiery trail of a Panzerfaust rocket, and then the explosion from the engine compartment which sent a torrent of fuel spilling out onto the heath. That crew also climbed out of their panzer, and in a few seconds our men had rounded up half a dozen of these Russian crew men, standing around them with their guns trained on them while our two Panthers drove back to the road through the forest. We had won this small battle against great odds – but the smoke from the burning Stalins was marking our position clearly even in the morning mist, and for every Stalin that we destroyed, five could come to take its place.

  As we regained the road, with the Capo’s panzer in front, I saw that our infantry were shooting the captured Red crewmen, cutting them down one by one with single rounds. Then our men searched the bodies, removing what appeared to be cigarettes and items of food. Our troops had descended this low: scavenging scraps from enemy corpses.

  I told my driver to make the fastest possible speed on this narrow, uneven road. It was imperative that we get away from that scene urgently. I went up through the hatch and looked around. The five hundred or so infantry and civilians were forming up behind us, hobbling, limping or walking in our wake. If I expected congratulations on our rapid battle, none were forthcoming: the wounded were in their own world, and the civilians were ashen-faced and trembling. The mist overhead began to burn off in the sunlight. In a few minutes, the bombing began again, with Sturmoviks passing overhead and dropping bombs at random through the leaf cover.

  I stood on the rear deck, as wounded men and exhausted civilians began to drag themselves up on board, and I considered the state of the Panther. We had fuel for another twenty kilometres at best. The transmission was almost worn out. The engine was running hot, and the tracks needed to be removed, tightened and their connecting pins checked – a procedure that would take half a day under normal circumstances. Our main gun ammunition was down to a handful of rounds, with almost none left for the machine guns. Our radio had stopped functioning properly, and we had no fire extinguisher or spare oil. The superb, slab-sided Panther kept rolling West at a walking pace, but for how much longer?

  This road passed through an area where the Russians had fought running battles with our forces in the days before. The forest was strewn with wrecked vehicles, both German and Russian. We passed a series of German ambulance vans, in which each of the wounded men had been shot in the head. The discovery gave renewed impetus to our column’s march, as our two panzers and then the infantry and foot followers filed past the human remains, even as our loader jumped down to tap the vans for any possible fuel.

  We stopped at any intact vehicles that we found, to check them for fuel in the tanks, but somebody had been through the area ahead of us and drained every drop. There was a T34 still in one piece, surrounded by the bodies of its crew – but the Russian panzers ran on diesel, not gasoline, and that fuel would cause our Maybach engines to foul up. The need for gasoline was becoming desperate, and preying on my mind as much as the explosions from aircraft and artillery which echoed around us.

  Around midday, in a clearing which was untouched by the battles, we came upon a remarkable thing.

  It was a Panther.

  The panzer was stationary, halted among the ferns, apparently undamaged. It appeared to be virtually new, its paint unchipped and its tracks perfectly tensioned, with no mud or debris in them. Its hatches were closed, and its gun was level.

  We halted and observed it for a minute. There was no sign of life. I walked across to the Capo’s panzer, climbed up among his wounded and discussed this with him.

  ‘No markings or signs,’ the Capo said, squinting at the beautiful, unmarked Panther in the dappled light. ‘It’s just been abandoned, perhaps. Maybe it ran out of fuel. But then why did the crew not blow it up with the demolition charge?’

  ‘Maybe the crew surrendered or were killed outside the vehicle,’ I said. ‘It could be full of gasoline. And ammunition. It might start at the first try.’

  The Capo looked at me.

  ‘You suggest leaving your Panther and taking that Panther?’

  ‘Or putting our radio man in that one. He can drive well enough, and he has no radio or gun ammunition anyway. We can pick up more panzer crew men along the road. Then we will have a force of three Panthers.’

  The Capo rubbed his chin.

  ‘But who would leave a panzer there like that? It looks like a Red trick to me. As if they captured a Panther and then left it here as a trap.’

  ‘Let me take a look, Herr Leutnant.’

  ‘Be very quick. And be careful.’

  I went over to the Panther and looked around it. I could see no cables or trip wires, and the ground appeared undisturbed. The machine looked the way that my machine used to: pristine, well-maintained, and very potent. I climbed up onto it and tried the commander’s hatch. It slid to one side easily. I waited for a few seconds.

  There was an explosion which sent a torrent of fire up into the air, to a height of twenty metres. I could hear debris flying around inside the panzer, as its ammunition detonated, and then, as I jumped clear and ran, the fuel tanks blew up with a force that suggested they had been completely full. I stumbled, as a fireball rose over the Panther, and it was covered in burning gasoline. As I picked myself up, the Capo laughed and ordered us to move on quickly.

  ‘You thought it was Christmas morning, Faust,’ he shouted at me. ‘You thought the Reds gave you a new Panther. But the Reds know how to set a trap, that’s for sure.’

  We left the magnificent Panther burning there, as the trees around it caught fire, and the Sturmovik aircraft overhead began to swarm towards the smoke.

