At Leningrad's Gates

by William Lubbec

  In another instance, one first lieutenant in our regiment brought his horse up the stairs into the barracks. Though he may have been half-drunk at the time, I have no doubt that this officer was demonstrating to us that his aristocratic Prussian background entitled him to flaunt the regulations with impunity. Later, we would encounter a far different type of Prussian officer in our first company commander.

  As recruits, we were only permitted a couple of hours out of the barracks on Sunday evenings. Occasionally, I visited Aunt and Uncle Stork to see my brother Hermann and have supper, but most of my free time was spent with Anneliese. Just as before the war, we would sometimes go dancing or see a movie. More often, we would go for a walk or just sit on a bench and talk. Of course, kissing was not unknown in these few moments together, but she was always much more concerned than me that we might be seen.

  Taking Anneliese back to her residence at the florist shop one Sunday night after a stroll, I became so engrossed in our conversation that I lost track of the time. The distant blaring of a bugle from across town alerted me that only minutes remained before our ten o’clock deadline to report to the barracks. With a quick kiss goodnight, I took off in a mad dash. Covering the mile as fast as my legs could move, I passed the sentry post minutes later, completely exhausted, but just on time.

  On another occasion following a leave from duty spent with my family in Püggen, I missed the train on which I had planned to return from Salzwedel to Lüneburg. Not seeing any alternative, I caught a taxi all the way back in order to reach our barracks before ten. The hour-long trip cost me a small fortune, but I knew that my failure to return on time would have resulted in stern disciplinary measures. Our training staff would tolerate a late arrival due to a missed train no sooner than they would excuse any other infraction.

  The officers and sergeants imposed a rigorous regimen during our basic training, but I found deep satisfaction in the discipline, camaraderie, adventure, and ascetic routine of soldiering. At the end of boot camp on January 9, 1940, my sense of accomplishment and pride was great, especially given the recognition I received as one of the top cadets.

  ORGANIZING FOR BATTLE

  January 9, 1940–May 9, 1940

  Immediately after our initial training concluded, the army shipped us 90 miles west by train to Delmenhorst, home base of the 58th Infantry Division’s 154th Regiment. On our arrival, we joined additional troops of the 154th Infantry Regiment who had also just completed their training under the guidance of other cadres drawn from the 22nd Infantry Division.

  Since the size of different military subunits varies among armies, it is perhaps worthwhile to outline briefly the composition and relative strengths of the infantry components in the German Army in 1940. A squad consisting of 10 soldiers was the smallest operational unit, and a platoon of four squads was the primary subunit of a company. A regular infantry company contained about 180 men, though specialized companies could be significantly larger. Each battalion contained four companies, while each regiment included three battalions and two specialized companies.

  An infantry division was made up of roughly three infantry regiments, an artillery regiment, a battalion with anti-tank weapons, a reconnaissance battalion, a headquarters unit, and support troops, possessing a total strength of approximately 17,000 men. Above the divisional level, the corps, army, and army groups varied greatly in size and composition.

  Once the regimental organization in Delmenhorst was completed on February 5, the new 154th Infantry Regiment made the roughly 250-mile journey south to the large training area at Ohrdruf in the hilly wooded region of Thüringen. On our arrival, our regiment united with the newly trained soldiers of the 209th and 220th Infantry Regiments and the artillery regiment, bringing together for the first time all the elements of the 58th Infantry Division.

  Over the next two weeks, our regiments were organized into companies. Assigned to the communications platoon of the 13th Infantry Company of the 154th Infantry Regiment, I would be part of the largest of the regiment’s 14 companies, which had a full strength of about 300 troops. In our communications platoon, there were about 25 men, all of whom had trained together in Lüneburg. Subtracting the soldiers in our platoon who drove the wagons carrying our communications gear and took care of the horses, there were about 15 of us whose primary assignment was to set up communications links and, if necessary, to serve as runners.

  The 13th Company’s two short-barreled 150-millimeter howitzers and six short-barreled 75-millimeter howitzers would be positioned half a mile to a mile behind the front and provide the regiment with an independent light artillery capability in support of the regimental infantry in its frontline actions. In contrast, the division’s artillery regiment had long-range guns that would be deployed a number of miles back behind the frontlines and generally conduct fire missions against the enemy’s more distant rear areas.

  While the regiment’s 13th company deployed howitzers and its 14th company operated anti-tank weapons, the other 12 companies making up the three battalions in our regiment were regular infantry troops, possessing only small arms, machine guns, and small-caliber mortars. While these 12 regular infantry companies primarily reported to their respective battalion level commanders, the 13th and 14th companies operated independently and reported directly to the regimental commander because of their unique missions.

  As our new regiments organized, the Wehrmacht demobilized the Great War veterans who had been temporarily called up to fill out the ranks of the 58th Infantry Division on the French border during our training period. The demobilization of veterans also released the leadership cadre from the old active-duty army to join our company, though these members of the regular army only comprised perhaps 20 percent of our total strength.

