The next moment the Russian rifle and machine gun fire opened up, mixed with the ‘Urrahs!’ of the Ivans. The Russians leapt over the railway embankment on our right without encountering serious resistance. Only a few of us had survived the bombardment, which had been particularly heavy in that sector, and those that could not flee were soon overwhelmed by superior numbers. I could hear the din of the advancing Russians on the right, but could see none of them because of the wood. Nor could we leave our positions, for we had to expect the Russians coming across the Alte Oder in front of us. They kept advancing and were soon behind us. They encountered little resistance from Rathstock and had soon taken the village. This made us uncomfortable, for the Russians were now in front, behind and on either side of us. They continued to advance and were only stopped just short of Sachsendorf.[4] Our neighbouring company had withdrawn and we were now cut off.[5] Heinz Warrelmann, our platoon runner, brought the order to withdraw, and we assembled at the company command post. Our platoon was now 26 men strong.
The greatest difficulty was getting out of our holes unseen. The Russians had naturally identified each hole and closed in around us. Of our four, Gillner and myself were the lucky survivors. Covering all sides, we came to the edge of the wood. What we then saw made our blood run cold. Thousands of Russians were streaming past unhindered, tanks, guns and carts, all going west. They were only 200 metres from us and had no idea that we were still in the wood, believing that we had retreated.
Staff Sergeant Lauffen gave the order not to open fire on any account, as it would only give us away. We dug in and waited for evening. The rest of the company was about 300 metres north of us and we could only communicate by runner.
Second Lieutenant Reifferscheidt ordered our platoon to break through with the company at nightfall. A reconnaissance party had found a position that appeared to be only weakly occupied and that was where the breakthrough would occur. When Second Lieutenant Reifferscheidt sent his company runner, Grenadier Reiffen, to us, he got lost in the wood and did not find us for quite some time. Meanwhile the company of about 60 men had split up.
Now our platoon was on its own and no one knew which way the company had gone. Nearly all the buildings in Rathstock were on fire and, although we were about 600 metres away, it was as light as day.
Before breaking out we destroyed everything that could hinder or betray us; without tent halves,[6] haversacks, messtins and gasmasks. We only had our rifles as we left the wood when it was fully dark. In front was Staff Sergeant Lauffen, then the company runner, Grenadier Reiffen, Sgt Krahl, myself, Sgt Gillner, Heinz Warrelmann and then the remainder of the platoon. We could expect to be spotted by the Russians at any moment and be fired upon. Not a word was said. At first we went through the wood, then crossed a road and came to a field that gradually sloped up to Rathstock.
Suddenly we were called upon in the middle of the field: ‘Halt! Hands up!’. Twenty metres in front of us was a heavy Russian machine gun. They had seen us and immediately opened fire. Standing we would all have been killed, so we threw ourselves down, but we could not return the fire without hitting each other.
What now? Turn back? But that would offer the enemy a much better target. The Russians had dug in and were hard to see. However, before we could make up our minds, shots started landing among us and we had to lie still. It was frightening lying there, unable to shoot back. The Russians were using explosive bullets. I could see the shots exploding around us, and muck and sand was blowing into our faces. I thought: ‘This is it!’ I pressed my face to the ground, not wanting to look any more, and listened and waited for the end.
Then sub-machine guns could be heard firing. None of us cried out. I could not understand it. Were they all dead then? Then Staff Sergeant Lauffen started shouting: ‘Comrades, stop firing, we are wounded!’
The Russians kept on firing. Staff Sergeant Lauffen shouted once more and then was silent. When the Russians reopened fire, I grabbed Krahl by the leg and said: ‘Come on Krahl, fire, fire!’ for he was the only one with a machine gun. He did not answer. I tugged him again. His face dropped from his arm into the sand. He was dead! Carefully I dragged myself toward Gillner. He lay with his head in the sand. I pushed his helmet back and saw his eyes: dead.
Something came flying through the air. Hand grenades! I lay still, unable to move. A hand grenade landed only two metres from me, and I could see the sparks. Then it exploded. I received a tremendous blow on my helmet, the blast taking my breath away, and sand pattered down around me, but I was not wounded. Apparently a splinter had struck my helmet, leaving a dent behind. The helmet had saved my life.
Several more hand grenades followed, then it was quiet. Then someone moved up in front. ‘Now they are coming,’ I thought, ‘but they are not going to get me alive. Before I go, I will take someone with me!’. Preferring to sell my life as dearly as possible, I took the pin out of a hand grenade and was about to throw it, when I saw that it was Grenadier Reiffen. With his small body he had found cover behind Staff Sergeant Lauffen and so remained unwounded. ‘Come on, back!’, he said.
Then someone came crawling up from behind. It was Harry Warrelmann. ‘Gerd, are you wounded?’ he asked.
‘No, are you?’
‘Yes, four times – chest, stomach, bottom and thigh.’
‘Come on, back!’ I said, but he replied: ‘No, it is pointless, I won’t get through. But when you get to Delmenhorst again, please visit my parents and tell them what happened.’
I said: ‘Nonsense, you are coming back!’
