World War II: The Autobiography

by Jon E. Lewis

  And so 1 July began with a massed bombardment of the perimeter fortifications and the enemy’s strong-points in the interior of the city. Before long our reconnaissance aircraft reported that no further serious resistance need be anticipated. The shelling was stopped and the divisions moved in. It seemed probable that the enemy had pulled the bulk of his forces out to the west the previous night.

  But the struggle was still not over. Although the Soviet Coast Army had given up the city, it had only done so in order to offer further resistance from behind the defences which sealed off the Khersones peninsula – either in pursuance of Stalin’s backs-to-the-wall order or else in the hope of still getting part of the army evacuated by Red Fleet vessels at night from the deep inlets west of Sevastopol. As it turned out, only very few of the top commanders and commissars were fetched away by motor-torpedo boat, one of them being the army commander, General Petrov. When his successor tried to escape in the same way he was intercepted by our Italian E-boat.

  Thus the final battles on the Khersones peninsula lasted up till 4 July. While 72 Division captured the armour-plated fort of “Maxim Gorki II”, which was defended by several thousand men, the other divisions gradually pushed the enemy back towards the extreme tip of the peninsula. The Russians made repeated attempts to break through to the east by night, presumably in the hope of joining up with the partisans in the Yaila Mountains. Whole masses of them rushed at our lines, their arms linked to prevent anyone from hanging back. At their head, urging them on, there were often women and girls of the Communist Youth, themselves bearing arms. Inevitably the losses which sallies of this kind entailed were extraordinarily high.

  STALINGRAD: “THE RAT WAR”, OCTOBER–DECEMBER 1942

  Anonymous Officer, 24th Panzer Division

  The battle for Stalingrad opened on 15 September 1942 and was fought street by street, house by house, in what the Germans called the Rattenkrieg (“rat war”)

  We have fought for fifteen days for a single house with mortars, grenades, machine-guns and bayonets. Already by the third day fifty-four German corpses are strewn in the cellars, on the landings, and the staircases. The front is a corridor between burnt-out rooms; it is the thin ceiling between two floors. Help comes from neighbouring houses by fire-escapes and chimneys. There is a ceaseless struggle from noon to night. From storey to storey, faces black with sweat, we bombed each other with grenades in the middle of explosions, clouds of dust and smoke. . . . Ask any soldier what hand-to-hand struggle means in such a fight. And imagine Stalingrad: eighty days and eighty nights of hand-to-hand struggle. . . . Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night arrives, one of those scorching, howling, bleeding nights, the dogs plunge into the Volga and swim desperately to gain the other bank. The nights of Stalingrad are a terror for them. Animals flee this hell; the hardest storms cannot bear it for long; only men endure.

  Benno Zieser, Wehrmacht

  On 19 November the Russians launched a counter-attack which encircled the 270,000 German besiegers of Stalingrad. Hitler refused their commanding officer, Colonel-General von Paulus, permission to fight his way out. The Luftwaffe became increasingly unable to fly in supplies and by the year’s end malnutrition, hypothermia and Red Army bullets were claiming thousands of Wehrmacht lives.

  My unit had shrunk pitiably. One man after another had dropped out, in his own blood or frozen in the unrelenting ocean of whiteness.

  Franzl was a broken man, all hope abandoned that he might see his home again. But sometimes, when it was a little quiet and we crouched in our trench waiting for what would come next, he took the photographs from his wallet, the one of the unknown soldier and others of himself, his family and friends. Then I’d pull out a dog-eared picture of my home town and we’d get to talking of such things. These were the only times he seemed to waken.

  But suddenly resumption of the barrage would jerk us back into reality and we’d realize with sharpened poignance the treasures that were lost.

  Next to me in the trench, leaning on the rampart, he suddenly collapsed, knees giving way and his whole body settling like a spent balloon. “Franzl!” I shouted, unbelieving.

  Even when, with horror, I saw one eye had been shot out, I couldn’t believe the awful truth.

  Then a scream shrilled inside my head – louder than any the military scientists had ever invented. The sky and snowy waste and everything else that had ruined our lives made an insane dance around me. And I grabbed my machine gun, scrambled out of the trench and ran toward whoever, whatever had fired that shot. In the morning mist I saw dark outlines of men, and the steel thing bucking madly at my hip mowed them down. I ran farther and farther, firing and firing, till like the blow of a cudgel something struck my arm.

  Zieser was among the lucky few of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad; he was evacuated, wounded.

  STALINGRAD: THE RUSSIAN ULTIMATUM, 8 JANUARY 1943

  To the Commander-in-Chief of the German 6 Army, Colonel-General Paulus, or his representative, and to all the officers and men of the German units now besieged in Stalingrad.

  6 German Army, formations of 4 Panzer Army, and those units sent to reinforce them have been completely encircled since 23 November 1942.

  The soldiers of the Red Army have sealed this German Army Group within an unbreakable ring. All hopes of the rescue of your troops by a German offensive from the south or south-west have proved vain. The German units hastening to your assistance were defeated by the Red Army, and the remnants of that force are now withdrawing to Rostov.