  Soon after our company had taken shape in Ohrdruf, an officer named Robert Miles Reincke introduced himself and the other new senior platoon leaders to us. A veteran of the Great War in his fifties, he was referred to as Rittmeister (cavalry captain) for his earlier service in the army’s equestrian arm. In fact, Reincke’s horsemanship was so exceptional that he had served as the Kapitän of Germany’s polo team in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

  Though a highly experienced officer, he had been working as a businessman in Hamburg when he was called back to duty. As was customary for those in the Prussian officer class, he maintained an aloof distance and businesslike attitude toward subordinates, but his commanding presence only magnified our respect. Our confidence in his ability to lead our company would prove fully justified.

  Under Reincke, there were two first lieutenants, but the non-commissioned officers (NCOs) played an equally essential role in running the company. As the highest ranking NCO, Senior Sergeant Jüchter was the most important because he served as quartermaster, overseeing the distribution of food and ammunition supplies from the Tross (rear area). Highly proficient in his work, he was referred to as “the mother of the company.”

  In Ohrdruf, our communications platoon was placed under the command of Staff Sergeant (Oberfeldwebel) Ehlert who had come over with the cadre of career officers and NCOs who had been serving on the French border. An easy-going, well-educated man in his mid-twenties, he would remain my immediate superior throughout the next three and a half years. Ehlert always maintained a certain distance from us and was reserved by nature, but was a good soldier and a highly competent NCO who served as our primary role model.

  Following our arrival in Ohrdruf, the army forbade us to reveal our location in letters to our families and girlfriends back home. Since such restrictions appeared to be unnecessarily secretive to me, I would sometimes enclose a photograph that would “incidentally” include a public sign identifying the name of the village or city near which we were stationed in order to get around the censors.

  In addition to exchanging letters with my family, I also corresponded with Anneliese back in Lüneburg, though our relationship still remained less than serious. She never expressed any particular fear about my
fate as we prepared for war, though at that time I myself was not really concerned about what might happen in combat. In the vigor of youth, you naturally feel indestructible and tend to view war as a chance for adventure. If we had been older and wiser, our fears about the future would have been far greater.

  During our training in Lüneburg, we had developed our basic soldiering skills and received specific instruction in some type of specialized function, such as communications. At Ohrdruf, we now engaged in advanced military exercises designed to teach us how to fight and defeat the enemy in battle. Repeatedly, the officers drilled us in basic offensive and defensive infantry tactics. Starting with our heavy weapons company, we gradually learned to operate in larger and larger formations. Eventually, the entire division joined together in field maneuvers.

  Despite the cold and snow in Thüringen, we trained continuously and soon began engaging in simulated full-scale battles. Our officers made an effort to approximate actual combat conditions as closely as possible. In addition to maneuvers, the division also continued with the other aspects of our training and worked on improving our marksmanship.

  Knowing that we were preparing for combat, there was no lack of motivation on our part as we drilled intensively from early in the morning until dark. There was little time for anything other than military exercises and sleeping in the homes or tents where we had been billeted. Occasionally, we also trained at night.

  In the winter cold, none of us looked forward to our turn on regular sentry duty. However, it was a privilege to be assigned as an honor guard for Heldengedenktag (Heroes Memorial Day), commemorating the millions of German soldiers lost during the Great War.

  It fell on March 10 1940, which turned out to be an icy Sunday. During my 45-minute shift posted in front of the war monument in Ohrdruf, local kids approached and tried to make me laugh. It was easy to ignore them, but almost impossible to keep my body from freezing while remaining rigidly at attention. Only later would I learn what it meant to be truly cold.

  Four days afterward, the division boarded trains for a roughly 275-mile trip through the night to an area south of the city of Trier in the bend of the Saar River near the town of Orscholz. Moving into positions just opposite the northern corner of France’s Maginot Line defenses along the Franco-German border, we were deployed as part of the XXIII Corps of the 16th Army in Army Group A.

  While our infantry company obtained living space in the elaborate frontline bunkers of Germany’s West Wall defenses, other troops were housed in local villages or in tents. Soon afterward, a number of promotions were issued, following the observation of our performance at Lüneburg and Ohrdruf. Receiving the rank of private first class (Gefreiter), I felt like my efforts to prove myself in our training had been rewarded, even if the greater test of combat had not yet arrived.

  The politics of war were rarely discussed at the front, but most Germans I knew accepted the necessity and justice of our struggle against France and Great Britain. They had declared war on Germany in reaction to the invasion of Poland. As we saw it, they were attempting to defend the unjust settlement of the Treaty of Versailles. They would not accept a new political settlement unless Germany imposed it on them with military force.

  Already, there were sporadic border skirmishes with French troops in our sector of the front as well as occasional clashes between the Luftwaffe and enemy aircraft. If ordered to fight a full-scale war, we were confident in our ability to conduct operations rapidly and efficiently. Rather than another long stalemate in the trenches like Germany had endured in France during the Great War, everyone expected that a new campaign in the west would be rapid, following the model of the recently conducted war against Poland.

  As the weather grew warmer that spring, the mood among the troops around me was one of anxious anticipation. Though motivated by love of country and possessing a sense of pride in our company, regiment, and division, we would quickly learn that the most basic priorities in combat were simply to obey orders and look out for ourselves and our comrades.

