Tiger Command!

by Bob Carruthers

  “Von Schroif! Had to take evasive action. Thought we’d pop round and see if we could offer any assistance! Even I couldn’t miss from thirty metres!”

  “You have been most helpful, my dear major. Most helpful. We will rendezvous back in the valley soon.”

  Knispel and Junge then helped to revive Otto Wohl, and set to repairing the engine and correcting the turret mechanism.

  “SS-Panzeroberschütze Wendorff, let us now head over to that panje and finally put this Borgmann nonsense to bed.”

  Von Schroif and Wendorff made their way carefully through the few remaining trees until they reached the edge of the clearing. Von Schroif then motioned to Wendorff to approach the building from the rear and both men ran, crouched and as silently as possible, to either side of the wooden building.

  Finding himself outside the building, von Schroif paused and listened carefully. A voice... German. He listened a little longer to determine if there were any other voices, but heard none and, from the tone, made the assumption the there was only one man inside the building, and that he was operating a radio.

  “There is no other way to do this,” thought von Schroif to himself, so he took a step back, kicked in the door, and pointed his machine pistol at the first person he saw. That person was Walter Lehmann, dressed in the black uniform of an SS-Panzermann, sitting alone at a radio transmitter. Here he was, after all these years. It was him. A bit older, a good deal fatter, but still with those unmistakeable red piggy eyes.

  Lehmann looked startled, but, with chameleon-like ease, his mouth broke into a broad grin. “SS-Hauptsturmführer von Schroif! I am so glad to see you. You are probably wondering why I am here. It’s a secret operation...”

  “Shut up, Lehmann!” retorted von Schroif.

  “This is not what it seems, SS-Hauptsturmführer... dirty tricks, you know... undercover... It’s what men like you and I do for our beloved Reich...”

  “Neither myself, nor any of the good men in my command, would know the meaning of the phrase ‘dirty tricks’. That is, and always has been, your department, Lehmann. Now, I am not in full possession of all the facts – God knows what you have been up to – but I have been ordered to detain you.”

  “SS-Haupsturmführer, I am only trying to fill in the blanks between those facts you say you are not in full possession of. Let me...”

  At which point von Schroif felt a whole campaign’s worth of bitterness, anger and frustration rise up within him. He grabbed Lehmann by the hair, pulled his head back, and rammed his pistol into his mouth, viciously rattling the barrel against his teeth and almost thrusting it down his throat.

  “Shut up! Shut up! Where is the other one! Where is the other one! There are two of you! Where is the other one?”

  “Here I am,” came the reply as a hideously burned Wilhelm Stenner kicked the back door open. He was holding a gun against the head of Karl Wendorff. “Now put the gun down, or I will kill your clever little radio operator.”

  Von Schroif knew he had little choice.

  “In fact,” continued Stenner, “just leave it in Lehmann’s throat. Step away, and let our old friend spit it out.”

  Von Schroif could feel Lehmann shaking and choking. He did as Stenner had said, letting go of the pistol and taking a step back. Immediately, Walter Lehmann threw his head violently forward and half-coughed, half-spat the gun from his mouth.

  “Pick it up, Lehmann,” ordered Stenner, who then threw Wendorff across the room in von Schroif’s direction.

  “How many years is it now... since we last met... The day before Gregor Strasser was killed... murdered... Seems such a long time ago... and we were on the same side in those days... You know, I used to look up to you... especially in the Freikorps... I always knew you would make a fine soldier, but you were never that committed. So, in a way, it was inevitable that you would find yourself on the wrong side of history with that lunatic Hitler... You did fight gallantly today, I will give you that... but now it’s over... all the little traitors have had their day.”

  “You are the one who is the traitor, Stenner. You and Lehmann here,” countered von Schroif.

