The Forgotten Soldier – Guy Sajer

The Forgotten Soldier – Guy Sajer

Guy Mouminoux (born 13 January 1927), age 94, known by the pseudonym Guy Sajer, is a French writer and cartoonist who is best known as the author of the Second World War memoir Le Soldat Oublié (1965, translated as The Forgotten Soldier), which recounts his experience serving in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front from 1942 to 1945, in the elite Großdeutschland Division. After the war, Mouminoux had a long career as a cartoonist, writing and illustrating under his real name, and also under the pen names Dimitri, and Dimitri Lahache. He lives in France.

Here are some chronological passages from the book. Part I of II parts.

The Forgotten Soldier – Guy Sajer

The thermometer remains more or less constant at freezing. October 30 1942: raining and cold. 

After saluting the colors, we are ordered to the supply store, where we proceed without thinking about explanations. At least it will be warm in there. In the store, which has been set up in a large shed, the first two sections of our company have just been served, and are coming out with their arms loaded. When it’s my turn, I am given four boxes of sardines, stamped in France, two vegetable sausages wrapped in cellophane, a package of biscuits enriched with vitamins, two slabs of Swiss chocolate, some smoked lard, and a half pound of lump sugar. Four steps further on, another attendant piles onto my already encumbered arms a waterproof ground sheet, a pair of socks, and a pair of woolen gloves. At the door one more item is added: a cloth packet inscribed FIELD KIT: FIRST AID. In the falling rain, I rejoin my group, which is clustered around an officer crouched on the back of a truck. He is well protected in his long coat of gray-green leather, and seems to be waiting for the entire company to assemble. When he judges that everyone has arrived, he begins to speak. He talks so quickly that I have a hard time understanding what he says.

 “You will be leaving this billet to convoy several military trains to a more advanced post. You have just been issued with supplies for eight days, which you will now include in your equipment. You will assemble in twenty minutes. Now get ready.” 

Quickly, silent with anxiety, we return to our quarters and gather together our possessions. As I fasten my pack to my back, my neighbor in the next bed asks: “How long will we be gone?” “Don’t know.” “I just wrote to my parents and asked them to send me some books.” “The P.O. will forward your package.” At that moment Hals, my enormous friend, hits me across the back. “At last we’ll see some Russians,” he shouts, grinning sardonically. I sense that he is trying to build up his nerve. In reality everyone feels considerable emotion. Despite our perfect innocence, the idea of war terrifies us. Once more we find ourselves standing in the courtyard in that damned rain. We are each given a registered Mauser and twenty-five cartridges. I don’t know if it’s a reaction to receiving these arms, but I notice that everyone is turning pale. Certainly we can all be excused for this: no one in the company is more than eighteen. I myself won’t be seventeen for another two and a half months. The lieutenant notices our confusion, and to raise our spirits reads us the latest Wehrmacht communiqué. Von Paulus is on the Volga, von Richthofen is near Moscow, and the Anglo-Americans have suffered great losses in their attempts to bomb the cities and towns of the Reich. Our officer seems reassured by our answering cries of “Sieg Heil.” The entire 19th Company stands at attention in front of the flag. Laus, our feldwebel, is there, also helmeted and fully equipped. At his side he carries a long automatic in a black leather sheath, which gleams in the rain. We are all silent. The order to move out sounds like the abrupt blast of an express train’s whistle: “Achtung! Rechts um. Raus!” In threes, we leave the place which was home during our first army experiences. We cross the stone bridge for the last time, and set off down the road which brought us here a month and a half ago. I look back several times at the imposing gray mass of the ancient Polish castle which I shall never see again, and would have succumbed to melancholy if the presence of my comrades had not raised my spirits. We arrive at Bialystok, a sea of green uniforms, and march to the station.

Life for the troops in this sector was remarkably well-organized. Mail was distributed; there were films for soldiers on leave-which we were not allowed to attend-libraries, and restaurants run by Russian civilians, but reserved entirely for German soldiers. The restaurants were all too expensive for me and I never went into them, but Hals, who would sacrifice anything for a good stuffing, spent all his money in these places, and a certain amount of ours. The understanding was that he would give us a detailed account of his experiences, which he adhered to faithfully, with many embellishments. We shivered with vicarious pleasure as we listened to him.

We were much better fed than we had been in Poland, and were able to supplement our rations very cheaply-which we really needed to do. The cold in these opening days of December had become extremely sharp, dropping to more than five degrees below zero. The snow, which fell in great abundance, never melted, and in places was already over three feet deep. Evidently this slowed the movement of supplies to the front, and, according to troops returning from forward positions where the cold was even more bitter than at Minsk, the poor fellows were reduced to sharing rations which were already ridiculously small. Insufficient food combined with the cold produced many cases of pneumonia, frostbite, and frozen limbs.

At this moment, the Reich was making an immense effort to protect its soldiers from the implacable hostility of the Russian winter. At Minsk, Kovno, and Kiev, there were enormous stores of blankets, special winter clothing made of sheepskin, overshoes with thick insulating soles and uppers of matted hair, gloves, hoods of double catskin, and portable heaters which operated equally well on gasoline, oil, or solidified alcohol, mountains of rations in specially conditioned boxes, and thousands of other necessities. It was our duty, as convoy troops of the Rollbahn, to deliver all of this to the front lines, where the combat troops were desperately awaiting us

We made superhuman efforts, and yet they were not enough. The punishment we suffered, not at the hands of the Russian Army, which until that moment had done almost nothing except retreat, but from the cold, is almost beyond the powers of description. Outside the great towns there had not yet been time to repair the damaged roads-few and far between to begin with-or to open others. While our unit was doing its autumn gymnastics, the Wehrmacht, after an extraordinary advance, had marched itself and its supplies into an unbelievable quagmire. Then the first frosts had solidified the monstrous ruts leading to the east. Our machines had suffered enormously on these roads, which in fact were passable only for wagons, but the hardening of the soil had temporarily allowed the provisioning of the troops. Then winter poured down its tons of snow across the immensity of Russia, once again paralyzing traffic.

That is the point we had reached in December, 1942. We shoveled away snow so that our trucks could move forward fifteen or twenty miles in a morning, only to find our efforts covered over again the same day. The earth beneath the snow was a sinister relief of bumps and potholes, which we tamped down or blew up. In the evenings we scrambled to find shelter for the night.

Sometimes this would be a hut fitted out by the engineers, sometimes an isba, *- A log hut- or any house we could find. We often crowded more than fifty men into a hut intended for a couple and two children. The most desired accommodations were the big tents especially designed for Russia. They were tall and pointed, like teepees, weather-proofed, and planned for nine men. We were rarely fewer than twenty, and even at that there weren’t enough tents. Luckily, we had raided our stores of food because of the cold, and with enough to eat, we were able to keep going reasonably well. Some of us began to crawl with vermin, as we were only rarely able to wash, and when we returned to Minsk, our first duty was to pass through disinfection.

I was beginning to feel that I’d had more than enough of Holy Russia and of truck driving. Like everybody else I was afraid of the idea of being under fire, but I was also beginning to long to use the Mauser which had been dragging around with me for what seemed like an eternity, without ever being the slightest use. I felt that somehow firing at something would avenge me for my sufferings from the cold, and from my blisters. My hands were badly blistered from shoveling, and my woolen gloves were already full of holes, exposing the tops of my icy fingers. My hands and feet felt the cold so sharply that it sometimes seemed as if the pain were stabbing me in the heart. The thermometer remained around five degrees below zero.

The memories of my earliest youth, still so close, returned to me for the first time since I had been a soldier. What was happening at home this evening? What was happening in France? We had heard bulletins which informed us that many French troops were now fighting along with us-news which made me rejoice. The thought of Frenchmen and Germans marching side by side seemed marvelous to me. Soon we would no longer have to be cold; the war would be over, and we could all recite our adventures at home. This Christmas hadn’t brought me any gift I could hold in my hand, but had brought so much good news about the harmony between my two countries that I felt overwhelmed. Because I knew that I was now a man, I kept firmly at the back of my mind a foolish and embarrassing idea which kept pursuing me: I really would have liked someone to give me an ingenious mechanical toy.

My companions were still singing, and all along the front millions like them must have been singing as they were. I didn’t know that, at that very hour, Soviet T-34 tanks, taking advantage of the truce which Christmas was supposed to bring, were crushing the forward posts of the Sixth Army in the Armotovsk sector. I didn’t know that my comrades in the Sixth Army, in which one of my uncles was serving, were dying by the thousands in the hell of Stalingrad. I didn’t know that German towns were being subjected to the horrifying bombardments of the R.A.F. and the U.S.A.F. And I would never have dared to think that the French would refuse a Franco-German entente.

I don’t remember exactly how much longer this journey took. The days which followed have remained in my memory like a frozen nightmare. The temperature varied between fifteen and twenty-five below zero. There was a horrifying day of wind when, despite all of the orders and threats from our officers, we abandoned our shovels and took shelter behind the trucks. On that day the temperature fell to thirty-five degrees below zero, and I thought I would surely die. Nothing could warm us. We urinated into our numbed hands to warm them, and, hopefully, to cauterize the gaping cracks in our fingers.

Four of our men, who were seriously ill, suffering from pulmonary and bronchial pneumonia, lay groaning in makeshift beds set up in one of the trucks. There were only two medical orderlies for our company, and there wasn’t much they could do. In addition to these serious illnesses, there were at least forty cases of frostbite. Some men had patches of skin on the ends of their noses which had been frozen and had become infected. Similar infection was common in the folds of the eyelids, around the ears, and particularly on the hands. I myself was not seriously affected, but each movement of my fingers opened and closed deep crevices, which oozed blood. At moments the pain was so intense that I felt sick to my stomach. At moments my despair was so intense that I broke down in tears, but as everyone was preoccupied with his own troubles, no one paid much attention.

Twice, I went to the canteen truck, which doubled as the infirmary, to have my hands washed in 90 degree alcohol. This produced paroxysms of pain which made me cry aloud, but afterward my hands felt warm for a few minutes.

Our inadequate diet contributed to our desperation. From Minsk, our point of departure, to Kiev, the first stop, was a distance of about 250 miles. With all the difficulties of the route taken into consideration, the authorities had given us food for five days. In fact, we required eight days, which obliged us to consume some of the rations intended for the front. In addition, we had to abandon three of the thirty-eight vehicles in our group because of mechanical failure, destroying them along with their cargoes, so that they wouldn’t fall into the hands of the partisans. Of the four men who were seriously ill, two had died. Many others suffered from frostbite, and a few had to have frozen hands or feet amputated.

Three days before we reached Kiev, we crossed what must once have been the Russian line of defense. We drove for hours through a landscape littered with the carcasses of tanks, trucks, guns, and aircraft, gutted and burned, a scattering of junk which stretched as far as the eye could see. Here and there, crosses or stakes marked the hasty burial of the thousands of German and Russian soldiers who had fallen on this plain.

Finally, our convoy arrived at Kiev. This handsome city had not suffered much damage. The Red Army had tried to stop the Wehrmacht outside the town, in the zone we had passed through. When they had no longer been able to withstand German pressure, they had preferred to withdraw to the other side of the city, to spare it the kind of destruction Minsk had suffered. Kiev was our first stop, halfway between Minsk and Kharkov. Our ultimate destination, Stalingrad, was still more than six hundred miles away.[which they would never reach]

Winter seemed endless. It snowed every day, almost without a break. At the end of February or beginning of March 1943 -I no longer remember which-we were taken by rail to a town used as a major supply center, some fifty miles from Kharkov. Food, blankets, medicines, and other supplies were stored in big sheds, and every cellar and hole in the ground was jammed with munitions. There were also repair shops, some indoors, others in the open air. Soldiers perching on tanks blew on their fingers when they grew too numb to hold a wrench. A system of trenches and strongpoints had been organized on the outskirts of the town. This part of the country suffered from frequent partisan attacks, often by large groups of men. Whenever this happened, every mechanic and warehouseman abandoned his tools and inventories for a machine gun, to protect the supplies and himself.

