by Georg Rauch
Oh yes, and I was on horseback those twenty-five kilometers, on five different nags! I feel like a seasoned rider now, one who knows all the tricks of the trade. The mud makes walking a torture. First you sink in up to your shins, and then you can’t get out again.
And so I, crafty old fox, organized a horse. Without saddle, naturally, just with a pair of narrow cords running somehow past the ears as reins. Of course, I don’t know the first thing about horses or riding, and it wasn’t until after the first three kilometers that I realized I was riding a pregnant mare who bucked and wouldn’t run.
Whereupon, without much ado, I went into a barn in the next village and took a different horse, and that one ran. That beast galloped, stood on its hind legs, and never went in the direction I wanted. But I stayed on him for about ten kilometers, until I spied another that I took to be quieter and more docile.
I changed horses once again and, what do you know, it walked quite peacefully behind the wagons, until an expert told me that it was a young horse, about two months old, and would collapse any moment. So I looked for the next horse and discovered shortly after mounting that it was limping. I finally arrived here with an old horse that had a runny nose, and after a few words of thanks, I took my leave of him with a slap on the rump.
Twice in the course of the day I was thrown, to the general amusement of all. I was rather amazed myself at the way I accomplished the separate stages of riding, from the slowest snail tempo to a full gallop.
All in all, it was a delightful experience: by the light of the moon, with a rifle on my back, just like an old cowboy riding over the endless fields. My thighs are pretty sore today though. When I have to walk, it’s with a sort of swagger. But I really slept well. In a few hours we are going up front to a bunker in the open fields. Then we’ll look like pigs again. But the front is quiet for the time being. I hope the mail gets through. I’ll write you again when circumstances permit. Till then, kisses and greetings to Pop,
Your Boy
On my twentieth birthday, I wrote the following:
Russia, February 14, 1944
Dear Mutti,
Please don’t be frightened when you see my writing. On a gear of a cable drum I ripped a hole about a centimeter deep in my right hand, just underneath the index finger. So I’m pretty clumsy, but otherwise I’m fine.
I was supposed to go up front with the company as radioman, but I couldn’t be transferred because of the injury. Maybe it is fate or my luck. The front continues very quiet here. Hardly a shot all day long. Those of us on the staff are headquartered in the last houses of the village. Here in Panchevo there is neither chicken nor cow. [Author’s note: Sometimes, against the regulations, I smuggled in the name of a town in the middle of a letter, in order to let my parents know where I was.] They were all eaten up by our predecessors. We are getting mail in masses now, every day a sack, but all old letters posted around Christmas or earlier. Writing is pretty difficult because the hole hurts quite a bit when I move my hand. Many loving greetings,
Your Son
Russia, February 18, 1944
Dear Mutti,
I’m not in the position of writing you such a positive letter today as the last ones have been. You mustn’t take what I write too tragically, since I’m considerably better off than most. Overnight it has become winter here again; that is, the true Russian winter. The temperature is running between ten and twenty-five below zero. You can barely move against the icy east storm. The ice needles tear your skin to pieces. You can see only three meters ahead.
Yesterday, in this weather, we marched for thirty kilometers. Left at 5 a.m. and reached our destination at about 11:30 p.m. Quite a few collapsed along the way and will be listed as missing. Probably somewhere in these unending fields they have frozen to death. One never knows. A few vehicles also disappeared. All that was left of us arrived here, more or less frozen.
“Here” is a kolchos. That is to say an enormous barn without windows or doors. Or rather, there are holes in the walls without wood or glass. Inside the snow is just as high as outside, and the wind howls, too. Way at the back are two rooms with a door, and these can be heated. Our battalion headquarters staff has holed up there.
The rest of the company just kept going forward to the trenches to relieve another unit. Then the night passed. I’m sitting here now in the morning at the switchboard, listening to the awful early reports: in every company some dead, many frozen, some suspected of self-inflicted wounds. Some just got out of the trenches and took off on their own.
Everyone else spent the whole night shoveling just to see the sky, since these two-man holes can fill up with snow in a matter of minutes. There’s been nothing to eat since yesterday morning, not even coffee. And so, the poor guys are lying out there day and night, slowly freezing to death. I also threw up four times last night, have diarrhea, and sat up all night on the wet ground near the drafty door. In spite of that, I feel like a plutocrat. Enough for today. Kisses from
Your Georg
February 19, 1944
Dear Folks,
A few hasty shivering words. The east wind howls through all the cracks. Your ninth package arrived today, with quince jam, tea, and cookies. Everything is so much easier when you’ve had a sign from home. Russia is so gruesome.
Continually, eighteen-year-olds with frozen hands are being sent to the rear. Practically nothing is left of us now. But I’m healthy and all right compared to the others.
A holiday in Russia.
About June or July I can count on leave, if I’m not already back by then. Be well and don’t worry. Nothing will happen to me.
