Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  I touched my bandaged head. “I’m wounded, I need to get the dressing changed before we pull out.”

  He nodded. “That should do it.”

  I set off immediately, this time I was prepared for battle, wearing my steel helmet and carrying my MP38 machine pistol, the Walther PPK in its holster, a pair of grenades in my webbing. There were snipers still operating in the city and as the Soviets drew nearer, they would become bolder. When I reached the hospital, the desk clerk told me that Heide was on duty on the ward. I marched through the door and saw her at the other end of the long room, talking to another nurse. They looked at me in alarm. Then she recognised me.

  “Jurgen, what are you doing here, you look as if you are off to fight a war?”

  “I’m afraid we are. The regiment has been called out to fight, the Russians are trying to break through.”

  “Are they near?”

  “Smiyev.”

  She started, it was a suburb only a few kilometres away. The other nurse was listening avidly, I asked her to give us a few minutes and she moved away.

  “Do you think they will reach here?”

  “No, we’ll stop them, but...”

  “They could break through then?”

  “Look, I just don’t know. Heide, be careful, I have to see you again.”

  “I’d like that. I’ll be fine, it’s not as if I’m on the front line. You be careful.”

  “Don’t worry, they’re fighting the SS now.”

  She indicated the long rows of beds. “Almost all of these patients are Waffen-SS, Jurgen.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  She bent forward and kissed me, then we were holding each other tightly, I winced as she pulled against the strap of my helmet, causing it to press on the wound. She noticed instantly.

  “Let me dress that for you before you go, I can give you some spare dressings too.”

  I sat and enjoyed her fussing with my head wound. Afterwards she gave me a bag of spare dressings and told me not to wear the helmet for as long as possible as it would aggravate the wound and prevent it healing. If she’d asked me to go into battle naked I think I would have. We held each other and kissed long and hard, then the other nurse said that she needed her and I had to leave.

  I was sad walking back to my unit, I had no idea when I would ever see her again, if ever. The Feldgendarmerie did stop me, a private soldier checked my papers and called for his officer. The man stepped out of the building that they were using as an office and came up to me with a sneering look.

  “And where do you think you’re going, Untersturmfuhrer?”

  “To rejoin my unit.”

  “Really, and you have a pass to leave them and come into the city?”

  “I was injured, Sir. I needed to go to the hospital to get my wound dressed.”

  I still had my helmet off, the bandage on my head was already damp, I knew the wound would be leaking again.”

  “That’s no excuse, you need a pass.”

  “To get injured, you mean?”

  His look darkened. No one made jokes at the expense of the Feldgendarmerie.

  “Anyone without a pass can be arrested and shot without trial, you know that?”

  I was about to reply when another man came out of the office, a civilian in a black leather trench coat and trilby hat. Kriminalkommissar Wiedel.

  “Let him go.”

  “But, but Sir...”

  “Now!”

  “Yes, Sir. Untersturmfuhrer, you may go.”

  I nodded at Wiedel and walked on. I wasn’t too sure that having a Gestapo officer as my guardian angel was a good idea. It wasn’t as if the Feldgendarmerie were going to shoot a line officer returning to the fight. After all, my wound, and the fact that I was walking from the hospital back to the regiment proved my story. Finally, I got back to my platoon and slept for a couple of hours on an old straw filled mattress that Mundt had found for me. In the early hours after midnight, we prepared to pull out and go into battle against the Slavic hordes that Stalin had once more sent to attack us. The camp was alive with exhaust smoke as engines rumbled into life, soldiers beating their arms against their bodies to try to get warm in the chill of the snowy night. The loud roar of the Panzers, even more deafening, as they started to move and their tracks clanked on the hard ground. Then it was our turn, Voss put the half-track into gear and fell in behind another vehicle. I felt the excitement of being a part of the mighty machine of the Waffen-SS, off to do battle against the Soviets. We were heading for Smiyev.

