Eastern Inferno: The Journals of a German Panzerjäger on the Eastern Front, 1941-43 (21 page)

After a short while they disappear behind a ground elevation and attack the city from there, firing directly without pause.

With the setting of dusk all hell breaks loose again. The 7.5 shells of the tanks are ripping huge holes in the rows of defenders, the huge pears of the heavy mortars arrive gurgling in the air.

Bombers destroy with 200-pound bombs whole street quarters, the city is burning at every corner. The losses are enormous. I have been on my legs now for many days and nights. I follow my orders feverishly, do reconnaissance, operate the machine guns, the artillery, throw hand grenades.

Every single man fights unimaginably. 25 times the Russians attacked today with tank support.

Many times tonight the pig has infiltrated the city for a short time, in our counterattacks we threw him back each time. We men are standing like iron in the defense despite terrible losses and terrible temperatures (–42 degrees C), for a large part with frostbitten hands and feet. Being sick is not an option; we are fighting for our bare life.

January 5:
We receive the order to burn all files and boxes, personal, paper and map material. The trucks with luggage and equipment are being prepared for detonation. The pressure of the Reds is huge. If that is not enough, now ammunition and provisions are becoming scarce.

In the morning a heavy tank is blown up by 8.8cm flak artillery, the infiltrating enemy is destroyed. Among other things they have incinerated our provision storage; there are dead bodies lying in the snow, army bread tucked under their arms. At noon, air raid alarm. With muffled roars they are approaching—but what is that? A squadron of our heavy bombers!

Finally!! They circle, push deeper and deeper, three times, four times they fly over us at close height. The bomb shoots open…there, in the middle of the city the rows of bombs are falling, parachutes are opening: deployment of ammunition!

The Russians are shooting like there is no tomorrow, it sounds strangely close in the clear winter air. A heavy load is lifted off our chests when we see the floating parachutes come down. Finally there is help from the leadership! On one of the ammunition shells somebody wrote with chalk;” Hold on! We are coming!”

You bet we will hold on!

Ammunition is at hand again and roasted cats and roasted dogs do not taste that bad either. The mood barometer points to “Nice weather.”

We have to succeed!

January 6:
In the south there is loud fighting to be heard. Group Postler is supposed to attack there in order to bring relief to the occupation of Obojan.

Right now we sense nothing of the sort. To the contrary, in the northern part of the city the enemy succeeds in infiltrating with a battalion. The fire of their mortars lies heavy on the spot of the breakthrough. This time the situation is very grave because the attack is supported directly with tanks.

In the evening the heavy battle is still raging in full force. Our quarter is again barricaded. Tank shells, flares and explosives are whistling through the street. One block of houses bursts up in flames. In its eerie glow we see the Reds jumping their short steps, a good target for our machine guns. At midnight, 2cm anti-aircraft artillery is put in position—and that cleans it up. In the hardest fighting, man against man, the Bolsheviks are thrown back.

A small scene should illustrate what kind of tough enemy we are dealing with: While advancing with my group we are cleaning a garden. In a foxhole we discover a wounded Russian officer. I yell out to him, “Rukij war!” (Raise your hands) His answer given with a smile goes “Njet!” (No)

A hand grenade thrown in his hole rips him to pieces.

At a hedge close to the end of the garden there is a badly injured Red. Shell splinters have ripped the fingers off his hands; the legs seem to be smashed as well. We are five steps away; brightly he lies in the light of a burning house. When he sees us approaching he makes a lightning fast move and rips off a hand grenade with his teeth and lies his head on it. “Lie down!” and already the hand grenade explodes with a hollow thud. Vogel, who is slow on the pick-up, did not make it to the ground, a dozen splinters ram through his body. (He dies within the following hour.) During the course of the night the most beautiful news of these hard days arrives from the division: A battalion, I.R. 217, stands with its spearhead 8km south of Obojan. A patrol immediately makes contact. This time the “corpses” are spared from this mission. During the early morning hours the brave infantrymen succeed in breaking though the pincer movement.

It is high time that they arrive, because our losses already amount to 1/3.

January 7:
A raiding party of the enemy makes it to the city center. We catch them at the field post office. Lying behind the filled sacks of mail—we have erected a considerable barricade out of them—we are firing like mad at them, then we attack with hand grenades and at the point of the bayonet, for the danger is extreme, 20 steps further there lies the general and his staff. Those gentlemen also open fire from all the windows of the staff quarters. And then an image which I will never forget, free standing on a balcony, our best comrade, a white haired officer, our general Neuling. Without a care about the whistling of the bullet bursts he is unloading his machine gun into the rows of the attackers.

Suddenly, to the surprise of friend and enemy, there is loud rattling and hissing, and two or three times a terrible burst of fire comes from a cellar window to the right onto the street. Flamethrowers!

The effect is terrible. Corpses burned beyond recognition are lying in black lumps on the street. The remaining Bolsheviks are fleeing in horror. But our machine gun bursts reach the fleeing; the enemy patrol is destroyed completely.

A little bit later a heavy attack supported by tanks calls us to the northeastern part of the city. The Red hordes arrive, screaming a shrill “Hurrah.”

Mortars and tank shells transform our defensive position, the Kolchose yard, within the shortest time into rubble. Half of the defenders are dead or wounded. Our artillery fires at a 52-ton caterpillar. But not one shell penetrates the thick armor plating. We want to despair. Now our second machine gun gives out due to a direct hit. Officer Nold is dead, the other two, who armed it, are heavily wounded. We demand reinforcement but they cannot come through because there is heavy fighting in the west as well as in the east.

