Panzer Commander Part 18

After a few days we knew. Captured officers stated that the 7th U.S. Army, which was responsible for the sector, had reported to their Army group that the divisions engaged in Hatten-Rittershoffen had become so reduced that they could no longer hold their positions. The U.S. Army group had thereupon ordered the villages of Hatten and Rittershoffen, along with the Maginot Line in the area north of the Haguenau forest, to be abandoned. Prepared positions were to be taken up on the River Moder, which flowed east from the Vosges through Haguenau.

The 39th Panzer Corps and the 14th SS Panzer Corps, following the paratroop division, had moved west out of the bridgehead over the Rhine and had reached Haguenau. With that the Americans were threatened with encirclement north of the Haguenau forest. On 21 January, strong combat detachments were already pushing west out of Rittershoffen. During the morning of the 22nd we were relieved by the Volksgrenadier Division and reached the River Moder west of Haguenau. The brave 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, struggling south over icy roads through the snow-covered Haguenau forest, also reached the Moder. Our grenadier companies were down to 20 or 30 men. All the same, success was within our grasp: the Americans could be cut off from Strasbourg.

Then, with no previous warning, orders reached us to pull out, on 25 January, and a.s.semble in the area of the little town of Kandel, west of the Rhine on the hills by Karlsruhe, to be Fighting the Americans, December 1944 237 to strength. IME 25th Panzer Grenadier Division had already been pulled out on 24 January and moved to the area north of Kandel.

We were naturally pleased to have a few days rest after the heavy fighting at Rittershoffen, but couldn't understand why we had been withdrawn so close to reaching our goal.

We were to learn the reason sooner than we would have wished.

At Kandel we found brand new material, as well as a replacement battalion. Welcome though that was to us, we often didn't know who would drive the new tanks, SPWS, and a.s.sault-guns, or man their guns. Our casualties in trained drivers, gunners, and commanders had been too great. So by day and by night people from the replacement battalion were given a makeshift training.

On 30 January all commanders were summoned to the divisional command post. I had the good old Mercedes brought to me, which in the past months had been used as a courier vehicle.

On our arrival we were greeted for the last time by General Feuchtinger. "Gentlemen, you know that I am being posted to the commander reserves. Until the arrival of a new commander, Colonel Zollenkopf from the commander reserves, whom I now introduce to you, will take over the division.

"In addition, I have the pleasure of announcing the promotion of Lieutenant-Colonel von Luck to Colonel, and I hereby present him with the second star. At thirty-three von Luck is one of the youngest colonels." My pleasure was somewhat muted. In this last phase of the war" promotions and decorations had become irrelevant. All that mattered now was to bring as many men as possible, for whom one was responsible, safely through the last weeks and to survive.

"On the eastern front," Feuchtinger went on, "the news is alarming: on 14 January the Russians, with three army groups, started what is probably their last great offensive and after a few days reached the Oder in Silesia. In the center they are storming through Poland toward the frontier of the Reich and in the next few days will already be threatening Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and the old fortress of Kuestrin. With that Berlin will be, in immediate danger. Our battlc-weary divisions are unable to offer much more resistance to the onslaught of the far superior and freshly equipped Russian armies. For that reason Hitler personally has ordered the immediate transfer, by express transports, of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division and our own 21st to the area west of Kuestrin, to prevent any advance on Berlin. The transports will have absolute priority; a transport officer has been a.s.signed from division and will be responsible for rapid entraining.

"I regret," Feuchtinger concluded, "that our brave men are hav' ing to drink this cup to its bitter dregs. I wish that each one of you and your people may survive this last battle too, and I hope that all are aware that a further advance by the Russians into our homeland must be prevented." It sounded to us rather too pathetic, but what was the use? We knew that from now on it was up to us, as frontline soldiers, whether commanders or tank gunners, to bear the responsibility and make the decisions. After seven and a half months of unbroken action we had, from now on, to defend our own homeland.