  Chapter 5

  WAR IN THE WEST

  May 1940–April 1941

  THE 58th INFANTRY DIVISION’S ADVANCE IN MAY—JUNE 1940

  WE BEGAN THE WAR AS SPECTATORS early on a bright May 10th morning. In the sky high above our bunkers, German pilots engaged their French and British opponents, putting on an aerial display that we observed with fascination. The chatter of their machine guns resonated to us on the ground as the planes chased and dodged each other in a relentless duel for position.

  When an aircraft spun down from the sky in flames there was applause for the victor of the dogfight, as if we were at a sporting event, despite our inability to discern whether the loser had been the enemy. Within a short time, five or six planes came down, some as close as three or four miles from us. Only then did word reach us that some of the burning wrecks were German, quickly sobering our mood.

  After moving up to the frontier with France, the 58th Division directed a small force to cross the Moselle River just south of Luxemburg. The detachment’s subsequent frontal assault against a short sector of France’s heavily fortified Maginot Line may have accomplished some larger strategic purpose, but it did so only at the cost of heavy casualties among the attackers. On May 18, our division was relieved by other German forces and moved back to the rear.

  This operation reflects the contrast between our approach to military objectives in France and the conduct of our future operations. In France, we simply followed orders as we had been trained. If commanded to seize a position by a certain time, we typically would attack the objective in a head-on manner, suffering heavy casualties in the process.

  Later in the war, our officers generally would not carry out operations until first determining the most efficient tactical approach and the type of support necessary to minimize infantry casualties. These types of deliberations occurred to some extent in France, but the old Prussian attitude of “Do it” prevailed more often.

  Two days after pulling back toward Orscholz, our division crossed into Luxembourg strung out in a long procession of men, horses, and vehicles. The most common type of vehicle in our company was a squad supply wagon, pulled by two horses. Hauling our personal belongings such as clothes and food, these wagons allowed us to march with only our rifles and ammunition. Despite being freed of the backpacks, water can, gas mask, and other gear that we would have carried in the field, long treks on foot were still exhausting.

  To get off our feet, most of us managed to grab a temporary seat on a supply wagon or somewhere on a Protze. This was a combination of two separate two-wheeled carriages, one which carried ammunition and one on which the gun crew rode, with the howitzer towed behind. While a Protze with the 75-millimeter howitzer required four horses, a Protze with the far heavier 150-millimeter howitzer needed a complement of six horses.

  As was the privilege of every company commander, Rittmeister Reincke rode a horse that had its own designated handler, but most handlers were responsible for the care of four or five horses. This added up to a substantial amount of manpower given the number of horses involved.

  In order to obtain an adequate number of horses in the period leading up to the war, the Wehrmacht requisitioned them from farms all over Germany, with some farms having to surrender up to half their stock. Because the requisition was supposedly a temporary measure that would only last for the duration of what was expected to be a short conflict, farmers received no compensation. Not surprisingly, the Wehrmacht ceased such unpopular measures as soon as it could obtain horses from conquered territories.

  Our rapid march through Luxemburg’s immaculate towns and villages soon took us into southern Belgium, allowing us to pass well north of the Maginot Line. Despite signs of much prior activity on the roads, we were unaware that only a few days earlier German Panzer divisions had broken through the French defenses in this same area.

  These armored formations were now approaching the English Channel far to the west, c
ompletely undermining the French and British position. The French campaign had already been won in a strategic sense, but there was still another month of fighting ahead.

  At the end of an 80-mile march over five days, the 209th and 220th Regiments of our division entered France on May 23, taking up a position on the frontline about 10 miles southeast of the city of Sedan. Replacing other German units, these regiments spread out in the four-mile-wide area between the French towns of Carignan and Mouzon. Meanwhile, the 154th Regiment was temporarily held behind as a reserve force on the north side of the Meuse River at Arlon in Belgium, until we could be relieved by other German forces.

  Once our regiment reached the front, I learned how bitter the initial fighting had been. Advancing into action, our division had confronted ferocious resistance from a French-Algerian division from North Africa. In what proved the 58th’s toughest combat of the campaign, these Algerian troops were firing down at our infantry from concealed positions up in the trees. To make progress, our infantry had to deploy snipers and spray machine-gun fire into the trees. In some cases, they even used flamethrowers to burn the Algerians out.

  During these types of battles, the front often became fluid, intermingling our troops with the enemy’s forces. In such circumstances, a regiment’s heavy gun company could not safely employ the fire support of its howitzers. Instead, the infantry would have to rely on the division’s long-range artillery to hammer the French rear areas in order to prevent enemy reinforcements from reaching the front.

  By May 25 our regiment had marched the 45 miles from Arlon, reaching the division’s new frontline in the French town of Beaumonten-Argonne. That afternoon, I received orders from Staff Sergeant Ehlert to carry a message on foot to one of our units posted on the front. My objective was the small village of Pouilly-sur-Meuse, situated in a valley on the banks of the Meuse River about three miles to the west of Beaumont-en-Argonne.