by Japanese;Italian Experiences of WW II Reaping the Whirlwind: Personal Accounts of the German
When the morning came, I asked the battalion’s doctor to arrange for the transportable wounded to be transferred back to the regimental aid post as soon as possible … Those able to walk or limp went on foot, while the rest were carried on stretchers. As I had lost plenty of blood, the doctor had given instructions to move me on a stretcher … Then we approached the place where the artillery fire had been heavier the night before … I ordered the transport to stop and explained to all the soldiers that it was now essential to cross this section as fast as possible after the next burst of fire … I ran, holding the side of the stretcher for support … I immediately went to the regiment’s command post to inform Colonel Lemcke of my injury. He gave instructions to get his car ready to have me and my wounded messenger taken to the central dressing station … I asked the corporal of the regimental staff to get my American kitbag from the company HQ where I kept my ‘treasures’ – such as my American quilt, coffee rations, US food rations, cigarettes and the like, all things from US supplies.
On the way to the central dressing station of 12th Volksgrenadier Division, we had again to pass the street crossing under American fire. This little game had become routine work to the driver. When we entered the central dressing station of the 12th VGD, we heard that it was being transferred to another place and that wounded could only be taken in the following day … We moved on to the rear and, some time later, passed the central dressing station of the Waffen-SS. My upper arm was bandaged and the medical orderly had said that medical treatment was a matter of extreme necessity … A doctor took care of us immediately. After he had taken off the bandage and examined the wound, he said that it looked rather bad and that an X-ray examination and an operation were needed. I was so thoroughly down that I took only a weak interest in this. Before I was undressed I asked that all my belongings be put in my American kitbag after wounded soldiers had told me things were stolen at dressing stations and military hospitals … Some time later I was given an injection which carried me into the land of dreams. When I woke up, I found myself back on a stretcher in the corridor. Jackboots passed in front of my eyes. I dozed off a few times, before I realized where I was. My first reaction was to grab for my left arm to find out what had been done for my injury. Horrified I found that there was a dressing, but no arm. It came like a blow that I realized that due to the shell splinter I had lost my left arm. In a way, I refused to believe that this was so, because up to then I had still been able to move the fingers of my left hand … I feel certain that, had I only been treated at the division’s dressing station, my arm would not have been amputated.
After I had mentally overcome the fact of this arm amputation, my life spirit woke up again. I remembered my wristwatch which I had on my left arm, so I asked a medical orderly to have a look at the severed limbs to find my watch. He returned some time later to tell me that the watch was in the left breast pocket of my tunic, the doctor had told him. I asked him to open the kitbag beside me and to find the watch. He found the watch, closed the kitbag and with a feeling of relief I fell into sleep again …
I and some other wounded were placed on a lorry which was cushioned with straw bags, and we were taken to the rear area. The journey seemed endless, the roads became worse and worse, and the bumping of the lorry became more violent and more frequent. The wounded beside me groaned more often, and later started yelling with pain. I called for the medical orderly who was sitting beside the driver, but he showed no reaction. Only after I threatened to fire my pistol into the driver’s cabin, the lorry stopped. The orderly told me that the driver was lost. I told him to stop at the next dressing station and to have the heavily wounded taken care of.
After a few kilometres we arrived at an SS dressing station close to the front line … Artillery fire could be heard and we used an empty food tin to urinate. Beside me was an American second lieutenant lying on a stretcher. He received the same treatment as us and was looked after by the nurse. My dressing was renewed … Although the nurse did her job with extreme care – almost with tenderness – I was beginning to see stars. When the doctor noticed this, he gave me a glass of brandy which helped. As soon as a fresh supply of petrol arrived, we were taken to a military hospital on the Rhine. From there a hospital train carried me to a general hospital at Oberfrohna near Dresden.
SABOTAGE
Overwhelmed by the Allies’ munitions, the Germans also had equipment problems of their own making. On 10 January 1945, Obergrenadier (Private First Class) Alfred Freund was with the 12th Volksgrenadier Division, when his company received two new infantry guns, straight from the factory.
