Waking at dawn, we began by leading our horses at a trot around and around the sawdust covered floor of a large building. This was followed by an exercise in which we practiced repeatedly jumping onto the horse’s back while the animal continued to move around the ring. Beyond the constant riding, our instructors also taught us other potentially useful skills, such as how to make a horse lie down in order to shield ourselves in the midst of a firefight.
By the end of the second day, areas of the flesh on my buttocks and thighs had become rather disgusting raw wounds. Each night they would crust over before painfully reopening during the following day’s riding. Other than this physical discomfort, the experience at Soltau proved generally agreeable. While many of the men found the course arduous, my previous work with horses on our farm made the training relatively undemanding for me.
On the completion of this last element of my required officer training on May 8, I spent three days at the 58th Division’s reserve base in Oldenburg. To my great satisfaction, Anneliese was able to join me after receiving a short furlough following an Allied bombing raid that had struck her hospital in Beverlo. Although she had not been injured in the attack, the prospect of further air raids nonetheless caused me to grow increasingly concerned for her future safety.
During her stay in Oldenburg, we had planned to get a hotel room together. However, when I approached the hotel’s manager for a room, he inquired whether we were married. When I responded that we were engaged to be married, he informed me that unmarried couples were not permitted to share a room and instead required us to pay for separate rooms. The war had brought many changes, but it did little to alter Germany’s traditionally conservative social conventions.
At the end of our brief time together on May 10, Anneliese returned to Belgium. Shortly after her arrival, she was shifted 20 miles east from Beverlo to the Belgian town of Genk. At the hospital here, she would soon be helping to treat a flood of casualties from France.
At the end of a final visit to Puggen from May 10 to 13, I said my goodbyes to my family. Heading back to the Eastern Front as an officer, I had no idea where I would be assigned, nor whether I would ever return home.
Little did I anticipate the hammerblows about to befall the Wehrmacht in the following month of June. During the summer of 1944 Germany would face an escalating series of crises that wouldsteadily increase the suffering and hardship at the front and at home.
Chapter 14
RETURN TO THE FRONT
WHEN MY TRAIN REACHED Tilsit at the border of the German Reich on May 15, there was a cable waiting for me at the Wehrmacht’s central leadership reserve depot from Col. Behrend, commander of the 154th Grenadier Regiment.
His message requested my return to the regiment to take charge of my old heavy weapons company, replacing the already departed Second Lt. Reichardt. Since I could have been assigned to any company in Army Group North, his appeal for me to receive command of my old unit was excellent news as far as I was concerned, though it was a completely unexpected action over which I had no influence.
Granting Behrend’s request, the army promptly issued new orders returning me to the 13th Company. Boarding the next train out of Tilsit, I embarked on the 250-mile trip to rejoin the 58th Division at the front, now located in northeastern Estonia. The journey offered me further time to reflect on developments on the Eastern Front over the previous half year.
In January 1944, the Red Army had executed an offensive that brought an end to our long siege of Leningrad and forced Army Group North into a general retreat to the west. This orderly withdrawal in the northern sector was part of the larger shift in the strategic situation that had taken place after Stalingrad.
Although there was no decline in the fighting capability of the individual German soldier, there were ever- increasing personnel losses that Germany could not replace. Meanwhile, the Red Army was steadily increasing its quantitative superiority in manpower and material and regaining its territory lost early in the war. There was hope that by shortening its length of front the Wehrmacht could in some measure compensate for its inferiority in personnel, while at the same time shortening its own supply lines and lengthening those of the enemy.
As the 154th Regiment pulled back to the northwest from Nevel with the rest of the 58th Division that winter, it split up into smaller formations in order to conduct a more effective fighting retreat. Under mounting pressure, the detachment of regiments, battalions, and even companies from their larger formations had become more commonplace. With few reserves available, the German Army deployed these newly created “fire brigades” to plug gaps that opened along a fluid front and to respond to other crises.
By February 1944, the 154th Regiment had reassembled and joined the 58th Division at a location near Narva in northeastern Estonia, where it took up a position in a previously constructed network of defenses that ran between the Baltic Coast and Lake Peipus. Operating from this fortified “Panther Position,” the 154th Regiment helped to repulse Red Army attacks around the town of Sirgala, about 15 miles west of Narva and our old Plyussa battlefield of 1941.
Upon my arrival at the 13th Company’s position on May 20, I immediately assumed the role of acting Kompaniefuhrer (company leader). Within a month, Col. Behrend confirmed me in this position. Normally it would have been held by a captain rather than a second lieutenant, but the desperate shortage of officers had now made my situation relatively common in the German Army. As the only officer in the company, I was forced to run my platoons with sergeants who normally commanded squads.
Senior Sgt. Juchter was still in charge of the Tross (rear area) and Staff Sergeant Ehlert continued to lead the communications platoon, but now I was their superior. The camaraderie that I once enjoyed with many members of the company as an enlisted man was no longer possible. Addressed as “Herr Leutnant,” a certain awkward distance appeared between myself and the other longtime veterans of the company like Willi Schutte.
Yet, as a result of the discipline and respect for rank instilled by army training, we soon adjusted and became accustomed to the changed relationship. While there was deference to my rank and a distance between us off the battlefield, the old comradeship would return during combat or if one of them was wounded. My relationship with the men in the 13th Company may have also been helped by the fact that I continued to spend about the same amount of time at the front as the enlisted men.
Though there were few casualties in the company during the first two months after my return, the intense fighting over the preceding months had reduced the unit to about 200 men. This strength was significantly less than the complement of between 250 and 300 troops we had maintained in the first couple of years of the war in Russia. Fortunately, the relative calm at the Panther Position permitted us to restore our depleted strength to some extent as we received replacements and the return of wounded troops from convalescent leave.
The fact that the Wehrmacht drew most of the men filling its divisions from a single region enhanced camaraderie and cohesion within a unit, but it could also lead to significant tension when the army had to send outsiders as replacements or when units from different regions had to act in close cooperation.
While interaction between troops from different regions could lead to problems, a few strangers from outside northern Germany performed very successfully in our company. In particular, an Austrian private first class from Vienna surprisingly proved to be one of the best soldiers I would command in combat. His relaxed manner caused me some initial concern, but he executed orders promptly and always remained calm when the bullets were flying. You could never predict someone’s behavior in combat.
As an officer, I was issued a Luger pistol for my sidearm. While only firing it a couple of times in combat, it proved a good weapon and fairly accurate up to a range of 20 to 30 yards. Later, I obtained a Spanish-made Astra Model 600 pistol that would serve as my favored sidearm. In some instances, I also carried a Mauser rifle or MP-40 submachine gun, though I preferred the rifle in action due to its much greater range and accuracy.
With my new rank, I acquired the services of a soldier who took care of my clothes and delivered my meals
