Close-combat lasted only a short time. Some of our men, without orders, returned to their former positions. Both sides sank in the snow as they climbed over their dead comrades in order to escape. Obersturmführer Zizmann knew that this action was plain slaughter and so he gave us the order to dig-in. In frozen ground, with our short-handled spades and under artillery fire, the fallen had to lie where they were. The wounded who could crawl to our positions did so. Others were dragged back under extreme difficulty by our medics, to be given first-aid. We had obviously surprised the Reds who did not risk a counter-attack. It would have meant disaster for us, but they could not know that, thank God!
With the information that shock troops were attacking the left flank, we retreated into the foremost houses of a village. From my squad of twelve men, only six remained. I chose a small farmhouse which had a cellar, and a barn which had been badly burnt. The cellar provided a place to sleep for two men at a time, while the remaining four kept guard at the windows, the glass of which was non-existent. Not that sleep was possible in the next couple of days and nights, for the Soviets tried, time and time again, to storm our positions. They gave us no peace. It was in such conditions that we could only send messengers to neighbouring groups at night, to receive information as to our situation and because our ammo and rations were very low.
It was during the third night in this farmhouse that an unexpected delivery, of ammo and rations, came in the form of my faithful friend Georg Haas, who was the company’s accountant. He had not forgotten us. He reached us with his provisions on a sledge drawn by a sweating Panje pony. He had found us, guided by the flames from the houses and the noise of the front. He was not to be deterred. Having himself been wounded in 1942, he was accompanied by a comrade who had also been wounded. They had come cross-country over snow-covered fields to find us.
We also had a very long wait for support from our own artillery. However, heavy shells were being sent over our heads, in the direction of the enemy, by an 8.8cm gun battery from the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst, or RAD) who were positioned very close to us. The gunners and all the very young privates did a great job. Enormous fountains of earth erupted skywards. Trees too were tossed upward, having been torn out of the earth by their roots. Every shot had hit its target. The boys had very little ammunition. They used what they had sparingly and only in small amounts, making every shot hit home. Not so far away from us was a high, narrow transformer house in which an enemy artillery spotter had made himself at home. But it did not last long before those lads found him. They blasted him and the house in the direction of Heaven.
In order to bring some excitement of another nature into our daily routine, fate decided that I was a good candidate. Unwillingly, but it really wasn’t my fault! We were forced to make permanent lavatory conditions in the back yard of our temporary ‘fortress’ because ours had been shot to pieces. In the form of a cesspit, it was a ditch with ‘thunder’ beams placed over it and well out of view of the enemy. As a soldier with front-line experience, one’s ears attune to the whistling tones of an oncoming shell and can estimate when you are in the line of fire or if the projectile will land in another direction. This saved my life, one day, as I was in the yard. It ‘perfumed’ my life for the next few days however, for I had to dive into the cesspit and I did not come out smelling of violets. I unfortunately did not possess an extra uniform at that time, much to the annoyance of my chums, who avoided me like the plague. It was only some time later, with the melting of the snow, that I could discard my white snow ‘cammo’ so that this unwilling air pollutant was once more an acceptable member within his circle.
The features of the landscape had altered overnight. The untouched white snow of the battlefield was now a dirty grey carpet, a morass of soft earth. The wet snow made crawling and hitting the ground a wet and messy business, but a wet stomach was far better than one with a bullet-hole in it. We had to crawl around the farmhouse yard in it too, during the day, for the Reds were not giving us any peace. A grey light, blocking out the weak winter sun, hung over the smoking ruins of Peiskerwitz, where our fallen comrades still lay in their half-frozen field-grey uniforms. We, with red-rimmed eyes and totally exhausted, kept watch from the glassless windows in our small farmhouse. Frozen from the cold moist air we dozed unwillingly, not having the will to stop ourselves. The young unshaven faces of my chums were thin now and angular, and our uniforms gave us no warmth. Outside was grey, only grey, and in the grey of the evening, one could not determine where the earth ended, and where the heavens began. It matched our fighting-spirit.
Our comrade, Szibulla, who came from Upper Silesia, understood a little of both Polish and Russian, and he kept us up-to-date with the movements of the Reds, for they were to be heard, loud and clear. When he heard something that meant they were on the move, or we had a combat order, then we were suddenly very wide awake. Mostly it was the bad language from our counterparts which he translated and which we did not want to hear such as “F ... your mother”, or tantalising attempts to win us over to their side, “Come to us comrades”.
Then we had real cause for alarm as we heard the faint squeak of a tank-track coming from the riverbanks, which became suddenly louder and louder as well as the loud ‘brumm’ of its motor. A recce detachment confirmed that it was a heavy Stalin tank that could worsen our situation badly, for apart from Panzerfäuste, we had no other anti-tank weapons. It was Scharführer Harry Kähler, a very experienced ‘front-man’, who solved the problem for us, taking the responsibility on to his own shoulders. Under cover of fire from my squad, he emerged from cover only thirty metres away sending two shots broadside into the giant from his Panzerfäuste. The roar of the detonation produced a crescendo in which our own weapons could not be heard. Thick black smoke soared through the turret as it opened, followed by tongues of flame. Then a succession of ear splitting explosions emerged from the 46-tonner, as its ammunition exploded. It was a daredevil mission that could have ended in the death of our chum from the south-east of Germany. But like David and his sling, his pluck paid off. Scharführer Kähler was presented with the Iron Cross 1st Class for his bravery, on that same day, and our fighting spirit was sent soaring. Yes, I must admit that we were proud to have stopped the westwards advance of the Reds on the Oder, whose numbers and material were superior to that of our own forces.
At the same time as we, the 11th were holding strongpoints, another part of our Regiment narrowed and eliminated another bridgehead near Peiskerwitz. The Wehrmacht General Hans von Ahlfen and General Hermann Niehoff, commanders of Festung or ‘Fortress’ Breslau wrote about those incidents. “The elimination of bridgeheads around Peiskerwitz was successfully conducted by the best organised Regiment of the garrison, Waffen SS Regiment Besslein, on 8 February. Many attempts before this had failed. The bravery shown by the troops and the necessary support they gave, stems from a tried and tested pattern of combined skill and tactics in the line of fire. The Peiskerwitz success had and still has a symbolic meaning. The whole garrison, not only Regiment Besslein, found faith in themselves, one another and their subordinate officers, and we could not have survived without them.”