by Eric Meyer
“Alina says there is a crossing point much nearer to Belgorod, the Cossacks used it two days ago to raid into German-held territory. It would be a good place for us to try.”
“Do you trust her?” I asked.
“As much as I trust you, Obersturmfuhrer,” was the tart reply. It wasn’t Jurgen anymore, I noticed.
“Very well, we’ll go that way, would you ask her to come forward, she can take the lead and you will interpret. Warn her that if she is lying to us, she’ll be the first one to get her throat cut.”
She gave me a venomous glance and then hurried away to fetch Alina. The Ukrainian girl led us in a direction that I calculated would intersect the city of Belgorod. Although it was in German hands, a few kilometres outside the city were the Russian defences, manned by tens of thousands of Soviet troops and hundreds, maybe even thousands of tanks.
We could see the city buildings in the distance when we came upon a single-track railway line, she led us due west, following the path of the line. She spoke some words of Ukrainian or Russian to Irina.
“She says that this was a local line that closed many years ago, it was used by a quarry to take stone into the city.”
“Ask her where the crossing is.”
She questioned her closely. “She says that there is a tunnel that was dynamited when the Russians retreated, but there is a hidden way through. It runs underneath the front lines, we can go through the tunnel and come out on the German side. It is not defended, most people don’t know it even exists.”
We followed the line for two more kilometres until the ground rose into a series of low hills. The rails disappeared into the side of a hill, when we reached it the entrance to the tunnel was blocked with huge blocks of stone. Alina went to a tangle of debris leaning against the hillside twenty metres away, she asked Irina for help and we moved heavy sheets of rusting corrugated iron to one side. Irina pointed to a dark opening.
“That is the entrance of the old part of the tunnel, Alina says that fifty years ago there was a branch line that came in here but it was closed. We can go in through this entrance. She says to put the corrugated iron back afterwards, otherwise the Soviets may follow us.”
The narrow tunnel was barely high or wide enough for a horse. Clearly the Cossacks had dismounted before they came through. Inside, we marched in single file, Alina first, Irina behind her. I followed them, and then Mundt, who had his combat knife ready in case they tried anything untoward, pushed along the two Soviet officers. The other men came after and I heard them replacing the corrugated iron. There was no light, I took out my small combat torch and played it over the walls. It was just as well, our narrow tunnel forked into the larger tunnel and we narrowly avoided sprawling over the broken steel of the old rails and the boulders that lay littered all around.
“Ask her how long this tunnel is,” I said to Irina.
She spoke softly to Alina. “She says about a kilometre.”
We stumbled on in the dark, aided by occasional flashes of my torch, until we saw glimpses of moonlight ahead of us. We finally came out into a dark, ruined building which even the roof had been destroyed.
“She says this was the factory where they crushed the marble, the trains came into here and unloaded and it was immediately put on to conveyor belts.”
I looked up. The old conveyor belts criss-crossed the huge, empty space, almost like giant vines in some ghostly industrial jungle. We walked across the echoing, empty building until we came out into the open. We were near Belgorod, which was still in German hands, less than two kilometres away.
We soon stumbled upon two sentries from General Hausser’s Second SS Panzer Corps. They were sceptical at first but after they contacted the Fourth Panzer Army Intelligence Officer we were allowed through and our own SS Intelligence arranged for a half-track to collect us and bring us back to Kharkov. It was dawn when we reached the city but it was already bustling. We went straight to the Regimental Office. I left the men to look after the women and the prisoners while I went inside to find Muller. His office door opened and a stranger emerged, with Muller trailing behind him. I saluted and Muller introduced us. “This is the new commanding officer, Standartenfuhrer von Meusebach. Standartenfuhrer, this is Obersturmfuhrer Hoffman.”
At first sight von Meusebach did little to inspire me. He was quite short, his hair cropped close to his head. Unlike the Prussian officers whose style he obviously tried to emulate, he was also paunchy and somewhat round-shouldered, evidence of his sedentary occupation, at least until now. He wore thin, gold, wire-rimmed glasses, unusual in a line officer. He stared at me with a neutral expression. His uniform, the field-grey of the Waffen-SS was immaculate, perfectly creased, jackboots gleaming black. I saw him looking at my Iron Cross with an expression that looked almost like envy. Unusually for a senior officer on the Eastern Front, he displayed no decorations.
