At Leningrad's Gates

by William Lubbec

  Dealing with these situations only reinforced my own concerns about Anneliese. As I wrote to her in a letter at the time, “The price of war goes way beyond the battlefield.”

  ANNELIESE

  At the end of two months with my family in Püggen following her evacuation from Belgium, Anneliese received new orders on November 9 transferring her to a hospital run by the Kriegsmarine in Zeven, located about 100 miles northwest of Püggen between Bremen and Hamburg. Her previous service as a nurse had been in military hospitals run by the German Army, but the Kriegsmarine now provided her with a different uniform and issued its own regulations governing the conduct of medical personnel.

  Following a couple of months working in Zeven, Anneliese was transferred further north to a hospital in Altenwalde, a suburb of the city of Cuxhaven located at the juncture of the Elbe River and the North Sea. While she spent most of the next nine months based in Altenwalde, she was later detached to the hospital in neighboring Süderdeich, further up the Elbe.

  Earlier in Belgium, and later in northern Germany, Anneliese was exposed to other perils besides Allied bombing. As an attractive 23-year-old nurse in a military hospital, she worked in a harsh environment for which her upbringing had left her wholely unprepared. She was lonely and vulnerable without me or a family to provide her with any love or support.

  My concern for her safety and well-being in that environment caused me immense stress. Despite her engagement to me, Anneliese was forced to continually fend off advances from the soldiers and sailors whom she encountered daily as well as from the doctors with whom she worked. In several letters, I warned her to be cautious and guard against the predations of such men.

  In a previous letter to me written on July 20, 1943, Anneliese expressed the pain she still suffered because of the absence of affection in her childhood: “You had such a happier youth than me. It is so hard for a girl without a mother’s love.” Now, she was a woman on her own without the benefit of a mother from whom she could seek advice about men and the dangers they might pose to her.

  As a result of the lack of love in her youth, Anneliese had a deep need for affection as an adult. This made her a natural target for aggressive males pursuing female companionship, especially when such a man dishonestly promised that he only sought her innocent company. In this regard, her environment at the military hospital was more hazardous than my situation at the front where there were no women who might divert our attention.

  Realizing the inherent risk to her, it was extremely difficult for me as a 24-year-old man to endure our separation while simultaneously performing my duties as a company commander. Several lines from my various letters reflect my anxious efforts to reassure her of my love and to encourage her to remain strong.

  “How many times a day do I think I about you?”

  “The biggest problem I have is missing you, Annelie.”

  “Mutual love overcomes all separations.”

  “Our love gives us peace in these sorrowful days.”

  “The remembrance of our past times together hurts badly.”

  “My thoughts are always with you far away, my love.”

  “I cannot describe with words my love for you.”

  “I am thankful that God showed me the way to you, Annelie.”

  Ultimately, my upbringing imparted to me a strength of character and self-control to bear my burdens. Lacking a similar upbringing, Anneliese was less able to cope with our separation. As I would later discover, there would be consequences.

  While my deep apprehensions persisted, Anneliese and I had decided that we no longer wished to delay our marriage until after the war. We now only awaited the necessary official permission, following the completion of the required investigation into the Jewish surname of her mother. Indeed, we had already plotted out our imminent wedding in Hamburg down to the last detail in a series of letters.

  Using some cloth purchased when I had been on occupation duty in Belgium, I had hired a tailor in Hamburg to make me a suit. Anneliese had meanwhile purchased her wedding dress. We planned to have a covered carriage pulled by two white horses to carry us to the ceremony at the church and then deliver us to a wedding reception at Aunt Frieda’s apartment. Afterward, we would celebrate our honeymoon at a Hamburg hotel.

  On January 23 and 24, 1945, the division and then the regiment signed the Marriage Allowance Paper, providing us with the last of the official documentation that we needed. Since I was next in line for a three-week leave from duty, I pushed my concerns about Anneliese’s situation from my mind and looked forward impatiently to our impending marriage.

  EVOLVING VIEWS ON THE WAR

  Throughout the war, German soldiers had regular access to the news through the weekly issues of the divisional newspaper and armed forces radio, but the heavily censored information offered us only a general picture of what was happening in Russia and the wider war.

  My general lack of concern about Germany’s declaration of war against America during the winter of 1941 in Uritsk had been typical. At that time, the United States seemed too far away to make a difference in our struggle against Russia, but it turned out that American industry would provide crucial material support that helped the Red Army recover from its early disasters.

  Reports of the surrender in Stalingrad in early 1943 sparked much more concern among the troops, but most of us still remained confident that Germany would ultimately win, or at least obtain a favorable peace settlement. The surrender of Italy, Germany’s main ally in Europe, in September 1943, only inspired us to fight harder to obtain this ultimate victory. Even with the news of our steady retreat from Russia, almost everyone at home and at the front still fully expected that we would win the war as late as mid-1944.

