In the Fire of the Eastern Front

by Hendrick C. Verton

  France and Britain did nothing to help Poland. To allow Russia entry into Poland without intervention however, held a very large advantage for them in Europe. After all, their economy had not been endangered before those events. Russia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Wjatscheslaw Molotov declared afterwards, “an attack from the German Wehrmacht, followed by the Red Army, was enough to destroy what was left in Poland of the monstrous product of the Versailles Pact”.

  German and Russian officers shook hands when meeting one another on the agreed demarcation lines, just as the Russians and Americans were to do on the banks of the Elbe five years later. A joint German/Russian victory parade in Brest-Litovsk ended the Polish campaign. Then the suffering of the Polish people began.

  The Germans declared that their territory would be ruled under a ‘General Government’. With that, Hitler returned to the doubtful practice of ‘colonial politics’. The occupying forces ruled, just as the former Russian Tsar did, or as France had ruled Morocco as a protectorate. One could not speak of the freedom to vote or of a referendum. The Poles, having had enough of the suppression and injustice to German nationals, could not however escape the consequences. The continued existence of Germany, and the war which was to come, contributed to the hard régime in Poland under which they then had to live. That does not excuse it.

  The Soviet Union pushed their borders a further three hundred kilometres in a westerly direction, annexing to the east Brest-Litovsk and along the river Bug, being a vast area with a population of 12 million people. On ‘bestowing’ Russian citizenship upon the younger generation, the male citizens were then promptly conscripted to the Russian Armed Forces. The NKVD, Russia’s Secret Service, transported 1,650,000 of the population from that area to Siberia. There until 1942, 900,000 died. In 1940, there were already 15,000 Polish officers alone, in prisoner of war camps. They were shot. It was in the spring of 1943 that German troops discovered a massive grave area, twenty kilometres from Smolensk, in Katyn. It was the area where those Polish officers were buried and the blame was put at Germany’s door. That lie was deliberately nurtured until the early 1990s.

  After the “destruction of the most dangerous aspect of the Versailles Pact”, to quote Hitler, he made ‘moves’ towards Paris and London. With his suggestions for peace Hitler did not understand why France and Britain wanted to interfere in a military argument between two other countries. They continued with their declaration of war, which would escalate with worldwide results. Poland had to be used to suppress Germany’s competitors, was the ensuing political comment. “Was that so wrong?” was the question then asked.

  The French soldier was already tired of the war and it had really not begun. For them, politics were a fraud and they had no intention of ’dying for Danzig’. As the first allied British Expeditionary Forces landed in Cherbourg, in September 1939, the sum total of a reception committee consisted of one naval representative, two policemen, a couple of old ‘market women’ and a fisherman. There was not a hint of the ‘brothers-in-arms’ support, as was expected at that time. The higher ranks of the French Army, sitting cosily in their concrete bunkers on the Maginot Line, made jokes about the British. “The British will fight to the last soldier, the last French soldier”! They behaved as if there was no war and their Allied counterparts from over the water had the impression that the French had already acquiesced.

  The war now threatened Holland. At the end of August 1939, the government announced over the radio, as well as in the press and by distribution of posters, that special trains would take the assigned conscripts to their military designations ‘somewhere in Holland’. The morale of those soldiers was mixed, the best of which could only be described as ‘good’. Many thought that the measures were a false alarm and all hoped that Holland would be spared the shock of war, as it had been twenty years before.

  An ordnance officer had his hands full, his duty being to take the incomplete uniforms out of their mothballs for distribution. At first sight, the combination of uniform parts did not give a uniform fit for a soldier defending his country. Knitting committees were formed in every corner of the country to knit warm socks and gloves for the army. The absence of uniforms and weapons was a catastrophe, the soldiers wearing any sort of civilian hat and carrying wooden walking sticks for weapons, when on guard duty. Five days after reporting for duty, sailors belonging to five ‘older’ age groups, were sent back home, there being neither barracks, cooking facilities nor equipment for them. During mobilisation, the deficiency in qualified officers was very noticeable. The general disinterest in the Army, nurtured by the politicians, had not produced one single application for the Royal Military Academy in Breda during 1935–36.

