by Eric Meyer
“So you’re the SS officer who brought back those two Soviet engineers from inside the salient?”
I nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
I felt him sizing me up with his sharp, ice blue eyes. He was a fit, trim and muscular man despite his age, his steel grey hair was cut close to the scalp and he looked to be a man who should not be underestimated. His past victories served to underline that fact and I had no doubt that Russians had put his celebrated war record under a strong microscope.
“I need to know what my tankers will be going into, Obersturmfuhrer Hoffman.” I noticed him struggling with the unfamiliar SS rank. “Take a look at this map.”
He led me over to the large map on the wall, the salient stood out like a cancerous growth, an evil physical entity that pierced our front like a bulge in a worn rubber tyre. He pointed to the city at the rear of the bulge, roughly midway from north to south.
“As you know, this is our main objective, we attack from both sides in the classic encirclement tactic, the troops caught inside will be cut off from supplies and reinforcements and we finish them off at our leisure. Apart from destroying the Soviet armies inside the salient, it is vital that we take the city of Kursk because of its strategic importance.”
He moved his hand down. “This is our first main objective, the village of Prokhorovka, there is a small railway station there, not much else. We will be supporting II SS Panzer Corps, which I believe includes your own division, Das Reich.”
I nodded. “That is correct, yes, Sir.”
“I need to know what the Ivans have waiting for us, Hoffman. You’ve done well supplying us with those two Soviet engineer officers, but that was some time ago and I have to know what they have prepared in the meantime. You know we’ll be going in within days, that means that anything you can find our about the Soviet defences will be worth its weight in gold, the Soviets won’t have time to change things around even if they realise that we have uncovered the layout of their defences. So that’s your mission, get in there using the routes that you’ve had success with in the past and find out what lies between here and Prokhorovka. With any luck they won’t even know you were ever there. Good luck, Hoffman, report back to me inside of forty-eight hours. We haven’t much time left, you know.”
“How should we travel into the salient, General?”
He spread his hands. “You’re an officer of the SS, man. I’ve been told that you people are big on using your initiative.”
He smiled to take the sarcasm out of his words, but I couldn’t help but rise to the bait.
“Then you have been correctly informed, Sir. I’ll report back within forty-eight hours.”
“Good. Take whatever resources you need, you have my full authority. If anyone gets in your way, tell them I’ll have them arrested! I want that intelligence, Hoffman, whatever it takes!”
I looked away as someone called urgently for his attention. I was forgotten. I saluted and left, the men were less than impressed when I got back to our half-track.
“They must be crazy,” Voss said bitterly. “How the hell can we get in and out of the salient again without being caught by the Russians? They’re not complete idiots, they’ll be waiting for us to try something like this, especially after the last time.”
“Horses,” Mundt said emphatically.
There was a chorus of groans.
“No, look. It worked last time. It’s the last thing they’d expect. If we go in and out at night and they hear us, we know they’ll assume it’s only their own Cossacks. Why not horses?”
“It’s a fair point. Besides, on foot we’d never cover enough ground and there’s no way we can use the half-track, the Scharfuhrer is right. Bauer, you know where the stable is, take us there now and we’ll see if we can get them to cooperate again.”
He started the engine and we clattered through the city streets, turned into the lane and stopped outside the stables. The NCO in charge, Wegener, looked out as we arrived.
“What is it this time?” he asked suspiciously.
“Horses, Wegener. We need to borrow some of your mounts for a couple of days.”
Another soldier came out of the stable block, an infantry colonel. We saluted and waited for him to acknowledge. He looked at us with a haughty expression.
“What are you men doing here? These horses are for the use of army officers, not any old ragtag SS platoon looking to have some Saturday night fun.”
“I’m sorry, Sir, but I have to borrow some of them, don’t worry, we’ll look after them.”
He was a pompous ass, immaculate in his riding breeches, polished boots and pressed uniform. I should have told him straight away that this was military business, but like our own CO von Meusebach, he was the kind of officer that irritated me on sight.
“Absolutely not, I forbid it. Look at you, man, you’re not even fit to borrow a bicycle!” He glared at me for a few moments. “What are you waiting for? Get out of here!”
“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry, but I’m acting under General Hoth’s orders, he said I am to arrest anyone who obstructs this mission.” I turned to my platoon. “Men, put this officer under arrest and take him to Fourth Panzer Army headquarters.”
They stepped forward and took him by the arms. The officer paled. “Hoth? I see, very well, you’d better take what you need.”
I waited a few moments for effect and then nodded at the men. “Let him go.”
The officer straightened his uniform and strode off. Wegener watched him go with a broad smile. “A good thing you brought that stuffed shirt down a peg, he thinks he’s God’s gift to the Wehrmacht.”
“What does he do?” I asked him.
“He’s the catering supplies officer for the Fifty-Seventh Infantry. A total prat, all his men hate him, even the other officers.”
He looked over the platoon. “So you all want horses, do you?”
I nodded. “General Hoth’s orders. It’s an in and out reconnaissance mission, we need fast, reliable mounts.”
“Very well. Come in and you can choose the best of the bunch, if you’re going behind the lines you don’t want a horse that can’t keep up with the Cossacks.”
