Blitzfreeze (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

by Sven Hassel

  The rest of our trip up to the front line goes off without any brushes with the Russians. They have their hands full preparing an important offensive. All sorts of units are on the move. The whole area behind the front line is fluid.

  ‘Damn good us, they busy make shitty big attack,’ says a satisfied Vasilij. ‘Them no time squash crazy German louse.’

  We creep out through the Russian lines when night falls and reach our own forward positions shortly after dawn.

  The Brandenburg Feldwebel is the first into the trench, but there isn’t a sign of our people.

  Porta runs to the command dug-out. Empty. No SMGs in the nests. A ruined baseplate is all that is left of the mortar group alongside it.

  ‘Fritz, Fritz, idisodar,’ sounds behind me and an MG hammers tracer the length of the trench. In a second we are down and shooting down the straight with everything we’ve got.

  A party of Russians fall back as if struck by a battering-ram.

  Grenades fly through the air and explode hollowly. Torn-off human limbs are blasted along the lip of the trench and sink soggily into the breast-work.

  ‘Get moving!’ cries the Old Man. ‘I’ll cover you. Run for your lives!’ Quickly we are up and over the lip of the trench and storm southwards. Behind us machne-guns crackle.

  I fall over a body, a fallen Brandenburger, and slide into a shell-hole filled with dead. Frozen arms and legs point accusingly at the sky. Crooked fingers seem to catch at me. It’s as if they are saying ‘How dare you remain alive when we are dead?’

  Porta jumps across the hole. I try to go after him but slide back twice down the icy sides. The ice is red. Frozen blood. A beautiful sight, really, only to be seen in war. The Old Man is right when he says: ‘Even in war there are moments of beauty.’ The Russians are right on our heels with their inviting call: ‘Fritz, Fritz, idisodar!’

  We keep on at top speed over a wasteland carpeted with the dead. We almost jump down into a Russian position but they fire too soon, and we manage to turn off.

  Tiny leaps down into a shell hole and turning like a top in midleap has his LMG in position as he lands.

  The leading Russians fall only a few yards from him.

  I stop for a moment to throw a few grenades. It’s like rolling up a trench. As if in slow motion I see Russians blown to pieces. A torn-off hand flies past my head. Then we’re off towards the west again. Our people must be somewhere. They’ve probably only straightened the front.

  A few yards in front of me is the Brandenburger Feldwebel running with long athletic strides. I stop suddenly as if I had run into a giant fist. The earth gapes in front of me. A column of flame shoots up into the air and the Feldwebel goes up with it. He seems to spin like a ball juggled on the tip of the flame. His body lands at my feet with the sound of a wet cloth. The mine he has sprung has blown off both his feet. Nothing can be done for him. Blood pulses in thick jets from veins and arteries. I hasten past without looking at him. His screams follow me. It is best for the badly wounded to die quickly! Often, though, it takes them a wickedly long time.

  Finally we reach our own trenches. Firing commences from both ends.

  ‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’ screams the Old Man, desperately. ‘We are Brandenburgers!’

  A boyish Leutnant, with Hitler Jugend eyes, sticks his head cautiously from a corner of the trench and demands the password.

  ‘Get fucked!’ shouts Porta insubordinately and takes cover immediately. They might be just frightened enough to shoot. Nothing is so dangerous and unpredictable as terrified soldiers led by an inexperienced officer.

  ‘Are you German?’ comes a shout from the corner where the Leutnant seems to be.

  ‘Come out ’ere, you wicked bastard!’ shouts Tiny, ‘an’ I’ll prove it to you before I strangle you!’

  A potato-masher whirls through the air and explodes in front of Vasilij throwing him several yards into the air. He falls with a heavy thud and a streaming pool of blood grows under him.

  ‘Them crazy shitty German we run to,’ he groans. ‘You kill for me! Vasilij go Great Kunfu. Great pity no know how war end and we no eat velvet hen with cousin in Hong Kong.’ His body arches like a stretched bow. He struggles to get to his feet. Gets halfway, presses the Old Man by the hand. ‘Dasvidanja, Feldwebel!’ He is dead!

  An uncontrollable rage grips us. With submachine-guns chattering we rush the trench containing the Leutnant and his men. In seconds we have disarmed them. The young Leutnant presses himself against the trench wall, white in the face.

