Panzer Commander Part 2

Where were the Polish troops?

We still had the feeling of being on maneuvers although we were 15 kilometers inside Poland. Vigilant reconnaissance patrols on motorcycles with sidecars tried to make headway through the thickly wooded terrain, to spy out the land. I had the armored cars follow and continued the advance.

Late on the evening of I September we came up against our first opposition. In front of us lay an open, rising tract of land, at the end of which was a village and a forest. Here the Poles had set up a line of resistance on a hill, and opened a heavy fire from machine guns and mortars. Sh.e.l.l splinters hissed through the trees. Branches broke off and fell on our heads.

Our stomachs now felt distinctly uneasy. We had often practiced under combat conditions, of course, and had been able thereby to get used to the firing and the landing of artillery sh.e.l.ls, as well as the sharp hammering of machine-guns. But that had always been at a safe distance or from bunkers under cover.

Now, we were directly ex to enemy fire. We could find no cover, nor could we dig ourselves in, since we were supposed to attack.

We formed up for the a.s.sault. Armored scout cars moved Blitzkrieg: Poland, 1934) 29 forward, as far and as well as the terrain allowed, so as to give us covering fire from the MG24S.

Suddenly a round of machine-gun fire hit Private Uhl, not far from me. He was dead at once. He was the first casualty in my company, and many of my men saw it. Now we were all afraid.

Which of us would be the next? This was no longer a maneuver; it was war.

"No. I and No.2 platoons attack," I shouted, "No.3 platoon in reserve, the heavy platoon to give fire-cover." No one stirred. Everyone was afraid of being the next to die.

Including me. Anyone who says he was never afraid in his first P&Agment is a liar.

It was up to me, the CO to set the example. "Everyone follow me," I shouted, and rushed forward with my machine-pistol.

The training prevailed, and they all followed. We gained a little ground, but were then forced to take cover by fire from machineguns and artillery.

The division worked out a new plan of attack: antiaircraft searchlights lit up the hill during the night. Our scout cars shot at recognized positions with their 2cm tracer bullets. The artillery took up the fire. It was a lurid scene.

At daybreak on 2 September we attacked anew and reached the village and the enemy hill. Tle Poles had withdrawn. Before us was an image of horror. Lying about in the abandoned positions were dead men and the cadavers of horses. The abandoned houses were still burning. This sight gave us a first impression of the meaning of War. It took some effort to come to terms with the reality.

We pushed forward. The thickly wooded terrain was trackless and made the operations of our scout cars and tanks almost impossible. For two days we had to do without our field kitchens. 'ne vehicles could not get through along the bad roads and in the thick woods.

On our march through villages and small towns we were again presented with the same terrible picture. The air force had done quite a job and deeply demoralized the Poles. In spite of that the Polish divisions fought heroically.

As my orderly Erich Beck later wrote, "We admired our opponents for their national pride and commitment. They demanded our respect. We heard that a Polish cavalry regiment had mounted an attack against our tanks. They had been told that the German tanks were only wooden dummies." All the bridges had been blown. Our army engineers did a superhuman job of throwing up new ones. Polish snipers had lodged themselves in haystacks and under thatched roofs and now had to be smoked out with tracer bullets. There were fires everywhere.

The cities of Kielce, Radom, and Lodz were our targets in the next few days. The first pockets were formed through pincer movements. We heard from division that the advance along a wide front, from Upper Silesia to the Baltic, was making rapid headway.

On 6 September we eventually came up against strong resistance near a village on the edge of the Lysa Gory. After fierce fighting with few losses we overcame our opponents, whose strength now seemed to be finally broken. Cracow fell on the same day. Powerful units were advancing on Warsaw from the west and northwest. in Lodz, which was hardly contested any more, Augustin met his parents. I accompanied him. It was a moving reunion. Since the heightened tension they had heard no more of each other.

Now the parents had their son back, forever, they hoped. We visited the family textile factory and then went to a caf6 in the marketplace. We had coffee and plain cakes, both for us a great pleasure after the first hard days. West Prussia and the ancient city of Danzig were not, it seemed, the only objective.

The whole of Poland was apparently to be occupied and wiped out, with the partic.i.p.ation, moreover, of the Russians, with whom Hitler had just signed a treaty of nonaggression. We were amazed at how quickly Goebbels's propaganda could change people's minds 180 degrees. Now Russia was our ally!

We were given orders to clear the woods, secure the territory gained, and then hold ourselves ready for the decisive advance on Warsaw.

