role in destroying their bunker.
From experience, I regarded this warning very seriously. In at least one recent instance, the Russians had castrated a sergeant and a corporal captured from one of our regiment’s infantry companies. We discovered them the next day, dead from loss of blood.
Such brutality reinforced our determination to avoid being taken prisoner by the Red Army at all costs, even if we had to take our own lives to escape that fate. This mentality was totally different than the mindset we possessed during the French campaign. If surrounded by French troops, I would have surrendered with confidence that I would be treated humanely.
Realizing that the isolated position at Demyansk was a strategic liability, the army’s high command began withdrawing equipment in early February 1943. On February 17, it officially ordered the evacuation of the pocket to begin. Though under intense pressure from Soviet forces, the German Army conducted an orderly retreat. The 58th Infantry Division pulled out of the area on February 24.
NOVGOROD: March 1943
At the beginning of March 1943, our division returned to the north coast of Lake Ilmen to occupy a new defensive position near Novgorod, not far from where we had served the previous fall guarding against potential amphibious operations. Now the thick winter ice covering Lake Ilmen provided a hard crust across which Russian forces could carry out “land” operations.
In the weeks that followed, however, the Red Army’s attacks across the frozen lake proved disastrous failures because of our ability to spot their approach across the flat surface at a great distance. Even under the cover of darkness, the Soviets found it difficult to move across the ice since we could illuminate the area with floodlights when we heard anything approaching.
When the Russians made their attempts, the heavier artillery pounded them so effectively that they generally never even came within range of our company’s guns located a couple of miles from the shoreline. As the artillery shells shattered the lake’s ice shell, men and equipment would slide into the freezing waters below.
In a battalion-sized attack against the regiment positioned next to us, the Red Army employed a number of large motorized sleds, apparently intending to cross the frozen lake before our forces could react. This particular assault did succeed in reaching our lines, but the enemy was soon repulsed with heavy casualties.
The relative security of our position at Novgorod allowed us a little time to relax. Among the German troops, perhaps the most readily embraced feature of Russian culture was the banya (bathhouse), typically built about 50 yards behind a Russian home. After steaming ourselves inside, we would exit the banya to cool ourselves in the snow. On one of these occasions, someone started a snowball fight. Still naked, we engaged in a running battle in the frozen winter landscape, momentarily forgetting the real war.
Despite the Wehrmacht’s successful evacuation of the Demyansk pocket to more defensible positions, and small tactical victories like those we achieved at Novgorod, our previously high morale slowly began to decline in 1943. For Army Group North, the war had definitively shifted to a defensive struggle to hold the gains achieved in 1941, while the Soviets now held the military initiative.
We were also aware of the catastrophic fate of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad far to the south. After being encircled by the Red Army in November 1942, its survivors were finally forced to surrender in February. So great was the magnitude of the calamity that even Gobbel’s Propaganda Ministry did not attempt to conceal it. Also, while the war in Russia took a mounting toll of casualties among German troops, our families back home began to increasingly suffer from Anglo-American bombing raids.
Yet, after two years of war, we remained deep inside enemy territory and maintained faith in Germany’s ultimate triumph. Our experience at the front left us wholly convinced that our army was still superior in terms of both our troops and equipment. Our generals and other officers also retained our full confidence and gave us a tactical advantage on the battlefield. Furthermore, we believed that German industry would continue to supply us with qualitatively better weapons than those of the enemy.
Even after Stalingrad, we believed that we could still win a defensive struggle by not losing. The Red Army would gradually exhaust itself in its bloody assaults against us that produced only minor gains or no advantage at all. It seemed to me that the Soviet Union would eventually have to accept a negotiated peace that would leave Germany with much of its territorial gains.
LEADERSHIP AND TACTICS
Just as Stalin controlled everything in the Soviet Union, Hitler held supreme power in Germany. Only after the war did it become clear to me that Hitler had engaged in a constant struggle against the Wehrmacht’s general staff for control of military decision-making. As the war progressed, he increasingly subordinated the generals and the army to his whims.
Unaware of Hitler’s bungling and the political conflicts at the top, we never questioned the military decision-making until late in the war. Witnessing the skilled leadership exercised in the field, German troops at the front held the officer corps in high esteem. Yet, even if tactical decisions by field officers remained unaffected, political meddling at the level of corps command or higher produced many poor strategic decisions.
In the Red Army, the intervention of the Communist political leadership in military operations was even more pervasive. Unlike the Wehrmacht, the Red Army installed Politruks (political officers) down to the company level and empowered them to make final decisions on lower level tactical matters about how and where to fight.
Although the Russians possessed many capable military officers well-versed in military tactics, the presence of these Politruks limited their effectiveness on the battlefield. This political interference largely explains Germany’s tactical superiority. As the Politruks gained more influence over military decisions later in the war, they caused the Red Army a lot of unnecessary casualties. Based upon my experience in combat and the intelligence we obtained from captured enemy troops, I would judge that perhaps a quarter of the Red Army casualties can be blamed on the interference of the Politruks.
It was also apparent to German troops at the front that the Soviet political leaders and officers regarded an ordinary soldier’s life as a commodity without much value. They never hesitated to expend the lives of their men in operations that had a minimal chance of success.
The Red Army sometimes, or possibly most of the time, fortified its troops with vodka to instill a sense of confidence in soldiers who often faced daunting odds. As we witnessed at the Volkhov, there were instances where a portion of the Red Army troops in an attack would even begin moving forward unarmed, with orders to retrieve weapons from those who were killed in the advance. The NKVD, the Soviet secret police, would set up machine guns behind the attacking infantry to prevent any retreat. With no alternative, these troops would advance forward against our well-defended positions to be slaughtered or captured.
If captured, the Russian soldier would generally continue to resist. Attempts to threaten a prisoner with a firearm during interrogations would frequently produce only a smile. Strangely, only the threat of a beating with a club or some similar weapon would tend to make the man fearful.
In addition to the ethnically Slavic troops, growing numbers of Mongolians from the eastern parts of the Soviet Union began to appear in Red Army units after 1943. While not afraid of the typical Slav, we feared these Mongolians, who were especially tough and brutal adversaries in combat.
At the start of the war, we often viewed and treated the Soviet soldier as a primitive brute. As we came to know the enemy, however, the natural courage and toughness of the Red Army soldier won him our respect. Whatever their views on Communism, it soon became clear to us that the Russian troops were willing to sacrifice their lives to repel the German invaders who had occupied their motherland.
