At Leningrad's Gates

by William Lubbec

  The loss of these depots caused certain types of supplies to grow tighter, but it also meant that we sometimes received delivery of large amounts of rare luxuries. In one instance, the army sent our division numerous bottles of Hennessey cognac that would otherwise have been lost. Under the constant threat of a Soviet attack, there were few opportune moments to allow the men to drink freely. Now more alert than ever to the dangers posed by excessive drinking, I kept the liquor supplies tightly rationed.

  At a location further along in our retreat through the Düna region, there was a rare occasion when the divisional artillery coordinated with our heavy weapons company to jointly strike a target.

  While our heavy weapons company supported the regimental infantry’s operations closer to the front, the artillery normally concentrated on targets in the enemy’s rear area. The forward observer for the regiment’s heavy gun company typically worked in close proximity and often exchanged ideas with his counterpart in the division’s main artillery regiment, but their distinct fire support missions meant that they almost always operated independently.

  In this particular instance, our division’s intelligence had become suspicious that the Red Army was massing forces in a roughly ten-acre wooded area to our front. To destroy whatever was there, the artillery command requested our company to join them in a barrage on the Soviet position.

  With my long experience as an F.O., it was possible for me to calculate almost down to the second how long it would take for the shells from our howitzers and mortars to reach a particular target. Coordinating with the artillery’s F.O., we sought to precisely time our barrages in order to deliver the maximum possible intensity of fire on the unsuspecting Soviet forces hidden in the forest.

  Orchestrating the barrage from our guns by my watch, I first ordered the firing of our 105-millimeter mortars because it takes longer for their rounds to reach the target due to their high trajectory. This was closely followed by the firing of all of our 150-millimeter and 75-millimeter howitzers.

  In about half a minute or so, hundreds of shells from our guns and the artillery simultaneously slammed into the woods. This devastating cataclysm of fire undoubtedly annihilated any Russian forces that might have been massing there. In such circumstances, it was impossible not to feel pity for the enemy.

  A few lines from a series of letters to Anneliese during our steady retreat that August exposes my darkening mood at the Düna. With an almost fatalistic attitude about the future I wrote, “You and I will ful-fill our duties to the end.” With survival uncertain I penned, “Godwilling, we’ll see each other again.”

  Yet, our love left me with hope that I expressed to her with the words, “I am grateful to have you, Dear Annelie.” When she sent me a lock of curls from her hair in a letter at the end of August, I placed them in my breast pocket as a talisman.

  Meanwhile, the speed of the Allied advance through France and into Belgium forced a sudden evacuation of her field hospital in Genk on September 8, 1944. In the chaos that followed, the medical personnel had to make their own escape.

  After hitching a ride to back to Germany, Anneliese received a temporary leave from her nursing duties. Because of the air raids on Hamburg, she went to stay at my family’s farm in Püggen until she was called back to service.

  About this time, refugees fleeing the Soviet threat in the east and the bombing raids on the larger German cities began to appear in Püggen and other rural areas in greater numbers. My family welcomed distant relatives into our home from all over Germany, but there were also many strangers who knew no one in Püggen. Perhaps because of my family’s long antagonistic relations with the Nazis, the local authorities assigned 20 or so of these refugees to our farm.

  Every unoccupied room in the house was turned over to the refugees. Lacking enough beds, my family piled straw for the guests to sleep on. To help meet the need for food, my family even butchered some of our pigs. The presence of refugees placed an especially heavy daily burden on my mother, who worked hard to make sure that everyone was provided with cooked meals and other basic needs.

  Despite my family’s lack of Nazi sympathies, my sisters were pressured to attend regular meetings of the Bund Deutscher Mädchen or BDM (League of German Girls), the Nazis’ female youth organization. In what apparently was an intentional attempt to prevent the girls from attending church services, the BDM held these sessions on Sunday mornings.

  While my sisters were on their way to a meeting in a neighboring village late in the war, a low-flying Allied aircraft suddenly appeared and began strafing everything on a nearby road, causing my sisters to spring for cover in a ditch. There were similar stories of Allied fighter planes breaking away from the bombers to attack people working in the fields. Although the rural areas in Germany escaped the Anglo-American bombing raids that targeted cities, even there residents did not completely escape death from the sky.

  On both fronts, the war was drawing steadily closer to the Fatherland and no one would be left untouched.

  Chapter 15

  RETREAT INTO THE REICH

  October 1944–January 1945

  “FORTRESS MEMEL”

  October 5, 1944–late January, 1945

  Upon being issued orders to retreat from Latvia to the German port city of Memel on October 5, most of the regular infantry from the 58th Infantry Division headed by truck to Riga’s harbor and then set out aboard ship on the short sea voyage down the Baltic coast. Before their departure, Lt. Col. Ebeling assigned me temporary command of all the 154th Regiment’s horse-drawn equipment, of which my own heavy weapons company comprised only a part.

