Forced March

by Leo Kessler

  Eight hundred right feet shot out at the regulation angle. Eight hundred sets of eyes came back to life and eight hundred men breathed normally once more. In the rear rank someone farted. Metzger flushed. He took the fart as a deliberate insult to himself, as he did everything that went wrong on parade.

  The Vulture stared at the Battalion with his ice-blue eyes and slapped his riding cane against the side of his gleaming boots, which, with his grey breeches and their cowhide inlet, clearly marked him as the Regular Cavalry officer that he had been before he had transferred to the newly established Armed SS in order to obtain more rapid promotion. ‘Soldiers,’ he said impatiently in his thin rasping Prussian voice, ‘Wotan is now back up to full combat strength, thanks to our young comrades of the Hitler Youth.’ He indicated the 200-strong company of blonde giants temporarily commanded by his second-in-command Major Kuno von Dodenburg. ‘Every one a former youth leader, a volunteer and under the legal age for conscription. Seventeen every one of them – a sweet age, in my opinion.’ The Vulture smiled thinly and stroked the monstrous abomination of a nose which with his surname1 had given him his nickname of Vulture.

  Metzger, who knew his CO’s little aberration, sniffed and muttered, ‘I bet it is for him, the lousy warm brother.’ But the big Sergeant-Major was very careful to keep his opinion low.

  ‘We are now in France,’ the Vulture said unnecessarily, ‘and perhaps some of you older soldiers think that this will be an opportunity for you to laze, amuse yourself with the ladies of easy virtue in Rouen, fill your skins with beer every night. In general, live like gods in France, as the saying goes.’ The Vulture’s thin mouth snapped open, as if it were worked by steel springs. ‘If some of you think like that, then you will be sadly wrong.’ He pointed his riding whip challengingly at them. ‘Oh yes you will. All of you, old soldiers and new recruits, are here to train and train again for the task that will soon face you. And do you know why I shall train you so hard for an early death, for die you certainly will,’ he paused a moment and searched their faces for any sign of weakness or fear. But there was none, for the eight hundred men facing him were the elite of the elite.

  The Vulture answered his own question. ‘Because you belong to SS Assault Battalion Wotan and in the manner of your death you cannot bring dishonour to Wotan. For when you are long forgotten, your idle bones mouldering under some French clod, this Battalion will be remembered. Do you understand that, soldiers?’

  ‘We understand, Colonel,’ the great cry from eight hundred fervent throats came back in a tremendous roar, as if the elite of National Socialist Germany were impatient to die.

  ‘Good, very good,’ said the Vulture and then without warning cried. ‘Down!’

  The Battalion dropped on to the still wet grass as one and lay there rigid.

  For a moment the Vulture was silent. There was no sound save the crash of the waves, as he let the chill wetness penetrate their thin summer uniforms and soak into their young hard bodies. ‘Do you feel it, soldiers – the icy cold of death creeping into your brittle bones. Do you?’

  ‘We do, Colonel!’ they yelled in unison, not raising their helmeted heads from the wet turf.

  ‘Then savour it, soldiers. For that final, eternal rest will be the only one you will ever enjoy while you are with Wotan … Now on your feet!’

  Like the automatons they were, the young SS sprang to their feet, automatically assuming the wooden position of attention, their eyes fixed hypnotically again on the far horizon.

  The Vulture swung round. ‘Sarnt-Major!’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Take them away! Training must commence at once. Do you hear,’ the Vulture’s voice rose hysterically, ‘at once!’

  ‘Sir!’

  * * *

  Major Kuno von Dodenburg, the tall blond aristocratic second-in-command of Wotan, sighed with relief as the Vulture disappeared at his usual rapid pace, then turned to face his new command. For a moment he stared at their innocent yet hard faces and felt a warm surge of pride that National Socialist Germany could still produce such men in the third year of the war. Since 1939 he had seen three drafts pass through Wotan’s ranks to disappear for ever into the bloody maws of the terrible war machine. But in all that time he had never seen a group of young men like these. Everyone a Nordic giant, a Hitler Youth leader, who had served the Führer unquestioningly since he was ten years old. Truly an elite of the elite.