I looked at the horses standing in the stables, some were nuzzling at feed in iron troughs set into the stable walls. They were the familiar Panjes, the Russian horses whose endurance was epic, bred for the extremes of heat and cold and rough terrain of the Tsarist Empire and latterly the Soviet Union. I admired a beautiful chestnut mare, shaggy haired like the others but slightly larger and she looked sleeker, even proud. He saw me looking.
“Yes, she’s a beauty, that Colonel you spoke to regards her as his personal mount, so it’ll stick in his throat if someone else uses her.”
“I’ll take her then.”
We selected nine horses. Mundt was puzzled, “There are only eight of us, why nine horses?”
“I’ve got an idea, I think we may be able to recruit someone to help us get in and out, Willy.”
He looked sceptical. “You mean Irina? No way, she’d sell us out to the Russians if we gave her half a chance.”
“I’ve got to try, if she says no there’s nothing lost, but if we can bring her along it could make the difference between success or failure.”
Bauer started the engine and I directed him to Irina’s house. A group of local people watched us draw up with surly expressions. When I knocked she answered the door immediately.
“What do you want?”
“Irina, I’m sorry, but I need your help.”
“Go away, Jurgen, I made it clear last time that I’m finished helping you Germans.”
“We’re not all as bad, you know. Just because there are some wicked people in the military doesn’t mean that the rest of us are the same. And think about the Soviets, if we’re forced out of the Ukraine they’ll be back. You know that Stalin has declared everyone that remained behind a traitor? You know what they do to traitors?”
She nodded. “I know. I also know what your t
roops did to my parents.”
“Irina, that was a rogue outfit, you know that most of us are not like that. You also know that if the Soviets come back, most of them are like that. How many Ukrainians have they killed? Hundred of thousands, millions, think of the Kulaks starving and freezing to death in Siberia, it will all happen again. This coming battle could make all the difference, I’m asking you to put your anger aside for now. Afterwards, if we Germans win, at least you can ask the local administration to enquire into your parents death, the Soviets would put you in the Gulag just for asking.”
“And if the Soviets win?” she said bitterly. “What then?”
“In that case, we are all dead,” I said tiredly. I walked back to the half-track, I’d done my best.
“Jurgen, wait.”
I looked around.
“Give me ten minutes and I will come with you.”
Bauer drove us back to the stables and we began to make the horses ready for the crossing that evening. I sent him back with von Meusebach’s briefcase and a message telling him that we were acting under Hoth’s orders, orders that included a blanket arrest warrant for anyone refusing support. He also carried a chit to draw rations and ammunition for all of us. While we waited for him to return, we exercised the horses and tried to familiarise ourselves with them. Irina chose a small blue-roan gelding. Perhaps there was an unconscious message there for me, perhaps not. Wegener made sure that we had the best of everything, every strap, every buckle, every stirrup was checked and checked again, there were no convenient stables where we were going that would happily fix anything that broke. Bauer came back in the Hanomag, we took out boxes of food and ammunition and transferred them to our packs.
“How did von Meusebach take it?” I asked him.
Bauer grinned. “He refused at first, but when he got Hoth’s HQ on the field phone and they told him that the General’s threat of arrest was real, he couldn’t have been more helpful. Mind you, there’s something about him, he’s definitely got it in for you, Sir.”
“Stefan, every day here could be our last, I’ll worry about the CO when the time comes. Let’s concentrate on getting this job done first.”
Wegener let us park the Hanomag in the stable yard and we mounted the horses and rode out in a long line, heads turned as people heard us riding through the city, expecting to see a Soviet Cossack unit about to attack. There was considerable relief when they saw our German uniforms and distinctive steel helmets. In fact, we did have regular cavalry in certain theatres, including a few Cossacks on the Eastern Front. Beginning in the summer of 1942, as a part of our policy of employing ex-Soviet personnel, prisoners of war and deserters, a number of independent Cossack cavalry squadrons and troops were formed under the First Panzer Army in southern Russia. Under German commanders, these units successfully performed long-range reconnaissance and staged raids behind enemy lines in the steppes beyond the lower Don and in the northern Caucasus. Subsequently, the 1st Cossack Division had just been formed in May.
We reached a fork in the road and I asked Irina which way she suggested. She was still cool, helping us against her better judgment. All I’d persuaded her of was that as bad as we were, the Russians were much worse, it didn’t make me feel especially proud.
“Where are you heading for?”
“Prokhorovka.”
She flinched. “That’s open country, it’s not an easy place to get to undetected. Lots of open steppes with little chance of concealment, just a few low hills, that’s about it. Very well, we’ll take the left fork here, there is a place I know about six kilometres away that is a good crossing point.”
“Is it another railway tunnel?”
“No.”
We carried on in silence. I could live with that, if she got us into the salient undetected. And out again, of course. It took us an hour to reach the point she was aiming for, a massively overgrown balka, so overgrown in fact that even in daylight it would have been almost impossible to see it even when you were staring straight at it. It was now almost dark and we couldn’t see it at all. Irina found it because of a ruined stonewall that marked the entrance.
