by Leo Kessler
The firing squad stiffened. He gave another command. The front rank dropped on one knee. The padre moved away.
“Take aim!” the fat Captain commanded.
“Fire!”
“Vive la…” The girl’s cry was cut off by the volley. She sagged against the rope and her hair tumbled down the side of her face.
Note
1. Volksgenossen in the original German, a term often used by Party members to describe their fellow citizens.
SECTION TWO:
OPERATION BARBAROSSA TOP SECRET
The Führer’s Headquarters
18 December, 1940.
“The German Armed Forces must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign before the end of the war against England. For this purpose the Army will have to employ all available units with the reservation that the occupied territories will have to be safeguarded against surprise attacks….Preparations are to be completed by 15 May, 1941. Great caution has to be exercised that the intention of an attack will not be recognized.
Adolf Hilter.”
ONE
For two days they had lain hidden in the Polish wood, two kilometres from the river. During the day there was little movement and they slept or played cards. Only after dusk were they allowed to go down to the stream to wash and collect the one warm meal of the day.
“Like a Hitler Youth summer camp, eh?” von Dodenburg said to Schulze.
“I wouldn’t know, sir – I was in the Communist Youth myself.” Von Dodenburg smiled. “Well, it’s a holiday anyway.” Schulze looked behind him at the tanks hidden in the trees. “No such thing in the Army, sir,” he said. “Just when you think you’re onto some thing good, the Army gets you by the short hairs and drags you back to reality. What do you think we’re doing here, sir? You think we’re going to have a crack at the Ivans1?”
“I really don’t know,” von Dodenburg said slowly, for in truth he was just as puzzled as Schulze and had been ever since they had been suddenly pulled out of Belgium, transported right across Germany at night and dumped here on the side of the River Bug opposite the Russian-held fortress of Brest-Litovsk, which had been in the hands of the Russian allies since Germany and the Soviet Union had split Poland up between them in September, 1939. “I don’t think we’re going to attack the Popovs. More likely, Stalin is going to allow us to move troops through Russia to attack the Tommies round the back. Through Persia perhaps. I mean, think of those jerricans stacked on the tanks – ten twenty-litre cans per tank. You don’t start a battle with that much gas strapped to your fighting vehicles, do you?”
“I’d like to believe you, sir, but I don’t think that cunning old arsehole Stalin would buy that. He won’t want anyone poking his nose behind his lines.” Schulze indicated the general direction of the River Bug with a movement of his head.
“Who knows, Schulze? Let’s just enjoy the sun and wait and see.”
On the evening of 21 June, 1941, the mystery of their sudden move was solved. The order was passed from platoon to platoon. “Battalion to fall in at twenty-two hundred hours in the large clearing… Battalion to fall in…” The rest of that evening was spent in excited chatter and some of the veterans of the Eben Emael attack stripped off, washed all over and put on new underwear. When asked why, they answered grimly: “Gas gangrene if you’re wounded.” But the new draft only laughed at their serious looks.
It was dark when they assembled in the clearing. The Vulture strode into the centre, followed by his officers and switched on the little blue lamp attached to his tunic.
“Battalion,” he rasped, “I shall now read to you an order from the Führer.”
The coughing and shuffling stopped at once.
“Soldiers of the Eastern Front!” he read from the paper held in front of him.
“Soldiers of the Eastern Front!” the words struck them almost physically.
“At this moment, a build-up is in progress which has no equal in world history, either in extent or number. Allied with Finnish divisions, our comrades stand side by side with the victors of Narvik on the Arctic Sea in the North…. You stand on the Eastern Front. In Rumania, on the banks of the Prut, on the Danube, down to the shores of the Black Sea, German and Rumanian troops stand side by side united under Head of State Antonescu. If this, the greatest front in world history, is now going into action, then it does so not only in order to create the necessary conditions for the final conclusion of this great war, or to protect the countries threatened at this moment, but in order to save the whole of European civilization and culture.
