Armin Scheiderbauer - Adventures in My Youth

As I recall, the hurricane broke at 3.05am, on the dot, just as it had in 1941. The fire was concentrated mainly on the main line of resistance. Only isolated heavy-calibre shells dropped in the village. We had long since left our quarters in houses, and were waiting in the cover trenches beside them. I had been woken by the crash of bursting shells after just an hour’s sleep. That action began for me with a thundering within my skull, weakened by schnapps and tiredness. Towards 5am the battalion received orders to move into the second line, that is, the trench that was planned for that purpose. It was good news, because as soon as the enemy attacked up front, we could expect the fire to be moved to the rear. Then it would be mostly the firing positions, villages, and roads, the position of which had been long established by enemy reconnaissance, that would be under fire.

We moved forward, the bombardment ahead of us and the impacts of heavy-calibre shells behind us. In the event, the Division was divided into two halves. Under its command remained Infanterieregiment 7, the divisional Füsilier battalion, and our 2nd Battalion 472. But of these, the 5th Company deployed on the left, the 1st Battalion, the regimental staff and the whole of Regiment 461 were pushed north-westwards. Even on the next day there was no news whatsoever of the 5th Company. In the meantime the second line had become the main line of resistance and the gap that had opened on the left urgently needed to be blocked off.

Visiting our main line of resistance, Hauptmann Müller and I found an 8.8cm Army anti-tank gun, commanding the road to Lowsha from a clearing in the woods, on which the Russians were bringing up tanks. A T-34 passed by; one shot, and it was in flames. The second followed straight behind it. The next shot hit it, it stopped and from the turret an oil-smeared figure twisted itself out. A third tank came up and drove slowly past its comrades. The number one gunner of our anti-tank gun watched with a tense expression and once again pressed the firing button. Once again the shot scored a direct hit and from the tank the whole turret blew into the air. High flames shot up.

After a short rest of only one hour on the night of the 22nd, and no sleep the next night, on the night of the 23rd and 24th I still did not get a wink of sleep. Our command post was located in a leafy shelter, probably the construction shelter of the Stellungsbaumeister , when the second trench was constructed. In the morning we were still holding on. Then towards noon, as ordered, we withdrew behind the Vitebsk-Polozk railway line. The enemy was pushing up behind us, the railway installations were under fire. Beside the station, where just 14 days before I had alighted from the train, the remaining part of the battalion crossed the line. At the Lowsha station a goods train was waiting with steam up to set off to Polozk. Like a magnet it attracted the Landsers to it. Müller and I, with a great deal of shouting, tried to counteract the signs of disintegration. We just about managed to hold together the remnants of our battalion.

However, many did not think, but saw an opportunity to get away and wanted to use it. They climbed up and bombarded the engine-driver with appeals to leave. When the train had at last drawn up, our battalion was already in order and had withdrawn behind the railway line. The train had not gone 100 metres when it came under fire from an enemy anti-tank gun. A direct hit in the locomotive’s boiler abruptly ended the journey. The passengers leapt out again and rushed on along the tracks.

As dusk was falling I received orders to undertake a counter-attack. With the men of my staff I put the Russians to flight from the houses of the village of Werbali. Since there were not many of them and since we roared like mad, the operation was fairly easy for us. In the evening a ‘V-man’ from the Division was brought forward. He was an Armenian in Russian uniform. During the night he had to scout around in the enemy lines and then return. Meanwhile, it was announced that the gap to the left was becoming wider and wider. There were no German troops within miles.

On 25 June the remnants of the Division were to cross the Düna. Around the village of Ulla and its bridge over the Düna a bridgehead had been formed. One kilometre across, half of it was occupied by what remained of our battalion. The Russians were feeling their way forward without serious pressure, but throughout the entire morning there was lively individual fire. At 11.30am the order came that at 12 noon the bridge over the Düna would be blown up. By then the bridgehead would have to be evacuated. Our artillery was just in the process of changing position and was not therefore available to provide covering fire. There remained three assault guns. We preferred to keep them with us rather than to let them go into firing positions across the river. Hauptmann Müller had allowed the other unit still in the bridgehead to go first. He wanted to cross the bridge with the last assault gun. My proposal was that those men who could not swim should immediately withdraw. The rest would then cross the river with the swimmers, instead of gathering before noon on and around the endangered bridge.

Müller decided to follow his own idea, but he became more and more unsure the closer it came to 12 o’clock. Finally, at five minutes to 12, it only remained to climb on to the assault guns and to go back. With 15 Landsers Muller and I clambered on to the vehicle. It was far too high for us. Everyone would much rather have gone into cover behind another comrade. The Russians were firing all around, and bullets rattled on the assault gun. But we clung on there, one beside another. Only two men were slightly wounded. At exactly 12 o’clock we crossed the wide wooden bridge. On the other bank a pioneer officer was waiting, to whom we announced that we were the last men out of the bridgehead. A little later, after we got down from the assault gun, the pioneer activated the detonator. As we marched away we saw, as we looked round, the bridge blow apart with a mighty explosion. Its wreckage fell into the river and over the surrounding area.

Five kilometres upriver we took up a new position to the right of the Füsilier battalion in the little village of Labeiki. Our right-hand neighbour was Corps Detachment D. They were the cobbled-together remnants of a corps from which the Russians had taken the village of Labeiki on the very first night. The position would have been just ideal. The excellently constructed trench ran along the western bank of the Düna on the steep bank that on average was 10 metres high. A frontal attack across the 16 metre wide river was practically out of the question. The occupied village of Labeiki was already on our right flank.

In allocating sectors I had even found time to enjoy the beauty of the landscape. It resembled an English park with meadows, groups of trees and bushes. There was an open view across the river under the summer sun. No shot had yet been fired. I had found a civilian motorcycle that had apparently been left by men from the Organisation Todt working there. On a track across a meadow I rattled across the sector to establish links with our neighbours. As a substitute for the ignition key I had a little piece of wood and, lo and behold! the Dürrkopp 125 worked. However, the track was under enemy observation. The journey went well until a Russian anti-tank gun got me in its sights. The first shot was too wide, but at the second I was nearly brought down as I tried to avoid the first crater. I felt the sharp draught of the third shot and then gave up the journey.

At dusk Müller returned from the regimental command post that was behind us, in the Ulla valley running parallel to the Düna. While Hauptmann Miller was away, after five nights and four days without sleep from 21 June, I slept for just three hours, in deep exhaustion. The combat actions and frequent changes of position plus Müller’s hectic pace, and also, at the beginning, a Pervitin tablet, had not let me rest for more than 100 hours. I had been uninterruptedly awake. So I slept like the dead in some soft green moss. Then I needed half an hour to become fully awake again.