At Leningrad's Gates

by William Lubbec

  Yet, we both now recognized that a soldier’s fate on the battlefield was very uncertain. Even with the widespread optimism over the German advances toward the Volga and the Caucasus that summer, it was clear that many soldiers would not be coming home to their loved ones.

  Chapter 10

  THE DEMYANSK CORRIDOR

  September 1942–March 1943

  NOVGOROD: September–November 1942

  By the time of my return from my three-week furlough at the beginning of September, part of the 58th Division had been transferred about 70 miles south of Leningrad to a position on the north shore of Lake Ilmen, located only about 15 or 20 miles south of the Volkhov battlefield. When I reached my company, it had taken up quarters in deserted Russian homes on the southern outskirts of the ancient Russian city of Novgorod.

  Our mission to help guard the far northern coast of Lake Ilmen against any potential amphibious operations from the Soviet-held eastern shore was a relatively easy assignment. Even if the Russians somehow managed to conduct a surprise amphibious landing in company or battalion strength, the natural defensive advantages of our position made us confident we could easily push them back into the water before they were able to establish a secure foothold. We remained vigilant, but there was little genuine concern about an attack.

  On October 15, the 154th Infantry Regiment was redesignated the 154th Grenadier Regiment. This change nominally reflected the augmentation of its overall firepower through an increase in heavy weapons such as machine guns and large mortars. In reality, any increase in firepower could not fully compensate for the regiment’s attrition of manpower that had reduced our overall strength by at least a battalion. Retaining a strong sense of pride in our unit, we saw little significance in the redesignation.

  Despite our continued regular training exercises, our assignment to a quiet sector permitted us more time to relax. While the weather remained warm enough, some of us laid beside the shore of Lake Ilmen. It almost felt like an extension of my leave, as I sat in the sun reading letters from home.

  Following my visit to Hamburg, the pace of my exchange of correspondence with Anneliese had increased. Within weeks, I received the news that I had been hoping for—Anneliese had decided to break off her engagement and build a relationship with me. Ironically, having just won back her heart, I proceeded to lose the gold cloverleaf charm she had given me for luck.

  Though Novgorod was just a fifteen-minute walk from our position, I only once ventured into the city to wander its deserted streets. Typical of most Soviet communities, it was mainly filled with small wooden shacks and plain concrete buildings. Only the large bronze sculptures located in the central plaza near the town’s city hall made a favorable impression on me.

  My visit to one of the city’s onion-domed churches so characteristic of Russia presented a mixed picture. While its exterior remained relatively intact, the church’s dilapidated interior had been used to store grain or beets. This sacrilegious vandalism reinforced my view of the Communists as barbaric atheists who posed a grave danger to Europe’s Christian civilization.

  Meanwhile, other soldiers from my regiment took advantage of our location on the lake to go fishing. Instead of using rods or nets, they would toss standard kilo-sized blocks of explosives into the water, causing stunned or dead fish to rise to the surface for easy retrieval. In a tragic incident, four soldiers fishing this way were killed when they accidentally blew up their own boat. Even during the quietest moments in Russia, death never seemed far away.

  DEMYANSK: November 1942–February 1943

  As part of its general counteroffensive in the winter of 1941–1942, the Red Army had staged an assault against German lines south of Lake Ilmen. By early February, the enemy had succeeded in isolating our units holding the areas around Demyansk, forcing the troops there to be supplied by air.

  In late April, the Wehrmacht counterattacked and forced through an overland route to the isolated troops, but the roughly four-milewide and seven-and-a-half-mile-long supply corridor remained precarious. At the end of November 1942, the 58th Infantry Division joined other German divisions transferring south of Lake Ilmen to help protect this vital, but still vulnerable land bridge to the Demyansk pocket.

  With another Russian winter already upon us, our division moved into an area just above the Pola River along the north side of the Schlauch in the hilly terrain known as the Valdai Heights. However, as was usually the case, most of us lacked any knowledge of our geographic location and were only aware of our immediate tactical situation.

  The fighting at Demyansk remained fairly constant, though in our area it lacked the intensity of what we had endured at the Volkhov. In resisting several large assaults and frequent smaller raids against our lines by the Red Army, we sometimes yielded or seized ground in tactical retreats or advances, but the frontlines remained relatively stable. While these operations were of much greater consequence, it was the small, personal encounters that most stood out for me.

  Reaching our newly assigned post on a low ridge along this corridor, my communications specialist and I joined a group of other soldiers in a large bunker near the front that served as the living quarters. Because it was impossible to dig out an underground bunker or trenches in the frozen, rock-hard earth, it had been constructed above ground with snow camouflaging the log walls. A snow wall facing the Russian lines offered additional protection. Nearby, there was also a small observation tower.

  In spite of our efforts to create a secure position, we soon began to be plagued by sniper fire from a Soviet sharpshooter. Fearful of getting hit, we were forced to remain inside the confined space of the bunker during the daylight hours. After this situation had persisted for several days, I finally grew frustrated and decided to do something about it.

