In the Fire of the Eastern Front: The Experiences of a Dutch Waffen-SS Volunteer, 1941-45

CHAPTER 11 War in Winter

In the north, a bitter winter with minus 52 degrees was recorded. Such temperatures for this latitude had been known, but not for the previous 140 years. There has never been a soldier born, nor a weapon invented that could combat those extreme conditions. The result was devastating.

The Red Army used that situation and prepared a counter-offensive to stop the German army at Moscow’s doors. They thanked ‘General Winter’ for the ‘Wonder of Moscow’, as it was called, for being an eternal ally to Russia. For the first time, Josef Stalin sat in the Kremlin and enjoyed the first glimmer of hope. Till then nothing, be it weather or enemy, had managed to bring the ‘victory’ march of the Wehrmacht to a halt. In the October of 1941, ‘General Morass’ succeeded in hindering the offensive. Then the frosts of November solved the problem.

In the summer, as the German army crossed the Beresina river, a right-hand offspring of the river Dnjepr, the Soviets lost all their confidence. That river held a ‘nimbus’, a storm-cloud, i.e. a threatening portent for the Red Army, knowing that Napoleon had had very heavy losses, on his retreat in 1812. The river gave his Grande Armée an insurmountable problem. The flow of the river simply had to stop all other attempts to cross it. The German spearhead had reached the last tram-stop of the outlying districts, 18 kilometres from Moscow. Privileged Russian officials packed their cases and left. Government and diplomatic corps members were then taken to safety, behind the Volga.

Many of the population were convinced that the Wehrmacht was about to march into Moscow. There was much unrest, leading to shops and flats being looted by evacuees. Some Communist Party members even burned their party membership books. Groups of the NKVD, the People’s Commission of Internal Affairs, took a hand, shooting mutineers. They also opened the doors of the prisons.

Soviet General Georgii K. Zhukov formed militia divisions from over 100,000 members of the population, to defend Moscow. Over half a million citizens built street barriers and anti-tank trenches. The same military laws now applied to civilians, as if they were fighting on the front, with ‘panic-makers, cowards, and traitors’, being shot. There was no return.

The seizure of Moscow however, never took place. A German Communist played a decisive role in that phase of the war. He was Dr Richard Sorge, Russia’s correspondent and agent in Tokyo. He gave unquestionable information to the Kremlin, that the threatening war between Japan and the USA, in the Pacific, would prevent Japan becoming an ally of Germany. Their support with their Kwantung Army would have to be withdrawn from the Russian borders. Russia now had the use of 150 divisions and 44 brigades in readiness along the 3,000 kilometre eastern border. They were fully equipped for a Russian winter. They consisted of highly experienced Siberian and Mongolian soldiers who were considered to be Russia’s élite. We were to experience how good they were. All of that tipped the scales against us taking Moscow at that time.

Before the question was settled, we had a local attack from a ‘Red’ fighter, literally diving at us out of the high heavens. It welcomed us with a high-explosive bomb. Landing fifteen feet away, it blew half of the tar-covered roof off the railway station in which we had newly made our quarters. The side walls fell away, and no one had heard it coming. The shock was greater than the damage, with only a few of the men being slightly wounded. Our journey was by no means at an end.

The next day we were transported by lorries. We moved over roads thick with snow, and were attached to a battalion of a motorised SS Infantry Brigade. The long column of vehicles drove through the bleak landscape of the white steppes in the direction of the Front. The ‘road’ was marked on both sides by wooden posts, with rough bundles of straw nailed to them.

Despite having woollen gloves, our hands were prone in those temperatures to a serious degree of frostbite. We had to conscientiously keep hands and fingers moving, beating our hands against our chests to avoid circulation arrest. In such temperatures frostbite would undoubtedly have been the result. The same exercise applied to our feet too. So we stamped continually on the floor of the lorry, for our leather boots, sufficient in warm Carinthia, were here totally inadequate. There were also no facilities for other bodily needs. There were no considerate stops made for ‘calls of nature’. They had to be performed underway, with the use of a cargo-hatch and the friendly help of our chums.

We were very happy when the vehicle had to stop because of snowdrifts. We warmed up by shovelling snow once more. When the motors were turned off, we heard the roar of guns in the distance and knew then that we were not so far away from the Front. In December, in Russia, the light fades at around three in the afternoon, and we could see the far off lightning of tracers flashing against the grey sky.

Unexpectedly, some groups had to continue on foot. ‘Marching’ with full packs degenerated into simple torture in the deep snow. Now and again, a column of tanks would pass and we were readily given a lift. Although sitting exposed in the bitter wind and being uncomfortable, it was better than going on foot. We had not gone far before we had to spring from the tank into deep snow, as a small plane circled above us. We waved at first, thinking that it was one of ours, until we saw the red star on its rump and it started to dive in the direction of our column. The tank, a PzKpfw IV, zig-zagged at full speed in order to avoid the plane, which was firing at it with everything it had. Although boasting 30 to 50mm thick plating, the plane succeeded in bringing the tank to a halt, having damaged its most vulnerable parts, the track and track-wheels. We, as unprotected infantry, had been vulnerable too, but had been spared.

After the attack the column moved on once again. Once more, the men climbed on the moving tanks. At least most of them did. Somehow my friend Robby and I didn’t manage it. We were left behind with the damaged tank and its crew of five. The crew set about repairing their tank, which under normal circumstances was a quick and practised exercise and without problems. But under those conditions it was an inhuman expectation, the ice-cold track parts literally sticking to the men’s stiff fingers. We knew that we could do nothing to help. However, we did not like the idea of being separated from the rest of the battalion, and worried that we would not catch up with them. Perhaps they were in the next village? With that hope, we made the decision to go it alone, on foot. The decision was not a good one.

We ‘marched’ kilometre after kilometre without seeing a single house. It was now dark. We were also dog-tired. Eventually a misty shape was to be seen in the distance, to one side of the road. It had to be houses! Like a desert island in an eternal white sea, a low farm building, framed by naked trees, appeared. There was smoke wafting into the dark sky from its chimney-pot. It was in a small village. The smoke indicated people, but were they friend or foe?

We froze and sweated, at the same time, at the prospect of the only choice that we had. We must go into the village, for we could not have survived a night under open skies. We released the safety-catches of our weapons and, step-by-step, we slowly entered the unknown village with our hearts in our mouths. We had to make pauses because of the deep snow, but with ears strained and the eyes of Argus, we breathlessly reconnoitred the whole village. It had obviously come under fire at some time, for we found burned-out houses of which only the stone chimney-breasts were standing in the ruins. There was no movement in the village. It was all so still and so deathly quiet. Any tracks to be found had long been covered by wind-blown snow. So we returned, and very carefully approached the cottage with the smoking chimney.

‘Hands up! Rucki werch!’ The simple wooden door, with an old horse-blanket to keep out the draughts, was not locked. To our relief, only a Russian farmer’s family huddled in the corner of the room, anxious and looking questioningly at us. With gestures we quickly found out that Russian soldiers had been in the village, only hours beforehand, a patrol of Cossacks on horseback.

One has to realise that the Russian front was interspersed with single villages, miles apart from one another. It was not so clear-cut as one might imagine, and the villagers had a lot to endure. The villages had changed hands many times, between German soldiers and the Soviets. There had been casualties among the civilians, and we were to learn that our hosts were the only ones left in the village. Many had been killed, some had fled, and every able-bodied man left alive had been forcibly taken away by the Red Army.

After it was accepted by our hosts that we two Germanskis did not mean them any harm, they relaxed a little. We too thawed out, that meant our stiffly frozen uniforms and leather boots. The mother of the family, the Matka, cooked potatoes in their skins for us, which we ate with raw and half-frozen onions. In return, we presented them with bars of chocolate from our iron-rations, for they were friendly people. We shared the warm, smoky and petroleum-lit Russian home, not only with the family, but also, to our horror, with fleas! We stayed until daybreak, alternating guard duty in those hours.

The darkness firstly was the friend of partisans, and secondly the snow was the friend of the Cossacks, making them and their horses a silent enemy. We went to the door during the night to take a look now and again, but all was peaceful outside. Single stars twinkled in the sky above the endless snow-clad earth which gradually turned to a neon-red, over the thatch of the house, in the direction of the Front.

We left in the early hours, warm once more and reasonably rested, but not knowing where we had stayed. Perhaps it had been in Krasnaya or Korosvinska, or even Senskaya, for all the villages were called the same. In the snow they were not distinguishable one from the other. We wandered in no-man’s land for the whole of the next day and night, spending a few hours in another village, which was totally deserted. The houses were empty, but our common sense told us that the enemy could just as well use them for shelter against the bitter cold. So we spent a few hours in a burnt-out stall, on damp straw.

