In the Fire of the Eastern Front

by Hendrick C. Verton

  We soldiers were relaxed, but none the less, at a time when the Russians were gaining ground every day, we were outraged, at the thought that in the middle of total war, our Commander-in-Chief should be eradicated. The civilian population thought so too. As one who was there at the time, I did not meet anyone who regretted this unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life. We were all the more astounded, when weeks later we learnt who the guilty parties were and that they were our own, their names belonging to the most influential and highest ranks of the Army.

  It placed a new light upon unexplained ‘incidents’ that had been happening on both the Front line and on the home front. The extent of them ranged from acts of sabotage in the armament industry, to the delayed delivery of the winter clothing which had caused the deaths of so many of our soldiers. There was de liberate misinterpretation of orders, which also cost innumerable soldiers their lives. There was the betrayal of highly secret information from headquarters to the enemy. It was certainly no coincidence that German weapon production reached its highest productivity quotas, in the last years of the war. At about that same time the conspirators were eradicated. There was continual bombardment by the Allies. “It is not good to change horses in mid-stream”, is what the famous American President Abraham Lincoln said.

  Eugen Gerstenmaier, one of Germany’s post-war presidents, put the errors of those conspirators into very clear, explanatory words. “What we in Germany’s resistance did not understand, or did not want to, was that this war was not against Hitler, but against Germany. Only afterwards did we understand that all the efforts of those in the resistance were unsuccessful and that was also no coincidence”.

  “The opposition did not offer even the smallest chance of better conditions of freedom, than the National Socialists themselves, not even in the event of a successful putsch and a proclaimed cease-fire”. Quoted from Hellmut Diwald. The opposition against Hitler himself, a third of it stemming from the aristocracy, did not come from the people themselves, but from the old conservative leadership. Their failures had caused the very emergence of a dictatorship in Germany.

  When the Heads of the military were united in the opinion that Hitler should be deposed, even before the Stauffenberg assassination attempt, then the question must be raised, why this was not carried out by those in uniform, in close proximity to Hitler. They had all been allowed to have a regulation pistol on their person. It was all too late. Those same officers gave daily orders themselves to their soldiers in deployment and under risk of their lives. True, this act of opposition would have demanded the willingness to take a very big risk and needed the courage of conviction. But it would have been characteristic of resistance activity. Many, if not all, had profited under this ‘Bohemian Private’. They had been promoted in rank and highly decorated, resulting from the efforts of those soldiers at the Front who had paid a very high ‘price in blood’.

  Only with the turn of the tide, i.e. the invasion by the Allies on French shores, in June 1944, which could no longer be halted, did those very opponents of Hitler turn to the use of bombs as a more effective means of disposing of him. Nazi propaganda denounced them and the people too, seeing them as traitors and renouncers of their oaths. It was Hitler himself who interpreted this attack as “a ratification of my commission in the name of providence.” It gave him the will to carry on as before, to attain his life’s work. It has certainly not been easy for post-war generations to sort the chaff from the wheat of this scenario. Who were the ‘opportunists’, and who were the ‘idealists’ prepared to make sacrifices for their ethical demands? Only the last of those requires any respect.

  We wanted however to win the war. So we used the opportunity given to us to improve our education in the SS School for Non-commissioned Officers. We also got to grips with the course, and the use of the light 7.5cm infantry gun and 15cm howitzers. The drill for the heavy 15cm howitzer was hard, especially for those who had to manhandle the heavy cartridge-cases and shells with speed. I was however spared the work. I was spared this muscle exercise, as team leader. But for that I had to be perfection itself on the optical sights, with speed and perfection even at a distance of 3,500 to 4,000 metres. No mistakes were allowed, which meant no ‘dud’ shots. No Fahrkarten! i.e. a ticket back home in soldiers’ slang. If even one shot missed the target, then there was an almighty dressing-down from our instructor!

