During the course of a typical day, my work as F.O. ranged across some 50 yards of the frontline. Occasionally, I directed the fire of our guns on targets moving along the Dora Schneise, but it was very difficult to employ our firepower effectively because of the trees that shielded the enemy’s movement. Most of the time our howitzers were focused on the area to our immediate front, leaving the Schlauch up to the divisional artillery.
At least once a day, there would be some type of suspicious movement in the brush along the enemy frontline, which in places was only 50 yards across from us. Whenever this occurred, I would urgently request a half dozen to a dozen rounds from our 75-millimeter howitzers. My objective was to prevent a concentration of large numbers of Soviet forces in order to preempt an attack before it began. The infantry around me would then sweep the location with machine-gun fire to eliminate any survivors.
Such massing of Red Army troops occurred relatively infrequently, but we faced a daily threat of infiltration. Scanning the tall grass and brush behind me, I was constantly on guard for enemy troops who might have penetrated our lines singly or in small groups. The persistent danger of an attack from any direction left us on edge and prone to fire at shadows.
In the swampy terrain, it was difficult for us to protect ourselves from enemy fire because we lacked our normal system of trenches and underground bunkers and instead had to operate behind the five-foothigh walls of thickly piled logs that ran along the entire perimeter. Deliveries of food and ammunition from the Tross up to the gun positions behind me were made under the cover of darkness to evade Russian observation and fire.
To avoid becoming bogged down in mud, all movement through the area, including foot traffic, relied on a network of “corduroy” roads and walkways, a term referring to their construction from fallen trees laid side-by-side. A narrow corduroy walkway linked the frontline perimeter to the gun positions about a half-mile back to the rear where our company slept and ate. Stepping off a walkway, you immediately sank into mud a foot deep.
When traveling these corduroy paths, I always clutched my submachine gun at the ready in case I encountered Russian infiltrators. For an enemy hidden in the grass, I would have been an easy target. This psychological strain generated by constant danger of attack from any direction at the Volkhov was even worse than that created by the threat of snipers at Uritsk.
In the rear, I would occasionally see Schütte or Sauke, but opportunities to enjoy a game of Skat or a smoke with comrades were almost nonexistent due to the amount of time I spent forward at the perimeter. Because of the regular need for my presence at the frontline, I usually slept there as well. In both locations, we bunked in waterproof tents set up on a log foundation in order to keep us above the mud, though it was nearly impossible to remain clean or dry in such conditions.
The standing water around us generated swarms of mosquitoes from which there was no escape. Even with netting around our tents, they still ceaselessly hounded us. This compounded the persistent irritation from the lice on our bodies, making restful sleep almost impossible. With hot soup a rare luxury, our rations consisted of mostly crackers and canned tuna and sausage. Though our morale remained high, inadequate sleep, a poor diet, and the stress of combat left us physically weakened and mentally exhausted.
By the middle of May, the Red Army had decided to abandon its attempt to regain the offensive initiative at the Volkhov. Seizing the opportunity, we began an assault that pressed in around the entire perimeter of the pocket on May 22. By the end of the month, the 58th Division and other German forces had overcome determined Soviet resistance, resealing the Kessel a second time.
As the pocket was reduced in size, bitter enemy opposition persisted, though inside the encirclement, the already difficult conditions for the Red Army troops rapidly became worse. The Soviet artillery still continued to shell us from their positions on the east side of the Volkhov River, but the men within the pocket now lacked the ammunition and other provisions necessary to sustain major combat operations.
In desperation, the entrapped Soviet infantry conducted increasingly suicidal attacks against our positions, under pressure from the Red Army political officers called Politruks. Lacking an adequate supply of rifles for their men, Russian commanders ordered some soldiers to go forward unarmed and retrieve weapons from other troops as they fell. On one occasion, I watched with amazement as an enemy soldier ran directly toward my position without a weapon.
Prisoners reported to our intelligence that special Soviet units with machine guns were sometimes placed behind these hopeless attacks to make sure that soldiers obeyed the orders to advance. The enemy succeeded in organizing a couple of larger assaults that briefly penetrated our front, but most such attempts produced only terrible losses among their troops without accomplishing any purpose. Afterward, their bloated and decaying bodies lay scattered in the open ground just in front of us.
On my return to the front late one morning in June, I took up my regular observation post a few feet to the right of a soldier manning one of the powerful new MG-42 machine guns. Because the MG-42’s exceptionally high rate of fire made it impossible to differentiate the shooting of its individual bullets, the machine gun produced a very distinctive noise, more closely resembling a cloth being ripped than a weapon being fired. Yet, perhaps its greatest asset was that the weapon would nearly always operate reliably, even in muddy conditions like those at the Volkhov.
As was commonly the case, the posted infantryman was unfamiliar to me and we engaged in little conversation, other than to remark on enemy movement. Less than a half hour after my appearance, a Russian attack surged toward our position, moving across the dense brush that occupied No Man’s Land. Instantly, the alert gunner began to pour a non-stop fusillade across our front. Calling back a fire mission, I requested our 75-millimeter guns to drop shells in a curtain roughly 25 yards in front of our position, as close as I dared risk.
With the Red Army troops still closing on our location, I added my MP-40 submachine gun’s fire to the torrent of bullets spilling from my comrade’s machine gun. Despite the absence of any return fire and the lack of any clearly visible targets in the thick foliage, the gunner and I raked our weapons over the entire field in front of us as shells from our heavy guns began to slam down in support.
When the barrel of the MG-42 finally overheated from the relentless firing, the soldier yanked it off and tossed it into a puddle next to us, producing a cloud of steam. Locking a fresh barrel into the machine gun, he started blazing away again. Already, the gunner stood in a mound of empty shell casings.
Perhaps half an hour passed with no let-up in our fire. Upon emptying my third or fourth 32-round clip, I again ducked down behind the wooden walls in order to avoid exposing myself as a target during the 15 seconds it took to reload another magazine into my weapon. At that moment, I became aware that the machine gun had grown silent, but assumed that the gunner was also reloading or again switching the barrel of his weapon.
A glance to my right revealed the gunner crumpled on the ground beside me. A second later, I spotted blood running from a hole in his temple just under the rim of his helmet. The shot that killed him had not been audible in the din of combat, but its precision made it instantly obvious to me that it came from a sniper’s rifle.
There is not much time to contemplate one’s fate in the middle of a battle, but the thought flashed through my mind that it could have been me lying there with a bullet through my head, if I had not ducked down or my submachine gun’s magazine had run out a few seconds later.
Crouching to keep my body hidden beneath the log fortifications, I sprinted over to the next infantry position 15 yards away to alert them to the loss of their machine gun support in that sector. While any regular infantryman would have had to hold his position and continue fighting, my latitude of movement as forward observer allowed me to depart that vulnerable area of the line and escape the fate of my unknown comrade.
On June 28, the re
lentless struggle at the Volkhov ended in a German victory three and a half months after our arrival. The Wehrmacht’s High Command reported that German forces captured approximately 33,000 Red Army prisoners, 650 artillery pieces, 170 tanks, and 3,000 machine guns. Among those taken prisoner was General Vlasov, who eventually would lead units comprised of captured Russian troops who agreed to fight with Germany against the Soviet Union’s Communist government. Viewed as a traitor by the Russians, he was executed after the war.
The German troops who went through the Volkhov also suffered during the months of fighting. Indeed, the condition of those of us who survived was often little better than that of our enemy captives. My own weight dropped about 20 or 25 pounds to an emaciatedlooking 160 pounds, but many other German soldiers endured far worse health problems.
As I wandered over what had been the bitterly contested area of the Schlauch afterward, only a giant forest of stumps stretched to the horizon where the dense woods had once stood. The Soviet dead, or rather parts of their bodies, carpeted the churned up ground. The stench was indescribably ghastly.
The Battle of the Volkhov had been a terrible struggle in almost unimaginably miserable conditions, but our success reinforced our belief that Germany would eventually prevail in the East. That summer, a new offensive in southern Russia offered us further hope that final victory was not far away.
THE ORANIENBAUM POCKET
July 1–August 11, 1942
On July 1 1942, the 58th Infantry Division was transferred roughly 75 miles northwest to the perimeter of the Oranienbaum Kessel, roughly 15 miles west of our old position at Uritsk. The Soviet troops in this area had been cut off from the main body of Red Army forces further east during the previous summer’s campaign and were now surrounded in a large semi-circular pocket with their backs to the Gulf of Finland.
Although the division occupied roughly 15 miles of the front at Oranienbaum, the general lack of action offered us a relative respite from combat. Just after our arrival, the company commander presented me with the Infanterie Sturmabzeichen commendation for close combat. As was the case with many other medals, this was received for an accumulation of combat service rather than for a specific action.
Although no major fighting took place at Oranienbaum, our heavy guns assisted in repulsing infiltration attempts by squads of Red Army soldiers about once a week. According to captured prisoners, the primary purpose of these raids was to seize one of our highly effective MG-42 machine guns that I had recently witnessed in action for the first time at the Volkhov.
Raiding parties also crossed No Man’s Land from our side, just as at Uritsk. Ranging in strength from 12-man squads up to rare 100-man units, these teams conducted reconnaissance of the enemy’s positions and attempted to capture prisoners for intelligence purposes. When these forays took place, I remained in constant readiness to call upon our company’s guns to protect their retreat in case they encountered trouble. In most situations, this support was not necessary, but our howitzers helped rescue the situation two or three times.
Despite occasional fighting, the two-month deployment at Oranienbaum permitted our division badly needed time to recuperate and receive replacements. Our three and a half months of uninterrupted combat at the Volkhov had been unusual. In normal circumstances, troops engaged in intensive combat were permitted a rest after three or four weeks of heavy fighting.
On a relatively inactive front such as Oranienbaum, troops spent perhaps 80 or 90 percent of their time at the front. Despite rare rotations to the rear, we did sometimes have time to play a card game or write a letter in our bunkers. As in many other ways, our heavy weapons company was relatively better off than a regular infantry company in terms of the proportion of time that we spent on the frontlines versus time in the rear.
