Panzer Commander Part 6

Hitler and Goebbels were still holding forth about the victorious Wehrmacht. My radio operator, who listened to the news now and then on short wave, told me that our retreat was being represented as a straightening of the front.

On 3 December the retreat began. At the rear position at The Russian Campaign, June 1941 to January 1942 81 Volokolamsk, so it was said, feverish preparations were being made by the infantry. Little by little individual units of our division disengaged themselves from the Klin-Yakhroma area.

With my two battalions I stayed on in the little town and around it. The Russians were not very active there. They preferred the way past us to the north and south. Finally, we too gave up the east bank of the Moscow-Volga ca.n.a.l, while a large fan of reconnaissance tanks kept constant guard to the east, as far as the snow and the road conditions allowed.

In great haste two retreat routes had been cleared of snow. As a result vast mountains of snow were piled high on either side of the road and made any divergence impossible.

Except for intense reconnaissance activity, the enemy made no very strong direct pursuit of us. All the fiercer, however, were the attempts of the Russian air force to attack the backward movements with old biplanes and light bombers. Our own air force was hardly to be seen. The advanced air fields had apparently also been moved to the west, or else the cold and the snowstorms prevented their use.

The effect of the enemy air attacks was devastating. Since no one on the retreat routes could escape, and since the Russians always came from the east, hence from behind, the infantry first caught the brunt of them. The next victims were the horse-drawn supply and artillery units. Before long, -the narrow roads were choked with the cadavers of horses and broken-down vehicles.

The men fought their further way,west on foot and were often attacked in the flank by Russian ski patrols.

Since we formed the rear guard, after a long interval, and since we were able to use our light antiaircraft guns, we were not bothered so much. Once, however, we did come under air attack.

Unnoticed and flying very low, some antiquated fighter aircraft crept up on us from behind. Two shots pa.s.sed between Beck and me and went through the windshield. We were-lucky.

West of the great Moscow-Leningrad highway, we too had to use the cleared routes. Only our tanks had made ;i trail here and there in the deep snow on either side of the roads, by which most of our track and half-track vehicles could circ.u.mvent the many obstacles.

It was a grisly sight. Alongside dead horses lay dead and wounded infantrymen. "Take us with you or else shoot us," they begged. As far as s.p.a.ce allowed, we took them on our supply vehi 82 PANZER COMMANDER cles to hastily organized field dressing stations. The poor devils. Protected against the cold with makeshift foot-rags, they were now only a shadow of those who had stormed through Poland and France.

Supplies got through to us only with difficulty, sometimes not at all. The truck drivers had to make their way against the stream of units flowing back. If they failed, there was suddenly no fuel. The best we could do then was to MI up our most important fighting vehicles; the others we had to destroy and leave behind. "Man, horse, and truck by the Lord were struck." The saying here became a reality.

Only the will to reach safety in the prepared positions kept the men going. Anything to avoid being left behind and falling into the hands of the Russians.

Our divisional chaplain, Martin Tarnow, in his notes "Last Hours," has described the suffering and death of so many men.

"Voda, voda (water): Some wounded men lay in a kind of barn, among them a few Russians. In the face of death there were no longer any enemies. Again and again came the penetrating cry of a Russian:"Voda, voda." I gave him my water-bottle; he drained it in one grateful swig. When I raised his blanket, I saw the bloodsoaked bandage. A stomach wound; no hope. We couldn't understand each other, but suddenly he grasped my silver cross.

Perhaps he, too, had a cross at home, hanging on the wall of his parent's house? I thought of Christ on the cross, who had once cried out, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." It was not long before his hand released my cross; he died very quickly.

In dying, I believe he was consoled After weeks, which seemed to us an eternity, marked by shared misfortune and hardships endured, we came at last to the prepared position at Volokolamsk, which lay some 100 kilometers west of Moscow. We pa.s.sed through the infantry positions to where we were to restore ourselves a few miles further to the rear. The primitive peasant huts seemed like luxury apartments to us. Utterly thankful to have escaped the infemo, we lay down on the oven beside the few remaining old inhabitants and wanted only one thing: sleep, sleep, sleep.

The first reinforcements arrived: replacements who were better equipped for the severe Russian winter, vehicles, fuel, provisions that had long been lacking, and mail from home. This reminded us The Russian Campaign, June 1941 to January 1942 83 that Christmas, meanwhile, had come and gone and that a new year had begun. What would 1942 bring for us?

In the middle of January, I was summoned to the divisional commander. General von Funk received me in particularly friendly fashion.

