In the Fire of the Eastern Front

by Hendrick C. Verton

  As Wachhabender (commandant) at the NCO School in Lauenburg, Pomerania in 1944 (front row, far left)

  Every day we exercised outdoors, with the infantry howitzers and mortars. Our numbers had grown and totalled a full battalion, with men from Pomerania and East Prussia, plus many from other units. Most had Front experience, but there were others who had just finished their training and were waiting for their baptism of fire. Some couldn’t wait for ‘a piece of action’, and others only said so to hide their fear. From our own 11th Company, we were now 120 men and grew into a close and faithful clique.

  Unexpectedly, as we were exercising at the daily terrain training, a messenger reported that we must all return to camp straight away. There we had to assemble on the parade ground, in the snow. The assembled battalion was then informed, in few words but of military tone, the reason for our hasty return. We were then given our marching orders, but not before we were reminded that “every man must fulfil his oath to his flag and do his duty to protect his fatherland from the storm of the Bolsheviks”. Iron rations, live ammunition and extra daily rations were issued to us. Personal items, considered to be superfluous, were stored in the attic of the barracks. The post office suddenly filled with telegrams and hurriedly written letters to family and friends back home. For some, they would be their last letters. Others would eventually return home. We were sent off to the Breslau garrison, on the same day, as an independent regiment, SS Regiment Besslein, to ‘combat ready’ positions.

  It was from southern Poland that the Russian Marshall Zhukov approached Breslau, with a strong and superior force. Despite ferocious German defensive actions, his advance could not be stopped. Marshall Koniev was also advancing, just as strong and supported by uncountable tanks, having crossed the Oder at Baranov. Both used bridgeheads to cross the river, which had been no hindrance, neither hoped for nor expected.

  Stalin, fully aware of the problems on the Western Front, with the Ardennes offensive, asked the Allies if he could anticipate his own plans by eight days. He had dropped reconnaissance troops by parachute, in small groups, behind our lines. They were equipped with powerful radio sets, with the receiving range of two to three hundred kilometres. He knew precisely every move that we made. Our coded information, on fortification, strength of units, troop movement and, in particular, the combat areas of the Waffen SS who were feared by the Russians, was used against us for their plan of attack, by their military chief of staff. Information was also received from his undercover network of Russian workers in Breslau. They, amongst other things, befriended the refugees for the slightest information which would be of help, and that could also be passed on to our enemies.

  With Breslau having been declared a ‘fortress city’ in the summer of 1944, it was therefore not surprising that the whole of the population was still there at the beginning of January 1945. As a junction for traffic, Breslau, which was in the heart of Silesia, was an open city and only wishful thinking could make it the classical fortress that it had once been. It was now protected by only a few lightly-built bunkers on the left bank of the Oder. Unfortunately, its military worth was vastly exaggerated.

  The ‘fortification order’ from Berlin, had not been taken seriously enough by the region’s Gauleiter, who did very little for the defence of the town. The Gauleiter, Karl Hanke, did order anti-tank ditches to be made. But those were put near the former German/Polish border, along with other defensive installations, as part of ‘Operation Barthold’. All of it was too far away, and as it proved later, of absolutely no use in hindering the advance of the Russians.

  Despite directives of evacuation for the city having been long since received, the plans to evacuate its citizens to safety, over a period of days, using hundreds of trains, were not put into operation until the town was already encircled. On 20 and 21 January, the echo of loudspeakers was to be heard on the streets, not only in the centre of the town, but on the outskirts too, advising the women and children to make their way to Oppenau and Kanth, but on foot.

  The Soviet offensive into Silesia

  Kanth for instance, lay twenty-five kilometres away from Breslau to the west. It was difficult enough to reach under normal circumstances, but by then it was plain murder, especially for women with small children. Temperatures of minus 20—30 degrees were nothing out of the ordinary in Silesia, or to have the Oder frozen over until March. In the previous two weeks over two feet of snow had fallen, always accompanied by bitter hoar-frost, and it lay on the roads. Many women did not even try to leave Breslau under those conditions, but many thousands did. They packed food and drink, wrapped themselves and their children in wool blankets over thick coats, and tied scarves over their heads. They packed their children in prams, small carts or sledges, and taking the older ones by the hand, they left the town. For them it was a fearful Odyssey, an inferno of ice and snow.

