John Stieber - Against the Odds - Survival on the Russian Front 1944-1945 [2nd Edition]

Forcing the Russians out of Bautzen was the last major German success in the East. Russian troops gave up trying to recapture the town and it remained in German hands until the war was almost over. Shortly after we had retaken Bautzen, American and Russian forces met at the town of Torgau on the Elbe. It was 25 April and Germany was now effectively split in two by the invading armies. During the last week of April the Göring Divisions fought a slowly retreating battle toward an area north-east of Dresden, but by this time they were no longer an effective force.

During my research I have come across many names of towns in battle areas that I remember well from my ammunition runs in the last phases of the war. It is so easy to glibly peel off such a list of names, but what of the anguish, the torment and the terrible human suffering associated with each of these places? As for me, not one supply run had been without incident and I treated each day as just another day to be survived. There were periods when I felt that we were spending half our time behind the Russian lines or trying to get our trucks through Russian-held territory. Amazingly enough, we never lost a truck on our runs even though they became badly marked by bullets. Similarly, the rest of the crew and I had luck on our side and suffered no casualties despite all the runs we made past Russian positions.

The news of Hitler’s death on 30 April was announced to us, but there was no mention of suicide. Grossadmiral Dönitz, who was appointed by Hitler to take over from him, purposely delayed surrender negotiations so that retreating German armies could give cover to the huge masses of refugees fleeing from the east. It is reckoned that by his action he saved between two and three million refugees being overtaken by the Russians. For me, this is an important concept because I feel that it has vindicated my own attitude and actions as a soldier in contributing in my small way towards saving the lives of civilians and German soldiers.

In the first four days of May 1945, the surviving operational units of the Göring Divisions 1 and 2 fought their last engagements north of Dresden. After that they retreated toward the northern border of Bohemia.

I remember driving through Dresden on what was the last day of war, 7 May 1945. We no longer carried ammunition; there was none left to fetch and nowhere to bring it. Instead, we took refugees on board and hoped that we would be able to get them to safety. I had never been to Dresden before its destruction and what I expected to see was the usual sight of the shattered buildings of a bombed city. What I saw instead was a desert. As we drove along streets cleared of debris I could see for miles across mounds of rubble. Little remained of the buildings to obstruct my view from where I sat on the back of our truck.

I don’t know what part of Dresden we drove through, but there was not a soul on the roads and what would they have been doing there anyway? It is not surprising that I got the impression I was travelling through some strange stone formations in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Terrible as the destruction was, I had then no idea of just how horrible a death the citizens had suffered. During my months on the Russian Front I had often come across the sickly, sweet smell of corpses; I do not know if it was my imagination, but I was sure I got the same smell of decay hanging over the city twelve weeks after the air-raid.

After leaving Dresden behind us we heard rumours that the war was over, but they remained rumours and we began driving southwards on a road that became more and more clogged with military trucks and cars as well as fleeing civilians. I knew that the Russians could not be far away to the north and the east and was convinced that the western Allies must also be quite near to us, but I saw no sign of either.

In fact, the nearest Western Allies were the 3rd US Army which was then still over seventy-five miles to the west of us, about fifteen miles the other side of Karlsbad and about thirty miles inside Bohemia. At the same time Russian tank forces under Marshal Konjiew were closing fast on us from a northern direction as they headed for Prague.

Despite the rumble of traffic on the road, I was very conscious of the absence of any noise of warfare and it gave me the strange feeling that there was something unnatural and wrong about this day. I did not seem to be glad that the war must now finally be over, nor was I conscious of any feelings of sadness that Germany had lost – there was only an emptiness in me. However, just because the war was over, there was no reason to relax; in the confused situation, into which I was heading, I had to be extra vigilant and my future remained as uncertain as ever.

We were approaching the town of Glashütte, 15 miles west of Dresden, in mid-afternoon on 7 May, when our slow-moving column came to a halt. An officer standing in a jeep at the side of the road used a loud-hailer to announce that Germany had signed capitulation documents early that morning. He said that all soldiers were to stay with their units and these would be surrendering to American forces. No arms or vehicles must be destroyed and everything had to be handed over intact.

When our column moved on again shortly, I noticed that a couple of soldiers on my truck had not returned after ostensibly slipping off to “spend a penny.” The reason was obvious and who could blame them? The war was over; fighting had ceased and vows of allegiance no longer had a practical meaning. The biggest danger now was that we might end up as prisoners of the Russians and not the Americans.

So far, Gerkens and I had shied away from making any plans about how we would get to Rotenburg. This may have been because we felt that such discussion was disloyal or impractical at too early a stage, but now it was high time to have a plan of action. Rotenburg was a long way off in the north of Germany, but Karlsbad, where my Aunt Hella lived, was no more than seventy-five miles west. Karlsbad was obviously our first destination. Once there, we would be able to get civilian clothing, food and other useful items for our onward journey. Getting there quickly also meant putting a bigger distance between us and the Russians.

It was lucky for us that the town of Werdau, where Erika had last been living, and Mücheln, the home town of my guardian, were roughly en route between Karlsbad and Rotenburg. A decision on our immediate action was more tricky. Slipping off our truck now meant a three-day tramp to Karlsbad which was too long for safety. The Russians were probably not far off and there were bound to be Czech partisans in the area. On the other hand, if we waited too long, we might suddenly find ourselves in a prisoner-of-war camp with no opportunity to escape. We finally decided to stay with the truck for the time being, because it was averaging ten to twelve miles an hour and going roughly in the direction of Karlsbad. At the same time we would keep an extra sharp look-out in case of problems so that we could still make a get-away.

Soon after making our decision we saw two young and attractive female cyclists waving to our driver and begging for a lift. We now had more room on the truck, so the driver obligingly stopped and willing hands pulled the girls and their bicycles aboard. I would have thought cycling under prevailing traffic conditions to be quicker, but it may have been too much for the girls who looked more as if they were out for a Sunday jaunt than that they were refugees in flight.

It was not long before the girls found they could do even better for themselves. Once again we had landed in a traffic jam and were crawling along at a snail’s pace when an army VW jeep with two young German officers, travelling in the same direction, began to squeeze past us. Our two friends were on their feet in an instant, waving down to the officers and entreating them to give them a lift. It took only one look at the pretty faces for the officers to give a nod before the girls were off the truck and in the jeep, showing amazing agility.