  We reached the front and were directed to laager in prepared positions. They looked like remnants from the last time this ground had been fought over, only weeks before. The Tigers and STuGIIIs deployed in a line facing the expected path the enemy would take when they came towards us. All around my half-track were light armoured cars, motor cycle combinations of the Langemarck Regiment and rows of artillery lined up ready for the coming action. We waited. Our task was to remain in defence and be prepared to go at once should the Panzers see an opening to move forward, in which case we would follow behind them to mop up the enemy infantry. On paper it seemed so simple, in practice I wasn’t so sure, the Soviets always seemed to have so many men and so much equipment. Before dawn, Muller came amongst us to wish us well and check that we were prepared. The prospect of action had heightened his mood and he had some of his old fire back. Then he went back to his command half-track and we waited. Snow fell, enough to obscure our view of the Russian positions but not enough to hide them completely. Then our artillery opened up to soften the enemy, every time a shell exploded in their lines it kicked up showers of snow mixed with the more normal detritus of explosions, earth, stones, men and equipment. The artillery pounded on, then the Russian artillery started and shells started falling around us. The barrages continued for over an hour until the Russians decided it was enough. In the distance, we saw movement, almost as if the ground was moving. But it wasn’t the ground, it was thousands of men, tens of thousands, moving forward in a mass attack more reminiscent of the 1914 war.

  The Panzers fired first, round after round of high explosives that ripped huge gaps in the Russian lines. The artillery changed their aim and joined in the carnage, but there were so many of them, life was cheap to these Russian generals. No matter how many men fell more rushed forward to fill the gaps. Then they were within machine gun range.

  “Open fire,” officers shouted frantically, but they could have saved their breath. Even as they spoke, our MG42s and MG34s were sending their rain of horror and death towards the enemy. A few of our men started to fire with their machine pistols but I told my men to wait, the enemy were still outside of effective range and ammunition wasn’t inexhaustible. It seemed incredible that anyone could survive that cauldron of hot steel that smashed through their ranks, but they kept coming, there were hundreds of them in the leading ranks and thousands more still behind them. They got to within three hundred metres and I gave the order.

  “Fire!”

  Our two MG42s had already been firing in short, consistent bursts to stop the barrels from overheating. Now the men joined in with their machine pistols. Merkel had a Kar 98 that he was using to snipe at individual targets, the rest of us just hosed down the enemy ranks as fast as possible, emptying clip after clip at the Russians. Our artillery and Panzers had to stop firing, the enemy had now closed to with a hundred metres of our positions and they would have endangered us with shrapnel from their shells. It was up to us and we poured on the fire, the machine guns grew dangerously hot as belt after belt of ammunition sped through them. No time now for short bursts, it was all or nothing, survival or die. As the Russians got even nearer I saw the front rank fall as thousands of machine gun bullets raked over them and they fell in neat, wide lines. Their comrades stepped over the bodies and kept running, I could see the Soviet battle police, commissars and NKVD men behind them, urging them on, threatening to shoot them if they faltered. But there was only so much flesh and blood c
ould withstand. They were almost within fifty metres of us when they faltered, they had run into a wall of lead that was simply too much to pass. They turned and ran, still pursued by our gunners. The artillery and Panzers opened fire again to finish off the survivors and soon the battle was over. For now.

  “Did we take any casualties?” I called out to the men.

  They looked around them, but we were all here, no one was injured. Firing from the shelter of the half-track we had been protected from the worst of the Soviet small arms fire. Several of our vehicles were wrecked, two were on fire, victims of the Soviet shell fire. Many of our men were dead and wounded, not all of the platoons had been so lucky. I thought then of Heide, she would be busy attending to the fresh influx of casualties. Soldiers were running around with boxes of ammunition to replenish our supplies, the danger of a second attack was very real. Then there was the sound of aircraft engines, we looked up, ready to take cover but they were our own, Stukas, soon they peeled off one by one and descended on the enemy positions, aiming to take out their armour and artillery. The Stukas punished them for fifteen minutes in endless bombing attacks followed by strafing passes, then they left. During the lull in the battle, I ordered Mundt to stand the men down to eat. We sat around drinking water, someone had stowed a bag of loaves of bread in the half-track, they handed them around and we ate breakfast.

