Stalin’s strong arm, the T34, surprised and fascinated the legendary Panzer General, General Guderian. With its low silhouette, it melted into the battle area very well. The track, which was half a metre wide, ‘tramped’ through the toughest bog, while the German Panzer IV with its 36cm, protested and stopped. The Russian tank was strong and robust but manoeuvrable. However, above all else, it moved over snow and soft ground without any problem. It was the best construction of its time. Not even the ‘Panther’ or the ‘Tiger’, which came off the production line a year later, could compete. The T34, with its 45-60cm-thick plating, and its high performance was unmatched.
Like David with his sling, we, as infantrymen, had to deal with Goliath using other methods. When in the trenches we were surprised by such opponents, we simply let them roll over us. When we emerged whole from that exercise, we then had to deal with their accompanying grena diers. We had to try to destroy the ‘giant’ from behind, and in close combat. With nerves of steel, combined with mortal fear, it often worked. But often it was under very heavy losses.
All of the divisions, corps and armies of the Waffen SS were commanded by the Armed Forces. Although they were not one iota better equipped than the Wehrmacht units, a top performance was expected from them. They were used as trouble-shooters mostly, or as ‘firemen’, who extinguished the ‘fire’ and saved whole sectors of the Eastern Front. Enormous losses were the price. “Half-way through this war, a third of these classical Waffen SS divisions lay under Russian soil, and this organisation was burnt to cinders”, to quote Heinz Hohne in his book, Der Orden unter der Totenkopf.
It wasn’t any different for us. Some very hard weeks lay behind us, as gradually the winter began to lose its grip. The countryside was still white, but the temperature became bearable. At the end of January and beginning of February, the long-promised winter clothing arrived from home. It included fabulous fur hats, padded jackets, thermal boots and warm woollen pullovers, as well as balaclavas knitted in haste and faith, by the girls and women at home. But all of it arrived far too late.
In his diary for 23 February, General Halder, Chief-of-Staff wrote, “today was especially quiet”. Perhaps it was in the HQ in East Prussia, but certainly not in our neck of the woods. It turned out to be an especially bloody day, with the Red Army attacking our lines with everything they had. It was also the day that my friend Robby Reilingh was very badly wounded. He had been messenger on that day. In the very same moment as our Sergeant fell, quietly, from a shot through the heart, a mortar exploded somewhere near me and I heard him call my name. He managed to smile weakly at me as I reached him, but quickly ignored my attempts to console him with the assurance that he would now have home-leave. It was very important to him that I promised to see his parents and family. He was in severe pain and I could do nothing for him. The whole time, mortars were exploding and machine-guns clattered around us. It was awful. He was taken out of the line of fire and laid on a straw-covered sledge. As he lay waiting behind a bank of snow, to be transported away with other wounded, I covered him with a thick blanket to keep out the cold, pulling it to his face which, in between times, had turned to yellow. I firmly believed at this point that I would see Robby again. He was taken away but not before I recognised an expression that I had seen many times before on the faces of the dying. It was the expression of disbelief, of non-acceptance of what was to come. All had worn this ‘astounded’ expression.
It had pained me to see him go, but all hell was being let loose and it was a question of survival. All I could do was to pray, from the bottom of my heart, that he pulled through and that we meet again. Later, we had to change our positions. We were made to rest at a first-aid station, run by the Wehrmacht, in some outlying huts on the roadside. There the wounded and ill waited for further transport. It was warm inside, which did us all good. “We had a chap here with the same accent as you. Are you Dutch?” I was asked by a Medical Sergeant. I was happily surprised. Was it Robby? I asked for the name, for perhaps it was him. “He’s lying over there” I was told. When I looked to where he was pointing, it was through the window, and outside. “No one could have lived with the load of shrapnel that he had inside him”, he told me, not unsympathetically, “and he was very brave”.
I stood for a long time at Robby’s freshly-dug grave, not that there was much to see of his last resting place. It was no more than a snow-covered mound by the roadside, in that unending Russia. I do not know how long I stood at his inconspicuous grave, fighting with the reality that I would not see him again. The grave was simple. The cross, which was made of birch-wood was also simple, and so was the inscription. It was basic. Only the minimum of words had been used. It said nothing but that “SS Schutze Robert Reilingh fell on 1 March 1942”.