While searching for a suitable command post for the company, my advance picket found a large country house in the middle of the woods. It had been left untouched by the war. I went there and was greeted by a charming old gentleman who spoke fluent German and English. He had been the Polish amba.s.sador in London and had now retired to his country estate. His house was full of guests. A well-known pianist and other artists had fled there from Warsaw at the outbreak of war in the hope of finding safety. The butler led me to a guest room and asked-a macabre toucb-about my luggage.

After I had given the necessary orders to my company and made my report to division, the master of the house invited me to take a little walk.

Blitzkrieg: Poland, 1939 31 "Now look," he said, "there's a good friend of mine who lives about twenty miles from here and is married to a German from Silesia. I'm worried about them. Can you find out how they are?" During our further conversation it turned out that the German woman was a distant relative of mine. It struck me how senseless the war was, and yet there was no escape from it. I promised to find out about his friends.

My host led me to his kennels, where he showed me a litter of young Irish setters. He had brought the mother back with him from England. He picked up one of the puppies and said, "May I give you this to cheer you up in a sad time?" I took it with pleasure and christened it "Boy.,, Then in the evening we all sat around the fireplace in the great hall, which extended to the roof. While the pianist played Chopin, we could hear sporadic gunfire in the distance. There I was sitting among friendly people in a pleasant atmosphere in a country that we had invaded.

I discovered that Poland's most famous animal painter lived in the next town and arranged to visit him the following day. I was very fond of his work and asked him for one of his watercolors that reflected the spirit of Poland. Next evening he brought me the painting. I was enchanted. It portrayed a shepherd in a typical Polish landscape leading a long-suffering little panye horse on a halter. The painting survived the war and still hangs in my house today, reminding me of heavy hours, but also of pleasant ones.

That same evening a patrol came and reported that our host's friends were all right. He was visibly relieved.

My commanding officer gave orders during the evening for the further advance on Warsaw. The following morning I left that oasis with my watercolor and Irish setter.

At the briefing for the next advance, my battalion commander told me that on 3 September, France and Britain had declared war on Germany. So far, however, contrary to our fears, they had not attacked. The daily Army Bulletin had merely reported some artillery duels and increased aerial reconnaissance. We were relieved. Hitler seemed to have judged both countfiescorrectly.

The British, as far as we knew, had not even sent an expeditionary force to the mainland.

We now marched on Warsaw. In the eastern part of Poland no operations were carried out by our side. Clearly there were certain agreements here with the Russians. South of Warsaw the two armored reconnaissance battalions took up their positions in a fruit plantation.

On 9 September-after nine days of war-the greater part of Poland, insofar as it belonged to the German sphere of influence, was occupied and in our hands. Only in Warsaw was there still fighting. The remaining, still available elements if the Polish army had withdrawn there to defend their capital after undergoing two weeks of heavy bombing and artillery fire.

On 27 September, Warsaw was finally taken. We had seen no further action. Poland seemed unable to offer any more resistance. We were used merely to mop up the territory gained.

On one of my reconnaissance trips, which I made in my crosscountry car with my driver Fink and an orderly, I discovered near a village a young Polish woman in uniform. She pointed a machinepistol at us, but before she could fire we overpowered her.

"Do you belong to a women's battalion, or are you a partisan?" I asked her in French.

Her eyes were full of hate; snudl wonder after the war imposed on Poland. She led us to a house in which her husband, a Polish officer, lay wounded. I put them both in my car and handed them over to our medical squad, where her husband was immediately taken rare of. She then thanked us.

"It's all so sad and hopeless. Why can't you let us live in peace? Now the Russians will come, your allies, and hated by us. But Poland is not lost yet." Her final words, as Augustin told me, were those of the Polish national anthem.

On 17 September, the Russians had marched into eastern Poland.

A demarcation line was fixed by German and Russian delegations.

One of the interpreters was Boris von Karzov, whom I was to meet later in Russian captivity. Poland was part.i.tioned anew; the bitter history of the country took its course. On 5 October came the victory parade in Warsaw in Hitler's presence. Our division did not have to take part. Among those on the platform next to Hitler was Rommel, at that time still the commander of the units for Hitler's personal protection. During the fighting, however, he had constantly visited the troops and had been fascinated, as he said later, by the use of tank units under General Guderian. Soon after, Rommel managed to persuade Hitler to let him take over a panzer division.

The Polish war was over for us. A few of my men received the Iron Cross II Cla.s.s, among them the brave leader of the heavy Blitzkrieg: Poland, 1939 33 machine-gun platoon. He was promoted shortly after to staff-sergeant.

I was particularly proud of the award to our company tailor. In Bad Kissingen he had always been teased as "our little tailor." Yet during engagements this insignificant man surpa.s.sed himself.

