Terror in the Balkans (104 page)

During the period of heavy grenade launcher and machine-gun fi re,

the enemy was bringing his troops up ever nearer to our own lines.

It was coming to the point where our men would also be encircled

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207

from behind, leading to the battalion’s total destruction. Above all,

many trucks would be lost. Because our battle group lacked artillery,

it was not possible to take on the Partisans effectively. We held out

for longer, and when it was clear that the enemy was about to break

into our lines at Point 568, the third company pulled back to avoid

destruction. Encirclement was at that point almost complete. Giving

up Point 568 also increased the enemy pressure from the north, pres-

sure which the fi rst company could not withstand. The ferocity of

the fi re, from both artillery and grenade launchers, was turned with

full force upon the battle group and battalion staffs . . . Decision then

taken to try and pull back. Once in Vijenac, the troops were fi red

upon from all sides by rifl es, machine guns and grenade launchers,

particularly from the surrounding hills and houses.97

The column was unable to halt, but forced to fi ght its way through the

Partisans to escape.98

By December 7, the 718th Infantry Division had failed to destroy the Par-

tisans but had at least retaken Jajce.99 But all the signs are that a great

many civilians had perished in the process. And there is little evidence,

in contrast with its conduct earlier in the year, that the division paid par-

ticular heed to avoiding heavy civilian casualties. Many of its troops, cer-

tainly, paid no heed at all. They seem to have been primarily concerned

with driving the Partisans out of Jajce, irrespective of the civilian cost,

and reasserting German military prestige.

The killing escalated as the operations unfolded. After the 718th’s fi rst

(temporarily) successful attempt to retake the town, it reported killing

eighty-three Partisans, taking seventy-four prisoners, and seizing a simi-

lar number of guns. The division and its Croatian allies lost thirty-eight

dead and fi fty-two wounded. This signifi es that a real battle had taken

place, one in which the division itself had suffered severely, and not the

indiscriminate butchery of civilians.100 But later the picture changed

dramatically. On October 28, Battle Group Suschnig and Battle Group

Wüst reported that, at a loss to themselves and their Croatian allies of

three dead and six wounded, they had killed at least 145 Partisans—from

208
terror in the balk ans

whom just six rifl es and one machine gun had been retrieved.101 Worse,

on October 30 the division reported that its units, primarily Battle Group

Suschnig, had killed 257 Partisans (including
Flintenweiber
), for the loss

of one German soldier wounded and two civilian auxiliaries killed.102

At the end of the second Jajce operation, the 718th Infantry Division

claimed to have killed at least 747 Partisans. It reckoned, observing that

the Partisans sought to bury their dead and carry off their wounded, that

it had actually killed considerably more. There were 106 prisoners taken;

127 rifl es, eight machine guns, and a heavy grenade launcher were seized.

The Germans and Croats themselves had lost fi fty-three dead, the vast

majority of whom were Croats, and eighty-two wounded. The division

announced, with a combination of pride and contempt, that “the pro-

portion of our own dead to the enemy’s was 1:14. The result would have

been better still if the Croatian troops too had learned that one must fi ght

off attacks instead of running away from them.”103

Even though some “Partisan” losses probably were down to genuine

combat, then, rather more of them were probably down to the killing of

noncombatants. This time, in contrast to before, divisional command

seems to have been unperturbed.

With the troops mired in miserable conditions and ferocious combat,

and divisional and regimental commanders making no attempt to rein in

their brutality, there was nothing to prevent that brutality’s threshold from

falling. Since the beginning of 1942 the 718th’s troops had been committed

to successive counterinsurgency operations that had been often fruitless,

frequently savage, and increasingly costly. Add to this the increasingly

severe counterinsurgency directives they were being issued, if not by the

division itself then certainly by higher command, and it would be surpris-

ing if the troops’ behavior had
not
become more ferocious.

The personal letters of Lieutenant Peter Geissler, of the 714th Infan-

try Division, illustrate the effects. Although soldiers’ letters as a source

should be approached cautiously,104 Geissler’s nevertheless provide vivid

and unsettling insights. It would not be too hyperbolic to conclude that

his experiences during the second half of 1942 progressively dragged

him down into his own personal hell.

At the outset of the summer Geissler already loathed the region and

everything about it: “Where we are, hell has broken loose!” he wrote

The Morass
209

on June 21. “There’s nothing to buy here, no meat, no oil, towns for the

most part abandoned, houses empty and ransacked—this is our opera-

tional area! Here the Bolshevik is at home . . . Croatia is much worse

even than Serbia—a complete cess pit . . . In Bosnia, the devil is abroad!

If we didn’t have any tanks or Stukas with us, then things really would

be grim. We’d’ve been done here a long time ago if it wasn’t for these

damned mountains.”105

In a letter the following month, Geissler described how hard hit he

was by comrades’ deaths in this war: “Today our mood’s well below par.

Our battalion’s fi rst company suffered an awful tragedy. Some soldiers

walked into a minefi eld, among them our best sergeant, who was due

to get his commission in the next few days.”106 Geissler was well aware

that he himself could be next. “The enemy, crafty fellow, sits mainly in

the trees, but can also conceal himself behind a bush,” he wrote in Sep-

tember. “You never know where to train your eyes. I like to experience

everything in life, but not a guerrilla war!”107

In another letter that month, Geissler described the Partisans’ silent

and unseen methods, and their predilection for night attack: “Every night

the enemy attacked with a Hurra (!!!) . . . You have to picture it, us in the

mountains, in the dark—unfortunately the moon is no longer shining—

the enemy slips in through the thick woods (!) until he’s about 25 meters

in front of us, throws hand grenades and then slips back.” His hatred of

the Partisans was further entrenched by what he saw the following morn-

ing: “This morning, on the strip of territory before our battle-line, we

discovered the corpses of a load of uniformed women! Just like in Rus-

sia.”108 Geissler’s revulsion at the thought of women fi ghting in the Par-

tisan ranks also emerges in a letter of October 4: “Yesterday we had our

second black day, we had to leave many dead and badly wounded on a

bridge. And when you consider that we suffered these losses at the hands

of a
female
Partisan company, it really makes you want to throw up.”109

That same letter also found Geissler in more refl ective mood, as he

mused over the character of the country in which he found himself.