  *

  In the late afternoon, our road converged with several other tracks in an area of oak trees dotted with small houses inside the forest. The narrow roads were crammed with traffic and people, all heading West towards the North-South Autobahn. Basic military discipline had broken down in this area. There was nobody directing the traffic, and panzers, half-tracks, motorcycle combinations and cars all scraped alongside each other as the final, single road had to take all of the vehicles and people. The forest was dense overhead, but to either side was more open country, and we could hear the sound of fighting from left and right as the troops on the flanks fought to keep the narrow route open.

  I began to see, among the roadside bushes, small shapes that fluttered in the breeze and trailed long threads. These were the epaulettes, shoulder badges and collar insignia of officers and NCOs, who did not want to be captured with the enemy knowing their rank, and they had torn their markings off and thrown them away. Almost all of these were the badges of regular Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe troops, gleaming dully in the light. I saw a few SS markings strewn by the roadside too: the skull badge or the collar flashes that would identify them as the Russian’s worst enemies. However, most SS men were identifiable by their high-quality camouflage uniforms, or by their forearm tattoos which contained their blood group. For the SS, the only choice was to get to the West. The alternative was simply death. For years, they had sown destruction in the East, and now the enemy had them in an iron claw.

  Slowly, we made our way towards the Western edge of the forest, and the great Autobahn road beyond. We managed to take some gasoline from a stranded truck full of Luftwaffe officer cadets, and we had to hold these boys back at gunpoint while we poured their cans of fuel into our panzers to gain another ten kilometres of movement. This was the law of the Kessel: he who could take what he needed, had to take it. The Luftwaffe cadets stood cursing and swearing vengeance on us as we left them behind.

  As we approa
ched the edge of the trees, a rocket bombardment began to smash into the rear of our column. The Katyusha rockets tore down through the oaks, smacking from one great trunk to another, setting the branches on fire and raining a burning liquid down onto the people there. It was essential that we leave this forest, or everyone here would be consumed within hours.

  From the front of the column, an SS panzer man came running beside the road, calling for all panzers or armour to move to the front. Behind him, a squad of SS infantry were moving along the road, pushing all unarmoured vehicles or foot traffic to one side to let the panzers through. The Capo’s Panther and mine made our way forward in answer to the call, crushing cars or carts which had not been moved aside. We even had to bulldoze aside a complete 88mm gun, which was stuck on its trailer in a crater, blocking the path.

  Behind us, from out of the smoke of the burning trees, there appeared a convoy of Hetzers – the little self-propelled tracked guns that were fast and low, lightly armoured but useful to have in any situation. It was amazing to think that the complete Hetzer vehicle, at barely sixteen tonnes, weighed less than the turret on a King Tiger, which I believe weighed eighteen tonnes. How many more Hetzers could Germany have built, for the cost of the five hundred King Tigers which we produced in total in our factories? Two thousand Hetzers, or three thousand? What effect would this have had on the war? Such questions can lead to all manner of calculations and alternatives.

  We were joined also by a Panzer IV of a tank training regiment, crewed by youths led by an experienced NCO, who stood in his turret hatch in an old-style black panzer tunic as if he was rolling into Poland at the start of this whole war. With this clutch of vehicles, we moved up to the head of the column, and dispersed among dense trees along the edge of an old gravel quarry.

  The quarry was full of wounded, who were set out on the ground among the stones, and these men called to us pitifully not to leave them behind. I turned my head away and tried to shut out the sounds, as we panzer crews assembled with the SS men and moved quickly to the edge of the forest itself.

  Three King Tigers were concealed here, their massive outlines shrouded in nets and branches. These were not the vehicles we had come through Halbe with, but from the 10th SS Panzers, which was reduced to this number as its entire strength. The unit was commanded by a Waffen SS Major with a bandage around his head and burn marks on his face. The SS had grim, clenched faces – as befitted men who were seeking to escape certain death at the hands of their captors – and their dilated, darkened eyes suggested that they were drawing strength from their supplies of cognac and amphetamine.

  The SS had set up a binocular periscope here, and through it we could survey the edge of the woods, a short stretch of land, and then a dark ribbon cutting through the landscape from north to south.

  ‘That is the Autobahn,’ the SS Major said. ‘Beyond that there is the railroad, and then the Twelfth Army.’

  ‘Where are the Reds?’ the Capo asked him. ‘There is less bombardment out there in the open.’

  ‘I think the Reds are waiting,’ the SS man said. ‘They came up this road on their way to Berlin three days ago. Almost all their forces are centred there to the North, but they must expect we will break out somewhere here. We captured a Red officer this morning who told us that they are bringing more armoured units down the Autobahn from Berlin tonight. They plan to fortify the Autobahn and make sure that nobody can cross it. See, the Autobahn goes through a cutting which would be perfect to defend. If the Reds build up in strength there, we will never get past this point.’

  ‘Where is this prisoner?’ the Capo asked.

  ‘He is dead now. The information is accurate, we made sure of that.’ The SS man lit a cigarette. He grinned suddenly. ‘American cigarettes,’ he explained. ‘I have a contact who acquired a whole truckload in the Ardennes. Here, have one. Everybody have one.’

