We were finally issued weapons and with that status, in Klagenfurt. Just as in other armies, we were to be sworn-in as soldiers. It was noticeable that none of the volunteers were forced to take those vows of allegiance. Anyone could then leave without disadvantage, if of the opinion that they were not grown up enough for service to their country and the responsibility thereof, or if they had reservations concerning the conditions of the oath they were about to swear. Their point of view was respected and without any attempts to persuade or convince from their superiors, they could at that point return home as civilians. After duties of the soldier, disciplinary measures, honour, oath to the flag, as well as other regulations were read to us in detail, we then stood under the military, penal law of the Wehrmacht.
The battalion was assembled for swearing-in on the barrack-square in groups of four, and flanked by small upright stacks of machine-guns. With our right hands raised, and our left hands on a drawn sword, in chorus we repeated our oath after an officer. “I swear to you, our leader Adolf Hitler, faithfulness and bravery. I pledge obedience to you and my superiors until my death, so help me God”. It was done in front of our highest commanders.
The pledge was sealed with the tattooing of everyone’s blood-group on the inside of their left arm. It was done as a medical insurance for a quick and life-saving blood-transfusion on the battlefield. However, after the war, it proved to be a stigma for tens of thousands. It was known as ‘the mark of Cain’. They were made lepers of society. It cost them, in many cases, no less than their lives.
Now I was officially a soldier of the Waffen SS and my unit was the 4th Company of the surrogate battalion ‘Westland’, belonging to the ‘Wiking’ Division. This Division was one of the armoured divisions, equipped with rocket-launchers and machine-gun squads and we bore the burden of those machines. We had to carry them, which we did, willingly. In this way, we could stay together as the former unit from Sennheim. New members arrived in numbers, from other northern countries, such as Scandinavia. Things did not always run smoothly for our instructors, having to adjust to the mentality of those young men from the north.
There were problems right from the beginning with the blond northerners, especially with the Danes. They were stubborn, coarse, critical, and loved good drink and food. They complained about the menus from the military kitchens, the food not being to their liking at all. Now and again such criticism even reached obstinacy and defiance.
The German instructors did win their faith, after what seemed to the Dutch, with their strong national sensitivity, to be nothing but harassment and humiliation, which they hated. After a dose of encouragement, they were found to be approachable and, despite everything, showed a wide-awake sense of justice and a spirit of comradeship.
The Norwegians were to be more difficult, more earnest and contemplative. Once you had won their trust too, however, then you had it forever. Most came from villages or small towns from that sparsely populated land, having grown up in comparatively close-knit, down-to-earth communities. They were calmer, possessed a youthful, carefree light-heartedness, which within their military sphere developed their instincts to almost carelessness later, in particular where their own personal safety on the front was concerned. Those young men could also be a joy to their instructors and many were to show how much they were prepared to offer in their first operation as soldiers, and what magnificent comrades those volunteers would prove to be.
With the standard commands, the verbal chaos between the Danes and Norwegians, Flemish, Dutch, and Germans, was gradually overcome. Just as the French 140 years before, Germany had after-all a function in Europe and through their language, especially in the evening after duty, the communication ‘barrier’ of the new ‘European Army’ collapsed.
The language of weapons was foremost in Klagenfurt and demanded from those who carried them, the utmost from every man. We had believed, in our naïvety, that the military ‘polish’ suffered in Sennheim could not be improved upon. We were to learn very quickly, how wrong we were. It was all part of a procedure in supplying the ‘Wiking’ division with front-line combat-ready troops.
Our instructors were upright, strapping soldiers from the Ostmark, a new region won from the Polish Campaign, and who were often more Prussian than the Prussians themselves. We had to be professionals, and follow in the footsteps of the front-experienced soldiers and their praiseworthy actions. “Every soldier should be an athlete. He must run with lightning speed, jump as wide and as high as possible, throw as far as he can and march quickly, with stamina and staying power”, said Felix Steiner. The target was to train a modern grenadier who was stalker, hunter and a fierce storm-trooper at the same time.
