Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “Stefan, there are T34s all around us, get us behind some cover so that we can stop and unlimber the gun!”

  He found a narrow balka in the ground and drove the half-track in so that most of the body was inside the shoulders of the entrance of ravine. There was no time to think, we had to get the gun into action.

  “Uncouple the gun, make sure we have some cover and load with armour piercing, we’ve got ourselves tangled in the middle of Soviet armour.”

  They started to drag the gun back out of the balka and set it behind a low bank of earth that would give us some protection. While we watched the smoke cleared briefly and we could see what looked like a scene from hell, tanks from both armies wheeling and fighting, guns blazing, smoke and flames pouring out of stricken vehicles, crews leaping out of burning tanks, their uniforms on fire and their comrades trying to beat them out.

  “Ready!” Mundt shouted.

  I watched carefully, there was one Soviet tank, a KV-1, not as nimble as the T34.

  “Tank, eleven o’clock, fire when you’re ready, Willy!”

  He spotted the target and his gunners rapidly worked the gun around to lay it on the target. The was an enormous ‘boom’ as he fired and seconds after we saw the shell strike the Russian, but it had hit the heavy frontal armour and failed to destroy it. Wesserman rushed around to fit another shell into the muzzle and dashed back behind cover as Mundt fired again, this time it hit the side of the turret and exploded, flames began to lick out of the tank, then the whole vehicle exploded in a furious eruption of fiery metal fragments. They were already reloading and I searched for more targets amidst the chaotic fury of the battle.

  We fought through the day in that position, the armies seemed to be stalemated. At one time the battle seemed to abate, just after midday, and we caught a pair of Soviet anti-tank gunners unawares. They’d set up in a nearby foxhole without noticing we were already hiding in the balka, Bauer was a good shot, he had his Kar 98 clipped inside the half-track and he picked it up, took aim and shot both the Russians. We rushed out to check them, one was dead, the other fatally wounded. Their unit insignia were the 5th Guards Tank Army.

  “That’s an elite unit,” Mundt said thoughtfully. “They only give them the ‘Guards’ designation when they’ve proved themselves in battle. This is going to be one hell of a fight.”

  “It already is,” Voss protested. “It can’t get any worse than this.”

  None of us dared to reply. In the afternoon the Luftwaffe came over to take on the Soviet tanks, Stukas with twin 37mm anti-tank cannons and took their toll of the enemy armour, Heinkel 111 bombers flew sortie after sortie, smashing the Red Army legions where they lay, in theory making our job easier. The Red Air Force came up in swarms and there was a constant battle between the fighters for supremacy over the battlefield, a mad, Wagnerian fury that lit up the sky with smoke, flame and noise. We pushed on, metre by metre, pushing back the Soviets, nearer and nearer to Prokhorovka. It was clearly in sight, Muller kept rushing from platoon to platoon, company to company, “We need to give our Panzers more support they’re almost there. Just one more push and we’ll roll over the Soviets and take Prokhorovka!”

  We never did take that flyspeck of a Soviet village. The following morning we were still attacking, tanks and artillery, Stukas and Heinkel bombers pounding the Russian positions, but it seemed that every time we destroyed a company, a regiment, a whole army, another one stepped forward to take its place. Our tank force was dwindling. The rate of fire we were able to sustain was dropping, hour by hour. A gap opened up in front of us where a Soviet position had been destroyed in the last bombing raid, we had a chance to dash forward and take it before they sent in more troops. Mundt looked across to me, waiting for the order.

  “Shouldn’t we go now, Sir? We’ve got a gap we can exploit, if we leave it any longer the Soviets will come back in force and make our job that much harder.”

  I shook my head. “Look around, Willy. We’re losing it, how many of our Panzers have you seen mounting attacks lately?”

  “It’s true, things have been a bit quiet. I assumed they were regrouping for a new attack.”

  “I’m not so sure, the battlefield is littered with wrecked armour and not all of it is Russian. How the hell can we sustain those kinds of losses?”

