by Tom Zola
The constant training exercises of the past weeks that focused on tactical maneuvers and attack movements indicated that something was brewing. Engelmann didn’t believe, though, that the Wehrmacht would be able to tackle an offensive over half of the Eastern front line again.
He was sure that the attack this year would only cover a small section.
If it continues like that, then next year our war objective will be to take the XY field. Thoughts like these made Engelmann uneasy so he quickly shook them off. After all, nothing was lost yet, and with von Witzleben at the top as well as von Manstein and Paulus here in the East, he could at least rely on capable men.
The lieutenant ran his fingers over the eagle on his chest, the state symbol of the German Reich, and the swastika underneath that was stitched over so much that it was no longer recognizable.
Yes, a lot of things have changed since winter.
Lieutenant Engelmann could hear the aircraft behind his back getting louder and louder; that meant it was coming closer. Turning around, he watched the propeller spin for a moment, and then resumed walking to his platoon’s operational area.
Suddenly his eyes widened: There was a red star on the aircraft! Before he could react, the beast prepared itself for a nosedive. Aircraft cannons barked. Leaping on the ground, Engelmann covered his head with both hands. Instinctively he opened his mouth so that his lungs wouldn’t burst if there was an explosion nearby. But the projectiles weren’t meant for him. They hit the wooded area in front of him, the area where his tanks were – and his men! There was nothing Engelmann could do but watch helplessly while a fast Our Father roared through his mind. The Russian dive-bomber stopped its hellfire when it was perilously close to the ground; then it turned around and zoomed away. Mere seconds later it had already disappeared from sight. The roaring of the propeller faded away but now a piercing scream sounded. Nitz ran out of the woods.
“We need a paramedic – here, right now!“
North of Oryol, Soviet Union, April 14th, 1943
It was a quiet evening on the outskirts of Oryol. Though the city that served as the logistics center of the German Army was only a few miles away from the front, one could hear neither artillery fire nor any other combat sounds. Everything had been quiet on the front line for weeks, but for the Germans it was becoming obvious that something was in the air. By now, trains loaded with tanks arrived in the city almost every day while large formations of troops were gathering in the surrounding area. A week ago when he had gone to see the physician at the logistics center, Sergeant Berning, a lean, almost bony young man about twenty-three years old, had even spotted several of these Tiger tanks everybody was talking about. They were large, angular monsters, even bigger than the Panzer IV. Yet now he focused his attention on something else. Berning tugged on his long bangs, which he had combed back while the rest of his black hair was short, sticking out from under his field cap. In the meantime he listened to the voices that filled the air – loud, aggressive words. No doubt about it, an argument was in progress.
The sergeant and his 3rd Squad had moved into an abandoned barn and settled down between hay bales and wooden planks; the narrow light cones of two flashlights cut through the darkness. Of course the soldiers had to make sure that the light never seeped out the building; after all, they did not want to become the targets of dive-bombers. Here and there glowing dots danced through the air precisely wherever a soldier was smoking a cigarette. The complete Schnelle Abteilung 253 – the “Fast Battalion”, a formation consisting of two reconnaissance squadrons and two tank-hunter companies – had positioned itself here – north of Oryol – in an abandoned kolkhoz, and was currently engaged in intensive combat against well-organized groups of partisans, their number estimated in the several thousands. Some of them were quite well-trained fighters. Just today, two units of the section, together with mechanized forces of the Panzergrenadier Regiment 63, attacked campsites of the enemy and were able to celebrate an entirely successful operation. Berning’s squad hadn’t participated in the action.
In general one could say that since the beginning of the new year the Wehrmacht had the problems in this region noticeably under control – particularly due to less repressive policies for the civil population, combined with specific operations against armed forces. Today’s operation was also the subject of the argument that one could probably hear as far as the end of the village: The staff of the battalion commander, who was expressing his rage in deafening screams, was located in the adjacent building. Though Berning assumed that all commanding officers of the companies were present, apart from the commander, he could only hear one other voice: First Lieutenant Haus, the leader of the “black company“, who was also screaming and snarling as if the two of them were trying to compete for the most decibels. Though their voices were muffled, the soldiers could make out every word:
“I won’t tolerate it any longer, shit like that happening in my battalion! You and your men are nothing but a pack of killers and highwaymen, and it’s a disgrace, nothing but a disgrace for you to wear our uniforms!” the commander bellowed.
Of course Berning and his men knew what this was about because today's events already spread as rumors via the grapevine, claiming the black company had shot several women in a hidden partisan ammunition storehouse – unarmed women who had been found dead later.
“With all due respect, wake up, man!” Haus countered loudly. “This is war, not a summer camp. If we don’t make short work of these people, you’ll have more than just a few partisans here soon!”
“Don’t talk such shit! Times have changed and we can’t afford to mistreat the civilians!”
“Please, Colonel ... ”
“SIR! Dammit, you are to call me ’Sir’! I should never have kept your unit intact when you were assigned to my command! I should have ripped apart your company and split your men over my other units as so many other commanders did!”