He was employed, like the company cobbler, as a runner and conveyer of orders between our rear sections and the units in action. Under heavy fire, in which we had to take cover, "our little tailor" came forward with reports and orders at the risk of his life. It was a new discovery for us that the stalwart and robust-seeming men often lost their nerve under combatconditions, while the supposedly weak proved to be strong and kept their heads at precarious moments.

The losses suffered in the nine days of war were comparatively light. Of my platoon leaders, Lieutenant von Fuerstenberg was out of action for a long time with a severe stomach wound. As for our dead, we were able to bury them with dignity and to some extent with military honors.

The ensuing days of rest did us good. I had time to thank all the men in my company. "rt was a good thing you made us dig in quickly," they told me. "There's no doubt the hard training saved the lives of a lot of us." Morale was first cla.s.s. No one thought here, just outside Warsaw, about how things might go later.

I received permission to travel into Warsaw, which I would be seeing again after many years. The outer and industrial districts had suffered badly from the air attacks, but the center had remained to a large extent untouched. There life was returning to normal. The Poles knew how to come to terms, again and again, with the blows of fate. In the caf6 of the largest hotel in the center I obtained my drink as though nothing had happened. One felt that as occupiers we Germans were still more welcome to the Poles than the Russians. Unfortunately, that was soon to change.

At the end of September the division was transferred back to its garrisons in Germany. We marched once more through the Sudetenland to Bad Kissingen.

Interim, 1939-1940 our reception in Bad Kissingen was overwhelming. The Kissingers thronged the roadside and showered us with flowers.

Opposite the Kurhaus, already closed, stood our commander, to lead the marchpast of our battalion. There was much laughter when my Irish setter, Boy, on the cover of a truck, barked loudly at the band. The civic dignitaries naturally turned up for the reception. These n.a.z.i functionaries sunned themselves in our success, as though the achievement had been theirs.

In the following days everyone was allowed out. Many of the restaurants and bars reopened and supplied free beer. Sepp Huber, the proprietor of the Huber Bar, produced a long-h.o.a.rded bottle of Scotch from his cellars. It turned into a long night.

The civilian population, and most of us, thought that with the Polish campaign the war would be over. The French and the British had not attacked. Would there be a second "Munich"?

Would the Prime Ministers Daladier and Chamberlain try again to come to terms with Hitler? Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but it seemed that, with the bloodless "Return home to the Reich" of Germanspeaking territories, the occupation of the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia, and the "liberation" of West Prussia and Danzig in a blitzkrieg with few casualties, all the goals that redressed the "injustice" of the Treaty of Ven6iles had been achieved. But I had my doubts. Hitier's hatred of France, against whom he had fought in the First World War, was too deep.

The propaganda machine was again going full blast. The names Alsace and Lorraine were also cropping up, territories that had had to be ceded in the wars of 1870-71 and 1914-18, first to Germany and then back to France.

All of us in turn received leave for short visits to our families. We enjoyed those days, but reality soon caught up with us again. "Me Wehrmacht, especially the armored branch, was being further enlarged. New panzer divisions were being set up from cadres that had to be supplied by us. Our 2nd Light Division was reorganized and reequipped to form the 7th Panzer Division. By an order of 6 February 1940, General Erwin Rommel, my infantry instructor from Dresden, became our divisional commander; he took over the Interim, 1939-1940 35 panzer division at Bad G.o.desberg on the 10th. Much as we admired this man, we wondered if an infantryman could be a commander of tanks.

We soon found out. Rommel had made himself thoroughly familiar with the tactics of tank warfare. A completely new wind blew among us from now on. The division was left with only a single armored reconnaissance battalion, Battalion 37, under Major Erdmann. He now became our commanding officer. Like many other commanders, he had taken part in the First World War. We respected his combat experience and at once felt confidence in him.

The division received new, better tanks. The Mark III with its 5cm gun and the Mark IV with its 7.5cm "stubby" gun were.faster, better armed, and better armored. With the three-axled armored scout car and a 3.8cm gun, we received a better reconnaissance vehicle.

We moved from Kissingen to the little village of Heimersheim on the northern fringe of the Rhoen Mountains. Hard training began, which was made more difficult by a very severe winter.

Rommel organized field exercises in all weathers, and also by night. He visited every unit daily and insisted that the same units should always work together. Thus tank people, artillerymen, and infantrymen got to know each other and became coordinated. A team was formed within the division, which was later to prove extremely important.

The propaganda increased. Hitler mocked the French. He referred ever more frequently to "Whiskey Churchill" and later to the "Paralytic Roosevelt." Was the ever growing strength of the Wehrmacht intended to deter the Western Allies from making an attack, or did Hitler plan to enter France? We did not know.

