Hans Von Luck - Panzer Commander

by Unknown

  Army group issued fresh orders: “Two days ago, south of th( Haguenau forest, we managed to form a bridgehead over the Rhine north of Strasbourg. From this bridgehead a westward thrust is to be made to cut the communications of the enemy north of the Haguenau forest. The 25th Panzer Grenadier Division will move west on 9 January along the northern edge of the forest, break through the Maginot Line, and advance down the eastern slopes of the Vosges. The 21st Panzer Division will assemble on its right and after the first breakthroughs will likewise move west at once.” On 8 January, 20 assault-guns arrived from Germany; Captain Herr still had I I tanks available. On the same day the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division assembled in two combat groups, our division just north of it with my regiment in contact with the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division.

  It was bitterly cold and snowing. Only rarely did the moon shine through. Then one could see the dark monsters looming up out of the snow. We knew that we had to cut through barbed-wire entanglements and clear mines. For this only a few engineers were available and young replacements, soldiers of 16 and 17.

  During the night of 8 and 9 January the first assault party of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division worked its way up to the first bunker. Without a sound the youngsters crept forward and began to cut a passage through the barbed wire. Whenever the moon came out all movement froze. Toward four in the morning a ath had been cleared; it was only another hundred yards to the bunker. On all fours the assault party worked its way forward. Then they were there. The Americans seemed to be asleep. The barrel of a gun poked menacingly from its embrasure. The men crept around the bunker. The armored door was closed. An NCO beat against it with the butt of his gun and it slowly opened.

  The American crew had been taken completely by surprise and were quickly overcome. The noise alerted other bunkers and the intermediate positions. Heavy Aghting broke out at once. The American artillery laid down a barrage of fire on the bunker.

  Then a combat group of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, supported by assault-guns, moved up to attack through the gap.

  Heavy artillery fire prevented a rapid advance. The group turned left and forced its way from the north into the little village of Hatten.

  At the same time an armored group from my division also moved up, with the intention of pushing past Hatten. Several tanks drove over mines. The attack made no progress. One of my battalions also entered Hatten from the north and relieved the elements of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division that were there.

  The southern part of the village was fiercely defended by American infantry, who mounted a counterattack, but this was repu.

  By the evening of 9 January only a small breach had been achieved. Army group and corps pressed for a continuation of the attack. The breakthrough in the Maginot Line was to be extended, in order to push through to the west.

  During the night of 9 and 10 January, my combat group, with Regiment 125, moved up to the bunker, to the right of me our sister Regiment 192.

  The division had been supplied with a further artillery regiment, so we were somewhat better supported.

  The armored group of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division had tried in vain to force its way also into the neighboring village of Rittershoffen; our division now prepared to take Rittershoffen on 10 January.

  Reserve Major Willy Spreu commanded Regiment.192 in place of the sick Colonel Rauch. His attack on the Maginot Line north of Hatten had also come to a standstill on 9 January in front of the bunkers, his companies heavily reduced. As last reserve he still had his engineer platoon, consisting of one sergeant, one NCO, and 20 Fighting the Americans, December 1944 231 mostly inexperienced men. That evening Major Spreu positioned his antitank guns and heavy weapons opposite a bunker that was standing out clearly.

  As Major Spreu reported later, “At first light I moved up with the platoon of engineers, while my heavy weapons fired nonstop at the gun-ports in the bunker. We charged through the snow and within a few minutes were at the bunker. The engineers threw hand grenades into the ports, while others cut through the barbed wire and cleared mines. When we ran around to the rear entrance, the door opened and a white flag appeared with five officers and a garrison of 117 men. Four of the officers had suffered severe eye injuries from the firing at the ports. They were treated at once by the regimental doctor; the others were sent to the rear. The bunker turned out to be a heavily armed stronghold in an extensive system of fortifications, so I at once made it my command post.” Next day, in the affack on the hills north of Rittershoffen, Major Spreu was severely wounded and taken to the hospital. On 24 February, for his “personal bravery,” he was awarded the Knight's Cross.