  The little Legionnaire literally cuts his uniform off him with his Moorish knife.

  ‘Don’t kill him!’ shouts the Old Man, warningly. ‘He’s only a boy!’

  ‘That little shit murdered Vasilij,’ screams Porta furiously.

  Before the Old Man can hinder it the Leutnant is thrown to the other end of the trench.

  A Feldwebel springs at Porta and gets his throat cut in a flash.

  We stand on the edge of the trench with armed grenades and guns at the ready.

  ‘Down on your faces! Hands behind your neck!’ shouts the Old Man. ‘Or you’re dead men!’ The whole trench complement goes down.

  ‘And we’re supposed to win a war with this kind of material,’ says the Old Man, shaking his head, despairingly. ‘Who was it said our German soldiers were marvellous? God preserve us!’

  Oberst Hinka arrives shortly after with a group of officers. He welcomes us back, almost embracing Porta, and hears our report in silence.

  Cigarettes and schnapps are passed round.

  ‘You’ve given this trench complement a terrible shock,’ laughs Hinka. ‘Why did you not follow my orders?’ he turns severely to the Leutnant, who is keeping his distance. ‘You knew we were expecting a commando group back!’

  ‘They were in Russian uniforms and could not give the password,’ the Leutnant defends himself, redfaced.

  ‘Did you expect them to arrive in dress uniform with a pass in a cleft stick?’ shouts Hinka.

  ‘I thought …’

  ‘You’ll come to explain what you thought,’ answers Hinka, turning on his heel.

  ‘Bastard!’ hisses Porta, spitting at the Leutnant’s feet. The young officer tries to say something.

  ‘Just one word,’ snarls Porta, lifting the butt of his weapon. ‘One word that’s all! And I’ll smash your silly HJ face in!’

  We bury Vasilij on a height from which the towers of Moscow can be seen in silhouette. A Brandenburger plays the Dead March. His submachine-gun and his kukhri go with him to the grave. Only women go unarmed to Great Kunfu.

  In the evening we march back to 27 Panzer Regiment. Chief Mechanic Wolf can’t believe his own eyes when he sees Porta alive.

  ‘God strike me dead!’ he shouts. ‘And I’ve paid for three candles for you on the field altar!’

  He is so shocked that he invites us to dine on roast wild-pig that evening. We eat till we nearly burst. All next day we spend sitting in the latrines playing dice. They even have to bring us our meals there. It’s not worth getting up. Everything runs straight through us. That wild-pig must have been sick. Maybe that was why Wolf invited us to dinner.

  1Wolf: See Comrades of War.

  2 Basura (Spanish): Dustbin (Porta is emptying it on Wolf.)

  3 GEKADOS (Geheime Kommandosachen) (German): Military Secrets.

  4 Kunfu: Confucius.

  5 Hals und Beinbruch (German): ‘Break your neck and leg.’ An expression equivalent to ‘Good luck,’ by opposites.

  6 Nix karosch (Russian): No good.

  7 Tekuai (Chinese): Express train.

  8 Beijing (Chinese): Peking.

  9 Prasstitutka (Russian): Whore.

  10 Mulkt sakt etc. (Tibetan): Zone strictly out of bounds.

  11 Tjurjma (Russian): Prison.

  12 Plljudji (Russian): People.

  13 Politsyja (Russian): Police.

  14 Propusk (Russian): Pass.

  15 Nejmtsamat (Mongolian): Strictly forbidd
en.

  16 Brat (Russian): Brother.

  17 Gefüllte Fische (German): Stuffed fish.

  18 Brust Flanken (Yiddish): Corned beef – Beef a la mode or Allemand.

  19 Marabu: See ‘Assignment Gestapo.’

  20 Tanganskaya: Notorious Russian political prison.

  21 Djaevuschka (Russian): Girls.

  22 Rjaegully (Russian): menstruation.

  23 Schupo (Schutzpolizei) (German): Uniformed police.

  24 Spasibo (Russian): Thanks.

  25 Stoi koi (Russian): Stop immediately.

  26 Natschaljniks (Russian): Bosses.

  27 Je te pisse etc: (French): I’ll piss up your arse!

  ’Traitors must be rooted out, and the children of traitors; nothing of them, nothing at all, must be allowed to remain.’