  The Dutch protected the whole of their coastline with floating mines. The estuary of Zierikzee and Schiermonnikoog was closed to shipping, and the ferry service to Britain was cancelled. The Army placed explosives on all of the important bridges and strategic points on the easterly border. It was only when 100% completed did the population begin to feel a little safer behind their ‘water-line’, should the war begin earnest. The military however, began to doubt the measures of defence for their land, having been taken completely unawares by Germany’s ‘lightning’ attack on Poland. They knew next to nothing about Hitler’s newest weapon, his airborne troops. None of the western powers had airborne troops and only Russia possessed such units besides Germany.

  Far behind the Rhine, on the Maginot Line, with its impenetrable system of concrete bunkers, one had the sense of security. Strong men such as General Heinz Guderian, the designer of the modern and independent Panzer regiments, were few and far between, or non-existent. So Charles de Gaulle found no one to listen, as that young army captain also suggested this strategy of modern warfare. His commanding officers, staid and wary of new methods, declaring among other reasons, that ‘oil is messy, horse-manure isn’t’.

  No one from my family had been conscripted. My father had protected Holland’s borders in the First World War. So now he was exempt, as were Jan Adriaan Matthijs, the eldest of the six sons at 21, and Evert nineteen years old, because he was apprenticed in the Merchant Navy at that time. The other sons at 16, 13, 10 and 4 years old were of course too young.

  The whole family used to sit together in the evening sun on the terrace, throughout September 1939, to listen to the latest news issuing from the Bakelite radio that we possessed. We had no clue as to the future fate of the members of the family, as soldiers or civilians. How could we? We were part of a land which, apart from their colonial politics, had never been to war. Neither our father nor our uncle could describe to us how awful the reality of war was. So we found such reports sensational rather than fatal and we, in our naïvety, wondered at the ‘sporty’ achievements of this modern German Army. The continuous and very negative campaign against the Third Reich by the media, at that time, created a very defiant opposition in us, and in other young people too.

  The Dutch fought for their official neutrality, in the hope of being spared this war, and at the same time played with fire. It would appear that foreign Secret Service agents ‘romped’ around Holland. Its General Staff sought military contact with the Allies without knowing of such contacts. This did not escape Germany’s notice and they objected. They declared that France and Britain intended a military thrust to the Ruhr, using reconnoitred positions, not only in ‘neutral’ Belgium, but in Holland as well.

  It was after all an open secret that the French and British received reports about Germany’s Armed Forces from the Dutch General Staff, through its Intelligence Service. They had a very good source. He was Hans Oster, a Prussian Officer and a very influential major, but in counter-intelligence. He continually delivered to the Dutch Military Attaché in Berlin all the newest secret military plans made by Germany. However, he was always mistrusted by both the Dutch government and their Military Directorate. They could not envisage a Prussian officer betraying his fatherland and sacrificing the security of his comrades, but
they used him, with reservations. One commander-in-chief, General Winkelman described him as a ‘wretched traitor’.

  The ‘good’ relationship between Holland and Germany, as neighbours, suddenly clouded over. The German Secret Service kidnapped two very active British intelligence agents who were working in Venlo. They were whisked over the Dutch border into Germany in November 1939. They spent the rest of the war in a German prison. Meanwhile, Holland’s neutrality had been horribly damaged.

  Although Churchill, then Minister for the Navy, had done his best to encourage the neutral states of Europe and the USA against the ‘Third Reich’, many retained their good relationships with Germany. Sweden enjoyed very many good business contracts with Germany, much to Britain’s annoyance. Its iron-ore, for instance, was being continually transported by ship, to the south, using the Norwegian port of Narvik. After receiving no response to close their port to such transport, the British Navy mined the Norwegian territorial waters.