"Luck, two important bits of news for you. I had recommended you for the Knight's Cross. A few weeks ago, Hitler founded a new order, the German Cross in gold, which ranks between the Iron Cross First Cla.s.s and the Knight's Cross. All recommendations for the Knight's Cross have been converted.

Yours, too. In the name of the Fuehrer, I have the honor to present you with this new order for bravery in face of the enemy." I was appalled: a large and clumsy star, with an oversized swastika in the middle of it, to be worn on the right breast.

The General smiled.

"Nice and impressive, isn't it? May I congratulate you all the same." His words were full of irony.

We at once coined a new name for this monstrosity: Hitler's fried egg. Except for headquarters' visits, I never wore the order.

"Now for the second bit of news, Luck: you are being transferred with immediate effect to the Africa Korps, to take over the 3rd Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion. I have to confess that this transfer has been on my table since November. I didn't tell you or release you because you couldn't be spared in that decisive phase. Now Rommel is threatening me with the consequences if I don't send you on your way at once. I find it hard to let you go. In spite of our little differences, you were a great help to me as adjutant and as a commander, you have been outstanding.

Get everything ready. You can go in your beloved Mercedes.

Report, in the first place, to Personnel in Berlin. Drop in here just before you leave. An appropriate movement order will be issued by my adjutant. Thank you, once again, for everything and best wishes for the future." The news of my transfer came likela bombsh.e.l.l to my officers and men. We had, after all, fought together since the beginning of the war, shared joys and sorrows, and merged into a real team.

The morale of the men had picked up again. Although conditions were no better, the days ol rest had done some good, nevertheless.

I planned to leave on 25 January 1942. Beck had the Mercedes checked and procured supplies for several days, as well as reserve cans of fuel. As is usual among men, no one showed his feelings when we said good-bye. A few jokes pa.s.sed between us and then off to divisional HQ, where I took my leave again and was supplied with the movement order: "Destination, Berlin, Captain von Luck is to be given every a.s.sistance by all service posts." From my supply section, we collected mail for home and from the doctor, I Procured some Pervitin, a stimulant.

The last person to whom I said goodbye was Staff Sergeant Kuschel, the RSM of my old company.

I turned to Beck, "We'll drive without stopping until we're out of Russia. We'll relieve each other every 100 kilometers, swallow Pervitin and stop only for fuel." After about 200 kilometers, we made our first stop for refuelling at a supply unit. "We're not authorized to issue fuel to individual vehicles," said a "silverling," as we called the servicemen behind the lines, because of the silver stripe on their arms.

"Listen," I replied, "I will have fuel within five minutes if you value your life. Besides, the Russians have broken through in our sector and might be here by morning," I lied to him.

Great excitement and in a few minutes, I not only had fuel but also delicacies never seen at the front, such as a bottle of cognac, cigarettes, and tins of meat.

We were disgusted by life behind the lines. The army supply units had soon been followed by the first Party functionaries, who took over civilian control and treated the population, who had often begun by greeting us as liberators, in the manner decreed by the Party and Propaganda Minister Goebbels, as "subhumans of an inferior race." No one took any notice of us when we appeared, tired and unshaven, in our white-painted car. Every village, every bridge was guarded by old, conscripted soldiers. Only once, when we produced our movement order yet again, did an old reservist ask me, "Sir, have you come from 'up there'? How do things look?

We hear nothing definite. I have a son in the infantry. For weeks, my wife has had no news of him. Please tell me the truth, sir. We are very worried." I tried to give the old reservist some rea.s.surance.

From the region of Volokolamsk, we drove west along minor roads that had scarcely been cleared, so as to reach the Moscowminsk "runway" as soon as possible, along which progress would be easier.

We could bear the artiller 'y fire of both sides, which grew ever fainter with every mile we covered. And then, there was complete silence. No sound of battle; only a few supply vehicles moving east. Our journey was now almost romantic. We traveled across broad, The Russian Campaign, June 1941 to January 1942 85 snow-covered plains, through forests, deep under snow, and through deserted villages. The snowstorm that s.n.a.t.c.hed at our heels covered our tracks in an instant. We drove with the top down, to make it easier to spot Russian planes. Across his knees, Beck had a machine-pistol at the ready. Everything seemed unreal to us.

We were traveling through a virgin land that no one could grasp or possess.

Beck and I were lost in thought and enjoying the peace. But we wanted to get on, to put a distance between ourselves and the gruesome experiences of the past weeks, to get out of that country in which we had to leave our comrades.