  This persistent optimism partly reflected the power of the Nazi-controlled media to shape perspectives and opinions among the German public. There were also rumors, grandly reinforced by Göbbels, that Germany was developing secret wonder weapons to ensure ultimate victory. When our new Vergeltungswaffe (Vengeance) missiles began striking England in the summer of 1944, they appeared to give credence to the rumors, though their effect may have been exaggerated.

  While the regime’s reports, exhortations, and propaganda skillfully manipulated the public’s hopes and fears, I believe that Germans also allowed themselves a certain amount of self-deception about the situation in order to sustain their morale in the face of overwhelming odds.

  Soon after my return to the front from Germany in May 1944, we learned about the Allied landings in France. This was not necessarily considered bad news because for years the Allies had been targeting our cities with air raids, as though they were hesitant to again confront the Wehrmacht on the ground in France. It was hoped that once they had staged the landings we could then force another Dunkirk, eliminating the threat from the West for the foreseeable future.

  When the expected repulse of the Allies failed to materialize within the first couple of weeks, it was apparent that Germany now faced a second front. Perhaps if Germany had possessed more veteran divisions like the 58th on the Western Front, the D-Day landings would have failed, but by then experienced troops were in short supply.

  Before the war, there was a deep resentment toward the West that stemmed from the harsh treatment meted out to Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. By the time the Western Allies landed in France on D-Day, I had come to see the current conflict against the Western powers as more like a game compared with the brutal nature of our struggle against the Russians.

  A German soldier captured by the Western Allies expected to survive, but one captured in Russia did not. Upon learning of my brother Otto’s capture by the Americans in the summer of 1944, I was not concerned because I knew he was safe. From my perspective as a soldier on the battlefield, the war with the American or British troops in the west was a struggle between civilized foes, while the war against the Red Army in the east was generally perceived as a clash with a barbaric mortal enemy.

 
; The view toward the Western Allies inside Germany was different. Because the German people expected the Americans and the British to conduct the war in a more humane fashion and to follow the Geneva Convention, they were surprised and embittered at the Anglo-American bombing of cities that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of German civilians. Rather than breaking their spirit, the attacks probably made most Germans more determined to resist.

  Although the troops around me in Russia still did not pay too much attention to events on the Western Front, the success of the Allied invasion of France in June increased our pessimism. Even while still writing to Anneliese that there was “no doubt that we will prevail in this war,” my doubts were growing.

  During the previous summer’s retreat through the Düna in the wake of the destruction of much of Army Group Center, I had begun to think for the first time that Germany would lose the struggle, even if we really did possess wonder weapons. Recognizing the increasing inevitability of Germany’s defeat, I admitted to Anneliese in a letter, “I gave up expecting the impossible.” With the Wehrmacht retreating on all fronts, Allied willingness to reach a negotiated peace appeared more and more remote. Uncertain what would happen next in the war, we were increasingly fighting for our survival in the hope that we could somehow eventually make it back to Germany.

  In the second half of 1944, political discussions became commonplace among the troops for the first time in the war. We realized that something must be wrong with Hitler and the Nazis. Most of the time, you could express yourself more freely with comrades at the front than back in Germany. Of course, you still needed to be careful with whom you shared your opinions. If you openly stated, “Hitler is an idiot,” it would undoubtedly land you somewhere very unpleasant.

  A few weeks after the Allied landings in France, a German officer-led assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler failed. Like some of the troops around me, I felt disappointed that the plotters had botched the effort. Not all German troops supported assassination, but there was certainly a widespread negative attitude toward the Nazi leadership and a growing indifference to Hitler’s fate.

  When the Nazis issued an order on July 23, 1944 that required all units in the Wehrmacht to adopt the Nazi Party salute, the 58th Division declined to obey this command, instead maintaining the traditional soldier’s salute used in most armies. Perhaps on the basis of our combat record, our refusal was not punished.

  If our unit had been given some hard-core Nazi troops, they would have received a rough time from the other men. We were patriotic soldiers fighting for Germany, not a bunch of Nazi brownshirts fighting for Hitler. Most of the soldiers I knew did not support the Nazi Party, even if the practical result of our military effort was to maintain the Nazi regime in power. It is an irresolvable dilemma when you want to serve your country, yet oppose its political leadership.

  While my own hostility toward the regime increased, Anneliese condemned the German officers who had carried out the plot against Hitler as traitors, retaining her deep belief in both the Führer and German victory. Even during the last months of the war, Anneliese remained absolutely convinced that Germany was building miracle weapons that would rescue us. When she told me in a letter that a framed photograph of Hitler hung on the wall of her room, my reaction was one of utter disbelief.

  Though many Germans shared her commitment to the regime, I considered such faith to be completely ludicrous. Yet, whatever one’s feelings toward the Nazi government, we were all engaged in a fight to the bitter end. Unlike the First World War’s negotiated armistice, this war would be decided on the battlefield.

  Because the Nazi eagle resembled a vulture, Germans had sometimes jokingly referred to it as the Pleitegeier (the bankrupt vulture). The reference implied that the Nazis, for all their bombast and early successes, were not leading Germany to a bright future, but rather to a calamitous fate.

