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

CHAPTER 12 In Hospital

The Wehrmacht slowly regained its strength after the winter. The summer of 1942 saw the start of new areas of attack that ran to plan and were successful. Sebastopol, in the Crimea, the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet was the strongest fortress in the world. It fell into our hands after a bitter fight, in which two enemy armies could have crushed one another.

Within the next month, we also pushed back the Russian Front by three hundred kilometres, taking Voronezh and Rostov. Nonetheless, Hitler’s plan to destroy the Red Army collapsed. Even outside Russia’s borders, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in North Africa had taken Tobruk that summer. German submarines had risen out of the water at Long Island and their crews viewed the traffic in New York. The “Grey Wolf had engaged in its first attack in Canadian territorial waters, in the flow of the St. Laurence river. However, the war leaned dramatically to the side of the Allies with the defeat of the 6th Army, in February 1943, at Stalingrad. The Allies however still needed another two years to force Germany to its knees.

The hospital train which I found myself that summer did not need as long as that to bring me from Orel on the Oka, to Warsaw on the river Vistula. The Russian soldier had not managed in months of bloody fighting, but that little beast, the louse, managed to put me out of action in much less. A high fever, which came and went over a period of five days, was eventually diagnosed by the troops’ doctor, as Volhynian Fever. It is one of the typhus category and transmitted from bites from Rickettsia, a parasite that is neither bacteria nor virus, and which is found in the Ukraine.

The train painted with red crosses, travelled from the central sector of the Eastern Front, over Briansk, Smolensk, Minsk and Brest, into the territory of the General Government. When one could shut out the moans of the wounded and try to ignore the stench of pus and fresh wounds, then one could ask for nothing more. The comfortable sleeping compartment for us was like travelling tourists’ first class. The converted hospital train was fitted with bunk-beds for the wounded. They were tended continually by the doctors, medical orderlies and Red Cross nurses. At nearly all of the stations and halts, the volunteer nurses of the German Red Cross appeared with large steaming coffee pots. This service covered the whole of central Europe, practically to the front. Among the nurses were women and girls from all over Europe, not only Germans, but all working just like the male volunteers.

Our military hospital lay very near the river Vistula, opposite the town of Praga. Before we could enter the hospital we had to be disinfected, body and uniform. We entered a long barrack, as naked as the day we were born, forming long queues. We were a living conveyor-belt for the ‘carbolic angels’, the nurses who were ready to smear every hair-covered part of us with a disinfectant oil. It caused problems for those who had not seen a member of the female species in months. They were then the centre of teasing, grins, laughter and comments from their comrades, which the nurses diplomatically ignored, carrying out their duty with a faint smile on their lips.

After the stress of the front, the hospital was a real island of peace, and a piece of home. The BDM girls who visited us from time to time saw to that, either by the bedside of the wounded where they sang the happy songs of home, or in the shady garden of the hospital and also by giving useful little presents. I can remember an amusing incident, which at the time rather embarrassed me. I was holding up my hand to be given a razor as they were being distributed. One of the girls placed a bar of chocolate in my hand declaring that my ‘baby-face’ did not need a razor.

Despite the short and measured free time of the nurses, they showed the soldiers the town when they could, once they were on the mend or could walk. Not that there was anything of worth to see. The siege of the town in September 1939 had left its mark. There were many ruins and damaged houses to be seen, witnesses of the bitter fighting for the designated ‘fortress’ of Warsaw. The fate of the Polish capital certainly made an impression on us. A worse time for the people of Warsaw was to come, for in the last phase of the war, it would be destroyed by up to 85%.

After my stay in hospital, I was posted to a rehabilitation unit, richly laden with provisions for my journey to Tobelbad near Graz. I went first to Berlin for a few days’ special leave, and where I got to know Germany’s capital. Despite being wartime, there was more than enough entertainment to choose from, theatre, variety and the cinema, all at half-price for the military. Comrades already in Berlin who knew their way around the city, guided me in all directions. In the hope of seeing ‘the Führer’, we marched to the new Chancellery in Wilhelms street. But instead of seeing him, we were given a brisk salute from a double SS guard, standing to attention outside the gigantic bronze doors.