Thoughtfully I went back to my car. Suddenly it occurred to me that on no account were the Russians to have the Mercedes, nor if possible were the British or the Americans. I had an idea: the car must go to Dagmar, who was at Nauen, west of Berlin, at a branch of the nursery. I at once got in touch with the transport officer.

When I had given him a brief history of the Mercedes cabriolet, he proved cooperative. "I'll have the train make a short stop at a ramp southwest of Berlin," he suggested. "There you can easily offload the car. We'll probably need a whole night for the journey around the south of Berlin, because of the danger of air raids and a huge increase in traffic. You can board the train again at the army station of Zossen, Colonel, southeast of Berlin." Since the transport officer would be traveling in my compartment, nothing ought to go wrong.

I then went to the nearest telephone and called Dagmar.

"Wonderful to hear you again. How are you?" I asked. "Are you more or less safe at Nauen?"

"Where are you? Are you all right?" she asked in return. "I'm safe here from the air raids. Every night I can see the long fingers of the searchlights and hear the drone of the bombers and the explosions. You know, all of us here have gradually got used to this 'war on the home front." But there are endless rumors that the Russians will soon be advancing on Berlin. Do you know anything definite?"

"The rumors sound right. At any rate we are being transferred to the eastern front with other panzer divisions. Where, I can't and mustn't tell you."

"Now listen carefully," I went on. "On the 4th or 5th of February I shall turn up at your place with the Mercedes. You will then drive me back to our troop train in the car and take it home with Fighting the Americans, December 1944 239 you. I'll tell you everything else then. Please-stay at home for those two days so that nothing goes wrong. All right?"

"Yes, of course. It'll be wonderful to see you again, if only briefly. riiwait for you here." So it was arranged. Before the start of my conference, I sat down with Liebeskind and together we drew up a "movement order" for Dagmar.

From the Combat Group of the 21st Panzer Division to all military, civilian, and Party officials: Fraeulein Dagmar S is authorized to convey the Mercedes car WH by the quickest route to Flensburg and deliver it there to the garrison commander, who is' to hold the car until the arrival of the Special Combat Group of the 21st Panzer Division.

All officials are requested to let the vehicle pa.s.s without hindrance and give Fraeulein Dagmar S every a.s.sistance necessary.

For the Combat Group, Signed, Colonel von Luck, Combat Group Commander. (with various seals and signatures) As Dagmar told me later, after my return from Russia, the "movement order" had not failed in its effect. "Special Combat Group," the various seals, and the signature of a colonel and frontline soldier were so impressive that none of the officials or supply depots worried about how a 23-year-old woman came to be sitting at the wheel.

"I often had to laugh to myself," Dagmar said, "at how officiously they all fussed about me. The fact that Admiral Doenitz, as. .h.i.tler's appointed head of government, had moved his headquarters to Flensburg at the end of April seemed to everyone to underline the importance of my 'mission' for the, combat group." Thanks to her good contacts at GHQ in Berlin, Dagmar was able to leave Nauen in good time before the "Battle of Berlin" and within a few days reach my mother in Flensburg safe and sound.

Unfortunately, the "faithful Mercedes" suffered the same fate as my 1,000 bottles from France and the cut-gla.s.s from Baccarat: the British occupation discovered the car and confiscated it as war booty. 1 very much hope that this worthy vehicle is enjoying retirement today as an "old-timer" somewhere in England or Scotland.

In a little cag in Kandel I sat with my battalion and company commanders. I told them of the meeting with Feuchtinger and Colonel Zollenkopf, the new, temporary divisional commander. '-We are being transferred to the eastern front." Everyone drew a deep breath.

"That's the last thing we expected, out of the frying pan into the fire," was the general verdict.

"How much longer is the war going to last? Now even old men and boys of 14 and 15 are being called up into the Volkssturin. The last reserves?" I had my work cut out explaining to them all that we had to prevent any further advance by the Russians and save the civilian population from terrible sufferings.