  Chapter 16

  CATASTROPHE

  January–May 1945

  SAMLAND: Late January–April 13, 1945

  On January 13, the Red Army began a major new offensive into East Prussia. This assault to the south of Memel quickly threatened to isolate us from the other German forces in the region. The cancellation of all furloughs wrecked my plans to marry Anneliese. No further successful communication with her or my family would take place for half a year, despite our mutual attempts to send letters.

  The evacuation of German troops from Memel to the Samland region of East Prussia began in the last week of January. Traffic departing for the southwest jammed onto the long sandy neck of the Kurische Isthmus, located between the Baltic Sea and the Kurishe Bay.

  As Soviet forces moved to block the exit from the Kurische Isthmus into the Samland, the last elements of the 58th Division rushed to pass through the escape route. German artillery held off the enemy’s advance just long enough for all of my division to reach the Samland. Linking up with the main body of German forces, we immediately went into combat in the bitter cold of the East Prussian winter.

  The mission of the newly designated Army Detachment Samland was to defend East Prussia and provide a shield for German civilians fleeing the Soviet onslaught. Our immediate objective was to relieve the city of Königsberg, which was surrounded by the Soviets at the end of January. While the 58th and other German divisions would make a push toward the city from outside, troops within would simultaneously attempt to break out in the direction of the relieving forces.

  The attack began early on the morning of February 19. Joined to a lesser extent by our company’s heavy guns, our division’s artillery conducted a devastating barrage against the Soviet rear in preparation for the assault by our infantry. Placing my old comrade Schütte in charge of directing our heavy guns in the rear, I took my usual place at the front, where I could get a better sense of what was occurring.

  As our regiment’s attack advanced in the direction of the Soviet frontlines in a wooded area, I moved forward beside three or four German Stürmgeschütze (tracked armored vehicles with 75-millimeter guns), which were crossing the open terrain of rolling hills. Simultaneously, our infantry began advancing about one or two hundred yards to my right.

  Unfortunately, our shelling of the enemy’s position had failed to crush their ability to resist. Within moments of the start of our assault, the Stürmgeschütze began to be picked off one after the other by Soviet anti-tank guns concealed along the line of trees about a hundred yards ahead of us.

  Suddenly alone among the smashed vehicles, I cautiously began to move back toward my company’s gun position 300 yards behind me. Long before I reached it, my company’s 75- and 150-millimeter howitzers retaliated for the destruction of the vehicles, pouring a barrage of a couple of hundred rounds into the tree line.

  The infantry’s offensive meanwhile pushed on about five miles before losing momentum. In the process, it revealed that our strike had taken the Red Army by surprise, preempting an assault they had been preparing to make against our own lines a few hours later.

  The Soviet concentration of American-made high-velocity antitank guns at regular 20-foot intervals at the edge of the forest might have been optimal in an offensive operation, but their close deployment also served to magnify the destructive impact of my company’s guns. Similar results had been achieved in the rear of the Russian lines by our artillery. All that remained of a couple of Red Army divisions were the remnants of their forward headquarters and the wreckage of other equipment. The attack was a success, but it would be the last hurrah for us.

  As the coordinated assault of Army Detachment Samland hit the enemy forces arrayed along the front, German units within Königsburg succeeded in punching a six-mile-wide corridor through the Red Army units encircling the city. Refugees who had been trapped inside the city when it was initially surrounded quickly began streaming through this escape route. The tragic plight of civilians forced to flee westward cast my mind back to the parallel scene I had witnessed in France in the summer of 1940, though the danger t
o those who fell under Soviet control was greater.

  In the small area that we had liberated from Soviet occupation, we received firsthand accounts of atrocities committed by the enemy troops. In one of the worst incidents, we heard that every sister in a Catholic convent for blind nuns had been raped. Word of such barbarity helped inspire our efforts to hold our ground as long as possible before retreating. It also reinforced the urgency of evacuating all German residents to the west as rapidly as possible, employing force if necessary to make them depart.

  Directed to assist in this mission, my company joined other units behind the lines in loading civilians aboard a couple of trucks sent over by the division. Arriving at a farm only a few miles from the front, we encountered an elderly couple in their seventies. The wife boarded the truck but her husband refused to leave, insisting, “I am going to stay here and I am going to die here.” Obeying our orders, I commanded my soldiers to forcibly haul the man onto the truck, but it was a gut-wrenching moment. If my parents were ever forced to abandon our family’s farm in Püggen, I knew it would break their hearts.

  Beyond trying to shield the civilian population, we were now simply fighting for our own lives with a desperation born from hopelessness. There was no place to retreat and no more illusions that some miracle would rescue Germany. We had no choice but to accept whatever fate held in store for us. While my basic instinct to survive persisted, I felt a deepening sense of resignation that the end for me could come at any time.

  In these critical circumstances, the army began to employ a number of Volkssturm units at the front. These were comprised of older veterans from the First World War, including some who were grandfathers in their sixties. Many of them were local farmers who had remained to defend their homes after their families were evacuated. Despite their age, they were seasoned soldiers who fought surprisingly well against overwhelming odds.