  “Do you think they’ll come back again?” Merkel asked me nervously.

  I looked at Mundt, he was the experienced veteran.

  “They usually do, Dieter, but look on the good side. The ones we killed won’t be coming back, so the more they attack us, the less they’re able to attack us next time. The second wave will be nothing, they’ll be the newcomers, inexperienced. We’ll slaughter them, easily.”

  I thought about the counter argument, the Soviets were known to use their green troops to soften up the enemy for the veterans that would come and finish us off. Their lack of concern for casualties was staggering. But perhaps this time it would be different. A flight of aircraft flew overhead and we anxiously looked up at the sky.

  “Stukas?” someone asked.

  “No,” Mundt said, “Sturmoviks.”

  But they weren’t aiming at us, for some reason. Their target was the city itself, perhaps our command and control centres, possibly our supply dumps. Whatever they were aiming at it was the civilians’ turn to suffer, as the Russian ground attack planes bombed and strafed the centre of the city. At least they were leaving us alone, but then I thought of Heide. The hospital, oh God, no, surely they wouldn’t attack it? I made a vow to make sure she was safe as soon as we got back from this mission. Muller came around to check on us.

  “Any problems, Hoffman?”

  “No, we’re good, thank you, Sir, no casualties and no damage.”

  “How about ammunition?”

  “They brought around some belts for the MG42s, but not enough if the Soviets attack in similar strength, we could do with more.”

  “You’ll have to manage, I’ve issued everything we’ve got and I’ve sent a message to Division requesting more supplies. I’m sure they’ll get replacements to us very soon, in the meantime, well, do your best. Good luck.”

  He went on to the next platoon. The men looked at me, horror struck.

  “Sir, we can’t hold them with what we’ve got,” Mundt said. “We’ve only got half of what we used to fight off the first attack.”

  He’d already forgotten his reassuring words about killing off the worst of the enemy in the first wave.

  “I’m afraid we’ll just have to manage, Scharfuhrer.”

  “With what?”

  “We’ll have to make the ammunition count. We’ll wait until they’re closer before we open fire with the MG42s, the same for the machine pistols. Merkel, use your Kar 98 as soon as they get in range, that was fine shooting last time, the same for anyone else that can shoot straight and has a Kar 98. When they get in range, we’ll hit them with grenades. Who can throw the furthest?”

  Merkel put up his hand. “That would be me too, Sir, I always threw almost twice the distance of anyone else on the ranges.”

  “Good, make sure you have plenty of grenades, take some from the other men if you haven’t got enough. We will manage, don’t worry! Don’t forget, it’s only until the supplies come up from Division.”

  Then someone shouted. “They’re coming!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness.’

  Adolf Hitler March 1941

  Fortunately for us Mundt’s analysis was proved correct. The suicidal enthusiasm of the first assault troops was nowhere in evidence, the second wave was of a very inferior calibre. They came forward piecemeal, small groups leaping from shell hole to shell hole, hiding from our fire, only going forward when urged on at gunpoint. When they did get near they were cut down by short, accurate bursts from our MG42s.

  “Hitler’s Saws, they call them, the Russkis,” Mundt said. “They are noisy bastards too, I guess, just like a sawmill.”

  “As long as they give us the bullets to use them,” Voss said sourly.

  He was correct the new machine guns were devastating as long as they had the belts of ammunition to keep them firing. A small group of Russians, more determined than their comrades, did get quite close to our half-track and Merkel got the chance to demonstrate his skills with grenades. His throws were incredible, he drew his arm back, looked carefully at the target and then launched. The soldiers must have been fifty metres away, a group of Russians sheltering in a nearby shell hole that we couldn’t dislodge. The stick grenade flew unerringly into the middle of them and exploded, their screams echoed towards us. They carried on screaming for a long time, but they were no longer shooting at us. The attack quickly petered out, the last of the Russians retreated to their positions and the battlefield was empty, except for the corpses that were strewn across the snow, smears of red blood and dismembered body parts giving it the appearance of some kind of surreal camouflage. A runner came around with a message from Muller, we were pulling out to re-arm, a regiment of the LAH would take our places in the line.