In this desert of snow, the only compass at our disposal was the sound from the Front, for there were no signposts. We made our way as best we could in the deep snow, our ‘march’ for want of a better word, being only ‘reasonable’. We were hungry and thirsty, which was noticeable in our slow performance. In return for our iron rations, which we had given to our hosts, we were given sunflower seeds by them as we left. That was now our only nourishment, which we washed down with melted snow. With our last strength, and believing that we were seeing a mirage, we reached a road. To our relief we stumbled on a German military bus. It lay rather slanted to one side of the road and the door was frozen, so that we could not open it. We scratched the frosty snow from the windows and looked inside. We saw German soldiers sitting in the seats, wrapped in blankets. All had their collars turned up to their ears, some sitting upright. Others had curled themselves together for warmth. Of the driver there was no sign. Had he sought help and not returned? Was he also lost in the snow? All had a somewhat strange, yellow pallor and there was no sign of life. But any help that we could have given was no longer needed, for rigor mortis had set in. We slowly realised that all had died in their sleep.

We left the scene, the metal coffin on wheels, shaken to the core and deep in thought. Our thoughts centred on the gruesome Front. But for those in the bus had it not been a gentle death? Our ‘odyssey’ eventually came to an end. We were given a lift from a munitions transport of troikas that were driving directly to the front. We were reminded of the Petersburg sledges, as we were given places amongst the straw-clad shells on the horse-drawn sledges. They were pulled to the next village by small Panje ponies, but without the usual jingle of sleigh bells. The village-well was well and truly frozen over. Next to it we found an extravagant wooden signpost which gave a wealth of information, including that our battalion was just 6 kilometres away on the main line of resistance at the Front They had been in defensive positions from the moment that they had arrived.

The terrain was flat. Now and again it was broken by small woods of birches. Our first assessment of our surroundings was broken with a shrill cry of “are you both tired of life, get your heads down!” We were in the sights of the enemy. We had sauntered into open positions where two comrades held guard behind a wall of snow. Our comrades showed us the company command post. The sergeant-major was astounded at the arrival of his two lost sheep. We were already on the missing list to be sent to the regiment. The greeting on our return was a very happy one. Our chums were eager to bring us up to date with the latest news. It was disturbing to say the least. Some of the battalion’s lorries had become lost in a snowstorm on the way to the Front. They had been taken prisoner by the Russians. After a counter-attack, our men, mainly the Norwegians, had been found beaten to death, and lay frozen in the river Oka. Our commander had been killed and we had many dead and wounded. Every man was desperately needed and Robert and I were detailed to reconnaissance. “Not even in battle, and you lose yourselves! Well then I can only say that you must be well rested,” was the comment from our platoon leader.

A recce was ordered at midnight and until then we could snatch a couple of hours’ sleep. Sleep, before our first battle? The tension of our baptism of fire however kept us very wide awake. Our assignment was to patrol a wood, lying to the east, in the sector of the 2nd Company, to see if it was free of the enemy. Punctually at midnight, twelve soldiers and a patrol-leader sprang from the foremost trenches in the direction of the enemy. The guards were informed, so that upon our return we were expected, and not fired upon by our own troops.

We were led by our corporal in the front rank, who had a machine-pistol and we followed with our rifles, at every two or three metres. It was freezing cold and a yellow-white moon shone brightly over the dark wood. No one spoke. Only the hard crunch of the frozen ground was to be heard under our boots, or the unavoidable snap of a twig or a branch or two, as we reached the wood. So far, so good! However, once or twice we fell into shell-holes that we hadn’t seen, for the woods were often the target, from both Germans and Russians. The night appeared to have many eyes. Our imagination told us that there was a ‘Red Army man’ behind every tree and bush. Despite the bitter cold, we sweated under our white ‘cammos’ as we pressed deeper into the wood. Every time the moon disappeared behind a cloud, a flare rose in the sky from the east, turning night into day and we instantly thought “we’ve been seen”! But as the magnesium light faded, the night appeared once more like a blanket over the wood.

We started to believe that the wood was free of the enemy, when suddenly a Russian machine-gun started to clatter into the night and we hit the ground, as red neon flares snaked over our heads. In panic, I tried to burrow into the stone-hard frozen ground and couldn’t. In that moment I no longer felt the bitter cold. I did however feel a dull thud against my intestines which released a frosty cold net over my skin. Was that already the end for me? Just as the war had begun? The next volley of shots brought a scream of pain from our platoon leader, who had been shot in the spine. That seemed to release our panic-stricken paralysis. In the blink of an eye, the men pulled them selves together and showed what they had learned and what they were made of. Either in lying or kneeling positions, and half hidden by the trees, we returned the enemy’s fire which came from every nook and cranny. We had probably run into a Russian platoon who had the same assignment, i.e. to confirm that the wood was free of the enemy.

I was given the order from the patrol leader’s second-in-command to fetch help for the wounded corporal. Like a hunted deer, I ran back to where we had entered the wood. In my haste I tripped over a fallen tree. In picking myself up, I looked into two lifeless eyes. It was not a fallen tree but a fallen Russian soldier. His eyes wide open, he stared from a yellow face into heaven, like a frosty ghost in the moonlight.

I arrived totally out of breath at the foremost trenches and nearly forgot the passwords. I reported to our company command post. Two medics then accompanied me to the wounded corporal, who between times had lost consciousness. We tied our comrade on to a Finnish sledge, i.e. a slightly formed sledge without runners, and transported him as quickly as we could to the battery’s first-aid station. However, he died from his injuries that same night.

The inferno of our baptism of fire was constant, so constant that we became somewhat more composed each and every time. That did not mean to say that it did not bring new sorrow, each and every time. The question that I asked, and many others too when they were honest enough to admit it, was “will I pass with flying colours?” The question was now pointless, invalid, for the war was an examination, each and every day.

The words from General Guderian, the Panzer General, were to “get on with the job and don’t mess around!” His words no longer applied. For those who found themselves in the central sector of the Eastern Front did not have the luxury to “mess around”. The battle for Moscow was lost, for us as well as those who were situated between the Orel and the Don. One could say that the victory had frozen to death.

Those in power in the Kremlin now shared the opinion that the German Army would suffer the same fate as Napoleon and his troops, in face of the severity of nature’s elements, which they themselves had never experienced. Although the view over the snow-covered steppe was without end, the German soldier of course, only saw what was happening in his own sector. We, in December of 1941, did not know that German soldiers in that sector would have to fight for their very existence.

Relevant military knowledge concerning the conditions of the fighting soldier in Russia was non-existent. We ourselves could draw from no similar experience or imagination from any such country. It stretched without end into a mist and was occupied by a race of people whose name told us nothing. Only two experiences were at hand from the past and from history. Firstly, there was Napoleon’s lost victory in Russia and secondly, Russia’s own performance in the First World War. Both wars confirmed the reality of fighting in winter using huge concentrations of men.

Also in masses, came the fresh Siberian and Mongolian regiments who stormed our thinly-defended lines. Dressed in thickly wadded jackets, with fur collars and insulated boots, they crawled to our foremost trenches in the night. For us the war was reduced to fighting from one village to another. There were no possibilities of cover by day or by night. To dig-in would have been pure decimation, in that winter, for us very poorly-equipped troops.

The defensive actions of December 1941 followed an unusual direction of waves and curves. One of our company officers showed us on a map where we were to be found. It was at the furthest point in the east and we believed him. We heard names from him such as Yelez, Yefremov, Russki-Brod and Voronezh, but whether they lay to the east or west of our left or right flank, only he knew.

Our regular winter clothing had still not arrived, so any blankets or furs that we could lay our hands on were temporarily used to keep us warm. Everyone wore every piece of clothing that he possessed underneath his summer coat. But not even such well-used and worn-out uniform gave us enough warmth. The longer we had to lie on the deeply-frozen ground, the quicker the frostbite nibbled at our limbs. When our wounded could not be attended to quickly, the sooner they froze to death. We took that impossible situation into our own hands and organised Valinskis, the Russian insulated felt boot, the felt being as thick as carpet. Our Finnish brothers-in-arms could only shake their heads at our hob-nailed leather boots that were always frozen hard and told us that we might “ just as well run around in the snow in your socks.” So at the rear of the front-line, the German soldier made himself shoes from straw. We didn’t even have fur headgear, and a thin balaclava was all we wore underneath our cold, steel helmets.

In Germany, fur articles and other suitable equipment were requested. The call was answered by the people, who made sacrifices of useful and practical articles, in the belief that they would help the ‘boys at the front’ when delivered. Unfortunately very little of it was, although there were mountains of articles in the collection centres. That ‘little’ proved to be just a drop in the ocean.

After continuous combat, the regiments on the front were reduced to a third in numbers. The frost reduced those remaining. The loss through frostbite was higher than through combat. “The total loss on the Eastern Front, up to December 1941, was 750,000 men which equalled 21.5% of the collective strength of three and a half million soldiers. Every fourth soldier was missing, wounded or fallen.” Paul Carrell gave the figures in his book Barbarossa. At the end of that year, another 65,000 could be added because of contracted infectious diseases from lack of hygiene, resulting in typhoid fever, nearly 800 dying from it. Stomach and bowel ailments were also rife as well as severe influenza. Frostbite however topped the list. The number of frostbite cases at the end of February, totalled 100,000.

