by Eric Meyer
I thanked him and jumped off near our quarters, the half-ruined isba. I managed to get an hour’s sleep, then the noise of the camp woke me, men shouting, engines starting up, a railway engine’s steam whistle sounding, the crash of ramps as they started to unload the first of the new Tigers that had arrived. I put my head under the cold-water pump in the yard and tried to clear my tired brain. After breakfast I reported to HQ for orders. There was no sign of von Meusebach so I spoke to Muller, once again the second in command. He handed me my typed up report and I was about to sign it when something in his eyes made me look at it again. It had been subtly altered to give the impression that von Meusebach was actually leading the patrol, not tucked up in his bed.
“I can’t sign this, it’s nonsense.”
Muller sighed. “I think you should reconsider, Hoffman, he can make all our lives difficult if we don’t carry out his wishes. It’s only a damned report, for God’s sake.”
“It’s only a damned lie,” I replied quietly, but I knew I had no choice and I scrawled my signature.
“We’ve got more Tigers and a couple of the new Panzer V tanks due in today, it’ll be a bitch getting them unloaded just as we were getting used to rolling the Tigers off and changing their tracks. Now we have a new set of problems, why the hell they don’t settle on one good tank design I don’t know. The Tiger is a real winner, the finest armour on the whole of the Eastern Front.”
His second in command, Glasser, coughed to interrupt him. “Sir, they say that these new Panzers Vs are even better than the Tiger, much better performance, better armour, they’re very good, so they say.”
Muller grunted. “That’s just propaganda, Glasser. I’ve heard that they’re unreliable and don’t pack the punch of the Tiger, although they’re faster, I grant you. No damned good being fast if you’ve broken down, is it?”
“I’m sure they’ll sort out the problems, Obersturmbannfuhrer.”
“They need to, that’s for sure. Why are they delaying the attack, Glasser? The ground is drying up, we should be attacking now, not sitting here on our backsides tangling with partisans.”
“We may not attack at all if we don’t find out who is passing information to the enemy, Muller.”
We all looked up as two men walked through the door, two men I recognised. SD Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter von Betternich and Gestapo Kriminalkommissar Gerd Wiedel.
“What do you mean?” Muller asked.
“It’s quite simple, we believe that someone is passing information on our entire order of battle, unit dispositions, in fact we believe that the entire Operation Zitadelle could be at risk if we can’t plug the leak.”
I was mystified. “Operation Zitadelle?”
“Yes, Zitadelle,” Muller said irritably. “I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t know, it is the name of the operation to eliminate the bulge in the lines between Orel and Kharkov, the Kursk salient, so that we can shorten the front line. Once we have taken Kursk we can continue the drive to Moscow.”
Von Betternich nodded. “Yes, Model’s 9th Army will attack southwards from Orel whilst Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Group Kempf will attack northwards from here at Kharkov. The two armies will meet near Kursk but if the offensive goes well, the armies would have permission to continue eastward on their own initiative. With luck we can establish a new line at the Don River, much nearer to Moscow.”
He looked at us. “The problem is that if we can’t find the traitor, we may have to delay the offensive indefinitely. I need hardly tell you that the Fuhrer is unhappy, most unhappy. He’s threatened to send every last member of the Intelligence units to the front armed with only a shovel.”
“Are you sure that someone is passing information to the Russians?” Muller asked.
“We’ve intercepted the signals, there can be no doubt. We can still retrieve the situation, there’s much that the Russians don’t know, but first we have to find the traitor. Muller, I will be needing an escort, can you release Hoffman and some men of his platoon again?”
“You’ll need to clear it with the new CO. We’re struggling to cope with the partisan attacks, they’re a real threat, not some mythical traitor that may or may not exist.”
“Von Meusebach will not object, I have an direct order from the Reichsfuhrer SS. Hoffman, I trust you have no objections?”
I hesitated. If there was anyone I’d like to hunt down and shoot it was von Betternich himself, but I was trapped by SS discipline, and by the oath I’d taken to the Fuhrer when I was commissioned.
“No, Sir.”
The SD officer was smiling broadly, I’d worked with him before and discovered that he had an uncanny ability to virtually read minds, probably because of his long experience as a Berlin policeman. He stared at me silently for a few moments until I began to feel uncomfortable.
“You blame me for that Jewess, don’t you, Hoffman?”
“Do I, Sir?”
“You know damn well you do, man. Listen, even if she was the sister of the Fuhrer, God forbid, once she was found out to be a Jewess using false papers stolen from an Aryan German there was only one possible way it could end. Were you in love with her?”
“That’s none of your business,” I muttered.
“In the case of an SS officer enjoying a relationship with a Jewess it is emphatically my business, but I’ll take that as a yes. I’m afraid you must put that behind you, my friend, we have important work to do, far more important than any Jewess, in fact more important than anything else on this front. This spy is forwarding our communications and plans to Stalin almost as quickly as our own commanders are informed. Have you heard of the name ‘Lucy’?”
I shook my head.
“That is the name by which this group of people are known, we have no idea why. Perhaps it is a woman named Lucy who controls the group or perhaps it is something else. Last year we arrested a number of people involved in a spy ring called ‘Die Rote Kapelle’, the Red Orchestra. We were lucky, in July the Gestapo uncovered a radio operator named Johann Wenzel and it all started to unravel from there. That was when we first heard of this Lucy spy ring, but we have made little progress in identifying them. Until now, that is, when we made the connection between Army Group South and the plans for Zitadelle. As soon as the message was passed to von Manstein’s Headquarters the Russians began reinforcing key areas in the Kursk salient, areas that exactly match the points we planned to attack. It is too great a coincidence, they must have been told our exact intentions.”
“Does that mean the attack may be cancelled?”
Wiedel the Gestapo man, pointed at one of the maps on the wall. “Look at this, Hoffman. The salient more than doubles the length of our front line and we don’t have enough troops and tanks to defend it all, let alone restart our offensive on Moscow. Cancelling the attack is out of the question, but it is not too late to modify the plans, provided we can stop this Lucy spy ring. If they find out we have changed our plans they will just re-site their defences and we’ll fall into the trap. We have to find the traitor!”
“You must put aside your anger at what happened to your girlfriend and put all of your efforts into catching this spy,” von Betternich continued. “It is more important than any of us, Hoffman.”
“What do you want me to do?”
If the Russians knew in advance where we were to attack the result would be unthinkable, tens of thousands of men wiped out unnecessarily. I’d put the business with Heide out of my mind, there would be a time and place later when I would settle accounts.
“We have a funkwagen, a radio detection truck in Kharkov. We know that the transmissions are made after dark, between the hours of nine and ten o’clock, so that’s when we shall concentrate our efforts. To begin with, I want you and three of your men to follow the van at a discreet distance and be ready to go in and make the arrest if they detect any transmissions. You can use a Kubelwagen to get into the city. I’ll give you the requisition before you go. We will need to visit
Army Group South Headquarters at Vinnitsa too. There are some enquiries that I need to make there.”
I was surprised. “Surely security at Army Group South is locked up tight, I can’t imagine that the leak could come from there.”
He smiled. “Security is so tight that only five weeks ago there was a plot to assassinate the Fuhrer at Feldmarschal von Kluge’s Army Group Centre in Smolensk. We understand that it was only luck that prevented the bomb from going off. “
“The Fuhrer? That’s unbelievable! Did you arrest the people responsible? Was it a Soviet spy?”
“It was no Soviet, it was a group of our own officers, they planted a bomb in a case of champagne, when the bomb failed to explode they managed to retrieve the bomb, so we have no direct evidence. We haven’t arrested them yet, we are still making enquiries.”
