We left in the early hours, warm once more and reasonably rested, but not knowing where we had stayed. Perhaps it had been in Krasnaya or Korosvinska, or even Senskaya, for all the villages were called the same. In the snow they were not distinguishable one from the other. We wandered in no-man’s land for the whole of the next day and night, spending a few hours in another village, which was totally deserted. The houses were empty, but our common sense told us that the enemy could just as well use them for shelter against the bitter cold. So we spent a few hours in a burnt-out stall, on damp straw.
In this desert of snow, the only compass at our disposal was the sound from the Front, for there were no signposts. We made our way as best we could in the deep snow, our ‘march’ for want of a better word, being only ‘reasonable’. We were hungry and thirsty, which was noticeable in our slow performance. In return for our iron rations, which we had given to our hosts, we were given sunflower seeds by them as we left. That was now our only nourishment, which we washed down with melted snow. With our last strength, and believing that we were seeing a mirage, we reached a road. To our relief we stumbled on a German military bus. It lay rather slanted to one side of the road and the door was frozen, so that we could not open it. We scratched the frosty snow from the windows and looked inside. We saw German soldiers sitting in the seats, wrapped in blankets. All had their collars turned up to their ears, some sitting upright. Others had curled themselves together for warmth. Of the driver there was no sign. Had he sought help and not returned? Was he also lost in the snow? All had a somewhat strange, yellow pallor and there was no sign of life. But any help that we could have given was no longer needed, for rigor mortis had set in. We slowly realised that all had died in their sleep.
We left the scene, the metal coffin on wheels, shaken to the core and deep in thought. Our thoughts centred on the gruesome Front. But for those in the bus had it not been a gentle death? Our ‘odyssey’ eventually came to an end. We were given a lift from a munitions transport of troikas that were driving directly to the front. We were reminded of the Petersburg sledges, as we were given places amongst the straw-clad shells on the horse-drawn sledges. They were pulled to the next village by small Panje ponies, but without the usual jingle of sleigh bells. The village-well was well and truly frozen over. Next to it we found an extravagant wooden signpost which gave a wealth of information, including that our battalion was just 6 kilometres away on the main line of resistance at the Front They had been in defensive positions from the moment that they had arrived.
The terrain was flat. Now and again it was broken by small woods of birches. Our first assessment of our surroundings was broken with a shrill cry of “are you both tired of life, get your heads down!” We were in the sights of the enemy. We had sauntered into open positions where two comrades held guard behind a wall of snow. Our comrades showed us the company command post. The sergeant-major was astounded at the arrival of his two lost sheep. We were already on the missing list to be sent to the regiment. The greeting on our return was a very happy one. Our chums were eager to bring us up to date with the latest news. It was disturbing to say the least. Some of the battalion’s lorries had become lost in a snowstorm on the way to the Front. They had been taken prisoner by the Russians. After a counter-attack, our men, mainly the Norwegians, had been found beaten to death, and lay frozen in the river Oka. Our commander had been killed and we had many dead and wounded. Every man was desperately needed and Robert and I were detailed to reconnaissance. “Not even in battle, and you lose yourselves! Well then I can only say that you must be well rested,” was the comment from our platoon leader.
A recce was ordered at midnight and until then we could snatch a couple of hours’ sleep. Sleep, before our first battle? The tension of our baptism of fire however kept us very wide awake. Our assignment was to patrol a wood, lying to the east, in the sector of the 2nd Company, to see if it was free of the enemy. Punctually at midnight, twelve soldiers and a patrol-leader sprang from the foremost trenches in the direction of the enemy. The guards were informed, so that upon our return we were expected, and not fired upon by our own troops.