  On 10 January, I moved up with my regiment for the attack on Rittershoffen. That night I succeeded in forcing my way into the village, but there too, just as at Hatten, the enemy held out in the houses and at once mounted a counterattack with tanks and infantry. This hit my II Battalion in particular, which had established itself in the center near the church.

  In these two villages of Hatten and Rittersboffen there now developed one of the hardest and most costly battles that had ever raged on the western front.

  The Americans strained every sinew to regain the Maginot Line, to avoid being cut off in the Strasbourg area. In Rittershoffen we were only.20 yards apart. Sometimes we would be in the first floor of a house while the Americans were in the cellar-and vice versa.

  This bitter house-to-house fighting raged for nearly two weeks.

  Both sides used their artillery nonstop, also flamethrowers.

  The Americans set fire to almost all the houses with incendiary shells. We took prisoners from the 827th U.S. Arinored Battalion, which consisted almost entirely of blacks. They told us their instructions were to shoot up or set on fire any house in which Germans-they “Nazis”-were to be found. I had to leave my own cellar in a said hurry when an incendiary shell burst in front of my look-out and we were in danger of suffocation. I moved into another cellar quite 232 PANZER COMMANDER close to the command post of Major Kurz, who with his 11 Battalion was having to bear the brunt of the attacks.

  Prisoners from the 14th U.S. Armored Division cursed, “Goddamn it, this is the bloodiest battle we've ever fought, worse than the legendary battle of Anzio in Italy.” Even now the civilian population remained in the two villages.

  Women, children, and old people, packed in like sardines, sat in the cellars of the houses. Electricity had been cut off, the supply of food was short, and there was no water for the pipes were frozen. We tried to help as much as we could. By day any movement was fatal; our supplies could be brought up only by night in armored vehicles. In this we were helped by a hollow, which concealed us from the enemy, whose flares threw the area into brilliant light.

  As early as the second day my regimental doctor came to me and angrily said, “I have up to 50 wounded lying in a cellar who are in urgent need of medical treatment. I have no morphine left and hardly any dressings. In another cellar there are more than 40 dead, who can't be buried here. I'm also doing what I can for the civilians.” On many nights I was at least able to send a few wounded civilians and men of my unit to the rear, past Hatten, and have ammunition brought up. My orderly officer, Dr. Mueller-Temme, had to get the ammunition boxes forward to the grenadiers, since all the other men of my staff were in action, to compensate to some extent for the losses in the two battalions.

  But neither the Americans, who now had elements of an armored division and two infantry divisions fighting in Rittershoffen, nor we would give way. Our battle in the two villages, as we heard later, was constantly being mentioned in army communiqu&s.

  After a few days I discovered that there were also elements of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division in Rittershoffen, who had got stuck there, while the bulk of them were fighting in Hatten. In both places we had elements of the 79th U.S. Infantry Division encircled for a time, but they fought their way out again with heavy losses. After eight days we had news that a parachute battalion was coming to Rittersh
offen as reinforcements.

  The place became a phantom village after only a- few days.

  Almost all the buildings, including the church, which was defended by Major Kurz's men, were in ruins. Many of the houses were on fire and lit up the scene at night. The dead lay about the streets, among them many civilians. We couldn't recover their bodies, since the Fighting the Americans, December 1944 233 enemy here was often no more than 15 or 20 yards away. The cows bellowed in their stalls unattended; the cadavers of animals stank and infected the air.

  After eight days we still didn't know whether we were continuing to fight there for reasons of prestige, or whether there was a tactical significance to our holding the positions.

  It seemed to me that we and our brave adversaries were no longer thinking of anything but survival. Contact with division had been lost after only a few days. Through our death-defying SPW crews of I Battalion, who every night ensured the removal of wounded and the provision of supplies, we heard that things looked much the same in Hatten as with us. There too a battalion of the 79th Infantry Division had been encircled at the beginning and had only freed itself after days of fighting.

