by Eric Meyer
“How are you with that gun, Scharfuhrer?” I asked him.
“Good enough,” was the laconic reply.
Ahead of us our Panzers were shooting now, a furious exchange of fire had developed between the tanks of both sides. Then we were out of the snowstorm and running through a wide area of sparse scrubland dotted with low hills. The six-cylinder Maybach engine roared as the driver gunned it along to keep pace with the racing Panzers. The snowstorm worsened and we were running almost blind, then it cleared again and our tanks again opened fire as their targets came back into view. T34s, there seemed to be hundreds of them, incredibly the Russians seemed to have them in inexhaustible supply. I was trying to make out targets with my binoculars, but they were so close, so numerous that I put my field glasses to one side and leaned across to Mundt.
“Are you ready with that gun?”
But even as I spoke, there was a mighty roar as he pulled the trigger and I jumped away to avoid the breech as it slammed backwards on its mountings. I was deafened, I could see Mundt’s loader slamming another round in the gun.
Ahead of us a Soviet tank went up in flames as it was hit, I’d no idea if Mundt’s shell had struck it or someone else’s. Then I saw troops, Soviet tank riders, leaping off the back of the tanks and jumping for cover, then beginning to fire at us. The butt of the MG34 was right next to me, I grabbed the weapon and aimed it towards the enemy, then shouted at the men behind me.
“Bauer, get here quickly, I need a loader to handle the belt.”
While he was scrambling through the cockpit of the vehicle, I opened fire. The gun vibrated in my hands, the belt rattled through the chamber at an alarming rate, empty cartridge cases spewing out around my feet, but the effect was deadly. The Soviets scattered but not before at least ten of them fell to the hail of lead I threw out at them. Just in time, Bauer attached a new belt to the end of the old one and I was able to keep firing. Mundt’s gun boomed again and again as he fired at the Soviet armour.
“Sir, you’ll have to stop, it’ll overheat,” Bauer shouted in my ear. Just as he did, so the gun stopped. He looked at me as if to say ‘I told you so.’ But he was right, I should have remembered my training. We had another gun, sitting uselessly at the rear of the vehicle in an anti-aircraft mount.
“You men,” I shouted at Voss and Beidenberg, “unhitch that gun and bring it here!”
They jumped up to detach the second MG34. The roar of outgoing shells, the crash of incoming rounds and the chatter of machine gun bullets that whistled and whined all around us gave them plenty of incentive to hurry. Less than twenty seconds later they were slamming the replacement machine gun onto the mount and Bauer had removed the jammed weapon and placed it on the floor of the carrier. Five seconds later the gun was loaded with a full belt of ammunition.
“Take the jammed gun and fix it,” I snapped at them. Then I started firing again. Targets were harder to find, the battlefield was covered in smoke, the noise was intense, constant crashes and explosions, engines, machine guns, rifles, it was the raucous music of the cauldron of hell. But our Regiment was inching forward. Bauer suddenly cried out as he was hit and spun away.
“Merkel, the gun, I need a loader.”
He rushed forward as the men picked up Bauer, I heard someone say he wasn’t hurt badly, a shoulder wound.
We were pressing ahead, defeating the enemy attack, the Soviets were clearly stunned at the intensity with which we hit them. The blizzard increased in intensity and with the smoke that hung everywhere we were almost blinded. A T34 appeared alongside us, fleeing towards his lines, I was astonished that he had got behind us, we were lucky he hadn’t seen us and opened fire. The 76mm gun of the T34 would have made short work of our 251 half-track with its thin armour. He had only been three metres from us when he’d materialised out of the fog. As he surged past, I shouted to Mundt.
“Scharfuhrer, on your left!”
“Got it.”
