Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

by Unknown

  While everyone in Rome was already speculating about whether and where the Allies would land in Italy, the African chapter had also ended for me; my thoughts went out to my brave men across the sea, for whom the war had ended for good.

  Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 Once again, my train rolled north, over the Apennines, the plain of the Po and the Alps. The countryside seemed so peaceful that I could hardly believe the Italians could be feeling the horrors of war in their own homeland. It was warm and summery; in passing, I saw people going about their work. Through the liaison officer in Rome, I received a movement order to Berlin via Munich.

  In Munich, I not only wanted to see a few friends again, but to concern myself mainly with the meeting that Guderian had requested with Rommel.

  I was allotted a room in the famous Four Seasons Hotel, which belonged to the brothers Walterspiel. I contacted Rommel by telephone at Semmering, where he was undergoing treatment.

  I told him of the unsuccessful “mission” and the hopelessly dela ed permission to evacuate. Rommel made no comment. His telephone may have been tapped.

  In somewhat “coded” form, I conveyed Guderian's request, to which Rommel agreed at once. After referring back to Guderian, a day was arranged for a meeting at the Seasons. I asked Walterspiel to reserve a room and to keep this meeting of the prominent generals secret under all circumstances.

  I welcomed Rommel on the day of the meeting and he questioned me closely about events during the last days before I was sent to Europe. He said that at the time he had fallen from favor with Hitler and that he was glad to be having an exchange of views with Guderian after such a long while. Shortly after, Guderian arrived; he greeted me briefly and the two men retired for their talk. I have never heard anything of its content.

  Walterspiel, who felt honored by the distinguished visitors, had reserved a table for me somewhat apart from the hotel guests and he now dished me up a meal from his black-market store that could not have been ordered by an “ordinary” guest even for a large sum of money. As I was smoking a cigarette in the lounge while waiting for Rommel and Guderian, an elderly lady of good appearance came to my table. “You don't mind, do you?” she said, and, with that, took a silver box from her handbag, picked up my cigarette Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 157 butt from an ashtray and put it in the box, in which I could see she already had several others.

  “Please excuse me,” she said in some embarrassment, "but the tobacco ration is so small that I roll my own from the remains of cigarettes. Now that coffee has been unobtainable for so long, cigarettes are all I have left to see me through the bad times. Do excuse me.11 I was profoundly shocked. How hard it must have been for those at home to cope with rationing, air raids, and anxiety about their men at the front. When I gave the lady the rest of my piick of cigarettes, she smiled at me gratefully.

  Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

  Rommel and Guderian came into the lounge separately. A quick handshake, “All the best to you, Luck,” and the two men were gone.

  After staying for a few days in Munich, I traveled on to Berlin, to the bombed one-time “capital of Europe.” Wenzel Luedecke, my orderly officer in Africa and the former assistant director with UFA, had offered me his penthouse near the Kurfurstendamm as a place to stay while I was in Berlin, and I gladly accepted. I reported officially to the replacement section, and picked up my faithful Mercedes cabriolet.

  To see about my next posting, I had to call at the Personnel Office. I sent my name directly to General Schmundt, to whom I gave an account of the unsuccessful “mission.” What lay in store for me? The eastern front?

  Schmundt cut short my reflections.

  “Luck, you are assigned with immediate effect to the 'commander reserve' for one year. We've lost so many commanders that we are having to form a reserve for a possible new theater of war in Italy or France. I'll find you a job in which you can pass on your experience.” I was horrified. Not, for God's sake, a whole year of sitting around at home. I wanted to be back at the front.

  Suddenly a thought struck me.

  "General, you can't do this to me. Let e make you a suggestion.

  Instead of a year, only six months, and that in Paris, where the army has its school for panzer reconnaissance commanders.

  That's where I can best pass on my experience to future COS.

  What do you think of that?" Schmundt couldn't help laughing.

  “That's typical of you reconnaissance people, always flexible and ready with novel solutions. I agree.” A few days later, I was officially posted from August 1943 to March 1944 to the school in Paris, where I was to report to Colonel von Wechmar, a cousin of my predecessor.

