Armin Scheiderbauer - Adventures in My Youth

The countryside around Lyadi could, in different circumstances, have been described as lovely. Woodland, bushes, marsh, meadow, and a small river in a deep gully offered a constantly changing picture. Seen with a soldier’s eye, the ‘terrain’ had disadvantages, and in places was even ‘shitty’. Several hundred square metres of undergrowth had to be rooted out to provide a field of fire. In another place the unavoidable change from the position on the upward slope to that on the downward slope presented a puzzle. The problem would only be able to be solved by the relevant sector commander deploying outpost sentries. He would not be envied. The comrades would not be edified over some irreparable corners that would involve close quarters combat.

In our walks over the terrain, stepping through some tall bulrushes, we came across parts of a human skeleton. The gnawed bones, shining and bleached by the sun, had evidently been scattered over a wide area by birds. The skeleton had to be that of a soldier killed in action in 1941 in the fighting in the Jelnja arc. But it was not a German but a Russian. A little further on we found the hollow skull, still covered with a Russian helmet and with the chinstrap under the chin. However, we had no time to reflect on the mythical image of a soldier’s death. In looking around for more bones, I noticed two half-overgrown, square plywood boxes in the form of oversized cigar boxes. They were more or less covered with moss and overgrown. They were Russian anti-tank mines. We had stumbled into an old minefield! Virtually on tiptoe we felt our way out of the field, using the open areas as if on a chessboard to get out of danger.

Those mines would make the trench construction work considerably more difficult. At any time, members of the work units could stumble across mines, and vehicles drive over them. Casualties were to be expected. In the absence of a precise map, danger loomed practically everywhere. In addition, we would not even be able to give a guarantee to the unit that would next move into the position that the area to their rear was free of mines. If it were only a matter of anti-tank mines requiring the imposition of a certain minimum weight before they exploded, the danger would have been less. But there was no reason to assume that that was the case.

As if to confirm our worry that there were also anti-personnel mines in the area, one day after the minefield was discovered a vehicle from the light column drove over a mine on a road and was blown to pieces. In another place a Russian civilian stepped on an anti-personnel mine. Afterwards the poor devil must have lain the whole night, far away from anyone, with his foot blown off, and so met his death. Inspection of the place where the horse-drawn vehicle had driven over the mine revealed that the tyre tracks of my Kübelwagen were only 10cm away from them. A special angel must surely have been holding his hand over Moravietz. I ordered him from then on only to use well-worn tracks.

Some days later, I was a guest of Hauptmann Kriegl, the ‘commander’ of the famous Baubataillon . He lived alone in a little house. He did not have a batman, but instead was served by a local woman. Vera was a nice and intelligent technical draughtswoman from Bialystok. She made no secret of her Bolshevik convictions and her belief that the Soviet Union would win the war. But this did not prevent her from living with Kriegl, who was in his mid-forties, in a relationship similar to marriage. Vera was chubby-faced, red-cheeked, had an ample bosom, and was always in a good mood. Even if those characteristics were not in her nature, she would have had every cause to be cheerful because the only work she was required to do was to look after Hauptmann Kriegl.

Not only I, but also the local commander was struck by the shameless outspokenness with which Kriegl defied our notions of clean living and marital fidelity. Moreover, it was the same with the men under his command. The civilians were all women and young people who were not particularly kept under watch, but merely supervised by members of the regimental band. I heard then that every one of these Feldwebeln and Unteroffiziere , active military musicians, was said to have had a ‘wife’ among the women workers. The sobering realisation for me was that even among us there was luxuriousness in the lines of communication, and that these Etappenschweine , who had left their mark so deeply in the literature about the First World War, had evidently still not been eliminated by the spirit of the new Germany.

Still, I also participated in the amenities of the lines of communication when Kriegl had cow’s liver prepared, and had roast goose served to the members of the trench construction staff. During the meal, Kriegl told of a man from the company whom he had had under his command at the beginning of the Russian campaign. That man, shot through his skull through both temples, had not only lived to tell the tale, but had been returned to the active list!

Around 10 September the trench system of the Hubertus position was practically completed, and there came the order to move the staff to the rear. Hauptmann Müller had to go up the line to take over command of a battalion of Regiment 461. With him went his batman, Obergefreiter Petzold, who looked like a middle-aged official, i.e. about 35. Petzold even wrote his boss’s letters to his Ehemädchen , as Müller called his young wife. While Müller and I were out in the field fixing positions, Petzold would write precise descriptions in clear script, like the company secretary of a building concern. In doing so, he always spoke of ‘us’ and wrote in the name of ‘we’ and Müller signed the letters after adding a short personal note. The young wife soon had to mourn for her husband, because Müller was killed in action the following November at Nevel. He was said to have been shot through the neck and thus to have bled to death.

For a few days Oberleutnant Gräbsch took over command of the staff. He was an extremely ambitious, impersonal and unfriendly man in his early thirties. By profession he was an optician from Beuthen. When he left, I took over command of the staff.

At that time an armoured train used to travel on the railway line near the State farm. It was said to have been captured from the Russians in the 1941 advance. Certainly, I had no idea how that train was adjusted to run on European gauge tracks. It was equipped with German anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, and it was interesting to inspect it. But it was no place to be for an infantryman. We did not feel at all happy in such a steel coffin. We preferred a trench in the womb of Mother Earth.

The front was on the move again. We knew that because the roads in our sector began to fill with baggage-trains. The baggage troops were supposed to carry in their vehicles only things that were important for the war effort, such as ammunition, food, and fodder. But I saw a lot of other things that the ‘high-ups’ were still bringing with them. There was upholstery on lorries with women sitting on top. Their ‘lordships’ could make themselves really comfortable again at their next location. They had everything you need, was man braucht , as the song goes.

For a long time there had been much air activity. Enemy bombers, fighters, and reconnaissance aircraft were hampered by a few aircraft of our Luftwaffe. It was said that Novotny, the fighter pilot, my fellow-countryman from Vienna, was in action in that area. If it was he, then on that day I saw three aircraft shot down by him. It was the day on which we left our cottage in Lyadi. Schenia and her mother, the warm-hearted, artless woman, had tears in their eyes when we said farewell.

The withdrawal of the front pushed my trench construction staff ahead of it. In the villages there began a fight for quarters. Sometimes I had trouble in claiming a room just for my staff activities. I could find no other way of doing it than to scatter maps over the entire floor of the room in order to distinguish the importance of our work from that of the various baggage units. Only when up against a main dressing station, the place where a regiment’s wounded were treated, did I, quite rightly, have to give way. But I was more than a match for other lines of communications units in asserting our importance to the fighting troops. The people from the bakery, workshop and other companies could sleep outside in the fine summer weather or, if it rained, put up tents. But I could not have my trench diagrams prepared in the rain.