In the Fire of the Eastern Front

by Hendrick C. Verton

  In the next village, but some way off, all the inhabitants had fled. It had become a small garrison for us, as a line of defence, 24 hours a day. In order to reach it, we had an hour-long march, hindered by an icy snowstorm from the north and metre high wind-blown drifts. Underway we rendered first-aid to one another by rubbing the left side of each other’s face with snow. Only so could we avoid the threatening frostbite when yellow patches appeared as the first symptoms on the skin.

  We did our best to make our new quarters into a home. In the one allocated to us, an optimist had written, “Humour is when one laughs in the face of all odds”, in the soot on the ceiling. In the warmth of the hut and as I lay on my bed of straw, I used to gaze at it and tried to take heart from this indirect advice, although none of us had forgotten how to laugh. There was always a clown to make a loose joke or two. We had two of those happy souls with us, in the form of two Danish brothers, twins, from Copenhagen, the same age as myself, 18 years old. With their white-blond hair and pink baby cheeks, they represented the typical prototype of the Germanic volunteer. The type appeared as the young and typical, dynamic soldier of the new Europe in the magazine Signal and were good, sporty soldiers, whom we could not understand when speaking at their normal speed. When speaking German, we puzzled at their lisping, swinging, vocabulary mingled with a Danish accent and we nicknamed them sür-su. We only had to open the door of the hut for a second or two and with their aversion to a cold draught they chorused Tür-zu but which rang in the air as sür-su, i.e. ‘shut the door!’

  We were therefore concerned and upset, when hearing that their trench at the end of the village was deserted one morning, when the relieving guards approached it, and there was no sign of the blonde brothers. We never saw them again. We had to assume that during their night of guard duty, they had fallen foul of Soviet soldiers using a snow storm to silently approach their trench, overpower them and take them away, which very often happened.

  On dark nights the guards of the front-line sent flares over the front terrain, flares on small parachutes. In order to let the Russians know that we were in readiness, we also shot a volley or two from our machine-guns. In doing that we, at the same time, sent away many a hungry wolf as it approached our trenches. Whole packs would come too close for comfort. On nights with a full moon, we were able to see enemy positions. That same moon which shone on friend and foe alike, from Leningrad to the Black Sea, also shone we knew, on our loved ones at home.

  On one of those sunny days in December, we were suddenly surprised by a cheeky Russian ‘double-decker’ or biplane aircraft circling above our heads. We ran outside, only half-dressed, to take a look at it. The cheekiness of the pilot flying so low over the roofs meant that he must have known that we did not possess anti-aircraft guns. We shot at him with our pistols and rifles like crazy, which did nothing to scare the pilot, clear to see in his leather cap and goggles. He calmly made a bow over the village before disappearing to the east. It did not end there however, for he returned during the night. That time he stretched his arm overboard and dropped two bombs on us, without doing any harm. But we were to be pestered continually by those Russian ‘double-deckers’, or ‘sewing machines’, as we called them, for the ‘Ivans’ loved to disturb our peace.

  The fighting zone of our battalion included several villages. With a strength of 800 men, we should have had a defence-line of around only 1,000 metres, based on the theory that the defence-line of an infantry division of 8,000, was 10,000 metres. We had to guard much more, three or four times as much. Armed patrols kept the communication system open between the units, which was only possible after dark. In that flat no-man’s land, there were only small woods of birches dotted around for cover and the enemy had a good view of the countryside. There was a telephone connection from village to village and the field-lines, open to extreme elements and enemy fire, were very often in need of repair. The men carrying out the work had to be protected. Communications had to be kept open at all times whether dangerous to life and limb or not. It was a very necessary and continual commitment for the men and their protection had to be reliable as well. Recce patrols were always in demand in connection with such work and of all the men to be used, our group was chosen. That after-dark task became routine, a dangerous commodity, for it gave our enemy a weapon to use against us. We used the same well-worn paths through two small woods, in order not to lose one another.