‘Thank God,’ exclaimed the gunners. ‘This is an end to the constant bumming around.’ … During the inspection, the soldiers find that the spirit bubbles are missing from both guns. ‘These idiots,’ yells Stabsgefreiter Ide, ‘that is sabotage.’ Without the spirit bubbles the guns cannot be regulated vertically or horizontally. It is a great pity for all the money spent on the guns. The missing spirit bubbles that cost only a few marks make the guns useless. This makes front-line soldiers lose their courage to see things through. Another reason for cursing the whole war. But what is the use of that for ordinary soldiers. They have to continue holding out their neck for the fatherland.
Gunther Holz bemoaned the lack of ammunition.
While our batteries had to cadge for a couple of shells, the enemy supply units drove to their vast supply depots and woe betide the depot commander if he failed to make the required quantities available at once. Where our gunners fired 100 shells, 2,000 shells were fired back from the other side and what we called co-ordinated fire was normal harassing fire in the eyes of our opponents … From morning till evening American fighter-bombers dominate the sky, firing at anything that moved, no matter whether a vehicle or a single man. Only full cover and not the slightest movement ensured survival. In addition bomb carpets are dropped by small units of 20 to 30 four-engined aircraft on recognized troop concentrations.
By mid-January, the Germans were faced with a full-scale counteroffensive, as Obergrenadier Freund recalled:
During the night before 13 January 1945, the Americans shot as much as they can. The shells fell within the German lines. There was a hell of a noise. The soldiers were lying underneath the tanks or have found shelter elsewhere. The Americans want to fire a lane into the German front in order to get east faster. Someone screams: ‘Enemy tanks.’ Everyone shoots as much as they can … The night is as light as day because of the exploding shells. Everybody is nervous. A German tank drives over a poor soldier. Some soldiers lie in the trench and lower their heads. Though all the rattling and cracking, Paul suddenly hears a scream. He turns around and sees one of our own tanks standing in front of him. It had driven right over the legs of some poor fellow. Half an hour later the uproar is over. It gets quiet again. Carefully, everybody who is still alive crawls out of the foxholes. The wounded are bandaged and carried off. The other soldiers inspect the whole area. Behind a hedge eight killed Americans are lying … The dead are searched for something to eat. The soldiers are always hungry and the supply does not work at all. Regular meals have been a thing of the past for some time. Whoever finds anything eats it. The Americans had enough on them. Dry bread, tins of all kinds and even toilet paper are in the combatants’ packages.
Everywhere around him Freund witnessed the randomness of death.
A direct hit struck the command and reconnaissance vehicle. Three men were killed at once. Private First Class Kessler was alive, but shaken. He stood there white as a sheet. Death can pass you by so fast.
Four men were sent to bury them.
The command and reconnaissance car was at the crossroads. The three dead soldiers were lying next to it. Han said, after he saw his killed comrades: ‘They have had an easy death. Nobody had to suffer.’ Shell splinters had cut off the head of Master Sergeant Preiss … He was a good guy, but that does not count in a war. Corporal Wachter’s head was smashed and there were lots of holes in his
coat. The man had a foreboding about his fate … On the night before, he had said: ‘I will not see my family again, nor my Saxon home.’ ‘Why should you not survive the war? We all still have this hope at least,’ Paul interposed. ‘No, I can feel it.’ ‘It will turn out all right,’ said another soldier. ‘No, not for me,’ was his point of view. He survived this discussion by a few hours.
There was no time to mourn. The very next moment shell fire may start and then there would be even more dead and wounded … In a small village graveyard the three soldiers dig a grave. They put the dead into it and have a short memorial. More ceremonies are not foreseen for front-line soldiers. The soldiers shovel earth back into the grave and the war continues … One less day at the front. But how much is one day?
Obergrenadier Freund and his comrades now knew that they had no hope. Only horror awaited them.
