In addition to the ethnically Slavic troops, growing numbers of Mongolians from the eastern parts of the Soviet Union began to appear in Red Army units after 1943. While not afraid of the typical Slav, we feared these Mongolians, who were especially tough and brutal adversaries in combat.
At the start of the war, we often viewed and treated the Soviet soldier as a primitive brute. As we came to know the enemy, however, the natural courage and toughness of the Red Army soldier won him our respect. Whatever their views on Communism, it soon became clear to us that the Russian troops were willing to sacrifice their lives to repel the German invaders who had occupied their motherland.
Chapter 11
HOLDING THE LINE AT LADOGA
March–September 1943
THE LENINGRAD SECTOR IN 1943
Heavy lines indicate the fronts north and south of Leningrad and the Soviet-held Oranienbaum pocket.
KRASNY BOR
Late March–April 24, 1943
Though we still maintained our siege lines close to Leningrad, a Red Army offensive in January 1943 succeeded in opening an overland supply route into the city along the southwestern shore of Lake Ladoga. In mid-March, the Soviets began the Second Battle of Ladoga in another push against the German lines east of Leningrad.
At the end of March, the 58th Infantry Division was pulled out of Novgorod and traveled some 60 miles north of Lake Ilmen to help bolster this threatened sector. When our division reached the frontline near the town of Krasny Bor, just south of the Neva River, we were placed into a reserve position behind the Spanish Blue Division, which was fighting in Russia as a German ally.
By this time, the 13th Company had gone through a couple of further changes in leadership. With Second Lt. Münstermann and his successor, Second Lt. Jürgens, both promoted to command battalions in our regiment, Second Lt. Reichardt had now been placed in charge of our company. Perhaps in preparation for future promotion, Reichardt designated me to serve as the informal liaison between our heavy weapons company and the Spanish forces stationed in front of us.
Beyond coordinating the use of our heavy guns to support the Spanish in case of a Soviet attack, I dealt with any other issues that might arise between our company and their division. There was a generally good relationship between the German and Spanish troops, but we felt uncertain about the Spanish soldiers’ capability on the battle-field. Their heavy losses in the preceding months of combat in this sector reduced our confidence in their ability to resist a serious Red Army attack.
When Soviet artillery fire began to pound the Spanish positions a couple of days later, our company immediately went to the support of the Spanish troops with our howitzers and recently issued 105-millimeter mortars. Despite our best efforts, the Russian assault sent a portion of the Spanish troops reeling backward.
In response to the crisis, our regiment’s seasoned infantry quickly moved forward and counterattacked to prevent the initial enemy penetration from developing into a full-scale breakthrough. Within a couple of hours, our troops had forced the Red Army to retreat and had stabilized the frontlines.
In the weeks of relative quiet that followed, we were permitted some much needed rest behind the front. As in other regions of Russia, the villages around Krasny Bor were mostly only a stretch of road with houses along either side. The Red Army had burned down many homes and villages during their scorched-earth retreat early in the war, but a few structures close to our position remained intact.
A group of us from my company were temporarily quartered in one of these surviving Russian homes for a few nights. Though normally billeted in unoccupied residences, in this instance we shared the small house with its residents, two women in their thirties or forties and their children. In fact, these were the first Russian women I had seen since we had been stationed in Uritsk over a year earlier. As was usually the case with the Russian civilians we encountered, they appeared almost apathetic about our presence.
During this period of relative quiet at Krasny Bor, a number of soldiers in my regiment made use of a nearby Russian banya to relax. This led to unexpected tragedy when soldiers from the Spanish Blue Division decided to engage in target practice with a machine gun in the same location. Opening fire, they accidentally killed all four Germans who had been relaxing inside the bathhouse. Although this incident naturally caused some bitterness toward the Spanish, most of us had grown so accustomed to death that we were almost desensitized.
SECOND LEAVE FROM RUSSIA: April 24–May 15, 1943
Three and a half weeks after our arrival at Krasny Bor, I received my second furlough from duty in Russia and departed on April 24 for the long trip home to Germany.
Despite the warm welcome that I received from my family, coming home from the fighting in Russia remained a difficult experience. Over the first week or so, I could not connect to civilian life at all. During the day, my mind was still at the front as if I had never left. My nights were filled with dreams of combat. Only a couple of weeks into my leave did I slowly begin to readjust, but by then, of course, I had to return to the front. Still, whatever difficulties I experienced, it was always wonderful to be home.
On May 8, Anneliese came to Püggen for her first visit with my family. Since breaking off her engagement to the florist’s son, our relationship had continued to grow more intimate. On walks around the farm, we talked about our future plans. Though marriage was still not imminent, it was already apparent to my family that eventually we would wed.
Everyone in my family thought very highly of Anneliese. My sisters treated her like a sister and my mother adored her. Only my father expressed any concern about our plans. He liked Anneliese personally, but had been trying to convince me that a man with my prospects could make a better marital connection by pursuing a woman from a wealthier background. His concern for my financial future reflected our own family’s monetary difficulties during the Great Depression, but I did not agree with regarding marriage from a purely material point of view.