  There too the northern and western parts were in our hands. The rest of the village was being defended tenaciously by the Americans.

  We heard that on 10 January a strong assault party of the 25th Grenadier Division had managed to crack a stronghold near Hatten and take 300 prisoners. With that the Maiinot Line had been bro n m ken through over a length of 10 kim In Hatten and Ritter 16 shoffen, and to the north of them, we were opelessly bogged down. Artillery duels on a colossal scale took place every day, heavier than we had ever experienced in Normandy.

  What oppressed us most was the fate of the innocent civilians.

  Over 100 dead, most of them children and old people, were later counted.

  On 14 January the Americans tried to recapture Rittershoffen and, in Hatten, free two battalions of the 79th U.S. Infantry Division that were trapped there. Thanks to the courageous performance of my combat group and elements of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, the attack was successfully beaten off with heavy losses for the enemy. We heard from prisoners that from 14 January command in the “Battle of Hatten-Rittershoffen” had been taken over by the 14th U,S. Armored Division. Attached to it in Rittershoffen were one battalion of the 79th Infantry Division, which for a time had been surrounded by us, and elements of the 42nd U.S. Rainbow Division. As the chronicle of the 14th U.S. Armored Division was later to record: “It was a brutal, bloody and slow business, worse than anything we had experienced.” On the following day, the Americans tried again, and again came to grief. On the two sides more than 10,000 shells were fired every day.

  On 17 January it snowed again heavily; visibility was down to a hundred yards. At dawn the Americans attacked Rittershoffen and Hatten with 45 tanks and infantry. They were supported by very heavy artillery fire. In the half-light, a strong assault party forced its way unexpectedly into Rittershoffen and took prisoner members of the regimental and battalion staffs of Panzer Grenadier Division, as well as some resting elements.

  Shortly after, a messenger rushed into my cellar, “Lieutenantcolonel, the Amis have captured almost all our staff officers and a lot of men. I just managed to get away. Can you help?” Thank goodness some elements of the parachute battalion and our own reconnaissance battalion were available and I was able to send them into a counterattack at once. They managed to free most of our men and take more than 80 prisoners.

  On 18 January, beginning at 1400 hours, the enemy again laid down a heavy artillery barrage on both villages and at 1700 hours, as it grew dark, moved in to attack Rittershoffen from the north and south. He thereby came up against the paratroops and my II Battalion. After heavy losses he was thrown back, our artillery having given us effective support.

  During !he night an orderly from division arrived to see me.

  “Lieutenant-Colonel, I am instructed by the divisional commander to brief you on the intentions of Army Group G. ”On 19 January an attack will be launched south of the Haguenau forest with a tank corps and the paratroop division from the extended bridgehead over the Rhine. Our division was to have been detailed for this. It was appreciated that for the moment a disengagement is impossible. The two burnt-out divisions engaged in Hatten-Rittershoffen are to simulate further attacking intentions, through increased activity by assault parties and the heavy use of artillery, in order to tie down the enemy forces employed there. The goal is to push past Haguenau to the west and then surround the enemy forces standing north of the River Moder.

  “It will interest you to know,” the young officer continued with amusement, “that Himmler has been entrusted with the high command of Rhine-sector south. Hitler himself, moreover, has ordered the new attack south of the Haguenau forest. Nothing more can now go wrong, Lieutenant-Colonel.” We had become so bold and full of gallows humor in the mean Fighting the Americans, December 1944 235 time that such remarks, which were punishable by demotion or even the death penalty, were now permissible.

  “Very well,” I dismissed the young lieutenant, “let us then rely on Himinler and his 'war experience.”' In spite of heavy artillery fire, the fighting for our two villages, up to 90 percent destroyed, subsided in the next two days. Only in Hatten did the paratroops, supported by a few tanks, once again attack the brave 79th U.S. Infantry Division. The Americans defended themselves with guns, pistols, bazookas, and knives house by house, so that the attack had to be broken off.