Finally, we reached the "runway." I had brought maps with us, of course, to avoid losing our way. We grew tired. Pervitin had to help, for we wanted to drive through the night.

On the trail, traffic was brisker and so brought us back to reality. The trail pa.s.sed north of the cities of Vyazma and Smolensk. I resisted the temptation to revisit Smolensk cathedral. In Smolensk, too, the n.a.z.i functionaries would have made themselves at home.

I decided to go back along the route we had used for our advance. On the one hand, it was familiar to me and on the other, I was curious to see how things looked now. It was no great detour on the way to Berlin.

We drove day and night, taking turns. North of Minsk, we left the trail for Vilnius, the capit'al of the former Baltic state of Lithuania, which had been pocketed by the Russians in 1940 as one of the Soviet republics, Hitler's "present" to Stalin for the nonaggression pact.

The indicator showed that we had so far covered about 1,000 kilometers. We no longer knew, at that moment, how many days and nights it had been. Gradually, even Pervitin was no help.

We were dog-tired and tried to overcome our fatigue by singing or telling each other stories.

"Beck, Virhius isn't Russia; Lithuania is more part of Europe than of the east. We'll just drive the remaining 200 kilometers and spend the night there." Now the snow-covered roads had been sm6othed by traffic; the Mercedes ran without a sound and like clockwork. Eventually, late one afternoon, we reached our destination. As usual, there was a local German HQ. We came across an understanding reserve officer, who a.s.signed us a room in the Hotel Regina. We threw ourselves onto the beds. For the first time for eight months, a bed and a 86 PANZER COMMANDER bath. Only then did we realize that we were no longer at the Russian front. The strain of the past weeks began slowly to fall away.

"Beck, we'll have a bath now, shave off our stubble, and go to the restaurant for a meal. And then, we'll have a really good sleep." As we entered the restaurant, we felt as though reborn. We thought we were dreaming: officers of the base units were sitting at the tables with women, apparently leading a dolce vita. The little band could hardly make itself heard above the loud conversation. No one here, it seemed, wanted to know about the war. We bolted our food in disgust, handed in the voucher provided by HQ, and disappeared to our beds, lacking for so long.

I woke late the following morning.

"Come on, Beck, we're going, as fast as we can, on to Berlin.

There's nothing to keep us here any longer." A further 600 kilometers lay before us. Finally, after two days, via Grodno, Warsaw, and Posen, we reached Berlin.

The Russian chapter was closed.

"The desert calls, Beck." 10 Interim" 1942 Our first goal was Replacement Section 3 at Stahnsdorf, near Berlin, our base until we left for Africa. The replacement sections were responsible for the training of soldiers to make up for losses at the front. They were also centers for the wounded and those on leave who were waiting for new postings.

Officers and NCOS who, because of their wounds were no longer "fit for combat service," as it was called, were employed as instructors, so that their experience might be pa.s.sed on.

I reported to the CO of the replacement section, who was glad to see me.

"There you are at last. Rommel and the battalion have been waiting for you since November. You are to report, at once, to the Personnel Office; there -you will receive movement orders and all information." First, they fixed us up with a bed for the night. I planned to go to the Personnel Office the following morning. But before that, I drove with Beck to the motor vehicle workshop.

"This Mercedes has survived the Russian campaign. Please check it over and remove the white camouflage paint. I'll pick it up again if I come back from Africa." Beck, who was to be quartered in the barracks until our departure, would see to the car and watch over it with Argus eye.

Early next morning, with a jeep and driver from the replacement section, I drove into Berlin. How the city had changed since I was last there. The people seemed cowed and dispirited. The news coming in from the eastern front, the air raids, which were becoming ever more frequent, life on ration cards and the arrogant behavior of n.a.z.i functionaries were sapping the vital energy of the Berliners, who were otherwise so quick-witted and full of zest for life. Air raid shelters of all sorts were to be seen eve"here; at night all the houses and streets ad to be blacked out. Berlin seemed like a ghost town.

Friends told me how they crouched night after night on their suitcases, containing their most important papers, an emergency pack by their side, ready to be summoned to the cellars by the raid wardens at the first warning.

Gasoline was rationed; private cars had almost disappeared. The Kurfurstendamm, once so pulsating, and Unter den Linden, were now given over almost entirely to the vehicles of notables, the Wehrmacht, and Party organizations.

At the Personnel Office, I found after much searching, the head of the department responsible for North Africa.