  CHAPTER 14

  East Prussia

  The victory fanfares were now seldom to be heard. The orders over the radio to ‘hold your positions’, and ‘at all costs’, became more frequent. Even in June 1944, the collapse began in the East. The central sector of the Front line that had been held by Army Group Centre collapsed. Without doubt, there then began the most forceful and horrific chapter of the war for Germany. The coming months brought the hardest months of fighting and the highest losses for the Eastern Front soldiers. For old people, women and children, it also brought unimaginable suffering and senseless death.

  With the coming of autumn 1944, the Polish and Lithuanian countryside sank into mud. The battle for East Prussia had begun when six Russian armies broke through the lines of the 3rd German Army. They severed the lines of the central and northern sectors. Four days later, at Krottingen, the Russians trod German soil, for the first time. Once more our time had come. The heavy losses of non-commissioned officers, the backbone of the army, had produced many gaps in the front line and these had to be filled. Our course therefore came to an abrupt end. With our packs on our backs we were on the march again, not knowing where we were going.

  As the long train, laden with pieces of heavy equipment, passed Danzig, it was clear that we were returning to the Eastern Front. We had so much wanted to finish the course and receive our certificates and promotion as non-commissioned officers. However I was promoted, and at a later date decorated for ‘bravery on the Front’. I belonged to the 8th Company, Kampfgruppe ‘Römer’. The train took us 300 kilometres eastwards, to our final destination of Lötzen in East Prussia. The journey then continued by road, to a village called Kruglanken in the middle of the Masurian Lakes district. There we were based in readiness for ‘Operation Scharnhorst’.

  Provisionally, I was used as a motorcycle messenger and was given a 250-BMW motorcycle, to accompany motorised convoys. I enjoyed that, racing up and down the columns, like a shepherd dog with a flock of sheep. Later on, in the depth of winter, it was no longer so pleasant when, despite balaclava and goggles, the ice-cold wind froze your face to a stiff mask.

  Reconnaissance and security runs were now the order of the day, together with one other comrade and with machine-pistols slung around our necks. We were our own masters. We could plan our own routes in this fantastic countryside. It was near the front that we found two young women about to leave their empty property, an estate. We had to do our best to persuade their very old grandmother to leave with them. We did our best to explain the danger that she was in, amidst the war and the Russian soldiers. It was all to no avail. If she had to die it would be where she was. She would rather do that, than leave her home. There was nothing more to say or do. She was adamant. The two granddaughters left with us, crying bitter tears. They said ‘goodbye’ to their grandmother, leaving her with her cat on her lap, having provided enough food for them both. It was a heart-rending scene.

  Not only there, but in other places as well, where we made our quarters, we were witness to indescribable human tragedies, particularly when in the villages, estates and farms, the inhabitants had to leave at a moment’s notice, only taking what they could carry. The evacuation of the areas was the responsibility of the area administrators. They often gave the order of evacuation at the very last minute, not giving the inhabitants time to think about what they should take, and what had to be left behind. Where we could, we soldiers helped them with packing their meagre belongings on to horse-drawn carts, hand-carts, or their tractors pulling trailers. But they had other help as well. Prisoners of war, who had been sent to work on the G
erman farms in the area, where they had been well treated, also helped the local inhabitants to pack up their possessions. The majority were Poles, and there were also some French who joined the trek of refugees, fleeing from the Red Army.

  ‘Operation Scharnhorst’ was designed to ensure amongst other things, the security of Hitler’s headquarters the Wolfsschanze, or Wolf s Lair, and the wide circumference around it. The HQ in the Görlitz forest was made up of eight, one-storey, above-ground bunkers and some other wooden and brick-built buildings. All of the roads on the complex, the paths and the bunkers were covered in enormous ‘cammo’ nets as protection from aerial view by the enemy. Lying behind several barriers of barbed wire and other security barriers, the Wolfsschanze was the most secure of Hitler’s quarters. As the Russians forced their way further west, his HQ was once more transferred to Berlin on 20 November. So that it did not fall into the hands of the Russians, the Wolfsschanze was blown up at the beginning of January 1945.