  Shortly afterwards we heard the noise of engines as the half-tracks, armoured cars and Panzers of our relief began to arrive. We started up and Voss drove us back to our assembly point. Muller was already on the ground surrounded by a group of officers, I dismounted and went to join them.

  “The pressure on Kharkov is off for now, Division report that the Soviets are pulling back after the bloody nose we gave them. It looks like we’ve got a clear front open for us, we’re going forward again.”

  We all cheered, at last, it was what we were here for, seeking and destroying the enemy, not waiting for them to come and attack us.

  “HQ want us to get in position to counterattack Kursk, it’s time we drove the Soviets out of that city. Our immediate objective is Korenevo, we aim to retake the ground we lost recently. If all goes well, we’ll set up our HQ back in the monastery where we were before. We’ll take today to re-arm and re-equip, some of our half-tracks need repairs and I’m waiting for new barrels for some of the MG42s. Attend to your men and I’ll try and get the cookhouse to rustle up some food. We leave at two am tomorrow. That’s all.”

  I went back to my platoon and passed on the news. There was more than a little grumbling.

  “We’re going backwards and forwards like a fucking see-saw,” Beidenberg said. “You’d think they’d give us the tools to finish the job, a few more Panzers and some air support from the Luftwaffe and we could run these Soviets the length of Russia.”

  There were murmurs of agreement. I didn’t say anything, our commanders weren’t fools. If they had the equipment and troops they would have sent them forward, but I suspected the cupboard was bare. We’d heard of heavy Luftwaffe losses
over the past few days, apparently the Russians had new types of aircraft in increasing numbers over the front, our flyers were stretched to breaking point trying to contain them.

  We spent rest of the day replenishing our stocks of fuel and ammunition. In the afternoon a Kubelwagen drew up next to us. I tried to ignore it.

  “Untersturmfuhrer, a word if you please.”

  It was Kriminalkommissar Wiedel of the Gestapo.

  “Yes, Sir, of course.”

  We moved off out of earshot of the men.

  “Have you seen Obersturmbannfuhrer von Betternich?”

  “No, Sir, not today.”

  “We were observing the battle when he went to check on something that worried him, he saw movement in a nearby building but he never came back. I went to search for him but he has disappeared, the building is empty.”

  I assumed he meant that observing the battle meant watching to see who would snipe at me.

  “Perhaps he was wounded, Sir?”

  “The building was subsequently hit by a Russian shell, but there is no sign of him inside. I want you and your platoon to make a search of the rear area and see if you can find him.”

  “We’re departing for Korenevo in the early morning, Sir.”

  “I know that,” he snapped, “so you had better hurry. I’ll be with Sturmbannfuhrer Muller, report to me what you find.”

  The men grumbled about having to be roused to go on a wild goose chase, ‘just to look after an SD man’, especially when the rest of the regiment was getting some rest, but I pushed them into action. I left two of my private soldiers to guard the half-track, the rest of us went over to the ruined building to start the search.

  We scoured the rubble but found no sign of him. Then Merkel shouted, he’d found some traces of fresh blood. We spread out to search a wider area, there were more traces of blood some thirty metres away. We followed the direction of the red trail and found more blood. There was a collapsed wall and as we approached calling out for von Betternich, we suddenly heard a groan. There was a pile of masonry, that looked as if it had been a grain store or something similar, another groan came from inside. We started to move the rubble aside, pulling off bricks and rocks to reach the trapped man, finally we made a hole through to a hollow in the middle of the stones, a hollow big enough for a man. Von Betternich’s face peered out, white with dust. We ripped away at the bricks and made a hole large enough to pull him free. By a miracle, he was unhurt.