by Tom Zola
“Don’t worry, Herr Unteroffizier,” he gasped. “We’re almost there.”
They reached the edge of the woods to which the SMG fire team’s area of action extended. Bongartz stopped and just dropped down on the ground. Berning crashed hard into the undergrowth and moaned while the lance corporal, who had already struggled out from underneath him and the machine gun, groaned and jumped up.
“We’re already in the penalty area,” he sighed more to himself than to Berning, and pulled off his Stahlhelm – his steel helmet with its distinctive coal-scuttle shape. “How does that go again? Do you swing your helmet twice?“
“Three times!” Berning groaned. “Three times, Bongartz!” The sergeant held his crotch with both hands. Though the pain was located more in the area of his thigh, he didn’t dare to look down and check the extent of the disaster – he was too terrified of what he might see down there.
Bongartz jumped into the open space – a dangerous thing to do – held his helmet up, and swung it three times back and forth over his head. Then he immediately dropped to the ground and remained there without moving; only his chest heaved up and down every second while his pulse slowed down. Moments passed – nothing happened. Bongartz got up and peered at the supposedly redemptive edge of the woods at the other end of the plains. Then he saw it: Between two groves of low pines a German soldier, who had camouflaged his stahlhelm with tall grass, rose, took it off, too, and waved it three times.
Berning was still lying with clenched teeth on the exact spot where Bongartz had set him down. The lance corporal returned to his squad leader and picked up the MG. Then, grunting heavily, he threw Berning back over his shoulders and made his way to the German positions.
Berning noticed the sweat pouring from the back of Bongartz’s head down into his uniform. They stepped out into the open space. The searing sun was shining more mercilessly by the minute. Then they saw it: east of their position, infantry soldiers tore out of the woods – as far as they both could see. Berning squinted because of the bright sun that was slowly moving south, and marveled at the cumulative power of the 253rd Infantry Division. Carrying their weapons in stalking position, the soldiers focused on the area ahead. They marched at walking pace in long skirmish lines so that, in the case of an attack from the front, their collective firepower would be available. The roar of propeller engines had already broken the tense silence at the scene; in the next moment a dozen German aircraft zoomed over the soldiers’ heads while, all the way to the rear, the mechanized infantry troops in their half-tracks emerged out of the underbrush.
The attack here in the North had started, and despite his pain Berning’s face broke out in a wide grin. He had caught his million-dollar wound and would be able to go home.
East of Stroitel’, Soviet Union, May 3rd, 1943
Heeresgruppe Süd – 102 kilometers south of Kursk
The enemy’s artillery was still hammering mercilessly at the German positions even though the fire by now had moved farther south. The detonations of the shells could still be heard in Engelmann’s panzer, and when the crew members opened the hatches of their panzers and peered out, they could even see the eruptions as tall as buildings shooting up into the sky farther back in the woods. The hostile artillery fire had not claimed any victims in the regiment, since most of the soldiers had been able to protect themselves by staying in their tank. But now the Russians were probing the positions of the infantry, who, according to the first radio signals, were taking a beating.
“If the order to attack doesn’t come soon, we won’t have anything left to attack with,” Born mumbled, staring at the ceiling of the tank. Five men, stuffed into a tin can – that meant being crammed together like sardines in a very small space, so small that they couldn’t help touching each other. That had its advantages, too, though: A tank crew quickly formed a team, which also became apparent by the fact that the ranks often became blurred inside the armored vehicle. Even the soldiers spoke their minds more openly in the presence of the commander here than they would have done elsewhere.
Born restlessly shifted his weight on his seat, but it was either the wall of the tank that pressed into his back or the shaft of the machine gun that poked him.
“Don’t worry, our planes will quickly put an end to this.“ The dull thud outside almost drowned out Nitz’s claims that the dive bombers that had roared over their heads a few minutes ago were on their way to enemy positions. It would definitely start soon: First, the German Luftwaffe had five hundred dive bombers plus escorting fighter planes in the area of Heeresgruppe Süd alone, in the air and raking the Russian artillery – as well as bombing the defense belt at the front right now. Second – though it was not audible due to the Russian shells raining down – the German artillery guns had also been firing at the enemy’s positions for the past twenty minutes.
