from the company field kitchen. The company had few motor vehicles, but there was a Citroen at my disposal and, fortunately, a designated enlisted man to serve as my driver. Because my family had not possessed an automobile or truck when I was growing up, I had never learned to drive nor obtained a license.
My position also entitled me to make use of a horse named Thea and receive the services of her handler, although I would seldom ride her unless we were on the march and conditions were quiet. With a farming background, my knowledge of horses often proved greater than that of the soldiers charged with their care. On one occasion, when a sergeant was experiencing trouble taming a particular horse, I leapt up on it and rode around in circles until the horse became submissive.
Despite my responsibilities of command, Anneliese remained constantly on my mind. While suffering many difficult and painful experiences as a soldier, the worst part of the war for me was my separation from her and the uncertainty of whether we would ever see each other again. Our letters were filled with expressions of our yearning to see each other, our wish to marry, and our desire to enjoy a normal life. Beyond conveying our love to one another, we also shared the hope that the war would soon end. In the face of ever-darker news, we sought to reinforce each other’s morale about the outcome.
Working as a nurse in Belgium, Anneliese mentioned her frequent sightings of the massed bomber formations flying overhead on the way from England to Germany or on their return. Having witnessed the horrible fate of Hamburg, she would wonder which city would next face devastation.
She also conveyed news from her correspondence and phone conversations with my brother Otto, who was posted relatively nearby her in France. Soon after the long-anticipated landings by the Western Allies on June 6 1944, she and my family became greatly concerned when they lost touch with him. Three months of uncertainty passed before they finally received a note from the Red Cross indicating Otto had become a POW following his capture on August 30.
Yet, though my anxiety over my brother’s fate eventually lifted, my concern for Anneliese’s safety only intensified, especially when I learned that the area around her hospital in Genk had been bombed in mid-June.
THE DUNA: mid-July–August 7, 1944
There had been only limited action along the Narva sector of the Panther Position since my arrival in late May, but an urgent crisis on the Eastern Front soon developed to the south. On June 22, the third anniversary of our invasion of Russia, the Red Army commenced a massive offensive that virtually annihilated Army Group Center, killing or capturing hundreds of thousands of German troops.
The destruction of one of the Wehrmacht’s three army groups was a strategic disaster at least equal to Stalingrad that gravely undermined Germany’s entire position on the Eastern Front. With the southern flank of Army Group North almost unprotected, the high command rapidly assembled units from around the northern front to deploy down to southern Latvia in mid-July.
As we were preparing to pull out of the Narva area, the division supplied my company with about two-dozen 210-millimeter rockets. These were capped with a variety of different warheads, including one type that spread small steel ball bearings dispersed by a high explosive; another variety that spread shrapnel dispersed by an explosive compressed air canister; and a third that used an incendiary naptha material.
With our departure imminent, it was necessary to expend or destroy any remaining ordinance that would have been difficult to haul with us, in order to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. After witnessing a test-firing of these rockets a few months earlier at the company commander’s course in Munster, I was also simply interested to assess their combat effectiveness.
Lacking the necessary equipment to fire the rockets, I came up with the idea of using their shipping crates as launching tubes. Working behind a hill that hid us from enemy surveillance, we constructed two sets of simple wooden supports and then chopped down a couple of five-inch diameter trees for crossbeams.
Leaning one of the shipping crates against a crossbeam at the appropriate firing angle, we aimed the ersatz launcher by sight at a target in the Soviet lines. After connecting one of the rocket’s electric trigger mechanisms to a hand-operated electrical detonator normally used to set off mines, we carefully loaded the weapon into the improvised launching tube. On ignition, it flashed through the air and exploded right on target.
Following this success, I issued orders to similarly prepare our entire stock of rockets for launching, setting their built-in timing mechanisms in order to produce a short delay between each rocket’s firing.
When the detonator handle was twisted, the rockets began racing across No Man’s Land to their designated targets on the edge of a nearby woods. In an awesome display of concentrated firepower, the explosive warheads’ detonations tossed trees into the air, while the incendiary warheads instantly ignited a blaze across a wide swath of forest.
Though we were uncertain exactly what Russian forces were arrayed across from us, these rockets had obliterated whatever was there. With the proper launching devices, the rockets would have been highly effective weapons, but we never received any further supplies.
Leaving the Panther Position, the 58th Division transferred about 100 miles west to Reval, Estonia.
Generally, we moved these longer distances by train and shorter distances by horse or by foot. Despite some attempt to motorize the 58th Division during the course of the war, the process had been very inconsistent. While lacking any trucks when we fought in France, the Wehrmacht subsequently issued us a number of Bedford trucks captured from the Allies after that campaign had ended.
From about the end of 1942, we began to receive a large number of German-made motorized vehicles in Russia. This effort to motorize our division soon halted and we received no further vehicles after mid1943. Once the army stopped supplying us with new vehicles, we thought it somewhat amusing to find ourselves increasingly on horses once again as our existing trucks were destroyed or immobilized from a lack of spare parts.
Motorization had mixed results in the conditions we experienced in the Soviet Union. When the spring and fall rasputitsas (rainy seasons) turned many Russian roads into a mud resembling quicksand, horses sometimes proved superior to trucks. Often, the mud was so deep that our Panzers would have to haul the trucks out. Even in good weather, you could never drive very fast on primitive roads while hauling a 150-millimeter howitzer.
On reflection, I believe that many commentators have overestimated the significance of our lack of mechanization, especially once Germany had been placed on the strategic defensive. Horses did not require petrol for fuel nor steel and industrial plants to be produced, so in this sense helped preserve Germany’s resources for more vital weapons and ammunition. Whatever the relative merits of horsedrawn versus motorized transportation, our division was again relying almost exclusively on horses to haul our guns and other equipment by the time I returned to the front in mid-1944.
Soon after arriving in Reval, our division made the 150-mile journey by train south to Dunaburg, located beside the Duna River in Latvia. At the end of a 30-mile march west to the town of Rokiskis in neighboring Lithuania, we engaged in an intense battle with advancing Soviet forces on July 17, but failed to hold the city. Adopting a defensive posture, we entrenched in a nearby position about 75 miles southeast of Riga, Latvia.
Though no longer a forward observer, I continued to operate close to the front as an officer. Confident of my horsemanship, I probably also took some unnecessary risks. On a quiet day, I decided to take Thea out for some exercise, but ended up straying too close to the enemy’s position.
Suddenly bullets began whizzing through the air around us. It was a scary moment for me, particularly since captured Russians had told us that Red Army troops had standing orders to shoot first at those German soldiers who wore the form-fitting pants and boots typical of German officers. Swinging Thea around, I jumped her over a fence and galloped to the rear. Once again, my life had been spared.
In addition to visually monitoring the enemy’s frontlines, we listened for any change in the volume or type of noise emitted from their position. Sometimes the change was subtle, but at other times it was obvious. At our first position close to Rokiskis, the sound of female laughter echoed across No Man’s Land. Calling back to our guns, I ordered a few rounds be dropped in that direction. Following the short barrage, the front became completely silent.
Late one night soon afterward, a sudden torrent of heavy machine-gun fire erupted from our frontlines about 50 yards ahead of my bunker. Confirming my suspicions, an infantryman arrived moments later to report that a Soviet attack was coming directly toward our position.