  We, in our sector in Kruglanken, really did not have much to do and so we found time to explore the fascinating countryside of East Prussia. I have memories of black forests, the green clear water of lakes and rivers, and of the spicy, dry, cold air. There were small towns with cobbled market places and memorials of great German princes. Other memorials were to ‘Old Fritz’ (Frederick the Great), while quaint villages, avenues of birches, or birch-lined roads, lead to farmsteads. All were within distance of a lake, or a whole chain shimmering to the horizon. Today the recollection is still bright and clear. That land, as large as Holland, and with 2.5 million inhabitants normally, was practically empty of people at the end of 1944. The ivy-covered country seats, with their wrought-iron park gates, long drives and pillared porticoes, standing in the shadows of age-old trees, lush green meadows and pastures, or dark forest, were deserted then. Those memories will stay with me and will never fade.

  The Postmaster also lived in our quarters and although there was no work for him, he stayed dutifully at his post with his daughter. That was a piece of luck for me. From the first moment we met there was a rapport between us, we understood one another. She was young, an attractive brunette and a real ‘Masurian’ maiden. Thanks to a very understanding company commander living in our quarters, she was allowed to accompany me on my runs, to show me the sights. Perhaps it would be better to say, ‘to allow me to get to know the area’. But we were alone and could forget that there was a war, even when it was only for moments. We wandered through spruce-woods and aisles of trees bending towards one another up above, almost forming the arches of a stately cathedral. It was still and peaceful, with only very faint sounds of the front disturbing this paradise, this unspoiled countryside.

  Our romance however was brief. The Postmaster and his lovely daughter had to flee like all of the others and were in the last trek of refugees to go west. There obviously was not one soldier, anywhere in the whole of the army, who did not enjoy a rendezvous with the opposite sex, whether a spontaneous flirt or a real heart-felt romance. Far be it from me to give the impression that we soldiers behaved like farmhands, were promiscuous or philanderers. We were not. We were normal, healthy, young soldiers forced together in one another’s company. We longed for the company and love of a woman, exactly as the young men of our own age in peacetime. It was the situation that caused us problems, for a romance of permanency was impossible. The soldier was always on the move.

  It was between December 1944 and January 1945 that the Russians started to collect around the Vistula. That river, stretching over hundreds of kilometres, was the German demarcation line. More than three mill ion Russian soldiers, with nearly ten thousand tanks, 40,000 artillery guns, as well as 7,000 planes made up the largest army of aggression in world history. Their opponents, the defenders of the German Reich, sought to stem the steamroller effect of the Russians, with the courage of the desperate. They fought to win every available inch of ground. The will to hold ground was reinforced when information seeped through the lines of inhuman atrocities, committed against civilians by the Russians, in particular the 11th Division of Guards.

  In winning back the village of Goldap, German soldiers found a picture of sheer barbarism against the human being, an apocalypse. They found women and young girls had been raped. Old people, infants and babies had been murdered. French and Polish prisoners who had not fled from the village, had been beaten to death. There are no words to describe the barbarity of the atrocities in the many cases committed by the Red Army, one being the case of Nemmersdorf.

  A column of exhausted refugees made a stop in Nemmersdorf in the early morning hours. It was to be their death sentence. Their hand- and horse-drawn carts filled the width of the main road. Amongst the noise of stamping hooves, one could suddenly hear the screech of tank tracks. A column of Russian tanks emerged from the veil of morning mist and the steel giants rolled over the refugees, the screaming women, children and old men. The Russians could not hold Nemmersdorf, and the German 4th Army under General Friedrich Hossbach took the village. They were eyewitnesses to the unforgettable evidence of barbarity to its inhabitants. Along with Goldap, Nemmersdorf is one of the names from the Second World War that will never be forgotten. The men found 72 corpses, including infants and babies in nappies. The bodies of women and children were found hanging from hay-carts and barn doors.

