Then a horse-drawn cart came along the road. We lay in the ditch with our faces pressed to the ground, hardly daring to breathe. The cart went past only a few metres from my head, a marching column following behind. We dared not stay lying there, as they would surely have seen us, so we stood up and walked along with the cart as if we belonged to it, but then the moon came out from behind the clouds and the cry went up: ‘Germans!’
We ran off as fast as we could across the field, the Russians firing wildly at us, but not hitting us, as we took cover in shellholes. We could see the Russians silhouetted against the burning village as they surrounded the field, but we all managed to slip out through a gap in their cordon.
By now the Russians had been alerted and we had to be more careful. It would soon be morning and the horizon was getting lighter. The cloud cover had broken up and the moon was shining uninterruptedly. We decided to look for a hiding place until the next evening and try to break through again when the Russians had settled down. We found a hiding place in a turnip shed, where we lay down on the turnips and covered ourselves in straw. After a short while, I realised that the cold was making my limbs stiff. I consulted with the man next to me in a whisper, and we decided to look for another hiding place.
We were just about to leave when some Russians approached and, after deliberating for a while, started digging a shelter only five metres from us. We had to stay. I was freezing and my legs had gone to sleep.
After we had been in this precarious situation for about an hour, I suddenly saw a Russian approaching our shed and go to where Reiffen was lying. Had he found him? The Russian only wanted straw for his dugout and removed it from where Reiffen was lying. In a flash, Reiffen thrust his sub-machine gun into the Russian’s face. The Russian shouted and stumbled back, alarming his comrades. We ran as fast as we could out of the shed and across the fields. Again we had been spotted. Now the Russians were fully awake, running here and there and firing in the direction we had taken.
It was getting lighter in the east. We needed to settle down in a farm for the day. Then, about three kilometres away, we saw streaks of fire like comets into the sky and the explosions immediately afterwards. Rocket launchers! There were obviously Germans over there. We decided to go together and try to break through to them. We marched on toward the rocket launchers.
Suddenly we were called upon: ‘Stoi!’ There was a foxhole in front of us and we came under fire from a sub-machine gun. Fortunately, there were some shellholes to provide us with cover. The bullets whistled past our ears, but when we returned fire, the Russians ran away.
We made a detour and marched on toward the southwest. It was nearly daylight. We were about to cross the road from Rathstock to Sachsendorf when one of us suddenly called out: ‘Stop! Mines!’ Our eyes had been on our surroundings and not on the ground or our feet, and now we were in a nice mess. We were in the middle of a minefield. All around we could see the places where our sappers had buried their mines. We hardly dared breathe, thinking that we would be blown to pieces any moment. They often put anti-personnel mines between the bigger Teller mines intended for tanks and trucks, and connected them with wires so that the slightest movement would set them off. Crawling on all fours, we worked our way out centimetre by centimetre.
The minefield had delayed us for a long time and now it was full daylight. Right next to the road was a farm, alongside of which were four potato sheds arranged in a square. We established ourselves in these sheds with a man on watch on each side. The others could sleep.
Once the sun had come up, one of the sentries spotted a tank with its guns pointing toward us about 3–400 metres away. Was it German or Russian? Then we saw two men come out of the farm, one of them limping and leaning against the other. One of them had a gas mask case, so they must be German. They disappeared again into a farm next to the tank.
In order to reach that farm we would have to pass two others, the first about 100 metres away. We ran as quickly as we could to it, aware that it could have been taken by the Russians, but it was unoccupied, as was the next. The occupants had left some hours before and the cows were bellowing with pain in the stalls, as they had not been milked, but there was nothing we could do about it.
The house into which the others had gone was still lived in. A woman was crying interminably. One of the soldiers was wounded, so we bandaged him up and took him to the tank. The tank crew had seen no Russians. We were through!
It is impossible to describe our joy. No one could possibly understand what we had gone through, who had not been through it himself. We had wandered the whole night among thousands of Russians, often only a few metres apart, had fired at each other, been recognised, and yet had broken through.
The company had also managed to get through with only two lightly wounded out of about 60 men. In total, we had lost 16 dead out of our platoon of 24.
We now had only one desire; to eat something and then sleep, nothing but sleep. Later, we were taken by truck to our company supply section in Sachsendorf. The Russians were already firing on the village. Our company quartermaster-sergeant first attended to our stomachs and then we could sleep, but when we stretched out on the straw in a cellar I found that I was simply too tense and stressed to fall asleep. At last I got some sleep, but then immediately we had to go back into the line again.
We had hoped for a few days’ rest, but the new front line had to be formed and this required every man. We were sent forward – without tent halves,3 mess tins, gas masks or haversacks.
The Russians had been stopped behind Rathstock, and between Sachsendorf and Rathstock was open meadowland through which the front line ran. Our platoon position was about 100m from the last house in Sachsendorf and we soon received reinforcements. Our new platoon commander was Staff Sergeant Buchal, a lawyer from Breslau.
During the first night (3/4 March) we dug our foxholes and during the following night crawling trenches were dug between the individual foxholes and later deepened until the trench system was complete.
The Russians had not dug trenches but were occupying the buildings in Rathstock about 400 metres away.4 During the next few days we collected doors and straw from the ruined and deserted buildings. The doors we used to roof our dugouts, putting two at a time on made us safe against mortar fire, although not against a direct hit.
We were now getting our food regularly and on time. At dusk the wagon would come up the road as far as the front line. At first I would have to go back to the wagon to eat as I had no mess tins, but then I borrowed a mess tin lid. After the meal, ammunition was issued and the wounded and dead were taken back. The badly wounded were taken back straight away.
As soon as we had finished constructing our position, the company was replaced. In the meantime, we had gone on to build alternative positions, communication trenches and saps. We now got a not-so-well constructed position to the right of the road, where the same digging had to continue. A company of our battalion that had been in reserve replaced us in the old positions.
One day while fetching food, I met Jürgen Schoone from Lüneburg, who had been with me in Lübeck. He was now occupying my old dugout. Several days later I asked a member of his company for news of him and was told that he was dead. He had been sitting out a barrage in the bunker and had been killed instantly by a hit. If we had not been relieved a few days earlier, I would have been the one to be killed.
We expected the Russians to push their front line forward, so every night men were sent out to keep watch about 300 metres in front of our trenches. Each platoon would send a man. It was quite an uncomfortable feeling, spending four hours completely alone only 100 metres from the Russians. I always dug myself a shallow scoop to lie in. You began to freeze after a short while, despite the thick winter clothing. Everyone on this duty got a quarter litre bottle of schnapps, which was fine against the cold, but made you feel tired. The Russians also had men out but, fortunately, I never encountered one. I was always glad when my four hours were up.