We relied on ourselves and our modern weapons, which seemed to be superior to those of our opponents.

The first SS panzer divisions were organized. Their nucleus was made up of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (Hitler's personal guard) under their commander Sepp Dietrich. We suspected, not without reason, that with the Waffen-Ss. .h.i.tler wanteo to create a counterweight to the army, especially to the conservative officer corps, and we were by no means happy about it. Although Himmler, the "highest SS leader," a.s.sumed responsibility for the disposition of the men and their equipment, and through his influence recruited the best people for his Waffen-SS, all SS units were tactically under the control of the army, so it was still a cooperation rather than a rivalry. For want of experienced troop leaders, army officers were transferr6d to the Waffen-SS as commanders and to their dismay were given SS service ranks.

The severe winter of 1939/40 duly pa.s.sed. In the meantime the British had begun to move an expeditionary force to northern France. But things still remained comparatively quiet on the westem front.

In the middle of February we were transferred to Demau on the Ahr, hence practically to the western front. Rommel visited every unit. He told us that he was proud to be permitted to lead a panzer division. Guderian, too, came to inspect and talk to us. "You are the cavalry," he told us. "Your job is to break through and keep going." We would thrust in a straight line to the west, to the Belgian frontier east of Luettich Li6ge), hence far to the north of the French border.

France, 1940 At the beginning of May, we moved west to the Eiffel Mountains.

Rommel was in a nearby training area with parts of the division for practice with live ammunition. With the older commanders and reserve officers, who had taken part in the First World War, we discussed what lay before us.

"It won't be a walk-over, as in Poland," we were warned. "The French and the British are quite different opponents." We younger ones replied that there could not, and must not, be any trench warfare as in 1914-18. Our tank force was too mobile for that, our att.i.tude too positive. We youngsters thought always of Guderian and his flashing eyes when he explained his tactics to US. Rommel, the Alpine soldier of the First World War, had convinced us during our exercises that he had adapted himself to mobile warfare and was the right tank commander for us.

On the evening of 9 May we company commanders were summoned to our commanding officer, Major Erdmann. "Tomorrow morning we march into Belgium. The initial resistance at the frontier must be quickly overcome; the goal of our 7th Panzer Division is the Meuse near Dinant. Along with the 5th Panzer Division, we are part of General Hoth's Panzer Corps, which will advance as spearhead through the Ardennes. Our reconnaissance battalion can take pride in being at the forefront of the division." At 0532 hours on 10 May we fell in. The Belgian frontier posts withdrew at once or surrendered. Skirting the northern edge of Luxembourg, we advanced due west through the difficult terrain of the Ardennes and without great resistance reached the Meuse north of Dinant on 12 May. From the high ground we could see the valley and, on its western side, further heavily wooded hills. We could also see, however, the broken bridges, which Romcnel would have liked to take intact. We felt our way slowly down into the valley, but at once came under well-directed gunfire and were straddled by heavy artillery.

Rommel appeared among us, as so often in the following weeks, in order to form personally a picture of the situation. He arrived his armored car, specialty equipped with radio gear. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Held up by artillery fire," we replied.

"Show me. Where is the fire coming from?" Standing in his armored car, he studied the opposite bank with his binoculars.

He was calm and steady, giving no sign of uncertainty or nervousness. Within minutes he made his decision.

"Stay put," he told us. "This is a job for the infantry." The May sun was already shining warmly. The river valley lay peacefully below us. Soon we saw elements of the 7th Panzer Grenadier Regiment climbing down the hill, accompanied by army engineers with rubber dinghies. Further south, near Dinant, the 6th Panzer Grenadier Regiment was on the move.

Hardly had the first boats been lowered into the water than all bell broke loose. Snipers and heavy artillery straddled the defenseless men in the boats. With our tanks and our own artillery we tried to neutralize the enemy, but he was too well screened. The infantry attack came to a standstill.

Rommel went to Dinant to see whether the other regiment had been more successful. But there, too, dinghy after dinghy had been sunk.

"Smoke," thought Rommel, but we had no smoke sh.e.l.ls. Again came one of Rommel's instant decisions made on the spot: some houses that stood in the right direction for the wind were shot into flames, and under cover of the smoke the attack was begun again.

Like a whirlwind Rommel came back to us, at once organizing covering fire for the 7th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. He personally took command of its 2nd Battalion. With the second wave Rommel was across the river, where it became possible to form a small bridgehead in the teeth of the French, who defended themselves bravely.

During the night the first tanks were ferried over by the engineers. On the morning of 14 May we took up the attack with the infantry.

