They arrived at the forest edge. The ridge, the target of the attack, could be seen in the distance. Captain Wistinghausen arrived and said that they would wait for prep fire. It would start in an hour. So the rank and file gathered spruce branches, lay down on them and rested. In the meantime, Arno took his squad leaders to the forest edge, letting them see the target. Before them was a meadow with a ditch and a barn, both of which could provide protection during the advance. The ridge was an elongated hill where they could make out cannon emplacements and infantry positions. On top of the ridge grew conifers and deciduous trees.
The prep fire started right on time, saturating the ridge. Dust and smoke rose from the impact areas, trees were smashed, branches and treetops flew. Just before H Hour Arno’s platoon set off, scurrying along the ditch and halting at the barn. There, they waited until the storm of artillery fire ceased. Then they doubled towards the target in two columns.
A muzzle flash was seen on the right. Everyone hit the dirt. Arno ordered rifle grenades towards the spot, plus hand grenades. Lenz opened up with the MG, forcing Ivan to keep his head down. Then Bauer’s squad advanced, firing their StGs from the hip.
The sky was now completely overcast. This was good since this limited hostile air operations. The platoon broke into the ridge position, harassing the trenches and ramparts. The enemy had been considerably shaken by the prep fire. The position had only been thrown up some 24 hours ago and the Russians had not had the time to perfect the defences.
Arno’s platoon cleared them with fire and movement, StG salvoes and hand grenades. There was support demanded and given, shaft grenade and egg hand grenade, blood and flesh wounds, killed and wounded. It was steel helmet with fabric covers, it was boots, combat webbing, magazine pouches, StG and MG, it was support from the company mortar platoon. And it was bare birch trees, blackbirds and elegiac music: “the spirit of song is war” as Södergran said.
There were three squads, moving by bounds, an armoured door, boulders, neighbouring platoons, intrusion and cleaning up, equalising of ammunition and back into the fray.
It was counter-attack, retreat, mortar support, grenades and blood out of a soldier’s mouth. The troops poured in, cleaned the trenches and got into the heart of the position. 8th Company had begun its breakthrough. 1st Platoon eventually succeeded 3rd Platoon as point Platoon. Arno’s men could rest for a while. But during the storming of the ridge one loss had made an indelible impression on Arno. At one moment his orderly, Kellner, was hit by a burst of MG bullets in the chest. He was choked to death by this lung wound, dying in Arno’s arms, his face turning blue while life itself flowed out of him.
With 1st in the lead they at long last reached a road, a dirt road. This was the same road where the company had left the lorries in order to reach the FAA. And now the unit, the dismounted company, was at a point 1.7 km further south along this road. Soon the other companies of the battalion reached the road too. The battalion had succeeded in attacking in line abreast. The crazy plan had succeeded, Major Mahler dispersing his forces and pulling off the bold gamble.
The line was broken through. They didn’t know it then but this would be the last actual attack they performed during the war. And as such it was part of the very last offensive by the German Army in World War II, this Unternehmen Frühlingserwachen of March 1945.
Battalion Wolf had broken through, holding the door open to let Battalions Weiss and Rot forge ahead to Kerenyi and the Puszta. The following day Battalion Wolf followed in their wake. Some days later, on March 10, Battalion Wolf was in the lead with Arno and his platoon yet again as advance guard. This day they reached the end of the forests and hills, having travelled four kilometers by foot from the early morning. Ahead they saw the great plain, the Hungarian Puszta.
To be precise, it was at ten o’clock that day that Arno saw extra light filtering through the trees ahead. He walked on up to the forest edge and looked out over the boundless plain, sitting muddy brown under a grey sky. The road over the plain, the road ahead, led to a village some 2.5 kilometres away – the point at which they would meet the other spearhead in their desperate bid to stabilise the front. To buy time for more ‘wonder weapons’, even more effective than the ME262.
As noted above Arno’s orderly, Kellner, had fallen with a fatal lung wound in the battle for the ridge. His replacement was one Gunthram. Now Arno sent Gunthram to Wistinghausen with the report, “The plain reached without further losses, nothing hostile, end of message.” As for using a runner for such a report and not a radio, the fact of course was that Arno didn’t have a radio anymore.
Battalion Wolf had come a long way to get as far as this. But they would never reach the key just a few kilometres ahead on the plain. By now they were in the second week of Operation Frühlingserwachen. During this time Peiper had pushed steadily east. But the Red Army had retreated in an orderly fashion. Peiper’s losses began to rise.
At one point Peiper was far ahead of the rest of the division. Soon he was only 30 km from Budapest. But they had neither the numbers nor the fuel to force their way through. On March 18 Peiper was ordered to turn around. By now he was encircled, but he did manage to breakout and save himself, along with 25 tanks – all that he had left of his once proud Kampfgruppe.
What did this mean to Battalion Wolf and Battle Group M? It meant that by the time they were within reach of their key target the village had been retaken by the Russians. The Battalion and the whole of BGM were ordered to withdraw, fall back, retreat. The operation was called off.
Arno for his part didn’t really care about the outcome; he had become largely indifferent to the higher goals of the war; by now being something of a fighting machine, only interested in operating as a goal in itself. He operated, this was enough for him. But yes, a vague sense of futility took possession of him at the news of retreat. He resented the fact that Bolshevism was now seizing control over all of Eastern Europe, but this fact per se didn’t make him feel dejected; that is, not existentially dejected.
He had done what he could to defeat Bolshevism. Obviously, it hadn’t happened. Now he had to regroup and keep fighting nihilism with different means, or the same, time would tell.
Mounting Russian airstrikes had put an end to movement by truck. The transport company had been knocked out. So in going back up north the soldiers had to retreat on foot.
Operation Spring Awakening was called off. But Battalion Wolf and BGM didn’t meet too much resistance in its zone, wearily slogging back the way they had come. They had already crushed the Russian defence in the forest. So after four days, with overnight stays in villages and bivouacs, they were back in the FAA region, the starting point for the failed last gamble. Soon the units were shipped across the Danube on combat engineer barges. After this Battalion Wolf was transferred to Berlin in order to help prepare the endgame defence of the Reich capital. The Twilight of the Gods.
27
Berlin
Arno Greif was lying asleep, dreaming. He dreamt that he was at a house. In front of the house grew an ash tree, a stately, grey-barked green hardwood guarding the house like a giant sentry. Around the trunk ran a bench, a circular wooden bench. Arno was sitting on this bench listening of bees up in the green canopy and the leaves rustling faintly in the soft breeze. Looking ahead he saw a spring green wood under a fiery sky and stately palaces on distant hilltops. And he heard birds singing.