The privates shouldered the heavy 8cm mortar, dismantled the barrel, strapping the carriage, weighing no less, on to their backs. Others carried the ammo boxes with the rounds, accompanied by the company’s heavy machine-gun squad. After an extensive march, we practised approaching the enemy, for hours on end, using natural protection, when at hand. We chose spots on the edge of woods, hollows or large rocks to erect in haste and with a practised hand, the MG 34 onto its tripod mount. After brief instructions from our instructor, we heard the command, “Sights at 250. Fire!” Twenty-five rounds of blanks per second burst from every barrel. Then we heard, “Volte deckung! stellungswechsel!” and we had to take cover, and change our positions.
When the exercise was not executed with the desired speed, ‘gas-mask’ practice was then on the agenda. Made from rubberised tenting material, breathing through gas-masks was twice as difficult when executing the above-mentioned activity! We thought that we would suffocate. We could not expect pity from our instructors, and received none, for we had to run like greyhounds as the ‘Elite’, be as tough as leather and hard as Krupps steel, which was for us at that moment in time, very, very unimportant. With the pressing weight of the weapons, we climbed the slopes, up and down repeatedly in the searing heat, to then wade in full uniform into an ice-cold river and cross to the other side, because an imaginary bridge had been blown. The torture did not end on the return march, for suddenly a cry “plane from the right”, or left, rang in our ears and we had to dive for cover in a ditch, when one was there, or take flight into the nearest wood.
As a reward and as relaxation, when one could call it that, a visit to the cinema or to the theatre was arranged for the evening. Once again, after our evening meal, the company marched the seven kilometres into Klagenfurt. We found, that with the going-down of the burning sun and marching on tarred roads that the seven kilometres were not so bad. However, we had the seven kilometres to march back to the barracks, after sitting in the warm, dark cosiness of the cinema. Not even the magical Marikka Rokk had kept us awake, in A Night in May. After such an exhausting day our marching feet took us back, practically in our sleep.
The Ufa-films in Klagenfurt were much more to our taste. The ‘films’, from the projector on to the screens in the barracks, were about sexual diseases, for our education, and to shock us! Explained to us in detail by the company doctor, pictures were shown to us, mercilessly impressing the dangers of infection upon us. Examples from the First World War were shown to us, whereby syphilis and gonorrhoea infections were deliberately used as weapons, to put careless soldiers out of action. Somewhat confused by such drastic and extreme measures, in connection with loose sexual practices and their results, the impression made on us, as we young men left the class, did not go unnoticed.
During the day, we were once again to be found on the shadowless barrack square, exercising for hours on end in the merciless sun, which for us had nothing, but nothing to do with the acts of heroes. “Present arms! Tempo one! Tempo two!” was to be heard for weeks on end, and we practised, and practised, until our presentation of arms was exact. Even our ‘goose-step’ for march parades was to become our special talent. We, the 4th Company, were to become the ‘presentation unit’ of the battalion, the honour of which, in the face of things we had fought hard for with
our sweat. The punishing drilling in Klagenfurt, which tore at one’s strength, the blunt but necessary hitting the ground, standing up, running to crawl over muddy ground in helmet, with weapon and knapsack, followed us into our dreams, although it did us no harm.
This bodily strengthening was to be our saving on the battlefield and was to prove the saying ‘sweat saves blood’, time and time again saving our skin. The iron discipline and growth to manhood that we had to learn, was to our good stead in tight situations and not only in war, but also in POW camps and the troubled years following the war. Even today, very many of the old comrades have profited personally from their strict military upbringing.
