Fatigue and fear went hand in hand. Unteroffizier Hans Becker of the 12th Panzer Division spoke of Panzer battles at Tarnopol and Dubno:
‘Where we had no rest for three days or nights: for rearming and refuelling we were withdrawn not by units but tank by tank and then hurled immediately into the fray again. I put one enemy tank out of action at Tarnopol and four at Dubno, where the countryside became an inferno of death and confusion.’(4)
Motorised infantry units alongside were subjected to the same persistent and physically demanding pressures. Hauptsturmführer Klinter, a company commander with the vehicle-borne SS ‘Toten-kopf’ Infantry Regiment, which was part of Army Group North, remembered in the first few weeks of the Russian campaign that ‘all the basic tactical principles we had learned appeared to be forgotten’. There was hardly any reconnaissance, no precise orders groups, or few accurate reports, because the situation was fast-moving and constantly changing. ‘It was a completely successful fox hunt,’ he said, ‘into a totally unknown environment, with only one aim in sight – St Petersburg!’
Maps were either incorrect or inadequate. As a result, columns separated on the line of march would often drive off along the wrong route when they reached a junction. Road signing was in its infancy in a rapidly developing tactical situation. ‘So every driver, in complete darkness, observing totally blacked-out conditions and at varying speeds, had to try to remain close together driving in tight columns.’(5) Driving continuously day and night, in such conditions was nerve-racking and exhausting.
The speed of the Panzer advance may have been an elated ‘fox hunt’ but its rapidity produced problems of its own. Communications, although vital, were difficult to maintain. This was the experience of 7th Panzer Division columns on the Minsk-Moscow autobahn’ at the end of June. On reaching Sloboda some 20km north-west of Minsk, they realised Russian units had become intermingled with their own vehicles during darkness. So confusing became the situation that columns of German, then Russian and then German units again were often passing each other, going in the same direction. On one occasion Russian lorries, 100m behind a German unit, overtook it and on realising their mistake, panicked and drove back again at full speed, passing the bemused German column yet again.(6) War correspondent Bernd Overhues, travelling at an exhilarating ‘autobahn’ speed towards Minsk with the vanguard of a Panzer unit, recalled shots ringing out at night. A loud call warned, ‘Soviet tanks up ahead!’ Bullets suddenly whistled in all directions.
‘What had happened? A number of small Soviet AFVs had joined the middle of the German column. It seems they had driven along together for a short stretch and then suddenly opened fire with a quadruple MG mounted on a lorry, shooting all barrels straight into the German vehicles. The sharp voice of a German officer icily restored order. The Soviet tank and lorry were shot into flames and put out of action.’(7)
Some of the 7th Panzer Division Vorausabteilungen advanced so quickly in chaotic pell-mell rushes that they became separated from the main bodies following on behind. As the unit itself related, ‘again and again a wild outbreak of shooting would break out, which could only be clarified when the command “7th Panzer Division cease firing!” was given by radio.’(8)
Arthur Grimm’s Vorausabteilung, clearing a cornfield of Soviet soldiers near Nowo-Miropol, unexpectedly detected an airfield to their right, obviously still in use.
‘At that moment two enemy aircraft landed. The first escaped us, but we had a few seconds available for the second. Our tracer hit it full-on and it crashed on fire.’