  The routine enabled the Russians to lay mines in our path, which became a suicide mission for us, in every sense of the word. Some of the mines were laid with trip-wires and were nearly invisible in the dark. We started to lose men in that way. Two of our comrades were severely wounded. The situation became one that meant those protecting the men doing their work, also had to be protected. Combat engineers were sent ahead of us with mine-detectors. They did not have the expected success however for the mines were not detectable with our type of detectors. Before burying them the Russians encased them in wood. It then became clear to us that with tricks like that, we had to outwit the ‘Ivans’ also with tricks, but ones that were far better. Our regular route had been our undoing and so we had to use another. Or else we let our enemy think that we were using another, and that could only be achieved by using ski-troops. Our ski-comrades helped us pull the wool over their eyes by forming another route for us, but that was not all. The Russians were quick to follow the new route and our ski-comrades were waiting for them. They had used the new route, and at a spot where they could not be seen, had turned round, and using the tracks that they had made, returned to a spot for an ambush, which turned out to be a deadly trap for our cunning friends.

  That winter in Russia provided many a possibility for sly ruses, but to our disadvantage. The Russians were on home ground and one step ahead of us. We were to experience how they turned everything to their advantage, including our worst enemy, the snow. One of the ‘harmless’ ruses of war was their underground work, a tunnel system that they used to reach our trenches. They were underground fighters in every sense of the word. Like moles they burrowed through the snow, to reach us. The Siberian troops were the experts, who else?

  One of the meanest however, that only the Russians could think of, was the use of ‘living mines’ for tanks and other vehicles. They used dogs, Alsatians mostly, or the Doberman, with mines strapped to their bodies. Not only humans had to suffer in the war, but God’s creatures too. More than enough of them were to be seen in the eastern campaign, for instance in Mussino, 70 kilometres north-west from Moscow, with Russian Cavalry. It was, at least, spectacular.

  It happened in the early hours of the 19 November 1941, when a whole Russian regiment of cavalry with 1,000 horses, galloped in closed formation towards the modern German machine guns with shining sabres. The snow-covered low land was turned into a bloodstained battlefield between volleys from the machine-guns and the mortars, splintering, catapulting everything in its path eight metres into the air. It was suicide by slaughter. It had been the same with the Polish Uhlans two years before. The attacking Mongolian riders were also slaughtered, without one German soldier receiving a scratch.

  On the fourth day of Advent in the same year, soldiers from our 3rd Panzer Regiment came across a monument of ice, which can only be described as such. Perhaps in a snowstorm, with no alternative shelter, soldiers from a Russian Cavalry unit, came to a halt, some dismounting to take shelter and warmth amongst their horses. One, a wounded soldier with his leg in a splint, was still mounted and with his eyes wide open, had frozen to death in the saddle. Men and horses, with their heads stretched high, had frozen where they had stood and had become a monument of ice.

  We also had first-hand experiences of the plight of helpless animals, such as the thin, faithful, Cossack horse, still to be found by the side of his dead master, snowed-in, up to his stomach unable to move. How long he had patiently waited we do not know, but only his faint neighs could be heard among the sounds of war, which humans had created. We cared for those creature
s when humanly possible, as best we could. Decades later, I still cannot understand how we accepted the fate of those animals as we did. Were we too busy with ourselves? Had we become unconscious and carefree so much, in the toughening-up process of our youth, or did the fate of humans overshadow the plight of the animals? Death in war was always present, that is true, but nevertheless despite becoming accustomed to its presence, it always moved us anew.