I can remember very distinctly the first deaths I encountered in the war. The thousands upon thousands which followed are blurred and faceless: a vast, cumulative nightmare which still haunts me, in which atrocious mutilations appear side by side with figures who seem to be peacefully sleeping, or with others whose eyes are opened astonishingly wide, stamped by death with an uncommunicable terror. I thought I had already experienced the limits of horror and of endurance, that I was a tough fighting man who would return home in due course to recount my heroic exploits. I have used the words and expressions which my experiences from Minsk to Kharkov to the Don suggested to me. But I should have reserved those words and expressions for what came later, even though they are not strong enough.

I should perhaps end my account here, because my powers are inadequate for what I have to tell. Those who haven’t lived through the experience may sympathize as they read, the way one sympathizes with the hero of a novel or a play, but they certainly will never understand, as one cannot understand the unexplainable. This stammering outpouring may be without interest to the sector of the world to which I now belong. However, I shall try to let my memory speak as clearly as possible. I dedicate the remainder of this account to my friends Marius and Jean-Marie Kaiser, who are in a position to understand me, as they lived through the same general events in the same part of the world. I shall try to reach and translate the deepest level of human aberration, which I never could have imagined, which I never would have thought possible, if I hadn’t known it firsthand.

We seemed like children beside these Don veterans. A few rounds from the big guns had seemed to us like the end of the world. There was a great difference between the proud soldiers we’d been in Poland, marching smartly through the villages with our guns slung, and what we were now. How many times in the past I had thought myself invulnerable, filled with the pride we all felt, admiring our shoulder straps and helmets and magnificent uniforms-and the sound of our footsteps, which I loved, and love still, despite everything. But here, by the banks of the Don, we seemed like nothing, like bundles of rags which each sheltered a small, trembling creature. We were underfed and unbelievably filthy. The immensity of Russia seemed to have absorbed us, and as truck drivers we were not dashing figures, but more like the junior maidservants of the army. We were dying of cold like everybody else, only our plight was never mentioned.

From the Don to Kharkov
 First Spring First Retreat 1943
The Donetz Battle 

For three or four more days, we were involved in occupations of more or less the same kind. The snow was melting everywhere, and the cold was lessening as rapidly as it had increased-which seemed to be the way of Russian seasons. From implacable winter one was shifted into torrid summer, with no spring in between. The thaw did not improve our military situation, but made it worse. The temperature rose from five degrees below zero to forty degrees above, melting the unimaginable ocean of snow which had accumulated all winter. Enormous pools of water and swampy patches appeared everywhere in the partly melted snow. For the Wehrmacht, which had endured the horrors of five winter months, this softening of the temperature fell like a blessing from heaven. With or without orders, we took off our filthy overcoats and began a general cleanup. Men plunged naked into the icy waters of these temporary ponds for the sake of a wash. No gunfire disturbed the tranquil air, which was sometimes even sunny.

The night was mild. A rainy wind blew fat white clouds rapidly across the sky, occasionally revealing a large white moon. To my right, the outlines of our vehicles and the camp buildings stood out sharply. Ahead of me, the enormous dark, hilly horizon melted into the sky. As the crow flies, the Don lay about five miles from our first line of German reserves. Between us and the river, some thousands of men were sleeping in conditions of almost unimaginable squalor. The sound of engines came to us on the wind. Both sides used the dark for moving supplies and troops. Two of the sentries patrolling our perimeter came by, and we exchanged the usual formalities. One of the men told a joke. I was about to reply when the whole horizon, from north to south, was suddenly lit by a series of brilliant flashes. Then there was a second series of flickering intensity, and I thought I felt the earth shake, as the air filled with a sound like thunder. “Lord! It’s an attack!” shouted one of the men on patrol. “I think it’s them!” 

We could already hear whistles in the camp and voices shouting orders through the still-distant noise of explosions. Groups of men went by on the run. Artillerymen who had been asleep were running to their guns on the edge of the abandoned airfield. As no one had told me to leave my post, I stayed where I was, wondering what would be asked of my comrades. A supply expedition through such a heavy bombardment would be an operation of an entirely different kind from the ones we had recently grown used to. The bursts of distant fire continued, mixed with the sound of our guns. Flashes of light, closer and more brilliant than before, turned the groups of men running through pools of water into shadow puppets.

It was as if a giant, in a fit of terrible fury, were shaking the universe, reducing each man to a ludicrous fragment which the colossus of war could trample without even noticing. Despite the relative distance of danger, I bent double, ready to plunge into my water-filled hole at a moment’s notice.

Daylight had now begun to rob the spectacle of some of its brilliance. The flashes of light were scarcely visible, and the horizon was shrouded by a dense cloud of smoke, irregularly punctuated by darker plumes. Toward noon, our artillery began to fire. We were still running from job to job, although we were nearly dropping with exhaustion. I can remember sitting in a huge crater which had been dried out by an explosion, staring at the long barrel of a 155 spitting fire with rhythmic regularity. I had found Hals and Lensen, and we were sitting together, with our hands over our ears. Hals was smiling, and nodding at each explosion. For two days we had practically no sleep. The dance of death continued. We were carrying the growing number of wounded to shelters half filled with water, and laying them on hastily improvised stretchers made of branches. The orderlies administered first aid. Soon these rough infirmaries, filled with the groans of the wounded, were overflowing, and we had to put fresh casualties outside, on the mud. The surgeons operated on the dying men then and there. I saw horrifying things at these collection points vaguely human trunks which seemed to be made of blood and mud. On the morning of the third day, the battle intensified. We were all gray with fatigue. The shelling went on until dusk, and then, inside of an hour, stopped. Clouds of smoke were rising all along the battered front. We felt as if we could smell the presence of death-and by this I don’t mean the process of decomposition, but the smell that emanates from death when its proportions have reached a certain magnitude. Anyone who has been on a battlefield will know what I mean.

With exhaustion threatening to overwhelm us again, we returned to the nightmare of carrying agonized, mutilated men, or laying out rows of horribly burned bodies, which we had to search for their identity tags. These were then sent to the families of the deceased with the citation “Fallen like a hero on the field of honor for Germany and for the Fuhrer.” Despite the thousands of dead and wounded, the last battle fought by the German army on the Don was celebrated the day after the shooting stopped. The mouths of dying men were pried open so that they could toast this Pyrrhic victory with vodka. On a front approximately forty miles long, General Zhukov, with the help of the accursed “Siberia” Army, which had just contributed to the German defeat at Stalingrad, had been trying to break the Don line south of Voronezh. Instead, the furious Russian assaults had broken against our solidly held lines. Thousands of Soviet soldiers had paid with their lives for this abortive effort which had also cost us very dear.

Most of us were unaware that the Eastern Front had entirely changed since January 1943. After the fall of Stalingrad, a strong Soviet push had reached the outskirts of Kharkov, re-crossed the Donetz, and moved on to Rostov, almost cutting the German retreat from the Caucasus. Troops there had been forced to return to the Crimea by way of the Sea of Azov, with heavy losses. Our periodical Ost Front and Panzer Wolfram reported that there had been heavy fighting at Kharkov, Kuban, and even Anapa. We never heard a frank admission of retreat, and as most soldiers had never studied Russian geography we had very little idea of what was happening. Nevertheless, a glance at any map was enough to inform us that the west bank of the Don was the easternmost German line in Russian territory. Luckily for us, the High Command ordered our retreat before an encirclement from the north and south could cut us off from our bases at Belgorod and Kharkov. The Don was no longer one of our defenses; it had been crossed both in the north and in the south. The thought that we might have been trapped, like the defenders of Stalingrad, still makes my blood run cold.

For two days, the landser* (* Infantry) had been pulling out-either on foot or loaded in trucks. Soon only a small section of the Panzergruppe was left at the nearly empty camp. The passage of vehicles and men had turned the Luftwaffe field into an extraordinary quagmire: thousands of trucks, tanks, tractors, and men rolled and tramped for two days and two nights through terrain running with streams of mud. We were in the middle of this syrup, trying to reorganize the material we had to abandon. The engineers were working with us, preparing to dynamite the ammunition we had heaped against the huts, over the carcasses of eight dismantled trucks. Toward noon, we organized a fireworks display which any municipality might have envied. Carts, sleighs, and buildings were all dynamited and burned. Two heavy howitzers which the tractors hadn’t been able to pull from the mire were loaded with shells of any caliber. Then we poured any explosive that came to hand into their tubes, and shut the breech as best we could. The howitzers were split in two by the explosions, scattering showers of lethal shrapnel. We felt exhilarated, filled with the spirit of destructive delight. In the evening, the spandaus stopped a few Soviet patrols, who had undoubtedly come to see what was happening. During our last hour, we were under light artillery fire, which caused us a certain emotion. Then we left.

We scattered without waiting for any orders, flinging ourselves onto the ground, trying to escape those six black dots in the sky, which were already falling toward us like lightning. I thought immediately of the bunker where the cats had been feasting. Six others had the same idea, and although I ran as fast as I could, I arrived next to last beside the hole where four soldiers were already trampling on what was left of a human being. I looked desperately into that crowded space, hoping that some miracle would make it larger. Two others were doing the same thing. Maybe we’d made a mistake; maybe the planes were really ours…. But that was impossible; the sound was unmistakable. The noise grew louder and louder. We threw ourselves down, painfully aware of our absolute exposure. I held my head between my hands, and closed my eyes, trying to obliterate the muffled explosions which reached my partially blocked ears. I felt the fury of hell pass over me like a hurricane. The blows striking the earth shook every organ in my body, and I knew that I was going to die. Then the storm passed as quickly as it had come. I lifted my head to see the enemy formation break apart as it climbed higher into the pale blue sky. Here and there across the field, men were getting up and running for better cover. The Russian planes had regrouped and were turning as tightly as they could. Then they swooped down at us again. I felt a bitter presentiment freeze my blood. I began to run like a madman, with my legs flying, trying to force myself to go faster. But I knew that exhaustion had the upper hand, that I would never reach the road, with its ditch, which might shelter me. I kept stumbling over my heavy boots. In desperation, and despite myself, I fell onto the wet grass, instinctively aware that the planes were on top of us again. The first explosions shook the ground, filling me with a frantic fear. I scratched at the ground like a rabbit whose last hope of escape is to bury itself. I could hear the earth being torn, and horrifying human shrieks. White flashes burned into my eyes through my clenched fists and eyelids. I lay there for two or three minutes, which seemed like an eternity.

I can still remember the look of the Donets Valley, and the river, with its wide sand banks stretching some eight or ten miles back from the water. The thunder of guns reached us from the front, which was about twenty miles to the south. The German attack was moving from the north and west. With their left wing protected by the Donets, the Panzer assault was driving into the Russian artillery, which had rapidly crossed the river in an attempt to follow up their counter-offensive. Now these batteries had been driven back to the river, and were unable to re-cross it, as all the bridges were out. In effect, the Russians had just made the same mistake as the Germans at Stalingrad, although not on the same scale. In their haste to drive us out, they had overextended their supply lines and underestimated the forces pitted against them. A hundred thousand Russians, of whom fifty thousand were killed, were caught for over a week in the Slaviansk-Kiniskov pocket. Of course, I didn’t know what had happened around Kharkov until months later. For me, the Donets battle, like the battles of the Don and of Outche  was a smoking chaos, a wellspring of continuous fear, alarm and rumor, and thousands of explosions.

Two days later, I managed to get to Trevda, which was some twenty-five miles from the front. Another fellow gave me his place in the D.K.W. he was supposed to drive, and I was able to visit Hals. I found him in a swarm of wounded men, singing at the top of his lungs. Spring had arrived at last, and the heavily wounded were cavorting between two avenues of wild pear trees.

