On 16 February we were marching in a northerly direction towards Dubelno. Clouds of shrapnel had indicated that the enemy attack was going to continue. It was always the same. A couple of hours, perhaps a night, perhaps two days without pressure from the enemy. Then the Russians attacked again, pressing and pushing us back. Meanwhile, we had been driven on to the Tucheler Heide. For more than four weeks we had had ‘no abiding city’. Around noon I had a splinter from a mortar shell in my right upper arm. It came through the open window of a farmhouse in which we were resting. It was of course too small a wound for a military hospital. But, for all that, the feeling of nerves that had gripped me since morning fell away from me. I then knew why.
You could see that on the other side of the Vistula a captive balloon was sitting enthroned in the sky, untouched. There were no German fighter aircraft in its vicinity. Our Luftwaffe had long since vanished into thin air. Only on the next morning did a German fighter aircraft attempt to approach the balloon. But it was driven away by hundreds of Russian flak and other guns.
Meanwhile the cold had broken. On 17 February we were lying in fresh trenches in front of the Graudenz-Könitz railway line, on a tongue of land a kilometre wide, in the midst of woodland. It was a typical stretch of countryside for the Tucheler Heide. The Russians had pushed forward through the woods. To the north and to the south they had reached the railway line. Until then we had stood firm. But we were then shelled by a series of salvos from German Nebelwerfer that the enemy had captured. The enormous detonations of their heavy calibre guns made the still, frozen earth shake.
We pressed ourselves against the walls of our trenches and wished that the attack were over, so that such hellish music might come to an end. Despite the mortar fire, which had had a very demoralising effect, the enemy only advanced hesitantly. It was easy to keep them at a distance with targeted rifle fire. Once again my Sturmgewehr with its U-shaped back sight and the flat pin was proving its worth.
The next day the railway line in our sector was given up. We withdrew over a bridge that had been prepared for blowing. It led over an artificial ravine. Nobody knew who was supposed to be blowing up the bridge, or when and from where it was to be done. So it was a matter of climbing down 25 metres into the ravine and clambering up again on the other side. Actually I saved myself the trouble and ran across the bridge, feeling foolhardy. Certainly, once across, I became aware of how careless I had been.
In the next village there was a short halt. The halt was rudely interrupted when out of a haystack a Russian machine-pistol sprayed fire and two of our people fell, hit by the bullets. From a little distance away I saw an Unteroffizier having a go with the Sturmgewehr, whereupon a Russian came crawling out. Evidently he was making a move to flee. The corporal fired once more, and the treacherous deed was atoned for.
Some days later Hauptmann Wild assigned me to his staff, if you could still call it that. But he doubtless wanted to do me a good turn or to protect me a little, because in fact I was the last officer who was still there from 14 January. In any event it did not matter to me, I simply moved about here and there on foot. Whether I commanded the 10 men of my company or supported the Hauptmann in commanding the 50 men of the battalion, there was no essential difference. We pulled back further. On a narrow country road that ran through the heath in the middle of splendid woodland, we were still about 20 kilometres south of Preussisch-Stargard and 60 kilometres away from the Baltic at Danzig.
On 24 February Hauptmann Wild celebrated his 35th birthday. The kitchen Unteroffizier had not forgotten him. He brought a cake into the forester’s house in which we were resting. It had been part-baked during the retreat. But he only produced it after he had fed us with roast pork and no one could eat any more. Sitting in the deserted house, in a velvet-covered grandfather’s chair belonging to the forester, I stretched my legs out on to the leather armchair opposite. Exhaustion overwhelmed me. I was wakened by the explosion of an anti-personnel mine. It was two o’clock in the morning. An enemy patrol must have trodden on it. ‘What the hell’, I thought, ‘the enemy never attacks in the dark at night’. Besides, I could not care less. I wanted to sleep. ‘You can all go hang!’ Drowsy with sleep, those were my thoughts.
At the northern edge of the Tucheler Heide, a little beyond the wood, the battalion had moved in to a wide sector. We could only hold on at key points. On the morning of 26 February we had repulsed an enemy patrol. Since then the enemy had not pushed on after us. They were obviously exhausted and needed a breather. They stayed in the wood, preparing for another assault. Because of that, we hoped that a few days’ rest would be granted to us. Almost overnight the snow had disappeared. The warm March sun had sucked it up, and a mild wind was blowing over the fields, all newly brown. In the open meadow, tiny shoots of green seemed to be sprouting. My imagination seized on to an illusion of reawakening life. Our winter clothing was handed back to the baggage-train.
The railway station at Gross-Wollental was the battalion key point. It lay furthest to the left. It was occupied by the remnants of ‘my’ 1st Company. There were still 15 of them, commanded by a Leutnant who had just come from Germany. They had installed themselves in the railway buildings and had a good field of fire. Within the solid, thick walls they felt themselves to be protected, for the time being. It was the typical brick station of a smaller town, such as could be found in a good 1,000 stations in northern Germany. A little while before it had still been in operation. The air still smelled just like a railway station.
The small farmhouse that housed the command post had thin walls. The only room was on the southern side facing the enemy. Since we had already grown apathetic as a result of our exertions, comfort had won the day over the regulation efforts to provide security. Instead of taking up our quarters in the stable on the southern side of the house, we used the room facing the enemy. There were two beds. Men and officers slept in them, in shifts, of course without being able to take off their boots or clothes. We had not been used to such peace for a long time. I could count on my fingers the days and nights that I had not slept without my boots. That continued during the war of movement, the trench warfare, or whenever else, in that campaign.
In my dreams I heard the hiss of a hand-grenade and the nasty quiet fizzing of the fuse before it exploded. I was dreaming that an enemy assault unit was in the process of digging us out, and had thrown a hand-grenade into the room. Still half asleep I jumped out of bed and the laughter of my comrades brought me fully awake. But there was an element of truth in the dream. An infantry gun shell had come through the wall over my head and the headboard of the bed. It had stuck into the opposite wall of the room. Mortar was still crumbling down from the wall.
On 4 March 1945 at 8.05am, a forward observer reported heavy enemy movements from Gross-Wollental moving northwards. At 8.15am, accompanied by intense aircraft activity, there began a heavy enemy preparatory barrage, particularly on the sector of our left-hand neighbour, Grenadier Regiment 7. Following that, the enemy, supported by strong armoured forces, attacked from the direction of Gross-Wollental and Neubuchen towards the railway line.