"Welcome home! Now first of all, have a good rest and acclimatize yourself. Here's your allocation to a small hotel on the Kurfurstendamm and an order to the army clothing department for you and your orderly to draw your tropical equipment. Where do you want to spend your leave? I'll have the appropriate movement orders made out." I protested vehemently. "I know that I've been asked for by Rommel since November. But my divisional commander didn't inform me or release me. I should like to go to Africa as quickly as possible."

"I know, I know," he replied. "Rommel's HQ has already been informed that you have only just got back from Russia and need a rest. Report to me at the end of March. On I April, you'll be sent on your way. So, where do you want to spend the next four weeks?" There was obviously nothing I could do about it, so I asked whether I could go for two weeks to my mother and two weeks to Paris.

The officer smiled.

"Paris is not bad," he said. "But things aren't quite so simple. I must, after all, be able to justify the journey."

"I have a lot of friends there and know Paris from before the war; in addition, the city commandant is a former commander of our 7th Panzer Division, whom I would like to see again."

"That's fine, for a commander of Rommel's former division, we can certainly manage something. You can collect your movement orders tomorrow." So, as I really couldn't leave for Africa immediately, I made the best of the situation. When I got back to Stahnsdorf, I at once put in a request for four weeks' leave for Beck, too.

Before I went to my mother in Flensburg, which is on the border of Denmark, I wanted to see a few friends, of whom I had heard nothing since the outbreak of war. I went to Gisela von Schkopp. She was still living in Potsdam, where we used to be garrisoned. It was her marriage to "dashing Bernhard," as he was called, that we Interim, 1942 89 had celebrated so lightheartedly at the manor house in Fast Prussia. She told me that she had had no news of her husband for several weeks. He, too, was at the eastern front. We had a meal together and brewed some coffee from bmns I had commandeered from a depot on the way back from Russia.

But we had no time to enjoy it, for at that moment we heard the bark of the antiaircraft guns and the wail of the air raid sirens. For the first time, I now shared the experience of an Allied air raid on our homeland.

"This is what it's like now, almost every night. Come down to the cellar," Gisela called out to me.

"No, I'm not going into the cellar for anything. I feel better in the open air, where I can see what's happening; I can take cover if necessary, if bombs should fall even on Potsdam." I went outside. It was a lurid scene. The long, white fingers of the searchlights probed the sky. In the distance, one could hear the drone of the bombers and the bark of the antiaircraft guns. The raid was on Berlin, not Potsdam, which had no strategic significance for the enemy. I fetched Gisela from the cellar.

"Come and see! What a spectacle! But how many houses will fall in ashes and rubble, how many innocent people will be buried in their cellars?" It dawned on me how much harder things were, in fact, for the civilian population in comparison to us at the front, for they were helpless and pa.s.sive in face of the air raids. I understood also, why our wounded, when they had recovered, were so keen to get back to the front as quickly as possible.

I arranged rheetings with the wives of my friends, who were all on active service. I gave them some real coffee from my supply.

Coffee was more precious than gold, for all supplies were reserved for the troops. Civilians had to make ersatz coffee from barley or subst.i.tutes.

As I was one of the first, apart from the wounded, who could give some-account of the eastern front, I was questioned closely. To avoid disheartening my friends still further, I veiled the truth.

The fate of these women moved me greatly. Many of them had married and started a family and then tikir husbands had fallen.

They had become widows without ever leading a proper married life. For that reason, I had resolved at the outbreak of war, not to marry until the war was over. Although there had been bonds and relationships which made me think of marriage, I still kept to my resolution.

The night life of Berlin had almost disappeared. Werner Fink, the great cabaret artist, still kept his Katakomben open. But his biting humor was not to Goebbel's taste. He only avoided the threat of arrest because Hermann Goering had a weakness for him and arranged for him to be called up into the Luftwaffe.

Despite all the pleasures of seeing my friends again, there was nothing to keep me long in Berlin, so I went to my mother's in Flensburg.

Although Flensburg was a naval base, it was not bombed. On 9 July 1941, my stepfather, who had been nursed devotedly by my mother for years, died of intestinal cancer. It was weeks before the news reached me in Russia. My younger brother, a keen whaler, had been called up into the navy and was sailing about in his minesweeper, a converted whaling vessel, somewhere off the coast of Norway. Only my sister, Anneliese, was still at home to give my mother a hand. At the end of 1942, she was "conscripted" to Holland and posted to the staff of the military commander of Holland. Our seven-room apartment was considered too big and several rooms were requisitioned for refugees.

My mother was very brave and concealed her anxieties about her children. She was so pleased to see me again, and with the real coffee I had brought, besides a few tins of army food.