The beaten troops move though a wood on the hillside. Suddenly, enemy tanks appear on the opposite slope. The soldiers move further into the woods where they will be fairly safe. At least the infantrymen think so, but it is a mistake. As soon as all the German soldiers are in the woods the shell fire starts. Screaming and crying for help is all over … Second Lieutenant Fetten and Paul walk along a farm path. Then there is a terrible crack close by and everything is over. How long the two of them lay on the ground they could not tell. Paul hears the second lieutenant calling: ‘Lange, Lange, do help me. It has knocked off my leg.’ Paul struggled to his feet. He was hurt too … The boy takes out of his coat pocket the extra leather belt he carried for the purpose and ties it tightly around the right leg just below the knee … Perhaps the belt will save the life of the young second lieutenant…
‘I cannot carry you any further,’ said Paul. ‘I am quite hurt myself.’
‘No, just see to it you get away. I shall try to crawl to the village. Here I would freeze to death,’ said the lieutenant.
Paul tried to get up and follow the other soldiers, but the front part of the shoe on his right foot is not under his control. The foot must be shot to pieces. There is no time to have a look at it and there is no medic available. Everyone is fleeing. After a few hundred metres, Paul throws away his gas mask, steel helmet and field bag. Everything is just too heavy. Since getting wounded he has not seen his rifle and has not even thought of it. A few soldiers take him and he puts his arms around their shoulders. Then they march on towards the next village. An SS unit is posted there … As soon as all the wounds are dressed, Paul hobbled to a straw bed to wait … The medics left him, saying that he will be picked up in the evening. If it is the Germans that come, everything is okay. Should the Americans come and find him, it cannot be helped either.
6
GöTTERDäMMERUNG: THE DEVASTATION OF THE HOMELAND
‘In the last moment, by a miracle as it were, the Germans managed to stop the onslaught of their enemies at the very borders of their Reich …’ said Colonel Guethner Reichhelm. But it was a mere hiatus. The Wehrmacht’s stiffened resistance merely postponed the inevitable. As early as 23 December 1944, it was clear that the Ardennes offensive had failed. The Germans attacked again in the east on 12 January 1945. But in tanks alone they were outnumbered seven to one and on 20 January Soviet soldiers set foot on German soil. The V-1 and V-2 failed to be the war-winning weapons that had been promised. Now Colonel Reichhelm and his comrades had to face up to reality:
It could be foreseen that, as soon as spring 1945, Germany was to break down, if something extraordinary did not happen. But the German soldier went on fighting. He did no more cherish any ideal, but, in most cases, he seemed to have still a certain remainder of faith in Hitler. The point, however, that mattered most was this: the German soldier fought because he had nothing more to lose and because he was looking for his last chance. Already, by autumn 1944, there was scarcely a German family that had not lost one of their dearest relatives or that had not been bombed out and lost everything they had.
In Romania, Herbert Winckelmann could see only one possible salvation:
To me, only a political event – a change of government – could save us from catastrophe. But this had been an undiscussible subject due to the Nazis among us who still had the power to terrorize us even up to the last day. As a soldier, I fulfilled my duties just as my comrades did, convinced that one had to defend and save our country from Communism …
Our army commander, General Schoerner, aware that we would not cross the American lines overnight, abandoned his command post and fled into Austria to avoid becoming a prisoner of the Russians. This was the man, or better Hitler’s lackey, who had just days before ordered soldiers to be hanged for having tried to reach the American lines on their own. It was disgusting to watch how the Third Reich died. None of its leaders came to the foxholes to defend it to the last man as they had promised. They all abandoned their posts and fled, afraid of being held responsible, or cowardly died by suicide.
Winckelmann observed the collapse of morale:
Some, unable to come to terms with the disastrous situation, broke and committed suicide. One example was Lieutenant Stolz, a squadron commander in his early 20s. He was the youngest lieutenant in our regiment and had grown up through the ranks of the Hitler Youth. He had been a good soldier as well as a comrade with a promising future. But he had been blinded by Hitlerism and now what he had believed in had fallen apart. In his desperation, he shot himself.