  Adolf Hitler to SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich

  7 February 1942.

  A little past 3 o’clock on the morning of 11 January 1942, two men, in long leather coats and wearing black steel helmets, rang long and impatiently on the door of a flat on Admiral-von-Tirpitz-Ufer, across from the Potzdamer Brücke. When no reply came they began to bang with their fists on the tall oak panels of the door.

  ‘What do you people want? The Herr General went to bed long ago. What is this hooligan behaviour? I am Regierungsrat Dr Esmer. I can assure you a complaint will be made tomorrow!’

  ‘Get out!’ snarled one of the black-helmeted men, ‘if you don’t want to jump through the hoop yourself!’

  The Regierungsrat noticed, for the first time, the silver collar dogs with the SS emblem. He seemed to shrink into himself and retired quickly into his flat. In the dubious safety of their marriage bed his wife berated him violently.

  The following day the Regierungsrat reported sick and left on a recreational visit to Bad Gastein.

  A servant opened the door of the General’s flat.

  ‘We wish to speak to General Ställ,’ barked one of the SS officers, pushing the servant roughly aside.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ mumbled the servant plaintively.

  ‘Shut your mouth!’ answered Hauptsturmführer Ernst.

  The servant fell into a chair and stared open-mouthed after the two tall, lean officers who walked straight into the general’s study without knocking. In the twenty years he had been in service here no one had ever dared to do that. The General was an aristocrat who kept strictly to the forms of etiquette.

  ‘Are you General-Leutnant Ställ?’ asked SS-Sturmbahnführer Lechner, stony-faced.

  ‘I am,’ replied the astonished General, getting up slowly from his desk chair.

  ‘The Führer has sentenced you to death for dereliction of duty and sabotage of orders! You have, without permission, given your division orders to retreat.’

  ‘Are you mad, man?’ was all the General managed to get out before four pistol shots followed one another in quick succession.

  A piercing scream rang through the house. Frau Ställ came rushing in and threw herself desperately across her husband’s body.

  ‘The swine is still alive,’ said the Hauptsturmführer, and tore the woman away from the dying General.

  Lifting the head by the hair he pressed his pistol muzzle against the neck. Two shots cracked hollowly from the heavy service revolver.

  The General’s face splintered like glass. Brains and blood spattered across a painting of his children. His body writhed briefly.

  ‘Dead!’ confirmed the Hauptsturmführer brusquely, holstering his Walther.

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ They saluted with raised arms and left the flat without hurrying.

  A black Mercedes with an SS-Unterscharführer at the wheel waited in the street.

  ‘And now?’ asked the Sturmbahnführer, leaning back into the soft cushioning.

  ‘To Dahlem,’ growled the Hauptsturmführer.

  The black car disappeared swiftly across the Landwehrkanal.

  9 | The Generals Depart

  A long threatening rumble from the Russian side of the front wakes us from an uneasy sleep.

  ‘Mille diables,’ shouts the Legionnaire, shocked into wakefulness. ‘What in the world is that?’

  ‘Hundreds of batteries firing!’ answers the Old Man and listens nervously.

  ‘Who said Ivan was finished?’ mumbles Porta.

  ‘What a lot o’ gunpowder Ivan must ’ave,’ says Tiny. ‘’Ope the bastards ain’t goin’ to start a big ’un. Sounds bleedin’ like it!’

  ‘That shower’s coming right at our heads,’ says Barcelona with foreboding.

  The far away metallic ringing increases to a roar. Thousands of shells are coming closer in a mounting crescendo of sound. We’re out of our bunks and down on the floor in a second. We envy the lice at times like this. Shells don’t bother them. The shells fall with a murderous noise, tearing at the earth. In an inferno of flame, earth, ice and razor-sharp splinters of steel fly hundreds of yards from the striking point. When a shell falls on to a position it simply disappears.

  The mounting thunder of exploding shells beats at us from all sides. The earth, air, river, snow, forest; the town of Lenino; everything about us, seems to be changed in a moment into a giant anvil ringing incessantly under the strokes of gigantic triphammers.

  Explosions of unbelievable power claw and rip at the frozen ground. Dirt, snow, whole trees are thrown up into the air, balancing on volcanoes of flame which seem to originate in the very bowels of the earth. Poisonous smoke rolls backwards and forwards across the wounded soil. Wherever we look there is a greenish broth of melted snow, blood and shredded human flesh. We are in the midst of a deadly cauldron.