Finally, after 30 horrible minutes, a tank and an assault gun arrive, and the latter shoots down a Charkow tank. We are advancing our counterattack, and what a miracle: the Reds are retreating.

With the fall off dusk we pick up chores, which we had missed, the whole area in the front is mined by our pioneers despite very dense combat fire of the enemy.

The mess of noon today will not be repeated soon. Our losses today are damn high!

During the night, heavy attacks of Red bombers in rolling waves, strong mortar fire, some infantry attacks. All in all it is quieter than during the last few nights, nearly too quiet. We are suspecting something devilish. The large cupola of the north church—an extraordinarily beautiful building, seat of the important B position—is fired at and ignites, in a bursting rain of embers the tower collapses. Bright as daylight the fire illuminates the northern position, every man, every single gun is clearly visible from above. Like hawks the bombers bear down on our trenches. Their bombs brings us many losses.

But the airplanes are bathed in red light as well, and our machine guns and the 2cm anti-aircraft artillery take aim like wild at the good targets—God knows, they succeed: a heavy bomber is hit and crashes burning into a field. Great is the jubilation, more even as the others are scurrying away.

January 8:
There is absolute quiet in the direction of Strelezkaja, not a single shot fired from over there. The eternal attacks probably will have also tired out the enemy; they will be asleep over there—as they can, because they determine the pace of the action, not us. Maybe they assemble their powers for a counterattack? Who knows? But we have to find out. A reconnaissance troop goes out. With utmost care the men are stalking toward the village. There is utter quiet in Strelezkaja, few posts are standing around, bored and freezing. Without them noticing we return at 5.00 a.m. to Obojan. In a hurry we assemble a strong raiding party with two PaKs, even assault guns are included.

At 5.30 a.m. we penetrate Strelezkaja. The surprise of the sleeping Russians is one hundred percent successful. Most of them do not even get the chance to get up. Without mercy everything and everybody is gunned down or clubbed to death on their sleeping cots. The whole nightmare lasts about a half hour. Strelezkaja burns down to the ground, in every hut there are 20 to 30 dead Russians; the houses become places of cremation. (Today we know that more than 360 Russians fell victim during the bloodbath.)

Well, you Asian pack, you certainly did not dream of that!

At 7.00 a.m. we have already taken up our positions again in the line of defense. The heavy mortars beat into the city, machine gun salvos are whipping through the streets, the usual!

At noon again, a resuplly of ammunition and provisions.

Otherwise nothing unusual. It is calm, alarmingly calm. At 15.00 hours there is suddenly the heaviest shooting.

Now we are in the know.

The Reds are ready for the counterattack! At the same hour an order arrives from headquarters: tomorrow morning at 9.00 a.m. an attack maneuver is to be undertaken. Group Dostler pressures from the south, the occupying forces will we trapped within the shortest time in this scissor formation, if they do not get possession of Obojan this very night.

Tonight our fate will be determined.

Kharkov town center prior to German occupation. (Photo courtesy of
www.wwii-photos-maps.com
)

At 20.00 hours the concentrated storm on the city begins.

At different locations the enemy succeeds in breaking through; in bloody close combat he is beaten, breaks through again at different places, infiltrates the field hospital and causes a horrific bloodbath among the wounded. With limitless fury we force him back again, not being in control of our senses, we are shooting, stabbing and beating around us like in the throws of madness. On a ward in a side wing of the hospital there has been a horrible struggle. The Reds do not have any more hand grenades; with long sticks the Caucasians beat at us, with our rifles we force them towards the windows and throw them hand over feet out the windows into the yard. I look terrible, the hands are bleeding, the uniform is ripped, soiled with brain matter and dirt. A tank shell rips howling through the outer wall, a hand-sized fragment rips the head off the body of my companion, nothing happens to me. Damned, am I immune?

Up until the early morning hours there is bitter fighting in all street quarters. With the breaking of dawn the attack has finally been defeated.

January 9:
The pressure of group Dostler, approaching from the south, onto the deep open flank of the enemy is definitely discernable.

Around 10.00 a.m. the enemy attempts another breakthrough in the north, but with the aide of our two storm cannons this undertaking is stopped and squashed right in its inception.

Outside the heavy firing, the day passes in relative calm. The hour has arrived when we, together with our infantry, assemble for the counterattack. At around 21.00 hours our own intelligence reports that the enemy is retreating toward the northwest while leaving a rearguard. He must retreat because he is forced to do so from the outside.

January 10:
The connection with group Dostler stands. The retreating enemy is nearly completely destroyed; the remaining troops are forced eastward.

January 11:
The small brave fighting group of Obojan takes a roll call at the main city center where there remains not one building standing. The general, who was awarded the Knight’s Cross the day before, thanks his men. He reads a thank-you telegram from the Führer, which makes us all very proud. (Only once before during this war has the Führer issued a similar personal telegram: This was to general Dietl at Narvik.)

We can hardly believe it: Obojan is free again, and free is the connection to the rear areas in Kursk and Charkow. Finally there is something to eat and finally we can sleep in. Unimaginable hard days lie behind us, bitter fighting at temperatures of –45 degrees Celsius. But despite everything we held on to Obojan, thus honoring our dead comrades. They will not have died in vain!

The heavy casualties of these fights are demonstrated by the following numbers:

Dead are 195 men

Missing in action: 18 men

Wounded: 327 men, 65 of whom are suffering from exposure of the severest degree.

540 brave men gave their blood, 540 of 1, 130 defenders. I believe numbers speak louder than words.

What the Russians had planned and their overwhelming manpower is demonstrated in the following order which we intercepted from a captured lieutenant; it refers to the large scale attack of January 8th and 9th: