An impressive number of strongly armed soldiers in white ‘cammos’, assembled together at around mid-day and then advanced through a bleak and empty Steppe. As the evening began to fall, we saw the first woods, like strokes from a pencil on the horizon. Then we approached the rear-guard of the Wehrmacht. It was a very sorry picture and perhaps the same tragic scene as when Napoleon’s beaten Army had retreated from Moscow.
The dead had been brought from the Front, wrapped in blankets, stacked on a cart and now were frozen. Their boots and articles of warm clothing had been removed and distributed to those still fighting. Naked and yellow unwashed feet, feet in socks with gaping holes, and feet wrapped in filthy wrappings poked from the blankets, or the pieces of tenting used to wrap them in. They at least, no longer felt the cold. Then there were the wounded on sledges having been pulled by exhausted ponies, lying on blood-stained straw, enveloped in tattered blankets or paper sacks, anything that could give a modicum of warmth. Hardly to be seen, we heard their moans of pain, as the frost bit into their wounds and which, when left unattended, brought them an eventual death. The scene did nothing to motivate us, on the contrary. Soldiers passed us by, soldiers who had been through hell. They gave us blank, lifeless glances. They stared at us pityingly. “Cannon-fodder like us!” was probably what they thought. Their misery did nothing to enhance our hopes of a forthcoming victory. We pulled ourselves together with hangman’s humour. “The Guard may die, but will never surrender”, is how we encouraged one another. Now, more than ever, we had to pull ourselves and each other together.
In his book Soldiers of Death, the American author and historian Charles W. Sydnor said, “When and wherever a situation was at its most dangerous, and hopes of success at zero, it was the Waffen SS who saved the day with counter-attacks which weakened their opponents”. “No one needs to try and tell me that when fighting in Russia, they were not damned scared”, announced our patrol leader, who wore the Iron Cross 1st Class and then shouted, “Let’s go”.
However, high banks of iced snow hindered our path and an icy wind blew, turning our noses and ears white in seconds. The advance was therefore very slow. We had support after a while from tanks, which we mounted until shortly before our objective. By now darkness had fallen. The tanks, PzKpfw IVs, had been painted white, but nothing could camouflage the red glow from their exhausts. It was this red glow that each tank followed. Firstly, it was always a target for the enemy. Secondly, it was the end of many. Clouds of snow were churned into the air behind us and time and time again, we had to jump down to free the track from clumps of ice and snow.
Upon nearing a village on the edge of a wood, which it was clear to see had been attacked, we jumped down from the tanks. As always the terrain in front of us was flat and without cover. Now and again weak attempts to fire at us came from remnants of troops left in the village and also a flare or two lit the sky, but that was all, it was seemingly quiet.
The golden rule after dark, of noiseless movement from your own body and equipment that you carried, was now superfluous, for with the roar of the engines and squeak of the tracks, we could hardly hear the commands of our superiors. Suddenly shots whipped the air from the wood and our machine-guns systematically strewed the wood from one end to the other and was the start for an explosion of fire, the like of which I had never seen. Undisturbed, machine-gun fire clattered from the dark wood from several spots, which could be seen by the red tracers from the gun-barrels. Luckily, their tracer ammunition flew high over our heads.
The Russians possessed a weapon which put the fear of God into us, which we had nicknamed the Ratschbumm with a 7.62cm barrel, somewhat larger than that on a tank. It was not the size which worried us, but that one did not hear the launch of the shell. You didn’t hear where it was coming from, just the explosion of it upon landing. The decibels from the salvos were now deafening. The earth raised itself up at the shock of every detonation. Biting clouds of gunpowder mixed with the yellow-brown pillar of smoke caused by the explosions rose up. We sought the shelter of the tanks time and time again, and time and time again our commanders sought to prise us away from them. We clung to them however, like frightened children clinging to mother’s skirt for cover, but there was none.
It was on the contours of those huge steel objects that the Soviets concentrated their fire and it was hell. A hell of fire in a storm of steel scared us to death. We no longer felt the bitter cold, on the contrary, we sweated so much that we wanted to strip off our ‘cammo’ jackets. After every fire pause, we automatically moved forwards a few yards, as we had learned a hundred times before, in our drilling. The grips of the hand-grenades, stuck into our boots and belts, hindered us when running and hitting the ground. No sooner had that ground been gained than volleys of fire forced us down again, so that we were only able to crawl where deep snow was to be found.
We already had wounded, some not so badly that they could not cry for help and their cries could be heard above the noise of battle. The dead in comparison lay still and cramped in the snow. Then a small hole, a bullet hole was added to the now not so snow-white ‘cammo’ that covered them like a shroud. Without the protection offered by the tanks, our frontal attack had definitely floundered. The tank crews had their hands full. They turned their 7.5cm gun-barrels to the left and then to the right, their shells hitting the birch-wood in dazzling flashes. Black smoke mixed with clouds of snow, like storm clouds in the darkness. The glow from the burning houses, added to the ghostly light of that inferno.
It appeared that the Soviets did not possess any anti-tank weapons. From what we could see, only one Panzer IV had been hit, for it suddenly started to circle on its axle having been hit in the track. Its crew of five climbed out of the turret, springing into the snow, to crawl to the rear.
The enemy fire did not stop. The Soviets added their secret weapon, about which we had heard but we had never experienced. The Russians overestimated its worth. Alexander Werth mentioned this devastating piece of artillery in one of his books, with a quote from Marshal Yeremenko. “We tested this new weapon for the first time in Rudnya, on 1 July 1941, in the afternoon. An unusual roar shook the air with the launch of the missiles, as they shot into the heavens with red tails like comets. The deafening racket of the successive detonations and the blinding flashes impressed both ears and eyes, with the launching of 320 missiles in 26 seconds. It really surpassed all our expectations and the Germans fled in panic. Our own soldiers in the foremost front-lines also retreated with speed when in the close proximity of the striking shells”.
Definitely, the ‘Stalin Organ’ of the Red Army, or Katyusha as it was also called, strongly demoralised us at first. But then we realised that the psychological effect on us was greater than the accuracy of the weapon. There was little chance of it hitting its target and strewing its shell-splinters. The enormous racket of the detonations, and its flames, although considerable, were out of proportion to the damage caused by one 132mm calibre shell. It made a hole to a depth of no more than 30—40 centimetres. The performance was ‘short and sweet’, which was probably due to either a shortage of ammunition, or that the Reds wanted to spare their own men. In the meantime, we had surrounded the village. A bitter house-to-house fight then began. With bayonets and weapons in our frost-encased fingers, we sprang and tripped over burnt wooden beams in the ruins of nearly every house.