  The German air transport fleet, which brought you a starvation ration of food, munitions and fuel, has been compelled by the Red Army’s successful and rapid advance repeatedly to withdraw to airfields more distant from the encircled troops.

  . . . . The situation of your troops is desperate. They are suffering from hunger, sickness and cold. The cruel Russian winter has scarcely yet begun. Hard frosts, cold winds and blizzards still lie ahead. Your soldiers are unprovided with winter clothing and are living in appalling sanitary conditions.

  You, as Commander-in-Chief, and all the officers of the encircled forces know well that there is for you no real possibility of breaking out. Your situation is hopeless, and any further resistance senseless.

  In view of the desperate situation in which you are placed, and in order to save unnecessary bloodshed, we propose that you accept the following terms of surrender:

  1. All the encircled German troops, headed by yourself and your staff, shall cease to resist.

  2. You will hand over to such persons as shall be authorized by us, all members of your armed forces, all war materials and all army equipment in an undamaged condition.

  3. We guarantee the safety of all officers and men who cease to resist, and their return at the end of the war to Germany or to any other country to which these prisoners of war may wish to go.

  4. All personnel of units which surrender may retain their military uniforms, badges of rank, decorations, personal belongings and valuables and, in the case of high-ranking officers, their swords.

  5. All officers, non-commissioned officers and men who surrender will immediately receive normal rations.

  6. All those who are wounded, sick or frost-bitten will be given medical treatment.

  Your reply is to be given in writing by ten o’clock, Moscow time, 9 January 1943. It must be delivered by your personal representative, who is to travel in a car bearing a white flag along the road that leads to the Konny siding at Kotlu-banj station. Your representative will be met by a fully-authorized Russian officer in District B, five hundred metres south-east of siding 564 at 10.00 hours on 9 January 1943.

  Should you refuse our offer that you lay down your arms, we hereby give you notice that the forces of the Red Army and the Red Air Force will be compelled to proceed with the destruction of the encircled German troops. The responsibility for this will
lie with you.

  Representing Headquarters Red Army Supreme Command,

  Colonel-General of the Artillery Voronov

  The Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of the Don front,

  Lieutenant-General Rokossovsky

  On Hitler’s orders, von Paulus rejected the demand for surrender.

  STALINGRAD: LAST LETTERS HOME, JANUARY 1943

  Anonymous German soldiers

  These letters are from the last post from Stalingrad, flown out shortly before the final German surrender. They never reached their destinations, being impounded – on Hitler’s order – along with several hundred others and analyzed as to what they betrayed about the state of Army morale. According to the subsequent Wehrmacht report, 2.1 per cent of the letters approved of the conduct of the war, 3.4 per cent were vengefully opposed to the war, 57.1 per cent were sceptical and negative, and 4.4 per cent were doubtful. Some 33.0 per cent were indifferent.

  . . . Once again I have held your picture in my hand. As I gaze at it my mind was filled with the memory of what we shared together on that glorious summer evening in the last year of peace, as we approached our house through the valley of flowers. The first time we found each other it was only the voice of our hearts that spoke; later came the voice of love and happiness. We talked of ourselves and the future that stretched out before us like a gaily coloured carpet.

  That carpet is no more. The summer evening is no more; nor is the valley of flowers. And we are no longer together. Instead of the gaily coloured carpet there is an endless field of whiteness; there is no longer any summer, only winter, and there is no longer any future – not for me, at all events, and thus not for you either. All this time I have had a strange sensation which I could not explain, but today I know that it was fear for you. Over those many thousands of miles I was conscious that you felt the same about me. When you get this letter, listen very hard as you read it; perhaps you will hear my voice. We are told that we are fighting this battle for Germany, but only very few of us here believe that our senseless sacrifice can be of any avail to the homeland.

  . . . So now you know that I am not coming back. Break it gently to Mother and Father. It has given me a terrible shock and the worst possible doubts about everything. Once I was strong and believed; now I am small and unbelieving. Much of what is going on here I shall never know about; but even the little bit I am in on is too much to stomach. Nobody can tell me that my comrades died with words like “Germany” or “Heil Hitler!” on their lips. It cannot be denied that men are dying; but the last word a man speaks goes out to his mother or the person he loves most, or else it is merely a cry for help. I have already seen hundreds fall and die, and many, like myself, were in the Hitler Youth. But all those who could still do so shouted for help or called out the name of someone who could not really do anything for them.

  The Führer has solemnly promised to get us out of here. This has been read out to us, and we all firmly believed it. I still believe it today, because I simply must believe in something. If it isn’t true, what is there left for me to believe in? I would have no more use for the spring and the summer or any of the things that make life happy. Let me go on believing, dear Grete; all my life – or eight years of it, at least – I have believed in the Führer and taken him at his word. It’s terrible the way people out here are doubting, and so humiliating to hear things one cannot contradict because the facts support them.

  If what we were promised is not true, then Germany will be lost, for no other promises can be kept after that. Oh, these doubts, these terrible doubts. If only they were already dispelled!