The German Red Cross informed his family in June, with the sober information, German Red Cross Area 15 File num. 1 Advisor (VK) Reference number 8245/42 Subject: SS Schutze Robert Reilingh. Reference our letter of 9 June, Professor Dr. Parade, Sun Str, Innsbruck. “The German Red Cross regrets to inform you from information received, that on 1 March 1942, at 4 o’clock, SS Schutze Robert Reilingh, died from wounds received, in the main First Aid Station, in Sossna. His burial place is to be found, some 200 metres east of the school in Sossna, on the Moloarchangelsk—Droskovo road. We assure you and your family of our heartfelt sympathy. Heil Hitler T German Red Cross Area 15 Executive/Advisory Dept.
To this day I still have a duplicate of that letter sent to the family. Only after months, was it possible for me to fulfil Robby’s last wish. On my first leave home, it was to his parents in the north of Holland that I went immediately. It was not an easy duty, to deliver Robby’s last greeting to his parents and his brothers. I could not have been given a warmer welcome by his family, in their magnificent villa, not far from Groningen. Everything that they had hoarded for him, including precious things which were seldom to be found at that time, were shared with me.
I was their guest for several days. I had to repeat over and over again our experiences together. In those few days the first great love of my life was to develop with Robby’s sister. It was a mutual attraction from the beginning, and continued in the form of letters, and a short leave, now and again, that one had as a soldier.
Robby’s death seemed to be the start of tragedy and suffering for his family, which had been a happy one till then. Less than a year later, his father was murdered, actually assassinated, cycling home on his bicycle. He was shot in the back, in what could have been described as ‘peaceful’ Holland. As the former General Consul in Liberia, this father-of-four was known for his German sympathies, and as a member of the NSB. It cost him his life. Towards the end of the war, such acts of treachery increased. Then, in turn, they resulted in reprisals against the said ‘sinners’ by the occupying forces.
The activities of the underground, even in the Soviet Union, was an incredible phenomenon of the war. Thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Crimean-Tartars and Georgians worked voluntarily as Hilfswillige or Hiwis, for the German Military in rear-area positions. They did so to free themselves of the yoke of Communism. But there were just as many partisans working for the Soviet Union. Those bands of ‘fighters’, Bandenkdmpfer as they were called, fought without mercy, on both sides. They were illegal fighters, according to the Hague’s State War Commission decree in 1907, fighting without uniform, without visible sign of rank and therefore not ‘recognisable’.
They stood outside every form of ‘justice’ or ‘rights’. The farmer ploughing his fields, a female working in the kitchens of German units, the smithy, or the administrator of our quarters, could belong to that horde. A gruesome fate awaited those who fell into their hands. Torture, using methods from the Middle Ages, was on every day’s agenda. It was even used for a fragment of information about future attacks, troop movements, and weaponry. Prisoners had their eyes poked out, their tongues and ears cut off. Those were not single cases, it was the system with which those lynch-mob
s worked. No one escaped those barbarians alive, and those who were shot in the back of the neck were the lucky ones.
It is believed by some, it has to be said, that without such illegal activities, whether on the Eastern Front, in the Balkans or in western Europe, the reprisals of the Wehrmacht would never have taken place.
Today the picture is different, and not based on the reality of those times. The illegality of partisan activity is ignored and a very one-sided presentation is the norm, to the disadvantage of Germany. In court cases of later years one cannot speak of objectivity, of fairness in assessing both sides of the coin. It was deliberate and was none other than a reappraisal of the past. No one took the time or trouble to present the unadulterated truth.
The ten pledges in the pay-book of every German soldier, gave very strict guidelines over our treatment of prisoners. For instance number 3. ‘It is an offence to kill prisoners who have surrendered, including partisans or spies’. 4. ‘Prisoners are not to be abused or mishandled’. 6. ‘Wounded prisoners are to be humanely treated’.
