Postel sighed to himself as morning rays began pushing onto the gloomy horizon. The rest of his life, in a labor gulag no doubt, would be short and brutal. To say nothing of the fate of the rest of the 320th.
“Herr Generalmajor!”
The radio officer came running to the door. Postel opened it into the biting cold to see the young man’s excited face.
“Herr Generalmajor! It’s Peiper. He… He’s made it! He’s asking to meet you at the bridge! He has ambulances! Peiper made it through!”
Postel turned the key of his Volkswagen, and it chugged along the dirt path to their rendezvous. Somehow, miraculously, there they were. The Leibstandarte, and Major Peiper. He looked dapper despite the bulky winter camouflage. Almost 6’ tall, wiry and with steely eyes. How he got here, Postel did not know. The young man looked to be in his late twenties, very young for a battalion commander.
“Why haven’t your men crossed the river?” Striding up to the half track, Postel looked upset.
“The ice isn’t strong enough to hold the vehicles, Herr Generalmajor,” Peiper replied.
“Nonsense! They will. I’ve ordered my guns to cross right now.”
At almost that exact moment an orderly interrupted. “Herr Generalmajor. Uh, the first assault gun has fallen through the ice.”
Postel smiled. “Well, I suppose you’re right, Sturmbannfuehrer. In any case, I thank you. You’ve saved the lives of so many wounded men who require immediate help.”
“They gave us all the surgeons and ambulances available. We will provide security and stay here for the evening and let the surgeons work.”
“Sturmbannfuehrer… I must ask… How far are we from the line?”
“About 25 kilometers.”
Postel bit his lip. “They left us 25 kilometer behind. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I can’t believe they left us for fucking dead like that!”
It was uncharacteristic for an officer to swear like that, especially in front of subordinates. Still, Peiper’s expression remained fixed.
Upset that he’d been abandoned and now even more sure that they’d never get out of this, Postel got back in his wagon and disappeared.
Blowtorch
After a long, uneasy pause, the whole 320 division arrived from the west. Peiper stood in the snow as the train of misery approached. At the front were those capable of walking, then the walking wounded, and, at the end, the badly wounded were pulled on sleds. The sleds were overloaded, and some of the least fortunate tied to the sleds and pulled along on their stomachs. They were the hardest to watch.
It was at moment Jochen remembered Postel’s clean uniform. The Generalmajor even still had his white, detachable collar on. Jochen wasn’t the only one who noticed the disgraceful paradox.
“Those poor Landsers. In much worse shape than their manicured general,” Dinse mumbled to Peiper.
“Men such as Postel must never get in the SS.” Jochen murmured back to his subordinate.
The surgeons and medics went right to work that afternoon, and the wounded were first given something to eat, hot drinks and first aid. Dr. Bruestle, the battalion surgeon, slid off his gloves and readied his skilled hands to work in the frostbite.
Until the next morning there was little else for Peiper’s battalion to do besides stand guard. Once night settled over the frozen Donetz Basin, Jochen and his battalion stood and stared hollow-cheeked into the ominous darkness. Sharing guard duty, Jochen got no more than 90 minutes of sleep that night.
Dr. Bruestle came to see Peiper first thing in the morning.
“I don’t know what happened to these men along the way, but this is ridiculous. A mess.”
“I’ve been operating all night long, and I don’t need to tell you what that kind of exposure does to one’s hands.”
“…But you wouldn’t believe it! No one from the 320th so much as lifted a finger to help me!”
“Be lenient with them, Herr Doktor. Gods know what they’ve seen. The 320th has been stranded for two days and has been in close combat for six days previous to that.”
Once Jochen gave the order, the endlessly long column, frostbitten Dr. Bruestle included, began to shuffle its way back northwards, ambulances on the road and fighting men deployed on both sides to protect each side. The air of vulnerability permeated everyone’s nerves.
Again the road back to friendly lines was eerily devoid of Bolsheviks. Those in front soon noticed a plume of smoke coming from a burned-out ambulance ahead. Jochen knew that the enemy had gotten some of the stragglers from the previous day, but he wasn’t prepared for what they would soon lay eyes on.
Three German ambulance drivers had just been torn to pieces. Two were unrecognizable. One driver’s face was smashed open with an ax.
“Watch out! There could be mines!” A lieutenant shouted to the Landsers.
Word passed from mouth to mouth. Soldiers stopped at the second ambulance and looked in without daring to enter. Two ambulance men, who had been stripped naked and mutilated, were lying in pools of black, congealed blood. The Bolsheviks amputated both of their genitals.
Jochen’s face contorted with hate. But, right at that moment there would be no time to think, because their column came under fire from a snowshoe battalion that must have sneaked into the village. Immediately the Germans pressed themselves into the snow. Some fired back.
Without hesitation, and despite the obvious danger, Peiper calmly mounted the flamethrower onto his halftrack. Jochen simply gave one motion of his hand, and with that, the halftracks left the ambulance column exposed and charged the village at top speed with all guns firing.
The Russians broke into a panic within minutes. Peiper’s vengeful flamethrower went into action, as did several other mounted blowtorches. Fires spread only slowly from one isba to the next; the winter cold made a house-to-house battle necessary. After what the battalion had seen, they were more than up for the task.
Machine gun fire from the halftracks chewed up wooden walls and threw off thatched roof after thatched roof. And Bolsheviks panicked and scurried out, some with their hands up. But if Jochen had told his men to take prisoners, his men just might have just shot him as well. Another Bolshevik came out with a white flag in hand and was promptly shot in the skull. One of Jochen’s lieutenants snarled and trained his rifle onto one another surrendering Bolshevik.
There were at least 500 Bolsheviks in that snowshoe battalion. None of them lived. The whole time, Jochen hardly even noticed that the adversary had reduced that planked wooden bridge to a pile of rubble.
Postel brought the ambulance convoy into the charred remains of what was Krasna Polyana village, so they wouldn’t lose their cover.
“The designated bridge team is already on it, Postel,” Jochen growled. He was not in the mood to suffer the arrogant Generalmajor for a second time.
“Understood,” Postel turned around and got back in his vehicle, unwilling to push any further the man who rescued them.
This time, the able-bodied men of the 320th helped bury the badly mutilated ambulance drivers. and did so without a word.
The improvised bridge looked able to at least hold the ambulances. In a rickety clatter, vehicle after vehicle carried the wounded and crossed into safety. Men of the Peiper battalion also pulled wounded comrades across the ice in sleighs. Within 90 minutes, the entire 320th, able-bodied or not, crossed the Udy. Only Postel’s large wagon was left behind with the SS, because the bridge couldn’t support its weight. That was the last Jochen hoped to see of Postel.
As the last vehicle reached the opposite bank, Jochen ordered his battalion back south. Those heavy halftracks stood no chance of crossing the hastily rebuilt bridge. Instead, Peiper drove back to Zmiev to later reach German lines in a long, sideways sneak parallel to the Russians. That, too, was successful.