  Now Reichsführer Himmler was going to realise a longtime dream with these seventeen-year-old volunteers. In due course he would form a whole division of such men, dedicated totally to the Führer, with not a soldier in it, save the senior commanders,2 over the age of 21. These men now facing him would one day form the cadre of the First SS Battalion of the new Hitler Youth Division; and Kuno von Dodenburg knew he could not completely consign such highly valuable human material to Metzger’s unthinking brutality or the Vulture’s cold-blooded cynicism. That was why he had asked the CO to let him take over the company temporarily while they were in training.

  ‘Soldiers, comrades,’ he began a little awkwardly. ‘I welcome you to the First Company of SS Assault Battalion Wotan.’

  ‘Thank you, Major!’ they chanted in throaty appreciation.

  ‘You have just heard the Colonel’s words. He is a remarkable soldier: the victor of Fort Eben Emael and the crossing of the River Bug.3 But you should not always take him so seriously. He is given to – er – an extravagant turn of phrase.’ He smiled gently at the young men.

  They smiled back, relieved to know that the Vulture’s promise that they would all die was not to be taken so seriously after all, immediately liking the handsome young officer with the quiet face, clad in a black leather jacket decorated only at the throat by the gleaming Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross.

  ‘Your purpose here,’ von Dodenburg said, raising his voice, ‘is to be trained not how to die, but how to live! And that is why I am going to take a special interest in this company over the next few weeks. Every man of you is a future officer or NCO. As leaders you will have to be ten times tougher than the men under your command. That is why Number One Company is going to perform ten times better than the other three companies. Do you understand, comrades?’

  ‘We understand Major!’

  ‘Good. One last thing. Your training will be hard, very hard, but fair. If any one of you thinks otherwise, he can talk to me at any time – day or night.’ He swung round to a waiting Sergeant Metzger. ‘All right, Metzger, take them over the Battalion Assault Course – twice!’

  It was the moment that Metzger, or the Butcher, as the volunteers of the First Company would soon be calling him, had been waiting for. His little piglike eyes gleamed evilly. Ever since the volunteers had arrived at the camp on the cliffs, he had hated them – ‘a lot of shitty soft boy scouts in short pants,’ he had called them privately to his drinking cronies of the Sergeants’ Mess. Now he would make them sweat blood.

  ‘At your command, Major!’ he bellowed at the top of his tremendous voice.

  * * *

  Wotan’s Assault Course was three kilometres of hell dreamed up by all the drill sergeants who had ever lived and some devotee of the Marquis de Sade. A fifty metre crawl up a sheer slope under knee-high barbed wire, with the permanently flowing hosepipes turning the slope into a sea of slippery mud; a great wall of planks ten metres high which ripped the nails off any trainee who didn’t make its top the first time; ‘Smoky Sepp’s’, a dark cavern of a wooden hut filled all the time with choking tear gas, to be entered at the base and left through the hole in the roof; a breath-catching plunge into a chest-deep stream with the instructors tossing thunderflashes in either side of the gasping, straining, crimson-faced trainees; a never-ending kilometre dash across rugged country with thirty kilos of equipment on the back, ending only when one threw one’s leathern-lunged, pain-racked body into the damp grass to fire ten rounds of rapid fire into moving targets.

  Even then the Butcher had no mercy on them
. As they lay there in the wet grass, face downwards gasping frantically for breath, he towered above them and cried cynically: ‘Three kilometres in thirty minutes, gentlemen of the Hitler Youth! What do you think Wotan is – a rest-home for fucking gentle-women! Too much five against one, I’ll be bound.’ He made his meaning clear with an obscene movement of his right hand. ‘But by the great whore of Buxtehude, I’ll soon stop that kind of piggery! I’ll make men of you bunch of slack-assed boy scouts yet. All right you bunch of rooting sows – on yer feet!’

  Swaying as if they would collapse, the volunteers crawled to their feet, eyes blank and unseeing, crimson faces running with sweat, huge pearls of perspiration gleaming in their eyebrows.