The Soviets also had very heavy losses, but in their case they had more than enough reserves. The Russian soldier, in contrast to us was a very modest soldier, which was illustrated by his daily diet. A bag hung on his belt in which were millet heads which when mixed with water made a porridge. He carried dried fish with him as iron rations. It was swilled down when eating, with high percentage vodka from his field thermos, which he drank at any other time of the day too. He rolled his cigarettes in newspaper, using very course-cut tobacco, Machorka, which included the stalk of the leaves. In the matter of suffering in inhuman conditions, the Russian soldier was enormously tough. When fighting, he could and did endure far more than any other western army. “The Eastern Front was a nightmare for the German soldier. The Russian enemy fought like primitive, soulless robots, their patriotism and Bolshevik ideals not to be easily destroyed like bursting soap bubbles. The Russian commanders accepted the responsibility of monstrous losses in battle without a second thought. Their soldiers fought to their last breath, often committing suicide rather than being taken prisoner. In a hopeless situation for instance, the Russian infantry adopted the practice of 17th Century grenadiers. They formed a suicidal rank, advancing in front of the enemy machine-guns, collecting together to form a new row behind the bodies of their dead, to advance repeatedly, to the last man, or last bullet from the German machine-guns”.

The war with the Soviet Union, and the form with which they directed it, escalated and surpassed all cruelty and hardship experienced in any former combat since 1939. The target was the total destruction of the enemy, a capitulation without conditions, within the framework of doctrine and structures. Our naked existence was the price. Hitler described it as the biggest crusade in world history, resembling the German crusaders, who had fought the hordes of Genghis Khan in Silesia. That we could fight such an unrelenting enemy with the motto “it’s you or me!” was thanks to the truncheon-hard training that we had received.

Very soon we learned that the Soviets would shoot any prisoners that they took. When thinking about falling into their hands, it gave us nightmares. They had refused to sign the Geneva Convention agreement of 1929, pertaining to certain conduct towards prisoners of war.

When the sun shone in December, which was rare, we felt the pangs of homesickness, as it disappeared in a red sky on the horizon. Many a German soldier on his patrol or standing guard in his cold and icy trench, said a quiet adieu to his loved-ones, in his far-off distant homeland. Burning wanderlust had turned to homesickness, which was no wonder, for that land, for us, was the end of the world, as civilised people.

Nearly every day, the frosty countryside was covered in a mist until about 9am. Daylight appeared only at around 11am, and at 4pm it was dark once more. So, late in the afternoon, we no longer fought to advance, but to find a warm place for the night. That would be in a blockhouse of a farm. Only then could we survive the 30 to 50 degrees below zero temperature. In those days the infantryman overcame problems that he had not practised before. In his hour of need, in order to survive the night, he had to overcome his dislike of entering a village after dark. His needs were for cover and warmth. However primitive the blockhouse was, with its clay-soil floor, it was cover, and it offered warmth from a wood-burning fireplace or oven, a Pyetschku. Those primitive houses, no more than large wooden huts with one large room, more often than not where the whole family slept, no longer disgusted us, as they had before the frost appeared. To us they were lifesavers, fleas or not, and in battle we tried to protect them, like our eyes! After a cold patrol or guard-duty, we no longer minded if a mouse ran over the floor. We were warm in one of those houses belonging to a ‘collective’ farming system. With the sour aroma of a pumpkin soup when being cooked, we knew that our blood flowed as usual and that there was still life in our joints.

The whole family slept over the oven, covered in tattered blankets. The oven being four and a half feet high was made of clay, had an alcove over the fire itself, and dominated the room. Straw was spread over the floor for our benefit which was where we slept. If a small child belonged to the family, its cradle was slung from the ceiling and so it swung over our heads. Despite conditions from the Middle Ages, and the war, one could say that it illustrated an idyllic scene, binding two peoples together.

In our thatched house, the eldest daughter, perhaps not twenty years old, suffered under our presence. Her national pride, bitterness and privation had made the fine Asian features of this lovely girl hard. Her name was Annuschka, she was a teacher and was the only one who spoke a little German. She didn’t try to hide her Communist convictions but didn’t shout about it either. Only when we began to speak about the misery in that Soviet paradise, did she abruptly cut short our conversation, saying that she didn’t understand what we had said. She was, at one and the same time, mistrusting and curious of us, the Germanskis, who were of the same age. We asked ourselves if she was actually the daughter of the family or a partisan who had been planted into the family. As inexperienced as we were, we would not have noticed had it been the case. What we did notice was, that under her patched and wadded jacket, she had a lovely figure and our difficult Annuschka let us know. She had beautiful dark hair, which we saw when she didn’t have her white headscarf on her head, and she stole soulful, longing glances at us, with a brief smile. At least that is what we imagined.

Our hosts always profited when our daily rations reached us, if they reached us. It was all too seldom however. In such weather conditions the supplies always came to a standstill, for various reasons. Columns of lorries could only be pulled behind tracked vehicles over roads that were like ice-rinks. Our warm meals came from the battalion’s field kitchen. Usually a stew, it was carried on the back, in a double-sided canister, or by sledge pulled by Panje ponies to the front-line. In some cases, it was a long way, isolated and dangerous and many a Russian soldier was provided with our meal, the carriers having been shot up on the way. Our daily ration was much better than when we were in training. It consisted of 650 grams of bread, 45 grams butter, or other fat, 120 grams of cheese, 120 grams of fresh meat, 200 grams jam or artificial honey, 10 grams chicory coffee and six Juno cigarettes, which we could so seldom enjoy.

There are three very descriptive words connected to war, which need no supporting vocabulary when being used, such as expulsion, evacuation and refugees. All are connected to the apocalypse of the Twentieth Century, for the poorest of huts is a home. To have that taken away, belongs to the hardest of fates that anyone has to endure. For soldiers like us who had become nomads of the Steppe, separated from the outside world and with seldom a chance to make a telephone call, our quarters had become no less than provisional shelters.

In the next village, but some way off, all the inhabitants had fled. It had become a small garrison for us, as a line of defence, 24 hours a day. In order to reach it, we had an hour-long march, hindered by an icy snowstorm from the north and metre high wind-blown drifts. Underway we rendered first-aid to one another by rubbing the left side of each other’s face with snow. Only so could we avoid the threatening frostbite when yellow patches appeared as the first symptoms on the skin.

We did our best to make our new quarters into a home. In the one allocated to us, an optimist had written, “Humour is when one laughs in the face of all odds”, in the soot on the ceiling. In the warmth of the hut and as I lay on my bed of straw, I used to gaze at it and tried to take heart from this indirect advice, although none of us had forgotten how to laugh. There was always a clown to make a loose joke or two. We had two of those happy souls with us, in the form of two Danish brothers, twins, from Copenhagen, the same age as myself, 18 years old. With their white-blond hair and pink baby cheeks, they represented the typical prototype of the Germanic volunteer. The type appeared as the young and typical, dynamic soldier of the new Europe in the magazine Signal and were good, sporty soldiers, whom we could not understand when speaking at their normal speed. When speaking German, we puzzled at their lisping, swinging, vocabulary mingled with a Danish accent and we nicknamed them sür-su. We only had to open the door of the hut for a second or two and with their aversion to a cold draught they chorused Tür-zu but which rang in the air as sür-su, i.e. ‘shut the door!’

We were therefore concerned and upset, when hearing that their trench at the end of the village was deserted one morning, when the relieving guards approached it, and there was no sign of the blonde brothers. We never saw them again. We had to assume that during their night of guard duty, they had fallen foul of Soviet soldiers using a snow storm to silently approach their trench, overpower them and take them away, which very often happened.

On dark nights the guards of the front-line sent flares over the front terrain, flares on small parachutes. In order to let the Russians know that we were in readiness, we also shot a volley or two from our machine-guns. In doing that we, at the same time, sent away many a hungry wolf as it approached our trenches. Whole packs would come too close for comfort. On nights with a full moon, we were able to see enemy positions. That same moon which shone on friend and foe alike, from Leningrad to the Black Sea, also shone we knew, on our loved ones at home.

On one of those sunny days in December, we were suddenly surprised by a cheeky Russian ‘double-decker’ or biplane aircraft circling above our heads. We ran outside, only half-dressed, to take a look at it. The cheekiness of the pilot flying so low over the roofs meant that he must have known that we did not possess anti-aircraft guns. We shot at him with our pistols and rifles like crazy, which did nothing to scare the pilot, clear to see in his leather cap and goggles. He calmly made a bow over the village before disappearing to the east. It did not end there however, for he returned during the night. That time he stretched his arm overboard and dropped two bombs on us, without doing any harm. But we were to be pestered continually by those Russian ‘double-deckers’, or ‘sewing machines’, as we called them, for the ‘Ivans’ loved to disturb our peace.