  A very critical situation then developed in Hitler’s headquarters. On one side there were those against extending the war in the north, but on the other side they were very dependent on the ore from Sweden. Secondly, Allied military bases there had to be avoided, at all costs. It was a race against time. Hitler won. He took the initiative on 9 April 1940 with his Weserubung campaign using his Wehrmacht. This ‘one-off campaign was brilliant in precision and audacity, being complimented with support from both Navy and Air Force. On his ‘journey to the north’ he beat Churchill by just a couple of hours, and occupied Narvik. Norway resisted, manning the 28cm calibre guns positioned in coastal batteries. But those were quickly overcome and the most important harbour was then occupied.

  In the next few days there was hard fighting with French and British troops who had landed, supported by exiled Polish troops and joined by Norwegian units. General Eduard Dietl, with a very mixed bag of paratroopers, mountain troops and sailors surviving their ships being destroyed, held his position for weeks, despite the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. It was not until the beginning of June therefore that the Allies withdrew their troops and Norway capitulated. Germany’s ‘spring to the north’ was successful by a hair’s breadth in preventing the Allies landing. Both sides violated Norway’s neutrality.

  The battle ‘under the heavens of the North Pole’ had ended successfully for Hitler, the Weserubung enforcing the undefended occupation of Denmark. Its government saw the uselessness of resistance and submitted to the forced ‘protection’ of the Greater Germany.

  While Belgium and Holland waited for an invasion from their easterly neighbours, Germany was worried much more about the ‘compliance’ of its western neighbours. They had allowed the Allies to march through their land to the Ruhr, rather than wait for an independent attack from them. Germany had to combat that at all costs. Both those countries made efforts to contact the secret services of the Allies. It was not only those efforts that strengthened the assumptions of the German leaders, but also the predominantly one-sided defence measures directed towards the east. At a later date, that assumption proved to be correct.

  Street plans could already be found in the department of National Defence, as to which main roads had to be evacuated for the smooth passage of French/British troop movements. Not only that, French regiments had already received provisional operation orders, in April 1940, for their advance through Belgium and Holland. The ‘Siegfried Line’, that wall of protection against France, was not quite completed. It ended at the Belgian/Dutch borders. The open flank offered itself as the area of concentration for the Allied Armed Forces.

  It was Duff Cooper, later Minister for Information in Churchill’s cabinet, who said, “We cannot afford to have any scruples. We must take any step necessary, and without consideration of the neutrality of the land”. At the same time, in the House of Commons, Chamberlain declared, “The campaign can take place anywhere else, as in the north, and with far more power and results. We British can distribute our attacks as and when we wish”. Hitler decided not to give his enemies the chance of any initiative.

  Plan ‘Yellow’ was being planned, designed to destroy the Allied Armed Forces within Europe, the main emphasis of that planned offensive being the ‘seam’ between France and Belgium, where the Maginot Line ended. To prevent the sequential access of the British into Holland, as in the case of Denmark, it had to be occupied. The breaking of ‘Rights of Neutrality’ were not considered by Germany, in view of the far from neutral behaviour, not only of Belgium, but of Holland as well. For the last time, and more than once in the evening before the offensive, the German Major from the Resistance informed the Dutch Military Attaché in Berlin, who in turn informed his government, of the exact time of the attack.

  The Hague gave the alarm and the Army put their last defence arrangements into action. They blew up their bridges, built road barriers with felled trees, closed their ports, and ordered their ships out to sea where they could hopefully avoid an attack. Along the coastline submarines waited in ambush.

  For the whole Western offensive, the Wehrmacht consisted of 89 divisions, amongst which were 10 Panzer divisions, with another 45 divisions as reserves. The Allies had 144 divisions, supported by Belgium and Holland, although with their deficiency of front-line experience, one cannot say that they could contribute much, their worth having been over-estimated. Although the German High Command held Holland to be a secondary theatre of war, 160 modern bombers and 240 fighters were to be used, in addition to transport planes. The Dutch Air Force as already mentioned, had a total of 170 machines, the majority obsolete. Their ground forces did not possess one combat tank which they could use against the Germans, not one.