“The Gross Deutschland” Spring, 1943-Summer, 1943

On a beautiful spring morning, we were assembled at Trevda, where Hals had spent such an enjoyable time. Two other companies joined us on a hillside covered with short, velvety grass-the kind which thrusts up so thickly that each blade seems to be fighting for space, and which becomes a tall savannah within a month. There were about nine hundred of us. A group of officers standing on the platform of a half destroyed truck addressed us from the top of the hill. About twenty flags and regimental pennants had been propped around the base of the truck. The speeches were very courteous. We were even congratulated for our attitude in the past-an attitude which made us feel ashamed whenever we heard any bulletins from the front. We stared at the officers with enormous eyes. They said that because of our attitude they were prepared to honor any one of us who might wish it by transferring him to a combat unit. About twenty men volunteered at once. The officers, recognizing our “timidity,” tried to put us at our ease, and went on talking in the same style. Certain heroic actions were described in detail. Fifteen more volunteers stepped out of the ranks, among them Lensen, who was clearly born for trouble. Next, the officers mentioned a fortnight’s leave, which produced at least three hundred volunteers

Then several lieutenants stepped down from the platform. They threaded their way through our ranks, selecting individual men and inviting them to take the three fateful steps forward, while a captain maintained the tone of eloquent pressure.

The men chosen were always among the largest, healthiest, and strongest. Suddenly, an index finger sheathed in black leather was pointing, like the barrel of a Mauser, into the ribs of my best friend, my war brother. As if hypnotized, Hals took three large steps, and the sound of his heels as he snapped them together was like a door slamming shut, a door which threatened to separate me-perhaps forever-from the only real friend I had ever made and from the friendship which was my only incentive for life in the midst of despair.

After a moment’s hesitation, I joined the group of volunteers without any further pressure. I looked confusedly at Hals, whose face was glowing like the face of a child who has just been given a delightful surprise, and who doesn’t know what to say. Henceforth, my identification would be Gefreiter Sajer, G. 100/1010 G4. Siebzehntes Bataillon, Leichtinfanterie Gross Deutschland Division, Sud, G.

In the evening, we went back to the squalid shelters we had already occupied. Nothing seemed to have changed. The fact that our names had been added to the infantry recruitment lists was the only difference between the life we had led yesterday as truck drivers and our new life as combat troops. We felt somewhat confused as to the attitude we should adopt, but our noncoms allowed us very little time for meditation. They kept us busy cleaning up, and restoring to good condition the weapons which had taken a beating during the last battle -a job which took several days. Everything seemed to have quieted down, although strong Soviet counter-thrusts had started several fires to the northeast, at Slaviansk. We were also used for the revolting chore of burying the thousands of men who had died in the battle for Kharkov.

Finally, one delicious spring morning, incongruous in that sad, ruined landscape, a muddy truck drove down the track to the new barracks we had moved into the day before. After a brisk half turn, it stopped about ten yards from the first building, where a group of men which included myself were busy removing a heap of gravel and small stones. The back flap of the truck was kicked open, and a plump little corporal jumped down and clicked his heels. Without saluting or saying a word, he rummaged in his right breast pocket, where all military instructions were supposed to be kept. He pulled out a sheet of paper which had been carefully folded four times, and read out a long list of names. As he read, he indicated with a wave of his hand that the men named should step to the right. There were about one hundred names on the list, among them Olensheim, Lensen, Hals, and Sajer. Feeling somewhat anxious, I joined the group on the right. The corporal told us we had three minutes to climb aboard the truck with our weapons and packs. Then he clicked his heels again, saluting this time, and turned his back without another word, striding off as if he were suddenly going for a walk.

“Welcome to the Gross Deutschland Division!” he shouted. “With us, you will experience a genuine soldier’s life, the only life which brings men close to each other on terms of absolute sincerity. Here, a sense of comradeship exists between each and every one of us, which might be put to the test at any moment. Any black sheep, anyone unsuited for comradeship, does not stay in this division. Everyone must be able to count on everyone else, without any qualification whatever. The slightest error on anyone’s part affects the whole section. We want no slackers and no strays: everyone must be prepared either to obey without question, or to give orders. Your officers will think for you. Your duty is to show yourselves worthy of them. You will now get yourselves some new clothes and throw away your stinking rags. Absolute cleanliness is the essential foundation for a decent frame of mind. We do not tolerate any sloppiness of appearance.” He took a deep breath, and then continued. “When these preliminaries have been accomplished, this group of volunteers will receive their passes for the fortnight’s leave which has been promised them. If there is no counter-order, these passes will become effective in five days, when the convoy leaves for Nedrigailov. “You may now proceed. Heil Hitler!”

We were sent on interminable marches. One day, we spent hours following the edge of a swamp, on the water side, while another section fired at us, forcing us to remain submerged up to our chins. During that particular game, everyone’s head was down in earnest. We were trained to hurl grenades, both offensive and defensive, on a carefully prepared piece of ground. We were given bayonet practice, and exercises to develop balance, in which one in five cracked his head, and tests of endurance which seemed to last forever. One of these, for instance, took place in an old conduit, which must have been used to supply several towns with gas. It was made of two elbows, and the fellows in the middle learned all about the horrors of claustrophobia. There were many thousands of similar tests. In addition there was the famous “harteiibung,” which was almost continuous. We were put on thirty-six hour shifts, which were broken by only three half-hour periods, during which we devoured the contents of our mess tins, before returning to the ranks in an obligatory clean and orderly condition. At the end of these thirty-six hours, we were allowed eight hours of rest. Then there was another thirty-six-hour period, after which everything began all over again. There were also false alarms, which tore us from our leaden sleep and forced us into the courtyard fully dressed and equipped, in record time, before we could return to our uncomfortable beds. Our first days were a time of martyrdom. No one had the right to talk. Sometimes a fellow would drop from exhaustion, which would place an extra charge on the section, obliging them to get the fellow onto his feet again, slapping him and spraying him with water.

Sometimes one of our comrades would return to camp so exhausted he could only stagger with the support of two other men. In principle, within five-hundred yards of the camp we were supposed to line up in order, fall into marching step, and sing, as if we were returning from a healthy and enjoyable hike. On some evenings, however, despite every curse in the book, and the threat of the disciplinary hut, we were so exhausted it was impossible for us to assume the attitude the feld required. To his chagrin and fury, he was obliged to drag a long line of sleepwalkers past the flag, before chasing us into our barracks, where we dropped onto our beds with all our clothes and equipment, our mouths bone dry and our heads aching. Nothing ever affected the routine at Camp F; Captain Fink simply carried on, in total disregard of our bleeding gums and pinched faces, until the stabbing pains in our heads made us forget the bleeding blisters on our feet. A cry for mercy would have brought no relief: any appeal was guaranteed an identical reception: “Auf marsch! Marsch!”

One day we were given anti-tank exercises-defensive and counterattack. As we had already been taught to dig foxholes in record time, we had no trouble opening a trench 150 yards long, 20 inches wide, and a yard deep. We were ordered into the trench in close ranks, and forbidden to leave it, no matter what happened. Then four or five Mark-3s rolled forward at right angles to us, and crossed the trench at different speeds. The weight of these machines alone made them sink four or five inches into the crumbling ground. When their monstrous treads ploughed into the rim of the trench only a few inches from our heads, cries of terror broke from almost all of us. Even today, I am fascinated by the sight of a bulldozer at work: its treads remind me of those terrifying moments. We were also taught how to handle the dangerous Panzerfaust, and how to attack tanks with magnetic mines. One had to hide in a hole and wait until the tank came close enough. Then one ran, and dropped an explosive device-unprimed during practice-between the body and the turret of the machine. We weren’t allowed to leave our holes until the tank was within five yards of us. Then, with the speed of desperation, we had to run straight at the terrifying monster, grab the tow hook and pull ourselves onto the hood, place the mine at the joint of the body and turret, and drop off the tank to the right, with a decisive rolling motion. Thank God, I myself never had to mine a tank coming straight at me. Lensen, who was promoted to ober, and then sergeant, partly because of his prowess in this exercise, gave us a demonstration which no suspense film could ever hope to equal. His assurance was partly responsible for his horrible end a year and a half later.

“GOOD MORNING GENTLEMEN.” His words sounded like stakes being driven into the earth. “I CAN SEE ON YOUR FACES THAT YOU’VE ALL BEEN ENJOYING YOUR LEAVES, AND I’M VERY GLAD TO SEE IT.” Even the birds seemed to have been stilled by the sound of that voice. “HOWEVER, TOMORROW YOU SHALL HAVE TO THINK OF THE WORK WHICH MUST ABSORB ALLOF US.” A dust-covered company had marched up to the gateway, but had stopped short, in order not to interrupt the captain’s speech. “TOMORROW A PERIOD OF TRAINING BEGINS FOR YOU, WHICH WILL TURN YOU INTO THE BEST FIGHTING MEN IN THE WORLD. FELDWEBEL,” he shouted in a voice which was even louder, “REVEILLE AT SUNRISE FOR THE NEW SECTION.” “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann.”

Toward the middle of July 1943, only a few days before the battle of Belgorod, the captain Kommandant of Camp F swore us into the infantry at an open-air ceremony. We dedicated ourselves to the Fuhrer in front of a stand, made of branches and decorated with flags, which held the officers of the camp. One by one, we marched alone, in parade step, to the level of the stand, made a quarter-turn, and marched toward it. When we had reached the stipulated distance-about seven or eight yards-we snapped to attention, and declared in a loud, clear voice: “I swear to serve Germany and the Fuhrer until victory or death.” 

Then-a miracle. Fink produced a glass of excellent wine for each of us, and lifted his own glass along with ours, to a chorus of “Sieg Heils.” Then he walked through our ranks, shaking each of us by the hand, thanking us, and declaring himself equally pleased with us and with himself. He said that he felt well satisfied that he was sending a good group of soldiers to the division. I really don’t know whether we were good soldiers or not, but we had assuredly been through the mill. We had all lost pounds, which was evident in our sunken eyes and lined faces. But all that had been foreseen. Before we left the camp, we were given two days of complete rest, which we used to maximum advantage. It seems scarcely credible that by the time we left we all nourished a certain admiration for the Herr Hauptmann. Everyone, in fact, dreamed of someday becoming an officer of the same stripe.

On a hot evening in the summer of 1943, we found ourselves once again in the immediate vicinity of the front. Belgorod had recently been retaken by the Russians, who had set up their advance positions just beyond the town, inside our own lines. The front, which ran through Belgorod, from Kharkov to Kursk, was more or less quiet. The campaign, which had continued almost without a break since our withdrawal from the Belgorod-Voronezh-Kursk triangle, had been exhausting. The Russians were now catching their breath and collecting their innumerable dead, before launching an even stronger attack against our positions in September. Kharkov had remained in our hands after the slaughter at Slaviansk, and the Russian breakthrough on our Southern Front had finally been stopped somewhere near Kremenchug.

The Soviets had regained some of their strength, and had forced the German and Rumanian troops to withdraw from the Caucasus and the Kalmuck plain. They had also pushed us back from the Donets. However, the situation was not yet entirely in their hands, and strong counter-attacks from our side often broke their frantic thrust. Belgorod, Kharkov, and Stalino all figure prominently in any account of German counter-attacks. Sixty thousand troops took part in the battle of Belgorod. I was one of them.

Eighteen thousand Hitlerjugend had also arrived from Silesian camps to receive their baptism of fire in this unequal combat, in which a third of them lost their lives. I can remember their arrival very well, in brisk columns, ready for anything. Some units carried flags with inscriptions embroidered in gold letters: JUNGE LOWEN, or THE WORLD BELONGS TO US. Platoons of machine gunners arrived, and infantry regiments loaded with bandoliers stuffed with grenades, and motorized regiments with all their heavy equipment. The plain was covered with soldiers, and for the next three or four days more and more came …

Then everything quieted down. By regiment, section, and group we were all directed to precise locations, where we settled down to an armed watch. Once again, I speak as though we knew of the impending attack. In fact, we engaged in these preparations as part of the normal routine.

Then, one afternoon, we were assembled for distribution of ammunition. Each man was given 120 cartridges and four grenades. Ten of us-nine men and a noncom-were organized as an assault group. Hals was a machine gunner, one of two men with F. M. spandaus, each with a number-two man. There were three men with rifles, one of them me, two grenadiers armed with automatics and heavy bags of grenades, and a noncom. In total silence, and with every possible precaution, we were led to a shelter near a large farm, right behind the front line. An armored section of the Gross Deutschland was next to us, with Tiger tanks and heavy howitzers pulled by tractors and camouflaged by real and artificial leaves. We walked past a table set up near one of the buildings, and a fat clerk took down our identification numbers. At another table, a lieutenant in the cavalry was studying a map, surrounded by other Panzer officers and a couple of noncoms. With painstaking precision we were taken from the farm to the place marked for us on the map. Suddenly, at the edge of some woods, I recognized the wide communication trenches which led to the front line, and I think we all had the same thought: now we’re in for it. All around us, other groups were taking up their positions.