  The women managed only the first few miles. Although the countryside was bathed in weak but cold winter sunshine, at mid-day the thermometer read no more than between 16—20 degrees below freezing. A wind began to howl, a cutting icy wind coming from the east. With incredible determination they tempted fate under unimaginable odds. They were to fail, despite their motherly instinct driving them further and further, to the point of exhaustion. They could no longer push the prams against the wind and even the sledges could not be pulled through knee-deep snow. So the mothers carried the children in their arms. The milk froze in the bottles, and some mothers faced the storm to breast-feed. The bitter wind knew no compassion.

  The author’s drawing, made in 1946, showing close combat between the Red Army and members of the 11th Company, SS Regiment Besslein at Peiskerwitz, January 1945.

  The babies and infants were the first sacrifices. No blankets, no cushions could have given them the body-warmth of life. So they died, ‘sleeping’ in their mothers’ arms. They were carried miles in this belief, many mothers not wanting to accept that their baby had died. The iron will of some of the mothers broke with that bitter realisation. They were to be seen shovelling away the snow with their hands, to make a grave for the little one. Some of those too busy battling against the wind, did not see mothers lying beside their babies delivering them both into the hands of ‘mother nature’. Only later did others see those dark mounds covered in glittering snow, but did not possess the strength to clear their path of the dead or dying. No one counted those from Breslau. The statistics on those who died on that trek have never been recorded. Many were refugees who had sought shelter in the countryside, not knowing that they would meet their death much earlier than those they had left behind in the city.

  The Russians had advanced to the Oder and very near to our new location of Kirschberg. The Wehrmacht and Waffen SS units, under the leadership of Rittmeister Speckmann, could not deter their forging of a two kilometre-wide bridgehead on the western side of the river. Despite bitter fighting the Russians widened the bridgehead, until they had reached the forest area south of Peiskerwitz. As the Regiment’s reserve, we had been waiting for orders, just three kilometres from the front line. We had seen how quickly the Russians had increased this bridgehead, with all of the military strength that they possessed. The heavens over Peiskerwitz glowed. From fire and flames, and from the continuous tumult of exploding shells, one could assess the enormous firepower used by both sides. During the moments of a pause in the duel of artillery, red flares provocatively lit the sky heralding the next barrage.

  The wounded were brought to us to wait for ambulance transport to field hospitals, and there were those separated from their units who also found their way to us. All told us of the desperate battle on the banks of the river, and that part of our battalion was trapped. They were engaged in close combat in the rubble of the houses. A messenger arrived reporting the hopeless situation in Peiskerwitz, resulting in our combat order. As a company of 120 men, we were be used as shock troops. We were expected to go in, clean up and not only rescue our comrades from the main sector of the front, but push
the ‘Ivans’ back over to the other side of the Oder.

  It was on the afternoon of 28 January that we left Kirschberg, equipped with the usual firearms, light machine-guns, and very many hand-grenades and Panzerfäuste. We marched cross-country through Wilxen, in the direction of the Trautensee estate. We joked with one another, to relieve a little of the tension that had built up with waiting. Now the waiting was over and we made progress.

  The clang of rifle-butts hitting our bayonet-sheaths and the crunch of our boots in the snow, mixed more and more with the noise of battle from the front. Very soon we met the first of the wounded on foot. There was a look of shock on their grey faces. They had staring eyes, blood-smeared uniforms and signs of provisional first aid. Some moaned in pain with every step that they took as they passed us. We, the 11th Company, had nothing more to say or to joke about.