Naturally enough, our lives in Klagenfurt did not only consist of moans and groans. We also had our hours of pleasure on Sundays, gathering together by the well-known stone ‘Lindwurm’ fountain, in the ‘old town’ of the city in order to meet, this time, the ‘daughters of Austria’. Well-groomed and dressed to kill, sometimes our caps a little too slanted over our very short back-and-sides, we ‘lads from Lendorf’ were eagerly awaited by the dirndl, the folk dress of Austria and other Alpine lands. That was how the Ostmark population got to know us, the ‘volunteers’ of the Waffen SS, and that was how we courted the young and feminine of their land. The soldier-lads, quick-witted and intelligent, with their unmistakable native accent when speaking German, were very certain of a response from the ‘maidens from Carinthia’.
Our sergeant-major knew this too. How could he not know? He was from the Ostmark. He warned us every time we had free time against developing a serious relationship. He warned us that we were too young and about to be sent to the front. But he also told us with a grin, that there were never as many illegitimate children to be found in the world, as in Carinthia! It was said that the ‘Lindwurm’ himself would wag his tail, when a virgin were to walk past him, and that has not happened in Klagenfurt, ‘till today!’
Despite the warnings, nothing was going to spoil our fun, including comrades, or those with contact with middle-class young ladies, who were certainly no novices from the nunnery! So it was that in not wanting to part from our ‘flame’, or end our enjoyment in our local on each Sunday evening, we noticed very often, that the time had slipped by and we would arrive at the barrack-gates later than was allowed. In order to avoid house-arrest, or even worse the dreaded extra drill, we chose a spot furthest away from the nearest guards and hopped over the barrack walls and crept in, in stockinged feet, with our boots in our hands, to creep into our beds. We escaped the guards and we escaped the punishment for such an escapade, when in reality it would have been character building and better to have obeyed the rules!
CHAPTER 9
Solstice in the East
The offensive named ‘Barbarossa’ began in the early morning hours, just before daybreak, at 3.15 am. The German Army had begun their march into Russia, on 22 June 1941. Thousands of guns thundered over a 2,500 wide front, from Finland to the Black Sea against the East, on that fateful June night.
At 5.30, a fanfare burst over every German radio channel heralding a broadcast from the Minister for Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. In minutes, not only the German people but the whole world knew about Hitler’s campaign against Russia. Supported by the Air Force, a Blitzkrieg operation was underway, with regiments of tanks which were to eradicate the Red Army that was massed together just behind their borders. The plan rested on speed and surprise, and it appeared to work.
Was Stalin surprised by this German offensive? “Yes”, said Vicitor Suvarov, from the former Red Army General Staff. However, the peaceful impression that Russia had given was the lull before the storm, the storm on Germany. Stalin was about to attack Germany and everything was being prepared. The massing of his army was not for de fence purposes. In his book The Icebreaker, Vicior Suvarov states that “Stalin would have used Hitler’s advancing troops to crush the whole of Europe, if he had chosen another time. Hitler however was too early, by two weeks”.
The following was published in 1989 in the magazine Der Spiegel from an eyewitness:
Hitler’s attack coincided with the deployment of the Red Army. Suvarov’s revelations confirm what was crystal-clear to every German soldier on 22 June 1941, in crossing over Russia’s border. Their units found makeshift airfields, uncountable store-houses, divisions of airborne troops, and gigantic numbers of tanks. Woe betide us, had we waited until the Red Army had fulfilled this operation.
It was certainly no coincidence that over two and a half million Red Army soldiers, together with those from White Russia, were stationed where they were in Ukraine, at the time of Germany’s attack. The Wehrmacht captured enormous amounts of weaponry, even in the first weeks of the war. The hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoners from this powerful army were proof enough to convince every German soldier down to every private, that the ‘Barbarossa’ operation was a preventive measure against an obvious act of aggression aimed at Germany. “Russia was in every measure prepared for a western offensive, at every conceivable moment.” (Quote from General Franz Halder the German Chief of Staff)
Alexander Werth, correspondent from an British newspaper, and in Moscow during the Second World War, wrote in his book Russia at War, that “in his speech from 5 May 1941, Stalin stated that “war with Germany is unavoidable, with the existing international situation. The Red Army can expect a German attack, or take the initiative itself.”