The fighting zone of our battalion included several villages. With a strength of 800 men, we should have had a defence-line of around only 1,000 metres, based on the theory that the defence-line of an infantry division of 8,000, was 10,000 metres. We had to guard much more, three or four times as much. Armed patrols kept the communication system open between the units, which was only possible after dark. In that flat no-man’s land, there were only small woods of birches dotted around for cover and the enemy had a good view of the countryside. There was a telephone connection from village to village and the field-lines, open to extreme elements and enemy fire, were very often in need of repair. The men carrying out the work had to be protected. Communications had to be kept open at all times whether dangerous to life and limb or not. It was a very necessary and continual commitment for the men and their protection had to be reliable as well. Recce patrols were always in demand in connection with such work and of all the men to be used, our group was chosen. That after-dark task became routine, a dangerous commodity, for it gave our enemy a weapon to use against us. We used the same well-worn paths through two small woods, in order not to lose one another.

The routine enabled the Russians to lay mines in our path, which became a suicide mission for us, in every sense of the word. Some of the mines were laid with trip-wires and were nearly invisible in the dark. We started to lose men in that way. Two of our comrades were severely wounded. The situation became one that meant those protecting the men doing their work, also had to be protected. Combat engineers were sent ahead of us with mine-detectors. They did not have the expected success however for the mines were not detectable with our type of detectors. Before burying them the Russians encased them in wood. It then became clear to us that with tricks like that, we had to outwit the ‘Ivans’ also with tricks, but ones that were far better. Our regular route had been our undoing and so we had to use another. Or else we let our enemy think that we were using another, and that could only be achieved by using ski-troops. Our ski-comrades helped us pull the wool over their eyes by forming another route for us, but that was not all. The Russians were quick to follow the new route and our ski-comrades were waiting for them. They had used the new route, and at a spot where they could not be seen, had turned round, and using the tracks that they had made, returned to a spot for an ambush, which turned out to be a deadly trap for our cunning friends.

That winter in Russia provided many a possibility for sly ruses, but to our disadvantage. The Russians were on home ground and one step ahead of us. We were to experience how they turned everything to their advantage, including our worst enemy, the snow. One of the ‘harmless’ ruses of war was their underground work, a tunnel system that they used to reach our trenches. They were underground fighters in every sense of the word. Like moles they burrowed through the snow, to reach us. The Siberian troops were the experts, who else?

One of the meanest however, that only the Russians could think of, was the use of ‘living mines’ for tanks and other vehicles. They used dogs, Alsatians mostly, or the Doberman, with mines strapped to their bodies. Not only humans had to suffer in the war, but God’s creatures too. More than enough of them were to be seen in the eastern campaign, for instance in Mussino, 70 kilometres north-west from Moscow, with Russian Cavalry. It was, at least, spectacular.

It happened in the early hours of the 19 November 1941, when a whole Russian regiment of cavalry with 1,000 horses, galloped in closed formation towards the modern German machine guns with shining sabres. The snow-covered low land was turned into a bloodstained battlefield between volleys from the machine-guns and the mortars, splintering, catapulting everything in its path eight metres into the air. It was suicide by slaughter. It had been the same with the Polish Uhlans two years before. The attacking Mongolian riders were also slaughtered, without one German soldier receiving a scratch.

On the fourth day of Advent in the same year, soldiers from our 3rd Panzer Regiment came across a monument of ice, which can only be described as such. Perhaps in a snowstorm, with no alternative shelter, soldiers from a Russian Cavalry unit, came to a halt, some dismounting to take shelter and warmth amongst their horses. One, a wounded soldier with his leg in a splint, was still mounted and with his eyes wide open, had frozen to death in the saddle. Men and horses, with their heads stretched high, had frozen where they had stood and had become a monument of ice.

We also had first-hand experiences of the plight of helpless animals, such as the thin, faithful, Cossack horse, still to be found by the side of his dead master, snowed-in, up to his stomach unable to move. How long he had patiently waited we do not know, but only his faint neighs could be heard among the sounds of war, which humans had created. We cared for those creatures when humanly possible, as best we could. Decades later, I still cannot understand how we accepted the fate of those animals as we did. Were we too busy with ourselves? Had we become unconscious and carefree so much, in the toughening-up process of our youth, or did the fate of humans overshadow the plight of the animals? Death in war was always present, that is true, but nevertheless despite becoming accustomed to its presence, it always moved us anew.

With the first wounded or the first deaths, the young volunteer was always filled with respect, for the hero’s death was seldom gentle and free of pain. We could always tell from the wide-open eyes starting from a yellow-tinged face. The thought of sharing the same fate filled our minds as we saw the first dead, the first lifeless comrade. He who had been so full of life, had joked, had moaned, had told us about his home and his family so that we already knew his parents and sister, and his brothers. For him there were no mornings or evenings any more, just death. As silent witnesses, we knew that his mother would weep bitter tears, but at that moment she didn’t know. We knew also that a medic in his icy shelter somewhere, or a company clerk, would remove his name from the company lists, upon receipt of his ‘dog-tag’ and his bloodstained pay-book. He would write the standard letter of condolence to her, which included of course, how brave he had been in the face of death and been such an upstanding example of a good comrade.

When an order to dig a grave was received, with experience, we began the procedure with hand-grenades. In that earth of concrete how do you bury your dead? We began by making three holes, the size of a hand-grenade, with an iron pole. Then we made a ring of water around it, which froze, holding the grenade in place and then ran for our lives, after pulling the pin, as the frozen clods of earth exploded into the air with a mighty force. The procedure was repeated until with the help of an ice-pick, we could enlarge the hole to a man-sized grave. We buried our comrade in it, usually at one end of a village or on the roadside. There was no other way.

For the practised soldier, the war was now hard reality and we had to master the days as they came, without acts of hero ism, individual or en masse. When being honest, it was not how any of us had imagined it to be. It could not be compared to the romantic storybook laced with heroes, brave deeds, and their courageousness. How many of us were brave soldiers?

Before every battle we all had butterflies in our stomachs. I, apart from the fear of being taken prisoner, had a terrible fear of being shot in the head, as if being shot in the stomach or anywhere else come to that, was not just as bad? We all unconsciously, or consciously, avoided danger when we could. Does that not lie in the self-preservation within every human being? In the time of war however, it is very unfairly charged as cowardice and blanketing of guilt, which we didn’t understand. Any who were foolhardy enough found a very quick grave. To be able to use a rifle is no proof courage. Unity within company and battalion resulted in a high standard of warfare. It needed less ammunition. The level-headed and disciplined soldier counted far, far more as a courageous one, for me personally. A comrade on whom I could count, who took no unnecessary risks and knew what he was doing, was worth his weight in gold, in my eyes.

We were described as an ‘elite’ organisation and understandably we had to behave like one. The continuous standard of conduct expected of us however, was not always very easy and cost lots of discipline. That discipline meant split-second reflexes by drilling, and split-second obedience upon receiving orders without hesitation. Instinct was not wished for and had to be eradicated. Because of our military education and ideals we could not afford to weaken, when confronted with an extreme situation in combat. We were not threatened with a court martial. The combustion, which drove us to self-sacrifice, was psychological. We told ourselves “I must do it or we are all lost”. That motivation stood foremost with us in the Waffen SS.

Under Stalin, deserters from the Red Army, or cowards, were shot on the spot, without a court martial. Absence of steadfastness within the troop was a bloody punishment for all. To become a prisoner of the enemy was a disgrace, which when landing back on one’s home front was punished with the death-sentence. That was not all, for family members of the said ‘sinner’ were then arrested and imprisoned (Stalin’s secret law No. 270 16 August 1941).

“The world is a constant conspirator against the courageous”, was the opinion of the American General Douglas MacArthur. He was right. In defeated Germany at that time, opportunists were using the chance to ridicule the virtue and achievement of the German soldier. His awards of honour, and decorations of distinction, were described as a Christmas-tree decoration, as tinsel. Little did the German soldier know, during the war years, and it was right to be so, that his efforts, sacrifices and his duty-bound conduct would be continually slandered, a few years after. Our slogan “My honour is my loyalty” was, for the slanderers, one of seven pledges in a book, but it was not for us.

We depended, time and time again, on the reliability of our comrades in a tough and bitter fight. That was to be the case at the end of December 1941. Perhaps it was just before Christmas. Instinctively we knew that this time could perhaps be our last, as we began to march to a larger town, to the east of us. It was of great strategic importance. The Wehrmacht, in face of overwhelming odds, had not been able to hold it on their own. Nowwe, the Waffen SS were the trouble-shooters.

An impressive number of strongly armed soldiers in white ‘cammos’, assembled together at around mid-day and then advanced through a bleak and empty Steppe. As the evening began to fall, we saw the first woods, like strokes from a pencil on the horizon. Then we approached the rear-guard of the Wehrmacht. It was a very sorry picture and perhaps the same tragic scene as when Napoleon’s beaten Army had retreated from Moscow.