A light 20mm Flak gun mounted on a half-track drove onto the airstrip and began shooting up the serried lines of aircraft. Soldiers gleefully disembarked with axes and grenades and began to wreck the remainder. Connecting wing struts were knocked off biplanes with axe-heads, tyres shot flat with pistols, fuselages grenaded and propellers lifted off and dropped to the ground. In all 23 aircraft were destroyed or disabled. The greatest prize was a still steaming field cooker. Requisitioned with relish, its contents were consumed on the spot. Loaves of bread and captured fresh rations were heaped on top of groundsheets and tossed into the German vehicles. The advance was quickly resumed, for once, with full stomachs.(9)
Tempo occasionally resulted in tragedy. Oberst Rothenberg, the distinguished and experienced commander of Panzer Regiment 25, a holder of the Pour le Mérite and Knight’s Cross, was severely wounded by stray rounds exploding from a burning tank. He required immediate medical evacuation. His Panzer spearhead had advanced so rapidly it was cut off from the main body, marooning the wounded. Rothenberg, mindful of the vulnerability of his exposed forward position, rejected the offer of his division commander’s Fieseler Fi156 Storch light aircraft or an eight-wheeled armoured car escort. Instead, he elected to be driven back in two light jeeps. The small group was apprehended by Soviet soldiers in the insecure zone immediately behind the advance, and Rothenberg was shot. The bodies were not recovered until a counter-attack was mounted the following day.(10)
The primary difficulty during lightning advances was in successfully co-ordinating maximum combat power at the chosen point of main effort – a tenet of Blitzkrieg. Leutnant von Hoffgarten, commanding Motorcycle Battalion 61 with 11th Panzer Division, advanced 510km in four weeks after crossing the River Bug at the start of ‘Barbarossa’. Tanks generally led in open terrain, but there were situations, von Hoffgarten explained, that required:
‘…still greater co-operation between the two arms. This happened in complex terrain and when facing river obstacles, minefields or enemy occupied villages. Both company commanders had to plan precisely the control of such a joint operation in advance. This was not so very easy because of the poor maps, on which usually only the main roads were drawn.’(11)
Depending on the effectiveness of enemy fire, riflemen might initially ride into battle mounted on tanks or by motorcycle. They would then dismount and close with the enemy, intimately supported by protective Panzer fire. Arthur Grimm with the 11th Panzer Division recalled attacking heavily defended villages in the Dubno area early in the campaign:
‘Although the tanks could see no infantry in the open, the Soviet infantry remained hidden in the cornfields. German infantry trying to winkle them out were also invisible.’
Tank commanders, after being briefed, sketched the tactical plan on their maps in the early dawn hours. At 04.30 hours war correspondent Grimm started taking photographs as the motorcycle infantry, tasked with clearing the outlying village fields, began to drive by in a seemingly endless column of dark silhouettes. They bobbed and bumped along, rifles slung at the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust that began to merge with the low-lying early morning mist. Sunlight glinted on the metalwork of sidecars as they advanced under the protective dark outlines of tactically dispersed Panzer platoons. Commanders observing the advance formed part of the menacing silhouettes of the tanks.
After a short artillery or mortar preparation Panzer platoons would approach a village. The tactic was either to encircle or to flank the objective, pouring in fire from a distance at an acute angle to the infantry advance, closely supporting it (see p.186). The Panzer battle was detached, conducted over radio, and therefore remote and clinical. Although fast-moving, it remained nerve-racking. Watchful for opposing tanks or suspected anti-tank positions, fire would converge in tracer patterns, both automatic and tank fire, onto flimsily built houses whose thatched roofs quickly caught fire and blazed spectacularly. Throughout the action, figures would be seen dashing from house to house. Flashes, instantly observable, followed by the slower travelling ‘crump’ sound of stick grenades, signified the beginning of mop-ping-up operations to clear each dwelling. The sound of automatic fire rose and faded in concert with the movement of the distant toy-like running figures. It was impersonal, but not for the infantry. Grimm described the capture of the approaches to the village ahead:
‘And then the awful work began, hand-to-hand fighting took place in the weak light of dawn. The fields we
re infested with enemy riflemen. Every metre of ground was fought over. The Soviet soldiers did not give up. Even hand-grenades did not bring them out of their hiding places.’