Another crash as he fired and the almost instantaneous explosion as the point blank target was hit. It burst into flames and slewed to one side, smoke pouring out of the large hole that Mundt’s shell had blown into the side of the hull. There would be no survivors, that was obvious. The interior of the tank would have been a hell of flames and molten metal shredding human flesh to raw mincemeat. There was no time for thinking of the dead, other than the fact that it could be us next. We were caught up in the blood lust of the charge, like the famous English ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’. I prayed that on this occasion there wouldn’t be lines of heavy guns waiting for us ahead. I saw another group of Russians, they were running back to their lines but I aimed the machine gun and sent burst after burst of machine gun fire after them, a few fell, the others dived for cover. I kept firing, the more we killed today, the less would come back to kill us tomorrow. Then we were hit.
An explosion on the side of our vehicle, a jet of flame spurted up in the air and our 251 made a half turn and came to a stop. Fire was licking all around us.
“Everybody out before it explodes!” I shouted. We carried a large tank of petrol and it was at least half-full, when the fire reached it the half-track would explode like a bomb. Men were jumping over the sides, I got out the fire extinguishers and threw them after the men and jumped out myself. We attacked the flames, another carrier stopped near us and the men leapt out with their own extinguishers to help. It was Kretschmer’s platoon, I noticed. His eyes were bright, dilated with the excitement of the action.
“Bad luck, Hoffman,” he grinned, “you’ll have to walk next time.”
“At least we’re all alive. Thanks for the help.”
We both looked around as a STuGIII mobile gun came through the smoke, looking for targets. But the Russians had vanished, retreating to their original defensive positions. The STuGIII commander looked over the side at us.
“Any problems?”
We shook our heads. “It looks like the Soviets have run for it, there’s no business for you guys today.”
“I can live with that,” he said. He was an Obersturmfuhrer, like Kretschmer, although a little older. Artillerymen tended to be older, their trade was one that required a good deal more technical ability and something less of the warrior determination that drove younger men on.
“Obersturmfuhrer, do you have a radio in there?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“I could do with a recovery crew to come out and pick up my half-track, I’d guess it could be repaired.”
“I’ll give Headquarters a call,” he replied.
We waited by the half-tracks, the STuGIII seemed content to sit with its engine idling waiting for orders. Muller arrived in a Horch 801 Leichter Panzerspahwagen, a light armoured car that he used as his command vehicle. He climbed down from the cockpit and strutted up to us.
“What are you waiting here for, you men? We’re pulling back to our own positions, the Russians have dug in a line of heavy artillery to the front of us, too much for us to break through.”
I told him about the damage to our half-track and he walked over to inspect it.
“You say that you’ve put in a call for a recovery crew?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Very well. You’ll need to stay by your vehicle until they can arrive to tow it away, the partisans operating in this area will destroy it completely if we give them half a chance. Or booby trap it. But if those guns start laying down a barrage get out of here fast.”
“Right. How will we get back, Sir?”
I estimated we’d travelled about eight kilometres from our headquarters.
“You walk, Untersturmfuhrer Hoffman.”
I could swear he had a slight smile on his face as he said that. He swung back into his armoured car and drove off.
“There’s hot water in the radiator, Sir, we can brew up some coffee,” Mundt said.
“Do it, Sergeant.”
The recovery team were quick to arrive, we’d barely finished our coffee tasting of unnamed ve
getable substances and rusty water, at least it was hot. They made a quick inspection and decided to recover our half-track. The Scharfuhrer in charge of the recovery crew, a cheerful looking old soldier, made light of the damage, they hooked it up to their towing equipment and were getting ready to leave.
“It’s nothing very serious, we’ll patch up the hole, put a new track on, a new pair of drive wheels, we’ll have it back in action by tomorrow evening. How are you getting back, Sir?”
“I think we’ll have to walk, Sergeant.”
“We’ll be towing the half-track, why not ride back in that?”
“I think we will, thanks. Men, mount up, we’re going back in style.”
