By running in Russians columns, sneaking forth in enemy motorised formations too busy to see if the odd German vehicle sneaked westwards in it, by taking back roads and by various tricks and ruses, the battalion finally reached solid German territory. This was by the beginning of July. The whole battalion was sent to Frankfurt an der Oder for resupply. Again, this was sorely needed. Arno alone had lost about 50% of his strength in the Belarus retreat: Hackel, Lenoir, Langon, Mesurier, Venlo, Rendulic, Pindar, Gero and Emostas had been killed during the fighting. Pindar, had been wounded in the arm in the breakout from Hube’s Pocket, recovered and was put back in the ranks for Operation Bagration, where he finally bought it. Schmidt and Qvoon had been wounded in the same battle. They were now recuperating in a field hospital.
In late July Battalion Wolf was sent east again, taking up defence in central Poland, just east of Warsaw. During the month that the Battalion had been absent from the front, Operation Bagration had rolled on, the Russians continuously forging ahead to the west. At the same time the Allies had landed in Normandy and in late July they broke out of the bridgehead. By then the attempt on Hitler’s life had also been made, the 20 July coup that failed to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime.
On August 1 Battalion Wolf found itself back in the front line, at Radzymin. They were waiting for a Russian attack against this sector of the Eastern Front. To try to find out what to expect in their particular sector Arno got the orders to equip and lead a patrol. Task: Snatch a prisoner.
This they did: Arno and five men seeped through the front line, encountered an enemy transport company and grabbed a prisoner. Some details from the patrol follow: Having reached No Man’s Land, Arno and his hand-picked team found themselves stalking through a landscape with dry grass and odd-looking trees, trunks blasted off at about a man’s height, the result of artillery fire. When the team was dispersed among the splintered timber, it was difficult to distinguish the men from the trees. Everything became one petrified, enchanted forest; they were figures in a landscape, trees and soldiers, and all in one and one in all.
Having crept silently through the enemy lines, they went to ground in a patch of scrub and waited for the evening. Then they raided a truck depot and succeeded in grabbing a prisoner. Then the Bolsheviks came after them. At one point Arno’s men took cover in a ditch. Ebersen for his part hid under a Red staff car. He was hit by a thrown hand grenade which exploded just under the vehicle where he lay, in the confined space. When they dragged him out, grey-green bowels gushed out of his lacerated stomach. Blood was literally pouring from the abdominal wound. This happens when the aorta is cut.
The soil on which the soldier lay was soaked red, the earth quickly blackening with blood. The next moment Ebersen was dead. Another casualty was Geglo. He was simply lost. They guessed that he just ran away and gave himself up as a prisoner to the Russians. Some exchange Arno thought, one prisoner for another. But he kept this to himself; Geglo was simply reported lost. That’s how to report: don’t speculate, just state what you know.
When the patrol got back and the Russian prisoner had been interrogated he told them this:
“It’s about to erupt, a major attack…! The road from Bialystok to here is full of artillery, Guard Infantry and T-34s, many Klim Voroshilovs and Stalin’s Organs.”
A major attack indeed. And Battalion Wolf got it confirmed soon enough. August 3. The unit was deployed south of Radzymin, east of Warsaw. In the ensuing attack the Battalion defended a line in a forest edge. Desperate fighting. Wagner, one of their newcomers, fell and Corporal Karnow was wounded. But the Russian onslaught was thrown back, here and in other places of this combat zone.
True, there was a Russian breakthrough north of the Battalion Wolf sector. The Soviets poured in their armoured reserves, intent on reaching Warsaw and beyond. The Head of AG Mitte at this time was Walter Model and as Army Group chief he had amassed reserves on the north flank, northwest of Radzymin. With them he would surprise the Russians.
The reserves consisted of three newly arrived SS Panzer Divisions, two from the southern front and one from Italy. On the same day, August 3, these were gathered on the northern flank of the enemy. The German force attacked at two o’clock and drove a wedge into the Russian advance guard, forcing a retreat. At the same time, on the current southern flank, Russian bridgeheads on the western shore of Vistula were met and contained using other reinforcements.
Thus, on the whole, the Russian onslaught had been halted. The north wing of the Eastern Front was still unbroken. This road towards the Third Reich was, for the time being, blocked. The Russians were not yet in Berlin, not even in Warsaw. But overall the Russians had reason to be proud of their operational achievements, having in five weeks advanced over 700 km. Operation Bagration was a Russian success. This, of course, shouldn’t hide the fact that the onrush of the Red Army also meant horror for the civilians. There was pillage and mass-rape, specifically when the Red Army reached Germany.
As for operations, the German counterattack east of Warsaw also was something of a feat. Now it was the turn of the Russians to be forced on the defensive. From their point of view it could be rationalised thus: At this point, in August, the Russians had stretched out their supply lines too far and needed to consolidate what they had won. The halt on the Vistula would last quite a long time, almost half a year.
22
Warsaw
Now for the uprising in Warsaw which began in August 1944. Its early phase was simultaneous with the battle between the Germans and Russians east of the city. Arno and Co. took part in the suppression of the uprising.
The rebellion by the Polish Home Army of urban guerrillas in Warsaw began on August 1. The rebels hoped that the Russians would join them in their fight against the Germans. But the Red Army waited and watched from its positions east of the Vistula. The Russians were exhausted and stayed put, or Comrade Stalin thought it was a good idea to let two sets of fascist and reactionary pigs slaughter each other. Take your pick! But the Polish rebels were fresh and determined; they soon held all of central Warsaw. The Germans were short of reinforcements and only began retaking the city from August 10 and onward.
German infantry units were rushed to the city. So, after helping hold the defensive line to the east of Warsaw, Battalion Wolf became part in quelling the rebellion. Arno’s platoon, 3rd in 8th Company, now consisted of three six-men squads. The first squad as usual had Bauer as manager. His men were the veterans Ilo, Henko, Gipp and Tauber. Newcomers were Crispus and Ullmer.
2nd Squad was still led by Karnow. He had bounced back after Radzymin, quickly recovering from his wound. His men were now the veterans Gans and Emostas and newcomers Ditter, Sachs and Wuchs. 3rd Squad, the MG team, was now led by a certain Egon Lenz. The previous head, Deschner, had been felled by a piece of shrapnel in the final stages of the Radzymin battle. Deschner wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time, he stuck his head up too high from the last of a thousand foxholes and, zip! Another telegram home. Egon Lenz, his replacement, was a new arrival, a recently trained Corporal who quickly got into the routine of leading a squad. Arno could of course have promoted one of Deschner’s men to Squad Leader but only Venskes and Menider had any experience to speak of and they didn’t fit as leaders. And he liked Lenz, so that was it. The MQ Squad now consisted of Venskes and Menider and the relative newcomers Schnell, Huber, Düsterberg and Modrow.