“Even though you are my superior officer, I refuse to tolerate your talking about my men like that! My men are soldiers and they have always done their duty...”
“... their duty...?”
“Jawohl, their duty! And I can recall more than one situation when you boys from the Wehrmacht were damn glad we came. The way we’re suddenly being treated in this army is outrageous!”
“Do you really believe what you’re saying? Well, anyway – what you did today will have consequences!”
“Fine, Herr Oberst. I proudly stand behind my actions and can defend them anytime at any court-martial. All I did was serve my country.”
“What you did will have consequences, Haus! I’ll dissolve your company no later than tonight and split the soldiers up among the other units. But you – as well as the platoon leader, Raumann - are released from all duties, effective from right now. Both of you can take a chair, sit down in the next room, and wait for better weather because you won’t be involved in any more operations for the time being. I’ll report the incident to the high command, and then we’ll just have to see what they will decide about you.”
“Then I officially inform you as of now that I’ll enter an official complaint about your conduct towards me and my men!”
“Go ahead. You’re entitled to do that. And now get out of my sight!”
The evening was suddenly quiet again, and the soldiers turned their attention to other matters. Yet Berning was haunted by his own thoughts. He hadn’t been there this noon – and he was glad about that for several reasons.
*
Two hours passed. Berning couldn’t fall asleep because he was tormented by visions of the future. The events of the past weeks indicated that something major was coming up. Besides fighting partisans, Berning’s unit had mainly concentrated on one thing: training. Getting past wire blockades, never-ending sand table exercises, always with the same relief models of the terrain, and hand-to-hand combat in position. Nobody could say yet what it was, but it was all over town that the German Army would start this year
’s offensive soon.
That was what worried Berning, because he didn’t need a war or an offensive. He would have preferred to just stay any number of miles behind the front line until the Endsieg, the final victory. He was about to doze off when a figure with wide shoulders entered the barn, looked around searching.
“Sergeant Berning?” a rough voice resounded through the room.
“Here.” Even this one word betrayed the sergeant’s Austrian dialect. Sitting up halfway, Berning groped for his flashlight with one hand because it was pitch-black in the barn. The figure stepped up to him and stood at attention.
“Obergefreiter Steffen Kolter reporting for duty!” he announced. Berning, who was already half asleep, turned on the flashlight and pointed it directly at Kolter’s face. A broad-shouldered, balding fellow with gray hair and a round, bulbous nose narrowed his eyes to a slit when the sudden light blinded him.
“What do you want?” Berning asked. One of his soldiers on the bunk next to his woke up and slowly raised his head.
“I’m to report to you, colonel’s orders. I’ve been assigned to your squad.”
Berning nodded slowly.
“Good.” He started to think. “Look for a place to sleep for now.”
“Great,” the soldier next to Berning, Lance Corporal Rudi Bongartz, said and grinned happily. His teeth shone in the dark like two white strips. ”We can use as many helping hands as we can get when we put up the field showers tomorrow.” He lit a cigarette. Bongartz always had a cigarette between his lips. Though each soldier was only issued a few cigarettes a day, Bongartz somehow managed to meet his needs. The lance corporal was tall and slim, with black hair and a skin tone dark for Central Europeans. He expressed himself in simple words.
“Great idea, Gefreiter Bongartz. Well then.”
“No,“ Kolter answered curtly and calmly.
“No what?”
“Just no. Sergeant, I didn’t go through the toughest training in the world, and I didn’t fight with the best soldiers of our times, just to install some showers now.”
“Er, what do you mean by no … ?” Berning, who was obviously younger than Kolter, felt as if he had been hit in the face by a wooden plank. He felt completely blindsided and didn’t know what to say. Something like this had never happened to him before.
“Senior Lance Corporal, when I give you an order ... ”
But Kolter had already turned around, disappearing into the darkness of the barn, muttering, “I’m going to crash.”
“Senior Lance … er … Lance ...” Berning called after him but Kolter apparently didn’t care. Looking completely stunned, Berning stared at Bongartz, whose silhouette he could barely make out in the darkness. The Lance Corporal just shrugged and put out his cigarette butt on the floor of the barn.
Oboyan, Soviet Union, April 17th, 1943
Comrade Zampolit, the political commissar of the unit, waved his arms around wildly while addressing the hundred and twenty soldiers of the formation standing in attendance, and praising to them the rule of the proletariat as the greatest achievement of the 20th century. An achievement that now needed to be defended against Fascism and its brother, Capitalism. He raised his index finger admonishingly, pointing out that this war wasn’t about defending a stretch of land or even a city. This war was about nothing less than defending the freedom of every laborer and farmer. Comrade Zampolit spread his arms out as if he wanted to conjure up a storm, and literally spit out his words while raging on about the German barbarians who, in an alliance of oppression with the Italians, the Finns, the Hungarians, the Romanians, the Bulgarians and the Japanese, had initiated crimes against humanity by forcing the free socialist labor councils to participate in this war.