  With the first wounded or the first deaths, the young volunteer was always filled with respect, for the hero’s death was seldom gentle and free of pain. We could always tell from the wide-open eyes starting from a yellow-tinged face. The thought of sharing the same fate filled our minds as we saw the first dead, the first lifeless comrade. He who had been so full of life, had joked, had moaned, had told us about his home and his family so that we already knew his parents and sister, and his brothers. For him there were no mornings or evenings any more, just death. As silent witnesses, we knew that his mother would weep bitter tears, but at that moment she didn’t know. We knew also that a medic in his icy shelter somewhere, or a company clerk, would remove his name from the company lists, upon receipt of his ‘dog-tag’ and his bloodstained pay-book. He would write the standard letter of condolence to her, which included of course, how brave he had been in the face of death and been such an upstanding example of a good comrade.

  When an order to dig a grave was received, with experience, we began the procedure with hand-grenades. In that earth of concrete how do you bury your dead? We began by making three holes, the size of a hand-grenade, with an iron pole. Then we made a ring of water around it, which froze, holding the grenade in place and then ran for our lives, after pulling the pin, as the frozen clods of earth exploded into the air with a mighty force. The procedure was repeated until with the help of an ice-pick, we could enlarge the hole to a man-sized grave. We buried our comrade in it, usually at one end of a village or on the roadside. There was no other way.

  For the practised soldier, the war was now hard reality and we had to master the days as they came, without acts of hero ism, individual or en masse. When being honest, it was not how any of us had imagined it to be. It could not be compared to the romantic storybook laced with heroes, brave deeds, and their courageousness. How many of us were brave soldiers?

  Before every battle we all had butterflies in our stomachs. I, apart from the fear of being taken prisoner, had a terrible fear of being shot in the head, as if being shot in the stomach or anywhere else come to that, was not just as bad? We all unconsciously, or consciously, avoided danger when we could. Does that not lie in the self-preservation within every human being? In the time of war however, it is very unfairly charged as cowardice and blanketing of guilt, which we didn’t understand. Any who were foolhardy enough found a very quick grave. To be able to use a rifle is no proof courage. Unity within company and battalion resulted in a high standard of warfare. It needed less ammunition. The level-headed and disciplined soldier counted far, far more as a courageous one, for me personally. A comrade on whom I could count, who took no unnecessary risks and knew what he was doing, was worth his weight in gold, in my eyes.

  We were described as an ‘elite’ organisation and understandably we had to behave like one. The continuous standard of conduct expected of us however, was not always very easy and cost lots of discipline. That discipline meant split-second reflexes by drilling, and split-second obedience upon receiving orders without hesitation. Instinct was not wished for and had to be eradicated. Because of our military education and ideals we could not afford to weaken, when confronted with an extreme situation in combat. We were not threatened with a court martial. The combustion, which drove us to self-sacrifice, was psychological. We told ourselves “I must do it or we are all lost”. That motivation stood foremost with us in the Waffen SS.

  Under Stalin, deserters from the Red Army, or cowards, were shot on the spot, without a court martial. Absence of steadfastness within the troop was a bloody punishment for all. To become a prisoner of the enemy was a disgrace, which when landing back on one’s home front was punished with the death-sentence. That was not all, for family members of the said ‘sinner’ were then arrested and imprisoned (Stalin’s secret law No. 270 16 August 1941).

  “The world is a constant conspirator against the courageous”, was the opinion of the American General Douglas MacArthur. He was right. In defeated Germany at that time, opportunists were using the chance to ridicule the virtue and achievement of the German soldier. His awards of honour, and decorations of distinction, were described as a Christmas-tree decoration, as tinsel. Little did the German soldier know, during the war years, and it was right to be so, that his efforts, sacrifices and his duty-bound conduct would be continually slandered, a few years after. Our slogan “My honour is my loyalty” was, for the slanderers, one of seven pledges in a book, but it was not for us.

  We depended, time and time again, on the reliability of our comrades in a tough and bitter fight. That was to be the case at the end of December 1941. Perhaps it was just before Christmas. Instinctively we knew that this time could perhaps be our last, as we began to march to a larger town, to the east of us. It was of great strategic importance. The Wehrmacht, in face of overwhelming odds, had not been able to hold it on their own. Nowwe, the Waffen SS were the trouble-shooters.