German soldiers! You are about to join battle, a hard and crucial battle. The destiny of Europe, the future of the German Reich, the existence of our nation, now lie in your hands alone. May the Almighty help us all in this struggle.”
For what seemed a long time they stood there in silence. Finally Sergeant Schulze said, “Well, I’ll go and piss up my sleeve!” But no one laughed.
The Vulture rubbed his monocle and looked around the circle of serious young faces illuminated by the flickering light of the Hindenburg Candle.2 “Gentlemen, I am sorry to have kept you in the dark for so long, but I didn’t know our exact objective myself until the day before yesterday and that Sergeant who commands our destinies was also not informed of the Division’s target until the beginning of last week.” He grinned maliciously. “Though in his case, I doubt if it made any difference. Thank God he’s got some capable staff officers.”
The Vulture tapped the map pinned to the tent’s wall. “You all know our position here at Pratulin opposite Brest-Litovsk. At zero four hundred hours precisely, Colonel-General Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group will cross the Bug here with the 12th and 18th Divisions and establish the bridgehead for the Group.”
“And Wotan, sir?” Schwarz asked.
“Don’t worry, Schwarz. You’ll get all the action and as much tin as your chest will bear. We will cross the Bug thirty minutes before the two panzer divisions jump off and protect them against any Red counter-attack. This is a tremendous honour for Wotan. We are to lead the attack. But it is not enough for my Battalion. We have not trained so long and so hard to play wet-nurse to a lot of stubble-hoppers. As soon as I am satisfied that there is no serious danger to the bridgehead, I intend to take the Battalion into the attack on Brest Litovsk. The honour of capturing the place will not be left to those big-footed idiots of the 45th Infantry.”
“But what of Colonel General Guderian, sir? Won’t he object?”
“My dear von Dodenburg, I am surprised at you, a National Socialist officer, asking such a question.” He grinned bleakly. “There are rules for the regular army and there are rules for the Armed SS. I shall obey the Army’s rules as long as it suits me. Thereafter only those of the Armed SS count. You understand me, gentlemen?”
“Jawohl!”
“Good.” The Vulture turned his head. “Metzger, bring the glasses.”
Metzger entered at once, as if he had been waiting at the entrance to the tent for this command. He had too, his ear glued to the canvas, his stupid face contorted with ever-growing horror at the CO’s disclosure of his plans and the frightening possibilities they raised.
The Vulture picked up a bottle from the trestle table.
“French, gentlemen,” he said. “If we are going to die this dawn, let us have good liquor in our stomachs, not that rotgut the Führer has had the goodness to distribute to the men!”
It would soon be dawn. Already the darkness was beginning to break up on the horizon. Standing in the turret of his tank, von Dodenburg kept finding himself looking at the second hand of his wrist watch. Every minute he expected the Russians to open up with all they had and catch them completely exposed on the riverbank. Surely they must have learned that an army of three million men was about to attack them? Were they really asleep? Or were they waiting behind their machine guns on the stork-legged wooden towers that marked their side of the river? Would the crossing be one great massacre?
T
he minutes slipped by. The hands of von Dodenburg’s watch showed 3.15. A faint white light had begun to streak the horizon. He could make out the tense faces of the young soldiers waiting all around him, their eyes fixed on the opposite river bank, as if with longing. Suddenly he noticed that one of them was not wearing his helmet. He opened his mouth to order him to put it on, but he never spoke the words. As though some invisible hand had thrown a gigantic power switch, a great flash of light split the sky. Behind them, four hundred guns fired with an earth-shaking roar. Closer at hand other weapons joined in. Mortars belched. Machine guns chattered. Red, white and green tracer stitched a flat pattern across the water. In front of the tanks, the waiting infantry fired their rifles. From the Russian positions, flares hushed into the sky, as the new war drew its first fiery breath.
The Vulture stretched himself to his full height and roared: “Let’s go!” “Let’s go,” the cry ran from tank to tank.
The Vulture waved his arm three times rapidly in the direction of the water, the cavalry signal for advance.