The dead had been brought from the Front, wrapped in blankets, stacked on a cart and now were frozen. Their boots and articles of warm clothing had been removed and distributed to those still fighting. Naked and yellow unwashed feet, feet in socks with gaping holes, and feet wrapped in filthy wrappings poked from the blankets, or the pieces of tenting used to wrap them in. They at least, no longer felt the cold. Then there were the wounded on sledges having been pulled by exhausted ponies, lying on blood-stained straw, enveloped in tattered blankets or paper sacks, anything that could give a modicum of warmth. Hardly to be seen, we heard their moans of pain, as the frost bit into their wounds and which, when left unattended, brought them an eventual death. The scene did nothing to motivate us, on the contrary. Soldiers passed us by, soldiers who had been through hell. They gave us blank, lifeless glances. They stared at us pityingly. “Cannon-fodder like us!” was probably what they thought. Their misery did nothing to enhance our hopes of a forthcoming victory. We pulled ourselves together with hangman’s humour. “The Guard may die, but will never surrender”, is how we encouraged one another. Now, more than ever, we had to pull ourselves and each other together.

In his book Soldiers of Death, the American author and historian Charles W. Sydnor said, “When and wherever a situation was at its most dangerous, and hopes of success at zero, it was the Waffen SS who saved the day with counter-attacks which weakened their opponents”. “No one needs to try and tell me that when fighting in Russia, they were not damned scared”, announced our patrol leader, who wore the Iron Cross 1st Class and then shouted, “Let’s go”.

However, high banks of iced snow hindered our path and an icy wind blew, turning our noses and ears white in seconds. The advance was therefore very slow. We had support after a while from tanks, which we mounted until shortly before our objective. By now darkness had fallen. The tanks, PzKpfw IVs, had been painted white, but nothing could camouflage the red glow from their exhausts. It was this red glow that each tank followed. Firstly, it was always a target for the enemy. Secondly, it was the end of many. Clouds of snow were churned into the air behind us and time and time again, we had to jump down to free the track from clumps of ice and snow.

Upon nearing a village on the edge of a wood, which it was clear to see had been attacked, we jumped down from the tanks. As always the terrain in front of us was flat and without cover. Now and again weak attempts to fire at us came from remnants of troops left in the village and also a flare or two lit the sky, but that was all, it was seemingly quiet.

The golden rule after dark, of noiseless movement from your own body and equipment that you carried, was now superfluous, for with the roar of the engines and squeak of the tracks, we could hardly hear the commands of our superiors. Suddenly shots whipped the air from the wood and our machine-guns systematically strewed the wood from one end to the other and was the start for an explosion of fire, the like of which I had never seen. Undisturbed, machine-gun fire clattered from the dark wood from several spots, which could be seen by the red tracers from the gun-barrels. Luckily, their tracer ammunition flew high over our heads.

The Russians possessed a weapon which put the fear of God into us, which we had nicknamed the Ratschbumm with a 7.62cm barrel, somewhat larger than that on a tank. It was not the size which worried us, but that one did not hear the launch of the shell. You didn’t hear where it was coming from, just the explosion of it upon landing. The decibels from the salvos were now deafening. The earth raised itself up at the shock of every detonation. Biting clouds of gunpowder mixed with the yellow-brown pillar of smoke caused by the explosions rose up. We sought the shelter of the tanks time and time again, and time and time again our commanders sought to prise us away from them. We clung to them however, like frightened children clinging to mother’s skirt for cover, but there was none.

It was on the contours of those huge steel objects that the Soviets concentrated their fire and it was hell. A hell of fire in a storm of steel scared us to death. We no longer felt the bitter cold, on the contrary, we sweated so much that we wanted to strip off our ‘cammo’ jackets. After every fire pause, we automatically moved forwards a few yards, as we had learned a hundred times before, in our drilling. The grips of the hand-grenades, stuck into our boots and belts, hindered us when running and hitting the ground. No sooner had that ground been gained than volleys of fire forced us down again, so that we were only able to crawl where deep snow was to be found.

We already had wounded, some not so badly that they could not cry for help and their cries could be heard above the noise of battle. The dead in comparison lay still and cramped in the snow. Then a small hole, a bullet hole was added to the now not so snow-white ‘cammo’ that covered them like a shroud. Without the protection offered by the tanks, our frontal attack had definitely floundered. The tank crews had their hands full. They turned their 7.5cm gun-barrels to the left and then to the right, their shells hitting the birch-wood in dazzling flashes. Black smoke mixed with clouds of snow, like storm clouds in the darkness. The glow from the burning houses, added to the ghostly light of that inferno.

It appeared that the Soviets did not possess any anti-tank weapons. From what we could see, only one Panzer IV had been hit, for it suddenly started to circle on its axle having been hit in the track. Its crew of five climbed out of the turret, springing into the snow, to crawl to the rear.

The enemy fire did not stop. The Soviets added their secret weapon, about which we had heard but we had never experienced. The Russians overestimated its worth. Alexander Werth mentioned this devastating piece of artillery in one of his books, with a quote from Marshal Yeremenko. “We tested this new weapon for the first time in Rudnya, on 1 July 1941, in the afternoon. An unusual roar shook the air with the launch of the missiles, as they shot into the heavens with red tails like comets. The deafening racket of the successive detonations and the blinding flashes impressed both ears and eyes, with the launching of 320 missiles in 26 seconds. It really surpassed all our expectations and the Germans fled in panic. Our own soldiers in the foremost front-lines also retreated with speed when in the close proximity of the striking shells”.

Definitely, the ‘Stalin Organ’ of the Red Army, or Katyusha as it was also called, strongly demoralised us at first. But then we realised that the psychological effect on us was greater than the accuracy of the weapon. There was little chance of it hitting its target and strewing its shell-splinters. The enormous racket of the detonations, and its flames, although considerable, were out of proportion to the damage caused by one 132mm calibre shell. It made a hole to a depth of no more than 30—40 centimetres. The performance was ‘short and sweet’, which was probably due to either a shortage of ammunition, or that the Reds wanted to spare their own men. In the meantime, we had surrounded the village. A bitter house-to-house fight then began. With bayonets and weapons in our frost-encased fingers, we sprang and tripped over burnt wooden beams in the ruins of nearly every house.

They were not always empty. We coaxed the Red Army men hiding here and there, with cries of Tovarisch, idi syuda! i.e. “Come out comrade!” When they didn’t, we threw a grenade through the small windows. In its thin metal casing it caused more dust with its detonation and air-pressure, than damage. If lucky, the ‘Ivan’ came out, deathly pale, with raised hands and only a splinter or two in his wadded jacket, or some slight wound.

We left the houses, to the noise of MG fire and of mortars. The wounded, the numbers of whom were extensive, were transported away to the first-aid stations. The dead lay on the road, melting into the landscape just as the empty ammunition boxes, destroyed weapons and the black craters left by bursting shells. It was a picture of macabre madness, the reality of which we no longer assessed because we had seen such death and doom so often.

Despite everything we had reached our objective. The village was now in our hands, but the enemy did not fully retreat. We were still under fire from the furthest corners of the wood and from outlying houses. Then it was my turn. I was only slightly wounded and did not notice at first. I only noticed when my left glove, green in colour, turned red with blood. Very quickly my ‘cammo’ jacket was fully smeared as well. A bullet or a splinter, I do not know which, had grazed my thumb, cutting it open. The pity of it was that it was not grave enough for me to have ‘home rehabilitation’! It was none the less very painful, and pained me for years after, especially when being pressed, probably because a nerve had been severed.

The first-aid station I found to be a small wooden church. It had however not been used as such in a very long time. From the outside one could see it had been spared any battle damage. The damage was to be seen inside, for without respect for religion, the Communists had used it as a warehouse for their local Co-operative. It gave a very neglected appearance and once again deepened our opinions of the blunt and soulless Stalin regime. There was no longer a belfry, wooden slats hung on a nail, and the windows had been knocked out. Where any colour could be seen, it was now faded, or dry and peeling. In that ignominious house of faith, the wounded had been brought to the lap of God and they now prayed for help. One could almost believe that, for some, God was a delusion, a figment of the imagination, produced out of the very human fear of dying.

In taking the village, we now had to make ourselves comfort able in keeping it defended. We used any remaining houses with a roof and four walls that might offer protection from the bitter cold. With our losses we could not and did not think of following the enemy. We were happy to have fulfilled our mission and hoped to hold our positions for as long as possible. But sleep we could not. The enemy was not so considerate and had obviously sent for reserves, as the infantry fire had increased. Only at night did it subside a little.

Reserves we had none, either to give us support or to relieve us. Our base was too far away and they needed every ‘man-jack’ that they had. When we were out on our own the expectations were no less than the opposite extreme. As a close-knit unit we still gave our all. We were happy for the roof over our head, and the four walls to keep out the biting cold.

We were very happy therefore, when after a few days, we received orders from the regiment to with draw. From information from interrogated prisoners and from our scouting patrols, they knew that the enemy was drawing nearer to us, with reserve troops followed by tanks. Not even we, with our battalion in its present condition, could hold out against those numbers. They were too overwhelming. Our decimated units would have inevitably been destroyed. It was at daybreak that we secretly prepared for our retreat. Silently we left the village that had been so important to capture. We hoped that we would not be followed by the ‘Ivans’. Our fears were unfounded. The Red Army suffered with the bitter cold just as we did. They would be happy to exchange their wooded posit ions in the open, for our warm quarters that we had left behind.