  “I have never compromised on my beliefs, von Schroif. Whereas you did, didn’t you? You veered off course and fell in like a little snapping dog on the orders of your master Hitler. You jumped into bed with the financiers and the middle classes. You never cared for the German workers... Well, perhaps you did once, or said you did... but then you betrayed those principles.”

  “There are many forms of betrayal, Stenner, and the greatest is the one that you and Lehmann have committed. You have betrayed those closest to you, not in terms of ideology, but in life. Your family, your friends, your countrymen, those German workers you claim to love. Many of them are now soldiers, and many now lie dead in the fields behind us, because of you.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you, von Schroif? These are your last moments on this earth, and still the blindness persists. The Russians are not your enemy, nor are they the enemy of the German worker. The capitalists, always, they are our enemy. Anyway... enough. You will never understand. It is time for us to part. History has made its choice.”

  Stenner raised his gun and pointed it straight between von Schroif’s eyes. Von Schroif stared back, searching for the slightest bit of hesitation, or humanity, or mercy in the other man’s eyes, but found none. Just a cold, determined, steely blue. Just then there was a slight jerk of Stenner’s head, a crumpling of the gaze, a spray of blood, and then the sound of a single shot. The unmistakable sound of a shot from a Sauer hunting rifle.

  Reacting like lightning, von Schroif immediately turned and grabbed at Lehmann’s pistol hand with one hand and punched him as hard as he could with his other. Lehmann went flying in one direction, the pistol in the other. Hans von Schroif slowly and coolly went and picked it up and pointed it at Lehmann, who was now on his knees before him. A Lehmann who looked as deflated as any man could look, a man who looked for the first time as if all his luck had just run out.

  “What are you going to do with me?” he asked, almost plaintively.

  “I have my orders.”

  “You know they will torture me. Please, kill me now, von Schroif. It’s all I ask.”

  Von Schroif was struck by the tone of this request, one human being to another. Maybe the day’s killing had reached its high point. Maybe he allowed himself to remember when he, Lehmann and Stenner were all on the same side. Young men with immature hopes and dreams.

  “It’s over,” continued Lehmann. “I could beg, but I don’t want to. I could even lie, but I am sick of lying. If you do this for me, I will do one thing I should have done many years ago. I will be honest. I have two pieces of information to impart, and then I would like to leave this world. That is all I ask.”

  Von Schroif remained silent, unsure of what to do next.

  “Who issued the order? Was it Borgmann?”

  Von Schroif remained expressionless.

  “So it was Borgmann,” continued Lehmann. “Borgmann is not to be trusted. Borgmann used to work with me. Be careful. He is a man of many faces. The second bit of information I would like to pass on, my final words if you like, are of a more general nature. This regime... I have worked closely with many of its key figures. I have seen the way it works... from the inside. I do not have the same contempt for the German worker and soldier that Stenner did, but be very, very wary of this regime. They will bring lasting shame upon all of us. I have seen and heard things done in the name of the German people which will bring shame on Germany for a hundred years. We are heading into an abyss. Your Führer is leading you down a path to ignominy and defeat.”

  “Never! The Führer will win in the end.” Incensed by Lehmann’s final speech, Hans von Schroif lifted his gun and, quickly and emotionlessly, put a bullet through Walter Lehmann’s head.

  “What shall we do with the bodies?” asked Wendorff.

  “Who cares? Leave them for the rats,” said Knispel, entering t
he room with his Sauer poised for action.

  “Leave Stenner for his comrades to bury... but bring Lehmann.”

  Normally they would have simply tossed the body on the back of the tank, but von Schroif insisted that Lehmann was carried inside the tank. After some difficulty, they finally managed to get the lifeless body of Walter Lehmann into the tank, and von Schroif gave the order to depart. They rolled back to the supply point in confused silence with the dead body of Walter Lehmann jammed in among the spent shell cartridges. Just short of the supply point, von Schroif unexpectedly ordered them to stop beside a large, spreading oak tree. Together they manhandled the black-clad body of Walter Lehmann out of the radio operator’s hatch and laid him by the tree.

  Wendorff sat motionless in stunned silence. “This is the vision I saw. A body brought from our tank... from my hatch... but it’s not me. Not me!”

  Knispel and Wohl exchanged glances and rolled their eyes, but von Schroif simply looked, a faint smile coming to his lips. And then he spoke. “Now there is a good death for you.”

  With that, the body of Walter Lehmann was laid to rest under the spreading boughs of the oak tree. There was no ceremony. It was just one more cadaver among the thousands dotting the Russian landscape that day. The crew simply leapt back into the Tiger and roared back to the welcome embrace of the supply area.

  The rasputitsa came hard and early that year, and in no time they were once again up to their knees in thick, cloying mud. After the Tigers had been successfully recovered and repaired, they saw mercifully little action in the next few days. In his quieter moments, SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans von Schroif wondered how the new tanks would fare in this unforgiving new season. The second Russian winter, which was now looking ominous, was just around the corner, but someone else would find out if the Tigers would survive the extremes of the Russian winter. They would soon be on the move for sunnier climes. The orders had just arrived. They were to be sent to join the fighting in Africa. The crew was thrilled at the prospect of some desert sun on their backs, away from the gathering misery. Amidst the hurried preparations, one task stood out, one that von Schroif had been looking forward to.

  “SS-Panzerschütze Otto Wohl, may I have a word with you?” asked von Schroif.

  “Of course, SS-Hauptsturmführer,” replied Wohl.

  “I have received some correspondence from Dr Kurt Arnholdt at the Henschel works. He has asked me to thank you for your reports concerning the new Tigers. Not only that, but, without going into too much detail, he has intimated that some of your recommendations may be incorporated in future revisions of the Tiger.”

  At which Otto Wohl beamed with pride.

  “And one more thing. He asked me to pass this on to you.” Von Schroif handed his loader a book-sized package. “You may open it now, if you wish.”

  Otto Wohl hurriedly tore off the wrapping paper to reveal a superbly illustrated little booklet, the Tigerfibel.

  APPENDICES

  About Ritter von Krauss

  Ritter von Krauss is the pen name of a former German army officer who was the author of a large number of manuscripts for novels based on his experiences as a tank man in the first and second world wars. Although von Krauss is not his real name, the literal translation, Knight of the Cross, has been widely interpreted as an indicator that the author is a Knight’s Cross holder, a decoration gained as a result of his service in either the Wehrmacht Heer or the Waffen SS.

  There are at least forty surviving von Krauss novels in manuscript form, all of which are thought to have been written between 1954 and 1968, during the time when the author is believed to have lived and worked in Argentina. They range from fully-fledged novellas to story outlines a few thousand words long.

  During the 1990s, as part of the negotiations for the sale of the rights to the novels, the manuscripts and the supporting documentation formed part of an extensive legal due diligence exercise and were studied and verified by a number of experts. This allowed the sale to proceed, but with the strict stipulation that the author should not be identified and that no publication could take place during the lifetime of any of the author’s children. As a consequence of this condition, the manuscripts went unpublished in the 20th century. The main barrier to publication during the author’s life time was a legal challenge by the author’s estranged children based on the legitimate fear that the family might be identified and associated with von Krauss, who is reputed to have been active behind the scenes in the movement which became the Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS, the campaign to restore pension and other legal rights to Waffen SS veterans. His family strongly disapproved of his work in this sphere and, as a consequence, the publishing contracts to this day contain strong non-disclosure clauses preventing the publishers from identifying the author or commenting on his identity.

  Following the death of the last of von Krauss’ children, the way for publication was finally cleared and Tiger Command!, the first published Ritter von Krauss novel, finally appeared in e-book form in November 2011. The film Steel Tempest, which is based on von Krauss’ experiences in the Ardennes offensive, also reappeared in 2011, with the author properly credited for the first time.