We were led by our corporal in the front rank, who had a machine-pistol and we followed with our rifles, at every two or three metres. It was freezing cold and a yellow-white moon shone brightly over the dark wood. No one spoke. Only the hard crunch of the frozen ground was to be heard under our boots, or the unavoidable snap of a twig or a branch or two, as we reached the wood. So far, so good! However, once or twice we fell into shell-holes that we hadn’t seen, for the woods were often the target, from both Germans and Russians. The night appeared to have many eyes. Our imagination told us that there was a ‘Red Army man’ behind every tree and bush. Despite the bitter cold, we sweated under our white ‘cammos’ as we pressed deeper into the wood. Every time the moon disappeared behind a cloud, a flare rose in the sky from the east, turning night into day and we instantly thought “we’ve been seen”! But as the magnesium light faded, the night appeared once more like a blanket over the wood.
We started to believe that the wood was free of the enemy, when suddenly a Russian machine-gun started to clatter into the night and we hit the ground, as red neon flares snaked over our heads. In panic, I tried to burrow into the stone-hard frozen ground and couldn’t. In that moment I no longer felt the bitter cold. I did however feel a dull thud against my intestines which released a frosty cold net over my skin. Was that already the end for me? Just as the war had begun? The next volley of shots brought a scream of pain from our platoon leader, who had been shot in the spine. That seemed to release our panic-stricken paralysis. In the blink of an eye, the men pulled them selves together and showed what they had learned and what they were made of. Either in lying or kneeling positions, and half hidden by the trees, we returned the enemy’s fire which came from every nook and cranny. We had probably run into a Russian platoon who had the same assignment, i.e. to confirm that the wood was free of the enemy.
I was given the order from the patrol leader’s second-in-command to fetch help for the wounded corporal. Like a hunted deer, I ran back to where we had entered the wood. In my haste I tripped over a fallen tree. In picking myself up, I looked into two lifeless eyes. It was not a fallen tree but a fallen Russian soldier. His eyes wide open, he stared from a yellow face into heaven, like a frosty ghost in the moonlight.
I arrived totally out of breath at the foremost trenches and nearly forgot the passwords. I reported to our company command post. Two medics then accompanied me to the wounded corporal, who between times had lost consciousness. We tied our comrade on to a Finnish sledge, i.e. a slightly formed sledge without runners, and transported him as quickly as we could to the battery’s first-aid station. However, he died from his injuries that same night.
The inferno of our baptism of fire was constant, so constant that we became somewhat more composed each and every time. That did not mean to say that it did not bring new sorrow, each and every time. The question that I asked, and many others too when they were honest enough to admit it, was “will I pass with flying colours?” The question was now pointless, invalid, for the war was an examination, each and every day.
The words from General Guderian, the Panzer General, were to “get on with the job and don’t mess around!” His words no longer applied. For those who found themselves in the central sector of the Eastern Front did not have the luxury to “mess around”. The battle for Moscow was lost, for us as well as those who were situated between the Orel and the Don. One could say that the victory had frozen to death.
Those in power in the Kremlin now shared the opinion that the German Army would suffer the same fate as Napoleon and his troops, in face of the severity of nature’s elements, which they themselves had never experienced. Although the view over the snow-covered steppe was without end, the German soldier of course, only saw what was happening in his own sector. We, in December of 1941, did not know that German soldiers in that sector would have to
fight for their very existence.
Relevant military knowledge concerning the conditions of the fighting soldier in Russia was non-existent. We ourselves could draw from no similar experience or imagination from any such country. It stretched without end into a mist and was occupied by a race of people whose name told us nothing. Only two experiences were at hand from the past and from history. Firstly, there was Napoleon’s lost victory in Russia and secondly, Russia’s own performance in the First World War. Both wars confirmed the reality of fighting in winter using huge concentrations of men.
Also in masses, came the fresh Siberian and Mongolian regiments who stormed our thinly-defended lines. Dressed in thickly wadded jackets, with fur collars and insulated boots, they crawled to our foremost trenches in the night. For us the war was reduced to fighting from one village to another. There were no possibilities of cover by day or by night. To dig-in would have been pure decimation, in that winter, for us very poorly-equipped troops.
The defensive actions of December 1941 followed an unusual direction of waves and curves. One of our company officers showed us on a map where we were to be found. It was at the furthest point in the east and we believed him. We heard names from him such as Yelez, Yefremov, Russki-Brod and Voronezh, but whether they lay to the east or west of our left or right flank, only he knew.