Eduard Bodenmüller was the commander of a Panzer Mk V Panther tank in Poland when the final German counterattack stalled in March 1945. His crew were repairing a track when Russian ordinance started raining down:
Our driver, radioman and loader dived underneath the tank. I and my gunner got inside the turret. The crescendo of exploding shells rose to such an intensity that it was obvious that we were now deluged with shells [rockets] from a ‘Stalin Organ’. Suddenly another terrific crash and our 49-ton tank shook violently. Either we had received a direct hit or a bomb had landed a few metres from us … The enemy fire died down and it struck me as odd that we had not yet heard from our comrades under our tank. Then, suddenly a weak voice from outside cried out: ‘Help! Help! We’re wounded.’ I grabbed the first-aid kit and box and with one leap I was behind the tank next to my wounded loader.
I took my knife and cut open the back of his tattered and blood-soaked jacket. Shocked, I saw a wound 150mm long, very deep. With every breath he took, blood came gushing out. My gunner came with all the wash-cloths he could find in the tank. I stuffed several of these into the wound to help slow down the loss of blood. We looked at him and knew that he had only minutes to live.
Paule stayed with him and calmed him, saying he had only been hit by a small shell fragment. I began to look for the others. Two pairs of feet stuck out from under the tank. I grabbed one pair, but to my horror I saw that it was only the lower half of my radioman’s body. I had the urge to throw up, but overcame it. I crawled under the wagon, grabbed onto a meaty, bloody mass and pulled the completely mutilated body out. There was nothing I could do.
His driver was also dead, ‘split in half from his head to his pelvis’.
When Bodenmüller radioed his commander, he was told to remove the radio equipment and destroy his tank. He and Paule, the gunner, decided to disobey orders and held off the Russians until a tank recovery vehicle turned up. On the way back to base, he spotted Lieutenant Grosse and his crew bailing out of a mechanized assault gun that was now on fire.
I ran over quickly to see if I could extinguish the burning vehicle … Once I had gotten within a few metres of the assault gun, I noticed that only the camouflage netting, draped over the top of the vehicle, was on fire. Other than that there was nothing wrong with the vehicle. I took the fire extinguisher and put out the still smouldering netting. Then I climbed into the driver’s seat, started the motor and drove at top speed following the route the recovery vehicle had taken … My commander charged Leutnant Grosse with cowardice before the enemy and ordered him court-martialled. The rest of th
e crew was sent to a penal company. Then he turned to me and said that I too ought to be court-martialled for failing to follow his orders.
Instead Bodenmüller was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, promoted, and granted five days’ leave in the Divisional R&R area.
I did not accept the latter offer and instead I requested that the maintenance section repair my tank and that I be given new crew members so that I could return as soon as possible back to action.
A day and a half later Bodenmüller was back in the thick of it. Meanwhile, the Fatherland was bracing itself for the final onslaught. This was witnessed by World War I veteran Wilhelm von Grolmann. In May 1943, he had been appointed ‘president’ of police in Leipzig, the proud home of the Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon, and director of air defence. At the time, the former Nazi stormtrooper claimed that there was very little ‘crime and venereal disease’ in the city, although some of the 80,000 ‘foreign workers’ in the city had formed themselves into ‘burglary gangs’.
The smallest and, at the same time, the most important defence unit in the civil air defence was the house block, which might be compared to an infantry regiment. The children, old men, and women in the house block must be systematically trained to take prompt and courageous action, to treat injured persons and, especially, to handle incendiary bombs. Sufficient supplies of water and sand must be available in every house. Air-raid shelters with emergency exits, openings in the wall between neighbouring houses and attics cleared of potential fire hazards are obvious measures. Children who can run up and down stairs quickly and who know every corner of the house from their games have prevented many catastrophes by throwing burning incendiary bombs out in the street and by putting out smouldering fires. If several smaller fires are allowed to develop, there is danger of an area conflagration, and several such large-scale blazes may cause a fire storm. Once this happens, the situation is hopeless. Those who manage to escape death by burning or by being crushed under the masses of debris, simply asphyxiate.