They jumped up into the cockpit and soon we were bumping along the Russian steppe, the men grumbling because I wouldn’t let them smoke. The threat of leaking petrol made that very unwise, but when I reminded them that the alternative was to walk they quickly quietened down and started to extol the virtues of motorised troops. Our unit had newly been issued with a variety of transport, from Kubelwagens to heavy lorries and armoured half-tracks. But the Russian terrain was very unforgiving and after fearful losses of vehicles and equipment they’d fought for some time purely as infantry, with nothing to carry them to and from the battlefield. Of course, our new half-track was damaged, but I vowed to keep a watchful eye on it and make certain it came back to my platoon when it was repaired.
It was early evening when we got into camp. We managed to get the cookhouse to ladle out hot stew and we sat eating in companionable silence.
“I see those monks are still here,” Merkel said. “I’ll bet they’re praying to their God that we get a good hammering, so that we go away and they can have their home back.”
“Wouldn’t you?” a voice said.
Damn, von Betternich had come up on us quietly and was standing nearby, leaning on his cane.
“What do you mean, Sir?”
“If foreign troops came and took your home, wouldn’t you want it back?”
“Er, Yes, Sir,” Merkel replied. “I guess I would.”
“Hoffman, would you join me in my office when you’ve finished your dinner?”
“Yes, Sir.”
I took my time, I knew it was going to be a difficult conversation. I’d had enough of divided loyalties, I was going to ask him firmly to find another officer to assist him. I’d been in combat and felt that I’d acquitted myself well, the regiment needed me on the battlefield, not in a police station. I finished up and walked towards the monastery. Two officers stopped me.
“Untersturmfuhrer Hoffman, a word.”
They were both SS Hauptsturmfuhrers, Captains.
“Of course, Sir.”
“This business with the SD man, von Betternich. None of us are happy that an officer of our regiment is involved helping the police, Hoffman.”
I smiled grimly. “I’m not happy either, believe me. I joined the SS to fight, not to be a police snoop.”
“So tell him to go and mind his own business, Hoffman. If you refuse to help him maybe he’ll go elsewhere to snoop around and we can get on with the business of fighting a war.”
I was about to tell them that I was going in to see von Betternich now to give him exactly that message, but something stopped me. Ever since I could remember, I’d been suspicious of other people trying to influence the way I thought. I guess it went back to my father, he’d been an infantry officer with the Bavarian Infantry during the First War, had even spent some time in the same regiment as the Fuhrer, although he refused to ever discuss it. The lesson he always tried to teach me was to be my own man. When the whole country was going mad for the new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, my father was cautious, saying that he’d need to see some evidence of his abilities as a politician before he ever voted for him. He certainly told me he disagreed with the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews, insisting that they were just Germans, no different to the rest of us. Wisely, he instructed me to keep quiet on that issue, as well as other issues of politics in general, and the Fuhrer in particular. Hitler had brought many new things to the destroyed nation he’d inherited in 1933, some of them good, some of them not so good. Amongst the latter was the loss of free speech, we could disagree, but keep it inside our own heads.
My father had tried to dissuade me from joining the SS at first, saying they weren’t proper soldiers, just a bunch of political thugs, but at least in that he was wrong. It was obvious to me that the unit I had joined was part of a military elite, one that I was proud to be a member of. It was all very confusing for a new officer, but I decided to err on the side of caution. Yes, he would certainly keep his own counsel on the business of the SD versus the good of the regiment, until he knew more about the political undercurrents that swirled around everything in our new Germany. Both my parents were dead now, killed in a massive American bombing raid, victims to the B-17s that flew daily missions over The Reich and bombed civilian homes with impunity. I remembered coming home and finding a heap of rubble surrounded by rope barriers to keep people away from unsafe buildings. Their bodies had been bulldozed into a mass grave alongside dozens of others of their neighbours. I’d been angry at first, a white hot anger that made me want to pick up a machine gun and go looking for the enemy to kill. But I remembered my father’s words when we heard Dr Goebels shouting on the radio about the Luftwaffe bombing raids on London.
‘Jurgen, you know that they will simply retaliate for this, soon their aircraft will be dropping bombs on towns and cities all over The Reich.’