  Directed to deliver the detachment to Memel by road, I led the three-mile long column out of the Riga area on a 100-mile trek to the southwest. During the first part of the march, Soviet aircraft made frequent strafing runs that forced us to scramble for cover off the road, but the raids diminished once we left the area around Riga.

  When our slow-moving procession had traveled a little more than halfway to Memel, a Red Army thrust reached the Baltic Sea ahead of us, blocking our planned overland route to the city. New orders redirected me to lead the column toward the German-controlled port of Libau in northwestern Latvia, from where we would sail down to Memel by ship.

  Riding my horse Thea out in front of our column soon afterward, I heard a voice from behind me ask, “Where are you going?”

  Caught off guard, I spun around to see an officer’s staff car moving just off to the left side of my horse. Inside the vehicle sat Field Marshall Ferdinand Schörner, the commander of Army Group North.

  Startled by his sudden appearance, I nonetheless managed to snap off a salute and reply, “Libau, as far as I know, Sir.”

  Schörner had a reputation for ruthless discipline and for making surprise appearances all over the front. The story went that when his driver made some error, Schörner ordered him to stop and demoted him right on the spot. The next time the driver did something that pleased Schörner, he again ordered the car to stop and promoted him back to his original rank. Fortunately, I avoided the Field Marshall’s displeasure and was ordered to continue with my mission.

  Our column finally reached the harbor in Libau on the afternoon of October 15. Using cranes to hoist the heavier equipment, everything was loaded aboard ship in a matter of hours. Evacuating by sea that night, our blacked-out vessel hugged the Baltic coast on the roughly 35-mile voyage south. Behind us, the trapped divisions of Army Group North would fight on until the end of the war.

  In the morning, our ship docked in “Fortress Memel,” as Nazi propaganda referred to the city in an effort to inspire its defenders. We were now under the command of Army Group Center and back inside the territory of the Greater German Reich, about 25 miles from where the 58th Division had begun its advance into Russia three and a half years earlier.

  By the time we arrived, our battered regimental infantry had already helped to repulse a number of fierce Soviet assaults against Memel. Forced to rely on onl
y machine guns and other light weapons to this point, they urgently sought the fire support of our heavy weapons. Within a few hours of docking, our company’s guns and other equipment had been unloaded and we set out for the frontlines six or seven miles from the harbor.

  After passing through the edge of the city, we immediately deployed in position behind the infantry, firing a series of ranging shots to establish our zones of fire. Attacks struck our position the next day, but no major offensive followed. In the ensuing weeks, the Red Army mounted only company and battalion-sized operations against our defenses, and even these grew increasingly intermittent.

  Though it usually stayed fairly quiet in our sector, Russian assaults elsewhere around Memel pushed the German lines slowly back toward the city during the following weeks. Despite persistent enemy pressure, most German units in Memel were soon transferred southward in response to more urgent crises. In the end, only our division and the 95th Infantry Division remained to man the city’s defenses, but that proved enough to hold it.

  While the Red Army’s high command had other priorities, they may also have concluded that dislodging us was not worth the cost, just as we had eventually given up trying to eliminate the isolated Soviet pocket at Oranienbaum on the Gulf of Finland. A cornered enemy fighting for their lives is tough to overcome.

  Throughout the siege, I occupied a bunker halfway between the frontline and Memel, while the rest of the personnel in my company were stationed at a farm a mile or two closer to town. With its civilian population evacuated to the west, the city itself became a virtual ghost town.

  During one of the breaks in the fighting, I entered a nearby vacated home where I savored the luxury of a bath for the first time in months. In another of the abandoned residences, an officer in our regiment had found a shotgun. He would occasionally loan it to me so that I could hunt jackrabbits, which our company cook would convert into a delicious meal.

  About nine o’clock one morning, I was still resting in my bunker after a late night when Lt. Col. Ebeling unexpectedly appeared at the entrance. Still not dressed, I sprung out of my bunk and saluted, but he did not appear impressed. My relationship with our regimental commander was good, but it was embarrassing to have been caught sleeping at such a late hour in the morning.

  Around this same time, a more serious incident occurred. Since the men in my company had not fired their rifles for a while, I decided to find a suitable area for them to conduct target practice. A hill located near our company’s billet on the farm seemed the natural choice. The fact that the bunker housing the regimental headquarters was situated on the other side of the hill never entered my mind.

  After about five minutes of shooting, a corporal ran up to me with an urgent order from Ebeling for my troops to cease their fire. Stray bullets were soaring over the hill and whizzing through the air around the regimental bunker. Though the soldiers in my company were proficient in the use of our heavy weapons, most of them, unfortunately, were not skilled marksmen with their rifles.

  On the city streets near the farm where our company was garrisoned, my men posted signs with the words Einheit Lübbecke (Unit Lübbecke) to direct anyone seeking our location. Typically, the letters sent to soldiers at the front did not indicate the name of the company and regiment since this was militarily valuable information. Instead, the writer addressed the intended recipient’s Feldpost number (postal number in the field), which remained constant throughout the war.

