The winter Hell…
Chapter One
Disclaimer: I do not support the views of the Nazi or Communist party. The Eastern Front was the largest battlefield in history, and changed the face of modern conflict. This is made to honor all of the regular soldiers and civilians, whether Germans, Russians, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Italians, Bulgarians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Finns, or any others, who never returned from this horrible meat grinder…
I passed through the Ukraine for my first time in 1941. The Ukrainians had suffered for several years, being starved by Stalin's NKVD. At first, we brought them food, and were grateful for their hospitality. They thought we were liberators. I did not wish it so, but they were wrong. The only assurance I can get is the fact that I did not have to stay behind the lines and kill, starve, and torture. I did not have to think of them as 'Inferior Slavs'. But still, I felt guilty. It was my fault. I did not stop the killing. Friedrich Himmel is the name of the most horrible war criminal to me. It is mine.
That was in July, 1941. Now it was December 28, 1943. In October, we pushed our way back across the quickly freezing Ukrainian countryside and villages. Each village we fled had another story to tell. Patrially this was because we had passed through the same southern Ukraine, through the same villages. Some were being dug in, designated as fortresses (usually a larger town or small city). The Flak 88's were buried until the huge guns were nearly invisible, and the trenchlines ran deep. Some were not used for combat at all; they were filled with bodies, frozen solid after or before death. I could sense the pure hopelessness of my comrades. Every single town and every single garrison that could escape this fate did so. No one wanted to die in one of Hitler's "fortresses".
It wasn't long until every town we settled in was attacked by Ivan. This was the time of the great retreat. After losing Kursk in the summer our lines nearly collapsed, and we had to flee before the Russian juggernaut. When the Russians attacked, we retreated, since our division was still attempting to regroup at a certain spot. But our comrades were retreating just as fast, if not faster.
Our situation developed three days ago, on Christmas...
My eyes started to close, and my mind started to fade out; finally, after eight days on this damn trip, I could sleep.
A small shellhole begged to differ. The Opel Blitz jerked back and forth, slamming my head into the steel support for the canvas cover.
"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!" Looking for something to destroy, I jerked the old bandage covering my arm off and threw it down onto the deck, where it slid off the back and plopped onto the snow. I watched it pull away as our convoy moved forward, feeling my anger subside. The wound had mostly healed anyway.
I looked back to my squad in the truck. Some had watched, but lack of food and rest meant they didn't really take interest. It was just something to pass the time, and keep the mind going. One man I commanded, near the front of the truck, pulled back the cover and looked.
"Finally, we're at a town." Most of my squad replied by murmuring and looking for themselves.
It wasn't much. Just a little more than a village, jutting away from the barrier of a forrest and looking out into the flat treeless plain. It was probably more known for the dirt road that ran through it more than anything. The center had a few stone buildings, in rows. The rest was a normal haphazard arrangement of wooden shacks, and an old church. As the one halftrack and two trucks came to a stop downtown, I could see some minor battle damage on the buildings, and one looked like it was hit by a tank over and over again, along with some artillery. Some soldiers where trying to make a bombing raid position in the rubble of the skeleton building. A few yards away an anti-aircraft position was being set up.
A voice came from outside, from our platoon's convoy. "Alright, get off. We're lost again."
I was the first out, and I helped some of the more stiff off. As I did, I watched the Lieutenant talk with a relatively friendly Feldgendarmee (Military police, for shooting deserters and securing areas behind the line). The lieutenant was new, and at that time I pretty much ran the platoon along with him until he got some heavy battle experience. Still, he was a good man. Not a Nazi, but not afraid to kill when it was necessary. It's hard to find good officers like that anymore. The good ones always die; the bad ones get you killed.
When everyone was standing out of the trucks, smoking or talking or whatever, I checked with Lieutenant Mueller.
"What's the problem again?"
"I have no idea where our division is. But our regiment is somewhere north, and I know where we are. Ar...Arbuzynka. I have it on the map, see?"