Instead of them, large flocks of black crows accompanied our retreat, in an en tourage of worrying and rowdy numbers. Their cries mocked and laughed at us, as they flew and dived over our heads. When a birch wood appeared along the way then they would sit in the snow-laden trees, their cries ringing in the air. We, in this section of the centre of the Eastern Front, could not stop the marching Red Army now with a counter-attack. Back at our base, we let ourselves be snowed in and waited.

Christmas was nearly over and only now did we wish one another, with a lot of irony, “Merry Christmas!” Christmas Eve had come and gone and we had not noticed. In the heat of the moment, or rather the heat of the battle, it was simply forgotten. That night of Christmas Eve, that night of ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all men’, was spent in positions, under siege from the enemy, in night hours that seemed unending. The night was full, with nothing else but death for some, pain for others and for all, hunger and barbaric cold. At home, we could imagine with certainty that all sat under the Christmas tree. We did not. As the end of the year came, we sank deeper into that inhuman war. The fight however must go on. Was there any other choice? Could we leave Stat in to march into the heart of Europe as he intended? Not at any price!

Our quarters were right at the front of the main front-line. It was a large man-sized bunker to house twelve men. It had an exit to the trenches and was safe enough when not receiving a direct hit. Two layers of thick birch trunks lay crossways to form the roof, and thin stems held the walls together. We had an iron stove and that, together with a thick wall of snow, held a comfortable, containing warmth. The stove was not lit during the day, its smoke giving our positions away to the enemy, but straw gave enough body warmth for those not having guard duty. We heated this stove at nights and used our coats as blankets, sometimes having two, the second being from a fallen comrade.

The German soldier was subjected to a ‘plague’ in Russia. It was an invisible and secret weapon of the ‘Ivans’! Our bunker could protect us from enemy fire, and a house from the cold, but there was nothing that could protect us from the overpowering effects of this ‘plague’. Lice! This revolting little beast had attacked every soldier on the Eastern Front and didn’t like the cold any more than we did. It took ground cover during the day, for we hardly felt it, but in the warmth of the bunker at night, they went on scouting patrol. The itching was literally unbearable, but it was not only that which plagued us. It was the pus oozing from bite wounds that we had scratched, and which froze skin to parts of our uniform. Sleep was impossible and so we became hunters at night. We went on a lice-hunt, for they marched cross-country over breast, spine and legs. We bagged as many as eighty of the little beasts on each man, squashing them with our thumb nails. We were always covered in minute and bloody puncture marks, evidence that they had reached their target in their battle for blood, our blood, from which they fed. Their favourite targets were body parts rich with blood and covered in hair.

It had been very noticeable, upon first sight of the Russian soldier, that his hair was not only cut short, but it was shorn. Now we knew why. For the German soldier this ‘lousy’ chapter of the East Front overshadowed any other experiences. They were far worse than the bugs and cockroaches. Those little beasts were rife not only in Russian houses but in the open air too. Nor did they differ en tiate when it came to rank, they were not fussy. No one was spared, neither a grenadier nor the General himself!

Our only treatment for this on the front line, was the ‘delousing station’, which was an old Russian Banja, i.e. a sauna. When pauses in battle allowed, we used it as often as we could. For us it was a civilised ‘island’ of only a few square yards, but in another world. We felt that we were in paradise. We used the opportunity to free our uniforms of our sub-tenants. Before the Russian revolution, such saunas belonged in every farmhouse and were now the remnants of an old-fashioned method of hygiene. Afterwards there was only a co-operative Banja, a public sauna.

Apart from physical exhaustion and deprivation, and of course not being hit by a bullet, one could be surprised at the condition of the German soldier, with our reduced rations. All could be described as ‘thin’, or as ‘lean’ when being diplomatic, even our commanders. This also applied to the civilians. Despite the war and the minimum of calories, the population were then much healthier. Much healthier than they are today. We also learned to live far more sparingly. We were thankful for the basics, even the smallest of comforts. The simplest of wishes for something to eat, to drink, and a roof over our heads, once fulfilled, we were ‘whole’ after every battle. It all activated our determination to live once more. A simple sauna, and the arrival of a special rat ion, brought about high spirits such as one cannot imagine, especially in the younger men.

When the soldiers were asked in letters from home, “Are you in good spirits?” we did not know how to answer. We would just love to have said “no”! However, so as not to cause misunderstanding and worry, we considerately used a minimum of words in answer, withholding the reality of the situation, and always said “yes”! It was not simply the fact that ‘only’ 2,000 kilometres lay between us, but also many months of horrendous experiences. Those were engraved on our souls, and had and did change us, the longer we survived.

Our appearance, which was mirrored in each other, did nothing to impress any longer. Our uniforms were patched, were no longer the strong dark ‘field-grey’, but from the dust, rain, mud and snow, a sorrowful pale tone. It no longer mattered how we looked, we didn’t mind how we looked, for a campaign was not a parade.

When the post-courier managed to get through, the post from home always raised our spirits very quickly. We were so thankful for post from our parents, girlfriends and friends, all having been written many weeks before. A single letter, or a small parcel, bound your home together with the Front and was a bond that could not be severed. There was so much love and human feeling in the sack full of post that was then distributed over the war-torn countryside. When one of our comrades from the country received a food parcel from home, it was shared, in a brotherly fashion, with the comrades from the city. Their families were restricted to food supplies provided by ration books. Those in the countryside were not so confined and the food parcels provided many a tasty morsel that was not to be had with coupons. In between times, anything coming from home was covered in printed bureaucratic stamps, giving information and warnings, including “Caution! flammable, especially in heath and forest areas”! This tickled our sense of humour and produced many a grin, for were we not in the middle of an inflammable area? Thereafter, in a sticky situation, one of us always warned the others, “Caution! flammable, especially in heath and forest areas”, when mortars exploded around us and the bombs fell!

My post did not seem to come as regularly, for want of a better word, as the others. In fact, mine was very sporadic, although the German field-post functioned quite well. It was well after the war that it became known that Dutch postmen deliberately destroyed post that was destined for the Eastern Front, out of opposition. Perhaps they were thinking that their ‘acts of heroism’ helped Stalin to victory?

The extreme temperatures lamed us into being almost unfit for battle, and things did not improve with the New Year. So our two-hour sentry duty was shortened. We were relieved after every half an hour. Although the sentry point was covered in thick straw, one could suffer very easily from frostbite by standing for any length of time. It often happened. If I remember correctly, one poor chap was found dead, leaning in sleep, at the edge of the trenches. It was not allowed for you to leave your post. ‘Spirits’, as an alcoholic immunisation were strongly forbidden. However, the Reds froze just like we did. But they thought that their vodka made them fit to fight, not only in winter. Modest in this habit they were not. Their craving was no ‘happy hour’ any more, but an uninhibited drunkenness. There was no wondering about it. A whole tumbler of vodka was drunk each time, i.e. 100% pure alcohol. In the wide open spaces of Russia and Siberia, 40 kilometres is no distance, 40° is no temperature, and 40% unmentionable as a spirit.

When there was a shortage of vodka, the ‘Ivans’ knew how to compensate. They suctioned alcohol from the exhausts of planes, and filtered it through the filter of their gas-masks, which cleansed the liquid to a good degree. Then they mixed the rest with a syrup, thus making it a more than acceptable liqueur, which they didn’t sip, but just tipped down their throats.

Over a very scratchy ‘tannoy’ we were subjected to Russian propaganda, as well as with leaflets, which we used as toilet-paper and to roll our cigarettes. It was a weapon used by the Soviets and part of their psychological war fare designed by their Military Directive. We heard top of the chart ‘hits’ of that time, I’ve seen you dancing, Oh Donna Clara. They were changed to propaganda slogans, aimed at our souls, and to coax us over to their side, such as “surrender to the victorious Red Army, and you’ll return home, straight after the war.” Another message was “here are girls waiting for you, and lots to eat”, at which we aimed a short volley in the direction of the loudspeaker, or until it was silenced. The next day however, the scratchy tones were to be heard on another section of the front.

The reaction to such rather attractive promises was somewhat varied, especially from the hot-blooded and gullible Spanish volunteers from the ‘Blue Division’. They believed what they heard. It was not to be wondered at, when remembering that they came to the Russian front and its merciless ice, from a land under the hot Iberian sun.

Not only the Russians, but the German Wehrmacht knew the power of printed words and promises, as a tactical and strategic means of war. The Waffen SS had three war-correspondent platoons, whose members were trained firstly as infantry. Then, upon reaching the strength of a battalion, they were posted to the Eastern Front. Later, as the Waffen SS Standarte ‘Kurt Eggers’, messages of the PK, i.e. Propaganda Company, were sent over the tannoys in perfect Russian. They produced very good results at first. The Russian soldiers deserted in hoards, and when their situation seemed hopeless, and success meant an expected high loss of men, the PK provided a bloodless alternative.

