14. März 1942
Now[1] comes the deployment order for our battalion. We fall in and advance towards the front line one company at a time. After crossing a narrow creek bottom with steep slopes behind the village of Jasnaja Gorka, we are only a few hundred metres from the first houses of Krassnoarmeisk. Individual groups of villagers approach us. They carry a few belongings on their backs. Then follow completely disintegrated heaps of Austrians, who hurriedly and dejectedly strive past us towards the rear. They don’t speak a word and we don’t ask them any questions. We see for ourselves what’s going on, and the proximity of the front and the noise of battle have already focused our senses on the coming fight. Instinct begins to work. Body and nerves are tense. We listen for shots and impacts, estimate calibre and direction of fire, look for the enemy and automatically duck when there is a hiss. The mind works. The eye searches for targets and routes of attack, positions for machine guns and mortars. These are indeed moments of maximum concentration of all the powers of the body, the mind, the soul, the nerves. In addition, there is this wonderful, incomprehensible instinct that senses and feels ahead and often controls us more strongly than we suspect. At least that’s what I’ve experienced several times in my own case, when I realised after reconstructing my behaviour that I had acted unconsciously.
I must have clenched my teeth a little, because when I opened them a bit, I feel them vibrate slightly. But that’s not fear. This is tension. Every front-line soldier knows this feeling when it came to fire.
At the moment there is a lull in the fighting. The enemy artillery is silent. Perhaps their barrels need to cool down, perhaps they believe the village is already in their own possession. Perhaps they are not clear about the course of the front in the turbulence in the village. In any case, we reach the edge of the village completely unmolested, although the road into the village leads over open, free terrain for the last hundred metres.
We enter the village before the last fighting Austrians are forced out. It looks devastating, though. Fallen Ostmärkers lie on the road. In the middle of the road lies a torn-off arm. It is still stuck in the sleeve of the uniform coat. A few steps further on, a single leg lies in its trousers and boots. This is the effect of shell splinters. Many houses are completely shot up. Only the chimney is still sticking out of the rubble. The houses still standing are burnt out or damaged by shells. The Russian artillery has done a great job.
The Ostmärkers are partly to blame for their high losses. After all, one cannot run back in bright heaps on the wide village street without cover under the eyes of the enemy artillery observers. If they had retreated fighting, always close to the enemy infantry, always in cover, jumping from house to house, they would have had half as many losses. Because then the enemy artillery could only have participated very cautiously, so as not to endanger their own infantry. But when panic breaks out, sanity goes out the window.
Since my commander at the machine-gun company has no use for me, I go to First Lieutenant Rasche, the commander of one of our rifle companies. I join the attack with his company. We have only advanced barely a hundred metres in the village when we already encounter the first resistance. The first bullets whistle towards us. Immediately the company develops into an attack. The riflemen advance in groups to the right and left of the road. I am with the company chief in the front of the first line. We crouch behind the corners of houses and the remains of walls, peek cautiously around the corner and then jump in short bursts to the next house while our group mates provide fire protection at the other house corner. Then those who jumped in front chase the Iwans hiding in the ruins with a hail of bullets from machine guns and carbines to force them into cover. Then the rear group can follow. Old technique, often practised in peace. It’s jump by jump, move by move. Fire, jump, fire, jump. The groups always stay in contact with each other by shouting or with their eyes. The energy and speed of our counterattack has confused the Russians, who were already confident of victory. They retreat. The first prisoners - three men - come out of the rubble of a house with their hands up. We send them to the rear. On we go. I jump with the company chief. Bullets whiz by. Tseeou-Tsing - smacking, they smash into the wall. There it hisses angrily. I throw myself behind a pile of dung in a flash. Branng - a grenade bursts, splinters whirr through the air and chunks of earth clatter to the ground. A thin plume of black smoke drifts overhead.
Across the road, a grenade smashes between the houses. Our men duck behind the walls. Their steel helmets gleam dully. Now they jump again, one, two. Shots whip, but inexorably they advance, our brave German infantrymen. There is no one who hesitates or flinches. It’s as if they always want to be in front. You can literally see the will to attack, the forward momentum, the Furor teutonicus.
House after house we are taking back. An hour ago the triumphant enemy drove the Austrians before them, now we are chasing them back without artillery, only with small arms. That’s German infantry. Weapon elitism? Right!
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- ↑ KTB 257. I.D., NARA T-315 Roll 1804 Frame 000822