  Meanwhile, it was the end of May 1943. The warm spring made the troubled city of Berlin seem somewhat less implacable.

  I installed myself in the penthouse. Each evening it had to be blacked out. The little suitcase always stood ready. It contained my most important papers as well as my stock of coffee and cigarettes, which I had organized at the supply depot in Tunis. As soon as the sirens wailed-and that happened almost every day-I hurried with the suitcase to the air raid shelter.

  In Berlin's sea of houses' I couldn't stay outside during air raids. The danger of being hit by debris or bomb fragments was too great. Besides, everyone had to comply with the directions of the air raid warden.

  The Allies were now dropping more incendiary bombs, which immediately set off great area fires, or if there was a wind, the dreaded fire storms. Naturally, my penthouse was particularly vulnerable, but I accepted the risk.

  I, too, now received food stamps, too many to go hungry, too few to eat one's fill. The food was better at the replacement section. The men, after all, had to be made fit for frontline service. In the Mercedes, I shuttled back and forth between the Kurfurstendamm and the barracks. Many of my friends were no longer to be found. Some had fled into the country, others, especially my Jewish and literary friends, had disappeared forever. Those who had not been able to escape abroad had probably been sent to concentration camps.

  We frontline soldiers, but also the friends I asked, knew of the existence of the camps (in Berlin, nearby Sachsenhausen was the best known) and in connection with them we knew the term “protective custody.” But we had no idea of what took place behind the barbed wire.

  At the beginning of June, I was invited to a party given by a Prussian princess, whom I became acquainted with before the war through my friend von Papen. On account, probably, of my “exotic aura” of having come from Africa, but no doubt even more on account of my present of coffee, I was the favored guest.

  There I met Dagmar, the daughter of the proprietor of Europe's biggest tree nursery. She was celebrating her twenty-first birthday.

  Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 159 We clicked at once. I invited her for a meal the next day.

  There she told me right at the start (“so that you know where you are”) that she was classified as “one-eighth Jewish” and enjoyed “Aryan rights.” Her mother, one of the most elegant women of Berlin, was.,one-quarter Jewish.“ It was macabre how bureaucratically the ”Jewish question" was treated in Germany.

  I met Dagmar's parents, both cosmopolitans, ho-like Dagmar-spoke fluent English and French.

  We saw each other as often as we could. Dagmar slowly lost her aversion to all things military, which she regarded, along with'party functionaries, as the quintessence of the power of the Third Reich.

  I thought of engagement, but also of my resolution not to form a close tie, in the interests of both, before the end of the war.

  I did promise, however, to bring her to Paris for the duration of my teaching job. I wanted to get her away from the confinement of Berlin and the danger of air raids, and to know that she was no longer exposed to what were often abusive remarks about her “oneeighth status.” At the end of June, I took some leave to visit friends in Hamburg and to see my mother and sister in Flensburg.

  My friend, Boos, lived outside Hamburg, not far from
Friedrichsruh, where Bismarck lived in his retirement. During the night, before I was to go to Flensburg, Hamburg had its worst air raid of the war. Whole blocks collapsed. Losses among the civilian population were enormous. From Boos's garden, we could see Hamburg on fire. In the early hours of the morning, thousands of refugees arrived in the suburbs on foot, many of them with phosphorous burns. I can still see those poor people today; some had escaped with their bare lives. They were given shelter in emergency reception camps. Now I understood why all the wounded wanted to get back to the front as fast as possible; there they could play an active part in determining events, whereas the civilian population was condemned to passivity.

  Flensburg, although a naval base, had so far been spared. Our large apartment had been requisitioned for refugees, except for two rooms. My sister had been called up and posted to the commander in Holland. My mother carried on a lively barter-trade with farmers we had known earlier. For valuable objets d'art, which my father had brought back from the Far East, she obtained butter and meat. In this way, she was able to supplement the meager ration from stamps. Being an older woman she was unable to make a contribu 160 PANZER COMMANDER tion to the war effort and thus received no priority cards. Although it pained me, I nevertheless encouraged her to go on bartering, and at the same time promised to send her, from France, anything that might be useful to her.