“You have just returned from a mission across the lines, Obersturmfuhrer?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“In that case I will forgive your slovenly appearance, but next time you report to this office make sure you look like an SS officer, not a vagabond Jew.”
I must have looked like an idiot. I was so astonished that I couldn’t help my jaw drop. Did he think he’d been posted to a peaceful French city to enforce the traffic regulations?
“I’m sorry, Sir. It’s the war.”
As soon as I spoke I knew that I shouldn’t have said it. He glowed bright red with anger.
“The next insubordinate remark you make will result in you being put on a charge, is that clear, Hoffman? I assure you that I am well versed in every aspect of military law.”
“Yes, Sir, I’m sure you are.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “Dismissed.”
I saluted and he went back into his office, Muller accompanied us to the Gestapo Office. As we walked across the road we had to wait while a line of Panzers, perhaps twenty of our Panzer IVs clattered along, their tracks ripping up the cobbles as they travelled. They seemed pitifully few compared to the columns of T34s on the other side of the salient.
Chapter Two
‘The Eastern front is like a house of cards. If the front is broken through at one point all the rest will collapse’.
General Heinz Guderian
The last of the Panzers disappeared and we crossed over the road. Behind us four Tigers rumbled past, the Panzer VI, huge and daunting with their enormous 88mm gun, but they were still pitifully few to take on the Russians. We walked under the arched entrance and left the men in the courtyard with Irina, Alina and the prisoners. Major Ernst Brandt of Abwehr, army intelligence was talking to two security officers, one in plain clothes the other in the uniform of the Sicherheitsdienst, an SD Obersturmbannfuhrer who clutched a walking cane. When he turned around his face was one I recognised instantly.
“Obersturmfuhrer Hoffman, how pleasant to meet again.”
SD Sturmbannfuhrer Walter von Betternich, with his equally unpleasant Gestapo colleague, Gerd Wiedel. Muller had previously brushed with the two security officers when they put him under a Schutzhaft, the Gestapo’s protective custody order and he was clearly as unhappy as I was to see them. He elected to speak to Brandt, von Manstein’s intelligence officer.
“They brought in two Soviet prisoners, Major, I believe they are both engineering officers.”
“Very well, let’s hope they have plenty to tell us.”
“Hoffman, would you bring them in,” Muller said to me.
I’d taken off their gags when we reached our lines and when I led them into the building one of them spoke angrily.
“Under the Geneva Convention we refuse to divulge any information other than our names, ranks and numbers.”
Brandt looked at him coolly. “Has the Soviet Union now signed the Convention, Major?”
The Russian stared at him stonily, refusing to answer.
“No, I thought not. I’ve no doubt the Gestapo would like to discuss things further with yo
u. Kriminalkommissar Wiedel, would you care to handle these two officers? You know the kind of information the Feldmarschal wants.”
“Of course, Major. They will have plenty to tell us, believe me. Hoffman, would your men kindly escort these prisoners to our cells.”
I detailed the men to take the prisoners and Wiedel followed them out. The SD officer, von Betternich, spoke to me. “Hoffman, you’ve done well, how have you been?”
The last time I’d met the SD Obersturmbannfuhrer, he’d had a girl friend of mine sent to a concentration camp. It was true she had admitted to being a Jew and using a stolen identity card, but any Jew in Nazi Germany would be desperate enough to try anything to avoid the brutal fate that was meted out to them. I gave him a cold nod, refusing to answer him.
He smiled. “It wasn’t my fault you know, that Jewess of yours. Besides, I did offer you the chance to join our organisation. Perhaps you could have saved her.”
He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged and limped away on his cane. “We’ll get together another time, Hoffman,” was his parting shot.