The pleasant days in the company of my mother came to an end. I then went back to Berlin to collect my Mercedes. With movement orders"the tank full of gas and some of my stock of coffee in my baggage, I set off.

Like Berlin before, Paris, too, now proved a disappointment.

Supplies had become more difficult. The city was swarming with administrative personnel. The Gestapo, too, had already spread its net over France.

At HQ, I was at once given a room in one of the many requisitioned luxury hotels on the Champs Elys6es. J. B. Morel and C16ment Duhour were very delighted to see me again. From British and underground sources, they knew our situation on the eastern front better than I did and gave us no great chance of winning the war. All the same, I spent some happy hours in C16ment's bar, Le Chevalier. I went there only in civilian clothes. One met no Germans there. I paid a visit also to Le V6sinet, where we had been stationed after the French campaign in 1940.

I left Paris somewhat earlier than planned. I no longer felt so at home there as before. What had the war done to the city?

Cest la Interim, 1942 91 guerre-, the French had come to terms with it and were already reckoning with the fact that we would lose the war.

At the replacement section, I found that Beck had already returned. For him, too, there had been nothing to keep him at home for very long. It was now the middle of March-1942. The severe winter was over and we thought we had become sufficiently acciimatized to 90 to Africa.

Beck and I went to the Army clothing depot to collect our tropical equipment. What we were "fitted" out with there defies description. One could see that Germany had no longer any colonies since 1918, and so had no idea of what was suitable for the tropics. We need only have asked our allies, the Italians, but no, the commissariat had designed the tropical equipment strictly in the Prussian mode: khaki-colored, tight-fitting uniform of close material with a linen belt and high lace-up boots. In addition, a pith helmet, which, according to long-standing opinion, was essential wear in, the tropics.

Along with the other pieces, shirts impermeable to air, a brown tie, etc., we acknowledged receipt of our equipment and returned to the barracks to stage a fashion show.

Wounded men from North Africa, waiting there for ting" told us how they, like many others, had carried on a lively trade with the Italians in order to exchange at least some of their equipment for the more appropriate Italian uniforms.

They told us also of tht first actions in the desert, of Rommel's rapid advance, by which he had surprised the British, and of the conditions of desert warfare, such as the heat, the sandstorms, and the cold nights." Finally, it was time to go. We were given our movement orders, and on I April 1942 we boarded the Berlin-Rome express coach, with a sleeping compartment of our own. To the clatter of the wheels, we both thoughtback to our return from Russia in snow and ice. How quickly things changed!

A night-in Rome, which seemed quite unaware of the war. From the German liaison officer we learned that we were to go on to Brindisi by rail and from there, fly in a supply plane via Crete to Dema, which lay iq Cyrenaica.

What would await us? We were highly expectant, almost eager for adventure.

North Africa, 1942: Rommel" the Desert Fox From Brindisi, we flew to Crete, the island on which our paratroops had descended the year before, among them, Max Schmeling, the idol of German boxing. We relished the warmth of spring.

Then, on the morning of 8 April 1942, we took off for North Africa in our Junkers 52, known affectionately as "Auntie Ju." I was allowed to sit in the c.o.c.kpit.

"We have to fly low over the sea," the pilot told me. "In spite of our air superiority, there are always a few Spitfires or Hurricanes buzzing about the Mediterranean. They come from Malta, which for some reason, quite beyond me, has not been attacked and occupied by now." At that moment, I was not thinking of the war or of what might lie in store for me. I was too taken up with the idea of getting to know a new continent.

Suddenly the machine was pulled higher.

"We were lucky," laughed the pilot. "We shall soon be landing in Dema." The outlines of Africa emerged before us: the narrow coastal strip cultivated by the Italians, with its date palms, olive groves, the whitewashed houses of the colonists, and the long, asphalt ribbon of the Via Balbia. Behind it shimmered the desert.

"That's the stony desert," the pilot informed me, "about 200 to 300 kilometers deep, before the start of the Sahara proper, with its huge white dunes. These level plains, broken frequently by rocks and hills of gravel, have been the scene of the fighting for the past year or so." I had read books about the desert and the Bedouins, those nomadic people who, for more than 2,500 years, had wandered across the deserts of Arabia and Libya, living according to their own laws and with no form of state. Already, I thought I could feel something of the longing that is said to strike all who once set foot in the desert. I hoped I would find time to savor this new environment and its people.

Leaving a huge cloud of dust behind her, Auntie Ju landed North Africa, 1942: Rommel, the Desert Fox 93 gently on the sandy runway. The midday heat took us aback even at that time of year. What a contrast to the icy snowstorms of Russia.