Willy Reese - A Stranger to Myself

The detailed account of this battle in Reese’s diary shows how closely the book follows his notes and records, as well as how much he has worked on his account. Diary and manuscript tally down to minor matters of detail. For instance, the entry for July 26, 1943, shows:

Flies. Began letter to parents, etc. but no courage to send it. I first want to know more about what will happen to me here. I write behind the artillery piece in a foxhole. Seven a.m. Cool, windy, overcast, I’m cold. The attack began yesterday at 1715, while the 3rd battalion already embattled in the morning and took many losses, while making some progress. Whereas now the 1st battalion is in the center, ourselves and the bicycle squadron, two machine guns and 3 bazookas are there to secure the flank and drive forward. We left the village then by platoon through a swamp, from which my feet are still wet. In position halfway up the back of the hill. From the flares we could see the 1st B. being pushed back; then the Russians started coming out of the woods 600 yards in front of us. We dragged the gun back through the swamp, fired off 3 rounds, in spite of orders, ineffectual, aided by infantry. On the heights, we came under intense fire—more accurate and deadly than in the cornfield where we’d lain before, smoking. Ernst Wolf fell a step in front of me; Jupp Kramer was wounded next to me; two infantrymen ahead of us were badly wounded; another cannon also had casualties, one dead, several wounded. We almost collapsed as we pulled, and the sweat is still drying. At last the horses and limbers came to our aid; we limbered up and chased back at a gallop, I was grabbing on to the limber hook, lost my helmet and rifle. I have a replacement rifle and my cap camouflaged with corn, mosquito net down my neck. The Russians took up positions at the edge of the forest. We stayed up all night in the streaming rain that leaked through the canvas; one cannon lost, smoking greedily under canvas. Quiet night. We heard: 3rd Company had 15 dead, 14 wounded, and various missing, fate unknown; 2nd Company is scattered, 3 men come back late at night, 1st Battalion down to 22 men. Myself exhausted and shy, helpless, shattered from seeing so much death. The bodies still lying there, badly wounded only picked up toward morning, 25 belly wounds still untreated in the aid station, many more must have died there. I’m shivering, my eyes are falling shut. But cold, shaking, and fire from heavy Russian weapons keeping me awake. Several times, hails of shrapnels rained down. Wish I could sleep. Sleep for a long, long time-and then wake up at home. Dream as I drop off a black-and-gray-striped newt in a puddle. 1600 hrs. At 0500 the Russians attacked; we saw them emerging from the forest in long lines, while machine guns and shells kept us covered. I loaded, and Willi Dahlhoff shot; artillery and bazooka fire stopped the attack in front of us. To the right of us, the Russians broke into the village, no communication with the left. Almost all the reservists wounded or dead, just 6 of us left here, I was in despair, the end seemed nigh, praying. Last thoughts of my dearest, and my parents. Suddenly news that 2nd Company and 1st Battalion on their way with battlefield weapons. I broke down and wept […]

In the summer of 1943 the Wehrmacht’s last great offensive on the eastern front, code-named Operation Citadel, failed. The Germans were pushed back behind their starting positions. Orel and Kharkov were given up. Henceforth the Wehrmacht is permanently on the defensive, and the destruction of towns and villages that has already begun is intensified.

Reese is wounded on September 13, 1943. In his diary he writes that while the actual wound doesn’t hurt, his whole head does. “Only I little splinter, I was incredibly lucky, but by that same token it’s not enough to get me home.” A day later he notes that he has “deep, dull fear, fear of death, fear of living—it’s ghastly.”

Withdrawal to the so-called panther position behind the Desna River.

Reese and his unit have now—mid-September 1943—come to the region thirty-eight miles southwest of Bryansk. The line through Pochep links the towns of Bryansk and Gomel.

Reese tells his parents in letters of the lootings and orgies along the line: “I had a lot of red wine to drink, slept well, and at seven this morning I made myself scrambled eggs with four eggs and quite a bit of bully beef” (September 21, 1943). “The villages are looted, chickens, cows, sheep, carrots, and potatoes rounded up, and fires lit all along the length of the train, cooking and roasting and lipsmacking” (September 22, 1943). “I must have put on another five pounds already” (September 23, 1943).

The town on the east bank of the Dnieper is given up by the Germans at the end of November 1943, after bitter fighting. In the years before, it became clear how the perpetrators of the Holocaust were rampaging behind the Wehrmacht’s lines and occasionally in collaboration with it. Before the war, about a third of the inhabitants of Gomel were Jews. Following the German occupation, they are made to wear stars. A ghetto and four camps are set up. In one of them Jews are interned and made to clear minefields at the front. Thousands of Jews are murdered for assisting the partisans; women and children are gassed.

According to Reese’s notes, the battle lasted from October 11 to 17, 1943. In the following weeks more and more of the Wehrmacht is moved behind the line of the Dnieper.

The village of Momoshino is in the swampy rising of the Ukhlyast River, a tributary of the Dnieper.

Until the beginning of 1944 Reese is in various postings in the area of the Dnieper. At Christmas 1943 he is promoted to acting bombardier. The sleigh ride described at the end of the account takes place on January 12, 1944. Like much else in his war book, Reese first describes his sudden emotional outburst in a letter to his parents: “The night was a dreamy, drunken revel. Alarmed travelers leaped aside; more and more I was taken by this intoxication, this delirious feeling of life, this limitless desire to be in the world.” Two days later he looks into the future full of optimism. Though he has lost much that was good and fine and his own and has been deprived of happiness, joy, and faith, there is “still enough for a cornerstone of a new life—in peace.”