10,000 Bussis [Kisses], Your Son
February 21, 1944
Dear Mutti,
I’m still sitting here in my kolchos. We’ve been working day and night for the last few days, trying to get this place halfway stopped up. Now, if we heat all day, it gets nice and warm. We’ve also found some straw for sleeping. You can’t imagine how much that means, when outside the eternal east storm is blowing. At least one can warm a meal, toast some bread, and chase one’s hundred thousand lice.
A sign on our door reads, “Wireless Station, No Admittance,” but many half-frozen soldiers, passing by for one reason or another, beseech us to let them come in and warm up for a few minutes.
Once inside they sit around the little stove, quite silent and thoughtful, and revel in the great happiness of having warm hands and feet once again.
One thumbed through his notebook and suddenly said, “Did you know that today is Sunday?” Each one then described, almost as if speaking of something holy and long past, what he had done at this time of the week before the war. The others gazed silently into the fire. Perhaps some of them let visions of something beautiful from home pass in front of their eyes and were able thereby to forget for a few minutes their horrible current situation.
Sunday, for most soldiers, is the symbol of good times and relaxation. Maybe I think a little differently, since Sundays for us passed by almost just like all the other days. The big dates that many dream of, the bars, variety shows, and movies, weren’t so common for me. Maybe I had things so good that I never learned to appreciate the true value of Sundays? But it doesn’t matter.
When the soldiers leave after a half hour or forty-five minutes, they have new courage and the feeling of having experienced a few very special moments. Their eyes are glowing again, and thus they return back up front to the trenches.
It was your seventh package, not the ninth, that I received yesterday. Fantastic, and there’s hope of more mail. I sent you 159 marks today. Otherwise I’m doing fine, at least more or less. Many kisses,
Your Georg
P.S. The front is quiet.
Russia, February 26, 1944
Dear Mutti,
Quite late yesterday evening some mail arrived, including the letter you wrote on my birthday. I withdrew to a quiet corner and read. Afterward I noticed that my eyes were quite damp. Perhaps it was wr
itten with too much love for the disposition of a presently wild and degenerate fighter.
One becomes pretty hard in every respect here, and there are only a few things that really go all the way to the heart. A protecting wall absorbs most things before they get that far.
But when a mother writes from the distant homeland of her love for her son, and of the extremely favorable balance of the last twenty years, that goes all the way inside, even during the strongest bombardment. So, afterward one has wet eyes. It could happen to anyone.
Today the sun is shining beautifully; the snow is starting to thaw; the trenches are turning into mud holes again. The wind is blowing through the broken doors and windows. No wood, nothing to eat but “water soup,” one loaf of bread for four men, and unsalted sausage. So currently not very rosy, but I don’t think we will be here much longer. Kisses,
Your Son
March 2, 1944
Dear Papi,
Yesterday a few others from the staff and I went to a variety show in the village. The so-called Spotted Woodpeckers entertained us wonderfully for an hour and a half. It was a Viennese comedian, magician, and musical group from the army broadcasting station, Gustav, one that travels back and forth putting on shows for the soldiers.
It was very strange for me, here in the middle of cannons and uniforms, to see someone in civilian clothing on an improvised stage. They provided us with a wonderful change, and we certainly didn’t regret having trudged five kilometers in the morass to see it!
The Russians attack continuously to the north and south, but it is quiet where we are. In return for that, though, we are in serious danger of being hemmed in again. Very little is left to eat, and that little is no good. Give everyone my best greetings,
Your Georg
At noon on the fourth of March, Sergeant Konrad called me to the switchboard, where he had spent the last hour and a half busily connecting the incoming calls.
“You and Schmidt go immediately back to the repair unit and pick up two radio tubes of this number.” He handed me a scrap of paper with some scribbling on it.
“Where is the repair unit?” I asked.
“Exactly twenty kilometers southwest of here, there’s a good-sized town. That’s where the regimental mess and the bakery are located. The railroad passes through, so probably they have all sorts of other backup supplies, too. You can’t miss it.”
Taking just our rifles and bread bags, we started off. The day was warm and sunny. The track was torn up and softened knee-deep from the military vehicles, but we discovered firmer ground on the edges.
I found myself hopping to keep up with Baby Schmidt’s incredibly long stride. Schmidt hadn’t earned his nickname because of his age alone. His eyes were baby blue, and his soft pink cheeks still hadn’t felt the scrape of a razor. He reminded me of a giant’s baby from one of those fairy tales.
That day I asked him, “Why did they take you so young, anyway?”
“I joined up voluntarily,” Baby answered.
“Humph,” I grunted. “You must already be sorry about that decision.”
His face turned red, and he didn’t answer for quite a while. Then he said, “My father fell two years ago in Yugoslavia. Partisans. My stepmother took over our farm in the Black Forest. She and I never hit it off so well, and my brothers had all been drafted already. There wasn’t anything more for me at home, so I joined up.”
I thought about how different we all were. To me, volunteering to be sent to a front like this was the next closest thing to committing suicide. But I kept my thoughts to myself and concentrated on checking my compass as we tramped on.
We took our time, and by late afternoon we reached a small town where a tank unit was filling up on gas. We also tanked up with monster portions of a good beef stew from the field kitchen and slept that night on a soft bed of grain that filled up half a room in one of the houses.