  He scratched his head. “If what you’re saying is correct, Sir, it’s all over. We can’t just sit here, either we go forward or back. And if we’re not going forward, that’s it, we’re finished.”

  “I may be wrong, my friend, but I think we should wait before we stick our necks out.”

  Up and down the line things had gone quiet. I imagined that if the commanders did the maths, in terms of our losses for each kilometre of ground taken, they would find they were unsustainable. Reaching Prokhorovka was only a partial objective, once we’d taken it we would still need to push through the formidable defences that stood between here and Kursk. It didn’t add up. We waited hour after hour, but the battlefield was static. Night fell and movement stopped almost entirely. The following day we started pulling back, out of the salient and nearer to Kharkov. We all knew that the next danger we had to face was the inevitable Soviet counterattack.

  “We’ll almost certainly need to strengthen the defences in Kharkov itself and give ourselves space and time to regroup before they attack,” Muller said confidently when he came around to check preparations for our withdrawal. “They’ll need a long time to recover from the pounding we just gave them.”

  I wondered how long we’d need to recover from the pounding we’d just received from the Soviets, but it wasn’t the kind of question that would be well received by a senior officer.

  Chapter Nine

  'Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live'.

  Adolf Hitler

  It was the beginning of August and we’d been back in our new regimental headquarters for three weeks, an old school on the outskirts of Kharkov, a welcome change from the miserable hovels of Podvirky. After the battle for the salient we were exhausted, but at least we could take comfort from the fact that the Soviets were undoubtedly feeling it more than we were. When we’d left the battlefield the landscape was a litter of bodies and broken armour, most of it Russian, although we’d lost a dangerous number of our own Panzers. Muller had managed to recruit forty Hiwis to help us create defences against the Russian attack that was expected in the autumn. They were still dragging sandbags around the old school yard when the salvo arrived. We dived for cover as the first shells bracketed our positions, Mundt and Bauer were next to me in a newly dug slit trench.

  “Jesus Christ, they didn’t take long,” Bauer said, wide eyed at the colossal weight of shells that were landing all around us.

  In an incredibly short time the enemy had brought up their big guns, hundreds of them.

  “They must have been ready for us, Stefan. I have the distinct impression that for a long time we’ve been playing the Russians’ game. You know what good chess players they are rumoured to be.”

  “They should stick to chess, Sir,” Mundt said bitterly. “This is getting damned hot.”

  If anything, he understated the case. The school behind us, our supposed new quarters was completely destroyed as shell after shell struck home and reduced it to rubble. Even while they were still firing the Soviet light bombers came in, a flight of Ilyushin IL-4s, twin-engine aircraft that unloaded thousands of kilos of bombs on us and other targets, some of them just churned up the rubble of the destroyed school.

  “Where’s the Luftwaffe?” Voss shouted bitterly, he’d run over to jump into our slit trench after his sandbagged machine gun emplacement was destroyed in a bomb blast.

  “I think half of them are destroyed on the ground inside the salient,” Mundt said bitterly, “alongside half of our Panzer force.”

  The barrage of bombs and shells lasted most of the day, our own guns desperately used c
ounter battery fire in a vain attempt to dilute the Russian artillery, but they were only partially successful. More flights of IL-4s came over, our anti-aircraft fire was ready for them this time and dozens of our four-barrelled Flakvierlings opened up on them, together with every other gun that was able to shoot. We brought down five out of a flight of fourteen, but the others ignored the ground fire and relentlessly went on to drop their bomb loads. Belatedly, a pair of Focke-Wulf 190s cam roaring in to do battle, chasing after the bombers and downing another three.

  “A pity the bastards didn’t do that before they dropped their bombs,” Voss said, continuing his rant about the Luftwaffe.