  A Red Jabo flew over the tree line, firing rockets to the right of us. Nevertheless, we all took a cigarette, and inhaled the smoke. The tobacco was fresh, and fragrant, in a way that I remembered from my first cigarette before the war. It was rich and . . . what was the word?

  ‘Quality,’ one of the Hetzer men said. ‘This is quality tobacco.’

  ‘This is what life is like under the Americans,’ the SS Major said. ‘And the Americans will need men such as us to rebuild this country. I don’t know about you, but I can speak some English.’ He did not flinch as more Red planes screamed overhead, firing cannon through the trees. Empty cannon shell cases from these planes fell through the branches and landed around us.

  ‘What is the plan for crossing the Autobahn?’ the Panzer IV man asked. ‘I assume that with your heavy panzers, you will be in the lead.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Major nodded, looking us all in the eye. ‘We will cross at dusk. My three King Tigers will go out and cross first. We will hold open the way for the columns behind us,’ he gestured with his cigarette into the forest, ‘for all these columns to cross the Autobahn. But we also need screening panzers to move north and south of the crossing point. Those panzers will prevent enemy armour from approaching and disrupting the crossing. I want the three Hetzers and one Panther to the South, and the Panzer IV and the other Panther to the north, each grouped along the Autobahn cutting. My SS Panzergrenadiers will accompany you, and there are still infantry units in the columns who will fight. Some of the civilians are well armed now, so they can be useful to us as well. In this way, we will open the crossing, and in darkness our whole columns can cross at speed. After that, we must drive West without stopping. I repeat, we will not stop. You must keep up, or be left behind for the Russians.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘And then I will see you on the Elbe. We will be prisoners, but we will have plenty of cigarettes, my friends.’

  *

  The Capo stood on the edge of the gravel quarry, staring down at the doomed wounded on their grimy blankets: men who knew they were being abandoned.

  ‘Two more battles,’ he said. ‘The Autobahn and then the rail line. For me, there is no choice in the matter. I must not be taken prisoner by the Reds. My family are in the West, and any future that I have is in the West. I cannot do ten or twenty years in a Soviet prison in Siberia. I cannot do it.’

  ‘And if we are wounded?’

  ‘That is a risk I shall take. Look, Faust. If you want to stay back. If you want to surrender, or cross the Autobahn with the column behind us, that is understandable. The war is almost over, and I cannot force you to fight. See here – look at all this.’

  He pointed to a tree on the edge of the quarry. A large number of German insignia had been thrown here, hundreds of epaulettes and collars, dangling in the breeze. Among them, were many German tunic badges of the eagle with the swastika; the broad, silver wings of the eagle were fluttering idly among the leaves, trailing their ripped-off threads, the myriad swastikas discarded like omens of bad luck.

  ‘You see, it is over,’ the Capo said. ‘But my life must not be over. For the sake of my children. For you, Faust, perhaps it is different. You have no family, do you?’

  I took from my pocket the crumpled photograph of the unknown girl that had been with me from my first day in the Kessel, and showed it to him.

  ‘I will come with you to the West,’ I said.

  ‘You’re a strange fellow, Faust. You’re half killer and half romantic.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  I took an amphetamine tablet and swallowed it down with a gulp of schnapps, and finally squeezed the last of an ampoule of morphine into my mouth and swallowed that. I waited a few seconds for the combined effect to hit me. I jumped onto the turret as if I was weightless, and took command of the Panther through the headphones. In the side of my vision, I could see the massed ranks of the abandoned wounded lying in the quarry floor, and I forced myself not to look at them. The headphones on my ears blocked out, partly, the sound of their cries. Before my engine started, I heard, nevertheless, a series of single shots, the impacts coming one after th
e other at irregular intervals.

  I could not stop myself looking back.

  Some of the wounded troops were committing suicide. A pistol was passing from one hand to another, being fumbled among the blood-stained clothing. The men’s desperate, open mouths sought the muzzle of the gun, like so many helpless chicks seeking their food.

  *

  I was to seal off the southern Autobahn with the three Hetzers and a mobile Flak on a Famo half-track, which had a quadruple 20mm cannon. This was quite a strong group of vehicles for such a task, and we were accompanied by two Hanomags of SS Panzergrenadiers who would act to secure the crossing, and then be replaced by Wehrmacht as the SS moved West. All in all, this was a respectable battle group, and I felt confident that we could hold the crossing open in the early stages, provided that more armour came up from inside the Kessel as the night progressed.

  We moved out towards the Autobahn as the sun set. The Western sky, towards which we were striving with such hope, was streaked with red. The land around the road was scattered with the debris of the Russians’ advance North to Berlin, which had cleaved our forces in two and sealed the Kessel from the West in the preceding days. A ruined T34 and a Panzer IV were jammed together, burned out and wrecked. A Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft lay on its back, its two pilots dead in the glass cabin. Shell craters were filled with the bodies of Soviets, Wehrmacht and civilians, their jumbled faces staring up with a waxen pallor.