"We can only hope that the Western Allies will push east as far as possible. We entrain between the 3rd and 5th of February.

Use the time to rest and train the replacements." We went on sitting together for a long time. Over a cup of muckef.u.k, as the coffee subst.i.tute was called, we thought back to the battle of Normandy, to the terrible events in the Falaise pocket and, of course, to the bitter house-to-house fighting in Rittershoffen.

I knew from division that our losses in dead, wounded, and missing since 6 June 1944 amounted to about 16,000. An awful number, when one remembered that we had started the defensive battles on 6 June with a divisional strength of at least 15,000 men.

We also asked ourselves where the Russians, despite their huge losses, kept getting these ma.s.ses of men and material from, and how they were able to solve the enormous problem of transport.

I only heard in captivity that under the Lease-Lend agreement concluded with President Roosevelt, Stalin had received, among other things, 100,000 Studebaker trucks, without which the Russian army could never have carried out its offensive so quickly, if at all.

The mood among my men, mainly the veterans, was by no means as bad as it might have been in view of the state of affairs. In the first place they were all keen to stay with the "old gang," which for them meant protection and security. They took pleasure in a made bed, in a telephone conversation with their families. They were ready once again to face the enemy in the east. For them news of atrocities meant motivation. One of Hitler's basic orders arrived-in private he was now Fighting the Americans, December 1944 241 known only as Grdfaz Grdsster Feldherr aller Zeiten, that is, "the greatest general of all time")-according to which every Wehrmacht unit from the regiment up had to appoint an NFO, "National Socialist Leadership Officer" (Nationalsozialistische Fiihrungs-Offizier), whose job was to keep a political eye on the unit and its command. So, politruks for us too. That showed us how suspicious of the Wehrmacht Hitler had become since 20 July. I nominated our chaplain as NFO. A joke, when one considered what the church thought of Hitler. In this way defeatism was to be prevented and the "will to Final Victory" strengthened.

I knew that in this last phase I would not see my people again as a body and be able to speak to them. So I gave orders for my panzer grenadier regiment to a.s.semble en ma.s.se in a large clearing in a forest near Kandel.

There they stood, men with tired, gray faces. They had been through all the battles together since 6 June 1944, and survived. Standing there also were young, baby-faced recruits.

As yet these boys had no idea of what was to come.

It was hard for me to find the right words, but I had to speak to them, to let them know that I would not leave them in the lurch, to give them confidence and to remind them that comradeship and a feeling of solidarity were more important than anything else.

"After many months, and today perhaps for the last time, I should like to speak to you all. I will not use many words.

All who have fought with me since 6 June 1944, and the youngsters from' home who will be experiencing for the first time the meaning of war and the fight for survival, should know that I will remain your commander to the end and share every hardship with you.

To all of you who have stuck it out with me during the last months, my thanks for your efforts. You were magnificent!

"In the next few days we are to be transferred to the eastern front; there, on the Oder at the old fortress of Kuestrin, we are to prevent the capital, Berlin, which has been so badly hit by bombs, from falling into the hands of the Russians.

"It will be our last battle.

"Forget all the slogans, about a"Thousand-Year Reich' and the "Final Victory that must be ours."

"From now on we are fighting solely for survival, for our homeland, our wives, mothers, and children, whom we want to save from a fate none of us can imagine.

"That must be worth fighting for in the coming weeks and months.

May G.o.d help you and protect yout" Between 3 and 5 February 1945, the division was loaded onto a number of troop trains, which rolled eastward across one of the last undamaged railway bridges over the Rhine. Although frequent stops had to be made, because air mids threatened or junctions had been destroyed and had to be repaired, we marveled at the outstanding organization of the transport authorities.