  I said nothing. The Red Air Force had become more and more effective, at least along this front. Whereas a few months ago, our Messerschmidt’s and Focke-Wulfs could roam the battlefield freely, they were now more frequently engaged by Soviet fighters who were taking a huge toll of our irreplaceable pilots and aircraft. Their aircraft had improved, as had their pilots, to deadly effect. And like on the ground, they had more and more of them, a seemingly inexhaustible supply. By evening the bombing and shelling had largely ended from both sides and we spent an uneasy night waiting for it to begin again. By dawn it was quiet everywhere, as if the armies were gathering strength. We were enjoying a quiet moment, drinking coffee, when a messenger came in. I was to report to Gestapo Headquarters. The only transport we had was the half-track, its body dotted with scars and holes from stray fragments but largely undamaged, but I decided to leave it and walk. It was only two kilometres and I wanted to get out of the cramped conditions for a short time and stretch my legs. I left Beidenberg in charge of the platoon and took Mundt and Bauer with me, they’d become more than just soldiers in my platoon, they were companions too, despite the difference in rank, after all, this was the SS.

  We had barely gone half a kilometre, strolling along a rubble-strewn street when a shot rang out and clanged on Bauer’s helmet and we dived undercover, I was relieved to see that he was uninjured.

  “Did anyone see where it came from?” Mundt asked, scanning the surrounding wrecked buildings anxiously.

  “Probably quite a distance, Willy. If he’d been nearer, the bullet would have penetrated his helmet.”

  “So what do we do, Sir? Just leave him there to shoot the next German soldier that comes past?”

  “You’re right, we need to find him and finish him. Let’s move out in the direction of the shot and see if we can’t flush him out.”

  We moved cautiously from building to building, I’d estimated that he was hidden in a ruined office block about four hundred metres away. We crawled until we were only fifty metres away. It was time to get him to show himself.

  “Stefan, go back to that low wall we came around, be behind it and show your helmet. If he puts his head up we should reach him with the MP38s from here.”

  He nodded and crawled away.

  “Are you ready, Willy?”

  “Yes, Sir, a pity we haven’t got a rifle, though, we could have made certain.”

  I smiled. “We’re the SS, Scharfuhrer, it’s our job to make do.”

  “That’s all we ever do these days. Maybe for once they’ll give us the equipment and men to finish the job.”

  It was not like Willy to moan so much. The battle in the salient had gone badly, very badly. We’d inflicted heavy losses on the Russians, but there were just so many of them. The whole of the war in Russia had become a war of attrition, of killing and destroying as many of the enemy as possible while they inflicted the same heavy punishment on us. A foolish strategy, I reflected, one that could only benefit the Russians. I wasn’t sure if we had a choice, if the opportunity to conduct the war in a different way existed, but if it didn’t, why had we ever come here in the first place? It was a question that only the politicians could answer.

  “Bauer should be about ready,” Willy said, jerking me out of my thoughts.

  I cocked my MP38 and waited where I could see the wrecked building, it had once had several floors but was now nothing but rubble. I surveyed every metre of the jumbled pile of rock, nothing. Then I looked again, there, in the far corner there was an old steel filing cabinet that had tumbled down, one of the drawers had fallen out. Inside the open door space I had seen a tiny movement. Was it the sniper? Then Willy shouted, “Stefan is lifting his helmet, look out!”

  It all happened so quickly. I saw a rifle barrel extend from the wreckage, inside the metal cabinet. As he fired a tiny puff of smoke ejected from the barrel and the crack of a rifle shot echoing around us, I leapt up. I could see him, framed by the steel, his startled face behind the gun. I aimed quickly and squeezed the trigger, sending the whole clip into the narrow space, Willy saw where I was firing and adjusted his aim to pour his own fire into the same place. The face disappeared and we rushed forward, slamming in new clips as we ran. We simultaneously cocked our weapons and rounded the broken metal, ready to fire instantly but we needn’t have worried, he was dead, torn apart in a storm of gunfire. We turned as there was a clatter of boots, but it was only Bauer.

  “Did you get him, Sir?”

  “He won’t be shooting at any of our men again, Bauer.”

  Mundt picked up his rifle, a Moisin Nagant and smashed it repeatedly against the stonework, putting it out of use. Then we headed back to the street to make our cautious way into the city.