I thought that with any luck a Russian sniper would get him first and save me the trouble of meeting him again. Major Brandt, the Abwehr officer, looked up from his notes.
“Hoffman, tell me what you found over the other side.”
I explained to him about the defences. “They’re formidable, Sir, the Russians are expecting us, there’s no doubt about it,” I added.
“Many tanks, you say, artillery dug in, mines, did you see many infantrymen?”
“Not many but the salient is hundreds of square kilometres, it would be impossible to see everything, Sir.”
“So it may not be as well defended as you think, not across the whole salient?”
“You’re wrong, Sir, the Russians are preparing defences everywhere, they’re just waiting for us to make a move.”
He smiled. “You are an inexperienced officer, Hoffman, so I doubt you would understand everything there is to know about Soviet defences. However, the Gestapo will interrogate your prisoners and perhaps we’ll get some more answers. I’m afraid that you have rather overestimated the Russian preparations, I’ll put it all in my dispatch to von Manstein.”
He smiled and left the office.
“Major Brandt didn’t believe a word of what I said,” I remarked bitterly to Muller.
“He’s under a lot of pressure, Hoffman. Von Manstein is determined to press home this next attack and he doesn’t want to hear about insurmountable Russian obstacles.”
“So they only want the good news, do they, Sir?” I sneered.
“Now you understand it, my friend, it’s all politics. Listen, you need to start packing, we’re moving tomorrow to the railhead at Podvirky, we’ll be guarding the railway depot bringing in the new armour and supplies. It won’t be as comfortable as the city, but hopefully we’ll be away from the snipers.”
I wasn’t sure which part of the city of Kharkov he’d found comfortable, but it certainly wasn’t the part where we were quartered.
My men were waiting for me outside with both women, they’d managed to scrounge coffee from the Gestapo kitchen and the hot liquid refreshed me. Sadly even the Gestapo didn’t have real coffee.
“Were they impressed with what we brought back, Sir?” Mundt asked.
I grimaced. “They didn’t believe me, Willy. Thought I was exaggerating or made it up.”
“So it was all for nothing?”
“I hope not, but I just don’t know.” I finished the last of my coffee and we started the short walk across town to our quarters. “We’re moving out tomorrow, we’re to reinforce the garrison at Podvirky.”
“Damn it,” he scowled. “It’s a shithole out there, just a railway depot and a few greasy peasant houses, what they call Isbas. In Germany we call them hovels. As if Kharkov isn’t bad enough they send us out there.”
We passed a curious sight in the city square, a company of tanks, all bearing the usual German military symbols, the German Cross and the Swastika together with Divisional markings. What was strange was that they were all Russian T34s. A Sturmscharfuhrer, a Sergeant Major, saw me looking at them, he was wearing the usual black German tanker’s uniform but I half expected him to speak Russian.
“Not what you expect to see in our army, Obersturmfuhrer?”
I smiled. “Not really, no, a present from Josef Stalin?”
“We captured these during the battle for the city. There were so many that we’ve formed a T34 company within the Fourth Panzer Army.”
I gazed at the enemy armour. “Are they any good, these things? Our tankers say they cause them a lot of grief.”
He shrugged. “They’re not as good as our own heavy tanks, although they can be useful in a scrap. The problem is spare parts. We have to cannibalise other T34s when repairs are needed, it’s not always easy. Of course, in the T34 the commander has to operate the gun as well as observe and command the tank, it makes life complicated in action.”
“The Red Army seems to do alright with them,” Mundt said, looking with avid interest.
“Sure they do,” the NCO replied. “You send five hundred T34s against a hundred of our own tanks and they’re sure to do wicked damage.”
“They don’t have that kind of numerical advantage, do they?”
Even as I asked the question I thought of the massive Soviet preparations in the Kursk salient, hundreds of tanks in only that one small area, perhaps many thousands across the whole salient.
The tanker stared at us solemnly. “We’d better hope they don’t, hadn’t we? If they do, we’re buggered.”
We nodded and walked on. Irina was holding Alina’s hand, since we’d killed the Cossacks she seemed to be utterly dependent on Irina for support and protection. I asked her what she was planning to do with Alina.