Our regular winter clothing had still not arrived, so any blankets or furs that we could lay our hands on were temporarily used to keep us warm. Everyone wore every piece of clothing that he possessed underneath his summer coat. But not even such well-used and worn-out uniform gave us enough warmth. The longer we had to lie on the deeply-frozen ground, the quicker the frostbite nibbled at our limbs. When our wounded could not be attended to quickly, the sooner they froze to death. We took that impossible situation into our own hands and organised Valinskis, the Russian insulated felt boot, the felt being as thick as carpet. Our Finnish brothers-in-arms could only shake their heads at our hob-nailed leather boots that were always frozen hard and told us that we might “ just as well run around in the snow in your socks.” So at the rear of the front-line, the German soldier made himself shoes from straw. We didn’t even have fur headgear, and a thin balaclava was all we wore underneath our cold, steel helmets.
In Germany, fur articles and other suitable equipment were requested. The call was answered by the people, who made sacrifices of useful and practical articles, in the belief that they would help the ‘boys at the front’ when delivered. Unfortunately very little of it was, although there were mountains of articles in the collection centres. That ‘little’ proved to be just a drop in the ocean.
After continuous combat, the regiments on the front were reduced to a third in numbers. The frost reduced those remaining. The loss through frostbite was higher than through combat. “The total loss on the Eastern Front, up to December 1941, was 750,000 men which equalled 21.5% of the collective strength of three and a half million soldiers. Every fourth soldier was missing, wounded or fallen.” Paul Carrell gave the figures in his book Barbarossa. At the end of that year, another 65,000 could be added because of contracted infectious diseases from lack of hygiene, resulting in typhoid fever, nearly 800 dying from it. Stomach and bowel ailments were also rife as well as severe influenza. Frostbite however topped the list. The number of frostbite cases at the end of February, totalled 100,000.
The Soviets also had very heavy losses, but in their case they had more than enough reserves. The Russian soldier, in contrast to us was a very modest soldier, which was illustrated by his daily diet. A bag hung on his belt in which were millet heads which when mixed with water made a porridge. He carried dried fish with him as iron rations. It was swilled down when eating, with high percentage vodka from his field thermos, which he drank at any other time of the day too. He rolled his cigarettes in newspaper, using very course-cut tobacco, Machorka, which included the stalk of the leaves. In the matter of suffering in inhuman conditions, the Russian soldier was enormously tough. When fighting, he could and did endure far more than any other western army. “The Eastern Front was a nightmare for the German soldier. The Russian enemy fought like primitive, soulless robots, their patriotism and Bolshevik ideals not to be easily destroyed like bursting soap bubbles. The Russian commanders accepted the responsibility of monstrous losses in battle without a second thought. Their soldiers fought to their last breath, often committing suicide rather than being taken prisoner. In a hopeless situation for instance, the Russian infantry adopted the practice of 17th Century grenadiers. They formed a suicidal rank, advancing in front of the enemy machine-guns, collecting together to form a new row behind the bodies of their dead, to advance repeatedly, to the last man, or last bullet from the German machine-guns”.
The war with the Soviet Union, and the form with which they directed it, escalated and surpassed all cruelty and hardship experienced in any former combat since 1939. The target was the total destruction of the enemy, a capitulation without conditions, within the framework of doctrine and structures. Our naked existence was the price. Hitler described it as the biggest crusade in world history, resembling the German crusaders, who had fought the hordes of Genghis Khan in Silesia. That we could fight such an unrelenting enemy with the motto “it’s you or me!” was thanks to the truncheon-hard training that we had received.
Very soon we learned that the Soviets would shoot any prisoners that they took. When thinking about falling into their hands, it gave us nightmares. They had refused to sign the Geneva Convention agreement of 1929, pertaining to certain conduct towards prisoners of war.
