That winter in Russia provided many a possibility for sly ruses, but to our disadvantage. The Russians were on home ground and one step ahead of us. We were to experience how they turned everything to their advantage, including our worst enemy, the snow. One of the ‘harmless’ ruses of war was their underground work, a tunnel system that they used to reach our trenches. They were underground fighters in every sense of the word. Like moles they burrowed through the snow, to reach us. The Siberian troops were the experts, who else?
One of the meanest however, that only the Russians could think of, was the use of ‘living mines’ for tanks and other vehicles. They used dogs, Alsatians mostly, or the Doberman, with mines strapped to their bodies. Not only humans had to suffer in the war, but God’s creatures too. More than enough of them were to be seen in the eastern campaign, for instance in Mussino, 70 kilometres north-west from Moscow, with Russian Cavalry. It was, at least, spectacular.
It happened in the early hours of the 19 November 1941, when a whole Russian regiment of cavalry with 1,000 horses, galloped in closed formation towards the modern German machine guns with shining sabres. The snow-covered low land was turned into a bloodstained battlefield between volleys from the machine-guns and the mortars, splintering, catapulting everything in its path eight metres into the air. It was suicide by slaughter. It had been the same with the Polish Uhlans two years before. The attacking Mongolian riders were also slaughtered, without one German soldier receiving a scratch.
On the fourth day of Advent in the same year, soldiers from our 3rd Panzer Regiment came across a monument of ice, which can only be described as such. Perhaps in a snowstorm, with no alternative shelter, soldiers from a Russian Cavalry unit, came to a halt, some dismounting to take shelter and warmth amongst their horses. One, a wounded soldier with his leg in a splint, was still mounted and with his eyes wide open, had frozen to death in the saddle. Men and horses, with their heads stretched high, had frozen where they had stood and had become a monument of ice.
We also had first-hand experiences of the plight of helpless animals, such as the thin, faithful, Cossack horse, still to be found by the side of his dead master, snowed-in, up to his stomach unable to move. How long he had patiently waited we do not know, but only his faint neighs could be heard among the sounds of war, which humans had created. We cared for those creatures when humanly possible, as best we could. Decades later, I still cannot understand how we accepted the fate of those animals as we did. Were we too busy with ourselves? Had we become unconscious and carefree so much, in the toughening-up process of our youth, or did the fate of humans overshadow the plight of the animals? Death in war was always present, that is true, but nevertheless despite becoming accustomed to its presence, it always moved us anew.
With the first wounded or the first deaths, the young volunteer was always filled with respect, for the hero’s death was seldom gentle and free of pain. We could always tell from the wide-open eyes starting from a yellow-tinged face. The thought of sharing the same fate filled our minds as we saw the first dead, the first lifeless comrade. He who had been so full of life, had joked, had moaned, had told us about his home and his family so that we already knew his parents and sister, and his brothers. For him there were no mornings or evenings any more, just death. As silent witnesses, we knew that his mother would weep bitter tears, but at that moment she didn’t know. We knew also that a medic in his icy shelter somewhere, or a company clerk, would remove his name from the company lists, upon receipt of his ‘dog-tag’ and his bloodstained pay-book. He would write the standard letter of condolence to her, which included of course, how brave he had been in the face of death and been such an upstanding example of a good comrade.
When an order to dig a grave was received, with experience, we began the procedure with hand-grenades. In that earth of concrete how do you bury your dead? We began by making three holes, the size of a hand-grenade, with an iron pole. Then we made a ring of water around it, which froze, holding the grenade in place and then ran for our lives, after pulling the pin, as the frozen clods of earth exploded into the air with a mighty force. The procedure was repeated until with the help of an ice-pick, we could enlarge the hole to a man-sized grave. We buried our comrade in it, usually at one end of a village or on the roadside. There was no other way.
For the practised soldier, the war was now hard reality and we had to master the days as they came, without acts of hero ism, individual or en masse. When being honest, it was not how any of us had imagined it to be. It could not be compared to the romantic storybook laced with heroes, brave deeds, and their courageousness. How many of us were brave soldiers?
Before every battle we all had butterflies in our stomachs. I, apart from the fear of being taken prisoner, had a terrible fear of being shot in the head, as if being shot in the stomach or anywhere else come to that, was not just as bad? We all unconsciously, or consciously, avoided danger when we could. Does that not lie in the self-preservation within every human being? In the time of war however, it is very unfairly charged as cowardice and blanketing of guilt, which we didn’t understand. Any who were foolhardy enough found a very quick grave. To be able to use a rifle is no proof courage. Unity within company and battalion resulted in a high standard of warfare. It needed less ammunition. The level-headed and disciplined soldier counted far, far more as a courageous one, for me personally. A comrade on whom I could count, who took no unnecessary risks and knew what he was doing, was worth his weight in gold, in my eyes.
We were described as an ‘elite’ organisation and understandably we had to behave like one. The continuous standard of conduct expected of us however, was not always very easy and cost lots of discipline. That discipline meant split-second reflexes by drilling, and split-second obedience upon receiving orders without hesitation. Instinct was not wished for and had to be eradicated. Because of our military education and ideals we could not afford to weaken, when confronted with an extreme situation in combat. We were not threatened with a court martial. The combustion, which drove us to self-sacrifice, was psychological. We told ourselves “I must do it or we are all lost”. That motivation stood foremost with us in the Waffen SS.
Under Stalin, deserters from the Red Army, or cowards, were shot on the spot, without a court martial. Absence of steadfastness within the troop was a bloody punishment for all. To become a prisoner of the enemy was a disgrace, which when landing back on one’s home front was punished with the death-sentence. That was not all, for family members of the said ‘sinner’ were then arrested and imprisoned (Stalin’s secret law No. 270 16 August 1941).
“The world is a constant conspirator against the courageous”, was the opinion of the American General Douglas MacArthur. He was right. In defeated Germany at that time, opportunists were using the chance to ridicule the virtue and achievement of the German soldier. His awards of honour, and decorations of distinction, were described as a Christmas-tree decoration, as tinsel. Little did the German soldier know, during the war years, and it was right to be so, that his efforts, sacrifices and his duty-bound conduct would be continually slandered, a few years after. Our slogan “My honour is my loyalty” was, for the slanderers, one of seven pledges in a book, but it was not for us.
We depended, time and time again, on the reliability of our comrades in a tough and bitter fight. That was to be the case at the end of December 1941. Perhaps it was just before Christmas. Instinctively we knew that this time could perhaps be our last, as we began to march to a larger town, to the east of us. It was of great strategic importance. The Wehrmacht, in face of overwhelming odds, had not been able to hold it on their own. Nowwe, the Waffen SS were the trouble-shooters.