By noon the following day we reached the place where the repair unit was supposed to be. It was a large village, filled with soldiers from the various supply units. The artillery was on the move, and everybody seemed to be in a hurry.
“It looks as though they are all pulling out,” Schmidt commented.
I stopped next to a soldier working under the hood of a heavy truck. “Can you tell me where to find the radio repair unit from Division 282?”
“Sorry, I can’t help you.”
We asked a few more times, but without success. Even at the command post no one seemed to know. As the day wore on, it became increasingly obvious that everyone was preparing for a hasty departure.
That night we made ourselves comfortable in one of the officers’ quarters that had just been vacated. Before turning in, I said to Baby Schmidt, “We might as well head back to the front tomorrow. The unit we’re looking for is probably long gone. There’s no sense in searching any longer.”
The following morning the streets were almost deserted. Most of the units had left the village during the night. As we passed the last houses, I stopped abruptly and listened.
“Do you hear what I hear?”
“Ja, heavy artillery and other firecrackers.”
“Yeah, that, too,” I said. “Nothing else?”
We both stood listening for a moment, then took off in the direction of one of the houses. After stopping once more to listen, we circled the house and there it was: a makeshift wooden box with three chickens and a rooster.
“Looks like someone prepared those for a trip but couldn’t fit them into the taxi,” Schmidt said with a broad smile.
After a futile search for an old woman, we were obliged to kill, pluck, and boil the chickens ourselves. It took us all morning, but while the last two were cooking, I also discovered two horses. We rode away at noon, minus the radio tubes but carrying mess kits stuffed with chicken pieces and two gas mask containers full of hot soup.
Heavy battle noises drifted from the direction in which we were riding. After only five kilometers we arrived at a rear position held by an array of antitank guns, entrenched soldiers with bazookas, and a few camouflaged tanks.
Just a few minutes later I saw a mass of fleeing soldiers running in our direction. “Let’s get out of here,” I yelled to Schmidt. We pulled up and galloped back to the village.
By two o’clock we could hear that the Russian attack had come to a halt. Asking around, we managed by evening to find the bloody remains of our unit sitting in a ditch next to the road. I served up the four chickens, saving the tenderest pieces, as usual, for Konrad’s ulcer.
A little later a bumpy cart rolled past, and there lay Haas, his face contorted in pain. When I grabbed his hand to shake it, he flashed a wide grin that belied his wound. “A thigh shot. I’ve made it. The war’s over for me.”
I stood waving goodbye as the horse pulled the cart away. I wondered if he really had been shot, or whether he had finally put to use what he had explained to me numerous times in all the technical details.
Just a few weeks earlier he had said, “And don’t forget, if worse comes to worst you can always shoot yourself in the leg. Do it through a loaf of bread or a folded jacket. That way you don’t have to worry about suspicious powder burns.”
However it had happened, Haas had received his injury, and he had more than earned his trip home. I hated to see him go, and I felt more forsaken than ever.
I shouldn’t have felt quite so forlorn, however. A few days later it became clear to me that Sergeant Konrad had received word of the impending tank attack over the wireless and had purposely sent us to the rear for radio tubes to a unit that didn’t even exist. He had wanted to save Baby Schmidt, who was too young to die, and make certain that I, his private cook, was also safe from harm!
Russia, March 17, 1944
Dear Papi,
You simply can’t describe some things because the reader wouldn’t be able to imagine them: the war here in this most forsaken of all countries; the Russians to the north, northwest, east, south, southeast; the river Bug
seventy kilometers away, and us—a few sorry units where the staff is often larger than the number of fighting soldiers—continually struggling as much as possible to build a closed front.
Until two days ago the whole country was like soup where everything gets stuck and threatens to sink. By day we’re on the spot; that is to say, we build a front. During the night we wade fifteen to thirty kilometers in muck and goo toward the southwest. It takes us from six in the evening until 9 a.m., at least, just to gain a few kilometers.
Then there’s usually shortwave communication and shooting, and that’s why I’ve hardly slept a full hour for the last eight days. There’s only cold food, and not much of that. To drink? Ditto. The Russians are always close on our tails. The only hope is to get over the Bug as soon as possible, before Ivan really gives it to us.
If a vehicle gets stuck in the mud, it can’t be retrieved, because the Russians already have it. If somebody falls behind for one reason or other, Ivan has him. So we trudge, dead tired, hungry, with the feeling “If I collapse, Ivan’s got me.” The beards keep getting longer, the mood worse, and our strength less.
Since yesterday there has been an overwhelmingly strong snowstorm with temperatures under minus 20 centigrade. I’ve never experienced anything like it. This morning someone made a joke, and I wanted to laugh but was only able to produce a strange grimace. That made me very sad. I’ve always liked so much to laugh, and here I’m completely forgetting how.
Just now the Russians have broken into the left flank and are marching through with two battalions. The counterattack is in progress; the telephone lines are down, so I’ll have to get onto the wireless.