The defensive actions of December 1941 followed an unusual direction of waves and curves. One of our company officers showed us on a map where we were to be found. It was at the furthest point in the east and we believed him. We heard names from him such as Yelez, Yefremov, Russki-Brod and Voronezh, but whether they lay to the east or west of our left or right flank, only he knew.
Our regular winter clothing had still not arrived, so any blankets or furs that we could lay our hands on were temporarily used to keep us warm. Everyone wore every piece of clothing that he possessed underneath his summer coat. But not even such well-used and worn-out uniform gave us enough warmth. The longer we had to lie on the deeply-frozen ground, the quicker the frostbite nibbled at our limbs. When our wounded could not be attended to quickly, the sooner they froze to death. We took that impossible situation into our own hands and organised Valinskis, the Russian insulated felt boot, the felt being as thick as carpet. Our Finnish brothers-in-arms could only shake their heads at our hob-nailed leather boots that were always frozen hard and told us that we might “ just as well run around in the snow in your socks.” So at the rear of the front-line, the German soldier made himself shoes from straw. We didn’t even have fur headgear, and a thin balaclava was all we wore underneath our cold, steel helmets.
In Germany, fur articles and other suitable equipment were requested. The call was answered by the people, who made sacrifices of useful and practical articles, in the belief that they would help the ‘boys at the front’ when delivered. Unfortunately very little of it was, although there were mountains of articles in the collection centres. That ‘little’ proved to be just a drop in the ocean.
After continuous combat, the regiments on the front were reduced to a third in numbers. The frost reduced those remaining. The loss through frostbite was higher than through combat. “The total loss on the Eastern Front, up to December 1941, was 750,000 men which equalled 21.5% of the collective strength of three and a half million soldiers. Every fourth soldier was missing, wounded or fallen.” Paul Carrell gave the figures in his book Barbarossa. At the end of that year, another 65,000 could be added because of contracted infectious diseases from lack of hygiene, resulting in typhoid fever, nearly 800 dying from it. Stomach and bowel ailments were also rife as well as severe influenza. Frostbite however topped the list. The number of frostbite cases at the end of February, totalled 100,000.
The Soviets also had very heavy losses, but in their case they had more than enough reserves. The Russian soldier, in contrast to us was a very modest soldier, which was illustrated by his daily diet. A bag hung on his belt in which were millet heads which when mixed with water made a porridge. He carried dried fish with him as iron rations. It was swilled down when eating, with high percentage vodka from his field thermos, which he drank at any other time of the day too. He rolled his cigarettes in newspaper, using very course-cut tobacco, Machorka, which included the stalk of the leaves. In the matter of suffering in inhuman conditions, the Russian soldier was enormously tough. When fighting, he could and did endure far more than any other western army. “The Eastern Front was a nightmare for the German soldier. The Russian enemy fought like primitive, soulless robots, their patriotism and Bolshevik ideals not to be easily destroyed like bursting soap bubbles. The Russian commanders accepted the responsibility of monstrous losses in battle without a second thought. Their soldiers fought to their last breath, often committing suicide rather than being taken prisoner. In a hopeless situation for instance, the Russian infantry adopted the practice of 17th Century grenadiers. They formed a suicidal rank, advancing in front of the enemy machine-guns, collecting together to form a new row behind the bodies of their dead, to advance repeatedly, to the last man, or last bullet from the German machine-guns”.
The war with the Soviet Union, and the form with which they directed it, escalated and surpassed all cruelty and hardship experienced in any former combat since 1939. The target was the total destruction of the enemy, a capitulation without conditions, within the framework of doctrine and structures. Our naked existence was the price. Hitler described it as the biggest crusade in world history, resembling the German crusaders, who had fought the hordes of Genghis Khan in Silesia. That we could fight such an unrelenting enemy with the motto “it’s you or me!” was thanks to the truncheon-hard training that we had received.
Very soon we learned that the Soviets would shoot any prisoners that they took. When thinking about falling into their hands, it gave us nightmares. They had refused to sign the Geneva Convention agreement of 1929, pertaining to certain conduct towards prisoners of war.
When the sun shone in December, which was rare, we felt the pangs of homesickness, as it disappeared in a red sky on the horizon. Many a German soldier on his patrol or standing guard in his cold and icy trench, said a quiet adieu to his loved-ones, in his far-off distant homeland. Burning wanderlust had turned to homesickness, which was no wonder, for that land, for us, was the end of the world, as civilised people.
Nearly every day, the frosty countryside was covered in a mist until about 9am. Daylight appeared only at around 11am, and at 4pm it was dark once more. So, late in the afternoon, we no longer fought to advance, but to find a warm place for the night. That would be in a blockhouse of a farm. Only then could we survive the 30 to 50 degrees below zero temperature. In those days the infantryman overcame problems that he had not practised before. In his hour of need, in order to survive the night, he had to overcome his dislike of entering a village after dark. His needs were for cover and warmth. However primitive the blockhouse was, with its clay-soil floor, it was cover, and it offered warmth from a wood-burning fireplace or oven, a Pyetschku. Those primitive houses, no more than large wooden huts with one large room, more often than not where the whole family slept, no longer disgusted us, as they had before the frost appeared. To us they were lifesavers, fleas or not, and in battle we tried to protect them, like our eyes! After a cold patrol or guard-duty, we no longer minded if a mouse ran over the floor. We were warm in one of those houses belonging to a ‘collective’ farming system. With the sour aroma of a pumpkin soup when being cooked, we knew that our blood flowed as usual and that there was still life in our joints.
The whole family slept over the oven, covered in tattered blankets. The oven being four and a half feet high was made of clay, had an alcove over the fire itself, and dominated the room. Straw was spread over the floor for our benefit which was where we slept. If a small child belonged to the family, its cradle was slung from the ceiling and so it swung over our heads. Despite conditions from the Middle Ages, and the war, one could say that it illustrated an idyllic scene, binding two peoples together.
In our thatched house, the eldest daughter, perhaps not twenty years old, suffered under our presence. Her national pride, bitterness and privation had made the fine Asian features of this lovely girl hard. Her name was Annuschka, she was a teacher and was the only one who spoke a little German. She didn’t try to hide her Communist convictions but didn’t shout about it either. Only when we began to speak about the misery in that Soviet paradise, did she abruptly cut short our conversation, saying that she didn’t understand what we had said. She was, at one and the same time, mistrusting and curious of us, the Germanskis, who were of the same age. We asked ourselves if she was actually the daughter of the family or a partisan who had been planted into the family. As inexperienced as we were, we would not have noticed had it been the case. What we did notice was, that under her patched and wadded jacket, she had a lovely figure and our difficult Annuschka let us know. She had beautiful dark hair, which we saw when she didn’t have her white headscarf on her head, and she stole soulful, longing glances at us, with a brief smile. At least that is what we imagined.