Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  We were only three kilometres from Der Fuhrer’s camp, when we rounded a bend and literally ran into a band of partisans who were hacking a hole in the frozen ground, almost certainly to lay mines. There were eight of them, they were wrapped in thick furs and were so noisily hacking at the ground with pick axes that they hadn’t heard us until the last moment. Mundt didn’t hesitate, he accelerated the Kubi and charged straight at them. They scattered, one of them picked up a weapon, a rifle, but we stood up with our MP38s and fired burst after burst. After the debacle with the sniper, we were determined not to let these Russians get away. Three of them were bowled over by our hail of bullets, the other five managed to reach the shelter of the trees, one to the left, four to the right of the track.

  “We’ll watch the man on his own, Hoffman, you take the others,” von Betternich ordered. He was still in pain but the wound was in his left arm. With his right hand, he fumbled his pistol out of the holster, a beautiful Luger Parabellum. Wiedel reached under his coat and took out a PPK like my own. Then they started after the Russian at a surprisingly fast pace.

  “Spread out,” I said to the men. I didn’t want to bunch together and get caught in a fusillade of rifle fire. I’d only noticed the Russians with one rifle, I hadn’t seen any automatic weapons, but who knew what they were armed with? We moved rapidly through the trees, ahead of us we could hear them crashing through the foliage. Then the noise stopped. We slowed down and went cautiously ahead, it sounded as if they were waiting in ambush for us. We got within ten metres of where I estimated they had stopped. Then a Russian stepped out, holding a prisoner in front of him, an SS officer, barely recognisable, ragged and filthy.

  “That’s far enough, Fascist,” the Russian shouted, speaking good but accented German. If any of you come another step nearer your comrade will get a bullet in his head.”

  He held a pistol, probably a Tokarev, pushed into the side of the officer’s head.

  “You will go back to the track and we will leave. If you try to attack us, your man dies,” he continued.

  I saw Mundt slide to the ground and crawl away to the right. Good, he was an experienced fighter, if anyone could surprise these partisans, it would be him. I called out to the Russian to gain time.

  “If we leave, will you release that officer to us?”

  The man laughed. “No, that is out of the question. He is a prisoner of the Russian People.”

  “What would it take to persuade you to let him go?”

  “Are you mad, does your own army give up their prisoners? Besides, if we release him you’ll start shooting at us.”

  So why would that worry him, I wondered? Partisans were notoriously brutal fighters, often known for fighting to the last man to rid their land of the German invaders, surely they would do their best to kill us all, there were several of them. Then it struck me, they were almost unarmed apart from the single rifle. The Russians used penal units extensively in many battles. Although our own army used them too, Soviet penal units were much harsher, considered to be certain suicides. They were often brought forward and issued weapons moments before they were ordered to attack, then their machine-pistol armed NKVD guard companies would herd them into the teeth of German fire. Sometimes they even had to attack without any weapons at all. Frequently they were forced to march through minefields, their bodies marking the cleared passage for the Red Army to pass through. In many Soviet attacks entire penal battalions were completely wiped out. The partisans had a similarly ruthless attitude to prisoners, especially those regarded as politically unreliable. It seemed likely that most of these partisans were prisoners, coerced into digging holes to plant mines. It made our task much easier. I wondered about von Betternich and Wiedel, were they pursuing a partisan or a prisoner? Well, they were trained to deal with it, they would have to cope.

  “I can’t leave here without that officer,” I shouted back. “Either you leave him with us or we will be forced to attack.”

  “Then he will die!” the man shouted back. “Get out of here, SS men. I will count to ten, if you have not started to leave your man dies.”

  He started counting, “One, two, three...”

  I saw movement in the trees five metres to the right of where the Russian stood with his prisoner.

  “four, five, six...”

  I could see Mundt clearly now, he was standing behind a tree only three metres from the Russian.

  “seven, eight, nine...”