Suddenly the Zampolit calmed down and continued in a voice that was so soft that the comrades in the back rows could barely understand him anymore. The speaker’s eyes blazed when he started to talk about Herbert Baum. He paused for a moment, searching the faces in the auditorium. Of course the name didn’t mean anything to anyone in the room. So Comrade Zampolit told them the story of Herbert Baum, a German Communist who had been brutally tortured and murdered by the Nazis because he had dreamed about freedom, equality and the rule of all workers. Therefore the Red Army, the armed ally of the socialist society of laborers, was not just on a mission to defend the motherland, the Zampolit went on. This war was about freeing their brothers in Europe from the oppression of Fascism and Capitalism, so that the liberated nations of Europe could be given the gift of socialism. It was about so much more than one’s own life, one’s family, one’s country, the Zampolit reminded them in an adamant voice. It was about the freedom of mankind!
Comrade Rjadovoi Arthur Petrosjan could barely keep his eyes open even though he had to remain standing, just like his comrades had to during this political instruction. What did he – an Armenian farmer’s son – care about labor councils in Italy? Until two years ago, he had never left his hometown, and now he suddenly had to fight Germans thousands of miles away from home. Arthur didn’t understand any of it; he didn’t understand this war. Moreover, he simply didn’t see this as his war. Naturally he would never show his lack of interest here in public. He fought hard against his exhaustion and lack of sleep; after all, the instructors had woken up his company in the middle of the night and made them work like slaves ever since then. His eyelids were so heavy that they trembled, but in front of him, next to Comrade Zampolit, were the officers of his unit. They would punish any hint of fatigue with a beating – or worse.
Thus Arthur continued to fight the necessity to get some sleep. His head was filled with thoughts of his home. At home right now he would probably be feeding the pigs and chickens while the babushkas were preparing a true feast: roasted pork, bread, eggs, cheese. Here all Arthur got to eat was dirt. Or German bullets if they sent him on another one of these suicide missions. He felt his rage rise up. Why had those Socialists made him leave his village? Why should this whole thing concern him? He didn’t give a damn about any ideologies – why, he didn’t even know how to spell ideology! So what if these Germans invaded this country? Arthur didn’t care. So others would rule the country where his family’s farm was. In the end that wouldn’t change anything, and life would go on. The rage tightened Arthur's throat. He felt the blood rise up to his head, and his heart began to beat wildly. He would have liked nothing better than to walk up to the comrade at the front of the room, who was blabbering something about some Paris Commune right now, and smash his fist in the speaker’s face. And then Arthur would go home to his father, his mother, and his grandmother, who always exhorted him to go to the Tukh Manuk chapel to worship the black boy. Grandma was so religious.
Arthur wanted to go home, and now that he had suppressed his rage successfully, he almost started to cry. His stomach felt queasy. Yes, he really wanted to go home. Dad needed his help on the farm ever since Azerbaijani bandits had broken all his fingers. His hands hurt all the time, and now he even had to work the farm all by himself. It really hurt Arthur to have to abandon his family. But most of all he longed for Sesede, that black-haired beauty with her full bosom and well-rounded hips. Oh, now Arthur’s thoughts were going off in a totally different direction and his body reacted immediately. He wanted her, oh, how much he wanted her! She had already let him lie between her legs once – the night before he had to depart. And she had promised him she would become his wife when he returned. Yes, even his parents had given their consent! Now Arthur wanted to go home more than ever.
Outside Mezhove, Soviet Union, April 18th, 1943
Orders issued! The platoon leaders, the staff sergeant, the HQ platoon leader, and the commanding officer stood next to the command tank of the company, a Panzer III that looked a little like a not-fully-grown Panzer IV and whose main gun was only fake. But the hull of the tank came with all kinds of communications devices. Yet its exterior betrayed the fact that it was the command tank, because a rather striking frame aerial was wound along the edg
es of the hull on a structure behind the turret.
The company commander, an experienced soldier who was approaching fifty and whose face was covered with old gashes, glowered at the faces of his NCO’s and officers. A map that showed the whole European territory of Russia and even parts of Asia had been spread out at the soldiers’ feet, and the commander had a long baton in his hand. He kept tracing the front line drawn on the map – the Eastern Front – with the tip of the baton.
The German Army had to maintain a front line of more than 1 500 miles from Lake Ladoga in the north to Maykop in the south. Between Oryol and Belgorod – both cities were in the hands of the Germans – the area around the industrial city of Kursk, controlled by the Russians, jutted out like a rock ledge into the territory occupied by the Germans. Engelmann sensed that his vacation was over.
“The division has gotten its marching orders,“ the commander began. “All platoons will therefore be on alert and ready to move without delay. Prepare yourselves for transport with the Reichsbahn from Stalino towards the front line as of April 21st. All units will follow tomorrow morning, but let me say this for now: We’ll be taking part in an operation to straighten out the salient of the front line near Kursk; the code name is Operation Citadel.”
“What plans do they have for us?” Engelmann inquired.
“Roughly, in two stages: occupy the city of Kursk, then advance into the interior of the area.“
“Von Manstein wants to straighten out the front line in order to free forces, huh?“ Engelmann mused out loud. The other platoon leaders nodded in silence and stared at the map.