I was about to question him more, it was very, very odd that an assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler would not be investigated and concluded immediately. There was only one answer, the answer that bedevilled every aspect of German life, politics. It meant that for some reason they did not want to look too closely. Did someone want the Fuhrer dead? No, that would be too incredible.
“You are surprised that our own officers would make an attempt on the Fuhrer’s life, are you not?” von Betternich continued.
I nodded.
“There have been at least thirty attempts on the life of the Fuhrer in the past ten years, almost all from his own people. However, that is not your concern. This Lucy spy ring takes priority over everything else. Is that clear?”
I nodded.
He handed me an official SD document. “This is a requisition for the vehicle. Report to the Gestapo office in Kharkov with three of your men at eight thirty, in time to accompany the radio truck. That’s all.”
I found the platoon and gave them the good news. Most of them groaned.
“Do we still have to mount the anti-partisan patrols,” Mundt asked.
I nodded. “I’m afraid so, yes, I doubt that von Meusebach will relieve us of that duty. I need three volunteers to come with me tonight.”
As expected, Willy Mundt put up his hand. Bauer and Wesserman volunteered too, but that left a problem. Who would be in charge of my platoon in the absence of myself, and my sergeant, Scharfuhrer Mundt? The best junior NCO was Beidenberg and he’d performed well lately.
“Sturmann Beidenberg, you will take over the platoon while we’re away, I’m promoting you to Unterscharfuhrer as from this moment. I’ll need to get it confirmed, but in the meantime, congratulations.”
He broke out in a broad grin and the men patted him on the back, there were no sour faces so I thought I’d probably made the right decision.
“Willy, here’s the requisition for the Kubi, would you collect it after lunch and get it checked over, make sure the tank is full of petrol and so on. If they detect this damn spy I don’t want to find that the engine won’t start when they ask us to go in and arrest him.”
He took the document. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Good. We’re due back at the railway siding, they’re bringing in more armour today, there’s also an ammunition train due in. Muller wants tight security when it turns up, if the partisans hit the ammunition it’ll blow up half the town.”
Someone murmured ‘and good riddance’ but I ignored it. We walked over to the railway line, it was empty but already tank crews and mechanics were assembling. In the distance a plume of smoke gave advance warning of the arrival of the train. It gave the Soviets ample warning too, as the train came into view a flight of Sturmoviks came roaring overhead, they’d crossed the lines at low level and followed the railway track. Abruptly the peaceful countryside marshalling yard descended into chaos.
The anti-aircraft guns were the first to respond, streams of tracer bullets and cannon fire arced up towards the aircraft. The first Sturmovik reached the train and two bombs detached from under the wings and straddled two Tigers sitting impotently on the flatcars, still several hundred metres from the unloading point. The bombs sent up showers of earth and stones but appeared to do little damage. There were four Sturmoviks, the second fared no better than the first but the third scored a direct hit on the train, the flat car lurched off the track and the Tiger slid down to one side. The fourth Sturmovik dropped its bombs nearer the engine, obviously intending to strand the train so that a further raid would finish it off. The bombs dropped almost next to the train, one missed completely, the other smashed into the coal tender and started a fire in the combined coal and oil tanks. Muller shouted at us.
“Get that tender disconnected so they can move the train clear! The rest of you start unloading those Panzers. Hurry, before the next attack comes in!”
We started forward, but Mundt stopped me. “They’ll need oxy-acetylene to cut the tender away from the engine, there’s a set in the mechanic’s workshop.”
“What are we waiting for, Willy? Let’s go.”
He led the way and I followed the men into the old barn that served as a workshop. Next to the bench were two tall, heavy steel cylinders and a set of long, rubber pipes, ending with a heavy brass nozzle. They were mounted on a trolley, Mundt shouted orders and the men half rolled, half carried the equipment across the rough ground. The stricken tender was blazing, tethered at each end to both the engine and the long train behind, locked by a tangle of steel couplings. The anti-aircraft guns started firing again and I looked up, the Sturmoviks were coming back to strafe the area, they’d offloaded their bombs, now they wanted to deliver the coup-de-grace.