“When will it finally start?” Münster wondered aloud. “I mean we’ve had enough Büchsenlicht for quite a while now.“
Engelmann glanced at his watch: 8:50 a.m. German time. Here in Russia it was already almost noon.
Though he could have almost cited the battle plan by heart, he studied his map again. The more he could see the details in his mind’s eye, the less precious time he would have to waste later, when decisions had to be made fast.
Engelmann frowned while his index finger traced the planned marching route.
After all the extensive preparations for Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the Soviet Union – and after two years of war in Russia, the German Army still hadn’t managed to acquire decent situation maps with Roman letters, which meant that Lieutenant Engelmann again had to struggle with Cyrillic letters in order to identify towns and roads. Of course, that didn’t make things any easier.
According to the plan, they were to advance in northeasterly direction across the Lipoviy Donez, a narrow branch of the Donez River. Then, after two and a half miles, they would come to a Russian minefield that, according to intelligence, was abandoned – something Engelmann couldn’t imagine since mined barriers without surveillance were useless. Behind the barrier there were two and a half more miles of flat plains that had to be traversed, so the terrain was very suitable for tanks. The first entrenched defense belt of the enemy was expected to be on the Osërovka – Shtsholokovo line, two tiny farming villages – actually more like large farm compounds. Once they had passed this line, they had to move on towards the road that led to Prokhorovka where the second defense belt was expected to be on the Lutski – Plota line, which was on the way. Both entrenchments were located in the only range of hills in this otherwise extremely flat country, which showed that the Russians too had done their homework. If everything went according to plan – and it never did – come nightfall, the German forward troops would be behind the second Russian defense line.
Suddenly static came from the radio. Using his right hand, Nitz pressed the receiver, a speaker in a headset, against his ear as hard as he could. After a few seconds he confirmed that he had received the message, turned away from the radio and nodded. “It’s starting,” he informed the commander and the driver through his throat mic. Münster passed the message on to the gunner and the loader since neither was connected to the crew’s internal net, and both therefore had to be addressed directly – even by the commander.
“Okay,” Engelmann replied while his mind was flooded with orders and rules of conduct for cases like this that had to be carried out now. Years of training and war had shaped him. “You know what that means. We’re in combat mode.” Throughout this campaign, Engelmann had had the good luck to lead the same tank crew, and over time his small community had developed its own ritual: At the beginning of any combat action or, to be more precise, when Engelmann determined that they were in “combat mode”, the usual polite phrases and observations of rank were put to rest and everybody in the tank started to use each other’s first names.
Engelmann took a red tin can out of his chest pocket and shoved a piece of chocola
te into his mouth. Then he gave his orders: “Hans, start the engine and step on the gas. We take the lead of the 1st Platoon. Sequence behind us as follows: Müller two, Laschke three, Meyer four, Marseille five. Transmit via radio, Ebbe.“ That was Nitz’ nickname. “Out.“
As always, Nitz had already adjusted the radio system of the tank according to Engelmann’s preferences: the commander’s microphone and headset were switched to the intercom while Nitz could switch between the radio frequency of the platoon and that of the company.
“Müller two, Laschke three, Meyer four, Marseille five, jawohl,“ Nitz repeated and immediately spoke into the radio transmitter, “We’re in the lead, sequence after us Anna 3, then Anna 2, Anna 4, Anna 5.” Not every message was coded elaborately, but of course the code names were part of the cover. Engelmann’s tank roared when Münster started the engine, engaged the clutch and accelerated. Elfriede immediately raced out on the open space. The lieutenant opened both sides of the cupola and stuck his torso through the opening. No matter how dangerous this was, nothing was more important than being able to watch the battlefield directly with one’s own eyes and ears. Engelmann immediately detected two black dots in the air; they were far ahead on the horizon and kept rushing down toward the ground and then turning away. He hoped that the Stuka’s would eliminate most of the Russian defense before it could pose a danger to his platoon.