“Our objective today was the most prettily situated town in the Bal-

kans—which naturally is in the hands of the Partisans. The countryside

here is the most romantic I’ve ever seen, apart from the Grossglockner

and Semmering.” But the reality of the Partisan war extinguished any

210
terror in the balk ans

aesthetic pleasure to be gained from such surroundings. “We’ve got no

feel for such sentiments. These splendidly romantic wooded hills have

been thoroughly infested by the bandits.”110

From late November, and all through December, the Partisans

assailed Geissler’s unit unremittingly. The ever present fear of annihila-

tion seems to have intensifi ed in his mind. “We had a pretty black day

again today,” he wrote on November 27. “The tireless Partisans attacked

our positions in huge numbers across a thirty-kilometer front. Among

other things they took the town which we’d recaptured just before I went

on leave. The enemy wrecked everything in his path. Just like in Tobruk

we had to destroy our own weapons, supplies, ammunition, and accom-

modation. The enemy also wrecked important rail and military instal-

lations. Among other things we lost one of our company commanders.

Yes, these are going to be very hard nuts to crack. And that’s only the

start of what awaits us here this winter.”111 A fortnight later he wrote that

“today things were black, the Partisans surprised our battalion, there

were six dead, sixteen wounded, two missing and 28 dead horses! Natu-

rally this is again an enormous blow, of the sort we won’t be able to with-

stand much longer. If we don’t get German reinforcements soon then we

will all be in the shit.”112

Two days later, relief had still to arrive: “For two days . . . we’ve been

on alarm level 1. This means I have to keep my clothes on at night and a

weapon lying next to me. This time it really is damned serious. Accord-

ing to prisoner interrogations the enemy is going to try to retake Prijedor

before Christmas, something which, with a big attack, he should have no

trouble achieving, for 1) there are only staffs here, of hardly any combat

value, and 2) the enemy has already tried this with other places, and

successfully!”113

Throughout, Geissler’s psychological stability was further shaken by

his experience of Partisan atrocities. “On one of these photos,” he wrote

in May, “you can see my regimental commander talking with a Serbian

captain. He was explaining how the Partisans had slaughtered his wife

and son a few days before. Before it happened the son was forced to have

sex with his mother. Simply awful!”114 Such instances loomed large in

Geissler’s mind even when his unit had had the better of the fi ghting.

“Yesterday . . . the battalion exterminated 650 Partisans in combat,”

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211

he wrote on September 6. “The fi rst time any battalion in West Bosnia

achieved this! But we lost our best NCO, who the scum managed to cap-

ture. We found him that evening. They’d pulled his fi ngernails out while

he was still alive, chopped his fi ngers and his genitals off, sawed off a leg,

and then fi nally they shot him. I also told you a lieutenant had gone miss-

ing. The enemy had nailed him alive to a door and then tortured him

to death with a red-hot iron!”115 On December 22, fi nally, he wrote that

“today more of our comrades were sadly lost, falling into the hands of

the Partisans. The poor souls were stripped naked, bound and thrown

into a running mountain river. They died a horrible watery death. This

is how the enemy spares his ammunition! May the almighty one day let

justice be done and give our worthy people the decisive victory!”116

Geissler’s ghoulish account may have been a refl ection of his fevered

brain-state, or an attempt to justify his own brutal conduct, rather than

an accurate report. That said, Partisan units’ capacity for savagery

towards their prisoners is well attested to.117 But whether or not Geissler

was exaggerating, his recounting of such atrocities indicates that he was

slipping into a mind-frame that justifi ed committing all manner of bru-

tality in the fi ght against the Partisans.

Geissler’s unit was still precariously holding on by this time, but its

day-to-day losses were fearful as ever. Meanwhile, the impression that

German units were now tiny islands beleaguered by pandemic Partisan

savagery grew stronger in his mind. “We lose many of our best every day

. . . fi fteen again yesterday! That may not seem much relative to the whole

regiment, but it’s mounted up horribly over the past few days. This

evening the enemy tried to encircle Prijedor. They burned the villages

all around. Road bridges wrecked all around, road blocks laid down,

mines laid, rail track destroyed, a travelling hospital train attacked (!!).

All transport routes impassable! . . . That’s our situation in the ‘sunny’

south-east!”118

Finally, Geissler was surrounded by death throughout the whole

period. “Yesterday,” he wrote in August, “we advanced down a road,

where we came across bloody corpses in a ditch, wrapped in tablecloths

(men, women, children, murdered!) There must have been about a hun-

dred of them . . . Dreadful. Man becomes beast!”119 Which of the mani-

fold belligerent groupings in the 714th Infantry Division’s jurisdiction

212
terror in the balk ans

actually perpetrated this particular atrocity is unclear. It may even have

been another unit
from
the 714th. Irrespective of who the perpetrators

were, however, this extract displays yet another facet of the execrable

conditions in which Geissler found himself for a sustained period of sev-