“Take cover, the Sturmoviks are back,” I shouted.
The men threw themselves to the ground but some were too slow as the Russians machine-gunned the area remorselessly. They were armed with two fixed forward-firing 23mm cannons, two 7.62mm machine guns and a 12.7mm machine gun in the rear cockpit. It was enough to cause massive death and destruction, bullets and cannon fire swept across the railway yard like a tornado, men flung bloodied and broken to the ground, buildings and vehicles riddled with bullets and torn apart by cannon fire. The anti-aircraft guns scored a hit, one of the Ilyushin IL-2s went down in flames to the four-barrelled 2cm Flakvierling 38. Mounted on one of the flatcars it was a fearsome anti-aircraft weapon, sending streams of heavy calibre shells up at enemy aircraft. As the Russian dived into the ground the others turned away to head back east. The Flakvierling switched targets and managed to score a hit on another Sturmovik, but the aircraft was heavily armoured and was able to make its escape, trailing smoke. I stood up to survey the damage. The biggest problem was the tender. It was burning fiercely, threatening to overwhelm the engine.
“Willy, get that cutting equipment over there fast, the rest of you, grab the fire extinguishers, we haven’t got much time!”
It was hard dragging the heavy gas cylinders over the rough ground but we made it at the same time as the men ran up with the extinguishers. They sprayed water and foam over the area of the coupling while Mundt got the cutting equipment started. He waded through water, smoke and flames until he was at the coupling. While he burned through the heavy steel, we kept the extinguishers playing over Mundt and the area he was working in, but it was obvious that we didn’t have enough capacity to keep going for long, already one of the extinguishers had run out. I looked up seeking inspiration and noticed the trickle of steam coming from the engine. Of course, steam, water, they went together, didn’t these huge steam engines carry water tanks?
I leapt up onto the engine, the heat intense even though it was several metres from the fire. The engineers looked startled.
“We need water on the coupling to protect the man trying to cut the engine free, do you have a hose connected to your water tank?”
They looked at each other. One of them shrugged, “Sure, we’ve got the drain hose.” He nodded to the other man. “Hans, hook it up and spray water on the flames. We can’t use too much of our water, Obersturmfuhrer, otherwise we won’t have enough to get up steam.”
“If we won’t get that fucking tender uncoupled you won’t have any need to get up steam,” I shouted at them. “We need to get that fire put out!”
Hans connected a long piece of rubber hose to a nozzle and the engineer turned a steel valve. Water poured out and he started to spray the tender.
“Cover the coupling with water, that’s where my Scharfuhrer is working to cut you free,” I shouted. He redirected the hose and steam rose in the air as the water hit the hot metal, but it was enough, I jumped down and saw that Mundt had nearly cut through the steel. It only took another four minutes and the steel coupling dropped free. I shouted up to the locomotive and told the crew to move their engine away from the train. There was a hiss of steam and the great locomotive started forward, picking up speed until it was away from the immediate danger zone. Once they got to Kharkov there would be more anti-aircraft fire to protect them. Some of the other soldiers had started to form a bucket chain, together with some Hiwis they passed buckets of water along the line and poured them onto the burning coal tender.
“Willy, leave it to them, they’ve got the fire under control, we need to help unload the armour, we’re not safe yet, the Reds may be back.”
We started on the first of the flatcars with the tank perched helplessly its length, impotent until they were unloaded and on the ground. Even with the special narrow tracks for rail transport they were vast, steel giants of the battlefield with the immense 88mm gun pointing rearwards. The crews were waiting for us, they had taken shelter inside the tank and battened down the hatches when the air attack started but now they came out to help us unload.
“Willy, we need the unloading ramps in the yard, can you take some men and bring them,” I said to Mundt. “You’ll probably need more men to help.” He nodded.