“We will need to lead our horses through on foot,” she said. “The undergrowth is too thick otherwise, besides, it is shallow in parts and the Russians may spot us. The balka stretches for almost two kilometres, when we reach the end we will be well inside the Soviet lines.”
I detailed Bauer to take the point. He walked quietly up the ravine, pushing the tangled vines and branches to one side to make headway, his horse was sent to the rear for Wesserman, our back marker. Then we pushed through the darkness of the Ukrainian balka, stumbling, whispering muttered curses as we continually lost our footing on roots and branches that made the going very difficult. The horses seemed to have some sixth sense about the obstacles and daintily high stepped over the worst of them. It took an hour to cover the two kilometres to the end and by the time we stumbled out we were exhausted. I gave them five minutes to rest, but we had a lot of ground to cover to arrive at our destination and be under cover before daylight.
We rode in single file. Irina was back in the lead, taking us along an ancient route probably used by smugglers and criminals for many centuries. We led our horses along more balkas, rode cautiously through the ancient woods that had probably been here for a thousand years. She seemed to have an instinct for where the Soviet armies had made their encampments and more importantly, where they had not.
“It’s not too difficult,” she said once when I asked her about it. “These routes are almost inaccessible except on foot or horseback, why would the Russian armies come this way?”
Except for the infantry and the Cossacks, I could have replied. But the Soviets tended to use combined arms organisations called ‘Fronts’ that comprised armour, artillery, infantry and even aircraft, so perhaps she was correct that they would avoid this kind of area. Unless of course a wandering Cossack patrol happened along, we’d have to deal with that if it happened. It was still dark when we reached the outskirts of a small village marked on my map as Belenikhino.
“There’s a series of low hills outside the village and a disused and overgrown quarry where we can shelter the horses. If you climb out of the quarry on foot to the hill above you will be able to see the whole area around Prokhorovka. We will have to keep very quiet, there will probably be troops quartered in the village.”
I nodded and told her to lead us to the quarry. We reached there while it was still dark and we had to wait until the first lightening of the sky announced the coming dawn. The quarry had almost completely returned to nature, there were no buildings or anything man-made in evidence, only a deep white gash in the ground that soared to a cliff above us. We were in a deep bowl choked with small trees that were ample to give us cover for the horses and ourselves. We dismounted and allowed them to feed and water in a nearby stream, but we left the saddles on, the possibility of having to make a hasty exit was very real.
Gradually the sky lightened and yet everything was silent. I heard the distant buzz of an aircraft, then another, it faded into silence. For a moment I wondered if we were in the right place when suddenly the Soviet tanks began to start their engines to warm them up for the start of the day. I left Beidenberg in charge and climbed to the top of the hill with Mundt and Irina. The sight that greeted us was extraordinary. Within two kilometres was what looked like at least an entire Soviet army complete with almost a city of tents. Armour stretched into the distance, line after line of T34 tanks, like iron centipedes that wound as far to the east as the eye could see. I heard Mundt mutter, “Mother of God, there are millions of them,” as he unconsciously crossed himself, I remembered that Willy was a Catholic. Artillery parks were scattered across the steppe, tens of thousands of soldiers were stirring and beginning to form up for the coming day.
“Willy, what’s your estimate of the armour?”
He shook his head. “They’re out of sight on the steppe, I wouldn’t like to hazard a gues
s.”
“Try.”
“Maybe five hundred in this sector alone, mostly T34s. If I was to extrapolate that across the whole of the salient, I’m guessing five thousands tanks, perhaps even more.”
“So we’re going to be outnumbered?”
“It’s not just the armour, look at the artillery parks, they must have thousands of guns. Infantry, I’m guessing over a million, maybe two million across the whole of the salient. And minefields, my God, I remember the campaign in 1941, the Russians are the past masters at minefields, they’ve almost certainly planted everything they’ve got.”
I wrote everything we’d seen in my notebook. It wasn’t anything new, I’d reported before on the massive Soviet build-up that I had seen, but this time we were on the eve of the attack. The task we were faced with was daunting, but not insurmountable. Provided of course that we attacked taking into account the enemy that faced us. So far all I had seen was a blind disinclination to believe anything that may be unfavourable to conventional military wisdom, maybe it was the Fuhrer’s military wisdom. All I could do was report what I saw and how I interpreted the Russian deployments, the rest was in the hands of our military masters.
“Scharfuhrer, I think we’ve seen enough already, we’ll keep a watch up here for the rest of the day, as soon as it gets dark we’ll make our way back.”
“I’ll take first watch if you wish, Sir.”
“Good, I’ll make sure you’re relieved in two hours.”
I climbed carefully back down to the quarry and told them what I had seen. We settled down to wait out the day sensing that a dark gloom had descended over us. The reason was obvious, we were about to go into a battle in which we would need to use every ounce of intelligence, planning and military skill to achieve victory. Even then, at best it may only be a Pyrrhic victory. I recalled my history, after defeating the Romans at the battle of Asculum, King Pyrrhus had lost so many of his troops that he said, ‘One more such victory would utterly undo me’. The Russians could lose armour and troops at a rate of three or four times what our own armies suffered and avoid defeat by making certain that we couldn’t win.