  After a short rest in the grounds of the estate, the company hurriedly crossed over open ground, in a line of skirmishers, to the edge of the Peiskerwitz woods. By keeping our heads down, and with long intervals between each man, we raced over the open ground. Miraculously we all reached the protection of the woods. However, our relief was soon shattered, as the Russians discovered us. All hell was then let loose. In seconds, we seemed to be in the middle of a fireball. Artillery spewed at us from all directions, from light and heavy emplacements in the area of the banks of the Oder, who were firing without consideration of their own men in the woods. Many Russian infantry were hidden behind trees and bushes, and all joined in the assault on our detachment.

  Apparently unafraid, our company leader Obersturmführer, later Standartenjührer Zizmann, urged his men on with a hand-grenade in his left hand and a sub-machine-gun in his right. My group had the order to stay right behind this calm and experienced officer, who somehow gave us the self-confidence that we needed. We strode forward with fixed bayonets. The enemy too was grim and determined, they were ready for hand-to-hand combat. Lively rifle-fire flew around us from snipers who had waited, hidden in the trees, to fire on us as soon as we were in range. Some were hanging in the trees, apparently dead, but we could not know if they were or not. We had to be damned careful!

  Forest fighting was always dangerous, particularly for those entering, not knowing where the enemy lay. The racket from the firing was intense — mortars, uninterrupted firing from the infantry, to say nothing of whistling bullets, as they ‘pranged’ against the trees like messengers of death, and rebounded through the air.

  As if they had done nothing else all their lives, our grenadiers crept through the snow-covered wood, to every leaf that gave cover, winning ground, yard by yard. It was now important to keep together and not let the Reds strengthen their defensive line. With a doggedness that surprised the Russians, the 11th Company gradually began to push them back, shooting from behind trees, from kneeling positions or, as they moved forwards, from the hip. We advanced deeper and deeper into the wood. We saw the Reds running in panic, leaving ammunition and equipment behind them, including a very antiquated water-cooled machine gun on wooden wheels. There were the odd one or two ready for close-combat with fixed bayonet, but their retreat continued, until they reached the edge of the wood on the far side. Then they stopped.

  Very soon the proportions of the Red Army were visible and we knew that we were at a numerical disadvantage. The Reds had called up fresh reserves, reformed, and were defending their positions in houses and barns, most of which had been set alight. Despite their numbers, this made them very easy targets and we picked them off, as they hopped from house to house in the flickering light of the flames. It also applied to us, as we moved away from the flames and choking smoke. We ourselves then became a sacrifice of the ‘Ivans’, and the losses of the 11th Company, in dead, missing and wounded were very heavy. With the dawn however, we had driven the Russians back to the banks of the Oder. The remnants of Kampfgruppe Speckmann, who had been fighting for days in Peiskerwitz and were now totally scattered, could be relieved.

  The Reds still had to be pushed back to the other side of the river. That could only be done after we had stormed the river’s near-side banks, and held them until reinforcements arrived. Part of our detachments had to lie in readiness, in the terrain between the edge of the woods and the bank, waiting for a new order. Scattered shelling kept us pinned down, lying in deep snow, until we no longer felt that biting cold. But, in between the bombardment, cries and moans were to be heard from those who had been hit and wounded. There were also shouts of Vpiröd!Bysstro, bysstro! i.e. “forwards, quicker, quicker!” Presumably some of the political commissioners in the Red Army were a little nervous. Between orders, those with the tempo of a snail were encouraged to quicken their pace, with a shot or two from a pistol.

  As our company commander at last gave us our order to attack, he moved forwards a couple of steps, then turned and came back as no one was following him. Few had heard the order and others had hesitated. We knew what was waiting for us over the rise and somehow our limbs had been frozen. We felt our hearts pulsating in our throats and a cold sweat creeping over the back of our necks, but it was not for the first time, and the order came again. Obersturmführer Zizmann shouted at the top of his voice, and the order was followed with a scream of “Hurra!” We rose as one man, to advance as best we could in fresh knee-deep snow. We fired like wild men, without aim, and with only yards separating us from the enemy.