The mercilessness of this war, which attacked both sides, was something that we took as a matter of course, for we had not learned anything else. We learned that the fear that we all had at the beginning could be conquered. At some time it was, in all of us, unconsciously moulded into courage. Then we accepted a basic rule. When you were too slow to shoot and you didn’t hit your target, you died. You survived when you didn’t hesitate, and shot to kill. It was that simple. Gruesome, but simple. This bravery disappeared sometimes, especially when you were surprised. Unexpected surprises robbed you of assessment, particularly when masses of Russians, with screams of “Urra!” jumped out of their hiding places and surrounded you. Worse still, a pack of T34s could suddenly roll steadfastly at you from a birch wood with whirring 500PS motors, along with their indestructible confidence. Often those deadly surprises dampened even the strongest of the unshakeable.

Stalin’s strong arm, the T34, surprised and fascinated the legendary Panzer General, General Guderian. With its low silhouette, it melted into the battle area very well. The track, which was half a metre wide, ‘tramped’ through the toughest bog, while the German Panzer IV with its 36cm, protested and stopped. The Russian tank was strong and robust but manoeuvrable. However, above all else, it moved over snow and soft ground without any problem. It was the best construction of its time. Not even the ‘Panther’ or the ‘Tiger’, which came off the production line a year later, could compete. The T34, with its 45-60cm-thick plating, and its high performance was unmatched.

Like David with his sling, we, as infantrymen, had to deal with Goliath using other methods. When in the trenches we were surprised by such opponents, we simply let them roll over us. When we emerged whole from that exercise, we then had to deal with their accompanying grena diers. We had to try to destroy the ‘giant’ from behind, and in close combat. With nerves of steel, combined with mortal fear, it often worked. But often it was under very heavy losses.

All of the divisions, corps and armies of the Waffen SS were commanded by the Armed Forces. Although they were not one iota better equipped than the Wehrmacht units, a top performance was expected from them. They were used as trouble-shooters mostly, or as ‘firemen’, who extinguished the ‘fire’ and saved whole sectors of the Eastern Front. Enormous losses were the price. “Half-way through this war, a third of these classical Waffen SS divisions lay under Russian soil, and this organisation was burnt to cinders”, to quote Heinz Hohne in his book, Der Orden unter der Totenkopf.

It wasn’t any different for us. Some very hard weeks lay behind us, as gradually the winter began to lose its grip. The countryside was still white, but the temperature became bearable. At the end of January and beginning of February, the long-promised winter clothing arrived from home. It included fabulous fur hats, padded jackets, thermal boots and warm woollen pullovers, as well as balaclavas knitted in haste and faith, by the girls and women at home. But all of it arrived far too late.

In his diary for 23 February, General Halder, Chief-of-Staff wrote, “today was especially quiet”. Perhaps it was in the HQ in East Prussia, but certainly not in our neck of the woods. It turned out to be an especially bloody day, with the Red Army attacking our lines with everything they had. It was also the day that my friend Robby Reilingh was very badly wounded. He had been messenger on that day. In the very same moment as our Sergeant fell, quietly, from a shot through the heart, a mortar exploded somewhere near me and I heard him call my name. He managed to smile weakly at me as I reached him, but quickly ignored my attempts to console him with the assurance that he would now have home-leave. It was very important to him that I promised to see his parents and family. He was in severe pain and I could do nothing for him. The whole time, mortars were exploding and machine-guns clattered around us. It was awful. He was taken out of the line of fire and laid on a straw-covered sledge. As he lay waiting behind a bank of snow, to be transported away with other wounded, I covered him with a thick blanket to keep out the cold, pulling it to his face which, in between times, had turned to yellow. I firmly believed at this point that I would see Robby again. He was taken away but not before I recognised an expression that I had seen many times before on the faces of the dying. It was the expression of disbelief, of non-acceptance of what was to come. All had worn this ‘astounded’ expression.

It had pained me to see him go, but all hell was being let loose and it was a question of survival. All I could do was to pray, from the bottom of my heart, that he pulled through and that we meet again. Later, we had to change our positions. We were made to rest at a first-aid station, run by the Wehrmacht, in some outlying huts on the roadside. There the wounded and ill waited for further transport. It was warm inside, which did us all good. “We had a chap here with the same accent as you. Are you Dutch?” I was asked by a Medical Sergeant. I was happily surprised. Was it Robby? I asked for the name, for perhaps it was him. “He’s lying over there” I was told. When I looked to where he was pointing, it was through the window, and outside. “No one could have lived with the load of shrapnel that he had inside him”, he told me, not unsympathetically, “and he was very brave”.

I stood for a long time at Robby’s freshly-dug grave, not that there was much to see of his last resting place. It was no more than a snow-covered mound by the roadside, in that unending Russia. I do not know how long I stood at his inconspicuous grave, fighting with the reality that I would not see him again. The grave was simple. The cross, which was made of birch-wood was also simple, and so was the inscription. It was basic. Only the minimum of words had been used. It said nothing but that “SS Schutze Robert Reilingh fell on 1 March 1942”.

The German Red Cross informed his family in June, with the sober information, German Red Cross Area 15 File num. 1 Advisor (VK) Reference number 8245/42 Subject: SS Schutze Robert Reilingh. Reference our letter of 9 June, Professor Dr. Parade, Sun Str, Innsbruck. “The German Red Cross regrets to inform you from information received, that on 1 March 1942, at 4 o’clock, SS Schutze Robert Reilingh, died from wounds received, in the main First Aid Station, in Sossna. His burial place is to be found, some 200 metres east of the school in Sossna, on the Moloarchangelsk—Droskovo road. We assure you and your family of our heartfelt sympathy. Heil Hitler T German Red Cross Area 15 Executive/Advisory Dept.

To this day I still have a duplicate of that letter sent to the family. Only after months, was it possible for me to fulfil Robby’s last wish. On my first leave home, it was to his parents in the north of Holland that I went immediately. It was not an easy duty, to deliver Robby’s last greeting to his parents and his brothers. I could not have been given a warmer welcome by his family, in their magnificent villa, not far from Groningen. Everything that they had hoarded for him, including precious things which were seldom to be found at that time, were shared with me.

I was their guest for several days. I had to repeat over and over again our experiences together. In those few days the first great love of my life was to develop with Robby’s sister. It was a mutual attraction from the beginning, and continued in the form of letters, and a short leave, now and again, that one had as a soldier.

Robby’s death seemed to be the start of tragedy and suffering for his family, which had been a happy one till then. Less than a year later, his father was murdered, actually assassinated, cycling home on his bicycle. He was shot in the back, in what could have been described as ‘peaceful’ Holland. As the former General Consul in Liberia, this father-of-four was known for his German sympathies, and as a member of the NSB. It cost him his life. Towards the end of the war, such acts of treachery increased. Then, in turn, they resulted in reprisals against the said ‘sinners’ by the occupying forces.

The activities of the underground, even in the Soviet Union, was an incredible phenomenon of the war. Thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Crimean-Tartars and Georgians worked voluntarily as Hilfswillige or Hiwis, for the German Military in rear-area positions. They did so to free themselves of the yoke of Communism. But there were just as many partisans working for the Soviet Union. Those bands of ‘fighters’, Bandenkdmpfer as they were called, fought without mercy, on both sides. They were illegal fighters, according to the Hague’s State War Commission decree in 1907, fighting without uniform, without visible sign of rank and therefore not ‘recognisable’.

They stood outside every form of ‘justice’ or ‘rights’. The farmer ploughing his fields, a female working in the kitchens of German units, the smithy, or the administrator of our quarters, could belong to that horde. A gruesome fate awaited those who fell into their hands. Torture, using methods from the Middle Ages, was on every day’s agenda. It was even used for a fragment of information about future attacks, troop movements, and weaponry. Prisoners had their eyes poked out, their tongues and ears cut off. Those were not single cases, it was the system with which those lynch-mobs worked. No one escaped those barbarians alive, and those who were shot in the back of the neck were the lucky ones.

It is believed by some, it has to be said, that without such illegal activities, whether on the Eastern Front, in the Balkans or in western Europe, the reprisals of the Wehrmacht would never have taken place.

Today the picture is different, and not based on the reality of those times. The illegality of partisan activity is ignored and a very one-sided presentation is the norm, to the disadvantage of Germany. In court cases of later years one cannot speak of objectivity, of fairness in assessing both sides of the coin. It was deliberate and was none other than a reappraisal of the past. No one took the time or trouble to present the unadulterated truth.

The ten pledges in the pay-book of every German soldier, gave very strict guidelines over our treatment of prisoners. For instance number 3. ‘It is an offence to kill prisoners who have surrendered, including partisans or spies’. 4. ‘Prisoners are not to be abused or mishandled’. 6. ‘Wounded prisoners are to be humanely treated’.

