Armin Scheiderbauer - Adventures in My Youth

Significantly, the matter was not dealt with at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. However, at the time, in May 1943, we learned that the written notes found on the bodies ended precisely at a point in 1940 when the Poles were in Russian hands.

During the quiet period of trench warfare it was arranged that as many German soldiers as possible were to be taken to see the mass grave. Therefore, from our company too, a man was designated to visit it. After three days he returned and gave us his impressions. He still had ‘the smell of putrefaction in his nose’. That was how he closed his account.

At the end of July I suffered another deep disappointment. On regimental orders I had to leave my platoon and report to the regimental staff at the Führer-Reserve. The order came just at the moment when the offensive might start and the enemy open fire. I had my platoon under control. I had won the confidence of my men. The opportunity to prove myself as a front-line officer seemed to have arrived. It was no help at all to me that the commander said, consolingly, that ‘I should be pleased’. He said it was ‘a kind of honour’, that they wanted ‘to protect me’, because they believed me capable of more than commanding only a rifle platoon.

I spent the following days in anger and defiance. Still, I was pleased to a certain extent that, by way of compensation, I was assigned to the regimental adjutant. At least I did not have to just sit around on my backside. The activities in the regimental staff, and the people who worked there, were interesting. Oberst von Eisenhart-Rothe was tall and gaunt, but I did not see a lot of him, and thus could not get a proper picture of him. After the autumn offensive he was transferred to the Staff of Generalfeldmarschall von Weich in Belgrade. Some time later he shot himself because of a disagreement over a horse.

The regimental adjutant, Hauptmann Stockter, was an expatriate German from Mexico and was an actor by profession. Accordingly, he spoke faultless Hochdeutsch , was a lively mimic, and was always a bit over the top. However, he gave me a good introduction to my new job. I studied in detail the entire regimental sector and prepared all the paperwork. I drafted orders and birthday greetings. So I came, on paper, to address majors as ‘My dear so and so…’. If I imagined something would come of it I was, at the same time, angry at my foolishness. Had I left my platoon ‘for this’!

In the evenings I squatted in the bunker of the pioneer platoon commander, Leutnant Uxa. He was a Viennese from the Postgasse in the 1st District. I also found another Viennese soldier in the pioneer platoon who was studying piano at the Conservatory. Before his call-up he had been practising Beethoven’s C Minor Concerto. With Leutnant Franke, my companion in suffering from the Führer-Reserve, I often sang in the bunker. I remember his favourite song, the hit song Sag schön gute Nacht . Franke was a teacher and was getting on for 30. He had an unusually friendly nature and must have been a good man. He had only been married a short time, but was killed in action soon afterwards.

On a visit to the 2nd Battalion sector, the commander of the 7th Company, Oberleutnant Becker, offered me a cigarette from a great package of cigarettes of an unknown kind. To my surprised enquiry as to where they came from, he told me that the company had a Bulgarian ‘godmother-aunt’. She was a rich old lady from Sofia who had lived in Germany, and loved Germany, since her youth. He said she had selected the 7th Company of the 7th Regiment to be a benefactress to its members. She sent substantial ‘love-gifts’, and in that way combined her superstitious belief in her lucky number, with deeds friendly to the Germans.

In the trenches of the 5th Company and on the barbed wire in front of them lay six dead Russians. They had mounted an assault at dawn. Those who were still alive, were driven off by the platoon leader Leutnant Ast, after a short exchange of hand-grenades. Leutnant Ast, an old war-horse known throughout the regiment, was tall, had a prominent Adam’s apple and, as befitted his name, gave the impression of being knobbly. He said that it was ‘not worth burying those few, since anyway more would soon be coming’. He said a prisoner had told him that the attack was to begin the next day. A complete contrast to Ast was his company commander, Hain. Generally called Freund Hein , at 5ft in height, he was really small. From his round, friendly face and little eyes there showered wit and jollity. As I was accompanying Oberleutnant Rauprich from the 2nd Battalion of our artillery regiment, Hain gave us a large measure of schnapps, because, he said, we were his ‘last visitors before the attack’.

On the presumed last day before the expected attack, some aircraft were sent in to attack the enemy assembly areas. Some squadrons of Ju 88 and He 111 bombers flew in, in large numbers, and dropped their bombs on the Russians. The Russians had sent up a surprisingly large amount of flak, which maintained uninterrupted fire. One He 111 received a direct hit and disintegrated. We watched it with Oberleutnant Hain, in his sector of trenches. Our artillery had also put down fire over the Russians.

On the way back to the regimental command post we passed the firing position of the 8th Battery. The gunners were working stripped to the waist, a Leutnant helping them to load. At the regiment, too, they were working on the basis that the enemy would attack the next day. The army high command had given orders to withdraw the sentry outposts during the coming night. That order was as clear as the regimental orders drawn up by Hauptmann Stockter, which closed with the words: ‘And so, with all our trust in God, we shall do our duty!’

I woke in the night, roused from my sleep by the rumble of deafening thunder. At precisely 3.40am the bombardment began from 500 gun-barrels. There were howitzers, cannons, light and heavy mortars and rocket launchers. It was as if a supernatural drummer was vertiginously beating his drum. Right there, two kilometres behind the main frontline, you had the impression that the frontline trenches were being ploughed up. Our regimental command post was at the edge of the woodland, in the hollow behind the artillery firing positions and all were similarly under heavy-calibre fire. Whenever a 17.2 or 20cm shell exploded nearby, a shudder went through the ground and among the gigantic spruce trees where our bunkers were scattered. Massive splinters whizzed through the air, crashed into the wood of the trees and tore terrible gashes in the earth.

At 6.20am there was quiet. It would be seen if the two and a half hours of murderous bombardment had been effective, if the men in the trenches had survived and if they were still able to put up resistance. Perhaps the Russians would stroll through the woods unopposed. But only seconds after the barrage had finished, you could hear small arms fire. Through the clear sounds of the Russian machine-pistols came the chattering of machine-guns belonging to our lads. In the regimental bunker there was plenty to do. All the lines to the battalions, and the lines leading from the battalions to the companies, had been cut by shellfire. The first reports could only be obtained by wireless. Signallers were sent out to repair the telephone lines.

We learned that the main line of resistance had held in an outstanding manner. In the 10th Company, Schorsch Hentschel, only just promoted to Hauptmann , had thrown back the Russians in a counter-attack. Only on the post road had they penetrated into the remnants of the village of Ivanowo. There, the badly wounded Oberleutnant Mallwitz was encircled with only parts of the 6th Company. Behind the battalion command post of 2nd Battalion, the enemy had been brought to a halt. A counter-attack by 1st Battalion had a certain amount of success. From our Reserve bunker I had seen parts of the battalion that had been in reserve moving forwards. Oberleutnant Klaus Nikolai, commander of the 3rd, and Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier Eberhard Kern were with them. Kern limped because his right big toe was missing since the winter of 1941. But he preferred to be there at the front rather than at home. Towards midday, after sending back many wounded, Leutnant Ast came back, shot through the shoulder. ‘The damned sods’, he swore. He said that, to be sure, the Russians had broken into his trench as they had the day before, but had been thrown out again by him and his men.