Nigel Cawthorne
Page 10
The miller and our first lieutenant appear at the entrance of the building, both gesticulating. The miller feels that there is no sense in shooting, since the fighter-bomber has the advantage and our presence would put his mill at risk. Everyone looks at matters with his own eyes.
Reaching Saint-Vith, they found it under shell fire.
In the fields to the left we notice many tanks of the ‘Tiger’ and ‘Panther’ types. Second Lieutenant Bauer talks to one of the infantry officers, an old acquaintance of ours. He advises us to turn around at once to get out of there as fast as we can … On 22 December, at 1400 hours, Saint-Vith had finally been taken by German troops … [But] the planned surprise assault of the German Army, aimed at the early capture of Saint-Vith and Malmedy in the north, and Bastogne in the south, had failed. This was what had actually decided the outcome of the Battle of the Bulge. But for us the fight had to go on.
That night they decided to stay in Saint-Vith.
I notice a few nice houses – their inhabitants seem to have been evacuated. There is a garage attached to one of the houses where we put our car. Some soldiers have already been billeted in the building. After a look about we decide to take a room on the east side, opposite the front line. The soldiers have already lit a stove. There is wood and coal in the basement, and someone even finds a big bag of noodles.
Gregor and I go to the basement for water, as the taps in the house do not seem to be working. But there is no water in the basement either – the system seems to have been damaged. Instead we find shelves of preserved foods, such as beans, cranberries and even a large jar of preserved eggs. Should we take them or wait until everything gets smashed? Our buddies in the warm room are happy: today is cooking day – how eventful a soldier’s life can be.
But how to get water? Someone claims to know that there is water in the school building near the open place near the main street. We take a tub from the basement …
They made their way down the street in complete darkness, then noticed other people heading for the building.
Inside a large cellar some water is dripping from a stopcock connected to a main pipe, the pressure being only a little above zero, and we place our tub underneath. Some light from the side illuminates the basement. It takes a long time until the tub is half full and we can walk back to our billet. Again we have to cross that open place and turn right into the main street. All of a sudden there is some howling – rather short – and there is the impact. We flop down with our tub. We survive, but there is only a little water left in the tub. Never mind, that must do …
Everyone is happy when they see us entering the ‘living room’. Now we can cook. The dish is simple: noodles, cooked with ten eggs and cranberries. Delicious – particularly the cigarette afterwards. We get some mattresses from the bedroom and place them on the floor of our room in the back of the house. Soon we are asleep.
FIGHTER-BOMBER WEATHER
The next morning Rammes and the others headed for Rodt, but ‘this will be a clear day with a blue sky; fighter-bomber weather’.
Halfway, the engine suddenly stops. I open the bonnet: the driving pulley between the engine and the dynamo is broken. One half lies on the bottom of the engine casing: the pulley is made of wood! We push the car to the wall of a farm building for cover against aeroplanes. My three comrades start walking, and I remain with the car. The farmer’s wife is inside and we have a chat. She does not believe that the Americans will come back very soon …
In the afternoon my comrades come back from the direction of Rodt with an American track-type vehicle … It is too early now to drive back. To avoid the risk of air attack we wait until dusk.
Soon after they set off, they ran out of petrol. Then they discovered that the vehicle had two tanks, one ‘on either side, the left one empty, but the other one filled to the top’. The lieutenant sent one of the men to a nearby house to get a hose to siphon the petrol from one tank to the other. Meanwhile the others searched the vehicle:
After all, there must be some cock to change over the petrol infeed from one tank to the other … During my search I get hold of a few bars of cigarettes and fresh potatoes. Second Lieutenant Bauer and Gregor continue their search in the driver’s cabin. Then Caspar is back, a hose around his neck and both hands packed with big sandwiches … Soon the engine is humming again. Caspar has told me that there are nice young people living in the second house … We want to stay overnight … so we persuade the lieutenant … Everything is settled, so we park our vehicles outside the house as we want to be off early in the morning.
Rammes and his comrades made a good choice to stay indoors overnight. ‘It was a grim winter night,’ recalled Fritz Langanke, who was with the 2nd SS tank division ‘Das Reich’ near Odeigne.
Deep winter snow crunches under one’s feet. The frost is biting even through the winter clothes, and we feel as if we were in Russia.
Even so, his Panzer unit went on the attack.
The approach route leads through marshy shrub and woodland. We get stuck several times and it costs us lots of time. American artillery is spreading harassing fire over the area and target markers in the air to guide the enemy night bombers … It is much brighter than our plan allows, but unfortunately it cannot be altered.
They suffered for it, coming under concerted attack from anti-tank guns.
We have been hit more than twenty times and, as we cannot see the anti-tank guns, we decide to back up. Past our own tanks – one of which is still ablaze – we slowly roll back until we reach the point on the road where we had set out. In the end, our radio operator cracks up completely. He jumps out of the tank and must be taken to a field hospital … The shells have left deep marks on the bow plate. Amazingly it held out. Fortunately, the shells hit at angles which could not do too much damage … I also learn who was killed in knocked-out tanks. Among the dead are some close friends of mine with whom I spent a long stretch in the service. We all are in low spirits. Over our head, floods of bombers are flying towards the Reich. With a heavy heart and helpless in my rage I can only stare after them, full of despair … That was our last Christmas in that war. It was pitiless and it demanded the utmost of us. It suppressed any shimmer of hope because we came to realize more and more that the end and our defeat were already inevitable.
