My father was a storm trooper, fighting in the Freikorps,
in the Baltics and Silesia. He joined Hitler’s party when Hitler became
Chancellor of Germany. Our family was many generations of the area Stuttgart.
My father was a doctor and worked in the hospital. I was drafted into the navy
before eighteen years old. February 1944 Twenty-eight years old I went to the
eastern front at southern Poland. The first big battle was to cross the river
in north Germany heading east to Russia. Dug into trenches The positions had been
dug in a front slope position on the side of the hill. Our position was halfway
up the slope and everything is flat on the sides like sitting on a silver
platter. With artillery the enemy excavated every rifleman’s nest accurately.
We withdrew from this position to the east, crossing the river and continuing
march for weeks into the eastern front. We begin storming the hillside. German
attack planes drop bombs over the enemy lines. The enemy fires artillery
shooting sharply overhead. I remember my grandfather told me to remember his
face and I stopped panicking, I held myself closely against the ground. The
enemy tanks position was overrun and we saw streaks of blood in the snow where
the wounded were dragged away. When we got to a river the Russians put heavy
infantry fire. We started digging, entrenching. Soviets were shooting like
savages with artillery, tanks, heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, and the
Stalin Organ rocket artillery. No one could hold their head up. As tree
branches came down and tree’s fell over I laughed thinking “order’s from the
Fuhrer will be held to the last” But only if Adolf is here. Russian firepower
shifted to one kilometer behind the trenches and Russian T34 tanks broke
through to us. As we retreated to the command post we came across a pocket of
100 Russians with some tanks. We shot at them and they went in a tank chasing
us up the hill. We threw grenades as we ran and got away. When we found our
artillery position we saw the Ivan tanks had already broken through and all the
Wehrmacht and battle equipment were lying in pieces on the ground. We regroup
with units near the river. It was the highest order an officer may not go out
alone. My platoon commander sent me with the boat captain on the river. We
picked up German army troops who had come from the rear, from reserves and
brought them to form a main battle line. April 1944 we stayed in the trenches,
eighty meters apart from the Ivan’s, the Russian troops. June the Wehrmacht was
bleeding dry. There were pilots who no longer had airplanes and navy whose
ships had sunk brought into the infantry. Fifteen kilometers behind the battle
line was formal training. A soldier is always on the move and never gets the
chance to think, who am I, what did I experience, what’s next. A soldier learns
to estimate distances and is always doing that, estimating distances, always on
the reins. Being an infantryman means you see everything but you are not seen.
Russians began an offensive with 300 Ivan tanks. We’re surrounded and we had to
split up and march in groups of fifteen men. Everywhere we went the Red army
was already there. Russian aircraft were constantly flying overhead. We
encountered a group of Russians in the forest however as we reached their
perimeter Russians came down from above us, they were sitting in the trees
waiting for us. We ran and the Ivan’s followed with the terrible sound of
bullets hitting trees behind us. I was wounded in the knee, my comrades carried
me out of the firing zone, pulling me to the bridgehead. We swam across in the
main battle line facing west to find German command posts. We see cables on the
ground for field telephones, we cut them and go through there shooting and
hitting everything that stands in our way. More of our soldiers came there with
tanks encircling them. Ivan’s were running around and we shot all of them right
away. We need to identify ourselves to the friendly tanks we shouted Heil
comrades, Heil Hitler. I ran to the German main battle line and drank the
puddle like an animal. The exertion in those last hours were so intense I was
nobody anymore. I lost all of my strength, I was dead, actually living dead. At
the medical tent Ivan’s flew attack planes and hit them. The medic picked me up
and threw me over his back taking me out of the firing zone. I woke up in the
hospital train. I recovered in the hospital and was released back to my unit.
As the Russians advanced we were in the triangle. 800 meters behind us the
Russians came. We marched with columns of refugee. We went deeper and deeper into
the forest. All of the captured Ivan’s were brought to the command post. It is
the commander’s responsibility to shoot them. There is no place for prisoners
of war. Here the battalion commander went into an ambush and I was running
close behind him. I hear a cracking sound and I was thrown forward. My blood
began dripping onto the ground I didn’t see anything around me anymore I ran
backwards toward the street and a medic was there. I woke up in a field
hospital and was transported by combat ferry in the Bay of Danzig. There were
ships moored there so big I’ve never seen in my life a ship that big.
Transporting on the hospital train, Russian tank spearheads had advanced far
and were firing on the hospital train. Arriving in Berlin the doctor said a big
battle with Russians won’t be long. My wound wasn’t bad as such. I got orders
to march. You always have to have marching orders, otherwise you hang from a
tree. We hear the American was in Neustadt, we marched on. Soldiers who had
only a rifle were posted on the road where the American’s were coming. Packs of
tanks came along the road, their hatches closed. None of us could approach. We
had reached the point where we should use a rifle against tanks. I told the
soldiers with me, if you want your lives throw away your weapons. Do me the
honor. I marched. Everyone followed. Everyone. In the village we saw an
American at a jeep with a gun mounted on it. He said, come one boys, come here,
hands up. The Americans had millions of prisoners of war. I returned home to
Stuttgart two months later after the end of world war two.
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