On August 1, the army promoted me to corporal (Unteroffizier). A week later, I was awarded the Winter Medal, which we referred to as the “frozen meat” medal, for surviving the bitter cold that had killed so many. More importantly, I was granted a long overdue threeweek leave from duty on August 11.
Departing Oranienbaum, I set out on the roughly 1,000-mile journey back to Germany. Having last seen my family and Anneliese in November 1940, it was hard for me to believe that I was finally returning. While fighting in Russia, home had seemed a million miles away.
FIRST LEAVE FROM RUSSIA
August 11–August 30, 1942
When we reached the border of the German Reich at Tilsit in East Prussia, the military authorities required everybody on board the train to undergo a thorough delousing. All our clothes and belongings were treated with steam in a large chamber and we took long showers in hot water. Free of all pests, we proceeded into Germany. The sense of relief that I experienced upon getting out of Russia was overwhelming.
When I finally arrived in Püggen three days after my departure from Oranienbaum, my family gave me an even warmer welcome than when I had arrived home the first time from Belgium. After 20 months away from home, my sisters had grown so much that they were almost unrecognizable to me, particularly my 5 year-old sister Margarete. Playing with her was one of the highlights of my time at home.
The welcome and treatment that I received from my family made me feel like a conquering hero. My mother even laid out a spread of specially prepared foods for me in a separate dining room, which the rest of my family envied. During my meals, my sisters sang a plaintive song just outside the door, “Hear our quiet call for pastries for all.”
Even with the large number of German men now serving in the armed forces, soldiers continued to be treated with great respect by the public. Proud of my military service at the front, my mother encouraged me to put on my uniform before we left for a shopping trip in the nearby town of Salzwedel.
Despite their best efforts, it was impossible to settle into the pleasant patterns of life with my family as I had done after the French campaign. When a soldier came home from the war in Russia, he was a different person. At a certain level, the psychological strain of living in constant danger during combat lingered inside me.
Though the old familiar routines of farm labor proved more therapeutic than my efforts to relax, it would ultimately take years to melt away the stress. Beyond this immediate tension, the fighting and killing had also perhaps affected my soul in ways that no amount of time would heal.
While the farm itself remained unchanged from my youth, much had changed in Püggen. By this time, the German government had begun sending prisoners of war and conscripted civilians to work as laborers in the nation’s factories and on its farms to replace manpower serving at the front. Following Poland’s defeat in 1939, several Polish POWs had arrived at our village. These had been joined by a larger number of French and Belgian POWs the next year.
As part of my family’s continued targeting in retribution for its lack of support for the Nazi regime, local officials ordered my father, now a member of the Volkssturm (Home Guard), to serve as a guard for the village’s 20 or so POWs. This duty required him to spend the night at the pub down the street from our house, since the prisoners were locked up at night in the pub’s ballroom.
Since my father was about 50 years old, he probably would have found it difficult to cope with an escape attempt. Fortunately, he generally got along well with the prisoners and never had any problems. One of the Belgian POWs later told my father, “Well, Herr Lübbecke, you will not have to be a watchman very long. In the near future, you will be the prisoner and we will be the guards.”
Under this labor program, the local authorities provided my family with a Polish POW named Sigmund, a factory worker from the Polish city of Lodz. Treating him as they would any German farmhand, my family worked beside him in the fields and never encountered any problems. Though government regulations stipulated that POWs should eat separately from German families, my mother ignored them and regularly set a place for Sigmund at our dining room table.
Eventually the authorities permitted the POWs to live out on
the farms, if there was a space where they could be safely confined. Obtaining special permission, my family gave Sigmund a room in the Altenteil (my grandparents’ former home). This positive experience with Sigmund was repeated later in the war with two Belgian POWs whom the government supplied to my family as farm labor. Despite such changes, life in Püggen still appeared almost normal and the war seemed far away for those not engaged in the fighting.
In the middle of my two-week visit with my family, I departed Püggen on August 21 to see Anneliese in Hamburg. Despite the passage of two years since we had last spent any significant time together, our increasingly frequent exchange of letters had brought us closer, though she still remained engaged to the florist’s son.
Arriving in Hamburg, I met Anneliese not far from the florist shop in the Arkade across the Alster River from city hall, where she had been working since leaving her position at the shop in the city’s main train station earlier that spring. In the half a day that followed, we quickly recaptured the intimacy of our early relationship as we talked and strolled around the city. Our time together was everything that I had imagined while I had been frozen in the snow at Uritsk and mired in the mud at the Volkhov.
From the moment I saw Anneliese again, I began to think seriously for the first time that she would make a wonderful wife, even if she was engaged to someone else. Unable to conceal my sentiments, I told her, “I am sorry. I do not want to interfere. But I still love you.” What she chose to do was her decision, but it was important to me that she understood my feelings for her.
Just before I boarded the train to return to Püggen for the remaining week of my leave, Anneliese handed me a gold cloverleaf talisman, promising it would bring me good luck. Placing the gift in the breast pocket of my tunic, I felt confident that it was only a matter of time before we would get back together.
At Leningrad's Gates Page 15