  The hate against Germans was brought to boiling point by extensive propaganda, until it was pathological. The disease be came an epidemic. “Kill the Germans!” With that, all of the Ten Commandments fused into one, for the Soviets. The Russian author Ilya Ehrenburg was first and foremost of the propagandists when it came to hate campaigns. “When you kill one German, then make it two. There is nothing so pleasurable as German corpses!”

  The Russian newspaper Krasnaya Sveda was more reserved and commented,

  One has to admit that the German resistance in East Prussia is so strong and steadfast, that it exceeds any previous performance. The battles are extremely bloody and they offer resistance that is fanatical. They are untiring in counter-attack and in defending every inch of ground.

  Radio London, which at first had no idea, were also astounded and said that “the fight for East Prussia is extraordinarily tough and is obviously a contest of wills. The Germans fight bitterly for Prussia’s holy ground”. The German soldier knew, far better than Radio London, why and for what they risked their lives. In villages that they had retaken, they had first-hand experience of the monster against which they were fighting. They needed no propaganda, no historical example in order to give, to the last, all that they could and did offer. Nevertheless, Prussia fell to the Russians. That lost paradise had always been top of the list as booty for foreign imperialists. It is only the stork that returns home to East Prussia from its migration, or the wild geese, in their wedge-like flight, giving a false but lenient illusion that all is right with the world. But that land will never be the same again.

  CHAPTER 15

  Silesia

  There was a natural hurdle between Stalin’s mighty advance to the eastern borders of the German Reich and Berlin. It was the river Oder. The giant Russian offensive was one that threatened Silesia and the target was Breslau, Silesia’s metropolis in the southern sector and a key position for the Red Army. It was stated at that time “Europe’s fate will be decided at the Oder”. Therefore strongly concentrated defensive measures were decided upon for that theatre of war, and we too were sent there.

  Suddenly, the Kampfgruppe was sent on a long train journey, from East Prussia to Pomerania. It lasted a few days. We were newly equipped, had packed, and were sorted into new units. Then express trains took us from our old barracks, in the School for Subordinate Commanders, in Lauenburg, direct to the Oder. Without knowledge of strategic plans, we all wondered why the Kampfgruppe ’s destinations were so very often changed. Even as we were underway, we would find ourselves relocated to places where originally we were not meant to go, but then became urgently needed. “The wheels had to roll to v
ictory!”

  As the convoy of trains finally reached the rolling Silesian countryside, snowflakes had fallen, framing the carriage windows, for winter had arrived in Silesia, in the middle of December. We arrived in the evening and wondered at the peaceful, undisturbed atmosphere and obvious daily routine in this, for us, unknown city of Breslau, for it held no signs of war. Cars and trams still fully lit, drove through glittering snow. A queue of people stood patiently outside a cinema, with its coloured posters. Children were skating on the town’s frozen moat. The trains still ran to their scheduled times from the main railway station in the town, and from Freiburg to the west.

  Next to Dresden, Breslau was the only large city, until the end of 1944, that had not been bombed by the Allies. This important east German city grew during the war, from a population of 630,000 to nearly a million, with the storing of its industry’s war material, which had been transferred from the west. Both the government departments and the officials of the Ministries of Finance and for Foreign Affairs, were moved after heavy bombing raids on Berlin, to this eastern province. Breslau, as well as surrounding small towns and villages, was also the home of evacuees from heavily raided areas such as the Rhine and the Ruhr. It was the air-raid shelter of the nation, for thousands who had been bombed out of their homes.

  It was time for us to find our barracks. They turned out to be in the ‘School of Infantry Replacement Training Battalions’, in Deutsch-Lissa, 8 kilometres west of Breslau. The three-storey, stone complex had been extended, with wooden-built houses for the regular army. It was of all places in one of those that I was quartered. It was no use wishing for our lovely warm quarters that we had left behind. We were, after all, outside during the day and were only in this ice-encrusted barrack to sleep. After we had given it a thorough clean, it was heated in the evenings after duty, by using a large, ugly, iron stove, until it glowed. It only left enough space in the middle of the room, so that the straw-sacks for our bunk-beds never caught fire.