  . . . I have now written you twenty-six letters from this accursed city, and you have sent me seventeen replies. Now I shall write just once again, and then no more. There, I have said it at last. I have long wondered how to word this fateful sentence in such a way as to tell you everything without its hurting too much.

  I am bidding you farewell because the die has been cast since this morning. I shall entirely disregard the military side of things in this letter; that is purely a concern of the Russians. The only question now is how long we shall hold out: it may be a few days or a few hours. You and I have our life together to look back upon. We have respected and loved one another and waited two years. In a way it’s a good thing this interval has elapsed, for though it has intensified our desire to be together again it has also greatly helped to estrange us. The passage of time is also bound to heal the wounds caused by my not returning.

  In January you will be twenty-eight, which is still very young for such a pretty woman. I am glad I have been able to pay you this compliment so often. You will miss me a lot, but that is no reason why you should shut yourself off from other human beings. Allow a few months to pass, but no more than that. Gertrud and Claus need a father. Remember that you have to live for the children, and don’t make too much song and dance about their father. Children forget quickly, particularly at that age. Take a good look at the man of your choice and pay special heed to his eyes and handshake, just as you did in our own case, and you will not be disappointed. Most of all, bring the children up to be upright men and women who can hold their heads high and look everyone straight in the face. I am writing these lines with a heavy heart – not that you would believe me if I said I found it easy – but don’t worry, I am not afraid of what is to come. Always tell yourself – and the children, too, when they are older – that their father was never a coward and that they must never be cowards either.

  . . . I was going to write you a long letter, but my thoughts keep disintegrating like those houses under gunfire. I have still ten hours left before this letter must be handed in. Ten hours are a long time when you are waiting; but they are short when you are in love. I am not at all nervous. In fact it has taken the East to make a really healthy man of me. I have long since stopped catching colds and chills; that’s the one good thing the war has done. It has bestowed one other thing on me, though – the realization that I love you.

  It’s strange that one does not start to value things until one is about to lose them. There is a bridge from my heart to yours, spanning all the vastness of distance. Across that bridge I have been used to writing to you about our daily round and the world we live in out here. I wanted to tell you the truth when I came home, and then we would never have spoken of war again. Now you will learn the truth, the last truth, earlier than I intended. And now I can write no more.

  There will always be bridges as long as there are shores; all we need is the courage to tread them. One of them now leads to you, the other into eternity – which for me is ultimately the same thing.

  Tomorrow morning I shall set foot on the last bridge. That’s a literary way of describing death, but you know I always liked to write things differently because of the pleasure words and their sounds gave me. Lend me your hand, so that the way is not too hard.

  . . . What a calamity it is that the war had to come! All those beautiful villages laid waste and none of the fields tilled. And the most dreadful thing of all is how many people have died. Now they all lie buried in an enemy land. What a calamity, indeed! Be glad, all the same, that the war is being fought in a distant country and not in our beloved German homeland. That’s a place it must never reach, or else the misery will be even worse. You must be really grateful for that and go down on your knees to thank your God. “On the banks of the Volga we stand on guard . . .” For all of you and for our homeland. If we were not here, the Russians would break through and wreck everything. They are very destructive and there are millions of them. They don’t seem to care about the cold, but we feel it terribly.

  I am lying in a hole in the snow and can only creep away to a cellar for a few hours at nightfall. You have no idea how much good that does me. We are at hand, so you have no need to be afraid. But our numbers get less and less, and if it goes on like this there will soon be no more of us. Germany has plenty of soldiers, though, and they are all fighting for the homeland. All of us want peace t
o come soon. The main thing is that we win. All keep your fingers crossed!

  . . . I am finding this letter hard enough to write, but that is nothing like as hard as you are going to take it! The news it bears is not good news, I am afraid. Nor has it been improved by the ten days I waited. Our situation is now so bad that there is talk of our soon being entirely cut off from the outer world. A short while back we were assured that this post would go off quite safely, and if only I knew there would still be another opportunity to write I should wait a little longer. But that is just what I don’t know, and for better or worse I must get this off my chest.

  The war is over for me. I am in a field hospital in Gumrak waiting to be evacuated by air. Much as I long to get away, the deadline keeps being put off. My home-coming will be a great joy to us both, but the state in which I come will give you no cause for joy. It makes me quite desperate to think of lying before you as a cripple. But you must know sooner or later that both my legs have been shot off. I am going to be quite honest with you. My right leg is completely smashed and amputated below the knee; the left one has been taken off at the thigh. The medical officer thinks that with artificial limbs I should be able to run around like any normal person. The M.O. is a good man and means well. I hope he turns out to be right. Now you know it in advance. Dear Elise, if only I knew what you are thinking. I think of nothing else and have all day long to do it. And you are very much in my thoughts. Time and again I have wished I was dead, but that is a grave sin and does not bear mentioning.

  . . . If there is a God, you told me in your last letter, He will bring me back to you safe and soon. And, you went on, God will always give His protection to a man like myself – a man who loves flowers and animals, has never done wrong to anybody, and is devoted to his wife and child.