At Leningrad's Gates

Hela — Hel

Heyderkrug — Silute

Konigsburg — Kaliningrad

Krasnogvardeisk — Gatcina

Kurisches Haff — Curonian Bay

Kurische Nehrung — Curonian Isthmus

Labiau — Polessk

Lake Peipus — Lake Chudskoye

Leningrad — St. Petersburg

Libau — Liepaja

Memel — Klaipeda

Oranienbaum — Lomonosov

Pillau — Baltiysk

Reval — Tallinn

Stutthof — Sztutowo

Tilsit — Sovetsk

Weichsel River Estuary — Vistula River Estuary

APPENDIX C TABLE OF EQUIVALENT RANKS

This is a list of German ranks and the approximate English equivalents as indicated in the book. Please note that this list does not include all ranks and that some of the ranks are translated differently in other sources.

Oberst — colonel

Oberstleutnant — lieutenant colonel

Major — major

Hauptmann — captain

Rittmeister — cavalry captain

Oberleutnant — first lieutenant

Leutnant — second lieutenant

Oberfahnrich — senior officer candidate

Fahnrich — junior officer candidate

Hauptfeldwebel — senior sergeant

Oberfeldwebel — staff sergeant

Feldwebel — sergeant

Unteroffizier — corporal

Obergefreiter — lance corporal

Gefreiter — private first class

Schutze — private

ENDNOTE

The 154th Infantry Regiment, in which I served from 1939 to 1945, suffered total casualties as follows: 300 officers of which 73 were killed; 2,241 non-commissioned officers of which 485 where killed; and 10,810 other enlisted personnel of which 1,824 were killed. Of its total of 13,351 casualties, 2,382 were killed, 10,021 were wounded, and 948 soldiers were listed as missing. Among the divisions in Army Group North, the 58th Infantry Division received the second highest number of decorations.[2]

PHOTOGRAPHS

^{Studio portrait taken during basic training in Luneburg, Germany in 1939, shortly after conscription into the German Army.}

^{Swearing the Wehrmacht loyalty oath in Luneburg on September 2, 1939, the day after Germany’s invasion of Poland.}

^{Visiting my family in Puggen early in 1940.}

^{Above: Pushing for a win in Verviers, Belgium, at the end of the 154th Regiment’s 400-meter race in summer 1940.}

^{Left: Practicing with a radio as part of my training with the communications platoon during fall 1939.}

^{Below: A crater made by a shell from the Russian battleship Red October.}

^{Our company’s march through the Baltic region toward Leningrad in the summer of 1941. I am pictured to the left rear of our company commander, Oberleutnant Von Kempski.}

^{Below, left: A photograph from Uritsk used on the front page of a German-language newspaper in Reval, Latvia, dated April 2, 1942. The caption reads, “This is the German soldier who you will find in the trenches: young, agile, and sure of victory.”}

^{Below, right: Another photo taken in the spring of 1942.}

^{Left, and with detail above: The “Old Sacks” bunker at Uritsk that I shared with my close comrades Willi Schutte and Willi Sauke.}

^{A crossroads in the late fall of 1941 with a sign pointing to Petersburg (Leningrad).}

^{Below, left: Skiing between the front and my bunker in the rear at Uritsk during the winter of 1941–42. Below, right: Taken at Uritsk after my promotion to Obergefreiter (corporal) and my receipt of the Iron Cross Second Class.}

^{Standing between two comrades outside of our bunker at Oranienbaum in the summer of 1942.}

^{Below: My comrades and I celebrate Christmas 1942 in our bunker near Demyansk.}