  We had to walk past the Hotel October to reach Gestapo Headquarters, as we neared it I could see a crowd of people on the pavement looking up at a lamppost, a body swung there.

  “It looks as if the Einsatzgruppe has been hanging partisans again,” Mundt said nonchalantly, as if such horrors were part of normal life. I nodded automatically as I was more concerned to keep alert for snipers, even this close to the centre of the city the risks were very high. I heard Bauer say, “Christ, she must have been a pretty one,” and something made look around at the body they were trying to cut down.

  Her face was horribly distorted, in death it had gone a ghostly white, all of the features distorted, but I still recognised her. Nadia Vlasov, the girl we’d brought back on that mad horseback ride through the salient, the girl who I had hoped to be with again before she had entertained von Meusebach in her hotel room. As was usual for these executions she had a cardboard sign hung around her neck, but it was in Russian script, not German. So the partisans had finally got to her, presumably in punishment for her father’s betrayal of Stalin. Mundt recognised her too. “I’m sorry, Obersturmfuhrer, that was a bastard thing to do.”

  “It’s a bastard of a war. Poor kid, she didn’t deserve that just for what her father did.”

  We stood and watched them cut her down, then she was taken away for burial with the other thousands of casualties that were the victims of the shelling and bombing, the snipers and the Einsatzgruppe. We walked on to Gestapo HQ and I went in alone to find von Betternich. He was in his office, sat behind his desk staring into space.

  He looked up as I went in and saluted. “Ah, Hoffman, I was just thinking about the latest military disaster.”

  “Does that mean that the battle for the salient is officially over? There won’t be any reinforcements to try again?”

  He looked baffled. “The salient? Of course not, don’t you know that the Fuhrer has already issued orders for more of our armoured divisions to be transferred to Italy?”

  “Italy? I thought we could contain them on Sicily, what about the Italian army?”

  He shook his head. “It is only a matter of weeks before the Allies reach Messina and begin to cross to the mainland. I’m afraid the war is taking a turn for the worse, Obersturmfuhrer, you can certainly forget about trying to retake the Kursk salient.”

  “So it was all for nothing, all of the losses, the deaths, the sacrifice?”

  He spread his hands. “My dear fellow, that is war, is it not? There are winners and there are losers. To the victors the spoils, is that not what they say?”

  “What do you want me for, Sir?” I s
napped out. “I’m far too busy to run around playing these games.”

  His expression hardened. “I’m sorry you don’t find it to your liking, Hoffman. Most people find that wars are not entirely to their liking. Especially when they are on the losing side.”

  “Are you now saying that we are losing?”

  His expression softened. “I didn’t say that. What do you think?”

  “What do you want me for this time?”

  He smiled at my refusal to answer his question. “We need to make an arrest, at least one.”

  “Does that mean you’ve found the Lucy traitor?”

  “I’m afraid not, no. The person we want is General Schmidt of the Second Panzer Army. Perhaps you and your men would accompany me. I have a Kubelwagen outside, we can use that.”

  I was so astonished I didn’t even think to ask him what the General had done. I assumed he must have been passing secrets to the Russians, although it could have just been theft. He got up and limped down the stairs, the men fell in behind me. We climbed into the Kubi and drove out to the headquarters of the Second Army. Von Betternich showed his pass and we were ushered into Schmidt’s office.

  “Yes, what can I do for you?” The General who looked up was lean and tough looking. His sharp eyes took in me, and my troopers standing behind the SD man.

  “Have you men come to volunteer for the Panzers, God knows we could use some new men?”

  “General Schmidt,” von Betternich announced in formal tones. “You are under arrest for treasonable activities, you must come with us!”

  His jaw dropped. “Treason, are you mad? This is nonsense, I’ll contact OKH immediately and tell them to sort it all out, this is just a stupid mistake!”

  “The order was issued by the Supreme Leader of OKH, I’m afraid there is no mistake.”

  He looked worried now, uncertain, but not afraid. “What the hell do they think that I’ve done?”