  In the evening of 19 January advance parties of the 47th Volksgrenadier Division arrived; they had been brought up by train from Germany and were to relieve us. During the night the heavily reduced elements of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division were relieved, to be restored to strength further to the rear.

  The remainder of this brave division werepulled out during the night of 20 and 21 January.

  On the morning of that cold winter day, the 21st, a suspicious calm lay over and around Rittershoffen. I asked Major Kurz to find out, by means of an assault party, what the enemy was up to.

  I myself glanced as usual from my cellar window across to the ruined houses on the other side of the street, where we had often seen individual Americans flitting back and forth.

  Everything was quiet; even the enemy guns were silent, Then Major Kurz came running the hundred yards to my command post, “Lieutenant-Colonel, the Amis have gone; they've evacuated the place during the night, under cover of their artillery.” Kurz looked at me from his red-rimmed eyes. I pressed his hand.

  “So that's it, Kurz. Thanks for all you and your men have done.” Unshaven, with our “U-boat” ds, we stood facing each other. We couldn't grasp that the murderous battle was over.

  “There are no winners and no losers here. So what was it all for?” Slowly the exhausted men came out of teir cellars; a few civilians appeared. They had tears in their eyes.

  “Is it all over now? Can we bury our dead?”

  “We are so sorry for you and your lovely village. This damn war! For you it's now at an end.” Thoughtfully Kurz and I walked with slow steps to the church, only a part of which was still undamaged.

  Through a gaping hole in the wall we went in. I stood facing the altar, which lay in ruins, and looked up at the organ. It seemed to be unharmed. A few more of our men came in.

  “Come,” I called to a lance-corporal, "we'll climb.up to the organ.,, On arriving above, I asked the man to tread the bellows. I sat down at the organ and-it was hardly believable-it worked.

  On the spur of the moment I began to play Bach's chorale Nun danket alle Gott. It resounded through the ruins to the outside. More and more of my men climbed into the battered church, followed by old women and children, who knelt on the ground and quietly prayed. My men were not ashamed of their tears.

  What had happened? What had made the Americans abandon the two villages and relinquish the chance of retaking the Maginot Line still, in spite of everything?

  After
a few days we knew. Captured officers stated that the 7th U.S. Army, which was responsible for the sector, had reported to their Army group that the divisions engaged in Hatten-Rittershoffen had become so reduced that they could no longer hold their positions. The U.S. Army group had thereupon ordered the villages of Hatten and Rittershoffen, along with the Maginot Line in the area north of the Haguenau forest, to be abandoned. Prepared positions were to be taken up on the River Moder, which flowed east from the Vosges through Haguenau.

  The 39th Panzer Corps and the 14th SS Panzer Corps, following the paratroop division, had moved west out of the bridgehead over the Rhine and had reached Haguenau. With that the Americans were threatened with encirclement north of the Haguenau forest. On 21 January, strong combat detachments were already pushing west out of Rittershoffen. During the morning of the 22nd we were relieved by the Volksgrenadier Division and reached the River Moder west of Haguenau. The brave 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, struggling south over icy roads through the snow-covered Haguenau forest, also reached the Moder. Our grenadier companies were down to 20 or 30 men. All the same, success was within our grasp: the Americans could be cut off from Strasbourg.

  Then, with no previous warning, orders reached us to pull out, on 25 January, and assemble in the area of the little town of Kandel, west of the Rhine on the hills by Karlsruhe, to be

  Fighting the Americans, December 1944 237 to strength. IME 25th Panzer Grenadier Division had already been pulled out on 24 January and moved to the area north of Kandel.

  We were naturally pleased to have a few days rest after the heavy fighting at Rittershoffen, but couldn't understand why we had been withdrawn so close to reaching our goal.

  We were to learn the reason sooner than we would have wished.

  At Kandel we found brand new material, as well as a replacement battalion. Welcome though that was to us, we often didn't know who would drive the new tanks, SPWS, and assault-guns, or man their guns. Our casualties in trained drivers, gunners, and commanders had been too great. So by day and by night people from the replacement battalion were given a makeshift training.