  Close-combat lasted only a short time. Some of our men, without orders, returned to their former positions. Both sides sank in the snow as they climbed over their dead comrades in order to escape. Obersturmführer Zizmann knew that this action was plain slaughter and so he gave us the order to dig-in. In frozen ground, with our short-handled spades and under artillery fire, the fallen had to lie where they were. The wounded who could crawl to our positions did so. Others were dragged back under extreme difficulty by our medics, to be given first-aid. We had obviously surprised the Reds who did not risk a counter-attack. It would have meant disaster for us, but they could not know that, thank God!

  With the information that shock troops were attacking the left flank, we retreated into the foremost houses of a village. From my squad of twelve men, only six remained. I chose a small farmhouse which had a cellar, and a barn which had been badly burnt. The cellar provided a place to sleep for two men at a time, while the remaining four kept guard at the windows, the glass of which was non-existent. Not that sleep was possible in the next couple of days and nights, for the Soviets tried, time and time again, to storm our positions. They gave us no peace. It was in such conditions that we could only send messengers to neighbouring groups at night, to receive information as to our situation and because our ammo and rations were very low.

  It was during the third night in this farmhouse that an unexpected delivery, of ammo and rations, came in the form of my faithful friend Georg Haas, who was the company’s accountant. He had not forgotten us. He reached us with his provisions on a sledge drawn by a sweating Panje pony. He had found us, guided by the flames from the houses and the noise of the front. He was not to be deterred. Having himself been wounded in 1942, he was accompanied by a comrade who had also been wounded. They had come cross-country over snow-covered fields to find us.

  Map showing Breslau and its surrounding area

  We also had a very long wait for support from our own artillery. However, heavy shells were being sent over our heads, in the direction of the enemy, by an 8.8cm gun battery from the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst, or RAD) who were positioned very close to us. The gunners and all the very young privates did a great job. Enormous fountains of earth erupted skywards. Trees too were tossed upward, having been torn out of the earth by their roots. Every shot had hit its target. The boys had very little ammunition. They used what they had sparingly and only in small amounts, making every shot hit home. Not so far away from us was a high, narrow transformer house in which an enemy artillery spotter had made himself at home. But it did not last long before thos
e lads found him. They blasted him and the house in the direction of Heaven.

  In order to bring some excitement of another nature into our daily routine, fate decided that I was a good candidate. Unwillingly, but it really wasn’t my fault! We were forced to make permanent lavatory conditions in the back yard of our temporary ‘fortress’ because ours had been shot to pieces. In the form of a cesspit, it was a ditch with ‘thunder’ beams placed over it and well out of view of the enemy. As a soldier with front-line experience, one’s ears attune to the whistling tones of an oncoming shell and can estimate when you are in the line of fire or if the projectile will land in another direction. This saved my life, one day, as I was in the yard. It ‘perfumed’ my life for the next few days however, for I had to dive into the cesspit and I did not come out smelling of violets. I unfortunately did not possess an extra uniform at that time, much to the annoyance of my chums, who avoided me like the plague. It was only some time later, with the melting of the snow, that I could discard my white snow ‘cammo’ so that this unwilling air pollutant was once more an acceptable member within his circle.

  The features of the landscape had altered overnight. The untouched white snow of the battlefield was now a dirty grey carpet, a morass of soft earth. The wet snow made crawling and hitting the ground a wet and messy business, but a wet stomach was far better than one with a bullet-hole in it. We had to crawl around the farmhouse yard in it too, during the day, for the Reds were not giving us any peace. A grey light, blocking out the weak winter sun, hung over the smoking ruins of Peiskerwitz, where our fallen comrades still lay in their half-frozen field-grey uniforms. We, with red-rimmed eyes and totally exhausted, kept watch from the glassless windows in our small farmhouse. Frozen from the cold moist air we dozed unwillingly, not having the will to stop ourselves. The young unshaven faces of my chums were thin now and angular, and our uniforms gave us no warmth. Outside was grey, only grey, and in the grey of the evening, one could not determine where the earth ended, and where the heavens began. It matched our fighting-spirit.