It was a world full of contrasts for us fighters returning from the Front, returning to a peaceful homeland which we had to digest. We were feted and richly spoiled, not only by private persons but by organisations too, with the maxim “our brave soldiers richly deserve our thanks”. Gifts rained upon us and invitations too. Later that changed radically, the longer the war lasted.

Everyone had their problems and worries. The population had their contribution to make to the war-effort, in working longer hours. 46 hours a week in offices, and 52 hours in the factories. It was also at this time that the restaurants served ‘front-line menus’ on Mondays and Thursdays. That gave the population a taste of front-line cuisine, which was usually a stew, made exactly as the military cooks made it.

Tobelbad, in the green countryside of the Steiermark, reminded me of Carinthia with its forest covered mountains, and slopes covered with fruit trees, only these slopes were gentler and more varied. This idyllic country -side proved to be not only of a healing climate, but for the rehabilitating soldier an impetus for their appetites. In order to offset the hunger that we had from the sparse catering in Tobelbad, we had to find a solution. The solution was always one and the same for any of the military, and was called the ‘fried potato relationship’. As it suggests, the aim of the relationship was always the same, extra food in any form. It had really nothing to do with fried potatoes!

It revolved around a sympathetic, young lady who could lay her hands on this extra food and amongst other things, could cook! My choice was a dark blonde from Strassgang and I happily marched the few kilometres to where she lodged. She was one of those enlisted for ‘work-service’ and who I found very sympathetic. Un fortunately, also in the same lodgings was a man who was head of the kitchen staff, but even so she brought me fruit and sometimes sausage, which she had secretly organised. On Sundays we went from Tobelbad for long walks in the mountains or idled our way through the town of Graz, until I had to return for roll-call. Most of the younger comrades had a girlfriend, not only to flirt with, but more importantly, to provide an extra ‘dessert’ for our hunger.

Sometimes an ensemble or two came from Vienna to entertain the troops. There were colourful improvised cabarets, and piano concerts with music from Mozart and Haydn, which were boring for us young soldiers. But the officers and non-commissioned officers took it in their stride, in order to flirt with the female artists, late into the night, for which they had to pay.

To believe that our time in Tobelbad was a sanatorium cure for body and soul would be wrong. It was a ‘cure’, in so far as our surroundings were in complete contrast to that of the front. Our quarters were in the large, impressive, detached villas, which the ‘cure-guests’ rented in peace time. But we had to work. We were kept in trim with gentle exercises, body-building, movement and sport. Then we had to go to school, where combat training would have been superfluous for us, and which we were spared. But we were given theory in terrain practice, map reading and also world politics. I must not forget the thorough cleaning of our quarters! I also remember Tobelbad for a very big and unexpected surprise. My brother Evert suddenly appeared, he too having been wounded in Russia. He had also been posted to this rehabilitation unit, and for the very first time we both belonged to the same company.

He was wounded again a year later, in north-west Kharkov, in very hard defensive action with the Wiking Division. His company commander sent the news to our parents, ending the letter with “in close affinity”. Field Administration Post Code 33576. Dated 08.09.1943 (in the field).

Only today did I notice that the usual Heil Hitler is missing in this letter. Even the German Red Cross, in their letter of condolence to Robby’s parents informing them of his death, do not forget this formal address. With this comment I wish to point out that those of the Waffen SS soldiers fighting on the front were not the “Upstanding stalwarts of the Party” as they are deliberately depicted today.

It was also in Tobelbad that I had to present myself before the whole company. There my company commander presented me with a medal for the ‘offensive in the East’ in the winter of 1941/42. All of those from the Eastern Front received one, those who fought in the period from 15 November 1941 to 15 April 1942. The medal had a striped band in red, white and black, red for blood, white for snow and black for death, the death of many of our fallen comrades. Perhaps it can be described as ‘grim humour’, but thereafter we from the Eastern Front, referred to this medal as the ‘frozen meat medal’.