But he shook his head and said: ‘Greet my parents.’ Then he crawled off.
Reiffen and I crawled cautiously back. The Russians could not have seen us moving or otherwise they would have got us. All the comrades lying there were dead. Once we had crawled about 30 to 40 metres, we ran back to the wood, bent over at first but then upright, as we knew that there were no Russians there. We went back to the company command post and smoked a cigarette.
Now the hopelessness of our situation became clear. All around us were Russians and more Russians, the nearest Germans being four or five kilometres away. I thought that my end had come. I thought of my home and my loved ones, who would now be sitting safely in an air raid shelter. There was another air raid on Berlin going on, for although it was 70 kilometres away, we could hear the firing of the anti aircraft guns. Next day, the Russians would search the wood and find us. I did not want to surrender, as I had often heard that the Russians killed their prisoners. Suddenly we heard voices. Reiffen and I cautiously looked out and then realised they were German. It was another six men from our platoon that had come back, having failed to get away. Some were utterly despondent and wanted to go over to the Russians. The chances of getting through were very slight, but we decided to try anyway.
Meanwhile it was already one o’clock in the morning, so we decided not to break through north of Rathstock, the way the company had gone, as the Russians would have been alerted there, but to try a route south of Rathstock.
We came out of the wood and reached the road and hid in a couple of shellholes to observe the traffic. The Russians were passing only ten metres from us and we could hear every word they said. Many were singing and trucks were driving back and forth. The sky was overcast, but the moon still broke through a gap in the clouds.
When there was a pause in the traffic on the road for a moment, we worked our way forward to the roadside ditch and prepared to run across. To our horror, we saw Russians digging in only a few metres away from us. They were so eagerly engaged that they did not notice us, but we would have to go back.
Then a horse-drawn cart came along the road. We lay in the ditch with our faces pressed to the ground, hardly daring to breathe. The cart went past only a few metres from my head, a marching column following behind. We dared not stay lying there, as they would surely have seen us, so we stood up and walked along with the cart as if we belonged to it, but then the moon came out from behind the clouds and the cr
y went up: ‘Germans!’
We ran off as fast as we could across the field, the Russians firing wildly at us, but not hitting us, as we took cover in shellholes. We could see the Russians silhouetted against the burning village as they surrounded the field, but we all managed to slip out through a gap in their cordon.
By now the Russians had been alerted and we had to be more careful. It would soon be morning and the horizon was getting lighter. The cloud cover had broken up and the moon was shining uninterruptedly. We decided to look for a hiding place until the next evening and try to break through again when the Russians had settled down. We found a hiding place in a turnip shed, where we lay down on the turnips and covered ourselves in straw. After a short while, I realised that the cold was making my limbs stiff. I consulted with the man next to me in a whisper, and we decided to look for another hiding place.
We were just about to leave when some Russians approached and, after deliberating for a while, started digging a shelter only five metres from us. We had to stay. I was freezing and my legs had gone to sleep.
After we had been in this precarious situation for about an hour, I suddenly saw a Russian approaching our shed and go to where Reiffen was lying. Had he found him? The Russian only wanted straw for his dugout and removed it from where Reiffen was lying. In a flash, Reiffen thrust his sub-machine gun into the Russian’s face. The Russian shouted and stumbled back, alarming his comrades. We ran as fast as we could out of the shed and across the fields. Again we had been spotted. Now the Russians were fully awake, running here and there and firing in the direction we had taken.
It was getting lighter in the east. We needed to settle down in a farm for the day. Then, about three kilometres away, we saw streaks of fire like comets into the sky and the explosions immediately afterwards. Rocket launchers! There were obviously Germans over there. We decided to go together and try to break through to them. We marched on toward the rocket launchers.
Suddenly we were called upon: ‘Stoi!’ There was a foxhole in front of us and we came under fire from a sub-machine gun. Fortunately, there were some shellholes to provide us with cover. The bullets whistled past our ears, but when we returned fire, the Russians ran away.
We made a detour and marched on toward the southwest. It was nearly daylight. We were about to cross the road from Rathstock to Sachsendorf when one of us suddenly called out: ‘Stop! Mines!’ Our eyes had been on our surroundings and not on the ground or our feet, and now we were in a nice mess. We were in the middle of a minefield. All around we could see the places where our sappers had buried their mines. We hardly dared breathe, thinking that we would be blown to pieces any moment. They often put anti-personnel mines between the bigger Teller mines intended for tanks and trucks, and connected them with wires so that the slightest movement would set them off. Crawling on all fours, we worked our way out centimetre by centimetre.
The minefield had delayed us for a long time and now it was full daylight. Right next to the road was a farm, alongside of which were four potato sheds arranged in a square. We established ourselves in these sheds with a man on watch on each side. The others could sleep.
Once the sun had come up, one of the sentries spotted a tank with its guns pointing toward us about 3–400 metres away. Was it German or Russian? Then we saw two men come out of the farm, one of them limping and leaning against the other. One of them had a gas mask case, so they must be German. They disappeared again into a farm next to the tank.