Tank guns cracked out supporting fire. Presently figures, some bearded, wearing flat caps and padded jackets, emerged with hands raised. Fear showed in their faces. Lines of prisoners were formed. Confusion over an uncharacteristically large number of civilians cleared when Grimm noticed that many of the discarded Soviet knapsacks strewn about contained civilian clothes.(12)
Unteroffizier Robert Rupp, serving in a motorised infantry unit, described the aftermath of a typical village attack. Panzers were standing by, ready for action, alongside a reserve half-platoon of infantry, all watching two wooden houses blazing fiercely nearby. As the mopping-up group combed through houses, civilians drove cows out of harm’s way, carrying possessions outside. Presently about 50 Russians were pulled out of isolated hiding places from barns and houses.
‘One of them had his cheek torn open by a hand-grenade. He asked me for water and greedily slurped down some tea. A Major asked the Russians in their own tongue where the Military Commissar was, but he had already fled. The prisoners were a little happier and began passing around the Soviet star emblems from their caps. The wounded sat, unbandaged, for a long time in the street. They had to wait until the German wounded received treatment before being seen by the doctor. W. showed me his blood-stained hands, and boasted he had shot a few Russians. They had shot at him, he said.’
Later that afternoon he was awakened from an exhausted doze by the sound of shooting. Two prisoners of war had been shot and were being buried by their comrades. One had allegedly been firing dum-dum bullets (doctored rounds designed to splat on impact, causing grotesque wounds). The other apparently opened fire after signalling to surrender. ‘One of them,’ Rupp said, was still alive, because he continued to wheeze even beneath a thick layer of earth, which rose up as an arm worked itself up into the air.’
Four more Russians were ordered to dig another hole. For whom? wondered Rupp. The Russian who had earlier drunk his tea was led forward, made to lie in the hole, and shot by the Unteroffizier – the missing commissar. General Halder’s pre-campaign remarks were becoming ominously prescient. ‘A communist is no comrade before or after the battle. This is a war of extermination.’ Such behaviour was by no means universally acceptable. Rupp pointed out:
‘Differences of out. It was explained the motorcyclist battalion had shot the entire inhabitants of a village, women and children too, and cast them into graves they were made to dig themselves. This was because the whole village had been involved in an ambush that had cost the motorcyclists dearly.’(13)
Panzer soldiers might observe such incidents, but the momentum of meeting engagements kept them moving. Finishing off the enemy was infantry business. Their war was physically removed from the need to close with the enemy. A German staff officer serving with an armoured unit with Army Group South encapsulated the difference with his remarks to war correspondent Curizio Malaparte:
‘He spoke as a soldier, objectively, without exaggeration, without using any argument not of a strictly technical order. “We take few prisoners,” he says, “because they always fight to the last man. They never surrender. Their matériel can’t be compared with ours; but they know how to use it.””(14)
It was an impersonal matter of suppressing enemy resistance. Battle took up only a fraction of the time expended during even eventful advances. Physical discomfort was the primary consideration.
‘The roar of engines cleaves the red cloud of dust which covers the hills… Icy gusts of wind form sharp ridges in the thick dust. Our mouths are filled with sand, our eyes smart, our eyelids bleed. It is July, and the cold is intense. How many hours have we been on the road? How many kilometres have we travelled?’(15)
Leutnant Horst Zobel’s tank platoon with the 6th Panzer Regiment, part of Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2, travelled 600km between the rivers Bug and Dnieper over 12 days, covering some 50km per day.
‘Sometimes we fought continuously in tanks for 24 hours. This was usually while we were on the march or detailed to a security mission. That does not mean a continuous 24 hours’ fighting. Of course there were always places where the crew could rest or nap. They slept either in the tank or on the rear of the tank, which was pretty warm from the engine. Sometimes they dug holes underneath the tank which provided them secure rest uninterrupted by night bombers often flying over.’(16)
Tank crewmen shared everything. Comradeship was intense, forged sharing common dangers, enduring trying conditions and living intimately together within the confines of a Panzer. Signal, the glossy German news magazine (equivalent to the American Life picture publication) ran an atmospheric article entitled ‘The Five from Panzer Number 11’. It described typical conditions among five crew members of a PzKpfwIV (heavy tank) from Panzer Regiment 15 (with the 11th Panzer Division).