“She will stay with me until I can arrange to get her back to her village. She will be safe.”
“Good. We’re leaving Kharkov in the morning but we won’t be far away. I want to thank you for helping us.”
“It is no problem.”
“I’d like you to have dinner with me this evening, Irina, there must be at least one restaurant in the city that is still functioning.”
She smiled. “That is very kind of you, Jurgen,” before I could go on, she said, “but I have already arranged a dinner date, so it is not possible.”
I felt suddenly deflated. “I see, who with, one of the men?”
“No, it is with Alina.”
I looked down and saw that they were still holding hands tightly. Alina was looking at her with something very close to adoration. So that was the way it was, I’d certainly misread the signs.
“I hope you enjoy a pleasant meal, then.”
“I’m sorry, Jurgen.”
I nodded. Irina and Alina left, Irina had her hand around Alina’s waist. Mundt grinned. “No chance with either of those two, Sir. Shame.”
I looked him directly in the eyes. “Willy, shut up!”
He stared at a point ten centimetres above my head, as regulations demanded when addressing a senior officer, “Yes, Sir,” but he was grinning like a circus clown.
“We’ve got a couple of hours to get cleaned up and rested, we’re back on duty this afternoon, we need to prepare to move out tomorrow. You’d better get some rest.”
They walked away with broad smiles. Damn, I’d fancied my chances with Irina, what a waste. I walked to our quarters thinking about those T34s. If their performance was inferior to our own tanks, particularly the newer types like the Tiger and Panzer V, why were we using them? Were we so desperate that we had to use second-rate Soviet armour? Then again, I had seen the T34 in action, they weren’t as poor as the tanker had suggested, they were quick and powerful, lethal except when faced with our Tigers and perhaps the newer Panthers which could stand off at a distance and pick the T34s off almost at will. There was only one explanation. We were running out of resources. With a front line stretching thousan
ds of kilometres, it was proving impossible to both attack and defend along the entire length. I considered the formidable defences that I’d seen in one small corner of the salient and what it would mean to an attacker. Unless our leaders faced up to what we were up against it was going to be a very costly action indeed. The leadership of course meant Adolf Hitler, head of OKW, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. In view of his intransigence with the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, resulting in its encirclement and defeat at the hands of the Red Army, I wasn’t optimistic about him having a change of heart about the Kursk salient. Neither was I certain that our armies could withstand another shock defeat like Stalingrad. I could only hope that we could smash through the salient and push on eastwards, but in my head I knew it wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen.
We spent the rest of the day preparing our equipment for our move to the railway line. It was a miserable thought, despite the problems of snipers and occasional shelling by the Russians, the night bombing raids and the sudden partisan attacks, we’d become used to our lice infested quarters in Kharkov. The idea of camping out in a damp muddy field next to a railway yard was not a happy one. During the evening the men passed around bottles of schnapps and we drowned our sorrows. Voss asked me if I had a date tonight, I threw an empty bottle at his head and he ducked to avoid it to roars of laughter. But I slept badly. I couldn’t get the past forty-eight hours out of my mind, our mission into enemy territory. In view of the High Command’s refusal to accept what I’d reported back it had all been for nothing. My intentions with Irina were just as doomed, this was not a high point in my life.
In the morning I put on a clean uniform as ordered, at least, one that was slightly less ragged and filthy than the previous one I’d worn, we boarded the half-tracks and drove through the mud to Podvirky. We did not need to sleep in tents, we were to be quartered in the railway village, a squalid collection of wooden huts, isbas, most of which had been partially destroyed by the Red Army. When we attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin had ordered both soldiers and civilians to initiate a policy to deny the invaders basic supplies and shelter as they moved eastward, known as ‘scorched earth’. They burned and destroyed everything, houses were dynamited, woodlands and fields burned, the whole countryside denuded of foodstuffs, livestock and crops. Fortunately a few buildings had escaped destruction, Mundt went looking for suitable accommodation for the platoon while I attended the CO’s briefing.