Gasping for breath, we ran along the track made by the tanks. They had pulled far ahead of us and entered into combat with the enemy some ten minutes before we reached the scene of fighting. We could hear their machine guns ripping into the air, sounding much louder than usual. The sidecar came back toward us and suddenly spun round.
“Spread out into the forest.”
We carried out the order, some of us remaining behind to pull out the sidecar, which was stuck in a drift, before running on through the trees, standing up as straight as the masts of ships. The virgin snow rasped and cracked in great sheets under our weight. We could no longer see the tanks, which seemed to be pursuing an enemy in flight. We didn’t meet any partisans ourselves. Twenty minutes later, a flare called us to the nearby blockhouse, which was like every other. It was supposed to guard the track, which in normal times was heavily used.
The post had been attacked by partisans — which, of course, we had to expect — probably the same band that had massacred the men we’d found earlier. Here, fortunately, there had been time for the defense to react. Of the twenty-two men holding the post, six had been wounded and two killed. Some twenty enemy dead or wounded lay on the trampled snow. There were also several guns: Russian and German and some American. A few wounded partisans were trying to crawl into the forest. No order could have stopped our men. They fired at the Russians and put an end to their suffering. Two shaggy prisoners had fallen into our hands. Their eyes rolled wildly like the eyes of trapped wolves, and they answered our questions with absurd, repetitive replies: “We… not… Communists.” What did they take us for? Or did they really know nothing? That, of course, was possible. They looked like beasts being dragged to slaughter. No talk was possible, and our men were muttering for revenge.
Wesreidau looked at the partisans, and then at us. He tried a little longer to get something from the prisoners, but his efforts were unavailing. Finally, his patience exhausted, he raised his arm with feigned indifference. Our men grabbed the two prisoners and pushed them along in front of them. The human wolves looked back, snarling. But the sight of our guns made them lose their heads. They began to run, and ran until the first volley caught them and knocked them to the ground.
The post had been saved at the last possible moment. According to the men who’d been there, at least four hundred partisans had attacked them, and the fighting had lasted for over two hours. The men greeted us with bear hugs. They were overjoyed to hear that we had brought an evacuation order with us. For the moment, we seemed to be acting as the last broom of the Wehrmacht, making a clean sweep.
To crown the misery of the day, a hideous incident occurred within ten minutes of our departure from that place. The sidecar at the head of the column, preceding the first tank by some thirty to forty yards, drove back onto the track, moving through the snow with considerable difficulty. A tank followed it, rolling over the same ground. Suddenly an explosion shook the earth and reverberated through the air. Frozen snow showered down with a crystalline sound from the heavily laden branches all around us. The tank had been blown off its tracks and torn open from below. We could hear the roar of the flames as fat plumes of smoke rolled out from beneath the machine, spreading over the icy ground. The men on the sleighs which followed reacted immediately. One of the junior officers jumped onto the turret of the tank to try to free the frantic men inside, who were probably seriously wounded. Others ran to help, while the infantry spread out on either side of the road, to be ready for any eventuality. By now the tank was wrapped in thick black smoke, and we could do nothing to help the trapped men. We emptied three extinguishers onto the blackened metal, but the flames inside only increased in violence. The sleighs were hastily drawn back, as the tank’s reservoir poured out forty gallons of flaming gasoline, which spread across the snow. In panic, the scorched landser yielded to the fire whose black plumes of smoke were climbing into the dark sky. In helpless anger, officers and men alike watched the immolation of three men. The smell of burned flesh mingled ignominiously with the smell of gas and oil. The two men in the lead sidecar had passed over the same spot a few seconds before the tank. Their tires must have missed the detonator of the partisans’ mine by only an inch or two. They also watched the hideous scene with cold sweat running down their spines.
The column abandoned the burning tank, whose flames had begun to make its ammunition explode. We also abandoned three heavy sleighs, and some of our materiel, which we burned. The men who had ridden on those sleighs found places on other vehicles. We all made a wide detour to avoid the exploding machine-gun bullets. We left behind the tomb of two men who had been killed without a chance to defend themselves, two men who had three years of fighting behind them and who deserved Valhalla.
We abandoned the territory to the Red waves that followed us. This was the final passage of the last European crusade — in the complete sense of the word.
The piercing cold was a continuous element we could never forget, even during moments of strong emotion, as in our recent clash with the partisans. A short time later, we rejoined the division in a town of a certain size and importance called Boporoeivska, if I remember correctly. Between the trenches and the barbed wire, the engineers and the Todt organization were busy mining the area. Other infantry regiments and an armored unit equipped with Tiger-panzers had also reached this point. A dozen of these motionless monsters seemed to be grinning at us as they watched the passage of our battered equipment. The presence of the Tigers reassured everyone. They were like steel fortresses, and no Russian tank could equal them.
Several Wehrmacht civil servants had been billeted at Boporoeivska. These gentlemen were surprised and displeased to find themselves suddenly at the center of a battlefield. They all seemed to be in an extremely bad humor, and their attitude toward us seemed tinged with a certain distrust. Perhaps their bureaucratic minds resented our fighting as we retreated. For them Russia meant this organized town where one could shelter from the cold and eat one’s fill, provided one had established the proper connections with Supply. Perhaps there were also charming evenings with the charming Ukrainian women who seemed to abound in these parts. These ladies and girls seemed to be preparing for a hasty departure in the company of their gentlemen friends, to look for a distant and more tranquil spot. We, it seemed, would be given the honor of defending these bureaucratic love nests. This attitude infuriated us, and many brawls began, but were quickly stifled. In the end, we were too exhausted and hungry to bother with these people, and occupied the warm isbas we were given with the greatest satisfaction. In the isbas we found food and drink and the opportunity to wash. Our cabins were rarely equipped with candles or lamps, but the flames in the fireplaces, which we fed with every combustible substance we could find, brilliantly lit these fragments of paradise. Within a few tours of our arrival, several cubic yards of snow had been melted in each billet, and we were all stripped naked, scrubbing off our filth as best we could. We soaked our trousers, underwear, shirts, and tunics with feverish, almost panicky haste. Our opportunity would certainly be brief, and everyone wished to make the most of it. Someone had even found a box full of small cakes of toilet soap. These were mixed into the water of the largest tubs.