In Hitler’s proclamation of 22 June 1941 he stated,
The responsibility of the largest formation of fighting forces of all times, is not only for the safety of individual lands, but the safety of Europe and we, the German Reich, do not stand alone. Many states, who with certainty do not want to remember their former call to arms of yesterday, are today joining the crusade against Communism.
After Hungary had joined forces with Germany in Yugoslavia, their army also took part in the eastern offensive. Italy also sent divisions to the Russian front, proclaiming their unity with Germany. On 23 June, Slovakia, after taking part in the Polish campaign in 1939, also appeared on the front. Spain’s government declared their sympathy with the Axis powers, allowing the formation of the volunteer division called the ‘Blue Division’, but declining any part in the leadership of that offensive, in comparison with other western powers. Finland, although having conducted a doubtful winter campaign against Soviet invaders in 1939/40, now operated together with German mountain troops in northern Russia. Bulgaria and Rumania were natural brothers-in-arms from the beginning, their relationship with Germany over time having become very close. In 1940 Rumania had to cede both Bessarabian and Bukovinian territories to the Soviet Union, and now they wanted to recover their old rights.
The military worth and reliability of those brothers-in-arms who stood under our command, was varied. Leon Degrelle, a Walloon and East Front fighter, remembered after the war that,
we had very noisy neighbours, the Rumanians, who ensured hellish noise, more than 20,000 lying on our left flank. They shot at everything and nothing, the unending ‘rat-tat-tat’ making the Russians wild and inviting them to retaliate. In one single night, the Rumanians used two whole weeks’ supply of ammunition that the whole sector could and would have used. We lay in the defensive lines, and worthless and senseless counter-reactions were the result, in which we were involved. It was not war anymore but a disturbance of the peace! They did retrieve their Bessarabian territory and conquered Odessa too. They fought their way through to the Crimea and to the Donets basin, making a name for themselves.
Unfortunately, the Rumanians possessed much of the basic characteristics of the Russian, including a very wild nature and we had to suffer for their measures of revenge on the prisoners they took and slaughtered. Nonetheless, the German non-stop march brought them to Smolensk within the first three weeks of the war, then to the outskirts of Kiev and the Leningrad perimeter, giving the Russians a paralysing shock and causing panic and confusion.
There were many Wehrmacht generals w
ho were convinced that, by the second week in July, the war was nearly won, nearly. However, it was not at an end. The American General Staff had already offered their opinion by 23 June 1941, on the situation in the East. “Germany will need between one and three months to conquer Russia”. A week later the opinion of the British General Staff was, “It is possible that this ‘lightning’ war still needs six to eight weeks, before final victory”. The euphoria of the German ‘victors’ infected the population of the annexed Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who had had much to suffer in the recent past. They greeted the Wehrmacht heartily as liberators. Even in ‘old Russia’ the situation was the same in many towns, the people having had more than enough of Communism. Since the October Revolution in 1917, they had suffered expropriation, ethnic cleansing and mass-murder, through deliberate starvation, bitter poverty, robbery of personal freedom, not to mention the suppression of their religion and churches.
The expectations of the local residents from the Germans were fulfilled by the service given in the Smolensk Cathedral in August of 1941, and in churches that had been used as party-archives, warehouses or cinemas. “Former Ukrainian clergy donned their long-hidden robes once more, and blessed the people of all ages streaming into their churches”. (Erich Helmdach, Überfall)
The Orthodox Bishop of Archimandrit, Bovis Jokubovski, thanked the commander of an engineer battalion for the resurrection of the Russian Houses of God, and the Cathedral churches, on 5 October 1941. He said, “It is our duty to give our heart-felt thanks to you, your engineers and Adolf Hitler and we will never forget”.
In the Fire of the Eastern Front Page 8
