The End

were hard to attain. And the Volkssturm’s commanders—many of whom had some background in the military and in the Party or its affiliates—were generally far more committed than the men they led to the ideals of the organization, however limited they were in ability and competence.⁴⁵ So detachment from Nazi ideals and fanaticism was not easy in this mammoth organization in the hands of the Party with a strength of 6 million men by the end of November and potentially embracing twice as many.⁴⁶ If only a fraction of this number was actually involved in combat, the further militarization and regimentation of civilian society was massive.

The military futility and pointless heavy loss of life among Volkssturm men in action would be fully laid bare in the first months of 1945. But in East Prussia, where Koch had proposed local militias as early as July, the Volkssturm would have an earlier baptism of fire. More than a week before Himmler’s announcement of its existence, the Volkssturm had its first taste of action in the outer suburbs of the fortified Baltic port of Memel (north of East Prussia, annexed by Germany in 1939). Two lightly armed companies of Volkssturm men in civilian clothes with only green armbands to distinguish them took heavy casualties as they helped to stave off weak Soviet attempts to break the defensive perimeter until regular troops could arrive to stabilize the position.⁴⁷

Little over a week later, the Volkssturm was in action again. This time it was within the borders of East Prussia. For on 16 October the Red Army crossed the German frontier into its easternmost region. It was the start of eleven days that would leave a searing mark on the mentalities of Germans in the eastern regions of the Reich—and not just there.

III

On 5 October Soviet troops launched their attack in Memel and five days later were on the Baltic, surrounding the town. The 3rd Panzer Army, weakened though it had been, managed to hold out in the siege until reinforcements arrived, with the help, as we noted, of much battered Volkssturm units. Two days before the Red Army’s attack, local civilians were still frantically digging trenches and anti-tank ditches. The Wehrmacht wanted the area evacuated.⁴⁸ But only on 7 October were evacuation orders belatedly issued by the Party authorities. Anyone not obeying was to be treated as a traitor. Panic and chaos resulted, all the more so when the local District Leader of the Party countermanded the order and decreed that people should for the time being stay where they were. The confusion was all the greater since there had already been an earlier partial evacuation of Memel and surrounding districts in early August, but the population had returned when the danger had receded. There was initially some sense, therefore, that this, too, would prove to be a false alarm. But when the order to leave was finally given, on 9 October, it was for many already too late. Thousands were left behind, cut off by the rapidly advancing front. Many were reluctant to leave their farms unprotected against what they saw as a ‘roaming mob’ of prisoners of war and Polish workers. They missed the chance to escape. Most who could—predominantly women, children, the elderly and infirm, since men were generally held back for service in the Volkssturm and other duties—took to the road in horse-carts, or on foot, carrying with them a few possessions hastily thrown together. Rumours that the Red Army was in the immediate vicinity caused renewed panic. A sense of terror was widespread.

Explosions and fear of air raids sometimes caused the refugees to take cover where they could, in the fields away from the road. Women fell on their knees to pray. It was a race against time as main highways became cut off by Soviet troops. Abandoned wagons and household goods littered the roadside. The lucky ones, after an anxiety- ridden wait on the shores, finally crammed into a fleet of little boats that ferried them, though without their livestock and most of their possessions, to temporary safety over the abutting saltwater inlet, the Kurisches Haff, to improvised billets in parts of East Prussia. Some sought to swim across, and were drowned. The last most of those fleeing saw of Memel was a red glow in the night sky. An estimated third of the population fell into Soviet hands. There were stories of plunder, rape and murder by Red Army soldiers.⁴⁹

The fate of Memel marked the start of more than two weeks of dread and horror for the population close to the East Prussian border. Worse was yet to come. As General Guderian later commented, ‘what happened in East Prussia was an indication to the inhabitants of the rest of Germany of their fate in the event of a Russian victory.’⁵⁰

On 16 October, the Red Army began its assault on East Prussia itself amid a barrage of artillery fire over a 40-kilometre stretch of the front and intensive air raids on border towns. There was as good as no defence offered by the Luftwaffe, and the German 4th Army, severely weakened in the collapse of Army Group Centre in the summer, was forced to pull back westwards. On 18 October Soviet troops advanced across the German frontier. Within three days they had penetrated German lines and forced their way some 60 kilometres into the Reich across a front of around 150 kilometres. The border towns of Eydtkau, Ebenrode and Goldap fell into Soviet hands, while Gumbinnen and Angerapp narrowly escaped that fate, though the former was heavily damaged through air attacks and Soviet troops reached the outskirts. The Soviets reached as far as the village of Nemmersdorf in the early morning of 21 October where, despite their finding a key bridge over the river Angerapp intact, the offensive halted.

The leadership of Army Group Centre had expected that the Soviet attack, when it came, would be the prelude to a huge offensive that might break through into Germany’s heartlands. As it was, the Soviets’ pause in Nemmersdorf gave the 4th Army the opportunity to regroup, muster its strength and, with panzer reinforcements, attempt a daring and successful encirclement manoeuvre against superior forces that took the attackers completely by surprise and inflicted heavy losses. Soviet commanders, impressed by the Wehrmacht’s counter-offensive, immediately went on the defensive and pulled back their troops. By 27 October their offensive was abandoned. On 3 November German troops freed Goldap—reduced to ruins and plundered by Red Army soldiers—and two days later the ‘first battle of East Prussia’ was over, at a cost of extremely high losses on both sides. A highly damaging Soviet breakthrough to the East Prussian capital of Konigsberg had been prevented. German soldiers—especially those who came from the eastern regions—despite often limited training and inadequate weaponry, had fought furiously to fend off the invaders. Even so, a border strip of East Prussia, 100 kilometres broad and up to 27 deep, stayed in Soviet occupation. The front in this area stayed stable until January.⁵¹ But East Prussians were from now on a highly endangered species.

The reason why the Soviet attack had halted after occupying a good position on reaching Nemmersdorf became plain when German troops were able to retake the village on 23 October, barely forty-eight hours after it had fallen to the Red Army. What the German soldiers found awaiting them was a scene of horror. The name of Nemmersdorf soon became familiar to most Germans. It told them what they might expect if the Red Army were to conquer the Reich.

The fate that would overtake Nemmersdorf and the inhabitants of neighbouring districts was compounded by the lamentable failure of the Nazi authorities—repeated with even graver consequences a few months later—to evacuate the population in good time.⁵² Evacuation in the whole imperilled area was chaotic. Koch was the paradigm example of power draining from the centre to the provincial Party chieftains, a development that would intensify generally in early 1945. Abetted by his deputy, Paul Dargel, he had complete control over evacuation measures. Supported by Hitler, Koch refused to countenance early evacuation because of the fears that it would begin a stampede out of the province, and would send defeatist signals to the rest of the Reich. The population were to remain as long as possible as a sign of unwavering morale and determination. The Wehrmacht’s own wishes to have the area cleared were ignored.⁵³ The Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Centre, Colonel-General Reinhardt, was himself reduced to paroxysms of futile rage at Koch’s high-handed behaviour in the region.⁵⁴ When evacuation orders were finally given, they were predictably chaotic in their execution. Dargel and other Party functionaries could not be located for hours. A District Leader briefly emerged, only to disappear into a local pub and drink himself into a stupor. A lorry commandeered to help with the evacuation did not turn up; it had allegedly been sequestered by a Party office to carry off stores of food and drink. At the most critical time, Party functionaries—the only people who could give orders—had failed miserably in their duties.⁵⁵

Nemmersdorf, the most westerly point of the Soviet incursion, was heavily involved in the belated, chaotic