We stood and stared at each other for a long time. Now we knew. We were going to be part of a full scale attack. A heavy sense of foreboding settled over us, and the knowledge that soon some of us would be dead was stamped on every face. Even a victorious army suffers dead and wounded: the Fuhrer himself had said it. In fact, none of us could imagine his own death. Some would be killed-we all knew that-but each one imagined himself doing the burying. No one, despite the obvious danger, could think of himself lying mortally wounded. That was something which happened to other people-thousands of them but never to oneself. Everyone clung to this idea, despite fear and doubt. Even the Hitlerjugend, who spent years cultivating the idea of sacrifice, couldn’t consciously envisage their own ends occurring within a few hours. One might be exalted by a grand idea based on a structure of logic, and even be prepared to run large risks, but to believe in the worst is impossible.

By the evening of the third day of continuous battle, during which we had only been able to snatch an occasional half hour of sleep, we were seized by the furious strength of madmen. Our group had lost both the Czech and the sergeant, and as they lay either dead or wounded among the ruins, two grenadiers who had lost their units joined us. We were now split into three groups-including the 11th, in which Olensheim was still alive, and the 17th, which had rejoined us-jointly commanded by a lieutenant. We had been ordered to reduce the pockets of resistance in the ashes of a suburb called Deptreoka, if I remember correctly-enclaves which continued to defend themselves, although they had been left behind by the retreating Soviet forces

Then there was the bread house, so called because after the massacre we found a few wretched biscuits there, which we devoured, hoping to extract some return for the horrors which the war forced upon us. We were mad with harassment and exhaustion, running on our nerves, which were stretched to the utmost, and which alone made it possible to respond to the endless succession of crises and alerts. We were forbidden to take prisoners until our return trip. We knew that the Russians didn’t take any, and although we longed for sleep we knew that we had to stay awake as long as there were any Bolsheviks in our sector. It was either them or us-which is why my friend Hals and I threw grenades into the bread house, at some Russians who were trying to wave a white flag.

When we reached the end of our sweep, we collapsed at the bottom of a large crater, and stared at each other for a long time in dazed silence. None of us could speak. Our uniforms were unbuttoned, torn, and so permeated with dust they were the color of the ground. The air still roared and shook and smelled of burning. Four more of our men had been killed, and we were dragging along five or six wounded, one of them Olensheim. There were about twenty of us huddled in that huge hole, trying to put our thoughts into some kind of order.

But our stupefied eyes continued to wander vacantly over the burned landscape, and our heads remained empty. The radio announced that our Belgorod offensive had been crowned with success, and marked the beginning of our further progress eastward. By the fourth or fifth evening, we had gone through Belgorod without even knowing it. Our assault troops were catching their breath, and numberless ranks of infantry were sleeping on the great battered plain. We were soon loaded onto a truck and driven to a key position.

I didn’t understand why the ruined hamlet where we were put down was considered strategic, but grasped that this was one of the places from which the next phase of our offensive would be launched. The gently rolling landscape of fat-bellied orchards and willow-bordered streams and irrigation canals reminded me somehow of Normandy; it was occupied either by lines of defense or by rallying points for our assault troops

On that magnificent summer afternoon, German tanks were once again leaving the shade and driving toward the east. From behind them, entire regiments, bent double, passed us and vanished into a wall of dust, which hid them from view. About five minutes later, the Russians began a bombardment of unprecedented ferocity. Everything became opaque, and the sun vanished from our eyes, which had become enormous with fright. The storm cloud of dust was relieved only by continuous red flashes shooting up against the darker masses of trees eighty or a hundred yards away. The earth shook harder than I’d yet felt it do, and the brush behind us burst into flame. Screams of fear froze in our constricted throats. Everything seemed displaced. The air all around us was filled with flying clods, mixed with fragments of metal and fire. Kraus and one of the newcomers were buried in a landslide before they even knew what had happened to them. I threw myself into the deepest corner of our hole, and stared uncomprehendingly at the stream of earth flooding towards our shelter. I began to howl like a madman. Hals pressed his filthy head against mine, and our helmets clattered together like two mess tins. Hals’s face was transfigured by terror. “It’s … the … end,” he gasped, his words broken up by the explosions, which took away our breath. Overwhelmed by horror, I could only agree.

Although my left arm had almost been broken when the gang of panic-stricken soldiers jumped into the trench on top of us, I had felt nothing at the time. Now, it was beginning to cause me violent pain, which hovered beside me like a supplementary presence; but I was too busy to pay much attention to it. The bombardment was continuing to the north and to the south, and then passed over us once again, intensifying and spreading its complement of pain and terror. Our group of stupefied men could breathe only with difficulty, like an invalid who gets up after a long illness to find he has lost both strength and wind. We were all unable to speak: there was nothing to say then about the hours we had just lived through, and there is no way of describing them now with the vehemence and force they require. Nothing remains for those who have survived such an experience but a sense of uncontrollable imbalance, and a sharp, sordid anguish which reaches across the years un-blunted and undiminished, even for someone like me, who is attempting to translate it into words, although a precise and appropriate vocabulary remains elusive.

Night fell before we realized day had ended, and with darkness our terror returned. Lindberg, whose nervous condition was alarming, had collapsed into a kind of stupor which, for the moment, made him oblivious of hell. The Sudeten was almost as badly affected. He had begun to tremble, like someone in a fit, and to vomit uncontrollably. Madness had invaded our group, and was gaining ground rapidly.

I remained in my stupor for a long time, while the explosions continued to compress my lungs. Some men stood in one position for hours, asleep on their feet with their eyes wide open. Finally, toward midnight, everything fell silent. However, no one moved. We all felt so weakened that movement was beyond the limit of possibility. Finally the veteran was able to make us pay attention: “Don’t go to sleep, boys-this is when Ivan will attack.”

We realized that in a short time we would again be on the front line. The battle was drawing continuously closer, with its rumbling explosions and loud bursts of sound, and we felt ourselves gripped once again by the essential, inescapable anguish of the front. The counterattacks of the regiments whose positions we had crossed had been swamped, like our tanks, by the irresistible Soviet flood, for whom the most enormous losses seemed immaterial.

We had become five pairs of terrified eyes staring into the murky brilliance of the orchard, which was lit by thousands of dazzling, quick-burning fires. The German lines had already been attacked three times by Soviet troops, and three times had repulsed them with extraordinary effort and bravery. Between the assaults the big Russian guns pounded our troops and our artillery, which kept on shelling the enemy as long as it could. For five hours already, our laughter had been stilled, as “Stalin’s organs” hammered at our positions, killing many of our defending troops. The rest were either killed or driven mad by bombs. A few, like our group, who had been lucky enough to dig in solidly, went on firing haphazardly with what they had left. Our ceiling had finally caved in, and the hole in the roof acted like a chimney to let the smoke escape. The tall, thin boy with dysentery had taken Hals’s place at the spandau for a few moments. A bullet or fragment of shrapnel had grazed Hal’s forehead just below the visor of his helmet, and he was lying down beside three dying men who had been brought into our shelter to spend their last moments in relative tranquility.

Then Hals’s gun jammed, and only the veteran was left firing, stiff with exhaustion, helped by Cancan, the Sudeten, and me. We felt a crushing sense of despair when Russian rockets erected a wall of white fire over our mortar trench. The geschnauz had been dismantled, and the anti-tank gunners had given up long since. Only a few spandaus supported by light infantry guns prevented the howling mob from taking the village. We were threatened with being overrun or surrounded any minute.

“I guess we’ll have to die now,” said the veteran. “Too bad for us, but I don’t see any other solution.” From time to time, in the light of the flares, we could see the nest of machine gunners in front of us, heroically fighting on.

The Russians pressed their attack, bringing on their tanks as soon as it began to grow light, and death to anyone who remained upright. A shell destroyed what was left of our shelter, and sent us all rolling along the floor. Our cries of distress were mingled with the screams of the two machine gunners and then the shouts of revenge from the Russian tank crew as it drove over the hole, grinding the remains of the two gunners into that hateful soil. Hals stood for a moment, fascinated by the spectacle. He was the only one of us who had remained on his feet, and the only one who could see what was happening. He told us later that the treads worked over the hole for a long time, and that as they manipulated their machine the Russian crew kept shouting, “Kaputt, soldat Germanski! Kaputt!”

We managed to get out about ten minutes before the Russians arrived. There was no longer any question in our minds: the rest of our forces had abandoned us. God knows how we managed to drag ourselves through the dead and the chaos and the lights of the flares. Our heads were filled with the sound of continuous explosions; it was impossible even to imagine silence. Hals was walking behind me, his hands red with blood from a wound in his neck. Lindberg, who had finally fallen silent, was staggering just ahead of us. The veteran was a short way back, shouting imprecations against the war, our artillery, and the Russians. The fat lunatic was beside me, letting off an endless stream of incomprehensible muttering. As the noise of battle grew louder, and the sky brighter, we forced ourselves into a run.

“We’re finished, Sajer,” Hals shouted. “We’re not going to make it.” I began to tremble and to cry with fright. My head hurt almost beyond bearing, aching with the noise of explosions and fusillades. We kept falling, standing up again, and running on, like automatons. Suddenly, Cancan cried out. I turned my head to look at him through my exhausted eyes, and it seemed as if I were dreaming. I looked at him without feeling, as I moved one foot in front of the other mechanically and with difficulty.

“Don’t let me fall,” said Cancan imploringly. His hands were clutching his belly, holding in something foul, like the offal on the floors of slaughterhouses. “How can you go on like that?” I asked him, only half aware of what I was saying. Suddenly he cried out again, and doubled over onto himself. “Come on,” said the Sudeten in a thick voice like a drunkard’s. “There’s nothing we can do for him.”

We staggered on like sleepwalkers. We heard the sound of an engine behind us, and turned to see what new danger might be threatening. A dark shape was jolting rapidly toward us with all its lights extinguished. We summoned up what was left of our energy, and tried to scatter. The half-track, which was almost on top of us, gleamed with dull reflections of the blazing explosions all around it. “Climb aboard, friends,” shouted a kindly soul.

We stumbled toward the vehicle, which turned out to be the one that had moved the geschnauz into position above our cellar in the hamlet. Three fellows who had also been in the hamlet had managed to get it started. We pulled ourselves onto the narrow platform, which was almost totally occupied by the heavy, dismantled gun, and the engine started up again, carrying us across a heavily rutted piece of ground which must have been the site of several gun emplacements. The soldiers standing beside piles of empty ammunition boxes waved to us as we passed, their faces drawn with exhaustion.

“Clear out!” our driver shouted to them. “Ivan is almost here!” One of the artillery tractors was blazing brightly. Perhaps its flames dazzled our driver. In any case, we plunged nose first into a deep crater, and everyone was thrown out. I think I went through the windshield. I felt a stabbing pain in my shoulder, which was already sore, and found myself doubled over against one of the front wheels of the machine. “God damn!” someone said. “What are you doing to us?” “Shut up!” shouted the driver. “I think I’ve broken my knee.” I stood up, gripping my shoulder. My left arm seemed to be paralyzed. “Your face is covered with blood,” said the Sudeten, looking at me. “Only my shoulder hurts, though.”

I saw Hals lying on the ground. Already wounded, he had been thrown a considerable distance, and was either unconscious or dead. I shook him and called him, and he lifted one of his hands to his neck. Thank God he wasn’t dead. Somebody tried to drive our machine out of the hole, but its wheels only dug into the ground and spun helplessly. We walked on to the next artillery position, where the fellows were just pulling up stakes. They loaded us onto trucks along with their gear, and we left in search of a quieter spot.

