ALLEMANDES I AND II
At the border they had set up a pontoon bridge. Just next to it, rising above the gray water of the Bug, the warped girders of the metal bridge the Soviets had dynamited lay in tangles. Our sappers had erected the new one in one night, we’d heard, and impassive Feldgendarmen, their crescent-shaped neck-plates reflecting the sun’s glare, controlled the traffic with self-assurance, as if they were still back home. The Wehrmacht had priority; we were told to wait. I contemplated the big lazy river, the quiet little woods on the other side, the throng on the bridge. Then it was our turn to cross and right on the other side there stretched out, like a boulevard, the wrecks of Russian equipment, trucks burned out and crumpled, tanks ripped open like tin cans, artillery carriages twisted like straw, overturned, swept aside, tangled up in an interminable burned strip made up of irregular heaps running alongside the road. Beyond, the woods gleamed in the splendid summer sun. The dirt road had been cleared but you could see traces of explosions along it, big oil slicks, scattered debris. Then came the first houses of Sokal. In the center of town, a few fires were still gently crackling; dust-covered corpses, most of them in civilian clothing, blocked part of the street, intermingled with ruins and rubble; and facing us, in the shade of a park, white crosses topped with curious little roofs formed a tidy line beneath the trees. Two German soldiers were painting names on them. We waited there while Blobel, accompanied by Strehlke, our supply officer, went to HQ. A sweetish smell, vaguely nauseating, intermingled with the acridity of the smoke. Soon Blobel returned: “It’s fine. Strehlke is taking care of the quarters. Follow me.”
The AOK* had set us up in a school. “I’m sorry,” a little quartermaster in creased field gray said. “We’re still getting organized. But they’ll send you some rations.” Our second in command, von Radetzky, an elegant Balt, waved a gloved hand and smiled: “That’s no problem. We’re not going to stay.” There weren’t any beds, but we had brought blankets; the men sat down on the little school chairs. There must have been about seventy of us. At night, we got soup with cabbage and potato, almost cold, some raw onions, and chunks of a black, gummy bread, which dried out as soon as it was sliced. I was hungry, I dipped it in the soup and ate it and bit into onions whole. Von Radetzky set the watch. The night passed peacefully.
The next morning, Standartenführer Blobel, our commander, gathered his Leiters together to go to HQ. The Leiter III, my immediate superior, wanted to type up a report, so he sent me in his place. The headquarters of the Sixth Army, the AOK 6, to which we were attached, had occupied a large Austro-Hungarian building, its façade gaily painted orange, enhanced with columns and stucco decorations, and riddled with shrapnel. An Oberst, who seemed to know Blobel well, received us: “The Generalfeldmarschall is working outdoors. Follow me.” He led us toward a vast park that stretched down from the building to a bend in the Bug, down below. Near a solitary tree, a man in swimming trunks was walking with long strides, surrounded by a buzzing cloud of officers, their uniforms drenched in sweat. He turned toward us: “Ah, Blobel! Hello, gentlemen.” We saluted him: he was Generalfeldmarschall von Reichenau, the commander in chief of the army. His hairy chest, thrust forward, radiated vigor; embedded in the fat that, despite his athletic build, drowned out the Prussian fineness of his traits, his famous monocle gleamed in the sun, incongruous, almost ridiculous. Without stopping his precise and meticulous instructions he continued his jerky movements to and fro; we had to follow him, which was a little disconcerting; I bumped into a Major and didn’t grasp much. Then he stood still to dismiss us. “Oh yes! One other thing. For the Jews, five guns are too much, you don’t have enough men. Two guns per condemned man will be enough. As for the Bolsheviks, we’ll see how many there are. If they’re women you can use a full squad.” Blobel saluted: “Zu Befehl, Herr Generalfeldmarschall.” Von Reichenau clicked his bare heels and raised his arm: “Heil Hitler!”—“Heil Hitler,” we all replied in chorus before beating a retreat.
Sturmbannführer Dr. Kehrig, my superior, greeted my report sullenly. “Is that all?”—“I didn’t hear everything, Sturmbannführer.” He made a face and fiddled distractedly with his papers. “I don’t understand. Who should we take our orders from, in the end? From Reichenau or Jeckeln? And where is Brigadeführer Rasch?”—“I don’t know, Sturmbannführer.”—“You don’t know much, Obersturmführer. Dismissed.”
Blobel called all the officers together the next day. Early in the morning, about twenty men had gone with Callsen. “I sent him to Lutsk with a Vorkommando. The whole Kommando will follow in a day or two. That’s where we’ll set up our headquarters, for now. The AOK will also be transferred to Lutsk. Our divisions are advancing quickly, we have to get to work. I’m waiting for Obergruppenführer Jeckeln, who will give us orders.” Jeckeln, an old Party hand, was the Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer for southern Russia; all SS formations in the zone, including our own, were subordinated to him in one way or another. But the question of the chain of command continued to worry Kehrig: “So, are we under the authority of the Obergruppenführer?”—“Administratively, we’re subordinated to the Sixth Army. But tactically we receive our orders from the RSHA, via the Gruppenstab, and from the HSSPF. Is that clear?” Kehrig nodded and sighed: “Not entirely, but I’m guessing the details will become clearer as we go along.” Blobel flushed crimson: “But they explained everything to you in Pretzsch, good God!” Kehrig kept his calm. “In Pretzsch, Standartenführer, they explained absolutely nothing to us. They fed us some speeches and made us exercise. That’s it. I would remind you that the representatives of the SD were not invited to the meeting with Gruppenführer Heydrich, last week. I’m sure there were good reasons for that, but the fact is that I have no idea what I should do, aside from write reports on the morale and behavior of the Wehrmacht.” He turned to Vogt, the Leiter IV: “You were there, at that meeting. Well, when they explain our tasks to us, we’ll carry them out.” Vogt tapped on the table with a pen, ill at ease. Blobel chewed the inside of his cheeks and stared furiously at a point on the wall. “All right,” he finally barked. “In any case, the Obergruppenführer is arriving tonight. We’ll see about that tomorrow.”