  The Butcher posed in front of them, hands contemptuously on big hips. ‘Volunteers,’ he declared, ‘I’ve shit ‘em! But I’ve given my solemn promise to Major von Dodenberg that I’ll try to make soldiers out of you. I know it’s tempting the fates to try. No one in his right mind would think it shitting possible. But the Butcher’s got a good heart. All right!’ he screamed with sudden fury, the veins standing out at his throat, his ugly face flushing, ‘at the double! This time we’re gonna to do it in’ – he pressed the key of his stop-watch, ‘in fifteen!’

  The volunteers staggered like dying men towards the muddy slope.

  * * *

  Major von Dodenburg stood on a sandy hillock, the sea wind ripping at his clothes. ‘Comrades,’ he lectured the volunteers, already burned a brick-red by the wind and the July sun, ‘at ten o’clock and two o’clock, you will see two heights.’ The volunteers turned to follow the direction of his outstretched hand.

  ‘On those two heights, small parties of British commandos have established themselves. The commandos are tough, stubborn men who will not surrender. They will fight to the end. How do you deal with them? You winkle them out at the end of the bayonet. The British cannot stand the cold steel. But,’ he raised his forefinger warningly. ‘They are armed with their standard automatic rifle, accurate at four hundred metres. You wouldn’t make it standing up. But still they have to be eradicated. After all the CO will be awarded a fresh piece of tin if you do and that is reason enough, isn’t it?’ He smiled thinly.

  But there was no answering smile from the volunteers. Already the brutalisation process was beginning to have its effect. Their faces remained hard, set in the expression of would-be killers, intent solely on learning their chosen profession to perfection.

  ‘So what do you do? You crawl!’ His voice hardened, yet somehow inside he was saddened by what he was having to do to these young innocents in order to turn them into soldiers. ‘And to make completely sure that you keep your fool heads down, Sergeants Metzger and Lansch will begin firing from the heights when I give the signal. At exactly fifty centimetres above the ground. So keep your turnips down.’ He swung round and waved his hands above his helmeted head.

  Metzger and Lansch waved back; they were ready. ‘All right,’ von Dodenburg commanded, ‘down!’

  They dropped in unison into the parched, yellow grass. Hastily von Dodenburg checked the line of young men. Satisfied, he barked: ‘Begin crawling – now!’

  At the same moment, the two NCOs opened up with their mgs. A vicious stream of red and white tracer hissed above the helmeted heads of the young men crawling desperately through the dusty grass towards the heights. Von Dodenburg breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was running smoothly. Two hundred metres, one hundred metres. In a moment the soldiers would be in the dead ground below the mgs. Then as they had been trained they would rise to their feet, bayonets gleaming in the July sun and race towards the Spandaus to finish off their crews with the cold steel of which the Tommies (as was universally known) were so afraid.

  Fifty metres! The frantically crawling young men were almost there now. One of the volunteers miscalculated. With a hoarse cry of rage, bayonet gripped in his dirty hands, he sprang to his feet. It was the last move he was ever to make.

  Neither Metzger or Lansch hesitated. The vicious red stream of crossfire caught the volunteer in mid-stride. He faltered and screamed shrilly as the slugs ripped his stomach apart.

  ‘Shitty greenback,’ said Metzger as he spat drily into the dust at the dead boy’s feet.

  Notes

  1 Geier in German means vulture. (Transl.)

  2 In fact, the second commander of the Division, ‘Panzermeyer’ was aged exactly 33, the youngest general in the German Army at that time. (Transl.)

  3 See SS Panzer Battalion and Death’s Head.

  FIVE

  Thus as July 1942 drew to an end Number One Company became the cold-blooded killers that Himmler needed for his new division.

  Their days were full of burning sun and tearing sea winds, hoarse bellowed commands and unrelieved strain which had them gasping from lungs that sounded like broken bellows, limbs trembling, days broken only by hastily swallowed meals of disgustingly greasy, cold ‘Old Man’, reputedly made from the bodies of dead pensioners.

  Their nights were little different. It was rare that Metzger and his sadistic NCOs allowed them to sleep more than a couple of hours in a stretch. Thunderflashes tossed through the open windows of their wooden barracks exploded frighteningly under their three-storey high bunks or the sudden alarming chatter of an MG 42, breaking the stillness of the French night, would indicate the commencement of another new scheme to torture their young bodies.