  Grabbing a Mauser rifle, I made my way from our bunker to the snow rampart. Crouching down on my knees, I carved out a small aperture through the wall with my hands. Scrutinizing the winter landscape, there was nothing that gave away the location of the enemy sharpshooter.

  Suddenly, a shot burst through the snow wall, passing just over the top of my helmet. Accepting my defeat in our brief duel, I pulled my rifle from the hole and quickly ducked back into our bunker. As far as I was concerned, we would have to learn to live with the threat of the sniper.

  Soon afterward, I was surveying the enemy lines from the observation tower when I observed a Russian soldier walking out in the open through the snow about 500 yards away from our position. As I shouted down a fire mission, an infantryman aimed a small 50-millimeter mortar and dropped a round into the tube.

  When the shell impacted about 50 feet from the Russian, he appeared to be startled. Suddenly realizing his perilous situation, he took off running through the deep snow and never stopped. Despite the gauntlet of fire created by the half-dozen mortar rounds falling around him, he somehow escaped unharmed. Sometimes war seemed more like a harmless game rather than the deadly struggle it really was.

  My turn as the quarry would come a few weeks later at another frontline bunker, located perhaps a mile from our previous position.

  The morning after my arrival there, I awoke to discover an overnight snowfall had built upon previous accumulations to leave a powdery cushion a foot deep. Leaving the bunker with a field telephone, I trudged a short distance through the picturesque winter landscape until I reached a good observation point. Concealed by my white camouflage, I remained standing in order to better survey the surrounding terrain.

  Without even lifting my binoculars, a quick scan of the enemy position immediately revealed a couple of Red Army bunkers. Protruding six feet above ground, the structures were plainly visible from my position less than 100 yards away. Though fresh snow now partially covered the layer of protective earth piled onto the bunkers, they appeared to be of recent construction and clearly posed a direct challenge to our control of the area.

  Selecting the closer and larger of the two, I called back firing coordinates to one of
our 150-millimeter howitzers, requesting a single round on the roughly 30-square-foot target. In a couple of minutes, an explosion threw up a cloud of snow about 20 yards to the left of the bunker. After adjusting the distance and direction, the second round landed 10 yards to the right. Advancing a little closer to better observe the target, I made a further correction and requested a delayed fuse.

  This round found its mark. Just after it smashed through the roof of the bunker, there was a loud whoosh of air as the shell with the delayed fuse detonated inside the structure a second later. The only thing observable externally was a little white smoke that drifted out through the roof.

  Before I could call back the targeting coordinates for the second bunker, enemy mortar rounds suddenly began bursting in the snow around me. Despite my camouflage, a Soviet observer had somehow spotted me during the twenty minutes that had passed. Now I was the prey.

  Moving clumsily through the snow, I headed for cover in our bunker a dozen yards away. Just over halfway to the entrance, a shell exploded right behind me. I felt a rush of air, but the deep snow partially absorbed the force of the blast, probably sparing me from serious injury.

  Gaining the relative safety of our bunker, I asked an infantry soldier inside whether I had been hit. Examining the back of my padded jacket, he confirmed that it was perforated with tiny holes caused by metal splinters from the mortar round. During the next half-hour, he painstakingly removed the small shrapnel fragments from my skin. Once again I had been lucky to avoid more serious injury.

  Because the precision involved in targeting enemy bunkers was a great challenge, it became my favorite task as forward observer. My success in knocking out perhaps a half dozen of these structures over the previous year had earned me a reputation as a bunker-busting specialist inside the 13th Company. The destruction of the large bunker on the Demyansk corridor, however, had drawn me unwanted attention from the enemy.

  Around this time, the Red Army had begun to deploy loudspeakers on the frontlines to spout propaganda and threats delivered in perfect German. Perhaps a week after my successful elimination of the bunker, a soldier from one of the regular infantry companies asked me if I had heard the Russians calling out my name over the loudspeakers.

  Replying that I had not, he informed me that these broadcasts were threatening me personally, announcing, “Lübbecke, when we catch you, we’ll cut off your nuts!” Apparently, a captured German soldier had identified my role in destroying their bunker.

  From experience, I regarded this warning very seriously. In at least one recent instance, the Russians had castrated a sergeant and a corporal captured from one of our regiment’s infantry companies. We discovered them the next day, dead from loss of blood.

  Such brutality reinforced our determination to avoid being taken prisoner by the Red Army at all costs, even if we had to take our own lives to escape that fate. This mentality was totally different than the mindset we possessed during the French campaign. If surrounded by French troops, I would have surrendered with confidence that I would be treated humanely.

  Realizing that the isolated position at Demyansk was a strategic liability, the army’s high command began withdrawing equipment in early February 1943. On February 17, it officially ordered the evacuation of the pocket to begin. Though under intense pressure from Soviet forces, the German Army conducted an orderly retreat. The 58th Infantry Division pulled out of the area on February 24.