He’d been only too accurate in his prediction. I lost my passion for vengeance and instead put all of my energies into becoming a good soldier.
“I’ll think seriously about what you’ve said.”
“Very wise, Hoffman.”
They walked away and I continued to von Betternich’s office.
“Untersturmfuhrer, thank you for calling in to see me.”
I raised my eyebrows, it was as sarcastic as I dared be, we both knew it was no invitation.
“I came as soon as I could, Sir.”
“Quite so. Have you encountered the Langemarck Regiment on your travels? I am due to visit them in the morning. They’re the motorcycle reconnaissance unit.”
“I haven’t, Sir, no. I’m not happy about continuing with this assignment.”
He looked up, his expression blank.
“No?”
“Well, Sir, I feel that I should be serving the SS as a fighting soldier, after all, it’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“Fighting who, Hoffman?”
“Well, the enemy, Sir, of course.”
“And who are the enemy, Untersturmfuhrer?”
I nearly lost my temper with his bland, calm yet stupid questions.
“In case you hadn’t noticed those people over there taking pot shots at us, Sir.”
I put a strong emphasis on the ‘Sir’.
“And what about the people taking pot shots at us on this side of the line, Hoffman?”
His manner was still calm and quiet but his words fell like hammer blows, I felt he would be a formidable chess player. He always seemed to think several moves ahead of me. I kept silent.
“You think about it, my friend. I will need a driver and escort to take me to talk to those Langemarck people. I’d like you with me, but not against your will and not if you plan on giving in to pressure from your brother officers. Decide in the morning. Let’s hope no more regimental commanders get shot in the meantime. The Reichsfuhrer would be very distressed.”
“Sir.”
I saluted and left. His last words calculated to make me lose sleep overnight, as if it was my entire fault if some lunatic was killing our senior officers. Surely that’s all it was, if it even was one of our own people. It could easily be partisans, though that would be something of a coincidence. In the morning there was no prospect of any action, providing that the Ivans left us alone, and I decided it would be churlish not to escort the old SD man on his visi
t to the reconnaissance regiment. Besides, he’d thrown the gauntlet down, suggesting I’d give in to pressure from the other officers. I detailed Mundt, Voss, Beidenberg and Merkel to come with us, Voss to drive. Bauer was apparently recovering at the unit hospital and due back with us in a couple of days. Voss brought the Kubi around to HQ and I escorted von Betternich out, and he sat down in the back seat. He made no comment about me accompanying him, merely wished us all a good morning. Voss drove us the five kilometres to where SS Langemarck were based. It was an old farm, the yard littered with the BMW motorcycle combinations that they used for high-speed mobility on the battlefield. Voss stopped the Kubi outside the farmhouse being used as the Regimental HQ. While we waited, von Betternich went inside and asked to see the acting commanding officer, a Sturmbannfuhrer Eicke. An NCO came out of the building with him and pointed out what looked like the old stables.
“The CO is in there, Sir, he’s checking out our stores situation. It’s a bitch to get spare parts for our machines, is that why you’re here, to chase them up for us?”
“I’m afraid not, Scharfuhrer, but I’ll pass your comments on.”
The Sergeant smiled and nodded.
“To Reichsfuhrer Himmler when I return to Berlin.”
The NCO’s face fell, “I didn’t mean...”
But von Betternich had already walked away, he was after all the master of the last word.
I followed him at a distance with Mundt, the other men stayed with the jeep. He reached the barn and turned to us. “I need to speak with Sturmbannfuhrer Eicke alone, would you wait for me here?”
Again, that polite request, that was no request. He opened the door and limped into the barn, the floor was covered in wooden crates, uniforms and coats hung from nails banged into the wooden walls. Eicke was shouting at a harassed NCO who was clutching a clipboard. Von Betternich went straight up to him. “Sturmbannfuhrer, a word with you, alone!”
Eicke stared at the officer approaching through the gloom. “Who the hell are you?”