Upset that he was attempting to meddle in what was a highly personal matter, I told him bluntly, “Dad, this is my decision. I love this woman and am going to marry her. You are not going to interfere.” He never again questioned my judgment.
At this time, Anneliese was still working at the flower shop across from Hamburg’s city hall. However, the previous January she had volunteered to enter training as a Red Cross nurse, feeling she had a patriotic duty to make a more direct contribution to the war effort. Shortly after her visit with us, she would start a three-month training course at a hospital in Hamburg.
As Anneliese headed back home and I set out on the journey back to the front on May 12, we parted knowing that it was not only me who would soon be at risk.
KRASNY BOR: May 15–July 24, 1943
If readjustment to life at home was difficult for me, the separation from loved ones to return to the front was infinitely worse. As my train traveled down the miles of track, it was impossible not to dwell on the memories of Anneliese in my arms and the time spent together with my family, uncertain if I would live to see them again.
Those first mid-May days back at the front at Krasny Bor were among the worst that I experienced as a soldier, especially since I was going directly into combat. Normally, the familiar pattern of trench warfare would again become my daily reality after about a week or so back at the front, but on this occasion my efforts to leave home behind failed. When a soldier’s mind is focused on thoughts of home, he can become careless and highly vulnerable to injury or death. In an effort to compensate for my distraction, I sought to exercise an especially high level of caution during this period.
Even though our lines at Krasny Bor shifted little, our company fought in a number of small and large actions against the enemy forces posted across from us. During this period the Russians would sometimes stage attacks that seemed designed to acquire our food supplies as much as to occupy our positions. When the Soviet troops broke into our trenches, we would often fall back
a couple of hundred yards while they went into our bunkers to pilfer our food stocks. With time to regroup, we would organize a counterattack that threw them back out of our positions, almost as if we were operating on a tacitly agreed schedule.
Of course, some days stand out. On Sunday June 17, I turned 23. Normally, birthdays at the front received little recognition. On this occasion, Second Lt. Reichardt, the company commander, took note of mine and presented me with a bottle of cognac. He also used the rare calm at the front to hold our first church service since the start of the war in Russia almost two years earlier. Such respites from the conflict never lasted long.
Sometimes the war would strike unexpectedly. As I was walking among some large trees behind our lines on a quiet day, I heard the distant boom of an enemy artillery piece. Keeping my ears tuned to the whistle of the incoming round, I suddenly realized that it was coming close, very close. Instantly flinging myself flat, I pressed my body down into the rain-soaked earth. In that brief moment while I awaited its impact, life or death seemed equally possible.
My ears had not deceived me. The shell landed only three or four feet away from my prone body, but fortunately plunged deep into the mud before detonating. Incredibly, the explosion left me covered with mire, but otherwise unhurt.
Even when we slept, combat often filled our dreams. One night, I came partially awake in our bunker, mistakenly believing in my still semi-conscious state that we were under enemy attack. Snatching a hand grenade, I yelled, “The Russians are coming!”
Fortunately for me, my communications specialist was fully alert and managed to yank the grenade from my hand before the pin was removed. Because we were down in a bunker, there was no way I could have gotten rid of it in time. In that confined space the blast would have killed us both. Even though my assistant was my subordinate, rank mattered little in such a situation. At that moment, he was simply a comrade who was looking out for me, just as I would look out for him.
As the weeks at the front passed, my time at home came to seem like a far-off dream, though Anneliese remained constantly in my thoughts. For her twenty-second birthday on June 29, I arranged to have a dozen red roses sent to her. It was as much an expression of my hope for our future together as it was a token of my deep affection.
While my correspondence to her was mostly devoted to expressing my feelings, I would sometimes make passing mention of our combat operations in terms that would pass the censor’s scrutiny. In a letter to Anneliese on June 20, I referenced a dual between our howitzers and Soviet artillery. Writing on July 10, I noted that our howitzers and mortars had successfully repulsed an assault by the Russians against our position. Such engagements were routine for us and otherwise soon forgotten.
AT THE NEVA: July 24–September 4, 1943
On July 22, the Red Army initiated the Third Battle of Ladoga, renewing its struggle to break the German siege lines east of Leningrad in the area close to the lake. Two days later, our division was rushed the 15 miles from the Krasny Bor sector to a key position beside the Neva River in an area known as the Sinyavino Heights. This placed us about four miles southeast of Lake Ladoga and three miles northwest of the critical rail junction of Mga.
The 58th Division soon experienced some of its heaviest fighting of the war as the Soviet 67th Army attempted to seize the high ground from us. The struggle on August 4 was particularly brutal. The 154th Regiment’s attempt to regain the ground it had lost had to be broken off after the counterattack met with stiff enemy resistance and heavy losses. On August 8, we experienced more tough fighting that tied me down in a foxhole for hours.
On a generally quiet day a short time later, a strange episode occurred as I was tramping along a dirt road on the way from my frontline position to my rear bunker about a mile behind the front. As I approached the area just behind our howitzers, a young German second lieutenant wearing an unsoiled uniform came strolling up the road toward me from the north. This immediately struck me as odd since the German Army had no units located in that direction.
