Armin Scheiderbauer - Adventures in My Youth

Wir machen Parjecheli was the catch-phrase of those summer weeks. Freely translated it meant ‘we’re beating it’. The tempo of the withdrawal alone saw to it that we did not get very much sleep. We just had to take advantage of every spare quarter of an hour to grab a doze. One afternoon I had lain down in the leather-upholstered back seat of the wireless Kübelwagen . When the driver, August Wörtz, a Tyrolean from Wörgl, came to use the vehicle, he failed to notice that I was lying on the back seat. Reversing in the farmyard he drove so close to the wall that my foot, which was hanging out of the car, was trapped. I woke with a shout and bellowed a Donnerwetter at him. In the late evening the same thing happened. Driving back with Garn on an assault gun, as part of the rearguard, I had dozed off. In the darkness of the night we overtook a refugee column of ethnic Germans accompanied by a Landesschützen . Half asleep as I was, I had not noticed that my foot was hanging over the edge of the assault gun. So it got between the gun and the horse and cart that we were overtaking. But once again things were all right. I was relieved to be spared from ending up in a military hospital in such a way.

We were sorry for the people in the refugee columns and we wondered if they would be able to maintain the pace. The further west we went the heavier the traffic and the more congested the roads. In the baggage-trains, it was often said that unruly scenes took place. Again and again senior ranking officers exploited unconditional obedience. They stopped commanders of lower rank from moving first, and claimed precedence for themselves.

There were also said to have been people at work misdirecting the traffic. We had been warned as early as the summer of 1943 about strange officers in the trenches. The Russians had placed men from the National Committee of Free Germany in the uniform of officers or military police at road junctions. They were said to have directed withdrawing troops towards a pocket. I was convinced that it would not have happened to us. The conscientiousness and composure of Major von Garn guaranteed that we did not go in the wrong direction nor lose our way. Sometimes when I was not with Garn in the rearguard, I was the leader of the nightly column in the regimental staff. While the others on the vehicles were dozing or sleeping I drove on ahead on my tracked motorcycle with the column’s drivers. With my pocket torch showing a green light tied on my chest, I led the regimental vehicles behind me without us ever losing our way.

One night Hauptmann Kaupke, the commander of the heavy artillery battalion, announced through the field loudspeaker that the Russians were in their firing position. Through the loudspeaker we could hear rifle and machine-gun fire. That meant that the Russians had occupied the next village to the west of us. Kaupke was there with his guns. The Russians had also occupied the road along which we were retreating. How often during that retreat had the enemy tried to overtake us with an advance party and cut off our line of retreat. After a hard search we managed to lead the regimental column out of the encirclement through woodland roads.

The next day, 10 July, the Major was out and about with Kruger, his 01. I remained behind in the command post with Hauptmann Grabsche, who had replaced the wounded Oberleutnant Stolz as Regimental Adjutant. Suddenly there came an unconfirmed report that the Russians had broken through very close to us. The excitable Grabsche ordered a counter-attack in which all available members of the staff had to take part. We advanced almost a kilometre to the east, but found no Russians and came under no fire. Finally Grabsche shouted ‘Hurra’ and ran round in front of the others waving his map board over his head. In the event it was much ado about nothing.

On 11 July we passed through Labazoras. In peacetime it must have been an idyllic village among the Lithuanian lakes. On my dispatch journeys on my motorcycle I never forgot how lucky I was that I did not have to march on foot. Even the battalion commanders covered hundreds of kilometres on foot. During the night, when I drove past such a column marching exhaustedly, I felt guilty that I had it so good. Hauptmann Husenett, who since Lowsha had been commander of the 2nd Battalion, did not envy me my ‘wheels’.

Husenett’s downy blond boy’s face, even when things got rough, did not lose its friendliness. He was the same even when he begged me to ‘sort out an assault gun’ for him for the evening, or when he begged the Major to say that he could hold out for another hour or two, or when he was in urgent need of ammunition. Friendship bound me to Husenett almost as soon as we met. He was always eager to hear something about our situation and our neighbours’. To the left the gap had certainly become wider and wider. From a width of 17 kilometres during the last days of July it had expanded to more than 70 kilometres. The Corps, even on the right, was fighting without units adjoining them. It was like a wandering ‘pocket’, often having to fight to keep open the roads of retreat leading westwards.

The retreat drove me on, too. I rushed madly to and fro on my motorbike to the units under our command. To the battalions, the assault guns, the anti-tank guns, and the pioneers I took orders that were only in my head and for which there were no written papers. I had to find them with the aid of a map and often just by my own intuition. Often I was in danger of dozing off. Then, when the driver had to brake sharply in order to avoid a crater or another kind of obstacle, I was in danger of being thrown out. Or sometimes a Russian Rata suddenly dived out of the sky or a couple of twin-engined Martin bombers, supplied by America, dropped their bombs on the road along which we were retreating. Then the two of us had to jump off almost while we were still driving, and take cover where we could.

When I returned in the evening to the regimental command post, a seriously wounded soldier of the Russian Guards was lying in front of the farmhouse. He had several orders on his chest. He was the escort to two colonels who had lost their way in a jeep, also of American origin. It had hurtled into our lines. A machine-gunner lying in the ditch at the side of the road had riddled the vehicle with holes at point blank range. As a result the officers had been killed.

At that time I thought how good it would be to take a holiday in that country. To live in one of the small, moss-roofed houses, to wander barefoot through the hot sand of the country roads in summer and to be able to bathe in the dark warm lakes, must be a pleasure which could scarcely be called earthly. When we had time and a favourable opportunity, von Garn and I would stop, throw off our uniforms and throw ourselves into one of the many lakes of the Lithuanian lowland. But even pleasure in bathing occasionally meant sacrifices. On one of those days the Corps Adjutant, Oberstleutnant Gyncz-Rekowski, an elderly gentleman, suffered a heart attack.

In Alanta, on 12 July, the good days with the regimental staff suddenly came to an end. I had to go up to the front to take over command of a company. That meant continuing the retreat per pedes apostolorum i.e. on foot like the Apostles. During the night we withdrew 25 kilometres. I was surprised how little the march tired me. Around the village of Alanta a barrier was to be formed. After the company had dug their trenches and I had established the machine-gun position, I climbed to the pointed wooden tower of the brick church in which a forward artillery observer had already settled himself. I looked out of the belfry window of the tower further and further eastwards and saw fields, meadows, roads, woods, lakes and a little river in the light of the morning sun. That tranquillity did not last long. Soon the artillery observer and I were driven out of the tower by an enemy antitank gun. The Russians would have been able easily to work out that the tower was occupied, and as the number of hits increased, we both climbed down.