At Leningrad's Gates

by William Lubbec

  At Leningrad's Gates

  William Lubbec

  David B. Hurt

  “…a well-wrought ground level view of daily life in hell.”

  —World War II Magazine

  This is the remarkable story of a German soldier who fought throughout World War II, rising from conscript private to captain of a heavy weapons company on the Eastern Front.

  William Lubbeck, age 19, was drafted into the Wehrmacht in August 1939. As a member of the 58th Infantry Division, he received his baptism of fire during the 1940 invasion of France. The following spring his division served on the left flank of Army Group North in Operation Barbarossa. After grueling marches amidst countless Russian bodies, burnt-out vehicles, and a great number of cheering Baltic civilians, Lubbeck’s unit entered the outskirts of Leningrad, making the deepest penetration of any German formation.

  The Germans suffered hardships the following winter as they fought both Russian counterattacks and the brutal cold. The 58th Division was thrown back and forth across the front of Army Group North, from Novgorod to Demyansk, at one point fighting back Russian attacks on the ice of Lake Ilmen.

  A soldier who preferred to be close to the action, Lubbeck served as forward observer for his company, dueling with Russian snipers, partisans and full-scale assaults alike. His worries were not confined to his own safety, however, as news arrived of disasters in Germany, including the destruction of Hamburg where his girlfriend served as an Army nurse.

  In September 1943, Lubbeck earned the Iron Cross and was assigned to officers’ training school in Dresden. By the time he returned to Russia, Army Group North was in full-scale retreat. Now commanding his former heavy weapons company, Lubbeck alternated sharp counterattacks with inexorable withdrawal to Memel on the Baltic. In April 1945 his company was nearly obliterated, but in the last scramble from East Prussia, he was able to evacuate on a newly minted German destroyer.

  After his release from British captivity, Lubbeck immigrated to the United States where he raised a successful family. With the assistance of David B. Hurt, he has drawn on his wartime notes and letters, Soldatbuch, regimental history and personal memories to recount his frontline experience, including rare firsthand accounts of both triumph and disaster.

  “…compiled with attention to details. The reader will feel as though he is alongside Lubbeck as he calls fire missions on the enemy during his three years of service.”

  Military Trader, 11/2007

  AT LENINGRAD’S GATES

  The Story of a Soldier with Army Group North

  by former Wehrmacht officer

  William Lubbec

  with David B. Hurt

  PREFACE

  IN TELLING MY STORY, I do not wish to impress anyone or present myself as a hero. Like millions of other troops on the frontline of the Second World War, I was just a soldier who obeyed orders and carried out my duties. The heroes were those comrades who never returned home and were often left unburied in far-off fields.

  God had other plans for me and spared my life. This testament of my experience is a memorial to the service and sacrifice of those soldiers who did not come back.

  This book is also dedicated to Anneliese, who served as a Red Cross nurse in German field hospitals attending wounded troops during the final two years of the war. On a more personal level, words cannot express my eternal gratitude for the hope that her love gave me during my long years in combat and for the many happy decades of marriage that we enjoyed after the war.

  During a trip to Germany in the summer of 2003, my daughter discovered my wartime correspondence with Anneliese. Reading through these letters brought forth bittersweet emotions, but helped to give me a kind of closure. I also feel a sense of relief in being able to share my experiences of the war with my family and a broader audience.

  It is my hope that this account will help to increase public understanding of the Second World War, especially of the brutal nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front. In particular, Americans often misunderstand the motivations of German troops who fought in World War II. Most of the common soldiers were not supporters of Hitler and the Nazi regime, but simply patriotic Germans who sought to serve their country.

  I am deeply indebted to the people of the United States for accepting my family and me as their fellow citizens and for allowing us to realize the American dream. It is my hope that this story may help the citizens of my adopted country to gain a more complete appreciation of the diverse experience of American immigrants.

  WILLIAM LUBBECK

  July 2006

  INTRODUCTION

  READING THE FIRSTHAND account of a soldier who marched into Russia with Napoleon’s army in 1812 personalized that distant conflict for me in a way that a general history could not. By the end of that memoir, Jakob Walter’s The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier, I had become convinced that a more recent veteran of warfare in Russia, William Lubbeck, should narrate an account of his own remarkable experiences as a German soldier during the Second World War.

  While from today’s vantage point we often perceive the past as following an inevitable course to the present, Lubbeck lived through the unfolding history of that struggle, uncertain of his own fate or of the larger outcome. His modesty made it difficult to persuade him to share his exceptional story, but he ultimately concluded that the testimony of a surviving German soldier would serve to honor the memory of his fallen comrades. In addition, a memoir could help a modern audience to develop a wider perspective on an increasingly remote war.

  The writing process involved countless hours of recorded interviews as well as even longer periods transcribing the tapes. Memories do not occur in chronological order, so as the story gradually revealed itself it was necessary to flesh out ever-more details and fill in the gaps. In this task, Lubbeck’s recently discovered wartime correspondence with his late wife Anneliese proved invaluable in helping him to recall events as well as recapture his personal feelings at different stages of the war. A divisional history written by Kurt von Zydowitz, Die Geschichte de 58.Infanterie Division 1939–1945 (Podzan, 1952), was also invaluable in reminding Lubbeck of the larger chronology.