From all sides the tanks of III Abteilung of the regiment now rushed out of the woods on to the open plains while the Russian shells kept flattening the rear. Panzer II’s, III’s, and IV’s rolled across the open space that seemed to stretch endlessly to the horizon, and only up north was interrupted by smallish sections of wood and single hills. The treads of the steel beasts leveled the ground underneath, crushing shrubs, bushes and rocks. They moved straight to the mine barrier that had been placed in front of a row of hills, and through which the engineers had been cutting paths for each company since last night. The infantry companies and engineers marched directly behind the tanks out of the undergrowth. The men’s faces were distorted into grimaces and looked shaken. The Russian shells had given them a severe beating. The men advanced in the wake of the tanks, to be deployed whenever the road had to be cleared of obstacles, or hostile infantry forces had to be eliminated. Even to the right of Engelmann’s platoon, the order to attack must have arrived as well. Far ahead in the distance, half-tracks were moving into formation. From the edge of the forest that had given them cover for the past hours a heavy tank battalion sped up onto the plains. Forty-two Panzer VI “Tigers“, huge and sharp-edged monsters with a main gun that extended far past the hull, were to expedite the breakthrough with brute force and to clear the way for the military forces that followed. The steel predators spread out in the open space and formed immediately a wide skirmish line.
“Take your foot off the gas, Hans,“ the lieutenant groaned. He had to slow his driver down all too often. While they were losing speed, he watched the Tigers pass by and take over the lead of the attack. Thousands of tons of steel rumbled over the tortured earth in this section of the front line alone, and when the lieutenant saw the whole extent of the interaction of the weaponry – air force, artillery, ground forces – he was overwhelmed by a sense of superiority for a moment. What the German Wehrmacht presented here had no equal. What, if not a victory, did such efforts deserve? Suddenly he heard a loud bang as if someone had popped a balloon. One blink of an eye later, one of the Tigers was enveloped in black smoke. Engelmann recognized the cause at once: This was not a hit; this was a burning engine. And farther away by the swath in the woods, another of the heavy tanks was already no longer moving while the commander climbed out of his hatch, cursing. The new tanks still struggled with technical problems, though it wasn’t as bad as it had been last year. Yet everybody’s hopes lay in the new Panzer V “Panther“ that had its first real action today. Thirty of these tanks had rolled off the assembly line just in time to support the operation.
*
After a fifteen-minute ride across easily negotiable terrain, most forward troops had reached the abandoned minefield. Engelmann recognized the row of hills covered with small sections of woods in the distance, rising right behind the mines. Now the lieutenant’s platoon was at the forefront of the front line again because the Tigers had moved east three minutes ago to use the passages that had been cleared for them. The fifty-seven-ton panzers would not join them again until they had reached the other side, where the regiment in the wake of the Tigers was to penetrate the first defense line of the Russians. Engelmann’s platoon not only formed the tip of his company; no, the company was also the spearhead of the battalion, which was the spearhead of the regiment. Therefore Engelmann would be the first to face the enemy, and that was just fine with the tank commander. Of course he wasn’t motivated by a death wish, but he’d rather face the danger with his Panzer IV than have his comrades endangered who had to make do with III’s and II’s.
When Elfriede approached the mine belt, Engelmann recognized the markings the engineers had set up: Metal rods in the ground that were connected to each other with barrier tapes showed the way. As was to be expected, the passages were very narrow; only two tanks fit through them side by side. That feature made Engelmann queasy.
If the Russians don’t have this blockade under observation, he thought, they’re wasting a huge opportunity. But again: He couldn’t imagine that. Turning to Nitz, he issued new orders: “Ebbe, let Müller come up on our side; then we’ll be the first ones to pass through the minefield. Marseille will bring up the rear. Keep your eyes and ears open; I still don’t believe that there are no Ivan’s around here.”
Engelmann rested both arms on the edges of his hatch and squinted to examine the groups of hills that were standing in the glaring sunlight.