  CHAPTER 6

  The War in the West

  Hitler started his ‘Plan Yellow’ campaign to the west, with the following speech to his troops. “The hour has come, for you, which will decide Germany’s fate. Do your duty! Go with the blessing of the German people”.

  On Friday 10May 1940, this major offensive took its course from the North Sea to the southern border of Luxembourg. Weather conditions had caused postponements on more than one occasion. The 19th Army, with its 22 divisions, was under the command of General George Kïchler. He had support from General Albert Kesselring’s Luftflotte 2, who positioned himself as the northern flank of the attacking force to the west, through Belgium to France. With the first morning light, at 5.30 am, German ‘summer time’, and in an early morning mist, the first advance troops marched over the eastern border of Holland.

  From their air bases in Westphalia, German bombers started in a westerly direction, at 1.00 am, in clear moonlight. The experienced pilots wove their way around Holland’s searchlights and anti-aircraft fire. In a northerly curve over the Ijsselmeer, they reached their objective. At about 3.00 am, at a pre-determined point, they turned in an easterly direction, in close formation, over the North Sea to Holland. An hour later they reached their destination, i.e. Holland’s westerly aerodromes. The transport machines, the Junkers 52, fully laden with paratroopers, had another destination, the important strategic cities of Dordrecht and Rotterdam.

  Nearly a year before, on 20 April 1939, on Hider’s fiftieth birthday, paratroopers filed past in a massive military parade in Berlin, marching past the High Command, as the Air Force’s youngest achievement. The world saw for the first time, this ‘élite’ troop in a new type of uniform. In military jargon they were called jump smocks, with aerodynamic steel helmets. A great many of the invited foreign military attachés present, at that parade, underestimated the efficiency of these troops in combat.

  Despite Holland’s military experts having seen the performance of Germany’s paratroopers in Narvik, they stated, “We will skewer them on our pitchforks, in mid-air”. The nearer the Junkers came to their target, the stronger the anti-aircraft fire became. For the heavy slow-flying aircraft, it was dangerous. Already with the first approach, there were casualties. The company leaders jumped first, followed in seconds by the whole
squad, the last man giving the cry of ‘Horrido’, and following his companions with the elegant spring of a fish out of water.

  Hundreds of parachutes blanketed the earth like a meadow full of over-large white flowers. Everyone was his own assault-leader upon reaching the ground, until later they stormed the most important bridges and aerodromes together. During this mission, many of those courageous young men sprang to their deaths. Although the majority carried out their orders, it was there that the ‘Green Devils’ suffered very heavy losses.

  Within the same hour, another Fallschirmjäger unit overran the 1,000 strong garrison within the mighty Fort Eban-Emael, in Belgium’s theatre of war south of Maastricht. Modern thinking held this to be an impenetrable ‘bastion’, at least from the ground. The Germans conquered the problem from the air, with two secret weapons. One was troop-carrying gliders, the other, 50 kilo hollow-charges to blow up the armoured defences, 25 cm thick.

  The Fallschirmjäger had started from their base in Cologne-Ostheim and were towed close to Aachen, landing silently on the roof the fort. Within 24 hours, that Stormtroop ‘Granit’ made the bulwark non-operational. With dare-devil courage, they put the most important key position of the allied defence system out of action. 1,200 Belgians were taken prisoner and the advance into the heart of France, through Belgium, could now take place.

  Many other strategies of war, some not so straightforward, were used to achieve a smooth passage, for instance, the removal of explosives from Dutch bridges. That was the immediate objective. The first groups, dressed as Dutch railway workers, went to work after dark. In other places, ‘Dutch Resistance’ escorted German ‘prisoners’ over the bridges, without being challenged. The Dutch suspected nothing.

  There was another case, called a ‘trojan-horse’. A commando group hid in the hold of a Rhine-barge, using the ‘down valley’ stream of the river Waal, to destroy the Nijmegan bridge. One cannot say that those methods were ‘fair’ tactics of war. The Dutch did not behave any better when opening fire on German soldiers waving a white flag, as they were approaching a bunker that they were guarding. ‘A la guerre comme à la guerre’. War is war, was the motto at that time.