"Yes, at least we are on a 'major' road."
"The Sergeant I talked to said some shattered remains of our regiment-including our battalion-were heading north, to Korsun or somewhere. The rest of the division might be there, too."
"Let's hope...shit EVERYONE GET DOWN! You too Lieutenant!"
Two planes raced towards our town. From their looks they were Il-2's, "Shturmoviks". Ivan liked to call them "flying tanks" because they were so tough. After several encounters with them, our term of "the Black Death" fitted more. Flashes, that meant the cannons were firing. The slugs ripped into the Earth, causing it to bleed white and brown. A Kubelwagen exploded, and the shrapnel tore away the flesh of soldiers nearby.
"Take cover in the buildings and shelter!"
After the planes made their first pass, I grabbed Mueller and started dragging him to the shelter, which was nearest to us. The roof was not done, so there was no ground covering the bunker. But any cover would suffice. On the second pass our anti-aircraft flakvierling opened up, but was soon silenced by the thick fire of the Shturmoviks. The crew hung in peices off of the perforated gun.
...On the third pass they let loose rockets...
I covered my ears in agony. My first wounds on the Eastern Front were the internal injuries caused from the pressure and concussion of a rocket exploding. My ears have never been the same. By mind spun, and I was close to madness.
By the fifth pass the Shturmoviks had run out of ammo, and the pilots made their last one just to scare the shit out of us. Blood stained my ears and a few small drops leaked out of my eye sockets. They mixed with my tears of pain. Lieutenant Mueller was staring wide-eyed in the fetal position, he was screaming just a minute earlier. I had to wake him up and help him get on his feet. For the first few minutes there was only silence. Then one of the garrison called out.
"All Clear! Check the wounded and see who's dead."
The words echoed in the downtown area for a moment, then I saw the other soldiers leave their hiding places. Some were shell-shocked, I could tell by their slow shuffling and reluctance to get out of the open. Mueller was still somewhat recovering, so I called the platoon over to our convoy. Except for a little damage caused by shrapnel, it was unharmed.
"2nd Platoon, get over here! We've gotta move soon!"
"Friedrich, Thomas is dead."
I turned around and stared at the speaker, Private Jon Sonntag. "Meckler? Meckler's dead?"
"Yes, I saw that rocket explode under his feet. There's nothing left but some blood."
He pointed towards the one crater, where the one rocket that hit the central town fell. For a moment I didn't know what to say. I promised him, after my brother died. Then I layed my head on the cold surface of the halftrack. I didn't cry. No, it was too cold, I had fought way too long. I had no tears left.
The garrison commander walked over to our convoy, looking a bit tired, but still carrying himself like a higher-up officer. This usually meant arrogance, but I could see he was relatively lax.
By this time Mueller had recovered.
"No, don't bother saluting Lieutenant. I was inspecting the tank unit by the church. The Ruskies targeted them with the rockets, so you're a bit lucky to still have your vehicles."
I looked into the sky above the Colonel; it was filled with black, oily smoke.
"You can get to Korsun in a few days if you follow this road, maybe even less. Your unit should stay for tonight. Get some rest, bury the dead and we'll take care of the wounded."
"Thank you, sir. We'll be on our way in the morning." The colonel turned and walked away, almost in a dream-state.
That night, when I saw the crosses from birch trees, the bodies buried on their own, sometimes in pieces, I had never felt so forbidden in my life. By myself, I dug a hole in the snow and placed in it a photo of my brother and Thomas. I made a usual birch cross, and placed his pock-marked and bloody helmet on top. I used my bayonet to inscribe a message on an abandoned piece of wood. After all we had been through, he wouldn't want something fake and complex.
Thomas Meckler
December 25, 1943
Just then I remembered, it was Christmas Day. If it was 1941, I would have prayed to God and thanked him for letting me live. But this is a Godless war, and I had been through too much.