A well-placed sniper over there will end my life faster than I care for, he thought. For that reason some tank commanders hid in their tanks nearly all the time, but Engelmann needed a clear view. As a leader he had to collect information – the most valuable commodity in any battle; how else could he issue the right orders for the situation?
Engelmann’s and Müller’s tanks had to approach each other until they were only five yards apart, so as to fit through the passage side by side. All they had left then on either side was a bit over three feet of space between the tanks and the markings. Slowly but surely the heat of the sun grew unbearable. Engelmann reached into his tank and pulled out his sunglasses, which he had hooked into the situation map, so he could see better against the blinding light.
“Careful, Hans, careful!” he reminded his driver, who was driving at a crawl down the 90-yards-long passage through the minefield. The engine of Müller’s tank growled next to him. The commander’s hatch was closed, and so he couldn’t see Müller. Engelmann sighed. The two next tanks of the platoon were already approaching behind them. He didn’t have a clear view of the row of hills ahead of him; many shrubs and groves made for ideal hiding places.
Usually this is the right time to address the Lord, Engelmann thought and had to smile. He – whom the war had turned from a passive Christian into a devout believer – was talking to God a lot these days; yet at the same time he didn’t think it was right to ask the Lord for good luck in battle. Engelmann was firmly convinced that God would not hold His shielding hand only over the Germans, but also over the Russians at the same time. Therefore the humans had to sort out their differences by themselves.
The two tanks at the front had already passed through the first third of the path when the commander’s hatch of Müller’s tank opened, too, and the master sergeant, a slender man with sunken cheeks, stuck his torso through the opening.
“Everything okay over there, Herr Oberfeldwebel?” Engelmann called to him.
Müller looked at the sky with a satisfied look on his face and raised both arms as if he wanted to bless the land. Grinning widely, he nodded.
“Great,” Engelmann yelled at the top of his lungs though he could h
ardly overcome the thunder of the engines and squeaking of the treads. “Up ahead we’ll fan out and take up position concealed by a hill!“
Müller nodded again. Engelmann disappeared in the belly of his panzer.
“Ebbe,” he gasped, wiping away the sweat dripping out from under his cap with his sleeve, “general order: We’ll fan out behind the blockade, goal at eleven o’clock, the three hills in the front, take position behind the elevations.”
“Fan out, hills in front, position behind the elevations. Jawohl!” And with these words Nitz turned away and held the transmitter to his lips. While his voice sounded through the tank, Engelmann got up again and peered outside. Suddenly smoke rose from between the hills. Instinctively the lieutenant covered his head with both arms and ducked down slightly. There was a huge blast when the tank next to his was hit. Sparks flew while the shell ricocheted off the armor of the hull. Then Müller screamed, lifted his hands and sank back into the tank. Only then did the blast of the shot thunder across the plain.
“Shit, what was that?” Engelmann gasped, almost drowning in his own sweat.
“Eleven o’clock, four hundred!” Nitz repeated an incoming message. The lieutenant looked out of his hatch and saw the smoke rising from a group of pine trees between the hills.
“Pedal to the metal, Hans, and get us out of this passage!”
Münster nodded and accelerated. The engine roared up.
“Ebbe, to all tanks: Split up the rows of two’s, and hurry. If they catch us here, the whole passage will be closed off!”
“Roger, Sepp.” Nitz turned one of the knobs to increase the volume on an angular radio that was sitting in a mount and looked a little like the “Volksempfänger” radios the Nazis distributed to the populace. Then, frowning, he let it rip. His words hurled out of his throat while he relayed the orders. The gun of Müller’s tank had already blasted away. Engelmann could see the eruptions of dirt that shot up into the sky way too far to the left of the assumed position of the enemy. The lieutenant narrowed his eyes to slits; then the blasts between the hills started up again. Flashes from muzzles enveloped the trees, and one blink of an eye later an eruption of soil and grass bushels exploded in the minefield to the right of Engelmann’s tank.
