10
A BUBBLE BURSTS
After a refreshing night’s sleep, unbroken by guard duty, I woke up wondering what surprises were awaiting us next. All that could be gleaned at the army camp was that the general situation on the East Front was very serious. Rumour had it that we were only waiting for our guns to become serviceable before being sent to the northern section of the front.
In those early October days the situation on the Eastern Front had indeed reached new crisis proportions. In mid-September, Germany was desperately fighting on two Fronts. Hitler and the Supreme Army Command were in a Catch-22 situation, arguing over which Front should be given priority. General-Oberst Guderian feared that any weakening of the Eastern Front would prompt a further Russian offensive. He was also afraid that, with winter approaching, the frozen terrain would be to the advantage of the Russians. Hitler insisted on a strong Western Front and finally got his way. An already weak German Eastern Front was to suffer further depletion, when vital troops were withdrawn and sent to the west.
At the end of September, the German Front-lines had still been ten miles east of the East-Prussian border. After a massive build-up of troops the Russians attacked on the 5 October. Opening a fifty-mile breach, they then had a clear path to the Baltic Sea and on 9 October their first tanks rolled onto German home ground. On the same day my division was transferred from the 9th Army at Warsaw to the 4th Army in East-Prussia. It was here that the brunt of the next Russian offensive was expected.
East-Prussia was the first German province to witness the tragedy of its people becoming refugees. When the war went through its final stages, the fate of millions of East-German civilians was very much in the hands of National-Socialist Gauleiters. A Gauleiter was a high-ranking Party functionary with sweeping administrative powers over an extensive area, usually the size of a province. These officials exercised their control not only in Germany, but also in occupied territories. They had the right to decide whether a German army should defend a city and they could allow the civilian population to flee, or order it to remain.
The National-Socialist Gauleiter of East-Prussia, Erich Koch, had given permission for the civilian population of the town of Memel to be evacuated in early August, but rejected all urging after the end of August that evacuation of the whole district of Memel should also be permitted. It was not until 7 October that he finally gave his approval, but by then it was too late. As it was, many of the refugees could still have escaped had it not been for bureaucratic rules which stipulated that personal possessions had to be checked before people were allowed to take them with them. While party officials carried out the farcical exercise of checking out the waiting refugee columns, Russian troops were advancing all the time.
However, the fate of the refugees was truly terrible with Russian armoured vehicles shooting up columns of civilians on the roads. Many people still in their homes were raped, others were shot. The town of Memel itself was declared a “Fortress.” That means it did not surrender, but became part of the war-zone with strict orders that the town must be defended to the last. No troops were allowed to break out and so five German divisions remained encircled there as well as some 30,000 civilians. Bitter fighting for the town was to go on for months.
French prisoners of war deserve special mention. A large number of these were employed as farm workers in East-Prussia. When the German civilians fled, the French soldiers remained loyal to them, helping them during their flight and often sharing death with them at the hands of advancing Russian troops. This speaks well of the good relationship that had developed between these prisoners of war and the civilian population.
At about this time a desperate measure was taken in Germany by mobilising the “Volkssturm,” a type of Home Guard Militia. A total of six million men were called up. The Volkssturm was composed of males as young as 16 and up to 60 years of age. Badly equipped and often without a uniform, just wearing an identification arm-band, these mainly old men and boys failed to be of much practical use, especially as they were under the control of Party functionaries, who had very little military experience. Hitler officially approved its formation on 25 September, 1944, but forbade direct attachment of its units to any regular armed forces. Instead, they came under control of Heinrich Himmler and his local Party functionaries. The Volkssturm was usually employed in the defence of German towns. Sometimes they were successful with their bazookas against enemy tanks, but in the last months of the war they seldom had enough rifles to go around and then, maybe, had only 5 rounds of ammunition available for each rifle. They made their final sacrifice when they were taken prisoner, for then it was often their terrible fate to be shot as partisans.
A further source of extra troops was tapped at that time by sending half a million industrial workers to the front under the heading “Totaler Kriegseinsatz,” (Total War Effort). The loss to industry was made up by drafting women into factories and workshops and this helped to keep industrial output virtually unaffected. However, the writing on the wall was now clearer than ever. Defeat and the end of the war were not far off.
On the morning after our disastrous train journey we were given time to go over our equipment. As usual, we started with our boots, softening the leather and replacing steel studs, as well as going over our rifles and other equipment. While attending to these chores my mind drifted to the odd behaviour of Lt Trapp. I found it hard to believe that a seasoned campaigner, who had six years of army service behind him, could become prey to such feelings of insecurity, which was what I felt his problem must be. For some time now I had been waiting for the bubble to burst, and suddenly it did.
My musings were interrupted by an NCO who instructed us to fall in for weapon drill. Apparently, one of our self-propelled guns had survived the attack on the train fairly well and had been returned to us after being checked out and pronounced fully operational. As soon as the gun had arrived at our army camp, Lt Trapp decided that we should do a bit of weapon-drill.
In this exercise we had to perform specific tasks such as carrying out safety checks and preparing the gun for action, dealing with simulated mechanical failures and replacing parts of the firing mechanism. It was a case of perfecting precision at maximum speed. During previous lulls in front line activities, I had been trained in these operations and the exercise had become a forte of mine. It was here that the manual dexterity, which I had acquired as a boy, pursuing a multitude of hobbies, proved to be of great advantage to me. I may have been one of the smallest men in my unit, but I made up for it in skill and fitness.
The procedure was that we would line up at the gun and each of us was then called up in turn to go through the same programme which took about seven to eight minutes. The first five men to be called went through their exercise competently and there was a good, relaxed atmosphere. When my turn came, I streaked through the actions without a hitch. After completion, I stood back from the gun awaiting the order to “fall back” and that the next man would then be called forward. I did not expect any acknowledgment for my fast performance, but to my utter amazement I saw Lt Trapp staring at me red-faced with the veins standing out on his neck and temples.
However, a moment later he gave me the order to “fall back” and then called the next man forward. This was Klaus Wagner, a big hulk of a man, who was as strong as an ox. Wagner was one of the most mild-mannered and likeable men I have ever come across, always cheerful and ready to give a helping hand to anybody, no matter how unpleasant the job was. I have never forgotten the picture of Wagner standing there with a big grin on his good-natured face; his hands, the size of dinner-plates, hanging down his sides itching to go into action. The only problem with Wagner was that he was all thumbs and, whereas he could almost lift up one side of a truck by himself, he was at a disadvantage when a large element of skill was involved.