To reach Bavaria and the American lines we had to cross the Soviet-controlled Elbe. We were still confident of our own strength. We had survived more hell than could possibly wait for us on the way home. German soldiers do not succumb easily. We could be defeated but never crushed.
All day long Captain Ruell of the artillery had been trying to reach the headquarters of Field Marshal Schoerner. No one acknowledged his signals but finally he did manage to contact General Headquarters at Flensburg. I was standing close to him and saw his face turn ashen. When he lowered his earphones he was shaking in every limb and could barely form his words as he spoke: “It’s the end… The Wehrmacht is surrendering on all fronts… Keitel has already signed the armistice… Unconditional surrender.”
He wiped his face and accepted the cigarette which I lighted for him. “The Fatherland is finished,” he muttered, staring into the distant valley with vacant eyes. “What now?” Suddenly it dawned on us why the Russians had refrained from forcing the pass. The Soviet commander had known that the war was about to end, and he did not feel like sacrificing his troops only minutes before twelve o’clock. But he as aware of our presence in the neighborhood. Within six hours after the official announcement of the German capitulation, Soviet PO-2’s appeared overhead. Circling our positions the planes dropped a multitude of leaflets announcing the armistice. We were requested to lay down our weapons and descend into the valley under a flag of truce. “German Officers and Soldiers,” the leaflets read, “if you obey the instructions of the Red Army commander you shall be well treated, you will receive food and medical care due to prisoners of war, according to the articles of the Geneva Convention. Destruction of war material and equipment is strictly prohibited. The local German Commander shall be responsible for the orderly surrender of his troops.”
Had our plight not been so bitterly serious we could have sneered at the Russians quoting the Geneva Convention, something the Kremlin had neither signed nor acknowledged. The Red Army could indeed promise us anything under the articles of the Convention; it was not bound by its clauses.
The following morning our sentries spotted a Soviet scout car as it labored uphill on the winding road to our positions. From its mudguard fluttered a large white flag of truce. I ordered my troopers to hold their fire, and called a platoon for lineup. Everyone was shaved and properly dressed. I wanted to receive the Soviet officers with due respect. I was astonished to see the car stop three hundred yards short of our first roadblock, and, instead of sending forward parliamentaries, the enemy began to deliver a message through loudspeakers.
“Officers and soldiers of the German Wehrmacht… The Soviet High Command knows that there are Nazi fanatics and war criminals among you who might try to prevent your accepting the terms of armistice and consequently your return home. Disarm the SS and SD criminals and hand them over to the Soviet authority. Officers and soldiers of the Wehrmacht… Disarm the SS and SD criminals. You will be generously rewarded and allowed to return home to your families.”
“The filthy liars!” Untersturmführer Eisner sneered, watching the Russian group through his binoculars. “They will be allowed to return home! That is a good joke.”
It was amusing to note how little the enemy knew the German soldier. After having fought us for so many” years, the Soviet High Command should have known better. Cowardice or treason was never the trade of the German soldier. Nor was naivete. They had called us “Fascist criminals” or “Nazi dogs” ever since “Operation Barbarossa.”
In the past they had made no distinction between the various services. Wehrmacht, SS, or Luftwaffe had always been the same to Stalin, yet now he was endeavoring to turn the Wehrmacht against the SS and vice versa.
The loudspeakers blared again. Eisner pulled himself to attention. “Herr Obersturmführer, I request permission to open warning fire.”
“No! Nothing of the sort, gentlemen,” Colonel Stein-metz, the commanding officer of the small motorized infantry group protested. “We shouldn’t fire at parliamentaries.”
“Parliamentaries, Herr Oberst?” Eisner exclaimed with a bitter smile. “They are sheltering behind the flag of truce to deliver Communist propaganda.”
“Even so,” the colonel insisted. “We may request them to withdraw but we should not open fire.”
Being an officer of the Wehrmacht, Colonel Steinmetz had no authority over the SS. He was, however, a meticulously pedantic officer and much our senior both in rank and age. I did not feel like entering into futile arguments, especially in front of the ranks. Trying to avoid the slightest offensive quality in my voice I reminded him that I was in charge of the pass and all the troops therein. Even so the colonel stiffened at my remark and said, “I am aware of your command. Herr Obersturmführer, and I hope you will handle the situation with the responsibility of a commander.”
The Russian loudspeakers kept blaring. Eisner shrugged and began to observe the enemy again. I exchanged glances with Erich Schulze and saw defiance in his eyes. Both men had been my comrades for many years. Bernard Eisner had been my right hand since 1942. He was a cool and hard fighter. Having been well-to-do landowners, Eisner’s father and elder brother had been beaten to death by a Communist mob during the short-lived “proletarian revolution” after the First World War. It was Bernard’s conviction that no Communist on earth should be left alive. Schulze, who had joined my battalion in 1943, was rather hotheaded but always polite and considerate.
A few steps from where we stood two young troopers sat behind a heavy machine gun, which they kept trained on the Soviet scout car. Their faces were tense but lacking emotion, as though they were statues or a part of the gun. Both were young, only nineteen years old. Drafted in 1944, they had not experienced the real trials of the war.
I asked for a loudspeaker and addressed the Russians: “This is the German commander speaking. We have not received an official confirmation of the armistice and we will hold our positions until such confirmation can be obtained. I request the Soviet commander to furnish an authentic document related to the question of armistice. I also request that, in the meantime, the Soviet propaganda unit refrain from using the flag of truce for communicating subversive propaganda. I request that the Soviet propaganda unit withdraw from our positions within five minutes. After five minutes I shall no longer consider them immune to hostilities.”
“German officers and soldiers… Disarm the SS and SD criminals and hand them over to the Soviet authority.
You shall be generously rewarded and allowed to return home.”
“I request that the Soviet propaganda unit refrain from using the flag of truce for communicating subversive propaganda,” I repeated. There was a pause; then the loudspeakers blared once more. “German officers and soldiers… Disarm the SS and SD criminals…”
I ordered, “Fire!” The scout car burst into flames, then exploded. When the smoke and dust settled we saw two Red army men scurrying down the road. “That should fix them for the time being,” Eisner remarked, lighting a cigarette. “Bullets are the only language they understand.”
An hour later a squadron of Stormoviks dived out of the clouds with the intention of strafing and bombing our positions. To reach us, however, the planes had to come in level between a cluster of high cliffs, then drop sharply over the small plateau which we occupied. The Russian pilots flew well, but they had bad luck. I had deployed eight 88’s and ten heavy MG’s to cover that narrow corridor and our gunners were experienced men. Within a few minutes five of the planes had been shot down. Trailing smoke two more had escaped toward the valley and a third one had banked straight into a three-hundred-foot rock and exploded, fuel, bombs, ammunition and all. At that point the four remaining planes had given up and departed without having fired a shot. We spotted two Soviet pilots parachuting downward. One of them hit a cliff, slipped his chute, and tumbled to his death at the bottom of a ravine. The other one, a young lieutenant, landed right on one of our trucks. He was made prisoner.