  The dug-out bobs and dances like a cork in a high sea. Men go mad. We knock them about, our own recipe for the treatment of shock. The forest burns. The ice on the river is splintered and black waters fountain upwards. This river is to be the graveyard of many Russian and German soldiers. I press myself hard into the floor of the dug-out, flat as a dry leaf. Shell splinters whine through the narrow windows. The sandbags we blocked them with have been blown away long ago. The dug-out cracks and groans. Can its heavy timbers stand up to this?

  A new shell, one of the big coal-scuttles, literally throws the dug-out into the air. I can feel a scream welling up from the pit of my belly. It won’t be long before my nerves go.

  ‘Jesus!’ shouts Porta. ‘He’s showing us all his samples today!’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ says Tiny. ‘If one o’ them pointed boxes ‘its us on the ’ead, you can all throw your bleedin’ toothbrushes away. ’Cause you’re all gonna need new teeth.’

  The Old Man turns the handle of the telephone, and whistles into the mouthpiece.

  ‘What’re you ringing for?’ asks Porta. ‘If it’s a taxi you want then I’m willing to go halves. Probably be a long wait though on a rough night like this!’

  ‘I’ve got to get hold of the company commander,’ snarls the Old Man. ‘I want orders! This is a big attack.’

  It seems as if the noise of the shells moves back a little.

  ‘Curtain,’ we shout all together, grabbing at our equipment.

  ‘Attack,’ confirms the Old Man confidently, puffing at his silver-lidded pipe.

  ‘Where would these Soviet untermensch get the men and material to mount an attack?’ jeers Heide. ‘The Führer has said they are crushed. The rest of the war will be a parade-ground exercise.’

  ‘There’s the door,’ grins Porta. ‘Quick march, Julius! I’d like to see the boys from here who’ll go on parade with you!’

  Magazines are prepared. Pockets filled with ammunition. Potato-mashers down our jackboots. Magnetic bombs ready.

  We live from second to second, minute to minute, readying ourselves for death in that bellowing inferno.

  The company is on the march. A shell howls down from the sky and the road in front of us is gone. Comrades are blown into the fields. Most of them are dead. Soon after, the survivors are on the march again, looking for faces known to them, finding few or none.
They form new acquaintances. Until a new shower of shells come from the clouds. Now they become ‘difficult’, dare not form the slightest of ties with anyone.

  We take cover in shell-holes, dodge the swarming thousands of devilish things which infest the air, storm on with flashing bayonets, split faces with our sharpened spades, queue at the cook wagon for a bowl of nettle soup, go to the medics to have a wound dressed. Everybody dreams of a white bed in a hospital at home. The Medical Sergeant grins jeeringly and sends us back into hell!

  With three aspirins and a light dressing on his flesh-wound the wounded man marches on, is picked up by a strange unit and made company runner, dashes with messages from shell-hole to shell-hole through the barrage and over mine-strewn terrain until he is again wounded or perhaps killed. He moves from unit to unit. Seldom sees a letter. When one does arrive his longing and his homesickness rip his nerves to shreds. His entire twenty-year life collapses around him. Get out of it, he tells himself. The Fatherland, what’s that? I don’t owe it anything. And now it wants my life! He swings his belongings on to his back and walks off. The Watchdogs liquidate a number of deserters. Penal troops from OT1 fill up the graves. Deserting the colours goes out of fashion for him. Mass execution as a deterrent has worked, and brought his reason back.

  ‘Were you leaving us?’ they ask him confidentially at the company, as he throws his equipment roughly into a corner.

  ‘What do you take me for?’ he lies, with a laugh.

  ‘Are we really goin’ to give up this lovely place?’ asks Tiny. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell, we could’ve seen the winter through real nice in ’ere!’ He looks around him sadly.

  ‘Stay on, if you fancy it,’ grins Stege. ‘I’m off, anyway!’

  A terribly close strike makes the dug-out bounce like a rubber ball. The roof falls in on one side. The stove-pipe breaks off in sections, and the room fills with a choking smoke which puts out the Hindenburg candles.

  ‘I must get through to the commander,’ says the Old Man, snatching up his gun. ‘There’s a mass attack on the way!’