Until December 1941, the Wehrmacht in Russia occupied a territory of 65 million inhabitants and amongst them were 10,000 partisans. Those numbers grew very quickly. By the middle of 1942, 100,000 men and women were involved in underground activities against the German forces. There was not much success at first, with only half a dozen ‘Security’ divisions, mostly of older men who were badly equipped, but who had military control of the hinterland. Much more success was had from bands of fremdvolkische members from the surrounding ‘lands’, such as Ukraine/White Russia. The former were deserters from the Red Army, but they were supported by the ‘locals’ sympathising with the Germans. They possessed the same knowledge and determination as the ‘partisans’ and not even they could avert the problem.
To quote, “In the years from 1941 to 1943, Russian soldiers killed 500,000 enemy soldiers, including 47 German Generals, and many anti-communist Ukrainians”. These figures are taken from the Russian author B.S. Telpukovski’s book, A History of the Partisan Movement. Their weapons included knives and machine-pistols. On films there can be seen the 70-shot revolving barrel-type guns, and rifles and shotguns. Molotov cocktails, i.e. petrol-filled glass bottles with a wick, were first used in the Russian/Finnish war of 1939/40, were used by them for close combat with tanks. There was, as it happened, an excess of empty vodka bottles in Russia! Later those simple but effective bottle-bombs were filled with a mixture of phosphorus and sulphur, which produced a heat of1300° when in flames.
Stalin knew what he was doing when he ordered partisan activities. Twelve days after Hitler’s invasion, Stalin gave his orders for ‘Partisan activity’. He also started his ‘scorched earth’ policy, whereby everything of use that could not be taken when retreating, was to be destroyed. Alexander Werth wrote, “Blow for blow was now the order of the day.” The German troops never had time to make a thorough search of harmless looking villages for the leader of those bandits. They could only try to find the source and then extinguish the fires. It all drove the inhabitants into the lap of the partisans. The German Army, in their advance, had been looked upon as liberators from the yoke of Communism. They had been greeted with the traditional bread and salt, from girls wearing flowers.
Only a year later, how could it come to the situation where the partisans had such a hold over the inhabitants in the same areas? The answer was a simple one and the good relationship held only as long as the Military Directive ruled with goodwill. Russian so-called Commissars or Inspectors were used, in order to undermine and destroy any sympathy shown for the occupying forces, and to prepare the ground for partisan activity. Those ‘Red’ commissars replaced the ‘brown’, and Stalin made fun of the ‘dumb’ in Berlin.
The same lack of understanding stood between the Waffen SS and the Armed Forces, when it came to the interference from party officials in the re direction of the inhabitants. We soldiers saw the policy as an expression of extreme arrogance, which was to our disadvantage, and the advantage of the partisans. There were exceptions of course. Conscientious officials not only with ideals but also local understanding, tried to even out the inadequacies of the Ministry for Eastern Policy.
One of those was a genuine NS Head Administrator, who had been a general commissioner in the Crimea. This educated and upright national socialist, Alfred Frauenfeld, administered with so much level-headedness and expertise, that he could afford to travel hundreds of miles through the Steppe without any armed protection. He treated those working for him with decency and propriety. He understood the mentality, interests and needs of the inhabitants in the areas. Because of that, he himself was also treated with decency and propriety. He produced a highly efficient economy in the Crimea that was second to none. In complete contrast, one of the ‘gravediggers’ of the Third Reich was a man called Erich Koch, District Commissioner in Ukraine and former district commissioner in East Prussia. He directed with brutality, not the consideration and ‘fingertip’ feeling of his counterpart.
It is clear that Germany did not use the one-off chance that they had in the East. There were experts who with far-sightedness tried to save the situation. But their suggestions of altering the policy of the occupying forces, were only put into action as the Red Army took Budapest.
Despite the order to “hold at any price”, the German Wehrmacht was threatened with the same fate in the winter of 1941/42, as Napol eon’s army. In between times, the front was no longer intact and the Red Army held the initiative in the south. Only with extreme exertion, and against the will of Stalin’s favourite general, General Zhukov, could the offensive on Moscow be averted at the end of January. The situation on the Eastern Front stabilised gradually. However, Operation ‘Barbarossa’ with its aims and plan of operation, from Archangelesk in the north in a straight line down to Astrakhan in the south, faded into the background. The hard winter in which the German Army found itself and which destroyed their plan, lasted four long, unending months. In March there was another terrible snowstorm, which was followed by ‘the thaw’. It was then a ‘bog-down’ period.
