Since the enemy obviously had need of a break, as we did, we were granted two days of rest. As our physical exhaustion abated, the oppression of our minds and spirits proportionately increased. The deserted dwellings, farms and settlements created a thoroughly sad atmosphere. There were columns of German refugees, old men, women and children with belongings they had had to snatch together as best they could in the emergency. We had already overtaken some of them on the way. Everything reinforced those sad impressions. The realisation hit me that the area, German for more than half a millennium, would be irretrievably lost.
In the stables there was still some warmth. Many farmers had not even been able to take all their stock with them. Gates and doors were standing open, as if the houses were still inhabited by their owners and they had just gone out into the fields. The cellars and barns were full. The shelves of the dining rooms were stocked. In addition to the large amount of meat daily, we even had stewed fruit. We would have done without it only we were still standing at Smolensk. We, the infantrymen, were to be the last to set foot over the threshold of those countless homes about to be given over to the enemy. ‘Oh Germany, poor Fatherland’, I thought at the time. I happened to find in the First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter four, verse seven, the text that essentially ‘hit the nail on the head’ in describing what was happening to us. ‘Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, are naked and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place’.
Meanwhile, it had become known that we were in a pocket of huge proportions. The Russians in Pomerania had reached the sea. So we would see whether the troops, encircled and cut off, were still capable of breaking through to the West. This was what many hoped. Others feared that Danzig would be declared a Festung. As such it would have to be defended, as usual, ‘to the last drop of blood’. The fighters wore grey, not brown, tunics. The pause for breath granted us by the enemy seemed to be ending. The Russians again began firing registration fire. Streets, embankment and houses were under not very heavy, but regular, fire from heavy weapons.
As I was standing outside the door of the house, a Ratschbum shell hit the lintel. Apart from a tiny splinter that hit me in the mouth, nothing else happened. But it was puzzling where the shell had come from. The house was covered by the embankment in such a way that it could not be hit by direct fire. So the firing must be coming not from the bank immediately opposite, but from further up or down river. That too seemed to indicate that the Russians were up to something in our sector. In fact, during the night of 29 January the enemy had crossed the Vistula in the sector of our neighbouring battalion in Deutsch-Westfalen. They were then in the village with at least one company. Reserves, which could still have thrown them out again during the night, were of course not available.
The Division decided to take our battalion out of the line. Then, next day, it would be possible to carry out a local attack, with the aim of driving the enemy back on to the right hand bank of the Vistula. A meeting and the issue of orders took place in the regimental command post in the Schwenten forester’s house. A crowd of senior people was present, as befitted the occasion. Vater Dorn outlined what he described as a ‘shitty’ situation. That was to be expected from the conditions of the terrain. Since the plain in the glacial valley of the Vistula offered no cover, consideration had only been given to an attack from the north and south, along the street, moving from house to house. Two assault units were to work their way forward through the bushes on the bank on the far side, that is the enemy side, of the embankment directly on the riverbank. I was ordered to take command of the group advancing from the south. So this was the Himmelfahrts-Kommando, that, evidently, I was not to escape (translator’s note: Himmelfahrt in German means ‘Ascension’ in the sense of Christ’s ascension into heaven. Its ironic use here is echoed by the term Himmelfahrts-Strasse [‘Ascension Street’] used in Auschwitz for the road leading to the gas chambers.) I said Jawohl and did not show any fear.
As we were taking our leave, I thought that I could sense different looks and different handshakes from usual. I could feel that none of them wanted to be in my shoes and were happy that the lot had not fallen to them. The esteem of the artillery commander, the visible respect of the Panzerjäger officer and the fatherly kindness of Oberst Dorn made me inwardly happy. Then I was truly glad about Freimuth Husenett. In the meantime he had relieved Klaus Nicolai as Regimental Adjutant. At 22 he was only one year older than I. He wore the Knight’s Cross and the Goldene Nahkampfspange, was clean, modest and cheerful. In his soft voice, in a heartfelt and brotherly way, he said, ‘Look after yourself’.
How seriously and importantly the operation was regarded by those higher up was indicated by the fact that the battalion was to spend the night in peace in Schloss Sartowitz. Sartowitz, some five kilometres behind the frontline, was a trim manor house in the German Ostland. The great house was situated in a select spot high over the Vistula valley, on what was once the bank of the glacial valley. The view from the terrace offered a tormentingly beautiful picture across the ice-covered river. There were little villages in the foreground and out to the horizon, was the town of Graudenz, embedded into the fortress above it. But because the great house could be observed by the enemy, and there had been instances of shells hitting the house, for the sake of peace and quiet we preferred the gentleman’s residence. It was in a deeper location than the main house and was covered by the trees of the park. In some of its 99 rooms we settled ourselves down.
Before we all went to sleep I gave precise instructions to the NCOs. Then I had to tell the men what awaited them the next day. However, I had to give them confidence. That had never been harder for me to do than it was then. I could not conceal from them the fact that there was only a slim prospect of our survival. But, I said that they should nevertheless reflect that we were always, every one of us, in the hands of God. He would be with us every day, as always. Therefore He would be with us ‘tomorrow’. Nothing would happen to us without His willing it, I said. God was ‘with us’, as it said on the belt buckles we wore next to our bodies.
At 3am, after I had lain for four hours in the deepest sleep, I was woken up. It was a battalion runner. Drowsy with sleep, I tripped over my boots. We had been permitted to allow ourselves the luxury of sleeping in the beds with our boots off. What was the matter, I asked Hauptmann Wild. He looked at me and said quietly: ‘Don’t worry, it’s been called off, we’re going on with the retreat’.
The enemy had extended their bridgehead and the village of Schwenten had been lost. Our battalion had to retake it. The first target of the attack was a four-sided complex of farm buildings. It was a commanding position on a hill to the south-west of the village, surrounded by woodland 100 metres away from it. Two assault guns were coming up to our support. With my company of only 20 men I had to attack at a right angle to the other battalion. The assault guns remained with them. I had to push forward and draw the attention of the enemy on to me. The battalion with the assault guns would then advance.