‘These five men, each from totally different practical backgrounds, represent a whole. Each one knows he is, and must be, reliant on the other. Each is a human being, with all the strengths and weaknesses all of us has; but taken together they are a feared and lethal weapon.’
The Panzer commander – ‘Der Alte’ (the old man) – was 21-year-old Leutnant Graf Hyazinth St___ (names withheld in the Signal article) [probably the Oberleutnant Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz referred to earlier], who had joined at the beginning of the war serving in the Yugoslav campaign prior to Russia. His father, from a distinguished family, was a Panzer battalion commander.
The gunner was Unteroffizier Arno B___ who, ‘after every battle, stuck a cigarette in his mouth.’ He was 25 years old with three brothers, all serving in the Wehrmacht, and two sisters. After the war he intended to be a technical salesman, ‘preferably in Africa’. Inside the fighting compartment he was aided by the gun loader Adolf T___. He was an elderly 32-year-old ex-SA (Sturm Abteilung or Nazi party ‘brownshirt’), married, with two young daughters. His first task after any engagement was to swab out the gun barrel.
Tank communications was the responsibility of the radio operator, Walter D___, who had worked on the railways before becoming a regular soldier. He had six brothers, five serving, the eldest of which was a Feldwebel.
Unteroffizier Hans E___, the 26-year-old driver, had earlier been a civil motor mechanic, a trade he intended to resume after the war. He was married and always carried a photograph of his four-year-old son in his pocket.
The five-man crew represented a ‘presentable’ microcosm of Reich society in Signal propaganda terms. Enlisted soldiers earned between RM105 and RM112.50 each month. This might be supplemented by a monthly family allowance of RM150. Most of them saved their money and sent it home. Factory workers by comparison earned an average of RM80 (or RM51.70 for women). It is not known whether this chosen crew survived the campaign. Their statistical chance of avoiding death or injury before the end of the war was remote.(17)
These were ordinary men. ‘The first man of the crew who required a rest during a stop was the driver,’ explained Leutnant Horst Zobel with Panzer Regiment 6. ‘We had to care about him and he was seldom used as security or a sentry mission.’ As a consequence, ‘the tank commander,’ like himself, ‘regardless of rank, unless a company or battalion commander, had to share in those tasks.’ Each depended on the other to survive. As Zobel stressed, in the attack ‘the enemy is always the first to open fire. He fires the first shot and the crew must react.’(18) Everyday life followed a routine regimented by administrative and security tasks interspersed with the intense demands of acting as an integrated and focused team in battle. Typical routine in the 20th Panzer Division, according to one Panzer crewman, meant one was:
‘… always extremely alert. Tanks were stationed forward as security outposts with officers peering through binoculars. The battalion HQ officer comes from regiment with new orders. A few people hastily eat a sandwich. Others lie about and talk about the attack they experienced that
morning. Another writes a letter on the radiator bonnet of a vehicle. The commander attempts to work improvements to the camouflage. The adjutant tries to get signatures for paper returns but is fobbed off with the response: “we have no time in summer for the ‘Paper War’.”’(19)
Lurking behind such routine was not so much a morbid fear of death, rather a healthy regard for the unexpected. Catastrophe was something that happened to others and it was unhealthy to dwell upon it for too long. Götz Hrt-Reger, a keen amateur cine cameraman, describing scenes he had taken during the war from his armoured car, remarked:
‘This was a shot through the side window showing the grave of our driver. I had just left the vehicle to operate the radio when it received a direct hit, killing the whole crew. Changing cars can be advantageous – eh?’
His view was that death struck in a haphazard way. There was scant time or scope to sentimentalise about its impact.
‘It’s pure chance if you’re hit or not. You might consider it’s tragic, but that is that. What more can you say? You could have been hit yourself and that’s war. You can’t expect a fighting unit to hang around tending each grave for a day, or think about the dead – because there are too many. If we had, then the German Wehrmacht would have made no headway at all!’(20)
War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 Page 21