  A short burst from Mundt’s MP38 ripped across the short gap between him and the Russian. The man was thrown to the ground, leaving his prisoner still standing, thank God he hadn’t been hit. Then Mundt was beside the prisoner, his machine pistol covering someone else behind the trees that I couldn’t see. I went forward cautiously with Beidenberg and Bauer, we stepped behind the trees and saw the other four partisans standing with their hands held high. They were unarmed.

  “Cover them,” I ordered the two men. Then I went to check out the prisoner. He was a Hauptsturmfuhrer, his cuff title showed him to be Das Reich Division, like us, but he was from Der Fuhrer Regiment, one of Stettner’s officers. Two shots rang out from across the track where the two security men were hunting the single partisan, they sounded like pistol shots.

  “Scharfuhrer, would you go and check on von Betternich and Wiedel, make sure they’re not in any trouble.”

  Mundt nodded and went at a fast pace towards the location of the two security men.

  I attended to the SS officer, his hands still tied with thin rope and I got out my knife and cut him loose. He rubbed his hands together to get the circulation moving.

  “I’m Max Mosel, Hauptsturmfuhrer, my thanks to you, Obersturmfuhrer. That bastard was aiming to kill me.”

  Before I could reply, Mundt returned with the two officers.

  “They were already on their way back, they dealt with that Russian,” he said.

  I nodded. “Was he a partisan or a penal unit prisoner?”

  Wiedel shrugged. “He was Russian.”

  I introduced the released prisoner to them. “We can crowd him into the Kubi, we were going to his regiment anyway.”

  “What about the others?” Mundt asked.

  Beidenberg and Bauer were covering the four men with their machine pistols. I asked Mosel which of them was penal unit and who was a partisan. He pointed to one Russian, a man slightly less ragged than his companions with a thick, bushy black beard.

  “Him, he’s the only partisan, apart from the man you shot.”

  “Does he speak German?”

  “No, only the one you killed.”

  “Perhaps we’d better try and question him,” von Betternich said.

  I was surprised. “But he doesn’t speak German, Sir.”

  He was still clutching his Luger. “That’s not a problem, Hoffman, I have something that speaks a universal language.”

  “Sir, you can’t shoot an unarmed man, a prisoner.”

  He looked at me with a cold gaze. “Yet the Fuhrer has decreed exactly that, Hoffman, where combatants in civilian clothes are captured. Would you argue with the Fuhrer, your Supreme Commander?”

  I felt sick. “No, Sir.”

  “Good, Wiedel, let’s see if this man can come up with any words of German.”

  They took him a few metres away, I heard their raised voices trying to bully him into speaking German, but his replies were all in Russian, his voice terrified, clearly he had no idea what they were talking about. Then a pistol shot rang out and we heard something heavy hit the ground. They came back.

  “All done,” Wiedel said cheerfully. “What will you do about the others?”

  “They’re penal unit, Sir, I’m going to let them go, they’ve got more to fear from their own people than they have from us.”

  “I’m not happy about that, Hoffman.”

  “Damnit, Sir, we’re talking about men who were prisoners already, they were unarmed and they weren’t fighting us. Chances are that they’ll do some damage to the
Russians, God knows they hate them enough.”

  “That is true,” Mosel added. “They are all Ukrainians, they do hate the communists.”

  Wiedel considered. “Very well, let them go. You’d better be right, Hoffman.”

  One of them understood a little German, I told him to go. They all looked grateful, but wary. They backed away from us, when they were ten paces away they suddenly turned and fled. Poor devils, they suffered Stalin’s Red Hordes devastating their homeland, now they had us to contend with.

  “We’d better press on to Der Fuhrer and finish our business, otherwise we’ll be pushed to get back to Korenevo before nightfall,” I said to them.

  “What was your business with my regiment?” Mosel asked.

  None of us answered and von Betternich and Wiedel studiously ignored him. I shrugged, as if to say ‘I’ve no idea’.

  “I see,” Mosel said heavily, looking at Wiedel’s leather coat and trilby hat, the uniform of the Gestapo.

  We walked back in silence and piled into the Kubi, it was too small for all of us but we crammed ourselves in and Mundt drove away.

