30. Januar 1945
| GEO & MIL INFO | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Captain Petersen BatlLdr in G.R. 187 |
| Field post letters/Red Cross cards | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✉ to Carola?[1] |
Towards morning, the tanks suddenly growl loudly. They crawl back. The fire dies down. This attack is also defeated. I pull my squad out again and head back to our reserve position with my platoon.
One day I am in the rear at the train, inspecting the billets and operations. Of course, everything is in perfect order, as my coming was known. I write a letter to Carola[1] and then demand my four close combat ration packs (Nahkampfpäckchen), which I had given here for safekeeping. They are nowhere to be found. Of course the guys have eaten them. Surprisingly, I am only slightly annoyed by this impertinence. Serves me right. I am not a big eater and am always satisfied with little. That is why I have paid too little attention to the food issues in the company. That is to change in future. Above all, I will look over the Hauptfeldwebel’s shoulder when he is requesting and distributing the parcels. It’s just a bit difficult to carry out when you’re lying in the trenches for weeks on end. The Spieß at the rear can do as he pleases, which they all take thorough advantage of.
Today the Waffen-Unteroffizier came to the front with the rations sledge. He is a stout fellow and colossally eager. He rants like a fishwife because the platoons so seldom send back the empty ammunition boxes. He searches all the bunkers and shelters and even finds a food canister in the 3rd Platoon’s house. That’s the last straw for him.
30 Jan 45. On our left, over in the Barta sector, strong Soviet artillery fire has been droning all day.[2] I had a bad feeling, and when the telephone rang in the evening and the battalion called in, I already knew what was coming: change of position to the left! The Russian has made some incursions and we are to jump into the breach. So I give the company the order to get ready. As darkness falls, we collect rations once more, and then the platoons leave the positions to assemble at Bataillon.
While the men are standing together in groups in front of the battalion commander’s house, I go inside to report. There I recognise Oberst Mann. He has come himself again to brief me on my new assignment. He stands in the middle of the room. Behind him, my battalion commander[3] and the adjutant. I stand opposite them, field-march style in camouflage gear with steel helmet and submachine-gun strapped around my neck. Oberst Mann greets me in his brash manner. First he congratulates me on the dashing counterattack in the forest and concludes, “Rest assured that this will not be forgotten!” Then he spreads a map on the table, shows me the new mission area and explains my new mission, where I will be attached to another battalion. Since I cannot get a map, I try to memorise the map image and the way to the new mission area. Oberst Mann continues: “Over in the Barta sector, the Russian is attacking with strong forces and has broken into our defensive line in places. Your mission is to set up a blocking position and prevent the Russians from penetrating any further.” Now he raises his voice: “Today you will still be 2nd line, but remember that tomorrow this line can already be HKL!” Then I am dismissed. Short handshake, turn around – off.
Outside, I have the company fall in, take the lead and march out into the dim winter night. We cross a small wooden bridge to reach the other side of a stream (a Barta tributary?)[4] and then climb up the gentle slope of the valley. Then the path forks. One turns directly to the front, the other continues parallel to it on the heights. I follow the latter, which soon becomes lost at the top of the bare, snow-covered plateau. I haven’t gone five hundred metres yet when I start to feel uneasy. It is so strangely quiet up here. Something is wrong here, although I can’t say what. My instinct tells me. This is not the right way! Return to the fork in the road! Once there, I look around the area and spot a thin plume of smoke rising from a bunker chimney at the edge of the other path near the fork. I walk the eighty metres ahead and descend into the bunker. It is manned by pioneers who are securing the small bridge. But they can’t give any information to my questions. They know neither the battalion nor the way there. So I have to rely on a bit of luck. I now follow this second path, although it turns off to the front much too soon, because my marching destination is much further away. But soon the path makes a gentle bend and now runs parallel to the front. This is the right one! It runs halfway up the bare slope. The company’s dark column stands out clearly against the light expanse of snow. A few stray red tracer bullets whiz across to us from the front. A farmstead appears. A large, bulky farm standing about thirty metres off the path. While the company stops and many soldiers immediately lie down in the snow to rest, I walk into the yard. Everything is dead quiet, not a soul to be seen. The farmstead is deserted. So on we go. After about half an hour we come across another farmstead. I start looking again, while the men settle down again on the floor of the open barn. Again, this is a large farm with a whole group of buildings. Perhaps there are two farms. Here I meet some figures. They are Germans. I learn from them that the battalion command post is five hundred metres away in a gently sloping hollow. My company squad leader had remained with the company. I don’t go back there, however, but walk over to the battalion alone. I step into the spacious dugout and report to the battalion commander, Hauptmann Petersen. He is a quiet, very likeable Hamburger with heavily greying temples. He briefly describes the situation and then gives me my mission orders. I am to set up a 2nd line, as I already know, to which the 1st line can be withdrawn if necessary. I am also to send a squad forward to reinforce the already very patchy 1st line.
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- ↑ 1,0 1,1 Apparently the author confused this letter with another occasion when he actually wrote letters to the train. In any case, the letters written immediately before and after the 30th were not written at the train, as on 28th he was expressly “here on the front” and on 31st he was “completely out of order with the numbering”, having passed his “calendar to the train”.
- ↑ “nearly one hour of preparatory fire” (Dayly report of 87.ID, KTB X.AK dated 30 Jan 45)
- ↑ Because of the following remark that he “will be subordinated to another battalion”, one can safely assume that the one present here is the battalion commander of Mann’s regiment in charge in Kesteri and not the commander of Corps Machine Gun Battalion 410.
- ↑ Elkupīte