The closer we got to Berlin, the longer the stops became. The inhabitants, insofar as we came into contact with them, often had an air of hopelessness. Sometimes remarks were dropped such as, "Why don't you pack it in. There's no point any more," or "Every day you prolong the war makes the sacrifice greater." The Party functionaries, who greeted us at some of the stations, displayed an "unbroken will to Final Victory"ut were quick to seek safety whenever the enemy came near them.

As arranged, the train stopped southwest of Berlin. I off-loaded the Mercedes and drove to Nauen to the nursery.

Dagmar was out' looking for me.

"My G.o.d, I can't believe I'm seeing you again. What are you up to?" she greeted me.

"We've no time, Dagmar, a cup of decent coffee from my little supply, then we must be off, to catch up with the train again." On our drive around the south of Berlin, I explained my plan to her.

"Here's a movement order with which you will leave Nauen as soon as the situation gets critical. You've got your contacts at GHQ. They will tell you there whether and when it would be wise to leave Berlin. You've enough reserves of fuel in the trunk to reach Flensburg. Drive to my mother's and wait there for the end. Try and hide the car somewhere. If I come through sa&ly, at least we'll have a vehicle and be mobile in the first weeks after the catastrophe.

"Have you any news from Sachsenhausen about your father?"

"No, of course not. I didn't expect any. Phone calls are pointless. They don't put me through to anyone, or else they 'have no information." I've not much hope of seeing my father again alive. I must live with that now, in the next weeks and months." We were at Zossen. The train wasn't in yet, so we had a little time to ourselves. An hour later I was back in my compartment.

One last wave and Dagmar had gone.

The Eastern Front: The Last Battle Our transports rolled on to the east around the south of Berlin.

Thanks to a wonderful effort by the German Railway, the newly restored division was conveyed to its destination in only 48 hours. On the "Eastern Line," which linked Berlin with Koenigsberg in Prussia, and on which as a young cadet officer I had traveled so often to Dresden or Berlin, we stopped suddenly on an open stretch. We must have been about 50 kilometers east of Berlin and 26 west of the fortress of Kuestrin.

An improvised ramp enabled the train to be unloaded. The divisional staff had already arrived and I was at once summoned to Colonel Zollenkopf.

"Our task is to launch an attack, immediately and without waiting for further transports, from the southeast against the Russian bridgehead in the southwestern outskirts of Kuestrin and establish contact with the encircled garrison of about 8,000 men. Our friends of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division have already been in action since 31 January. They've managed to prevent any extension of the individual bridgeheads, but they have not been able to clear a way to Kuestrin.

"You will move into the attack with your regiment, reinforced by some tanks and artillery, as soon as your regiment has been detrained. The other elements of the division will be sent in to reinforce you from the detraining.

"Hitler personally has ordered this attack and wants the Russians thrown back over the Oder. We are up against the First White Russian Front of Marshal Zhukov, which has stormed through Poland in only 14 days and has almost annihilated the weak German forces.

"You will get the details from my general-staff officer. All the best!" There I learned that our division, after its restoration in Alsace, now had available to it again more than 30 Panzer IV and Jagdpanzer IV tanks, as well as 30 Panthers. My Regiment 125 was back to 75 percent of its full strength, and our artillery to 90 percent. This was welcomed, even if the quality of the crews and young officers, insofar as they were replacements, came nowhere near the fighting strength and experience with which we started on 6 June 1944.

Kuestrin was a fortress with twelve-foot-thick walls and casemates that dated from Napoleonic times, all of which had been laid out to face east. The Russians, however, from small bridgeheads north and south of the town, were trying to roll up the fortifications from the rear. Kuestrin was an important road and rail junction: from the west "Reich Highway I" and the Eastern Line, from Berlin to Koenigsberg in Prussia, crossed the railway lines from Frankfurt-an-der-Oder to Stettin on the Baltic, and the rail link from Breslau in Silesia to Stettin and Koenigsberg in Prussia. The 30kilometer-wide Oder valley was bounded in the west by a range of hills that offered itself for defense, to bar access to Berlin.