  ‘Righto! Hands off yer cocks and on with yer socks!’ the NCOs would scream deafeningly, hammering at the doors with their canes. ‘Out of those wanking pits and off with those silken nighties!’

  Furiously they would spring, still dazed with sleep, from their beds, tear off their thick woollen nightshirts and stand nakedly at rigid attention. Lips curled contemptuously the NCOs would parade the length of their ranks, barking at them to ‘suck in those morbid guts’, and ‘sock back that turnip, soldier, till it hurts’, and making malicious comments about their lack of manhood, pointing their canes derisively at the embarrassed boys, then bellowing: ‘Masquerade – we’re going dancing, lovely boys! At the double!’

  Masquerade entailed changing into fatigues complete with full equipment, before stripping naked at full speed and scrambling furiously into number one uniform, complete with SS dagger and walking out cap. That completed, they would go ‘dancing’ – hopping up and down the length of the barracks completely naked, absurd and crimson-faced with embarrassment, while the NCOs chivvied them on all sides, striking their bare rumps with canes, crying in voices thickened by years of cheap booze and even cheaper cigars, ‘Come on, you bunch of warm wet-tails, get the lead out of your lovely asses! Cos if yer don’t, I’ll be forced to get out the vaseline in a minute! Move it!’ And they would guffaw coarsely.

  And more often than not the Vulture, lurking in the shadows outside, would let his suddenly hot eyes feast on their handsome, naked young bodies spread out so appealingly, remembering other places and other young men – the soft, shaven, perfumed flesh of those pliant youngsters with the lisping voices and plucked eyebrows he used to meet in the electric darkness of Berlin’s Kudamm.

  The ruthless training began to pay dividends. Lean as the volunteers had been at the beginning of their initiation into Wotan’s training methods, now they were almost skeletal, their eyes luminous in faces that had been hollowed out into death’s heads. They were capable of going all day without food or water, carrying out the murderous training exercises in the lonely coastal countryside as if they had always been used to marching fifty kilometres in five hours with sixty pounds of equipment on their backs.

  Major von Dodenburg’s pride and confidence in them grew daily. Now, as the mess buzzed with strange rumours of imminent action for the Battalion, and more and more units of the battered Adolf Hitler Bodyguard Division began to appear in the little villages and hamlets which surrounded Dieppe, he started to give Number One Company the final polish that would make it into a worthy member of the Wotan.

  It was during
one such company-strength field-firing exercise on the great white cliffs beyond the port of Dieppe, when one of the young aeroplane spotters cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled: ‘Aircraft to the west! Approaching rapidly!’ The company dropped as one, crawling rapidly to any available cover, rifles and mgs already pointing upwards, waiting for the order to fire.

  Alarmed, von Dodenburg swung round and focused his binoculars on the dark outline of the strange plane. For a moment he couldn’t identify it. Then it sprang into focus within the gleaming circle of glass and he spotted the black and white cross of the Luftwafle. It was a Fieseler Storch. He sighed with relief, and lowering his glasses, shouted: ‘All right, men, you can get up, it’s one of ours!’

  The volunteers rose slowly to their feet, dusting the knees of their fatigues, eyeing the black-painted plane curiously as it came lower, savouring the few moments of respite from the gruelling exercise. Von Dodenburg allowed them the break. He, too, was interested in the Storch. For it was obvious, as the pilot circled for a second time at a height of two hundred metres, that he was looking for a place to land.

  Finally he lowered his flaps and came zooming in at 150 kilometres an hour to touch down in a perfect three-point landing a hundred metres away. Von Dodenburg stuffed his glasses into their case and hurried across the field towards the plane.

  The door opened and a big, broad, well-remembered face beamed out at him on a massive frame that filled the opening. ‘Has Sergeant Schulze permission to speak to the Gentleman-Major?’ the ex-docker asked cheekily, addressing von Dodenburg in the manner once used by NCOs speaking to officers in the Old Army. Behind him someone tried to push past him and he jerked his elbow backwards in irritation. ‘Get on my back, you crippled little monkey-turd! Can’t you hear I’m talking to the CO.’

  ‘Schulze!’ von Dodenburg exclaimed, pushing back his helmet from his sweating brow in surprise, ‘what in three devils’ name are you doing here?’