  Perhaps because the military situation had deteriorated so greatly, increasing numbers of our letters home passed through censors during this period. Despite this scrutiny, I never felt limited regarding what I could communicate. Likewise, I felt that I received a clear sense of what was happening with Anneliese and my family as well.

  THE CHALLENGE OF LEADERSHIP

  On January 20, 1945, the army elevated me from Kompanieführer (company leader) to the more permanent status of Kompaniechef (company commander). My satisfaction at this promotion was reinforced when the men in my company honored me with an informal celebration at the farmhouse where they were quartered. Ultimately, the respect of the soldiers I led in combat was even more important to me than the approval of those above me. This elevation in my command status was soon followed by a promotion in rank from second lieutenant (Leutnant) to first lieutenant (Oberleutnant) on January 30, but by then other events would intervene.

  The burden of my duties as a company commander were much lighter in Memel than they had been when we were in action at the Düna, but there were increasing manpower problems. By late 1944, the declining pool of replacements in Germany made it impossible for the Wehrmacht to provide us with an adequate number of troops to make up for our losses. As in the rest of the German Army, I could only reorganize my remaining 150 men in an effort to fulfill our combat mission as effectively as possible.

  Though leading men in combat was something for which I felt well suited, there were many additional non-combat duties for an officer to perform. When soldiers under my command were killed, it was my responsibility to send letters notifying their wives and families back home. Despite the routine sentiments contained in such letters, I always felt this duty to be the most difficult in my service as an officer.

  Yet death is an inevitable reality of war. The side that wins the field at the end of a battle controls the treatment of dead and wounded. Often, the fate of those listed as missing is never known. Though concerned for those lost in battle, the unit must look to its immediate needs. The enemy is not interested in an accounting of your casualties and the fighting moves on. The bodies of the dead lie in the woods and rot. It is terrible, but it is an ugly side of war that is often forgotten.

  During the latter part of the war, combat on the Eastern Front grew even more brutal. When the Soviets won battles after 1943, they would sometimes shoot our wounded and leave our dead unburied. In those situations, only those who could walk would be sent off to the POW camps. Ultimately, the treatment of soldiers depended on when and where a battle was fought.

  In my experience, the Wehrmacht never issued orders that forbade German troops to take prisoners. I never personally witnessed German troops shoot wounded or surrendering Red Army soldiers, though these things could have happened. While we did not necessarily bury the enemy’s dead, especially when the front became fluid, to the best of my knowledge German forces provided medical care to the wounded Russian troops and sent all those who surrendered back to POW camps, even if the conditions in these facilities were utterly inadequate.

  Though German troops did not always behave properly, a military code of conduct was strictly enforced. As commander, I sometimes administered disciplinary action for the troops in the company who failed to obey it.

  One case involved the court martial of a sergeant who was one of my oldest comrades. After being drafted into 13th Company with me back in 1939, he had worked his way up to command a gun crew operating one of our 75-millimeter howitzers. Finding a family’s silver belongings buried in a yard near Memel, he ordered one of his men to dig them up and pack them in a parcel for shipment back to Germany.

  When the crime came to my attention, I enforced military procedure and sent him back to the division to receive his sentence. Last that I heard, he ended up in the punishment battalion that we called the Himmelfarhtkommando (roughly, the heaven-bound force), a unit so named because they received the most dangerous combat assignments.

  Although lacking the subordinate officers who would normally assist the company commander, I did receive some limited support from the regimental command staff as well as from our “mother of the company,” Senior Sgt. Jüchter, who was in charge of the Tross. His assistance was invaluable in carrying out my many mundane but nonetheless essential administrative chores, such as requesting supplies, ammunition, and hay for our horses.

  My other tasks included issuing authorizations for furloughs, based on Jüchter’s determination as to who was due one, as well as sending up requests for decoration
s or promotions. On my recommendation, two men in the company returned to Germany for officer training. The downside of this action was that I lost a couple of my better men.

  By my estimation, about fifty percent of the troops were married, a proportion that had increased since the beginning of the war when a larger percentage were young volunteers. At this time, divorce was frowned upon in German society. Married couples typically pursued a divorce only when there were severe and irreconcilable problems, but war tended to worsen these problems as well as create new ones. The separation of soldiers from their wives and girlfriends at home sometimes exposed these women to unscrupulous men who would take advantage of the situation.

  During my year in command, there were at least four situations where I had to respond to legal papers requesting me to verify that a particular soldier had not been on leave during the previous ten months before his wife had a baby. This confirmation would provide either the soldier or his wife grounds for a divorce.

  Separately, I had to respond to about five or six sets of court papers from wives seeking divorce from soldiers in my unit. Calling the soldier into my bunker, I would ask him to tell me man-to-man what had happened.

  When a soldier learned for the first time that his wife wanted to end the marriage or was having an affair, it would rip his guts out. Naturally, such traumatic news would also have grave repercussions on the way the man behaved in combat. The end of a relationship with a wife or serious girlfriend usually caused a sense of psychological torment that exceeded even the emotional suffering that resulted from the death of a close comrade.