The attack scheduled for 6 February was delayed because the road to Berlin was hopelessly choked with fleeing civilians, and it was only through vigorous action by our military police that gaps were kept open to allow us through to the south.

On 7 February we set off before dawn and came up against stiff resistance, but with a.s.sault parties we were able to inflict heavy losses on the enemy and gain a little territory. On the following day we again made only slow progress. Meanwhile the last elements of the division had been detrained and were holding themselves ready for a decisive attack on 9 February.

The 25th Panzer Grenadier Division to the north of us was to attack a further bridgehead. We had been promised that we would receive support from the famous fighter-bomber squadron of our most highly decorated soldier, Colonel Rudel. His "specialty" was to use his JU 87 dive-bombers, equipped with ant.i.tank weapons, to swoop down on Russian armored units and destroy their tanks with direct hits.

At first the battle on 9 February raged back and forth. Then Rudel's fighter-bombers appeared and dived on the Russian tanks, ant.i.tank guns, and artillery positions. After so long it was a great feeling again for us old hands no longer to be exposed without hope to the enemy air force. Much more important, however, was the effect on the morale of our youngsters, who were seeing action for the first time.

At midday some a.s.sault parties managed to penetrate the suburbs of Kuestrin from the southwest, take the bridges there and, The Eastern Front: The Last Battle 245 together with the following combat groups, clear a 2-kilometerwide corridor into the fortress.

That same night a supply convoy, which had been standing ready, rolled in to the occupying forces. Another bridgehead further north was eliminated by our friends of the 25th.

We were glad to have been able to help the gallant garrison of Kuestrin and bring them urgently needed supplies. Hitler had declared Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and Kuestrin to be "fortresses." In his language that meant "fighting or dying to the last man." After this success, combat activity, from midday on 9 February, diminished appreciably. The Russians made no further attempt to regain their lost bridgeheads. Our monitoring service intercepted messages which indicated that Marshal Zhukov had supply problems.

Since 12 January, when Marshal Zhukov had ma.s.sed on the Vistula, his army group had gained 350 kilometers of terrain. Transport s.p.a.ce for the overland route seemed to be inadequate. Rolling stock on the rail-ways had first to be converted from the Russian broad gauge to the narrow European gauge. In addition, Zhukov had an exposed right wing. There was a large gap to the Second White Russian Front under the command- of Marshal Rokossovsky. After 9 February we lay west of the Oder, organized for defense. Access to Kuestrin was kept open.

To gain some protection from enemy artillery and air attacks, I had set up my command post in the cellar of a farmhouse. We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw hundreds of bottles of' French perfume, cognac, and champagne piled up in the cellar, besides dozens of silk stockings, bales of material, and elegant shoes. This was the outcome of the barter deals common throughout Germany, by which the towns supplied themselves with b.u.t.ter, meat, and milk, to augment their meager food rations.

Outside, our artillery could be heard now and then, and sporadic gunfire; not, we hoped, the quiet before the storm. It was already growing dark when the door opened and Dagmar appeared.

I was flabbergasted.

"What! Are you mad? How on earth did ou get here? How did you find me?" My adjutant and some orderly officers stood about incredulously.

"You know about my contacts at GHQ in Berlin. They told me there where your command post was.

"I first took a train, early this morning, right across Berlin," she went on. "Then I got on my bike and cycled east on Highway 1, until I was picked up by a truck. My bicycle is outside."

"Listen, you simply can't turn up here on the battlefield; there's shooting going on everywhere still, and you might have run into a Russian counterattack.

"I'm very worried. Happy though I always am to see you, Daginar, this venture of yours is highly risky." Without a word she handed me a letter. It was a doc.u.ment from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which ran as follows: This is to inform you that your father, Herr S has died of cardiac insufficiency. The um may be collected by previous arrangement with the camp administration.

With German greetings, Heil Hitler!

Signed... I was profoundly shocked and didn't know what to say.