The turret flaps fell immediately. The tank engines coughed and burst into life. Streams of blue diesel smoke spurted out of their exhausts. With a rumble of tracks, the first one moved off. A second followed. The infantry lining the bank hurriedly got out of their way. In a long line the metal monsters waddled to the edge. Then the first one entered the water, shooting up gravel and mud behind it. Tank after tank followed, to disappear into the river. SS Assault Battalion Wotan was going to war again.
Notes
1. Soldiers’ slang for the Russians.
2. A long-burning frontline candle introduced in the First World War.
TWO
The tanks moved towards the silent village like metal ducks waddling towards a pond. Against the dawn sky, it was outlined stark black, a collection of low, straw-roofed cottages grouped around a white-painted, onion-towered church. But in spite of the shells still crashing down behind it there was no sign of movement. Von Dodenburg, standing in the open turret, ran his eyes from one side of the village to the other. Was the place deserted or were the Ivans waiting for them to walk into a trap? The Vulture must have thought so. His voice crackled over the air. “Sunray here…sunray here…swing to the left flank immediately…. Do you read me?”
Then his words were drowned by the boom of metal striking metal. A hundred metres away one of his tanks came to a sudden halt. For a moment nothing seemed to happen. Then a searing flame leaped into the air and huge red-hot metal splinters flew in all directions.
The Russian infantry burst out of the village in a long brown line, yelling encouragement to each other.
Schwarz, leading II Company, did not hesitate. As machine-gun bullets pattered against the sides of the tanks, he gave the signal for advance. His company rolled straight into the Russians. The first Mark IV hit the front rank and rolled right over them. A second and third plunged through the bloody paste. Over the intercom von Dodenburg heard someone give an involuntary scream of horror as Schwarz’s tanks turned left and right and began working down the line, their treads stuck with the horrible remains. A bareheaded young Russian ran directly towards Schwarz’s tank, waving his hands like a farmer trying to wave off a bull. But the iron bull was not to be deflected. Sticking unswervingly to its course, it bowled him over and then swivelled round, grinding his body to pulp under its metal treads.
Within a matter of seconds it was all over and the handful of survivors were streaming back the way they had come, throwing away their weapons as they ran. Behind them they left the dead and dying, their bodies crushed by the tanks.
But the Russian counter-attack was not over yet. The next moment the air was torn apart by the high-pitched whistle of an armour-piercing shell. A tank in Schwarz’s company came to a sudden stop. Its broken track flopped out in front of it like a crippled limb. Another shell hit it in the engine. Smoke started to pour from under the engine cowling and the crew baled out and pelted for the rear, with tracer stitching a vicious trail at their heels.
“Enemy tanks – one o’clock!” the Vulture’s voice crackled over the air. “Fire at will!”
Von Dodenburg glanced through the periscope. Four T-34 tanks were rattling across the field towards them, their 75s directed at the invaders.
“One o’clock!” he yelled at the gunner, but the man had beaten him to it. He was already cranking the turret round to meet the new danger. Von Dodenburg grabbed an armour-piercing shell and thrust it into the breech. The gear lever shot up with a clang.
The gunner pressed his eye against the eyepiece. His fingers curled round the firing lever. “On target,” he said.
“Fire!” von Dodenburg answered.
The gunner pulled the lever. The tank shuddered. The breech flew open and the cartridge case clattered to the floor. A wave of acrid smoke struck the young officer in the face but his eyes were glued to the periscope, watching the flat white trajectory of the armour piercing shell. It struck the glacis plate squarely in the middle and the shell bounced off like a ping pong ball. In the next moment another German AP shell did the same on another tank.
“Not the glacis plate,” a voice yelled in clear over the air. It was Schulze. “It’s no good. Try the engine – sprocket or something!” His voice was drowned by the eruption of his own gun. The shell struck the nearest T-34 in the rear sprocket and it stopped immediately like a boar hit behind the shoulder. But the other three came on, determined to attack in spite of the overwhelming odds. Von Dodenburg rammed home another shell. Again the Mark IV shuddered. This time they were luckier. The shell hit the second T-34 just beneath the turret. A series of explosions followed, ripping off the left track, and thick black smoke started to pour from it.
