It was in the Gschatsk-Stellung, some 150km west-south-west of Moscow, that I joined the regiment. On 2 July, in St Avold, I had begun my journey which, as a straggler following my comrades, I had to make on my own. The journey passed through Berlin and Warsaw. At first I was in trains carrying men back to the front from leave. But from Warsaw to Smolensk through West Prussia, Kovno, Vilna, Dünaburg, Polotzk, Vitebsk, I was in an empty hospital train. On 4 July I sent to my Mother and sisters ‘very best wishes from the German-Russian frontier’. From Vyazma I wrote on 8 July that I was ‘very impressed’ by the Russian landscape and by what I had seen on the journey, and that I was hoping to arrive at my unit ‘the day after tomorrow’.
At last, on 10 July, I wrote my first letter as a ‘sender’, with field post number 17638 C, from the 6th Company of Infanterieregiment 7. From Gschatsk onwards, to which goods trains were travelling, I had to march with my knapsack. At the regimental command post the commander ‘even shook my hand to welcome me’. Then there was a further march via the battalion command post to the company, which was commanded by Oberleutnant Beyer. I was immediately assigned my post as MG-Schütze, Machine-Gunner 1. The company had just been resting for some days in the woods close to the regimental command post and the baggage-train village of Shabino. We were to go back up the line the following night and relieve another company. As the 7th Company was being relieved I met Jochen Fiedler and his section leader Kräkler, our block seniors from St Avold. Fiedler said that of ‘the eleven’ of us only six were with Infanterieregiment 7, the others had joined Infanterieregiment 232 or 235.
The relief had proceeded smoothly so that the sections, at intervals of several minutes, and of course in single file, marched away, to avoid making any noise and alerting the enemy. In the trenches during the day it was more or less quiet. The Russians fired off some shells only now and then and those were only of light calibre. By contrast, during the night the Russians did not trust the calm. So the nights were dominated by a perpetual, blind cacophony of explosions. At midnight, when the summer night was at its darkest, for the first time I went alone on sentry duty. Somewhere else and under other circumstances I might have thought of Lenau’s night, ‘whose dark eye was resting on me, solemn, gentle, dreamy and unfathomably sweet’ (translator’s note: Nikolaus Lenau, German lyric poet, 1802–50).
But then I had a redoubled sense of loneliness. I did not know my way about the positions, which were strange to me, and I had not yet seen them in daylight. I did not know where the enemy was, and could only guess where my fellow-sentries were. I only knew the way from the sentry-post to the bunker. For a short time I was overcome by a feeling of being deserted. It seemed to bode ill for my probation at the front that the company ‘sarge’, immediately after I arrived in the baggage-train village, had ordered that I get my hair cut. Then, at the field church service in the full glare of the sun, when I was wearing my Stahlhelm, I had felt ill. I felt completely alone. I had no view in the direction of the enemy, since our trenches were behind an incline. The only thing that happened during those first two hours on sentry duty was the tour of inspection by the company commander. I scarcely heard his approach. Eyes directed forward, I quietly made the regulation report: ‘Nothing unusual to report’.
It was only on 14 July that I had to transfer into the first platoon of the company, to take over the section of a NCO who was going on leave. A week or so later we officer cadets were assembled in Shabino, near to the regimental command post. We had to take yet one more ‘revision course’ before our promotion to NCO. That was expected on 1 August. The course was given by Oberleutnant Steiff, the then regimental adjutant. (I met him again in 1975 in Vienna, where, as a Brigadegeneral in the German Bundeswehr, he was taking part in the negotiations which dragged on for years concerning bilateral reduction of forces in Europe). As far as we could see, the reason for the course was that the regimental commander wanted to get an idea of our theoretical knowledge and capabilities.
On 1 August I was proud to tell my Mother and sisters that, together with the five other officer cadets, I had been promoted to Fahnenjunkerunteroffizier, Officer Cadet NCO. On that occasion three of them received the EK II, Iron Cross 2nd Class. I was very pleased because ‘my appendix didn’t stop me’. Because I was a few days short of the minimum 2 months’ probation period at the front, in actual fact I should not have been allowed the promotion. However, the commander, Oberstleutnant von Eisenhart-Rothe, a gaunt gentleman with the elegance of a cavalryman, and evidently of a similar elegance in thinking, took the responsibility upon himself. Then, I wrote to my Mother, I had a salary, and the business of ‘public assistance for the children’ was at an end.
The previous day we sat together and wrote to our nearest and dearest ‘with liquor and cigars’. The ‘official’ celebration of our promotion, with the commander and some officers from the regimental Staff, was planned for the evening. Our celebration was part of it, because after the commander had left, Oberleutnant Roy, the commander of the 13th Infanteriegeschütz Company, took over the presidency of the Corona and we moved up into so-called ‘increased drinking’. (I met Roy, who, despite his twenty-five years, even back then had a bald patch, at the Division reunion in Stuttgart. While reminding him of that evening in Shabino, I told him that it was he I had to thank for getting drunk worse than I ever had in my life.) It happened that Roy, himself a drinker of note, ordered us officer cadets to drink up in turn.
Finally, ‘to conclude the evening’, he got me to gulp down within five minutes all the drink remaining in the glasses on the table. I managed it, too, under the astonished eyes of my comrades. But after a while I had to be taken back to my quarters while being held up on both sides. But I must not have been able to manage to stay there for the rest of the night, because towards morning I found myself lying in the ferns beside the cottage in which we had our quarters. That was the end of the promotion celebrations. It was the next day, when I was already back with my company, before I got over the hangover.
I then took over the 8th section of the company again. On a piece of paper I had written down for myself the names, dates of birth, occupations and addresses of my men. The slip of paper I had folded twice and placed in my field hymn book. That little book, 5 x 7.5cm in size and ½cm thick, was an Army regulation (No. 371), in a Protestant and a Catholic edition. It contained, in addition to the professional duties of the German soldier, the oath before the colours, and also extracts from the war letters of German soldiers killed in action. It had prayers beginning with the Our Father to the prayers In Gefahr, In danger, and In der Todesstunde, At the Hour of Death, for the dying. There were prayers for burials, chorales and hymns, and finally Bible texts designated as ‘essential sayings’.
My men were —
Füsilier Werner Mutz, born 30 April 1923 in Stolp (Pomerania), a shopkeeper in Stolp,
Gefreiter Helmut Budewizk, born on 4 March 1922 in Hamburg, a student in Berlin-Steglitz,
Gefreiter Albert Vickendey, born on 3 April 1913 in Rickensdorf, Kreis Helmstedt (Brunswick), blacksmith in Brunswick,
Gewehrschütze 1: Obergefreiter Anton Neumann, born on 11 December 1910 in Himmelwitz, Upper Silesia, tailor in Himmelwitz,