While Langanke’s tank was being battered by shells, Rammes and his comrades were settling in with their hosts.
They have two little children who have now to go to bed. And everything is as in peacetime, an oasis of tidiness amidst the battlefield. Soon dinner and drinks are served. The housewife opens jars of preserved black-pudding – unique! … We soon realize that our hosts are definitely pro-German … An unforgettable evening indeed!
Lieutenant Bauer gets his own bed. We three want to sleep on the kitchen floor on mattresses, which is arranged too. In fact, we are looked after as if we were their own children. Haven’t slept so well for a long time. In the morning we help clear the kitchen. Then we are given breakfast before we say good-bye. We make as little noise as possible in order not to wake up the neighbours.
Christmas Eve, when Germans have their Christmas dinner, found them near the front line.
Most members of the battery have joined in the celebration … The room is packed, but the atmosphere is good. A small Christmas tree with candles lights the room. Erich Beckeer of Völklingen, a baker by profession, has baked a large crumb cake – quite a change. There are many comrades whom I have never met before. Everyone is talking.
I am thinking of my parents. How are they getting along? I have not heard from them for quite a long time, and was unable so far to write to them, so they do not know my post number. In a way this is all rather depressing. How can a short hour of peace match with the reality of a cruel war!
On both days of Christmas, Saint-Vith is destroyed by American bombers. Malmedy was heavily bombed on 23 and 24 December, although that town had never been in German possession. Three raids carried out in error tur
n the place into a heap of rubble.
Elsewhere in the Ardennes, German soldiers spent ‘a rather sad Christmas Eve in their positions, only slightly animated by gifts from captured stocks of alcoholics’. Others, particularly staff officers, were better off, as General Heinrich von Luettwitz recalled:
Our Christmas was made happy by the number of K rations which were dropped over Bastogne, because a large amount of them fell into the area of my chateau. On Christmas day, I was able to issue two K rations to every member of my staff and to each of the Belgian children.
Lower down the chain of command, Emil Bauer also had a jolly time:
I have found a can of coffee and I make coffee for the company. The commander is happy. At night, the canteen bring some roast pork – Christmas dinner. Together with the four people of my crew I am sitting on the floor in a room of a farmhouse with a ‘Hindenburg’ light burning. We are singing Christmas carols and soldiers’ songs. I tell about the concentration camp. We talk about home. The soldiers’ hearts melt. The commander and the top sergeant come and wish us a merry Christmas and that it may be the last one of the war.
On Christmas Eve, C Company of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment assembled in a small woodcutter’s shack in the wood near Loseheimergraben in Belgium. ‘In view of the particular character of the evening, and also because of the cold, we have lit a fire which, taking into account the possibility of airborne observation, has to be very small, thus involving the development of much smoke,’ said Untersturmführer (Junior Storm Leader) Engel.
We remember our dead comrades and send our thoughts to our dear folks back home. But my thoughts also wander along to the woods beyond Büllingen and Bütgenbach and to the ridges around Elsenborn. Perhaps the boys from New York or Kentucky, from California and the Colorado River are having their Christmas services right now. Perhaps the commander of an American tank is cursing the war and the blasted krauts who have spoiled his quiet Christmas celebration in one of the snowed-up Ardennes villages. Others, a No. 1 behind an anti-tank gun or an infantryman on his outpost, may curse the cold or hum a carol or a boogie. Above all, they should be thinking of home – just as we do.
Despite the hardships, the Führerbegleitbrigade (Leader’s Escort Brigade) was feeling festive too. One of their number, named Meins, recalled:
Our infantry was actually smashed up – to say the least. Poor sods – I knew most of them from our time at Cottbus. Very few of them were older than eighteen. But on that day the fighter-bombers were obviously not keen on bothering us. Even the artillery spotter plane which, day by day, was hanging around overhead like a kite did not show up. This was a bright winter day and we were on the verge of dreaming of peace on earth. There was only one thing that detracted from this. From behind the corner of a building there protruded the long barrel of a 7.5 anti-tank gun controlling a road that led to Eschdorf.
Christmas brought with it a certain complacency.
We listened to the morning air and our first impression was that a group of Mickey Mouses was approaching … The jabbering became louder and turned out to be American. On the road a steel helmet of a shape we disliked became visible. More and more followed. An assault party of ten with their Tommy guns hooked up approached along the middle of the road. We waited motionless and Second Lieutenant Ovenbeck whispered: ‘Never saw anything more stupid during my whole time with the army.’ … Nearer and nearer the Yanks came, in Indian file, one after the other – it’s a wonder they did not sing. But they were loud enough anyway, obviously thinking erroneously that we had gone home to celebrate Christmas. But no such instructions had been issued to us – much to our regret.
