Apart from a few old people, the inhabitants had left the village. Tears were running over the lined faces of those who had stayed behind. An absolutely ancient man, who had recognised me as an officer, raised his hands. He moaned, and asked me to spare the house in which he had lived all his life and where he wanted to die. The old man moved me. It was strange that intensive propaganda, and the manifold impressions of the ruthlessness of that campaign, had not been able completely to suppress sheer human sensitivity. I struggled with my feelings of duty, and was relieved that my men sympathised with me when I ordered them to spare the house of the old man.
My company went forward and set fire to the next wooden house with a bundle of straw. The old man tried to kiss my hands, and wished me a long life. Waving away his thanks, I stressed to him that he should take care that the flames did not spring from the neighbouring house on to his. If among the men there had been a ‘bigwig’ or a ‘fanatic’ I would have risked a court martial on account of that old Russian. But there were none of that kind among us. Once a man was among frontline soldiers, he soon relearned his true values.
In the evening we moved in to the new position. The company sector was well located. The position, on a low slope, had a good field of fire and line of sight over a depression in the ground. On the other side the terrain climbed again, flat, towards the smouldering village. Whether the old man’s house had remained intact could not be seen because of the smoke and the trees that were still in leaf. To a certain extent the trenches were reasonably well constructed, but in numerous places really flat. There had not been enough time to construct bunkers such as we had been accustomed to in our trench warfare. Nevertheless we found some quite large holes in the ground, about the length of a man and 150 centimetres deep. Many had been covered with a thin layer of wooden beams. I set up my command post in such a ‘hole’. In it there was room for three men. A couple of arms full of hay saw to it that there was a bit of warmth in the early autumn nights that were becoming chilly.
The field kitchen had actually arrived. There were gigantic portions of warm Leberwurst with Stampfkartoffeln. Since the amount of rations in combat did not match the current complement of the unit, the portions for dead and wounded comrades were given to the living. That had less of an effect in the case of food, as in any case you could not eat more then your fill. But in the case of schnapps, tobacco, and frontline combat packs those who remained enjoyed the extra. Not a few fathers of families sent home their surplus food. I sent a parcel of it to my nine years old sister Liesl.
It was a special blessing that the field post was then distributed. During the withdrawal it had not reached us. Within three days I received 25 letters. On 8 October I was able to reply to five letters from my Mother. In that letter I wrote that the physical exertions were soon likely to be at an end. But we were still living without any extras. For four weeks I had not been able to wash, shave, or clean my teeth.
Replacements had also arrived. To my surprise, among them there were men from Lorraine and Luxembourg. Their homeland was then part of the Reich and they had become eligible for military service. They did not seem too enthusiastic. Most of them seemed anxious and were obviously badly trained. A tall blond man from Düdeling made an optimistic impression and found his feet straight away. On the other hand it seemed that during the night another Unteroffizier had disappeared. No one had seen him go and nowhere had he given any hint of leaving. Kaczmarek, an Upper Silesian who was about 40 years old, spoke Polish and Russian well and had only been a few weeks at the front. Otherwise he had always been with the baggage-trains. It was painful for me to realise that the man must have gone over to the enemy.
In the early morning of 5 October, I was wakened by the rattle of our MG 42s and the clear sound of Russian machine-pistols. With my two runners I jumped up to the main trench. A Fahnenjunker came running to meet me with the words ‘the Ivans are here’! I took him by his lapels, said that he should come with me, and hurried on. In the trench there lay a dead Russian. With my machine-pistol drawn I felt my way around the corners of the trench, the runners behind me. One of the runners shouted ‘there they go’! We had come a little too late to repulse the assault unit. Our reliable Feldwebel Geissel had been there before us.
The last two Ivans fled, then collapsed under our rifle fire in the area between the lines. Two gave themselves up. Three lay dead in the trench, among them the leader, a junior lieutenant. We examined his papers. The newcomers to my unit, who had not yet seen any dead Russians, approached the bodies with curiosity. They were surprised at the primitive nature of the Russians’ equipment. We ‘oldies’ were surprised by the oversized officers’ epaulettes that the junior lieutenant was wearing. The previous year they had not had those historic Russian insignia of rank. But by then the ‘Great Patriotic War’ declared by Stalin had begun. By then it was no longer the workers’ Fatherland, but Mother Russia who was in danger, and who had called her sons.
In the meantime, Oberstleutnant Dorn had relieved Nowak in 3rd Battalion, and had taken over command of the regiment. In the evening he inspected the sector and received reports about the morning visit of the enemy. It is true that he did not call me Bubi, as Nowak had done in the summer, but like Nowak he was really paternal. On his belt buckle he had a field flask dangling from which he offered us drinks. It was good warming cognac.
The hope for a period of rest in the Puply sector had proved impossible. On the night of 12 October we had been relieved and had moved into the baggage-train village some 10 kilometres away. Until midday we had been able to sleep without the disturbing influence of the enemy. Transport, on lorries northwards to the ‘taxiway’, was planned for the afternoon. There, one of the combat actions was underway. In the history of the war in Russia, they were called the ‘Smolensk highway battles’. The Russians had continued to attack and had made critical breakthroughs.
We spent the night of 13 October in the village of Lenino. The company had been topped up to 70 men and I had found them quarters in two rooms of a Russian house. The conditions were dreadfully cramped. The only way get some sleep was side by side, all huddled in one direction. It was impossible to turn over, because the whole chain would have become tangled up. The stench, the cramped conditions, and the lice saw to it that our rest did not develop into a recuperative sleep. Again and again a man would start up, tormented by lice. Then, in addition, there was an ‘owl’ in the night. It was a Soviet biplane, well-known to us from our trench warfare. Since my night ride in Jelnja I was sensitive to that aircraft, so there was to be no hope of falling asleep. In actual fact the ‘owl’ did drop some shrapnel bombs. One of them, a dud, stuck in the thick thatch of our house. There would have been a bloodbath if that bomb had exploded.
During that day Leutnant Rauprich, my acquaintance from the trench construction staff, came past with his battery. I stopped him and asked how the situation was going. He said that the artillery commander had ordered his regiment to take up preventative firing positions. Rauprich also had some other bits of news. He said the third Smolensk highway battle was underway. Not far from there the Polish Division Thaddeusz Sikorsky had been sent into action, and also Soviet female units. He said that he himself had seen female prisoners of war. Rauprich was not surprised that the Russians were able to stand the tempo of their advance, but at the same time were carrying out offensive battles. He also told me that, as the result of a shortage of transport, the enemy was having containers of petrol rolled westwards, on the highways, by women, children, and old men.