In order to reach that farm we would have to pass two others, the first about 100 metres away. We ran as quickly as we could to it, aware that it could have been taken by the Russians, but it was unoccupied, as was the next. The occupants had left some hours before and the cows were bellowing with pain in the stalls, as they had not been milked, but there was nothing we could do about it.
The house into which the others had gone was still lived in. A woman was crying interminably. One of the soldiers was wounded, so we bandaged him up and took him to the tank. The tank crew had seen no Russians. We were through!
It is impossible to describe our joy. No one could possibly understand what we had gone through, who had not been through it himself. We had wandered the whole night among thousands of Russians, often only a few metres apart, had fired at each other, been recognised, and yet had broken through.
The company had also managed to get through with only two lightly wounded out of about 60 men. In total, we had lost 16 dead out of our platoon of 24.
We now had only one desire; to eat something and then sleep, nothing but sleep. Later, we were taken by truck to our company supply section in Sachsendorf. The Russians were already firing on the village. Our company quartermaster-sergeant first attended to our stomachs and then we could sleep, but when we stretched out on the straw in a cellar I found that I was simply too tense and stressed to fall asleep. At last I got some sleep, but then immediately we had to go back into the line again.
We had hoped for a few days’ rest, but the new front line had to be formed and this required every man. We were sent forward – without tent halves,3 mess tins, gas masks or haversacks.
The Russians had been stopped behind Rathstock, and between Sachsendorf and Rathstock was open meadowland through which the front line ran. Our platoon position was about 100m from the last house in Sachsendorf and we soon received reinforcements. Our new platoon commander was Staff Sergeant Buchal, a lawyer from Breslau.
During the first night (3/4 March) we dug our foxholes and during the following night crawling trenches were dug between the individual foxholes and later deepened until the trench system was complete.
The Russians had not dug trenches but were occupying the buildings in Rathstock about 400 metres away.4 During the next few days we collected doors and straw from the ruined and deserted buildings. The doors we used to roof our dugouts, putting two at a time on made us safe against mortar fire, although not against a direct hit.
We were now getting our food regularly and on time. At dusk the wagon would come up the road as far as the front line. At first I would have to go back to the wagon to eat as I had no mess tins, but then I borrowed a mess tin lid. After the meal, ammunition was issued and the wounded and dead were taken back. The badly wounded were taken back straight away.
As soon as we had finished constructing our position, the company was replaced. In the meantime, we had gone on to build alternative positions, communication trenches and saps. We now got a not-so-well constructed position to the right of the road, where the same digging had to continue. A company of our battalion that had been in reserve replaced us in the old positions.
One day while fetching food, I met Jürgen Schoone from Lüneburg, who had been with me in Lübeck. He was now occupying my old dugout. Several days later I asked a member of his company for news of him and was told that he was dead. He had been sitting out a barrage in the bunker and had been killed instantly by a hit. If we had not been relieved a few days earlier, I would have been the one to be killed.
We expected the Russians to push their front line forward, so every night men were sent out to keep watch about 300 metres in front of our trenches. Each platoon would send a man. It was quite an uncomfortable feeling, spending four hours completely alone only 100 metres from the Russians. I always dug myself a shallow scoop to lie in. You began to freeze after a short while, despite the thick winter clothing. Everyone on this duty got a quarter litre bottle of schnapps, which was fine against the cold, but made you feel tired. The Russians also had men out but, fortunately, I never encountered one. I was always glad when my four hours were up.
Once we had completed this position we were again moved to another position about a kilometre further south. This position was quite horrible, for only 50 metres separated us from the Russian snipers, who made things very difficult for us.
Once I was given 24 hours’ rest and went to the company command post, about 200 metres to the rear in a building. During the day I climbed up to ground level
and could see far across the Russian lines. That evening we were sitting in the kitchen cooking something for ourselves when the barn suddenly burst into flames. The Russians had fired incendiaries at it. The fire soon spread to the other buildings and we had to flee. Sergeant Münz, a fine, older fellow, was wounded. He was always concerned about me. At night when I returned from the company command post I would walk across the fields rather than use the wet, dirty trenches. Although the Russians were always firing across the area, the chances of being hit at night were remote. But whenever Münz saw me he would complain: ‘Tillery, don’t be so careless!’ However, he was the one that was hit in the brain by a stray bullet. He immediately lost consciousness, but was still breathing when he was taken to the Main Dressing Station that night. I do not know whether he recovered.
After a few days in this position we were moved yet again. We went even further south and each of the three platoons occupied its own farm, which had been developed into strongpoints. The farms formed a triangle and our platoon had the middle one. Only the foundations of these farms remained, the rest having been shot away by the Russians.[7] They had already dug a front line opposite us, and the farms offered the Russian artillery good targets. We had to suffer a lot of shelling and also take casualties.
I shared quarters with an old senior corporal who was a cook by trade. Every night he had to cook in the platoon command post and I would have to stand sentry duty alone. There was no question of getting any sleep, of course, for a lot went on at night. The rations arrived irregularly and always cold. The result was that I, like many comrades, got diarrhoea from the cold food and dirty water. The food was nothing special, there was plenty of bread, but little fat.
With Our Backs to Berlin Page 4