In the meantime, the Yanks had advanced to a point close to our positions and a sharp ‘Hands up!’ terminated their stroll. Nine of them laid down their arms and lifted their hands, as requested. Only the leader of the group had a different view. Bringing his Tommy gun into firing position, he pulled the trigger and shots rang out from both sides. The second lieutenant of the anti-tank platoon was shot in the thigh. And now the two opponents had to be taken to hospital as fellow sufferers, while the remaining nine, accompanied by comrades from the anti-tank unit, march on into captivity.
This was the calm before the storm. It seems that American observers had watched their men being taken prisoner and ‘waited until their comrades were out of their firing range’.
The surprise fire came in all of a sudden and we thought this was the end of the world. During the previous days we had got some idea of the squandermania shown by the American artillery, but these season’s greetings definitely left behind everything we had experienced so far … The earth thrown up by the impacts formed something like a curtain – a horrid sight – steadily moving towards us … Obviously the Americans had not yet found out that ammunition can be handled in a more economic matter.
The Americans quickly overran their positions and Meins was captured.
The Yank told us to move to the road. At the moment we were going to move, I heard someone call my name, and I made the American understand that I had to look after a comrade. In front of the foxholes I found a comrade from our platoon who asked me to take him along. He was in an awful condition. A splinter had torn open his abdomen, one of his arms was smashed and one of his thighs was slashed. I tried to help him up, but he yelled in pain.
The American pushed me aside. Two shots into the head of the tortured comrade put an end to his pain. I was stiff with horror, and I could have strangled that brute with my bare hands! But things got even worse. We had to pass the other foxholes, but this time I simply could not look at the places holding the bloody remains of what had been human life.
When we arrived at the road, everything, including cigarettes and handkerchiefs, was taken from our pockets and stamped in the mud. They were not only Americans, but Poles with them too. After everything had been taken from us, we were ordered to move in the direction of Eschdorf. I had to march ahead, my comrade behind me, and we were followed by a gang of utter killers in American uniforms.
We had not even moved 50 yards when I heard a rifle firing at me. The bullet went through my clothes to the left. A second shot, and my comrade yelled with pain and collapsed. I stopped and slowly turned around; the chap lay at my feet. What now happened before my own eyes was simply unbelievable to me – the work of merciless criminals. Right in front of my eyes, Tommy guns were emptied into my comrade, and still today I see the blood-red bullet marks on his snow-jacket. Turn around, move on! At that time I did not give a dime for my life and waited for the bullet with my number on it. I have never been a coward, as anybody who knows me can tell. But with those killers behind me I soon learned what fear means.
Meins feared that his captors would throw him into a burning building or run him over with a tank. However, he escaped with his life and was loaded on to a truck and taken into captivity.
On the way, we passed one of our assault guns, or rather, what was left of it. It looked like a skeleton. Then we saw the American gun position in an open field, uncovered, gun by gun, arranged in a staggered pattern. Unbelievable, these masses of material! And what did we have against all this? The courage of despair? …
At Bastogne we, about 15 men, were put into a chicken pen. Obviously the building itself accommodated some staff. There was a Christmas tree behind one of the windows, reminding us that it was Christmas Eve … When the Americans dropped the remains of their meals into the dustbins, I was suddenly aware that we had not eaten anything all day long. I remembered the parcel sent by my mother which I had seen the day before in the company office.
But the company sergeant would not give it to him on the grounds that it was not yet Christmas.
LA GLEIZE
Karl Wortmann, commander of an anti-aircraft tank, had witnessed even more American ruthlessness during a counterattack against the small Belgian hill village of La Gleize the night before. His tank was hidden in a hollow, and he watched as the Americans brought up a large artillery piece.<
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Shell after shell follow at short intervals, and after the fourth shot the spire of the church subsides and crashes to the ground. This sends shivers down our spines. The church, school and all the cellars are full up with our own as well as American wounded. The civilian population have also sought shelter in the cellars of their houses. Right in the centre of the village … 164 American prisoners are also accommodated in two cellars.
According to the group’s commander, Waffen SS Colonel Joachim Peiper, the church was ‘conspicuously marked with the red cross because some rooms served as a clearing station’.Wortmann looked on helplessly.
Considering our short range and the good position we are in, it should not have been difficult for us to destroy the enemy gun. But without a single shell left, the best of positions and the closest of ranges are no good. Uninterruptedly, the Americans keep on firing deadly incendiary shells into the village. On this afternoon in December we witnessed La Gleize being completely razed to the ground … When it gets dark I try once again to reach the command post but smoke and rubble make any advance impossible. I am confronted with a dreadful sight. Comrades to whom I try speaking are hardly able to utter a single word. On the way back to my tank I remember my crew jokingly shouting after me, when I set out, to bring back something really good to eat. Thank God they have not yet lost their gallows humour …
The night that is closing in is going to be colder and some snow is falling. Freezing and starving we lie there in our foxholes. Of course, we must not fall asleep. Every now and then I doze off. Each night we have to spend out here seems longer and more unbearable than the one before. Then suddenly I do not know whether I am dreaming or really making out someone calling from a distance … I run towards the caller, saying ‘Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.’ I hear them repeating twice, ‘What’s going on? Christmas is tomorrow.’ I give the reply, ‘No, it’s right now.’