While I was baffled by his presence in the area, the officer did not appear nervous or exhibit any suspicious behavior. As we passed one another, he cordially returned my salute and I dismissed my apprehensions.
Two hours later, Soviet heavy artillery slammed 50 or 60 shells into our position with pinpoint accuracy. Only our deeply dug set of entrenchments prevented the bombardment from causing any casualties or damage to the howitzers.
Instantly, my mind flashed back to the mysterious German officer. In retrospect, I concluded that he must indeed have been a Russian agent gathering intelligence. His close-up scouting of our position would explain the enemy’s ability to target our camouflaged position so precisely. Convinced of my failure to identify a spy, I silently vowed to be far more wary of anything unusual in the future.
On an afternoon a few days later, I headed up to the frontline to join my close comrade Sergeant Schütte, who had begun interchanging with me as our company’s F.O. Becoming suspicious about the unusual quiet that followed the recent artillery attack, he warned me that the Red Army might be preparing another assault.
Deciding to study the enemy position myself, I climbed up the branches of a pine tree at the edge of the forest about 100 yards behind our trenches. In case any targets appeared, I hauled along a field telephone. Perhaps half an hour after I reached my perch about 20 feet up, four Soviet T-34 tanks suddenly appeared from the north-east and began a slow advance across the flat ground directly toward my location in the tree. Soldiers were riding on top of the tanks, which were followed by a large number of additional infantry on foot. While our company’s heavy guns were not designed to serve in an anti-tank role and lacked armor-piercing rounds, I knew from long experience that it was possible to accurately target the fire of the guns into an area about ten square yards in size.
With a chance to halt the advance before it progressed any further toward our regiment’s position, I used the field telephone to direct one of our 150-millimeter guns to fire a round against the closest T-34, about 500 yards to my front. Falling just to the left of the target, the first shell’s blast knocked the enemy troops from the tank but failed to damage the vehicle. After redirecting the howitzer to shift its fire to the right, the next round fell short of the tank. The third shell landed very close, missing the T-34 by only a few feet.
Receiving a further correction, the gun crew fired a fourth round. When the shell detonated against the turret, the tank instantly ground to a halt. Seconds later, a small plume of white smoke began to drift from the vehicle.
Shifting my attention to a second T-34 about 20 yards behind the destroyed one, I called in a fifth round. Smashing into its treads from the side, the shell’s explosion immobilized the vehicle, forcing its crew to jump out and run for cover. The third Soviet tank in the group immediately ceased its advance while the fourth one began to retreat.
As this assault ended, a larger group of around fifteen tanks momentarily came into view 1,000 yards behind the scene of the attack before moving out of sight behind a hill. Unsure whether this larger armored force would renew the advance, I telephoned back to headquarters to make our new regimental commander, Colonel (Oberst) Hermann-Heinrich Behrend, aware of the situation.
“Where are you?” he demanded before I could even speak.
“I am in a tree right behind the front line,” I responded with some trepidation.
“What the hell are you doing up there?” he yelled back, obviously concerned that I would place myself in such a vulnerable position.
Informing him that we had stopped an armored attack probing our defenses, I warned that significant tank forces were massing behind it and might conduct another assault.
After requesting details on the number of tanks and their location, he indicated that he would pass along the intelligence to divisional headquarters and then hung up. Once their initial thrust had been halted, the Soviets did not, however, attempt to renew their attack on our sector of
the front.
Despite my thrill at knocking out the tanks, there was still a danger that the enemy would spot me the longer I remained in my exposed position. Yet, climbing down the tree in the daylight would greatly increase the risk of attracting the attention of a Russian sniper or machine-gun crew. In this dilemma, my only choice was to wait for the cover of darkness.
When dusk finally fell about an hour later, I made a rapid slide down the trunk and headed for safety in the rear. Reaching the gun crew, I passed along news of our small triumph. In a war filled with many combat engagements, hitting a moving target with indirect fire from guns in the rear was a rare and memorable accomplishment.
Over the course of the war, most of the casualties in our regiment resulted from Russian artillery and mortars, to a lesser extent from small-arms fire. About this time, however, we also began to endure our first bombing and strafing raids by Soviet aircraft.
During the daytime, we occasionally faced a threat from Soviet ground-attack planes like the Illyushin-2 Sturmovik. At night, we confronted the menace of the Polyarkov-2, nicknamed the Nähmaschine (Sewing Machine) for the loud rhythmic clattering of its engine.
The noisy approach of the Nähmaschine was audible at a great distance, but it was virtually impossible to target them in the darkness.
Flying a couple of hundred feet overhead, the pilot and copilot would search for any flicker of light that would reveal the location of our lines or rear camps.
Despite efforts to black-out everything on the ground, there was bound to be someone who would light a cigarette or use a flashlight that the enemy could spot. Once locating a potential target, the Soviet pilots often cut their engines in order to glide silently over the spot before dropping their bombs on the unsuspecting targets below.
At Leningrad's Gates Page 17