“At the end of the winter, the faces of our men were old, from stress that was present every day. They had an unhealthy hue from the frost, that they would never lose. It was to be seen on both sides. The only visible difference could be seen from the uniform that they wore, or the language that was to be heard, i.e. German or Russian”. This is quoted from the diary of Leutnant Wolfgang Paul, in his book Erfrorener Sieg.
We volunteers were still of the opinion that the battle of and for the whole of Europe was justified. The battle was not against the people of the Soviet Union, but for the people of the Soviet Union. It was proved when the USA decided to join the war in 1941 and showered Russia with vast amounts of American war material. Pope Pius XII described the action of the Waffen SS, who consisted of a very mixed bag of Danes, Finns, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, Swiss and French, as “the defence of the basis of Christian culture”.
We had covered vast distances in comfortable trains and goods-wagons, in transport planes and lorries, tanks and troikas, and then marched on foot to the Front. As Germany’s war-generation, we all shared the same fate, which welded us together and which only the fire of battle could separate. We had not found ‘adventure’, nor the ‘laurel-leaves of victory’, but lice, mud, polar-conditions and death. In indescribable huts, as many as twenty men were provisionally housed, waiting for the next order. We crouched in holes in God’s earth, in ‘ready’ positions, before attacking the enemy. The minutes seemed like hours, before we could ambush those who felt at home in the darkness. We had restless, interrupted nights, ‘sleeping’, for want of a better word, a light and fitful sleep. We kept a finger on the trigger and had the smell of burning villages in our nostrils. We lit a fire when the opportunity arose and warmed ourselves around the flames. Flames which could not only kill, but save as well.
We had warmed ourselves with the warmth from exhausts, or lingered if only for minutes
, in the warmth of the burning houses on our marches, not wanting to move away. Living under open skies with temperatures 30° below freezing, reduced us to the fundamentals. Later it dropped to 52° below freezing point. Napoleon, in 1812, suffered only at 25°. At every possibility, we German soldiers slipped into any coverage we could find in that God-forsaken land, be it a hole in the ground or the poorest of huts, away from nature’s hostility. The Russian Steppe, with its unending horizon and vast heavens, was a ‘lord’ over the victorious, in the moment that we, its enemy, won a battle. It was natural that we had tension in us, as we first trod the earth of the Soviet Union, but the wretchedness of the Bolshevik world exceeded even our imagination.
Stalin’s Empire was at this time, an actual ‘state of dead souls’. There was a land, no, a continent at Europe’s door which in the day and age of radio and films, was completely cut off from the rest of the world. This ‘saga’ in the history of humanity, this ‘paradise’, was nothing new and nothing but ice-cold propaganda. We assessed this ‘state of workers and farmers’, not with the eyes of scholars, but the bare facts as soldiers do, with eyes that were wide open and therefore all the more ‘fundamentally’.
For example, one could search the whole of the Soviet Union for a replacement shaving-mirror when you smashed your own. But you could not find one for love nor money. To lose your pocket knife or your fountain pen was a real tragedy. This annoyance, this lack of, for us the simplest of commodities, was not appeased for months on end. We did find civilised articles, but then in senseless quantities. One of our comrades, who had been in Russia far longer than we, told us about a state-owned shop (what else?) that had not only enormous reserves of ladies’ face-powder, and toothpaste in tons, but not a single toothbrush! One saw Russian girls on the streets, thickly powdered because it was the cheapest of goods. One could buy it by the pound. The shelves were bending under the weight of the toothpaste which tasted of nothing but chalk. But a toothbrush was never found. In another town, its shop had records, hundreds of the same record, with an excerpt from one of Stalin’s speeches on one side and an operatic aria on the other, but a choice? There was none.
In the Fire of the Eastern Front Page 14