“Look out!” the driver roared.
Von Dodenburg caught a glimpse of a glowing, white armour-piercing shell heading straight at them. He ducked instinctively and the tank gave a great shudder. There was a frightening hiss of melting metal and the interior of the tank was suddenly full of the stink of burning cinders. The shell penetrated the turret, ran round the interior, tracing a deep furrow in the metal like a finger through butter and disappeared out of the other side.
Von Dodenburg shook himself. “Gunner,” he said shakily. “Twelve o’clock – enemy tank!” He stopped short. The gunner hadn’t moved. He grabbed at the man’s shoulder and he fell back dead.
The rest of that first morning of the attack passed, for von Dodenburg, in a confused series of murderous episodes. A Russian field kitchen – a gulash canon1 – towed by four farm horses, disappearing in the explosion of one of his 75mm shells, with bits of horse, man and food slapping the sides of his tank; a dead Russian soldier pressed flat by the tracks of a tank; a burning panje cart with a peasant woman sprawled in its back, her legs thrown open in the shameless abandon of death; and flames, noise, screams everywhere. Just after noon, the Vulture ordered a general halt and they took up hull-down positions in a great semi-circle based on a low ridge while the officers ran across the field to where the Vulture crouched in a shell-hole.
Behind them an Ivan, in a dirty earth-brown uniform, was crouched on its rim, trembling all over, his lips moving continuously. Schwarz jerked a contemptuous thumb at him. “An officer – a red officer!” He wiped the oil off his face with the back of his sleeve. “Caught him hiding up the road next to that ruined barn.”
The Vulture turned to Lieutenant Fick. “Fick,” he said, “you speak Russki; see what you can get out of this Popov.”
The young officer with the unfortunate name2 nodded and spoke to the Russian prisoner in halting Russian. For what seemed a long time, he could not make himself understood; but when Schwarz pulled out his knife, the terrified man started talking.
“Ask him where his battalion is,” the Vulture said.
Suddenly the prisoner shut up, his lips pressed firmly together. Schwarz pushed Fick to one side and grabbed the Soviet officer by the hair. Yanking him forward, he thrust the blade of his knife
under the prisoner’s nose.
“Look at that,” he hissed, his eyes gleaming. “If you don’t talk, I’ll use it on your filthy face!”
The Russian spat directly in Schwarz’s face. Schwarz gave vent to a volley of obscenities and slashed his knife down on the prisoner’s ear. The Russian gave a scream of agony as his ear flapped down against his neck and the blood spurted out.
Schwarz wiped the spit from his face. “Tell him it’ll be his nose next,” he said.
Von Dodenburg felt the sweat start up all over his body. A man was being tortured to death in front of him and he was doing nothing. He bit his bottom lip.
“Well?” Schwarz threatened, after Fick had translated.
No more threats were needed. While the blood trickled down the side of his face unheeded, the Russian told them all they wanted to know. When he was squeezed dry, the Vulture nodded to Fick and made the gesture of working a trigger with his forefinger. Fick understood and as von Dodenburg gave his company the order to mount, there was a single shot from the direction of the shell-hole and Fick clambered out of the crater and ran towards his tank. He was alone.
But the brutality was unnecessary. Later that afternoon they met what was left of the dead officer’s battalion – a long snake slowly winding its way down the dusty road towards them. The smell that came from them was terrible, like the stench of a long uncleaned animal cage.
They pulled over to one side and held their noses as the shaven-headed, stumbling Soviet prisoners came by, village dogs yelping and barking at their legs. But the guards of the 45th Infantry, who had taken them prisoner, did not need the dogs to herd the beaten Russians. Using their bayonets and rifle butts, they drove them to the rear. When one man broke out of line to urinate, he was beaten back. He could not contain himself and drenched the prisoner in front of him. The other man did not even turn.