"I had an idea this would happen," Dagmar forestalled me. "I knew from a reliable source that the whole camp was to be moved, before the Russians took Berlin, perhaps, and discovered the camp. So all the weak and the sick were liquidated. A crazy "Final Solution," don't you think."

"Dagmar, listen. You must get away from here again as quickly as possible. The balloon may burst at any time. I am so sorry about it all. And I had been so hopeful after my talk with Kaltenbrunner. It's outrageous that we should be fighting here for survival and for our families, while at the same time good patriots are being killed in cold blood." I asked an orderly officer to find out whether there was a truck of any kind going in the Berlin direction, to get supplies. We were in luck. Within half an hour Dagmar and her bicycle would at any rate be out of the danger zone.

Suddenly the door of our cellar room opened and a colonel appeared in peacetime uniform with a Distinguished Service Cross on his chest. Was this a madhouse? First Dagmar and now this apparition. We all stared at the colonel with his highly polished riding boots.

The Eastern Front: The Last Battle 247 "What brings you here?" was my first -astonished question.

"Have you lost your way?"

"Herr Reichsminister von Ribbentrop and Reichsjugendfuehrer Axmann would like to speak to you."

"Am I supposed to go to Berlin, or what's going on here?" I asked in return.

"No, the two gentlemen are waiting for you outside in the car."

"Then perhaps they would be kind enough to step in. I'm not leaving my command post." The two then appeared.

"Heil Hitler, Colonel. The Fuehrer has sent us here to learn something of the situation at Kuestrin. Is there any danger that the Russians will march on Berlin?"

"Heff von Ribbentrop"-l avoided addressing him as Minister, as I didn't like him; he was always known to us at the front as "champagne salesman"-"to find that out it would be best for the two of us to go to my grenadiers and tanks, which are in positions on the west bank of the Oder. That's where one can form the best impression of the situation." Von Ribbentrop at once declined. "That will not be necessary, if you tell me how you a.s.sess the situation." At that his eye fell on Dagmar, who had been following our dialogue with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"My apologies, I didn't know that army auxiliaries were in service so far forward. Is it not too dangerous for you, madam?" Without answering his question, Dagmar handed the Minister the letter from Sachsenhausen.

"Please read this letter, Herr von Ribbentrop. It's because of it that I have come here from Berlin to my fianc6, Colonel von Luck." Ribbentrop paled on reading the letter and seemed rather irritated.

"Well, yes I am naturally sorry about that, my. apologies," and he turned to me. "I have the impression that the situation here before Kuestrin has been cleared up through the efrorts of two experienced panzer divisions, and I shall pa.s.s thi; welcome news to the Fuehrer. Heil Hitlerl" The two entlemen abruptly left my cellar.

We all shook our heads and started to laugh out loud.

"My G.o.d, what have we come to, that a foreign minister should appear at the front so that he can rea.s.sure himself and Hitler!"

The 21st Panzer Division as ','Fire Brigade": The Beginning of the End It gradually grew dark. On both sides the artillery and machine-gun fire intensified, the usual "good-night greetings." I was glad to put Dagmar and her bicycle onto a truck going to Berlin. We waved to each other one last time, and never suspected for how long.

Shortly after came an "urgent" order to pull out at once and transfer our position to our friends of the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division. Our division was to be moved that same night, via the highway and rail to the south, to the area of Sagan. While Marshal Zhukov was at a standstill on the Oder at Kuestrin and Frankfurt, Marshal Koniev, with the "Ukrainian Front," Army Group South, had launched an attack in the Silesian area, across the Oder to the west, and had overrun the weak defensive forces. our command was trying to guess the direction of this thrust: to the west, toward Dresden-Leipzig on the Elbe?

Or to the south, into the important industrial area of Moravia round Ostrava in Czechoslovakia? I very soon realized that the Russian command had learned a great deal about its job since I had left Russia at the beginning of 1942: the preparation of their offensives and their strategic planning were well thought out, and supplies well organized.