Rommel was there again; his command post could not hold him.

His command tank was. .h.i.t and the driver put it in A ditch.

Rommel was slightly wounded, but hurried forward on foot-in the midst of enemy fire. "Is Rommel immune?" we asked ourselves.

It made a strong impression on all the officers and men; his example spurred us on.

From the bridgehead a breakout was successfully made: the way France, 1940 39 to the west seemed open. Our reconnaissance battalion was put across and we at Once set out from the bridgehead into the western advance.

"Keep going, don't look to left or right, only forward. I'll cover your flanks if necessary. The enemy is confused; we must take advantage of it." So ran Rommel's unorthodox orders.

The panzer regiment moved up, and with it a special unit of engineers. Together we managed to make a breach in the French line, one and a half miles deep. Rommel was again right up at the front, driving us on. During the night we were already advancing through the town of Avesnes and next day, the 17th, we reached the River Sambre, where the bridges were intact.

The French were caught completely unawares by our impetuous advance and retreated, to some extent with signs of disbandment.

"La guerre est finie, je men fou," we heard, shouted by some French soldiers.

What was up with the famous French army, which in the First World War had fought against us so bravely and on equal terms?

In the first place, we thought, the "impregnable" Maginot Line had given them a feeling of complete security; second, they had undoubtedly underestimated our fighting strength and mobility.

They did not draw lessons from the blitzkrieg in Poland. In addition, the French will to wage war against us seemed to be very weak, although such outstanding leaders as Marshal P6tain and General Weygand were at the head of the French army.

We had no information about the situation either in the individual sectors of the'front or as a whole. We had the feeling of being alone at the head of a division advancing tempestuously. "Forward!" was the cry. By 18 May our panzer regiment was already rolling into Cambrai, that historic town which became famous in the First World War as the place where the British first used tanks With our reconnaissance battalion we covered the tank advance on the left flank and were thereby involved again and again with the flood of retreating French soldiers, who in their panic mingled to a large extent with the civilian population. I/ The division closed up. On 20 May the important St. Quentin ca.n.a.l was crossed. That evening we heard that Guderian, with three armored divisions, who had been rushing forward to the south of us, had reached Abb-6ville on the Somme and was thus only 15 miles from the Channel coast. and brought about a turning point in the war.

Where were the British, whom we were now crediting with more fighting spirit? On the one hand they were tougher than the demoralized French, and on the other they had their backs to the Channel, which separated them from their base on the island.

For them, winning was a matter of survival.

On 20 May we reached the area south of Arras. For the first time a division of the Waffen-SS appeared in support of us. We advanced on the La Ba.s.s6e ca.n.a.l. Rommel wanted at all costs to skirt Arras on the west, so as to cut off the way to the coast for the British who were presumed to be in the area. When our tanks reached and closed the arterial road leading from Arras to the west, a hard and costly battle was about to begin for our division.

I was with my company on the ca.n.a.l, trying to force a crossing.

All the bridges had been destroyed. In addition, the French had sunk all the river boats. We were coming under accurate sniper fire from the opposite bank. As I sprang to oneof our ant.i.tank guns to direct its fire, I received a shot in the right hand.

My pistol whirled through the air; several of my fingertips had been shot through and I was bleeding heavily. As my orderly Erich Beck recalls, "I at once fetched an armored car. As I tried to get my boss on to it, he slipped away under my hands.

"My G.o.d," I thought, 'now he's really had it." But next day he was back among us, with his arm in a sling." a.s.sault parties had brought in a few prisoners, whom I questioned. After some coaxing, it turned out that the British battalion opposite us belonged to the Grenadier Guards. Its commander was an old friend of mine, with whom I had sat together in the Marlborough Club in London only shortly before the war. How senseless it all was, I thought.

During the night we used rubber boats to cross and, against light opposition, succeeded in establishing a bridgehead on the other bank. Engineers had to construct the pontoon bridge like a snake through the sunken barges and lighters. During the violent crossing of the ca.n.a.l, Rommel stood like a target on the embankment and directed the fire, while next to him men were being wounded and even killed. Once again he spurred us on by his exemplary behavior. Only when Stukas (JU 87 dive-bombers) came into action was the crossing finally successful.

Meanwhile the British had decided, even without the French, to launch a counterattack east of Arras on our right flank. One of our panzer grenadier regiments caught the brunt of it. Our own France, 1940 41 were already west of Arras at the time. The situation became increasingly critical, so Rommel decided to intervene again personally. To our dismay the British attacked with a new tank which, though slow, was well armored, the Matilda, against which our 3.7cm ant.i.tank gun was powerless.