The orderly moved my left arm back and forth, and I screamed. The major nodded, and the orderly pinned a white slip of paper to my tunic. He did the same to Hals and to the driver, and then helped the driver into an ambulance which was already nearly full. Hals and I remained on the ground. Toward noon, two more orderlies came back to deal with the men like us, who’d been left to wait. They tried to help me to my feet. “That’s all right,” I said. “I can walk. It’s my shoulder that hurts.” The orderlies lined up everybody who could walk, and sent us to the canteen.

The pain of undressing nearly made me faint. Two fellows helped me, and my swollen, battered shoulder was bared. We were each given an injection in the thigh. Then the orderlies washed our wounds with ether, and stuck plaster on anyone who needed it. Beside the door they were sewing up a fellow who had a huge rip down his back, and who screamed as the instruments bit into his flesh. Two of them came over and grabbed hold of my shoulder. I howled and cursed, but they paid no attention. With a cracking sound which sent spasms of pain right down to my toes, they pulled my dislocated arm back into place, and moved on to the next case.

I found Hals outside. They had just stuck a gauze bandage onto his neck with a long strip of tape. My friend had been wounded by a metal fragment three inches below the first wound he had received at Kharkov. “Next time, they’ll get me in the head,” he said. A short distance along, we found the veteran, the Sudeten, Lindberg, and the grenadier asleep and snoring on the grass. We lay down beside them, and were very quickly asleep too. And that was the end of the battle for Belgorod. The German offensive had lost all the ground it had taken at such cost during those ten days, and even more. A third of the forces engaged in the fighting had been killed, including many of the Hitlerjugend.

There is no sepulcher for the Germans killed in Russia. One day some a Russian peasant will turn over their remains and plough them under with his fertilizer, and sow his furrow with sunflower seeds.

The Retreat Autumn, 1943 The New Front

In September, Kharkov was retaken by the Soviets. The entire south and central front was seriously shaken, with several major breakthroughs which the enemy poured their tanks, jeopardizing our whole system of defense. A general withdrawal began, during which the Russians often managed to surround entire divisions. Our unit had been re-equipped with new weapons and rapid motor vehicles, and was used to check enemy penetration behind our lines, often achieving prodigies which were cited in the orders of the day. Wherever the Gross Deutschland appeared, our troops took heart and routed the enemy-or so it seemed. Of course, the general difficulties of our situation-our encirclement, and the despair of troops forced to abandon their weapons in a sea of mud were never mentioned.

Captain Wesreidau often helped us to endure the worst. He was always on good terms with his men, and was never one of those officers who are so impressed by their own rank that they treat ordinary soldiers like valueless pawns to be used without scruple. He stood beside us during countless gray watches, and came into our bunkers to talk with us, and make us forget the howling storm outside. I can still see his thin face, faintly lit by a wavering lamp, leaning over, beside one of ours.

“This is where we are now risking everything. We are trying, taking due account of the attitudes of society, to change the face of the world, hoping to revive the ancient virtues buried under the layers of filth bequeathed to us by our forebears. We can expect no reward for this effort. We are loathed everywhere: if we should lose tomorrow those of us still alive after so much suffering will be judged without justice. We shall be accused of an infinity of murder, as if everywhere, and at all times, men at war did not behave in the same way. Those who have an interest in putting an end to our ideals will ridicule everything we believe in. We shall be spared nothing. Even the tombs of our heroes will be destroyed, only preserving-as a gesture of respect toward the dead-a few which contain figures of doubtful heroism, who were never fully committed to our cause. With our deaths, all the prodigies of heroism which our daily circumstances bring and the memory of our comrades, dead and alive, and our communion of spirits, our fears and our hopes, will vanish, and our history will never be told. Future generations will speak only of an idiotic, unqualified sacrifice. Whether you wanted it or not, you are now part of this undertaking, and nothing which follows can equal the efforts you have made, if you must sleep tomorrow under the quieter skies of the opposite camp. In that case, you will never be forgiven for having survived. You will either be rejected or preserved like a rare animal which has escaped a cataclysm. With other men, you will be as cats are to dogs and you will never have any real friends.”

We had three good weeks of rest behind our lines, in a village of dreary, identical shacks. Luckily, the weather was magnificent. All went well until one morning toward the end of September, when the distant rumble of guns reminded us that we had not come to Russia to play. In fact, the Russians had just broken through the front which our troops had managed to re-establish west of Belgorod, and our grand debacle was beginning. Our generals, who believed that our troops could, if not attack, at least hold the reconstituted front, noticed somewhat belatedly that our regiments were being decimated simply to slow down the irresistible momentum of the strong Russian forces which were attacking all along the central sector.

The front-line troops, in constant contact with an ever more pressing enemy, had already made up their minds about the future. Even the most hermetically sealed of our men understood that no matter how many hundreds of Russians he killed, or how bravely he fought, the next day hundreds more would appear, and so on for the next day and the day after that. And even the blindest saw that the Russian soldiers were moved by a blind heroism and boldness, so that even a mountain of dead compatriots wouldn’t stop them. We knew that under such circumstances combat often favors simple numerical superiority, and much of the time we felt desperate.

We knew that we would almost surely be killed, buying time for a large-scale redeployment of troops. We knew that our sacrifice was in a good cause, and if our courage incited us to hours of resignation, the hours and days which followed would find us with dry eyes which were filled with an immense sadness. Then we would fire in a lunatic frenzy, without mercy. We didn’t wish to die, and would kill and massacre as if to avenge ourselves in advance for what we knew was going to happen. When we died, it was with fury, because we hadn’t been able to exact enough retribution. And, if we survived, it was as madmen, never able to readapt to the peacetime world. Sometimes, we would try to run away; but orders, adroitly worded and spaced, soothed us like shots of morphine. “On the Dnieper,” we were told, “everything will be easier. Ivan won’t be able to force the barrage. So courage, and do your best to hold him off, if you want everyone to get through. The Russian counter-offensive will be crushed on the Dnieper, and then we’ll resume our push to the east.”

Our company moved out at dawn, heading west. During the day we watched an aerial combat which revived – for Grauer and me – all our old feelings about the Luftwaffe. Our ME-109s had the upper hand, and seven or eight Yabos fell from the sky in whirling flames, like enlarged fireworks. Toward noon, we reached an important divisional base. Thirty companies, including ours, were regrouped to form a large motorized armored section.

For the first time, we were given over-garments of reversible cloth: white on one side and ordinary camouflage on the other. We were also given medical checkups, which we hadn’t expected, and drew a large quantity of supplies. A Panzer colonel commanded our group, which was classified as “autonomous.” We were surprised by the quantity of new supplies for our armored section. Everywhere, drivers and mechanics were giving their machines a final look over, and reving the enormous tank engines. Tiger tanks on Porsche bodies roared as their engines began to turn over. From the sound of it, we could have been at the start of a giant motor race. We waited about two hours for the order to leave. Hals, Grauer, several other friends, and I were loaded onto a brand-new truck, which had tires in front and treads at the back. We drove as far as some woods on the edge of an airfield. Everything was perfect, except for the whirlwind of dust raised by our passage. The new vehicles had all been fitted with huge filters against this hazard; some of the filters were so big it was impossible to shut the hoods of the trucks or put back all of the heavy metal plating which protected the tank engines.

We were a powerful, well-organized unit. Our two groups together included six or seven thousand men, about a hundred tanks, an equal number of machine-gun carriers, and several mobile machine shops. There were also three companies of light cavalry, equipped with sidecars, who were supposed to seek out the enemy and guide the unit to him. During this period, which was already very critical for the army, materiel was concentrated in motorized units, which in turn were supposed to support selected under equipped infantry divisions. It is certain that the abundance of impeccable, well-conceived new materiel showered upon us at this time gave our morale, which had been faltering seriously since Belgorod, a much needed lift. Soldiers once more walked about with the assured air of men who feel that everything is going well.

All our available resources were placed at the disposition of certain units which were then reorganized from top to bottom and sent out to deal with particular desperate situations. This is what happened to our group, giving us the impression, for a couple of weeks, that we once again controlled the steppe. Our principal difficulty, which was clear to us even then, was the question of supply, as we always reached the prearranged sectors too late. At dawn, when our Panzergruppe stopped, both men and machines were gray with dust. As planned, we had reached a vast forest, which stretched right across the eastern horizon. We were allowed two hours to rest and put them to immediate use, as the jolting of the trucks had been exhausting; but we were wakened again before we had really slept. The weather was perfect, with a soft, almost cool breeze rustling the autumn leaves, and this perfection made everything seem easier. We jumped on board again, wreathed in smiles. Toward noon the dispatch riders, who were always quite far ahead of us, rejoined the front of the column. Brief orders were issued, and shortly afterward a large part of our group turned off for a village which was soon in sight. We could hear the sound of automatic weapons, and before we quite realized what was happening, about fifteen Tiger tanks were firing at a small cluster of houses.

On the second day we reached Konotop, in a dense swarm of troops looking for transport. Our group moved to the southwest to meet a strong Russian army. We had been supplied in town under the horrified eyes of the Commissariat officers, who had to give us the gas they had been saving for their own personal use. Twenty minutes later, we were in contact with advanced Russian elements, which surprised us. In town, our soldiers were busy with odd jobs, like repairing bicycles. Our tanks were briefly engaged, and then withdrew on orders.

Two violet German flares shot into the sky. We knew that this was the signal to advance. After a moment of surprise and hesitation, we began to crawl forward, taking every precaution. A few men stood up, and advanced bent double. Most of the Russian rockets had already landed, and we took advantage of the lull to make a leap forward. I reached a small hollow edged with low scrub. A moment later, two companions caught up with me, and the sound of their quick, loud breathing betrayed the nervous tension knotting their throats. There is nothing more terrifying than moving at night through a piece of wooded or bushy country, in which every shrub might release a sudden flash of white light to dazzle and blind -a moment before the intense pain which could mean the end of life. There was no way of keeping our progress silent, and for an invisible Russian waiting with his finger on the trigger any moment might present an ideal opportunity.

We could hear guns to the northwest; our advance troops must have made contact with the enemy. We were ordered to move out. Half an hour later, we climbed down from the trucks again. The feld’s whistle was blowing for combat readiness. Fighting was in progress about half a mile, away, in a small village built round a factory. Wesreidau quickly explained that we had to neutralize a large enemy force which was holding the place. Two companies had been detached for the job; the rest of the group would keep moving.

With our guns slung, we walked toward the village, while our tractors pulled our rocket launchers and anti-tank guns into firing position. Almost immediately, the Russians, who were watching from their trenches, showered us with a rain of shells. If their aim had been more precise, it would have been the end of us. As it was, their only effect was to make everyone run for cover. Our two companies spread out and partly surrounded the fortified point. Then we had about ten minutes of quiet while our captain, sheltered behind a pile of stones, discussed the forthcoming action with his subordinates. The noncoms rejoined us and told us what positions we should try to reach. We scanned our surroundings as they talked, observing with our combat sense, which by now was quite well developed, every fold and hollow which might offer some shelter. Everything was quiet, and the. instructions seemed ludicrously easy.

Our men reached the first houses. The Russians remained silent and invisible. I had just joined my group, which included Hals, the dear friend who so often saved me from feeling completely lost. His innocent, good-natured face smiled at me from the crowd, and I smiled back. We exchanged a look which said a great deal more than many long conversations do. The war seemed quite different to us now that we had an aerial escort. Our terrible memories of the Don, and the retreat from Belgorod belonged to the past, and to bad times which wouldn’t come back. Of course, we knew that the war wasn’t over, but for the last week we had been making the enemy run.

The Russians had not evacuated the village, and we would have to take the civilian population into account. Wesreidau, who had just realized this, installed a loudspeaker on a half-track, which drove between the rows of houses waving a white rag fastened to a pole. The loudspeaker crackled out some nasal Russian words, while the four men on the half-track looked desperately at their comrades, who had remained in shelter. The loudspeaker must have been giving the Russians a chance to evacuate civilians or to lay down their arms. But the half-track had gone less than a hundred yards when the irreparable occurred. It suddenly seemed to fly upward, as a series of deafening explosions rang out, and five or six huts disintegrated. The truck had driven over a minefield.