  I admired my mother, who bore with courage not only the death of my stepfather, but also the war service of her three children.

  We spent some happy hours together and I tried to comfort her.

  The coffee I had brought helped her along in the weeks that followed.

  Back in Berlin the days and weeks went by. At the replacement section, I gave talks on my experiences in the different theaters of war to young soldiers who had just been called up.

  Dagmar's mother, who didn't have an Aryan identity card but was “tolerated” as the wife of a prominent man, had used a trip to friends in Switzerland to get away. To stay longer in Berlin had seemed to her too risky.

  With Dagmar and a few friends, I celebrated my thirty-second birthday, for which Baron von Boeselager sent me some bottles of champagne and cognac from my “sunken hoard.” Would it be my last? At all events, the last at home.

  August 1943. Time to go, into a future that was becoming ever more uncertain. Parting from Dagmar was harder than I had expected. “I'll get you to Paris one way or another, you can count on that.” With a movement order for myself and the Mercedes, I turned my back on Berlin. My personal belongings from Luedecke's penthouse had been handed over to Dagmar, who stored them at the nursery outside Berlin. Two weeks later the penthouse was destroyed by an incendiary bomb.

  After a stop at the Boeselagers' near Bonn, I arrived in Paris and reported to

  “Bubi” von Wechmar, the commander of the panzer reconnaissance school. Then on to local HQ, to the city commander, General von Boineburg, who, in Russia, had commanded the brigade of grenadiers in our 7th Panzer Division.

  “I'm delighted to see you alive and well, my dear Luck. I expect you'd like an apartment near your school at the Invalides?”

  “Yes, General, I would. I'd also be glad of a driving permit for my Mercedes, which gave such good service during my months in Russia.” I was allotted a wonderful penthouse in the Rue Bixio with a view over the whole of Paris. It belonged to a Swiss businessman who had gone home and put his apartment at the disposal of the Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 161 military command-including a chamber maid, who lived in. For her it became a memorable time, as I was able to keep her supplied with foodstuffs that were no longer obtainable in Paris.

  The first four-week course began. Between courses, there was a week's pause to assess the previous course. In one of these courses, my friend Franz von Papep turned up, who, till then, had been in action on the eastern front. In another, de Maizi6re, later a general in the Bundeswehr, and Major Waldow, later a commander in my panzer division.

  I made contact with J. B. Morel and C16ment Duhour, who were overjoyed to see me again, safe and sound. They had no doubts that the Western Allies would land somewhere in France.

  “Hans, you won't hold out. You can't win this war, with two fronts and the overwhelming materiel. Once again, stay here when things come to an end. We'll see that you're not discovered.”

  “You know I can't do it,” I replied. “We've been brought up differently and taken our oath. So I must, if need be, see it through to the bitter end.” After I had been in Paris for a few weeks, C16ment came to my apartment in great agitation.

  “Hans, the Gestapo have arrested J. B. We don't know where he is. I presume he belongs to the Resistance or that he'd made disparaging remarks about the Germans. You know, of course, that J. B. is a great patriot and was a serving officer in the French army.” I promised C16ment to do whatever was possible.

  It so happened that a very high Gestapo man lived in the same house as me in the Rue Bixio. We had met a few times in the elevator or on the street and had exchanged a few words with each other. He seemed to see in me the good type of frontline soldier and in some way to admire me.

  I decided-albeit reluctantly-to ask for his help, and called on him in his apartment. I had mentioned J. B.'s name, I went on, “Listen, M. Morel fought against me in 1940. He was a brave opponent and is a staunch patriot. I don't believe he would have said anything disparaging about us Germans. He thinks too much of me for that. He may have said that after Stalingrad and North Africa this war is now taking a decisive turn. If so, that's an opinion I can only share. I would be grateful if you could get M. Morel released.” This was undoubtedly risky. What I had said would itself be regarded by the Nazis and the Gestapo as “defeatist.” Four days later, J. B. turned up in my apartment. He had tears in his eyes.