  The two security men were busy talking to each other when Mosel turned to me and spoke quietly.

  “Was it the thefts?”

  There was an abrupt silence. Wiedel overheard him and fixed him with a hard glare.

  “Which thefts are you referring to?”

  “Just before I was captured, someone was talking about the Gestapo investigating the theft of artworks, I assumed that it was something similar.”

  Von Betternich and Wiedel exchanged glances. “We were looking into the unexplained deaths of some senior officers, Mosel. But do tell us about the thefts.”

  Mosel went bright red, he realised he’d opened his mouth prematurely. He didn’t reply.

  “Mundt, stop this vehicle,” Wiedel shouted. “Turn around and take us to Division, perhaps we can show the Hauptsturmfuhrer how the Gestapo interrogates its prisoners.”

  Mundt pulled in to the side of the track, Mosel’s face paled. “No, there’s no need for that. Look, we all knew that some senior officers were stealing artworks and selling them on. I thought all of the regiments were doing it.”

  “How do they dispose of these artworks?”

  “There’s a quartermaster from Division, when they go to collect supplies they hand them over to him in exchange for cash and he ships them back to Germany.”

  “So which of the Der Fuhrer officers are involved?”

  “I can’t, he’ll kill me.”

  “Would you prefer me to get it out of you in a Gestapo cellar, Hauptsturmfuhrer?”

  He was silent for a few moments. “No. It was the CO.”

  Von Betternich and Wiedel got out of the Kubi and walked a few metres away to talk quietly between themselves. Then they ordered Mosel to join them and I heard them arguing, voices raised in anger, Mosel started shouting, both fear and anger in his voice. They came back to the Kubi.

  “Change of plan, Hoffman. The Kriminalkommissar has put Hauptsturmfuhrer Mosel into protective custody. We are going back to the Deutschland HQ at Korenevo, we have much more to discuss with this officer.”

  I saw Mosel’s face go several shades whiter. The dreaded ‘Schutzhaft’ meant that he was now in the clutches of the Gestapo. It seemed to be a card, that Wiedel played often, but I could see the logic of returning to Korenevo. If we pushed on to Der Fuhrer with Mosel, the presence of the Gestapo and SD would tip them off that von Betternich and Wiedel had made a deal with the officer. Instead, the Schutzhaft would be like a collar around Mosel’s neck, no matter what he did it would stay in place until Wiedel decided to remove it. In the meantime he now belonged to them, body and soul. Wiedel explained that they were going to get someone else to return Mosel to Der Fuhrer and keep his testimony secret. It had been a stroke of luck for them when we came across the Der Fuhrer officer with the partisans and a witness literally dropped into their laps. We got back to the monastery and they whisked Mosel away to their office. Wiedel curtly dismissed me, and the men, to go back to our duties until they needed us again. Mundt drove over to the vehicle park and left the Kubi with the Scharfuhrer in charge, then we walked back to our quarters in the church.

  I’d already sworn them to secrecy about the investigation, on pain of being placed under arrest by the Gestapo. They resented it until I told them that I was under the same threat.

  “It’s not as if we’d shout our mouths off if we were told to keep quiet,” Mundt grumbled.

  “I’m sorry, Willy, but it’s out of my hands. You could talk to them about it if you wished.”

  “Very funny, Sir.”

  At least he understood that we were held on the same leash.

  “So what next, are we still in the service of the SD and Gestapo?” he asked me.

  “We are to remain ready to escort them whenever they wish.”

  “It’s crazy, why don’t they get a squad of Gestapo here instead?”

  “To take on an SS regiment, Scharfuhrer?”

  His jaw dropped. “Is it that serious? A whole regiment?”

  “No, not the whole regiment, but it involves certain senior officers who could persuade their men to deal harshly with anyone that tries to arrest them. This is not Berlin, my friend. This is the Russian Front. Rather like the Old West in the American cowboy films.”

  We reached the church, the men still had a merry fire going outside. Merkel was putting some extra logs on it, we came up behind him.”

  “Merkel, how are you feeling now?” I called in a friendly greeting.