The Russians reacted, using at least two batteries of heavy howitzers. Every shell landing within 150 yards of us made the ground shake under our feet, and sucked the air from our lungs. Despite the almost certain presence of mines, the assault whistles blew. Everyone left shelter and ran for the nearest embankment. Our mortars pounded the ground some thirty yards ahead of us, to disrupt the arrangement of mines, and if possible explode some of them. The Russians, with multi-barreled machine guns set up on trucks, poured a devastating fire on everything they could see. What had seemed so simple only fifteen minutes earlier now looked impossibly difficult, and suddenly no one felt confident. There were five of us hiding in the rubble of the brick works, and our faces, pressed into the ground, knocked against the dirt with every explosion. From another heap of shattered bricks, a noncom was shouting at the top of his lungs to fire at anything we could see. One at a time we risked looking out, but the whine of shells made even the boldest duck down immediately.

Only our mortars and rocket launchers kept on firing steadily and profusely at an enemy who, for the moment, had the upper hand. In the distance, the metallic factory tower we had noticed when we arrived was proving curiously resistant to our Pak shells, which must have passed right through it at several points. Once again, we had to jump to a more advanced position. Some men were shouting to give themselves courage. Others, like me, ground their teeth, and clenched their sweaty hands on their guns, less from emotion than from a reflex akin to that of a drowning man hanging on to a rope. Accompanied by deep or shrill sounds, and brilliant or fading light, the earth flew up all around us, sometimes engulfing pathetic human figures dressed as soldiers. About thirty yards away, on our left, five of our men who had hidden behind a small wooden building, like a blacksmith’s shed, fell, one after the other. The last two had no idea where to run, and looked frantically for the enemy who would presently knock them off too. Finally, they threw themselves down among the bodies of their companions. A thick stream of blood ran out from the tangled mass of limbs and trunks and sank into the gray dust, which absorbed it like blotting paper.

Suddenly, to our left, a raging fire broke out in a cluster of four or five sheds. Its smoke and heat climbed into the sky, and a huge sheet of flame quivered and grew with astounding speed, giving off giant wreaths of black smoke and intense heat, which we could feel even where we were. Our men surged back rapidly from that quarter. The metal roofs of the sheds buckled in the heat, and the isbas closest to the fire burst into flame. A horde of Russians-both civilian and military-ran from the burning buildings; our soldiers shot them down like rabbits. One of our shells must have hit a gasoline dump. The resulting inferno routed the panic-stricken enemy, who paid dearly for having concentrated so many men beside such a volcano. Their men rushed through the confusion with their hands in the air, occasionally remembering the way to other Russian entrenchments.

Our big guns pulverized the top end of the village, where the Russian artillery had dug in. In the general flight, the few wretched hovels which had not been burned fell, one by one, into our young, criminal hands. We ran full speed over ground which might have been mined; nothing could stop us. Nothing stopped my good friend Hals from jumping across a stable threshold and shooting the Russian gunners who were desperately trying to fire their jammed weapon. Nothing could stop the glorious 8th and 14th companies of German infantry. As the communiqués later observed: “With an irresistible thrust, our valiant troops retook the town of X this morning… .” Nothing could stop our demoniac assault, not even the rending cries of obergefreiter Woortenbeck, who clenched his trembling hands on an iron grille and stiffened himself against the death which flooded from the bloody pulp which had once held his entrails.

Immediately, we heard the sound of Russian automatic weapons. Before vanishing to the bottom of my hole I saw the impact of the bullets raising little fountains of dust all along the route of my recent companion, who would never again contemplate the implications of number three. The noise of guns and grenades was deafening and almost drowned the cries of the fellows who’d been hit. “Achtung! Nummer zwei, voraus!” The veteran and his spandau ran up in turn. Next, it was going to be me, along with everybody else who’d counted “one.” While everything outside was flashing and exploding, I thought for a moment about numbers. Usually, people begin counting with “one.” Why had they started with “three” this time? But I could only pose the question. Before there was time to consider it, my turn had come. “Nummer eins, nachgehen, los!”

After a moment of hesitation, I sprang from my shelter like a jack-in-the-box, into madness. Everything looked gray, through a thick fog of whirling, choking dust, except for the glimmering flashes of light. In a few jumps I had reached the foundation of a shattered hut where a German soldier had died staring at the open breech of his machine gun. It’s strange how often human beings die without any kind of style. Two years before I had seen a woman run over by a milk truck, and had nearly fainted at the sight of her mangled body. Now, after two years in Russia, visible death meant nothing at all, and the tragic element of even the best murder novels seemed petty and frivolous. With my watering eyes, I stared through the smoke, trying to see the enemy and do my duty. About twenty-five yards away some trucks exploded into little fragments, one after the other, engulfing four or five running soldiers. Were the men German or Russian? I couldn’t tell. I was with two companions in an open shelter made of logs packed with dirt, which the Russians had built to take a machine gun. We were more or less sitting on the mangled bodies of the four Popovs who’d been killed by grenades. “I did that bunch in, with one shot,” shouted a strong young soldier from the Gross Deutschland.

A burst of mortar fire forced us down into the heap of enemy corpses. A shell hit the edge of the bunker, and the earth and logs blew apart, falling back onto our heads. The fellow huddled between me and a dead Russian was hit. As his body jerked up from the impact, I tensed myself to run. Another shell struck the shelter, disintegrating it. The debris poured down onto my legs and sent me reeling back against the opposite wall. I howled for help, sure that my legs were broken, and afraid to move. My trousers were ripped down the leg, but the bruised skin underneath was unbroken, although I could trace the red-violet passage of the blow I’d taken. I plunged back into the heap of Russian corpses, falling onto the fellow who’d been hit a moment before. He let out a howl. We lay side by side, with our heads touching, as an avalanche of rubble poured down all around us.

“I’m wounded,” he groaned. “Something is burning in my back. Call for a stretcher.” I looked at him, and dazedly shouted: “Sanftentrager!” But my ludicrous cries were lost in the deafening uproar of two spandaus firing quite near us. The big fellow from the Gross Deutschland was shouting at us to advance, as loud as he could: “Come on, fellows! Some of our boys are already at the water tank.” I looked at the wounded man, who was staring at me with desperate, imploring eyes and clutching my sleeve. I didn’t know how to tell him that there was nothing I could do for him just then. The big soldier had jumped out of the shelter. I pulled myself brutally away, and turned my head. The wounded man called again, but I had already jumped from the shelter and was running like a madman after the other fellow, who was nearly fifteen yards ahead of me.

I joined another group who were hurriedly setting up two trench mortars, and helped them maneuver the tubes into position. Instantly our mortar bombs were shooting almost straight up. A landser, whose face was pouring blood, shouted that the Russians had withdrawn to the central tower. The veteran, whom I hadn’t noticed before, let out a savage howl: “Got ‘em!” As he shouted, a white flash lit his face, which was covered with an incredible layer of dust, and a geyser of flame enveloped the tower. The Russian defense crumbled and fell under the impact of our concentrated fire. Our assault groups moved in and cleaned up the last resistance. Another German soldier fell, clutching his face, and then it was all over, except for a few widely scattered shots. I and my companions ran into the ruins of what had once been a factory but was now reduced to rubble beyond classification. Once again, we were victorious; but the victory gave us no joy. Stupefied by the noise and the nervous tension, we wandered among the twisted, collapsed metal roofs. A landser with a face drawn by exhaustion mechanically picked up an enameled plaque which had something written on it in Cyrillic characters, perhaps a direction, or the word for “toilet.”

The town had fallen to us. There were about three hundred prisoners, in addition to two hundred enemy dead or wounded. The noncoms regrouped us, and led us back through the smoking devastation of the village. Herr Hauptmann Wesreidau reviewed his two companies, and called roll. About sixty men were missing. We collected the wounded, and regrouped them to wait for our three orderlies to give them first aid. There were about fifteen wounded men, including Holen Grauer, whose right eye was gone.

We all looked back at the town, from which a thick cloud of smoke was climbing, and spreading out to the horizon. The dark gray sky was threatening rain, which would soon fall on the graves of forty German soldiers sacrificed to neutralize a single point of enemy resistance, which we weren’t even interested in holding. We moved on to another operation, not as part of any design to conquer, but simply as part of an attempt to protect our vast withdrawal of troops to the west bank of the Dnieper. No one smiled. We knew that our victory couldn’t make any difference to the outcome of the war, and only hoped that it might have some strategic interest. The experience of the battle itself had been as always-more fear and, for some, like my friend Grauer, irreparable mutilation.

THE BREAKTHROUGH AT KONOTOP

We drove for an hour-which meant about thirty miles-before it grew dark. We were all anxious to stop so that we could get rid of the thick, choking dust which coated us from head to foot. We were also exhausted and longing for sleep. Although a good bed in a warm barracks would have been paradise, any place where we could have stretched out and lost consciousness would have done, and we knew that when we did stop we would collapse onto the ground, and sink immediately into blackness.

We had been hoping for a refuge where we could spend the night. Instead, we were faced with the anguish of a fresh hell, and a fresh uncertainty of survival, as war tightened its viselike grip once again around our throbbing temples. The young face of the blond boy who had played the harmonica a short time before hardened suddenly into the face of a man. Was it exhaustion, or did he simply want to get it over with? In the space of a few moments, he suddenly aged twenty years. We arrived at the town, which was black and deserted. Intermittent flashes from the battle being fought somewhere to the west of us, through the outer fringes of the town, lit the darkness. The thunder of explosions filled the air, shattering window panes and breaking off the gutters of the houses all around us.

What happened that night at Konotop? I only know that there were explosions and fire and houses collapsing down the length of dark, indefinable back streets. There was a gutter full of running water, and there were my hard, heavy boots, which I scarcely had the strength to lift, and my big bony feet inside them, which felt as if they were growing smaller and smaller, and the heat of my throbbing temples, which had begun to burn with fever, and the crushing fatigue which had settled around my thin shoulders, trapped in the filth of my undershirt and waterlogged tunic, and the tangle of leather straps and cartridge belts, heavy with ammunition, and the incomprehensible, hostile world, whose weight we still had to bear, where we still had to march and crawl and tremble… .

Toward morning, which dawned as pale as the last morning of a condemned man, I was overwhelmed by a crushing sleep, and briefly lost my waking nightmare. We collapsed in the shelter of an entrance way, which protected us from most of the rain, except when the wind blew a particularly strong gust. We spent a few hours there-then we were wakened, to stare at a hundred other faces as white and drawn as our own. Our closest relatives would probably have hesitated before identifying us. My eyes, which felt as if they had sunk into my aching head, instinctively looked around to see what the new day would bring.

I looked for something which might produce an instant of pleasure, and distract me for a moment from the effort of trying to control the spasmodic shivers which shook my whole body. A sound behind me made me turn my head. The veteran was coming back with two canteens of hot soup, which he had found God knows where. I watched him blankly as he limped through the puddles and the scattered rubble. His uniform was as gray and filthy as the setting, and his thin, shaggy face beneath his heavy steel helmet seemed to fit perfectly with everything else. Above our heads, the sky flowed slowly toward the horizon, trailing gray clouds, like dirty rags, as far as the eye could see. “Anyone who wants to eat better open his eyes,” the veteran called, putting down the canteens. I quickly shook Hals, whose sleep, as always, seemed impenetrable. He jumped, but when he realized it wasn’t a new bombardment or attack he pulled himself together, muttering a few incomprehensible words, and finally stood up, rubbing his stiff and aching body. “God, I’m sick of this,” he said, in a disgusted, weary voice. “Where are we, and what the hell are we doing here?” “Come and eat,” said the veteran.

I was also haunted by the thought of what might happen to us. It seemed literally impossible that this existence could go on much longer. We had been living in this way for over a year now, like gypsies – except that that is far too mild a comparison. Even the poorest, most wretched gypsies lived better than we did. For over a year I had been watching my comrades die. Suddenly, all the memories of that year came flooding back: the Don, the “Third International,” Outcheni, the battalions of stragglers, Ernst, Tempelhof, Berlin, Magdeburg, the horrors of Belgorod, the retreat, and only yesterday Wootenbeck, his belly striped by a dozen streams of red blood, which ran down to his boots.

What stroke of fortune had saved me from those giant explosions? So many men had already been consumed right in front of my horrified eyes that I wondered if what I had seen could possibly have been true. What miracle had preserved Hals, Lensen, the veteran, and the other survivors of our ill-fated unit?

Although our luck had been almost incredible, and had spared us so far, it must almost surely run out, if this went on much longer. Tomorrow, perhaps the veteran, or Hals, or maybe even I would be buried. I suddenly felt terribly afraid. I looked out as far as I could see, in all directions. It would probably be my turn soon. I would be killed, just like that, and no one would even notice. We had all grown used to just about everything, and I would be missed only until the next fellow got it, wiping out the memory of preceding tragedies.

As my panic rose, my hands began to tremble. I knew how terrible people looked when they were dead. I’d seen plenty of fellows fall face down in a sea of mud, and stay like that. The idea made me cold with horror. And my parents: I really should see them again; I couldn’t just die like that. And Paula? My eyes filled with tears… . Hals was looking at me, as still as that horrible landscape, indifferent to suffering, death, everything.

There was nothing we could do about it -the screams of fear, the groans of the dying, the torrents of blood soaking into the ground like a vile sacrilege-nothing. Millions of men could suffer and weep and scream, and the war would go on, implacable and indifferent. We could only wait and hope; but hope for what? To escape dying face down in the mud? And the war? All it needed was an order from the authorities, and it would end-an order, which the men would respect like a sacrament. And why? Because, after all, the men were only human…. I went on crying, and muttering incoherently to my impassive companion.

“Hals,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here. I’m afraid.” Hals looked at me, and then at the horizon. “Get out? Where to? Go to sleep; you’re sick.” I looked back at him with sudden hate. He too was part of this indifference and inertia. The tank near us fired a shell, and the Russians sent back about half a dozen, scattering the piles of rubble a little further. Maybe they knocked off a few more of our fellows too: the veteran, perhaps. Suddenly it all seemed unbearable. My trembling hands clutched my head as if they were trying to crush it, and I sank into total despair.

“Go to sleep, I tell you. You’re sick.” “No!” I was shouting now. “I’d rather be killed and get it over with, right now.” I jumped up, and left our hole. But before I had taken more than two steps Hals had grabbed me by the belt and pulled me back. “Let go, Hals,” I shouted, louder than ever. “Let go, do you hear?” “You’re going to shut up, for God’s sake! And calm down! And be quick about it!” Hals clenched his teeth, and clasped his two big hands around my neck. “You know as well as I do we’re all going to get it, one after the other. So let the hell go of me. What business is it of yours anyway? What difference does it make?” “The difference is that I need to see your face from time to time, the way I need to see the veteran, or that bastard Lindberg. Do you hear? If you go on like his, I’ll smash you on the head, just to keep you quiet.” “But if Ivan gets me, I’ll be dead anyway, and you won’t be able to do a thing about it.” “If that happens, I’ll cry, the way I did when my little brother Ludovik died. But he died because he was sick; he didn’t do it on purpose. And if Ivan gets you, you won’t have done it on purpose.” A violent shiver engulfed my whole body. Tears continued to pour down my cheeks, and I felt like kissing my poor friend’s filthy face. Hals loosened his grip, and then let go. A burst of fire forced him to duck. He looked at me, and we both smiled.

Behind my head and my ears, ringing with fever, the war went on. I lay where I was, listening to its roar for an indefinable time, shaking with feverish chills, despite the pile of covers and coats which several well-meaning companions had thrown down on top of me. Once, somebody woke me up and made me swallow a pill. How much time went by? Perhaps a day. I fought my fever while Russians and Germans fought each other through the outskirts of the town. After turning the end of the enemy lines to the east of Konotop, we withdrew to the west, only to find a defensive wall which cut us off from our rear. Several attempts to move out to the west failed, and our autonomous group, already weakened, was faced with the prospect of entrapment in a Bolshevik noose, which was drawing tight, from the north, west, and south.

While I lay shivering on my ladder, our situation grew extremely critical. Our staff officers were doing everything they could to kill the terrible rumor that we were encircled. The next night I was ordered to leave my ladder in a hurry, and tottered on my unsteady legs to a more secure shelter in a cellar, where about fifty sick or wounded men had been collected. I was almost turned away from this improvised infirmary, but as I looked pretty sick, an orderly stuck a thermometer in my mouth. When this registered nearly 104°, I was told to sit in a corner, where I waited for morning and someone to look further into my case.

Outside, the town was undergoing heavy bombardment simultaneously from the ground and from the air, and the orderlies were run off their feet by a flood of freshly wounded men. My comrades had gone back into the line, to face the increasingly ferocious enemy assaults. Toward noon, the orderlies filled me with quinine, and made me give my place to a fellow who was dripping with blood, and no longer able to stand on his feet. With stars dancing in front of my eyes, I staggered from the dark cellar into brilliant sunshine. A final burst of summery sun lit a landscape of total devastation. Everywhere, columns of smoke were climb ing into the sky. Groups of slightly wounded men stood staring and talking, visibly stricken with desperation and horror. One of them told me we were surrounded. This terrible news was almost as destructive as the bombardment. A sense of every man for himself had begun to spread, and our officers needed all the severity they could muster to prevent a hopeless rout.

Still another day passed, and I slowly began to recover, but my head swam, like the head of a convalescent who has gotten up too quickly. I stayed huddled in a corner as long as I could, gleaning fragments of news from the rest of the city. Surrounded … dangerous situation … the Russians have already reached … we’re trapped … the Luftwaffe is coming…. But, instead of our planes, we heard Yaks and its throbbing overhead in the pale blue sky, and torrents of Russian bombs shaking what was left of the town. What, exactly, was happening? Almost no one really knew. I can still remember a roll call, and then the noncoms coming to comb the infirmary. A fellow had to be missing a foot, at least, to be able to stay behind. I was among those who could still be used, and was led back with several bandaged companions to a zone near the front of the fighting. In a vast space bordered by roofless houses, a new group was hastily organized. Among the five or six officers present, I immediately recognized Herr Hauptmann Wesreidau. From nearby, to the northeast, the thunder of Stalin’s organs drowned our voices, and provoked a wave of panic which was difficult to control. I was still very sick. My mouth tasted sour, and I felt as if my thin, faltering body was supported only by my boots and my filthy clothes.

Wesreidau began to speak, raising his voice to make himself heard above the noise of the guns. He would probably have preferred to give us a more detailed explanation, but the continuous uproar, the pressure of time, and the risk of Russian planes suddenly diving at our three companies drawn up in the square forced him to be brief.

“Kameraden! We’re surrounded! … The entire division has … been … surrounded!” We already knew it, but hearing it officially made us horribly afraid. A situation officially acknowledged to be dangerous by the staff must be very serious indeed. In the near distance, through the sound of explosions, we could hear the howl of Russian rockets. Both the earth and sky were filled with roaring noise, as if to emphasize the desperation of Captain Wesreidau’s announcement. “We still have one hope,” he went on, “a swift and brutal breakthrough by all our forces pressing at a single point. This point must be to the west, and we shall engage all our units at once. The success of this attempt depends on the courage of every one of us. There will only be one attempt, and it must be successful. There are some strong infantry units which will be going into action to help us, on the other side of the Russian ring. If each one of us performs his duty, I feel confident that we shall break out of the Bolshevik noose. I know the qualities of the German soldier.” Wesreidau saluted and requested us to get ready.

Our jostling and cries for help and screams of panic were finally obliterated by explosions. Everyone who was able to had run off the street. The slightest protuberance offered some hope of survival, as a wall of fire passed over the two thousand troops concentrated on that spot. The wounded, abandoned in the open, lay writhing in the dust. Through the uproar, we could hear the sound of disarticulated bodies falling back to the ground in broken pieces. As at Belgorod, the earth shook, and everything trembled and grew dim, as the whole landscape suddenly became mobile. The filthy hands of ill and wounded men resigned to death scratched the ground for one last time, and the lined faces of veterans who believed they had already seen everything were transformed by desperate, imploring panic. Quite near us, behind a heap of tiles, a Russian shell scored a bull’s eye, exploding in the midst of eleven men who had huddled together like children caught in a sudden rain. The Russian shell landed in the precise center of their trembling group, mixing flesh and bones and tiles in a torrent of blood.

Chance, which continued to favor me, had driven me along with three companions to the shelter of a staircase in a roofless house. The building was hit on all sides during the bombardment, and the cellar filled with broken beams and other debris. However, thanks to our extraordinary helmets, our heads survived intact. When the thunder stopped for a moment and we heard the screams of the newly wounded, we looked outside. The horror of what we saw was so overwhelming that we fell back, as if paralyzed, onto the shaky stairs. “God help us,” someone shouted. “There’s nothing but blood.” “We’ve got to get away from here,” screamed another voice, in a tone close to madness. He ran outside, and we followed him.

The air was filled with bestial cries. Everyone who’d been lucky enough to survive was falling back to the west, where, as always, safety lay, and now the front, and the gap through which we would try to escape. Anyone who could still stand was helped. The wounded grabbed at the men running past. Two haggard soldiers in front of me were dragging a third man through the dust, probably a friend who was nearly dead. How long had they pulled him along like that, and how long would it take them to dump him?

I can no longer tell how long our stampede lasted, through the anonymous ruins and thick smoke and roaring guns. The Russians were firing at us from all sides, at close range, with 50-mm. guns. We staggered on carrying the wounded as best we could.

Then we received a fresh blow. Wesreidau and two of his aides ran through the groups of exhausted men. “Get up! Get moving! We’ve got to push on now! The division has broken through. If you don’t hurry, we’ll be caught in the trap, so get the hell up! We’re the last ones left.” Already, men half dead with exhaustion were staggering to their feet. The noncoms tapped on the shoulders of the stronger men, who were trying to help the wounded comrades they had carried out of town, and told them not to bother any more. “Don’t load yourself with anyone who can’t walk. You’ll need all the strength you’ve got just to make it yourself.”

And so we were forced to abandon a great many men to an almost inconceivably horrible fate, despite their desperate pleas for help. Half paralyzed by terror and fear, men who had lost almost all their blood managed to get up and even hide their pain so that they would be allowed to walk beside the healthy. The heroism, pathos, and determination of our breakout exceeds by far my powers of description. Men who had always been cowards became heroes despite themselves. A great many managed to cover barely half the distance.

We fought our way through the fires of hell, losing almost half of our remaining men, as we pushed for more than nine hours, from shell hole to shell hole, along the famous and tragic Konotop-Kiev road, past burnt-out tanks and piles of hundreds of shriveled corpses. You who perhaps will some day read these lines may also remember that one evening in the autumn of 1943 the bulletins announced that German troops caught in Konotop had managed to break out of a Russian trap. This was true. Of course, the price was never mentioned, because it didn’t matter. For you, the day of deliverance was coming.

CROSSING THE DNIEPER RIVER

The rain blew in from the horizon in waves. Occasionally a brief moment of light enabled us to spot the next undulating curtain of water sweeping across the streaming steppe. It had rained steadily for two days, and despite the discomfort and inconvenience we hoped the rain would last for at least that long again. In another two days, if we could maintain our rate of thirty miles a day, and had any luck at all, we should reach the Dnieper.

No planes could fly through such a torrential downpour, so there had been no Yaks-and every day without Yaks was a reprieve from death for hundreds of men. The extraordinary mobility of the Wehrmacht-one of its principal sources of strength up to that moment had entirely disappeared in that part of Russia, and the men from Army Group Center were plodding toward the river in interminable columns at the rate of three miles an hour. Our mobility, which had always given us an advantage over the vast but slow Soviet formations, was now only a memory, and the disproportion of numbers made even flight a doubtful prospect. Moreover, the equipment of the Red Army was constantly improving, and we often found ourselves pitted against extremely mobile motorized regiments of fresh troops. To complete our disarray, the Soviet troops which had been tied up in the attempt to trap us at Konotop were now free to pursue our slow withdrawal.

German aviation, which was entirely occupied south of Cherkassy, had abandoned our part of the sky to the Yaks, which took advantage of this freedom to harass us unmercifully. So, despite our heavy, waterlogged clothes, worn-out boots, fever, and the impossibility of lying down except on the soaking ground, we blessed fortune for sending us gray skies and rain. During the morning, five Bolshevik planes had appeared despite the weather. Our harassed men reacted with an automatic impulse of self-defense and self-preservation, staring desperately at the flat plain for somewhere to hide. But, like animals caught in a trap, we understood there was no way out. The companies in a direct line of fire dropped to one knee, in the regulation position for anti-aircraft defense. These companies received the Yaks’ fire, and saw several men torn to pieces by Russian bullets, but nevertheless managed to bring down one of the planes. It was our bad luck that the plane went into a spin, and fell directly onto our convoy, crushing a truck full of wounded men, and opening a crater twenty yards wide filled with shattered flesh. No one cried out: in fact, almost no one looked. We simply picked up our burdens and went on.

We were all too exhausted to react, and almost nothing stirred our emotions. We had all seen too much. In my sick and aching brain, life had lost its importance and meaning, and seemed of no more consequence than the power of motion one lends to a marionette, so that it can agitate for a few seconds.

We walked without stopping. The interminable line of men ahead curved in a semicircle which seemed to be standing still. The Dnieper was not yet in sight. We had planned to reach it in five days, but we were now in the sixth, ploughing through the mud at an average speed of two or two and a half miles an hour. I had never seen a countryside so huge and so empty. The trucks and other vehicles which had gas had all passed us long ago. The rest were pulled by the few half-starved nags we had not already killed and eaten. From time to time, someone gave up his place on a crowded steiner, pulled by two horses, to continue on foot. We were under orders not to abandon material for any reason whatsoever. We were supposed to receive more gasoline-God knows how -probably by air-so that we could continue to drive our machines. In fact, one morning we did receive a delivery from aircraft. Two JU-52s threw down eight large packages of rope, which we retrieved with derision. We were supposed to use them for tying our vehicles to the tanks which had been destroyed at Konotop the week before. In default of gas, our gaunt horses stubbornly pulled our vehicles through the gluey muck which had been freshly trampled by thirty retreating regiments. Our steiner, on which I had hung all my gear, was pulled by two Rhenish horses, probably taken from their peacetime labor about a year before. One of them was covered with sores, and his eyes glittered with fever.

Two or three times a day, covering troops were organized and left behind to slow down the enemy, who were following at a leisurely pace. The men chosen for this task dug shallow holes which protected less than a quarter of their bodies, and waited, resigned, for the juggernaut to crush them.

On the eighth day, after skirting a broad hill, we reached the bank of the river, or, more precisely, the swarm of landser who covered the bank, hiding it completely. Through the noise and confusion we could hear the sound of engines, which we found curiously reassuring: working engines must mean there was gasoline somewhere.

In fact, the engines we heard did not belong to refueled trucks, but to the boats-inadequate in size and number-which the engineers were using to move across as many men and machines as they could. Whenever material could be moved, it was given priority. Loading trucks and guns and light tanks onto vessels built to carry hay carts was not easy, but fortunately we had plenty of manpower to replace the cranes and derricks of a port-at least a hundred thousand at our point of arrival alone. I saw men standing up to their necks in water, supporting makeshift landing stages until the water rose over their chins-rickety, hastily improvised piers which collapsed as soon as their human props moved away. Half drowned, these men worked frantically against time, with extraordinary persistence and patience. The urgent task of transporting five divisions was not begun until two days after our arrival, when all materiel that could be moved was across the river. We had ten boats at our disposal, each with a maximum capacity of twenty men, four barges which had run out of gas and were towed in turn by two small boats equipped with B.M.W. portable engines, and four precarious pontoons, each with a capacity of 150 men.

At this point, south of Kiev, the Dnieper is about eight hundred yards wide. Had we chosen a section to the north of the city, we would have been in a rich, densely populated country, where we would undoubtedly have been able to acquire plenty of boats for crossing, and where, in addition, the river often narrows to less than a hundred yards. There were also bridges in Kiev itself; some had undoubtedly been destroyed, but others must have been standing… . By the evening of the third day after our arrival at the river, at least ten thousand men had crossed to the west bank. First of all, the sick and wounded were taken, and I witnessed many instances of lightly wounded or sick men giving up their places to the more seriously injured. Although the rain was remorseless and savage, and we all were sickened by our diet of horse meat-often raw-we nonetheless made use of this forced delay to rest as much as we could.

During the night of our third or fourth day, everything turned hellish again. As we had feared, we heard the roar of war again as soon as the rain stopped-dull and unclear at first, and then unmistakable: the rumble of tanks moving slowly through the mud. To begin with, there was only the noise, which in itself was enough to send a wave of terror through the eighty-five thousand men trapped beside the water. On the slopes littered with exhausted soldiers, thousands of men lifted their heads to verify the terrifying sound. We stared through the darkness, trying to see the unseeable, frozen, for a minute, with our heads lifted to listen. Then, everywhere, shadowy figures began to move, with frantic, intensifying speed. “Tanks!” Every man grabbed his things and began to run toward what we knew was an insuperable barrier, hoping that the boats were still moving, and that somehow they would be able to take all of us at once.

Shells were coming in from the west, and landing somewhere to the east of us, beyond the hills. This comforted us somewhat; since the shells were falling beyond the hills, they must be landing on the Russians, and our men must be firing them. The artilleryman remarked in a pleased and knowing voice: “Those are ours all right. I’d know that yap anywhere.” “I never thought we’d get any help,” said a soldier who had just joined us. In the end, the shelling lasted only ten minutes, and probably had very little effect, as there was no effort to aim it with any precision. The fog had grown so thick that the glow of the discharges of the 77s was almost invisible, emerging from the darkness and vanishing again, as if we were watching through a thin, semi-transparent cloth. But, although the fog was thicker, the air had also grown astonishingly cold, stabbing our lungs every time we took a breath.

“My God, it’s cold,” someone said. The temperature of the water, which came to the middle of our boots, must have been close to freezing. Despite their remarkable resistance to water, our boots had at last become waterlogged, and our feet felt frozen.

The exhaustion we had been dragging about with us for days increased the fear we could no longer control. Fear intensified our exhaustion, as it required constant vigilance. We had learned to see in the dark, like cats, but on that particular night no look, however penetrating, could pierce the fog, which was as thick as a London pea souper. I could no longer breathe through my clogged nose, and only drew in through my pursed lips the bare minimum necessary to sustain life. We seemed to be moving through a mixture of water and sulphur, and each icy breath stabbed me with hundreds of sharp points, all the way down to my empty stomach.

We heard the sounds of gunfire and explosions coming closer, punctuated by bloodcurdling screams. Men suddenly plunged out of the pale, enveloping cotton, and disappeared like ghosts into the black water. From the sounds of splashing, we guessed they were trying to swim. We felt petrified by fear, and stayed where we were. A terrible, growling mass of machines passed by close to us, shaking the earth and water, and a penetrating headlight pierced the fog. We couldn’t see where it was going, only that it was moving. During those moments of terror, we clung to each other like children. A piece of the bank broke away under our weight, and our heap of belongings slid into the mud. My head went under for a few seconds, and when I surfaced the river bank and the long grasses hid what was happening. We could hear the sound of machine guns ripping into the air very close to us, over the grinding roar of tank treads. And always, terrifying screams, as the tanks drove a bloody furrow through the tightly packed crowd paralyzed by terror and darkness. A little higher up, two other lights, barely visible in the gloom, were seeking out other victims. With daylight, we saw that there must have been about ten tanks, passing through without stopping, on their way to Kiev.

I opened my eyes, and stared up into an infinite, pale blue sky, in which there was a familiar noise: planes. My bones creaked as I propped myself up on one elbow. I couldn’t see anything unusual only the piles of sleeping bodies among the gorse. Everywhere, faces drowning in sleep were turning to the sky. A fellow in a fatigue cap ran by, shouting like a deaf man. A heavy machine gun behind me opened fire. It took us a while to shake off our torpor. Four Russian planes were circling like hornets about three thousand feet above us. Everyone was shouting-both men and officers. “Do you all want to be killed?” a ragged lieutenant was yelling at us. “You should at least try to defend yourselves.”

We feverishly grabbed our guns, and waited with one knee on the ground for the enemy, who was about to drop from the clouds. However, the Yaks went away. It was inconceivable that they should have been afraid of us, so we concluded they were running out of gas. We rubbed our eyes and sighed with relief, as our partially revived sense of vigilance died down. Everyone was thinking of stretching out again and catching up with his lost sleep. Then the heavy machine gun pivoted rapidly on its mount and began to fire toward the north. Everyone turned that way too, before throwing himself flat. The four planes roared over us almost at ground level, firing rapidly with all their guns. We could just hear the lieutenant, who was very near us, shouting as loud as he could to make himself heard above the noise of the planes: “Fire, you bastards!” The planes passed overhead. I saw the lieutenant roll onto the ground, stand up again, and with one hand clutching his stomach fire his revolver at the roaring planes. Then he grimaced, fell to his knees, and rolled over onto himself. Of all the men around us, he was the only one who had been hit. The planes had reserved most of their fire for the overloaded, almost motionless rafts, which made perfect targets.

Then a miracle occurred, which completely changed the tone of our cries. “Sieg! Sieg! Der Luftwaffe!” Nine Messerschmitt 109-Fs had appeared and were diving down onto the Russian planes, which had just completed an attack formation. The Russian pilots, aware of the technical inferiority of their planes, were trying to get away as fast as they could. We could hear bursts of fire, and felt a surge of intense, savage, and vengeful joy when we saw two of the Ilyushins spinning through the air like partridges hit by hunters’ bullets. Then our cries grew even louder. Five Russian planes passed right overhead before we realized they meant danger. We shook our fists at them.

The next day we felt almost happy to wake in the rain. Traffic across the river had continued all night, carrying over as many men as possible; nevertheless, a vast number were still waiting on the east bank. We no longer knew how many days we’d been there, but, despite all our difficulties, we’d been able to reorganize somewhat. Men belonging to the same units had sorted each other out, and waited in distinct groups. Our officers had posted armed men on the hills to warn against a sudden attack. We knew that the Russians were very close, and felt rather surprised that they hadn’t attacked already. Probably the battle for Kiev had absorbed almost all of them

The rain continued for a long time, through the night and the next day, until the end of the afternoon. The soil on which we waited had become a giant sponge. Each fresh bundle of rushes soaked up as much water from the ground as it received from the sky. We were so thoroughly soaked through that some of us stripped altogether, to wait naked. Most of the time, we stayed on our feet, with tent cloths over our shoulders, watching the endless back-and-forth of the rafts.

Finally, toward six in the evening, as the light was fading, our group was taken in charge by the transit services. We were ordered to collect our things and proceed in good order to the three embarkation points which the incessant trampling had transformed into an astonishing quagmire. Carrying our arms and baggage, covered with slimy mire, we set off down the road despite the mud which threatened to engulf us. With heroic patience and discipline, each man waited his turn, enduring the torrential rain without complaint. With our feet in the muddy water our boots could no longer resist, we kept our assigned places. The last men to embark had to wait for several hours.

How long was the crossing? Perhaps a quarter of an hour. It seemed interminable. The water slid past us with an easy, regular motion, whose slowness made us frantic. Some of the fellows were counting aloud, marking off the seconds perhaps, or using them as one uses imaginary sheep, to force sleep. Then voices announced the approach of the west bank and safety and release from our torments. The men at the front of the raft could see it, enveloped in fog. Our blood ran faster in our veins, as we tried, by will power, to increase the speed of the engine. We were about to land, to be safe-quick, while the sky was still quiet. An empty raft crossed our path, heading back for the east bank. We looked at it coldly. Any movement toward the east made us shiver. Then the west bank was only twenty yards away. We no longer dared to move for fear of foundering, despite an intense joy which we would have expressed in other circumstances by jumping and shouting. After so many days and hours of waiting and despair, we had been saved.

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