  NOVGOROD: March 1943

  At the beginning of March 1943, our division returned to the north coast of Lake Ilmen to occupy a new defensive position near Novgorod, not far from where we had served the previous fall guarding against potential amphibious operations. Now the thick winter ice covering Lake Ilmen provided a hard crust across which Russian forces could carry out “land” operations.

  In the weeks that followed, however, the Red Army’s attacks across the frozen lake proved disastrous failures because of our ability to spot their approach across the flat surface at a great distance. Even under the cover of darkness, the Soviets found it difficult to move across the ice since we could illuminate the area with floodlights when we heard anything approaching.

  When the Russians made their attempts, the heavier artillery pounded them so effectively that they generally never even came within range of our company’s guns located a couple of miles from the shoreline. As the artillery shells shattered the lake’s ice shell, men and equipment would slide into the freezing waters below.

  In a battalion-sized attack against the regiment positioned next to us, the Red Army employed a number of large motorized sleds, apparently intending to cross the frozen lake before our forces could react. This particular assault did succeed in reaching our lines, but the enemy was soon repulsed with heavy casualties.

  The relative security of our position at Novgorod allowed us a little time to relax. Among the German troops, perhaps the most readily embraced feature of Russian culture was the banya (bathhouse), typically built about 50 yards behind a Russian home. After steaming ourselves inside, we would exit the banya to cool ourselves in the snow. On one of these occasions, someone started a snowball fight. Still naked, we engaged in a running battle in the frozen winter landscape, momentarily forgetting the real war.

  Despite the Wehrmacht’s successful evacuation of the Demyansk pocket to more defensible positions, and small tactical victories like those we achieved at Novgorod, our previously high morale slowly began to decline in 1943. For Army Group North, the war had definitively shifted to a defensive struggle to hold the gains achieved in 1941, while the Soviets now held the military initiative.

  We were also aware of the catastrophic fate of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad far to the south. After being encircled by the Red Army in November 1942, its survivors were finally forced to surrender in February. So great was the magnitude of the calamity that even Göbbel’s Propaganda Ministry did not attempt to conceal it. Also, while the war in Russia took a mounting toll of casualties among German troops, our families back home began to increasingly suffer from Anglo-American bombing raids.

  Yet, after two years of war, we remained deep inside enemy territory and maintained faith in Germany’s ultimate triumph. Our experience at the front left us wholly convinced that our army was still superior in terms of both our troops and equipment. Our generals and other officers also retained our full confidence and gave us a tactical advantage on the battlefield. Furthermore, we believed that German industry would continue to supply us with qualitatively better weapons than those of the enemy.

  Even after Stalingrad, we believed that we could still win a defensive struggle by not losing. The Red Army would gradually exhaust itself in its bloody assaults against us that produced only minor gains or no advantage at all. It seemed to me that the Soviet Union would eventually have to accept a negotiated peace that would leave Germany with much of its territorial gains.

  LEADERSHIP AND TACTICS

  Just as Stalin controlled everything in the Soviet Union, Hitler held supreme power in Germany. Only after the war did it become clear to me that Hitler had engaged in a constant struggle against the Wehrmacht’s general staff for control of military decision-making. As the war progressed, he increasingly subordinated the generals and the army to his whims.

  Unaware of Hitler’s bungling and the political conflicts at the top, we never questioned the military decision-making until late in the war. Witnessing the skilled leadership exercised in the field, German troops at the front held the officer corps in high esteem. Yet, even if tactical decisions by field officers remained unaffected, political meddling at the level of corps command or higher produced many poor strategic decisions.

  In the Red Army, the intervention of the Communist political leadership in military operations was even more pervasive. Unlike the Wehrmacht, the Red Army installed Politruks (political officers) down to the company level and empowered them to make final decisions on lower level tactical matters about how and where to fight.


  Although the Russians possessed many capable military officers well-versed in military tactics, the presence of these Politruks limited their effectiveness on the battlefield. This political interference largely explains Germany’s tactical superiority. As the Politruks gained more influence over military decisions later in the war, they caused the Red Army a lot of unnecessary casualties. Based upon my experience in combat and the intelligence we obtained from captured enemy troops, I would judge that perhaps a quarter of the Red Army casualties can be blamed on the interference of the Politruks.

  It was also apparent to German troops at the front that the Soviet political leaders and officers regarded an ordinary soldier’s life as a commodity without much value. They never hesitated to expend the lives of their men in operations that had a minimal chance of success.

  The Red Army sometimes, or possibly most of the time, fortified its troops with vodka to instill a sense of confidence in soldiers who often faced daunting odds. As we witnessed at the Volkhov, there were instances where a portion of the Red Army troops in an attack would even begin moving forward unarmed, with orders to retrieve weapons from those who were killed in the advance. The NKVD, the Soviet secret police, would set up machine guns behind the attacking infantry to prevent any retreat. With no alternative, these troops would advance forward against our well-defended positions to be slaughtered or captured.

  If captured, the Russian soldier would generally continue to resist. Attempts to threaten a prisoner with a firearm during interrogations would frequently produce only a smile. Strangely, only the threat of a beating with a club or some similar weapon would tend to make the man fearful.