When the sun shone in December, which was rare, we felt the pangs of homesickness, as it disappeared in a red sky on the horizon. Many a German soldier on his patrol or standing guard in his cold and icy trench, said a quiet adieu to his loved-ones, in his far-off distant homeland. Burning wanderlust had turned to homesickness, which was no wonder, for that land, for us, was the end of the world, as civilised people.
Nearly every day, the frosty countryside was covered in a mist until about 9am. Daylight appeared only at around 11am, and at 4pm it was dark once more. So, late in the afternoon, we no longer fought to advance, but to find a warm place for the night. That would be in a blockhouse of a farm. Only then could we survive the 30 to 50 degrees below zero temperature. In those days the infantryman overcame problems that he had not practised before. In his hour of need, in order to survive the night, he had to overcome his dislike of entering a village after dark. His needs were for cover and warmth. However primitive the blockhouse was, with its clay-soil floor, it was cover, and it offered warmth from a wood-burning fireplace or oven, a Pyetschku. Those primitive houses, no more than large wooden huts with one large room, more often than not where the whole family slept, no longer disgusted us, as they had before the frost appeared. To us they were lifesavers, fleas or not, and in battle we tried to protect them, like our eyes! After a cold patrol or guard-duty, we no longer minded if a mouse ran over the floor. We were warm in one of those houses belonging to a ‘collective’ farming system. With the sour aroma of a pumpkin soup when being cooked, we knew that our blood flowed as usual and that there was still life in our joints.
The whole family slept over the oven, covered in tattered blankets. The oven being four and a half feet high was made of clay, had an alcove over the fire itself, and dominated the room. Straw was spread over the floor for our benefit which was where we slept. If a small child belonged to the family, its cradle was slung from the ceiling and so it swung over our heads. Despite conditions from the Middle Ages, and the war, one could say that it illustrated an idyllic scene, binding two peoples together.
In our thatched house, the eldest daughter, perhaps not twenty years old, suffered under our presence. Her national pride, bitterness and privation had made the fine Asian features of this lovely girl hard. Her name was Annuschka, she was a teacher and was the only one who spoke a little German. She didn’t try to hide her Communist convictions but didn’t shout
about it either. Only when we began to speak about the misery in that Soviet paradise, did she abruptly cut short our conversation, saying that she didn’t understand what we had said. She was, at one and the same time, mistrusting and curious of us, the Germanskis, who were of the same age. We asked ourselves if she was actually the daughter of the family or a partisan who had been planted into the family. As inexperienced as we were, we would not have noticed had it been the case. What we did notice was, that under her patched and wadded jacket, she had a lovely figure and our difficult Annuschka let us know. She had beautiful dark hair, which we saw when she didn’t have her white headscarf on her head, and she stole soulful, longing glances at us, with a brief smile. At least that is what we imagined.
Our hosts always profited when our daily rations reached us, if they reached us. It was all too seldom however. In such weather conditions the supplies always came to a standstill, for various reasons. Columns of lorries could only be pulled behind tracked vehicles over roads that were like ice-rinks. Our warm meals came from the battalion’s field kitchen. Usually a stew, it was carried on the back, in a double-sided canister, or by sledge pulled by Panje ponies to the front-line. In some cases, it was a long way, isolated and dangerous and many a Russian soldier was provided with our meal, the carriers having been shot up on the way. Our daily ration was much better than when we were in training. It consisted of 650 grams of bread, 45 grams butter, or other fat, 120 grams of cheese, 120 grams of fresh meat, 200 grams jam or artificial honey, 10 grams chicory coffee and six Juno cigarettes, which we could so seldom enjoy.
There are three very descriptive words connected to war, which need no supporting vocabulary when being used, such as expulsion, evacuation and refugees. All are connected to the apocalypse of the Twentieth Century, for the poorest of huts is a home. To have that taken away, belongs to the hardest of fates that anyone has to endure. For soldiers like us who had become nomads of the Steppe, separated from the outside world and with seldom a chance to make a telephone call, our quarters had become no less than provisional shelters.
In the Fire of the Eastern Front Page 11