Until December 1941, the Wehrmacht in Russia occupied a territory of 65 million inhabitants and amongst them were 10,000 partisans. Those numbers grew very quickly. By the middle of 1942, 100,000 men and women were involved in underground activities against the German forces. There was not much success at first, with only half a dozen ‘Security’ divisions, mostly of older men who were badly equipped, but who had military control of the hinterland. Much more success was had from bands of fremdvolkische members from the surrounding ‘lands’, such as Ukraine/White Russia. The former were deserters from the Red Army, but they were supported by the ‘locals’ sympathising with the Germans. They possessed the same knowledge and determination as the ‘partisans’ and not even they could avert the problem.

To quote, “In the years from 1941 to 1943, Russian soldiers killed 500,000 enemy soldiers, including 47 German Generals, and many anti-communist Ukrainians”. These figures are taken from the Russian author B.S. Telpukovski’s book, A History of the Partisan Movement. Their weapons included knives and machine-pistols. On films there can be seen the 70-shot revolving barrel-type guns, and rifles and shotguns. Molotov cocktails, i.e. petrol-filled glass bottles with a wick, were first used in the Russian/Finnish war of 1939/40, were used by them for close combat with tanks. There was, as it happened, an excess of empty vodka bottles in Russia! Later those simple but effective bottle-bombs were filled with a mixture of phosphorus and sulphur, which produced a heat of1300° when in flames.

Stalin knew what he was doing when he ordered partisan activities. Twelve days after Hitler’s invasion, Stalin gave his orders for ‘Partisan activity’. He also started his ‘scorched earth’ policy, whereby everything of use that could not be taken when retreating, was to be destroyed. Alexander Werth wrote, “Blow for blow was now the order of the day.” The German troops never had time to make a thorough search of harmless looking villages for the leader of those bandits. They could only try to find the source and then extinguish the fires. It all drove the inhabitants into the lap of the partisans. The German Army, in their advance, had been looked upon as liberators from the yoke of Communism. They had been greeted with the traditional bread and salt, from girls wearing flowers.

Only a year later, how could it come to the situation where the partisans had such a hold over the inhabitants in the same areas? The answer was a simple one and the good relationship held only as long as the Military Directive ruled with goodwill. Russian so-called Commissars or Inspectors were used, in order to undermine and destroy any sympathy shown for the occupying forces, and to prepare the ground for partisan activity. Those ‘Red’ commissars replaced the ‘brown’, and Stalin made fun of the ‘dumb’ in Berlin.

The same lack of understanding stood between the Waffen SS and the Armed Forces, when it came to the interference from party officials in the re direction of the inhabitants. We soldiers saw the policy as an expression of extreme arrogance, which was to our disadvantage, and the advantage of the partisans. There were exceptions of course. Conscientious officials not only with ideals but also local understanding, tried to even out the inadequacies of the Ministry for Eastern Policy.

One of those was a genuine NS Head Administrator, who had been a general commissioner in the Crimea. This educated and upright national socialist, Alfred Frauenfeld, administered with so much level-headedness and expertise, that he could afford to travel hundreds of miles through the Steppe without any armed protection. He treated those working for him with decency and propriety. He understood the mentality, interests and needs of the inhabitants in the areas. Because of that, he himself was also treated with decency and propriety. He produced a highly efficient economy in the Crimea that was second to none. In complete contrast, one of the ‘gravediggers’ of the Third Reich was a man called Erich Koch, District Commissioner in Ukraine and former district commissioner in East Prussia. He directed with brutality, not the consideration and ‘fingertip’ feeling of his counterpart.

It is clear that Germany did not use the one-off chance that they had in the East. There were experts who with far-sightedness tried to save the situation. But their suggestions of altering the policy of the occupying forces, were only put into action as the Red Army took Budapest.

Despite the order to “hold at any price”, the German Wehrmacht was threatened with the same fate in the winter of 1941/42, as Napol eon’s army. In between times, the front was no longer intact and the Red Army held the initiative in the south. Only with extreme exertion, and against the will of Stalin’s favourite general, General Zhukov, could the offensive on Moscow be averted at the end of January. The situation on the Eastern Front stabilised gradually. However, Operation ‘Barbarossa’ with its aims and plan of operation, from Archangelesk in the north in a straight line down to Astrakhan in the south, faded into the background. The hard winter in which the German Army found itself and which destroyed their plan, lasted four long, unending months. In March there was another terrible snowstorm, which was followed by ‘the thaw’. It was then a ‘bog-down’ period.

“At the end of the winter, the faces of our men were old, from stress that was present every day. They had an unhealthy hue from the frost, that they would never lose. It was to be seen on both sides. The only visible difference could be seen from the uniform that they wore, or the language that was to be heard, i.e. German or Russian”. This is quoted from the diary of Leutnant Wolfgang Paul, in his book Erfrorener Sieg.

We volunteers were still of the opinion that the battle of and for the whole of Europe was justified. The battle was not against the people of the Soviet Union, but for the people of the Soviet Union. It was proved when the USA decided to join the war in 1941 and showered Russia with vast amounts of American war material. Pope Pius XII described the action of the Waffen SS, who consisted of a very mixed bag of Danes, Finns, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, Swiss and French, as “the defence of the basis of Christian culture”.

We had covered vast distances in comfortable trains and goods-wagons, in transport planes and lorries, tanks and troikas, and then marched on foot to the Front. As Germany’s war-generation, we all shared the same fate, which welded us together and which only the fire of battle could separate. We had not found ‘adventure’, nor the ‘laurel-leaves of victory’, but lice, mud, polar-conditions and death. In indescribable huts, as many as twenty men were provisionally housed, waiting for the next order. We crouched in holes in God’s earth, in ‘ready’ positions, before attacking the enemy. The minutes seemed like hours, before we could ambush those who felt at home in the darkness. We had restless, interrupted nights, ‘sleeping’, for want of a better word, a light and fitful sleep. We kept a finger on the trigger and had the smell of burning villages in our nostrils. We lit a fire when the opportunity arose and warmed ourselves around the flames. Flames which could not only kill, but save as well.

We had warmed ourselves with the warmth from exhausts, or lingered if only for minutes, in the warmth of the burning houses on our marches, not wanting to move away. Living under open skies with temperatures 30° below freezing, reduced us to the fundamentals. Later it dropped to 52° below freezing point. Napoleon, in 1812, suffered only at 25°. At every possibility, we German soldiers slipped into any coverage we could find in that God-forsaken land, be it a hole in the ground or the poorest of huts, away from nature’s hostility. The Russian Steppe, with its unending horizon and vast heavens, was a ‘lord’ over the victorious, in the moment that we, its enemy, won a battle. It was natural that we had tension in us, as we first trod the earth of the Soviet Union, but the wretchedness of the Bolshevik world exceeded even our imagination.

Stalin’s Empire was at this time, an actual ‘state of dead souls’. There was a land, no, a continent at Europe’s door which in the day and age of radio and films, was completely cut off from the rest of the world. This ‘saga’ in the history of humanity, this ‘paradise’, was nothing new and nothing but ice-cold propaganda. We assessed this ‘state of workers and farmers’, not with the eyes of scholars, but the bare facts as soldiers do, with eyes that were wide open and therefore all the more ‘fundamentally’.

For example, one could search the whole of the Soviet Union for a replacement shaving-mirror when you smashed your own. But you could not find one for love nor money. To lose your pocket knife or your fountain pen was a real tragedy. This annoyance, this lack of, for us the simplest of commodities, was not appeased for months on end. We did find civilised articles, but then in senseless quantities. One of our comrades, who had been in Russia far longer than we, told us about a state-owned shop (what else?) that had not only enormous reserves of ladies’ face-powder, and toothpaste in tons, but not a single toothbrush! One saw Russian girls on the streets, thickly powdered because it was the cheapest of goods. One could buy it by the pound. The shelves were bending under the weight of the toothpaste which tasted of nothing but chalk. But a toothbrush was never found. In another town, its shop had records, hundreds of the same record, with an excerpt from one of Stalin’s speeches on one side and an operatic aria on the other, but a choice? There was none.

We were nearly swallowed up by this land, this Russia. Despite the changing seasons, be it with the changing leaves of autumn or the white of winter, to us the monotony of this land appeared as a deathly shade of grey. It was a land embedded in a vegetative condition. In the villages, the inhabitants appeared as children who had to be woken, their existence being colourless, uniform, simply nondescript. The men appeared to be exhausted, the women full of the worries of life. When one had a new apron or a new cap, then there were reasons for suspicion. Dictatorship ruled here in all of its Proletarian instinct, breeding jealousy, resentment and slander. It was better that one did not own something that no one else had.

One must ask what happened to the army of slave-workers, who worked for a pittance and saw nothing of the promises of Stalin’s “five-year plan”, which was nothing else but an Armament Plan and having no reform. They received nothing. The energy and the riches of the nation were used by power-crazed fanatics and turned into armaments for a war that was described by the Russians themselves as the biggest war of aggression in world revolution.