David Healey: Ardennes Sniper

Kampfgruppe Friel was comprised of more than twelve hundred SS troops — not baby-faced recruits, but mostly battle-hardened veterans. The battle group was equipped with six hundred Tiger II tanks, mobile anti-aircraft guns called Wirbelwind , and scores of combat vehicles. It was more than a formidable fighting force. It was a conquering army.

At the head of the column, Friel rode in a Tiger II tank. It was not just big — it was a monster. The tank weighed seventy-seven tons and was armed with a cannon and machine gun. Powered by a 700 horsepower Maybach engine, the tank could reach speeds of twenty-four miles per hour on good roads or through open country. The more lightly armored Sherman tanks used by the Allies did not stand a chance against a Tiger II tank. It would be akin to a medieval knight on a war horse attacking a peasant armed with a stick. All across the countryside from Normandy to the Ardennes, the blackened wreckage of Sherman tanks testified to that fact. It wasn’t without good reason that the Sherman tanks had been nicknamed “Tommy Cookers.”

Von Stenger had declined riding on the tank and had opted instead to climb aboard a Volkswagen Schwimmwagen, an amphibious vehicle based on the VW Beetle. In many ways it was the German equivalent of the Allies’ popular Jeep. The clattering tank was too loud — he couldn’t hear himself think — and he did not like the idea of being closed up inside the steel walls of a tank. Von Stenger was not particularly claustrophobic, but he preferred to be in the open, where he could keep an eye on the passing countryside.

He was a sniper, after all. What could he shoot inside a tank?

Beside him, the Schwimmwagen driver gave a hearty laugh. “You see, Herr Hauptmann, we are already most of the way to Paris. Where are the Allies? On the run, I tell you!”

“We shall see,” Von Stenger said.

“I will be sorry if we don’t see some action.” He nodded at the rifle in Von Stenger’s hands. “You may not even get to use that, sir.”

“I am sure none of us will be disappointed,” Von Stenger said, giving the driver a sidelong look. He could see him better now that it was getting light. He realized the driver could not be more than eighteen. Did he even need to shave? His uniform had a crisp new look. And of course, he was enlisted SS — which in Von Stenger’s experience meant that the boy must have been dropped on his head as a child or had grown up pulling the wings off flies.

The SS were the last of the true believers, real fanatics for Hitler and the Fatherland, when it was clear to any reasonable German that the war was nearly lost. “ Sie sind ein junger Idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

“What did you say, sir?”

“I said, ‘The Allies are going to get quite a Christmas present.’”

“Ha, ha! Frohe Weihnachten, Amerikaner.”

Merry Christmas. It would not be the sort of holiday the Americans were expecting.

Von Stenger knew very well that the Americans he had encountered in the last few months were not likely to be on the run. They were not professional soldiers like so many of the Germans, but they had learned quickly and showed fierce determination.

They did not have the brutality of the Russians — there was already speculation among Wehrmacht soldiers of how it would be better to surrender to the Americans when the time came. SS troops like these did not speak of surrender, of course.

While Von Stenger hated the Russians, he had no grudge against the Americans, English and Canadians. He had even encountered one American sniper in the days after the Normandy invasion who had very nearly proven his match. He had heard rumors that this sniper was still alive and had taken quite a toll, but so far the tides of war had kept them apart. Von Stenger would not have minded a rematch, which would have a different outcome this time for the American sniper.

As they slowed for a disruption in the column ahead, a Scharführer came running over. He had the look of a hardened veteran, and in the dim predawn light a nasty scar on his right cheek seemed to match the twin SS lightning bolts on the collar of his tunic.

“You there, you have room. Take these men with you,” the Scharführer said, gesturing toward two soldiers behind him who were lugging heavy panzerfaust, shoulder-mounted weapons used to attack tanks.

“Sir?” the driver turned toward Von Stenger.

The Scharführer was having none of that. “Driver! I am giving you an order. You have more important things to carry than Wehrmacht tourists.”

Von Stenger fixed the Scharführer with a stare that the man returned coldly. “When I want an opinion, Scharführer, I will give it to you. Of course, these men are welcome to ride along. The last time I checked, we are all on the same side.”

The Scharführer turned away without saluting, and the two men with the panzerfaust clambered aboard.

“I am sorry, Herr Hauptmann,” the driver muttered. “That was Udo Breger. He is a real ball buster.”

“That is why he is a Scharführer.” Ball busting was what sergeants in any army did best — but he did not appreciate being on the receiving end of it. He turned to the men who had squeezed into the back of the Schwimmwagen. He saw that like the driver, they were very young. His teaching instincts stirred. “Listen,” he said. “When the time comes, get in close with those things. Aim for the tracks, and then get down low. The Americans will come out shooting. And whatever you do, don’t stand behind someone firing a panzerfaust or you will end up looking like a burnt sausage.”

“Yes, sir.”

The traffic jam abated, and they rolled on for several minutes. Von Stenger let his thoughts wander — they were still some distance away from the American lines.

His thoughts were interrupted by the driver. “Herr Hauptmann, they say you are a legend with a rifle. How many men have you killed so far?”

Von Stenger shrugged. It was a question he was asked frequently, and yet it was hard to answer. Back when it mattered, he had kept count. The number had climbed above two hundred during the first few weeks of Stalingrad. At that point, he had stopped counting. Such numbers were a point of pride that also managed to sicken him. Who knew how many Allied troops he had shot since June alone? “Do you just want to know how many men I have shot? That would be around two hundred. I have not kept track of the women and children, but maybe fifty of those.”

Now it was the young SS driver’s turn to give him a sidelong look. “So many.”

“Yes,” Von Stenger said. “So many. And yet not enough. Now pay attention and don’t run into the back of that panzer, or the invasion is going to end quickly for us.”

When Von Stenger looked at Friel, he reminded himself that he was looking at a panther. The man was handsome and urbane — in fact, he was friendly and clever company. But deep down, he was utterly ruthless.

Where Friel’s heart should have been, there was a swastika. He was a believer in the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. Though quite intelligent and a good student, he had dropped out of high school to join the military. But even as a teenage high school dropout, Friel was a military standout. It helped that he looked like he had stepped straight out of some Aryan propaganda poster. He didn’t just mouth his loyalty to the ideals of the Reich — it shone from his soul like a beacon. These qualities soon saw him sent to Bad Tolz, the German equivalent of West Point. There, he received advanced training in military tactics and performed incredible feats of physical training — often under live fire. The officers who graduated from Bad Tolz were the very best, the SS version of Spartan warriors.