  “Hans, I won't ever forget what you've done.” I conveyed my thanks to the Gestapo man with a bottle of cognac.

  Meanwhile, I was trying to get Dagmar to Paris. I was told at HQ that this would be simple if she could show that she had a job with a French firm doing work for the German occupation.

  Near the Champs Elys6es, I found a firm that was converting trucks to wood-burning (fuel had long since been scarce). They were glad to have Dagmar as an interpreter.

  Through the military command, I obtained a residence and work permit for Dagmar and wrote to tell her, full of joy. But my letter crossed with bad news: the Gestapo had picked up her father. He was supposed to have made disparaging remarks about Hitler. I was appalled. This proud and conservative man would never be able to stand it. After my success with the Gestapo in the case of J. B., I had to try to get him out. I received permission from Wechmar, to whom I outlined the situation, to take four days' leave in Berlin between courses.

  A week later the chance came. With the necessary movement order and a driver from the school, I drove nonstop the 1,000 kilometers and more from Paris to Berlin. I was equipped with a note from the city commander requesting all service stations of the SS and Gestapo to assist me as a frontline soldier.

  The reunion with Dagmar was overshadowed by events. She loved her father dearly and being “one-eighth Jewish,” moreover, she was certainly no supporter of the Third Reich. But she bore her fate with composure. Although she placed little hope in my “mission,” she was grateful nonetheless that at least something was being done.

  Next morning, we drove in my Mercedes to Sachsenhausen. My uniform (I was still in tropical dress), my decorations, and the note from Boineburg didn't fail to impress. The camp commandant himself came to the guard room. Dagmar was not allowed into the camp. So I took the big parcel of foodstuffs and was conducted to the visiting room. As we went, the commandant assured me, “We too on the home front are doing our great part for victory.” It sounded like a sneer. I refrained from comment; I was, after all, trying to get Dagmar's father out of there.

  And then he was brought in, a shadow of his former self, his Berlin and Paris, 1943-1944 163 eyes full of fear. What had those few we
eks done to a healthy, upright man?

  “How are you?” A superfluous question on my part. “Dagmar is in the guard room. She wasn't allowed in, but sends you a big hug.” What could I talk to Dagmar's father about? An SS man was sitting in the comer and could hear every word, and was probably meant to.

  “I've brought you a parcel of food, coffee, and cigarettes, which your daughter has packed for you. I have an appointment tomorrow with Kaltenbrunner.” (Kaltenbrunner was head of the Gestapo, at any rate, the second most powerful man after Himmler, the head of all SS units and organizations.) “I have a letter of recommendation with me and will press for your immediate release.” I could see from his reaction that he had no great hope.

  “Thank you for coming here specially from Paris. Give my love to my daughter. I wish you both all the best. May you be very happy-” He got to his feet, for the guard had indicated that our time was up. We shook hands.

  “Chin up, I'll get you out of here.” A last wave, and with tired steps this upright German left the room.

  Next morning, I went to SS head office and was admitted at once to Kaltenbrunner. By rank, he must have been a general.

  “I'm delighted to be able to greet a highly decorated officer from the front. Like you on active service, we here on the home front are putting in a superhuman effort to achieve the final victory.” The usual blabber; I could hardly bear it any more. But, of course, I wanted something from the man, so I went along with him halfheartedly. I then spoke my request.

  “I've been iven just four days' leave. I drove to Berlin through the night and yesterday, visited my prospective father-in-law in Sachsenhausen. He is in a bad way. He doesn't even know why he has been arrested. Believe me, Obergruppenfuehrer (or whatever his SS rank was), my father-in-law is a good Geran and a well-known personality in Berlin. I consider it out of the question that he had brought some kind of guilt upon himself. There must be a mistake.” Kaltenbrunner showed sympathy and sent for his adjutant.