  He abruptly dropped the logs he had been carrying and whirled around. “Obersturmfuhrer, I didn’t expect you back yet.”

  His face was pale. “Well, here we are,” I replied wearily, “you still don’t look very well, what did the medical officer say?”

  “I didn’t see him, Sir, but I’m sure it’s nothing, it’ll be gone after a good night’s sleep.”

  That was strange, I thought he’d been ill, but it was his business. “Fair enough, would you try and rustle us up some coffee.”

  He went away and I spoke to Mundt. “I saw Merkel looking at the monks with a strange expression on his face, Scharfuhrer. I’ve got a feeling it may be some religious thing, perhaps he’s troubled by us occupying church property or it could even be the opposite, maybe he hates them, I’m concerned about him.”

  Mundt looked dubious. “He’s never said anything to me, if he is a bible-basher, or even bible hater, he’s certainly kept it quiet.”

  “Perhaps I’m wrong.”

  I looked across at the monks in their ragged camp. They were holding some kind of an outdoor service, one had a censer, an ornate metal container on the end of chains that contained burning incense. He was swinging it from side to side, the smoke from burning incense swirled out of it. I couldn’t hear him from this distance but he appeared to be reciting some kind of ritual.

  “They’re probably praying for us to go away,” Mundt said.

  “True. They’ll get their wish before long, I would think, we’ll be on our way soon.”

  “Will we be heading east or west, Sir?”

  I knew what he meant, but it was a dangerous question with SD and Gestapo in the camp.

  “Why don’t you go and ask Wiedel?” I replied lightly.

  Mundt laughed. “He’d tell me we were going north.”

  “And von Betternich that we were going south?”

  “You’ve got it, Sir.”

  “Mundt, I’m sure that the Russians are at the limit of their capabilities, they’re exhausted and I doubt they have many resources left to hit us with.”

  As the last word came out of my mouth, the air-raid siren started to wail and our new four-barrelled Flak gun started turning to seek out a target. Both of our twin MG42s were alerted and swinging around to engage the enemy aircraft. The first one swooped down on us, mentally I ran through my aircraft identification lessons at training school, it was a Lavochkin LaGG-3
, a Soviet fighter equipped with both machine guns and cannons, I seemed to recall they also carried rockets for ground attack. Streaks of fire leapt out from under the wings, that at least cleared up any doubt about rockets. As soon as they were released the pilot started strafing us with machine gun and cannon fire. He came so low that I could make out his face through the glass of the cockpit, then he zoomed back up into the sky as the second aircraft came in to attack. Mundt and I had jumped behind a solid pile of broken masonry near the church. He looked at me.

  “What were you were saying about the limit of their capabilities, Sir?”

  I realised that I had in fact spoken far too soon. They were obviously a long way from being out of ammunition and resources.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Stalin is one of the most extraordinary figures in world history. He began as a small clerk, and he has never stopped being a clerk. Stalin owes nothing to rhetoric. He governs from his office, thanks to a bureaucracy that obeys his every nod and gesture. It's striking that Russian propaganda, in the criticisms it makes of us, always holds itself within certain limits. Stalin, that cunning Caucasian, is apparently quite ready to abandon European Russia, if he thinks that a failure to solve her problems would cause him to lose everything. Let nobody think Stalin might reconquer Europe from the Urals! It is as if I were installed in Slovakia, and could set out from there to reconquer the Reich. This is the catastrophe that will cause the loss of the Soviet Empire.”

  Adolf Hitler July 1941

  The second salvo of rockets roared out from their wing pods and hammered into our vehicle park, the machine gun and cannon fire chattered again. It didn’t hit near where we were sheltering. I looked up and saw to my horror that there were at least another ten aircraft in the sky, some already diving down on us, the others circling, awaiting their turn to begin their attack run.

  Unlike the Sturmovik the LaGG-3 was a single seater. The aircraft carried two heavy calibre 12.7 mm Berezin machine guns, a single 20 mm ShVAK cannon and six rockets. It was a lot of firepower, especially when attacking ground forces.