  After many years living in the United States, Lubbeck generally related measurements in non-metric terms. For consistency we have kept the American usage of yards, miles, Fahrenheit, et al., throughout, at times calculating them from metric. He also often utilized American syntax in other observations, employing terms like “gung-ho” and “boot camp.” With military ranks he made distinctions in German which are included here in parentheses.

  Although Lubbeck has naturally acquired a greater overview on the war today than he had while serving in it, we made a conscious decision to confine this work to his personal experiences at the time rather than overviews, criticisms, or “what ifs.” His actions, observations, and emotions during those tumultuous years were our sole focus.

  While he had never spoken in depth about the war since his arrival in North America—in fact, he was reluctant to do so—the wealth of information that poured out as our interviews progressed impressed me greatly. The decades faded away as he recalled his prior life as a citizen and soldier for Germany, leaving the vigorous younger man in the photographs only barely concealed behind the erudite, retired U.S. engineer.

  In the period before and during the Second World War, the German people’s perception of events contrasted sharply with the American outlook. Allowing ourselves to see these events from a different point of view does not undermine the ultimate morality of the cause for which the United States and the Western Allies fought, but rather helps us better comprehend why educated, civilized Germans were prepared to fight and die under such a regime. />
  William Lubbeck’s account of these years explains how the Nazi regime’s early success in reviving Germany’s power and prestige helped it win a broader measure of public support. Yet, he also argues that many Germans nonetheless mistrusted the Nazis and recognized a darker side to Hitler’s dictatorship. This contradiction raises the critical question of why many Germans were prepared to wage war, even if they often held deep and growing doubts about their government.

  Nazi propaganda played an important role in shaping German public opinion, manipulating deeply held popular convictions about the world. In the end, most Germans accepted that war was necessary to overturn the perceived injustices inflicted on their nation by the Treaty of Versailles and to eliminate the threat to European civilization posed by Stalinist Communism.

  While Lubbeck approved of the rebuilding of Germany’s economic and military power and believed in the justice of his country’s cause, he opposed the Nazi regime’s repressive character and radical extremism. Yet, despite his mistrust of Hitler and lack of faith in the Nazi ideology, he was nonetheless willing to persevere through six years of war. As with most German soldiers, his fight was inspired by a patriotic love for his country, a deep sense of commitment to duty, and a basic desire to bring himself and his comrades through the war.

  Born in 1920, Wilhelm Lübbecke (as he was named at birth) grew up on his family’s farm in the village of Püggen. During the 1930s, he witnessed the rise of the Nazis and their consolidation of power in Germany with mixed feelings. Like most other Germans, however, he was primarily focused on pursuing a career and enjoying life, rather than on politics.

  Leaving Püggen for the city of Lüneburg in early 1938, Lubbeck began work as an apprentice electrician, which was a requirement of students planning to enter a collegiate electrical engineering program. Meeting Anneliese Berndt a year later, he began a relationship that would give him hope during the dark years of war that followed.

  Drafted into the army at the outbreak of war in 1939, Lubbeck entered a heavy weapons company in the 58th Infantry Division. After first seeing battle during the German Blitzkrieg through France, he was posted to occupation duty in Belgium. In the spring of 1941, his division was transferred to Army Group North to prepare for the invasion of Russia.

  Following the commencement of Operation Barbarosa that summer, Lubbeck was assigned to serve as forward observer for his company’s howitzers. After penetrating into the suburbs of Leningrad, his unit was soon pulled back to the outskirts of the city. There it joined other German forces initiating a siege of Leningrad on Hitler’s orders at the start of a brutal winter.

  As Soviet forces steadily grew in strength and capability over the next two years, Lubbeck fought in a series of increasingly desperate battles at the Volkhov River, along the corridor to the Demyansk pocket, at Novgorod, and near Lake Ladoga.

  Soon after receiving the Iron Cross First Class, in late 1943 Lubbeck entered an officer training program in Germany. Following his return to the front in the late spring of 1944, he took command of his old company as it battled through a harrowing year-long retreat back through the Baltic region and into East Prussia.

  Upon his release from a POW camp after the war, Lubbeck struggled to survive in Germany’s calamitous post-war economic conditions. With little food to eat, he and his new wife were ultimately forced to risk crossing the Iron Curtain in order to reach his family’s farm in the Soviet Zone. After six difficult years, they finally made the decision to leave Germany.

  Emigrating from their homeland with almost nothing, he and his family spent the next decades building a new life, first in Canada and then the United States. His triumph over adversity and integration into a new society as an American immigrant is an extraordinary tale in itself, and provides him with a unique perspective from which to relate his experiences as a German soldier.

  Every effort has been made to recount the events in this memoir accurately in the hope that it can contribute to the historical record. Beyond adding significant new insights into the experiences of German soldiers in the frontlines of the Second World War, William Lubbeck’s account reveals how a man’s character, deep sense of discipline, and love for a woman and his family shaped the course of his life and allowed him to survive and prosper in the face of great adversity during and after the war.