  Originally, von Krauss served in the Great War where he was rumoured to have briefly been part of the unit which drove the A7V, the first of the German tanks, into battle. During the early years of the war von Krauss is believed to have served as a motorcycle despatch rider and to have been an associate of Kurt Ludecke, who was later to emerge as a member of Hitler’s inner circle. It has been widely speculated that he was on good terms with Sepp Dietrich.

  He is known to have been descended from an aristocratic family and von Krauss suffered the humiliation of being reduced to poverty in the 1920s when hyperinflation wiped out the fortunes of both von Krauss personally, and the entire family. Following the Great War, von Krauss is thought to have served in the Freikorps and to have spent time in Russia, working on tank development at KAMA.

  It is thought that his failure to find a place in the 100,000 man army of the Weimar Republic was the spur which led to his joining the Nazi party. It is also understood that von Krauss spent time in the SA where he knew Ernst Röhm as a result of an introduction by Ludecke. This is borne out by the fact that both Ludecke and Röhm appear in fictionalised form in the von Krauss manuscript Freikorps!

  There are many references which are interpreted as being autobiographical and it is conjectured that, as a result of his experiences in the hungry twenties, von Krauss may have become a committed National Socialist and, in any event, undoubtedly harboured life-long Nationalist aspirations. He was obviously a strong supporter of the Grossdeutschland vision which led to the creation of The Third Reich. He may have therefore been an obvious and easy convert to National Socialism, however, von Krauss was clearly not an anti-Semite and his novels display no trace of this aspect of National Socialist policy. In common with Ludecke and many others, von Krauss appears to have assumed that the anti-Semitic aspects of the party manifesto were a side show to the main event, which was the unification of the German speaking peoples into a Socialist state.

  During the 1920’s von Krauss is thought to have come to a breach with Ludecke when a number of business ventures designed to revive the von Krauss family fortunes also came to grief, leaving von Krauss penniless. It is thought that this was the event which drove von Krauss to seek employment by joining the fledgling SS, although he was initially highly disparaging of this outfit, describing himself as nothing more than “a glorified advertising sales man.”

  In 1933, it has been speculated that von Krauss joined Hitler’s regiment of body guards, the SS Leibstandarte. From the subject matter of many of his novels, it is also thought that von Krauss served throughout the war initially as an armoured car commander and later as a Tiger tank commander, either in the Waffen SS or the Heer (possibly both). The Gross Deutschland division has also been suggested.

  In 1945
von Krauss is understood to have escaped capture by the Russians and also slipped out of a British POW camp. As a result, he was never officially de-Nazified, and, lacking the appropriate papers, he was unable to work in Germany, and so began a game of cat and mouse with the German authorities which saw him serve briefly in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion, from which he was invalided out, suffering from malaria, an illness from which he never fully recovered.

  Notes on the Translation and Sources

  It is never an easy task to render the thoughts of a writer from his native language into a secondary language and one has to be careful to guard against creating a new work. I have therefore resisted the temptation to provide a complete translation of every word of the original manuscript as I feel it was important to preserve the essence of the German roots of the novel. I have preserved a larger than usual number of German words which are hopefully sufficient to make it clear at all times that we are in a foreign army. This is especially true of the ranks of the political soldiers of the Waffen SS. I’d like to think the balance is about right, but please accept my apologies if you have to reach for the German dictionary more than you would like. I’ve taken out a number of phrases such as “cleaned his clock”, meaning to kill a tank, as there is no real English equivalent. Unfortunately, a large number of the jokes told by Otto Wohl have been lost in the re-writing process, as they did not survive the act of translation with any semblance of humour still intact. Other German references have lost some of their charm. If you don’t know, for example, that the German word for farmer is Bauer and Müller translates as miller, then you won’t get the reference made by the Blocklieter.

  Other German phrases have survived. “To bite into grass” is recognisable as our own “Pushing up the daisies.” As it is a German setting, I have used the German phrase in preference to the English.