  An impressive number of strongly armed soldiers in white ‘cammos’, assembled together at around mid-day and then advanced through a bleak and empty Steppe. As the evening began to fall, we saw the first woods, like strokes from a pencil on the horizon. Then we approached the rear-guard of the Wehrmacht. It was a very sorry picture and perhaps the same tragic scene as when Napoleon’s beaten Army had retreated from Moscow.

  The dead had been brought from the Front, wrapped in blankets, stacked on a cart and now were frozen. Their boots and articles of warm clothing had been removed and distributed to those still fighting. Naked and yellow unwashed feet, feet in socks with gaping holes, and feet wrapped in filthy wrappings poked from the blankets, or the pieces of tenting used to wrap them in. They at least, no longer felt the cold. Then there were the wounded on sledges having been pulled by exhausted ponies, lying on blood-stained straw, enveloped in tattered blankets or paper sacks, anything that could give a modicum of warmth. Hardly to be seen, we heard their moans of pain, as the frost bit into their wounds and which, when left unattended, brought them an eventual death. The scene did nothing to motivate us, on the contrary. Soldiers passed us by, soldiers who had been through hell. They gave us blank, lifeless glances. They stared at us pityingly. “Cannon-fodder like us!” was probably what they thought. Their misery did nothing to enhance our hopes of a forthcoming victory. We pulled ourselves together with hangman’s humour. “The Guard may die, but will never surrender”, is how we encouraged one another. Now, more than ever, we had to pull ourselves and each other together.

  In his book Soldiers of Death, the American author and historian Charles W. Sydnor said, “When and wherever a situation was at its most dangerous, and hopes of success at zero, it was the Waffen SS who saved the day with counter-attacks which weakened their opponents”. “No one needs to try and tell me that when fighting in Russia, they were not damned scared”, announced our patrol leader, who wore the Iron Cross 1st Class and then shouted, “Let’s go”.

  However, high banks of iced snow hindered our path and an icy wind blew, turning our noses and ears white in seconds. The advance was therefore very slow. We had support after a while from tanks, which we mounted until shortly before our objective. By now darkness had fallen. The tanks, PzKpfw IVs, had been painted white, but nothing could camouflage the red glow from their exhausts. It was this red glow that each tank followed. Firstly, it was always a target for the enemy. Secondly, it was the end of many. Clouds of snow were churned into the air behind us and time and time again, we had to jump down to free the track from clumps of ice and snow.

  Upon nearing a village on the edge of a wood, which it w
as clear to see had been attacked, we jumped down from the tanks. As always the terrain in front of us was flat and without cover. Now and again weak attempts to fire at us came from remnants of troops left in the village and also a flare or two lit the sky, but that was all, it was seemingly quiet.

  The golden rule after dark, of noiseless movement from your own body and equipment that you carried, was now superfluous, for with the roar of the engines and squeak of the tracks, we could hardly hear the commands of our superiors. Suddenly shots whipped the air from the wood and our machine-guns systematically strewed the wood from one end to the other and was the start for an explosion of fire, the like of which I had never seen. Undisturbed, machine-gun fire clattered from the dark wood from several spots, which could be seen by the red tracers from the gun-barrels. Luckily, their tracer ammunition flew high over our heads.

  The Russians possessed a weapon which put the fear of God into us, which we had nicknamed the Ratschbumm with a 7.62cm barrel, somewhat larger than that on a tank. It was not the size which worried us, but that one did not hear the launch of the shell. You didn’t hear where it was coming from, just the explosion of it upon landing. The decibels from the salvos were now deafening. The earth raised itself up at the shock of every detonation. Biting clouds of gunpowder mixed with the yellow-brown pillar of smoke caused by the explosions rose up. We sought the shelter of the tanks time and time again, and time and time again our commanders sought to prise us away from them. We clung to them however, like frightened children clinging to mother’s skirt for cover, but there was none.