  It is a privilege to share his compelling story with a wider audience.

  DAVID HURT

  July 2006

  PROLOGUE

  April–May 1945

  EAST AND WEST PRUSSIA IN EARLY APRIL 1945

  Heavy lines indicate the front encircling the remaining German-held territory between the Samland and the Hela Peninsula.

  LAST ORDERS: APRIL 16–18, 1945

  It was the end.

  It was the end for my company.

  It was the end for the 58th Infantry Division.

  It was perhaps the end for Germany and for me.

  In the four years since the invasion of Russia, April 16, 1945 was for me the worst day of the war. In the past hours, the heavy weapons company under my command had simply ceased to exist.

  The disaster at the key road junction of Fischhausen was not a battle, but rather the catastrophic climax to the unrelenting Soviet barrage that had pursued our retreat westward during the previous weeks. Finally, trapped in a congested mass with other German units trying to move down the single main road through this East Prussian town, there was no longer any way to move forward.

  Concentrating on this chokepoint, the artillery of four Soviet armies combined with several hundred aircraft to let loose a devastating assault. Everyone who failed to escape into one of the side streets was annihilated in a cataclysm of Russian rockets, shells, and bombs. A strafing run by a Soviet fighter plane on the western outskirts of Fischhausen left my face perforated with small bullet fragments and my eyes almost blinded by dirt and blood, but I realized that I had been fortunate simply to survive the onslaught.

  Of the roughly 100 remaining troops from my company who had entered Fischhausen, it was clear that most had been killed in the attack. The death of so many of my men was emotionally wrenching, even if the loss of soldiers had become tragically commonplace during the course of the war.

  What was most shocking to me was the ongoing collapse of military order that had begun even before we reached Fischhausen. Until this point, even as the military circumstances had grown more calamitous, the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) had successfully maintained its discipline and unit cohesion. Now, everything was in utter disarray.

  In our catastrophic condition, it seemed impossible that only three and a half years earlier these same Russians had appeared to be on the verge of collapse as we stood at the gates of Leningrad. Yet in the years that followed I had seen the tide of war steadily turn as the Soviets recovered and joined with the Western Allies, to force Germany onto the strategic defensive.

  When I returned to the Eastern Front from officer training in May of 1944, the Wehrmacht had already retreated from most of the conquered Soviet territory. Army Group North, one of the three large German Army groups in the East, had pulled back from Leningrad into Estonia. Weeks later, Army Group Center to the south of us was nearly destroyed by a gigantic Soviet attack. In the months that followed, we withdrew ever further west back into the territory of the German Reich.

  Since late January of 1945, I had led the steadily thinning ranks of my heavy weapons company in continuous combat against the inexorable torrent of Soviet forces pushing into East Prussia. Overwhelmed by the Red Army’s enormous advantage in men and equipment, it was clear that our situation was worsening by the day. Nonetheless, we battled on. What choice did we have? Faced with enemy troops to our front and the Baltic Sea to our rear, there was little hope of ever getting back to central Germany. Like cornered animals, we were simply fighting for our lives.

  Promoted from first lieutenant (Oberleutnant) to captain (Hauptmann) in late March, I struggled to maintain discipline and mo
rale among the troops under my command. The men in my company attempted to retain their usual confident spirit, but there was little secret what the future held for us. In these circumstances, falling to a Russian bullet on the battlefield seemed far better than the hellish conditions that faced a German POW in the Soviet Union.

  As an officer, I felt a special dread of capture by the Red Army. If not killed in combat, I expected to be confronted with a choice between surrender and suicide. I planned to save one last bullet for myself, though it was uncertain whether I would be able to summon the courage to use it. Just two months short of my twenty-fifth birthday, I did not wish to die. So far, I had succeeded in escaping death and eluding this terrible dilemma.

  With Fischhausen now reduced to smoking rubble and the Red Army only a couple of miles away, I wandered west from town along with other surviving German troops heading along the main road into the pinewoods.

  At the limits of physical fatigue and psychological stress, my body moved forward almost robotically. My mind was numb, but I still felt a deep responsibility to my men. My purpose now was to locate any others who might have evaded the slaughter and taken refuge in one of the abandoned homes or many empty ammunition bunkers that filled the forest.

  Sand and blood from the earlier attack still clouding my vision, I stumbled along beside the road, barely able to see where I was going or what was around me. Every twenty yards or so, the whistle of another incoming artillery shell forced me to throw myself against the ground. Getting back to my feet, I staggered forward again, constantly trying to blink my eyes clear in order to be able to identify the next position where I might seek cover.

  Perhaps a mile from Fischhausen, a group of ten soldiers from my company appeared on the north side of the road, huddled just outside the entrance to one of the immense 60-by-100-foot earth-camouflaged bunkers. Among them was Senior Sergeant (Hauptfeldwebel) Jüchter, the head of the Tross (rear area); a couple of other sergeants (Feldwebels); two lance corporals (Obergefreiten); and several privates (Schützen).